Shortage of Tank .......

[Moirear]

Unless the tank is grossly undergeared, sleeping enemies is a waste of time. If you're doing something like Stone Vigil where it's actually possible for a bad group to run out of time, it's actually imperative that you DO AE all the packs of 3 mobs to get more time for Isgebind. Now of course you can also AE and get yourself or better yet the whole group wiped, but in that case your group almost certainly could not have beaten Isgebind before the time runs out so you didn't really lose anything.

IMHO AoE attacks are usually a waste of time and inefficient use of resources. They're more efficient against weak mobs that die quickly anyway. You're usually going to take down mobs more quickly by putting maximum firepower into one at a time. There's an exception when basically everybody spam-AoEs enemies to death in a coordinated effort (the slimes in WP for instance), but if it's only 1-2 using AoEs against trash mobs, they're wasting resources and time.

I've seen it way too often how somebody thinks they're saving time by AoEing mobs in high-level dungeons when they're only chipping away at all of them, when the same character could have been devastating them more quickly one by one.

[Astarica]

IMHO AoE attacks are usually a waste of time and inefficient use of resources.

The AE in this game works out pretty simple. It's damage positive on 3 or more mobs to use AE over single target attacks, and often significantly higher DPS done at a cost of using up MP/TP faster. Since trash isn't designed to make you run out of TP/MP while AEing so you might well kill them in ASAP. For most dungeons, there's no particular reason to AE if your tank isn't comfortable. However in Brayflox or Stone Vigil where it's not uncommon to get to the last boss with only 20 minutes to spare with a bad group, and you're not going to learn how to beat Aiatar or Isgebind in 20 minutes with a bad group, so you might as well AE immediately to shave as much time off the trash clear as possible. If you somehow wiped on trash just because you're AEing, your group is almost certainly incapable of beating either of those two dungeons anyway.