Chain pull.. is that bad?

[Lollie]

If by chain pulling you mean "boss-to-boss" pulling

No what is being discussed is 'stop and go' vs 'stop and kill', gauging appropriate pack size is a separate issue.

...And clarifying its not that i take mobs at 10% health and then go to the next group. I only do it to build up hate. 2-3 rotations aprox...

2-3 rotations is about long enough for most buffs to run their course so it isn't quite as bad. That said there is only one class/job that would benefit from keeping buffs going and that is pug/mnk with greased lightning, and you may very well yank whatever mob they are hitting out of the way on a gl refresh skill negating the whole benefit of that unless you are paying close attention to them anyway. Because of their TP usage if they don't get that increased resource recovery they are either going to run out of TP or have to resort to switching to single target to avoid that.

[Sagittarian]

And clarifying its not that i take mobs at 10% health and then go to the next group. I only do it to build up hate. 2-3 rotations aprox.

If the rest of the party doesn't know what you're doing that's even worse. It depends on the exact party make-up but as a summoner it is very bad for me. While I don't lose as much dps as other classes because the DOTs are still ticking it is not uncommon for me or even Garuda to steal aggro while the tank is trying to pick up the new mobs. For a black mage it can completely mess up their rotation if they don't happen to have a firestarter proc up.
I think casters and ground placement effects are going to be the worst affected so if you at least tell the party what you are planning then they can plan appropriately, like standing on the path to the next set of mobs to minimize movement and not casting shadowflare or regen.

[Truefaith87]

The way I personally look at it, the DPS and healer affect how i pull. Let's say you get 2 NIN... Not the most powerful AOE, but tons of single target. That is a case where small, rapid chain pulling works out not only for the tank, but also lets the ninjas do what they do best, rip single targets apart. People are always going to be arguing what is quicker, I just tend to go with what seems more viable for the party make-up all around.

[Deceptistar]

Id think it depends on the instance and the DD you have at hand.
Youd have to just weigh your options as you get it.
Like last night on my pld, i had wanderers palace, a healer, brd and blm
Needless to say i did big pulls very similar to the speed run era before because
yay pld aggro, and super DD aoes killed fast

[gehrtalert]

The way I personally look at it, the DPS and healer affect how i pull. Let's say you get 2 NIN... Not the most powerful AOE, but tons of single target. That is a case where small, rapid chain pulling works out not only for the tank, but also lets the ninjas do what they do best, rip single targets apart. People are always going to be arguing what is quicker, I just tend to go with what seems more viable for the party make-up all around.

Great piece of advice. Let the make up of your party determine how you pull. Don't pull small packs if you have an AoE-heavy party, Bards or Mages. Pull more mobs if you have those in your party. Do smaller, "chain pulls" when you have single target DDs like most melees. Go pull the next pack shortly before the last pack dies. It'll allow you to keep everyone's stacks up for better dps.

[Launched]

The way I personally look at it, the DPS and healer affect how i pull. Let's say you get 2 NIN... Not the most powerful AOE, but tons of single target. That is a case where small, rapid chain pulling works out not only for the tank, but also lets the ninjas do what they do best, rip single targets apart. People are always going to be arguing what is quicker, I just tend to go with what seems more viable for the party make-up all around.

No, as long as the player knows how to aoe, aoe is better on every single DPS.

[winsock]

Ok, i get some points but taking into account that there are some advantages.

enmity distribution... I only do it to build up hate.

For all intents and purposes, the amount of enmity you have and how it is spread does not matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not you have the most. If your AoE threat is sufficient in a 3 mob pull, it will be sufficient in a 9 mob pull and so on.

In addition, lets say a MNK is causing threat on 1 mob to go a little high because of auto-attacks and combo skill 2's while AoEing. In a 3 mob pull, you may want to give his target a little love. In a 9 mob pull, you may want to give his target a little love, in an X mob pull... etc. The point being it doesnt really change anything. you still may need to target his mob regardless of the size of the pull. The amount of juggling you need to do depends on your party more-so than the mobs.

less stress of the healers....

Keep in mind that healers arent particularly stressed in dungeon content. A healer may need to heal once every 30 seconds (and that is being very generous) in a single group pull. In a larger pull a WHM for example may need to stop a single button 'holy' spam and replace it with a single button cure II spam for a moment, so from a "user vs keyboard" perspective, it is very similar either way.

Chain pulling is also a cause of healer stress, esp WHM:
In a chain pull scenario, fewer mobs means AoE does less dmg per cast. As a result, more casts must be made and in turn, more MP is spent. Also, when traveling the pull distance the WHM will be in combat which limits MP recovery. Further still, the earlier mobs in the chain will become stun immune from the initial holy spams, so the WHM cannot rely on all incoming dmg stopping when using holy towards the end of the chain.

[Jpec07]

Unless you have a high-AoE comp, chaining smaller pulls is usually faster. This means you need at least 2/3 of the other jobs able to put out high AoE (look for MNK, SMN, and/or SCH with good gear). Also note, though, that you need to adapt to your group. If your group (healer included) is okay with huge pulls, and the mobs dissolve before you die or the healer OOMs, then you're fine. If it starts cutting it close? Slow down, because dying/wiping is slower than chain pulling.

[Lodinn]

BLM nightmare: You hit the group, he puts Ley Lines only to watch you running into sunset with the pack of mobs behind slipping out of his range.
Technically, if you have strong aoe in your group and healer can manage it, big pulls make it faster with decent aoe even if all you do is trying to keep aggro while dancing in a myriad of ground-targeted AOEs (Aery comes to mind).
If you have like two melees who have some aoe but not that much and having them to dodge all that aoe as well may just slow you down too significantly.

But the worst part of it is still that you put some stress on heals and dps because they're engaged in combat already but can't do anything until you stop... Which is quite unpredictable. And it may very well be you'll keep ruining their rotations constantly because one Very Important Skill which they planned to use cause they knew mobs have enough hp for this renders inaccessible at the right moment.