Eat It or Dodge? What to Do About AoE?

[Only1zbro]

Of course you dodge them. The goal being to take minimal damage so your healer can be in cleric the longest. I, personally, choose to be cognizant of party make up. IE with two melee dps, maybe not pull as big, but if they are well geared it can be a wash when compared to other groups though.

[Khalithar]

Always dodge unless it's obsolete content that you drastically overgear in my opinion.

[Powe]

As a healer who mains all the heals, Dodge them as if your life is at risk, I like to dps >.<

[DGladius]

All melee dps have good aoe output. Pretty sure monk aoe is comparable to black mages even with missed positionals. As long as you're playing the job appropriately and minimizing loss time attacking something from movement, you'll do good dps. Only bad players do bad dps. Dodge effectively what you can when tanking groups.

[TallonOverworld]

I always dodge but i use a certain positional pattern... Imagine you have pulled groups of mobs and you have to deal with multiple cone and aoe attacks.
Now think of a clock:
I try to stand at 6 o'clock while my group is standing in the center behind mobs. When a cone comes up i try to move to either 7-8 or 4-5 depending on the angle of the attack. Most propably other cones will follow so i bait them in that position and then dodge by moving back to my original position.
For aoes think of Antitower in the last rooms with centaurs and the tiny mages where lots of aoe are going off. I pull them in the center of the room then dodge them by moving first backwards (to the point where my back's against the wall) then sideways left/right making small circles. My goal is to make mobs face me always to avoid any unnecessary cleaves to the group and minimize dps movement to dodge stuff.
Of course if you have melees to the group it takes extra care when pulling numbers (mainly because their rotation will most likely be messed up resulting in less damage output therefore a combination of melee dps in your group is not that preferable) but for ranged it's perfect only if they are just maintaining their distance.
Last, even if you are confident in mass-pulling its always best to let your group know your intentions beforehand.

[seekified]

Dodge them, of course, but minimize movement and mob turning as much as possible. As others have stated, everyone should be using AoEs anyway so positionals aren't an issue.

[CafPow]

okay in a Group with friends, when the healer says you can stay it's allright but normally, you dodge things.
this is common sense, also for the DDs. They know the drill and a normal DPS knows that the Tank has to dodge to avoid some DMG inc.
one way or the other, either the Heal or the DPS will not be happy about it but the DPS are used to it, kinda. I mean, you have to avoid some things. ^^

[Spiroglyph]

Definitely dodge, in large pack situations there arent any positionals involved anyway as everyone should be aoeing :P dodging also means less damage for your healer to heal and therefore more time for them to dps, so...

[Sieben79]

If your healer get bored, because he's got nothing to heal, than he could do damage^^

[ManuelBravo]

It depends how you tank, rule of thumb is dodge it by sidestepping rather then turning and moving, however as a tank you have to watch your close quarters DPS, and try NOT to get in their way or face them in case of a follow up specially with mnks. I nin / drg mainly Mnk not as much as before just because I need to keep moving to make certain moves more effective and can cause problems for a tank at times being most DPS don't follow the flow of the tanks but create their own and expect tanks to be mind readers.. Unless it will make a big problem with follow up attacks I just buff and eat it and dodge the ones that would hurt the most. Specially in raids some tanks move but position were the follow up move will do more damage to the party rather than just eating ot.