hall of the novice wrong?

[Dualgunner]

You... hit your head when you were a child do you ?

Srsly, it's the TANK who got the control on the dungeon, it's not the dps, it's not the heal. The tank can take as much trash as he can, or play more safely by pulling one pack by one pack.

And people don't "spread" Damage, it's something called Area of Effect (AoE) If you got an attack with 300 potency on an single target and an other with 150 but touching every single mobs around you, what will you choose ? For myself, their is not doubt cause you got Potency x Number of target, the AoE is much more efficient on large group of mobs.

And yet slow dps will cause a dungeon to take a long time regardless of the tank's pace :thinking:

[Rongway]

He specifically clarified a couple posts above that he's not talking about aoe situations, but about people just single targeting mobs other than the tank.

Yeah, well, wall of text started writing itself long before that post.

@Op: if that's the case in levelling dungeons, chances are people are new and simply don't know better. Try to remind them friendly to please focus on the target of the tank. There's also the option to mark the one you're on. That was rather common for a while, but kinda got out of fashion. If they still hit other mobs and give you a hard time, you can only deal with it, do your best to hold hate and finish the run, kick them or leave yourself.

If even one person has DoTs or AoEs, the other people who are single targeting should be hitting the targets that have the most health, so that individuals live longer, but the pack as a whole dies faster. So the point stands: tanks should AoE liberally and not focus on one target.

[winsock]

would it not go faster if i am tanking, we could rotate through mobs instead of people trying to spread the damage[?]
...snip...
[because] healer doesnt need to HEAL as much and can focus on helping the fight

Possibly, but very, very unlikely / under a very specific scenario.

It's much faster to pull large and AoE everything, so assume you cant for some reason (maybe a wall). Some AoE skills are good on 2 targets, so let's say none of those skills are in your party comp. At this point, it is still likely advantageous for at least the healer to spread their DoT onto both targets, so let's say these 2 targets are doing so much damage that the healer cant DPS at all and your DPS dont have DoTs either... It might be advantageous in that type of scenario, but in all honesty, it's more likely that this 2 target pull requires 0 healing regardless, making the argument moot.

i think the dps controls the dungeon, not the tank or healer: dps each mob > tank takes less damage> healer doesnt need to HEAL as much

It really just depends on how you define "control". For example:
* If I am not in tank stance, am I exerting an amount of control when a DPS uses a threat mitigation tool? Or is the DPS exerting control if I take action to gain more enmity? Or is the healer exerting control by only healing me as if I was in tank stance?
* If I make a large pull, am I exerting control when the DPS AoE? Or is the DPS exerting control if they start a single target rotation? Or is the healer exerting control by only healing me as if I had made a single group pull?
* etc

I think a better question is "who should have control?" In my opinion, assuming there is no static leader, the party is a 4-man PUG, and control is being assigned solely based on role; control should default to the tank. I say this because the tank needs to make the fewest assumptions about the party to ensure a smooth run (usually limited to something like: "I assume my WHM will use cure II").

[Dzian]

When I talk about spreading damage, I am referring to the DPs that do single damage and focus the mobs the tank doesn't attack. I'm not talking about dots or aoe, that's a different subject entirely. And no, I didn't hit my head as a child, thank you for your concern though... I was just curious why as a dark knight, why my main target is always the last to die

It might be any number of things. Maybe you as a tank picked an illogical target to focus. I have no idea which levels your talking about here but to use quarn as an example.

If you've pulled a bat a skele and a bee and you're attacking the bat then bad choice. You'll most likely find the fps will focus the bee down first because final sting can be pretty nasty and ideally wants to be dead before it gets used.

Other dungeons you have packs where one mob may be a caster and drop aoes on the party while the rest of the pack might be physical orientated. So once again many dps will focus the caster while you're attacking something else to eliminate it's telegraphs and make the rest of the pack easier to deal with with less dodging required.

You'll also often find caster dps focus on whatever has the most hp because it's quite annoying when a mob dies mid cast and interrupts your spell.

And also some jobs like brd/smn will put dots up on multiple enemies rather than focus one down.

There's many reasons then the dps might not follow ypur targets.

[Kabooa]

And yet slow dps will cause a dungeon to take a long time regardless of the tank's pace :thinking:

We can't have people thinking all three roles contribute to the pace of the dungeon, now, can we?

[TouchandFeel]

In single-targeting situations such as 3 or less mobs or lower level when not many dps jobs have much AoE capability, it is better for the party to focus damage on the most dangerous mob (usually the one that has a big nasty attack like the Bees in Qarn or the one that does AoE attacks), kill it and then move to the next most dangerous one.

DoTs should try to be placed on mobs that won't die before the DoT can run its course so that it does its max damage.

Spreading single target damage doesn't actually really help kill things faster because the HP pool of the enemies is what it is and single target attacks will take the same amount out of that pool no matter which mob you hit.
However focusing one mob down and then moving to the next does remove one source of damage to the tank so therefore less defensive CD usage and healing is needed, allowing both the tank and the healer to focus more attention on doing damage.
This can also help the dps do more damage too because if you kill that one annoying mob that is doing AoE attacks and making people move out of the AoE and losing time attacking, that is less time dodging and more time attacking which means more damage and quicker kills.

At packs of 4 or more mobs and when jobs start getting their AoEs, it is best to use those since the total damage is multiplied by the number of enemies being hit and pretty much always equates to more overall damage.

As for who "controls" the run, well everyone does. Each role plays an integral part that makes up the total capability of the party, and what the party can tackle and how quickly they can plow through things.
The tank is often expected to know how to appraise the group and then determine the pace they can go since the tank is the one in the front pulling and starting the fights so that they can establish agro. However, a tank won't last long if they are taking more damage than the healer can handle, so that has to be taken into account. Also things will take too long to die if the DPS can't do enough damage which then puts more stress on the tank and the healer and can lead to running out of defensive cooldowns or mp for healing which can lead to a wipe or prolonged downtime waiting for those things to come back before proceeding.
In short everyone sets the pace and is in "control" of the run and it is up to everyone in the party to figure out how to do the best they can do as a group with what they have.

[Lelila38]

Yeah, well, wall of text started writing itself long before that post.

Hehe, it was an interesting read, nonetheless.

If even one person has DoTs or AoEs, the other people who are single targeting should be hitting the targets that have the most health, so that individuals live longer, but the pack as a whole dies faster. So the point stands: tanks should AoE liberally and not focus on one target.

Agreed on that. As a tank, you should just hold hate on everything that is pulled. That's why I told him to use flash a lot in my first post.
Still, as in most cases, I believe communication is key. If he doesn't like them doing it, talking with the group might clarify and solve things.