The 'unwritten rule' for non-tank pulls in dungeons

[Vahlnir]

It has always been a bit of an unwritten rule that the tank should be the one pulling. Always. In FF XI however some pulls required someone else to do it for them and bring back mobs to the tank to...you know, tank.

I'm one of those people who will probably follow the "you pull it, you tank it" motto as Gunbreaker unless it's someone I know who tends to mess with me anyway. All in good fun though. Did the same in WoW when I tanked for a time, and more than a few people learned a hard lesson and there were no issues afterwards.

I'm a reasonable guy and a forgiving one. I understand things happen like facepulls and tab target fails. I've been there as a dps more times than I can count. In those cases I will pick it up and we can continue on our merry way. Or wipe and continue on our merry way if it ends poorly. But I don't tolerate having people intentionally pull for me as a tank. I will shut that crap down. No exceptions.

[Nedkel]

DPS pulling is just slowing things down than doing anything positive to be honest.

Tank could just ignore DPS mobs because these are often not listed on the enemy list, so dps end up dying (which happens pretty quick) and those mobs jump on the other target which makes things much worse for a healer, basically giving him extra job to do, and at this point is where team loses so much potential dps making dungeon slower.
There may be three reasons why tank does not pull wall to wall in certain dungeon.
Either he is undergeared and want to test the water, does not know the dungeon or his team is lacking and killing mobs takes ages.
Pushing tanks into taking more mobs could cause a wipe and it is not really welcoming thing to do. There are tanks that are indeed super lazy, but majority of them have a reason to not pull everything in sight.

[Mixt]

This thread reminds me of back when i was going through the Stormblood MSQ back during patch 4.1.

So there i am in my IL 290 class artifact gear, quein into Ala Mhigo for the very first time.

I pull the first two packs...and one DPS runs ahead up the stairs and pulls the third pack that comes over the barrier.

I pick the extra mobs off the DPS when he comes running back...and promptly die because that was too many mobs hitting me at once with the level of gear i had at the time, even using every bloody cooldown i had wasn't enough to stay alive.

Wipe.

The DPS who pulled extra then decided to be a dumbass and blame me for the wipe.

Um, no, we wiped because you pulled more mobs than i could handle with my first timer who has not finished the story and thus not unlocked the vendors that give better stuff than the class AF set yet gear, that in fact makes it YOUR fault we all died, stop trying to offload the responsibility for your own screwups on me.
I stopped at the first two packs exactly because i knew my limits, anything that happens as a result of you not caring is on you.

And he goes all Snarky over it. Jerk.

[AlphaFox]

I always believed the tank should be pulling. If you are not happy with the speed ask the tank to speed it up nicely. If they say no accept it or kick them, but don't complain if no one fills in the gap

[Canadane]

If the tank is going to let Greased Lightning/Dragon Sight/etc drop off, I'm perfectly find with a DPS jumping ahead to keep it going. It's only going to help kill the next group that much faster anyway.
As a tank main, I hold tanks to a bit more stricter judgment I guess. If they're going slow they should be taught it's safe to speed up and pull more.

[Zeromon]

It's easier to focus heal one target than multiple, so as a healer main I appreciate the party letting the tank pull exclusively. Personally I love big pulls, especially at the end of an patch/expansion when ilevels allows speed running with minimal GCD healing. However, if the tank wants to go one pack at a time I'm not going to pull for them encourage the dps to pull. If dps is decent then the difference between large and small pulls is at most 5 minutes (at the most extreme. It's usually 2-3 minutes I find) but a wipe can cause a much larger setback.

[Liam_Harper]

The DPS who pulled extra then decided to be a dumbass and blame me for the wipe.

That same dps who pretty much caused the wipe will be the same person who will come hopping onto the forums spouting stories about "slow tanks" and how the run took 3 hours, you were wearing lv1 glamour and the healer was afk, the other dps was spamming /dance and they were single-handely carrying you all.

Which makes it hard to take the whole "slow tank" argument seriously. In most cases things melt regardless, whether you pull 2 packs or all of them. But impatience will very often slow the run down.

[Kurando]

I suppose a good way of doing it is allow the tank to control the first pull and then use that to gauge whether they (and the party) can handle it. After that is things go well, move on to pulling the next mob if possible or do so in the next area (encourage the tank ideally). It's when you hear horror stories of under-geared tanks in duties they really shouldn't be in does wiping become more likely.

[MirielleLavandre]

One thing I will say as someone who plays both tank and heals mainly // in both situations, people often don't know what they're capable of if new or somewhat less experienced and are often pleasantly surprised when they succeed at things that, at first, seemed impossible or intimidating. As a WHM, I tell nervous tanks to pull as much as possible and I won't let them die (90% of the time there are no issues and the tanks get a boost in confidence). As a PLD, I let the healers know I will use all appropriate cool downs, will Hallowed on the largest and/or most dangerous full pulls, and that there's no need to worry. Again, 90% of the time the nervous healers who never 'speed ran' or did wall to wall pulls end up with more confidence in their abilities and, I think, better players in the future Ya never know until you try, as they say ^_^

[HakaseNyan]

This is why I keep my interactions with other players to a minimum. There's always someone with that passive aggressive attitude with their pettiness meter dialed in to 9999. I've lost count of number of tanks that have felt to need to punish other players or myself over nonsense.

If you accidentally pull...
If you intentionally pull...
If you walk in front of...
If you do too much damage (even with diversion)...
If you trigger boss spawn cutscene...
"...you tank it then!"

Have to tip-toe around people like they are surrounded by eggshells, glass, and legos used as caltrops.