Should tanks ask to do big pulls?

[Jamillion]

If you're level capped for the content you're in (2.0/3.0 50/60 dungeons) expect big pulls, your toolkit is more than enough to accommodate them. Even at min ilvl the only difference is how much you can DPS during those pulls. Now, this is under the assumption that everyone is actually doing their jobs (DPS pew pewing, tank mitigating) if everyone sucks then it might not go so well but at that point you can safely know the problem wasn't you.

[Jamillion]

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Hey, I know, let's advocate poor gameplay! No. Let's not. Finishing an expert dungeon in 45 minutes is garbage and a waste of time. I expect people to fulfill the minimum requirements of competency in their roles. Speedrunning is literally the most brainless thing you can do at max level. If you're not up to it you're bad, the tanks are ironically the only people that being new should even be taken into consideration for since you have to learn the pulls. For everyone else it's business as usual.

[Malicewolf]

I usually just gauge my parties ability with my first pull. Start with 1 mob, see how they handle it. If it's slow to kill and your hp bar looks like a roller coaster, it's a pretty good sign a big pull should not occur. If they kill mobs quickly and the party isn't 2 melee DPS with little AoE's, I'll pull bigger (or if they simply ask right off bat). However, many tanks simply expect everyone to be ready for big pulls.

Big pulls require the entire party to do their part though. It's not solely on the tank or the healer. I've done big pulls with absolutely fantastic healers before and the issue was they ran out of MP to keep me up (in lower level dungeons, VERY seldom is this a problem in later content). The DPS were at fault here as they decided to very very very slowly kill all the mobs. There is so much room for error to happen on big pulls in general.

If a tank is pulling big, we usually don't hit every target. We're moving quickly to get to the next mob. shield lob 1st enemy to grab hate, maybe get an aoe hit on them all (doesn't always work out perfectly), continue to pull next mob. If an antsy healer heals me before I need it to top me off, then guess who's going to have a majority of that angry mob on their face? I understand that if my hp is super low, then yes, heal me. But if the tanks hp is low and they are still trying to pull the next mob, then they do not know how to handle pulls. That's already a sign that they can't handle the incoming dmg. While pulling, the mobs should really be doing minimal dmg as they have to catch up usually.

There are also antsy DPS. If they decide to hit the target's I've hit with a quick dot, then fine, I can understand that, but there is a chance it'll steal hate from me. I've also seen some DPS just go ham on enemies while I'm still pulling. For that, if I see the healer has stopped, I will as well and just keep the pull at whatever amount it is there (which unfortunately, this happens before I even get to the 2nd mob and means I'm doing 1 mob pull).

If the tank pulls big and it's a wipe (for whatever reason), simply learn from it. If it was due to one little mistake where you accidentally mis-clicked cure II or something, then give it another go and try to better yourself. If it was simply too much incoming dmg for you to handle curing, then simply ask the tank to pull less. As long as you can identify why the wipe occurred, it's fairly easy to figure out a fix. Just avoid the name calling or blame game! That spiral's real quick...

[Keyln]

The amount that a tank pulls depends on the DTPS of the tank and the HPS of the healer. If the HPS > DTPS, then the tank can stay up indefinitely. But, if HPS < DTPS, then the tank will die in HP/(DTPS-HPS) seconds. Now, both the tank and the healer can help mitigate this by lowering the DTPS and raising the HPS so that HPS > DTPS. The problem is that the amount that the tank can pull safely depends largely on the healer and the tank, and in a Duty Finder situation, it's hard to tell right off the bat if the healer can maintain high enough HPS and that the tank can maintain a low enough DTPS to mass pull enemies. The danger with mass pulling, though, is that DTPS has a multiplier effect on the number of enemies. DTPS can be defined as (Enemy DPS - Tank defense)*# of enemies.

In theory, the amount that a tank should pull in a given dungeon depends on three factors.

1) The point where HPS can not be maintained than lower DTPS.
2) There is a sufficiently large enough enemy where AoE(t) becomes longer. AoE(t) depends on the enemy with the largest HP pool, not on the number of enemies.
3) A wall or a boss.

In a duty finder situation where it's impossible to gauge the ability of the healer to maintain high enough HPS to keep HPS > DTPS, it is better to pull small. Wipes cost more time than pulling small.

[odintius]

These should always take place if in a random group in duty finder usually the tank should ask if big pulls are OK that generally means if the healer is OK with it, also make a macro so don't have to type it each time you que. The healer and tank should check each others gear to verify if OK for me if I see a full PvP gear in a pve dungeon I'm hesitant for it . It also good for first pull to be a regular pull to see if your DPS is up to fast kills or not if there struggling with a regular pull a large one isn't making the dungeon run go any faster IMO.

[Derio]

Usually the way I do it is test the healer and dps on the first pull to see if big pulls can be done. Or if a healer isnt dpsing and wants to sit back and heal only then big pull away.

[Natashio]

I personally don't ask nor do i check people's gear. With all the glamming, I've pretty much don't bother. I pull what I feel comfortable with, whatever the Internets demands, you can have these two middle fingers. Now the moment a healer or damage dealer runs off and head of me. Than the gloves go off and they're going to punch-in and go to work. When I pull mass, it's mass. I don't really care.

[Kaurie]

From my perspective, as a healer, no tanks shouldn't ask. It's fairly common once you get to 50 dungeons that tanks will do large pulls. If you are brand new to the game, you're eased into this by going into very easy dungeons that we are massively overgeared for. If you are not new to the game, you should be aware that tanks doing large pulls is the accepted meta.


It's pretty easy to heal through large pulls and just takes time to learn. Pre-shielding (such as adlo/stone for SCH, stone for WHM, aspected benefic/stone for AST) is great, then either regen or rouse your fairy while you DPS. Otherwise, if you are not going to DPS then just focus heal your tank. Use some AoE things to help your tank take less damage; such as, swiftcast holy to stun all mobs for 5 seconds, celestial opposition (I think that is the one) that stuns enemies, or swiftcast shadowflare to slow all enemies for 30s.

As for the group 'blaming' you, I'd need to see more chat to know for sure, but it sounds like they were just jerks. Usually if a tank pulls big and dies, the usual reaction is to just take it a bit slower. I rarely see negative chat as a result of this, and I'm sorry you got that.

TLDR Yes, tanks pull big, no tanks shouldn't ask, no people shouldn't be jerks about it if you die

[AlphaFox]

I always ask unless I know the person.

[CrystalRainbow]

My wife has explained it to me this way.

Depending on how the 1st pull goes she has a good idea what the rest of the pulls will be.

on a side note. I'm not as good as tanking as she is. So I always do small pulls but get the job done.

Time different maybe 3-5 mins between beginning and end.
However a wipe because of a big pull going sideways .. shortens that gap.

Also the older the content is the more likely she will do big pulls as people are getting over geared for it.