I know y'all don't wanna hear this...

[Omedon]

... But the combination of "by default, tanks should pull wall to wall" and "by default, healers should spend as much time DPSing as possible" is an absolutely toxic cocktail of unapproachability and is the reason you rarely see DPS as adventurer in need for 4-person roulettes. As long as you ask these two counterintuitive things, tanks will die, healers will feel put on the spot, and both will queue less and err on the side of DPSing, trading peace and absence of higher responsibility for a longer queue.

I know you're gonna get mad, but it's true.

Healing isn't hard. Tanking isn't hard. The way people expect these jobs to be played is counterintuitive and puts "respect for everyone's time" over approachable gameplay. There's no safe way to discuss in a tank's greeting macro that "I will pull fast until I die or have to use holmgang on trash" that doesn't put the healer on the spot, and honestly, the healer shouldn't have to tolerate "everyone's wall to wall until you say you're new or someone dies." And that doesn't even work because "this is a level 80+ dungeon, how are you new, you should know by now" still happens in a world where one can use duty support from the beginning to end of the game!

Look, just be kind, ok? And don't crack the whip or pull for the tank when he's trying to take it easy on a healer who clearly needs it, yet has to say "you can pull big" to cover their ass.

Overly DPSing healers are a bonus.

Wall to wall pulling is a bonus.

They're perks, not entitlements.

Just be kind. You're all so good at that when people conform to your expectations, maybe alter those just a bit to err on the side of kindness.

Thank you.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The real problem is that, in the majority of dungeons, trash mobs are so weak that wall pulls are easily doable. Why pull slower when there's no reason not to just get it all over with?

[Vahlnir]

I will never complain about optimal play, but I also never expect everyone to perform optimally, especially in random groups. It's more of a nice surprise when it happens. That said, I'm always going wall to wall unless the healer simply can't keep up, and that is rare.

[hobostew]

I can't imagine there are many DPS out there that care about 5k gold or whatever "In Need" gives as a bonus lol

My queues are pretty quick on DPS so it's not like we have a shortage of tanks/healers with the way we do things now.

[Vahlnir]

I can't imagine there are many DPS out there that care about 5k gold or whatever "In Need" gives as a bonus lol

My queues are pretty quick on DPS so it's not like we have a shortage of tanks/healers with the way we do things now.

If there's a dps bonus, you better believe I'm gonna take advantage of it. Tank and healer bonuses are easy to come by. Dps...not so much.

[SquishyPlushie]

If the healer is having issues I just burn more defensives as tank.

If people start fighting over parses it never ends well. In any mmo.

[pyxls]

The real problem is that, in the majority of dungeons, trash mobs are so weak that wall pulls are easily doable. Why pull slower when there's no reason not to just get it all over with?

There are some higher lv dungeons that are not w2w friendly, unless tank/heal are both competent... which is not always the case.

[Connor]

….Titanmen?

[Omedon]

That said, I'm always going wall to wall unless the healer simply can't keep up, and that is rare.

This has recently become me, and I'm quite proud of this fact, but my "other MMO" upbringing has me ALWAYS sensitive to a healer struggling, and I always adapt. It's happened twice tonight and there was a glaring situation of... well everything I put in the OP. Someone actually said "I'm sorry, I just don't know when to heal a warrior..."

THAT IS 100% THE COMMUNITY'S FAULT FOR THAT "WHEN TO HEAL" FACTOR BEING A THING!

You heal when someone is hurt, if that's what you need to do! The potentially augmented speed of the run comes more from the tank safely pulling bigger while the healer spends more time keeping him up, not from the healer feeling obligated to DPS while said tank is pulling big, spacing out mitigation to last, and giving DPS (and MAYBE the healer) their big pile of death jollies! That poor healer! When we died on the first double-pull I apologized and said "I will pull slower, it's ok," and they of course had to retort with "you don't have to." But courtesy is what it is and I of course slowed down.

Sorry, I'm ranting and I meant to just respond to what you'd said.

[Jeeqbit]

... But the combination of "by default, tanks should pull wall to wall" and "by default, healers should spend as much time DPSing as possible" is an absolutely toxic cocktail of unapproachability

I agree that tanks pulling that way by default is as you described because on the first time, the tank doesn't know the map layout and hasn't got the map completed and they don't know what casts the mobs do ie. bad breaths or interruptable casts or how hard they hit.

If SE wants tanks to pull that way by default the solution would really be to make it so that when they pull, it pulls all packs instead of just one. They let them pull less so they can choose easy mode.

For healers doing DPS I agree that it should be acceptable not to do so at first because they need to get used to it, since everyone starts somewhere. But if they are jumping into something labeled "challenging content" where, by definition, they are meant to optimize and meet DPS checks, they should be bringing their all.

and is the reason you rarely see DPS as adventurer in need for 4-person roulettes

I disagree with this part. A lot of people just have tanxiety or healer anxiety no matter what.

You can make the tank and healer roles require no thought at all and people will still be anxious about the very concept of them (because that already happened in many people's opinion and there was only a relatively small but significant increase in tanks, but still small).

Doing damage is a universal concept that you do in almost every video game that exists, except something like pong.

Healing is in some games, with things like medpacks or spells.

But tanking? That is a whole lot more niche so people will always believe it's this complicated thing that they don't normally do in a video game.

I think many people also feel it is more responsibility and that makes them nervous.