AOE-acceptable,when?

[Paninaro]

When is it acceptable to use AOE Spell for BLM or THM in battle as they seem to draw a a lot of complaints from fellow players?

[jellis41]

That's a tough one. The main issue with aoe is that you as the mage are drawing aggro from multiple enemies and it may be hard for the tank to keep aggro from secondary targets. Especially they don't have a good area provoke. I would say save the aoe for groups of 1-2 hit enemies.

[Viridiana]

I'd say AOE is fine. . .in moderation. I'm looking at this from both sides, as a 50 DPS and a slowly-leveling Tank. As a BRD, I know that dropping Flaming Arrow should never be enough to pull hate off of a tank, and I can probably get off a few AOE attacks if the tank has Flashed, but if I sit there and spam it, I should expect aggro. Running Halatali on my GLA the other day, I had a THM casting Blizzard II constantly on several of the pulls. Fairy heals are pretty OP at level 20, so I wasn't *overly* worried about threat, but I finally told him "Hey, I can only Flash so many times against your infinite AOE."

Basically, do what you can without pulling aggro.

That being said, some fights you're just meant to AOE-burn everything, and aggro be damned.

[CypherXX]

I have only used AOE in one instance. That was in Aurum Vale, the final boss who spawns those weak adds in pods, all can be killed with about 3-4 straight uses of Fire II. I don't find the AOE spells of the BLM to be very effective. They don't do a great deal of DMG, and they pull aggro from the other enemies not being focused on. I find it better to use Sleep, with the improved sleep you can sleep everything within a radius. Wait till the mob get around the tank then hit them with sleep. It gives the tank a break from getting smashed, allowing the healers job to be a little easier. After you cast sleep then just focus on one target, since your direct attacks are sooo much more powerful.

[CypherXX]

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I just hit 50 so I can't speak for end game, but so far mobs are usually only 3-4 in size, you can easily take out one or two of them within that 30 sec window of sleep you have. This makes you only fighting against 1-2 enemies, which is alot more manageable for everyone and doesnt really require AOE. Its worked for me great so far, but i'm always looking for advice if someone is willing to share any.

[Sinth]

AoE on low-hp adds on bosses or on large trash mob pulls (so long as your tank has aoe aggro capability and have already established emnity)

[Seriat]

have already established emnity)

This is the big thing, as a tank far to often I see DPS just unloading on a mob the second my shield lob lands, and way before the mobs are even close enough to flash.

[Dyvid]

If the adds are weak and squishy AoE is fine. However if you aren't going to drop them fast with 100 potency hit then you're better off sleeping and focusing on the primary target.

[Sleigh]

The thing about AoE vs focus fire is, you generally want to AoE unless your tanks can't take the heat, or you need certain enemies dead ASAP. AoE does more total DPS than focus fire, in many cases significantly, so if your tanks can handle it, go for it.

As a BLM who used to religiously Sleep mobs and focus fire, and who is now in the last remnants of end-game, I'll AoE almost any time there are 3 or more enemies. This is easier when you're over-geared, but in all honesty, there's not much reason to go for CC in FFXIV so far, unless the players are bad or severely under-geared. In 99% of situations, your tank won't die from even 4 mobs beating on him if he's competent, so CC is just a waste of DPS currently.

[SmileyFace]

I generally ask my party what their preferred strategies are. That tends to straighten out any confusion pretty quickly, even if there is a disagreement between the WHM or BLM and the Tank. A single strategy gets agreed on pretty quickly.