I'm not talking about healer DPS! Click me!

[FunkyBunch]

3 mobs isn't optimal to AoE with Quick Knock or Fire II half the time.
At low levels, you have low MP/no blizzard III and can only put in a few at a time. Sure you are doing 140% DPS on three mobs, 46.6% of Fire I x 3 but.
A healer has to heal more often; you're trading the marginal damage of a healer doing equivalent to 86% damage of Fire I. A tank has to manage enmity more (more flashes or whatever). The melee DPS/tank have to play tetris dodging if the third mob has a cone splash mechanic or an AoE circle silence mechanic. With 3 mobs and below, it's almost always better to have all 4 players focus DPSing a target down at a time and one player tab-targeting out to the next one when the mob is low HP to not waste that extra DMG.

At 8+ mobs, it is just as sub-optimal to be doing large pulls. There's a limit to how much AoE radius the skills can hit the mobs, the tank is busy spamming enmity moves with low damage / positionals to optimize AoEs / prevent party from taking damage and the healer can only put out the highest heals / regens / shields. Moderate pulls of 6 mobs seems to be the best for AoE.

It was a general example.
Yes of course there are certain situations where it's not correct (however, it's always correct to F2 instead of F1 on 3+ mobs even at low levels unless the tank can't keep the hate up or unless you need to burst down a Final Sting or something).

While it may not ALWAYS be optimal DPS wise for every class at 3+ mobs, it's almost always optimal group wise at 3+ mobs. And there's no class in the game it's not optimal at 4+ mobs.
People always seem to forget that every mob you kill early you rob potency from the AoE. So unless you're constantly changing to highest health targets with a single target rotation, it's better to AoE even in the instances you mentioned.

And especially on larger pulls a Healer can DPS even easier because the Tank (also everyone) should be using their cooldowns. Holy+stun X 3 times= profit.
That's when I use Internal Release or Raging Strikes or other cooldowns to burst them all down quicker.