Large pulls VS Small pulls... in leveling dungeons?

[Evaddaragon]

As I was progressing through the MSQ a week and a half ago, when I entered Doma Castle, the WHM asked me (as PLD) to “please do not pull large groups”. As soon as I answered that I would never do large pulls on a leveling dungeon I’m entering for the first time because obviously, I know that we aren’t overgearing it, I was answered that “I’d be surprised how often this happens”. We went on to clear the dungeon in about 25 minutes uneventfully and each of us went on their merry ways.

Now, seeing as I got to i309 in a couple of days just doing roulettes for Verity, I already am back to doing large pulls in Expert or 50/60 roulettes, for obvious reasons. If for whatever reason, a pull goes wrong, I simply redo it by cutting it in half, but this happens only once in a while. So this discussion isn’t about that.

However, as I started leveling what will become my alt class for 24-man (RDM), I started seeing the trend of tanks trying to make pulls akin to the ones “I” do on expert and 50/60 roulettes. This got especially bad at Bardam’s Mettle, when 2/3 of the time, unless I start spamming Vercure on the tank to help the healer, we would lose the tank in seconds, most often resulting a wipe, which I managed to prevent a few times because I had hate on the pack, so I’d kite a few seconds and when I was about to die, I’d use Lucid Dreaming to shift hate on someone, and by that time, either the healer or I had enough time to raise the tank and recover.

But as one tank tried to reason saying “but we survived the pulls so far”, he was answered by the healer “that’s only because the RDM is helping me keeping your alive” to which I added that therein lies the problem, when I’m not DPSing, we take twice as much time killing the large pack, therefore making the whole point moot in the first place plus putting undue stress on the healer. I suppose some will tell me “those were bad healers” but from what I was seeing, they are trying, the tanks simply are getting hit harder starting from Bardam’s Mettle. While it’s fun to “play the hero as backup healing RDM”, there’s a reason why my icon is Red, not Green. Hahaha.

Granted, I know that it can work in the right setup… Like until Shisui of the Violet Tides, when most players come from Heavensward in i270 blue gear when that dungeons drops i270 green gear, but after that, we no longer outgear the dungeons.

So I guess what I’d like to start the discussion on, is that I don’t remember this trend back in Heavensward in leveling dungeons. Does someone else remember that it happened in Heavensward? What are peoples’ consensus on this?

[basketofseals]

HW dungeons 60 dungeons weren't very tuned. It was easy to mass pull those on release. Now the 51-57 dungeons I saw this happen a lot. The Vault in particular hits quite hard.

[JabbaUK007]

as someone who has tanked in most mmos i think the way you do it is fine, i do it the same way if im new to the place i do smaller pulls no matter what they say, if they cant handle an extra 5 min in dungeon then that's they're problem once i get better gear and know the pulls better i will pull some more. sometimes i will ask the healer what they want and of they say big pulls i remind them its 1 strike and out rule, ie if they cant handle first couple of big pulls i got to smaller pulls.

[NocturniaUzuki]

It's a combination of things. As a healer main, I can tell you that tanks complaining about bad healers isn't entirely unfounded. There is a significant lack of good healers in this game. However, there is a level of blame on everyone's shoulders. The tank needs to be sure to avoid all enemy AoEs, since in huge pulls, the healer often can't handle any extra incoming damage. The tanks need to be using their defensive cooldowns effectively. Meanwhile, the DPS need to be doing effective DPS, not just to clear the entire group quickly, but also to mitigate major damage sources first. For example, even if the DPS are AoEing the entire group, they should be focusing any single target attacks or AoEs that get weaker for each target hit on primary damage threats. In Bardam's Mettle, for example, there's a large bird mob on the way to the second boss that inflicts an extremely painful Windburn DoT. If it's a large pull, the healer often cannot take the time to use Esuna, and the debuff just gets reapplied anyways. So that mob needs to be the focus. To facilitate this, the tank should try his or her best to position that mob centrally so that it becomes a good central AoE target.

Also, I think tanks sometimes forget that healers have to dodge AoEs as well. A good healer is prepared for this possibility and can use its oGCD casts to keep the tank healthy while avoiding the AoE. Alternatively, they can position accordingly to minimize the amount they have to move to avoid the AoE, allowing them to use the brief time at the end of casts to avoid AoEs without significantly interrupting their casts.

[Evaddaragon]

It's a combination of things.

I agree entirely, which I why I'm more iffy on it on leveling dungeons when over 95% of the time, it's a "DF one-shot deal". Now, if, like back in FFXI, I was leveling with a static, that would probably be entirely different!

[ManuelBravo]

It depends on tank and healer. I test DPS on one pull. As a Tank I ask my healer if they are ok with it. (based on gear and dps) we then confirm large pulls. It's all about communication.

[LunaFaye]

It was the same thing in HW, however to that time if you remember, tanks weren't as squishy and healers skills weren't reduced to just healing. Dungeons like neverreap and that stupid anti tower would take forever when being at the right ilvl or extremely under geared. But that was more the fault of the dps not being able at that ilvl to kill stuff quickly enough, and healer running out of mp and tank out of tp. Tanks still tried it so, was a great entertainment on a daily basis, till we started getting a bit more gear.

[Evaddaragon]

Dungeons like neverreap and that stupid anti tower would take forever when being at the right ilvl or extremely under geared.

Those weren't leveling dungeons though, and we could eventually outgear them. You can never outgear a leveling dungeon (51-59 in Heavensward and 61-69 in Stormblood) unless you're level synced, and even then.

I was talking about the fact I do not remember that happening when I leveled my then-alt (DRG) in Heavensward (I leveled other classes using beastmen dailies, roulettes and PotD instead of the leveling dungeons, because faster queues), back in 2015 they would do smaller pulls as I recall. Subsequent level 60 dungeons are not what I'm talking about.

[TaleraRistain]

I almost never have a tank that doesn't pull big groups even in the new stuff, and they never ask. Then they blame me when they don't use cooldowns because "Muh deeps", I blow all my cooldowns trying to keep them alive, still have to chain cast to heal their yo-yoing health, and they still die. I had hoped that with mobs hitting harder in this expansion tanks would realize that maybe they don't want to pull like insane monkeys, but unfortunately that hasn't been the case.

[Annah]

White mage here:

If a white mage is geared very nicely, large pulls aren't an issue at all

However (like you said), if you just got a lvl 67 WHM (who just lvled to 67)...without that Doma gear ..I wont lie....massive pulls can be "interesting"

Especially when I see a tank wearing all STR on the right side...that ...that....that's for another topic (not saying you do this).

But if you wanna die fast...wear all DPS gear as a tank...

I hate reddit for thinking that was a good idea lol