[taps mic] small pulls are not inherently slower than big pulls, and any time advantage gained by doing big pulls is immediately negated by a wipe
Tanks set the pace—at whatever the healer is comfortable/capable of managing. Don’t pull ahead of the tank, and tanks check in with your healer first.
And don’t forget that in lower level dungeons, some of the DPS jobs don’t get good—if any!—AOE yet, so larger pulls are really useless in anything under 40/45.
This also applies to healers as well — if the tank isn’t comfortable with big pulls, don’t pull for them. Even if you think they have good gear, don’t do it. They may not know their kit very well, and they don’t deserve to be yanked along by a rescue into the next pack of mobs because you’re impatient.
I was trying out warrior for the first time years ago and was extremely nervous, and was doing small pulls so I knew what I could handle. A white mage then proceeded to pull me into multiple packs inside Dzmael Darkhold because she was annoyed that I was taking so long, and didn’t listen when I politely asked her to stop.
Just don’t. It’s not the be all end all.
This is just weirdly contradictory, isn’t it? Claiming that bigger pulls don’t cut down on clear times (they do, that’s the entire point), but also saying the advantage gained is negated in case of a wipe. I.e. you’re better off by default, and things have to go really terribly several times to go slower.
On top of that: all tanks, all casters and all ranged dps have aoe before 30. Only NIN/DRG are latecomers at 38 and 40 respectively -- and they’re about to have skills reshuffled in 6.1, presumably in line with the others getting their aoe pre-30 (consider RPR gettings theirs at 26 as an example of SE’s recent design philosophy). Healers may or may not have theirs moved forward from where it’s at now, but whenever they don’t have access to aoe, that just means their best way to contribute is to allow whoever does have theirs to make the most of it.
Single pulls also test neither a tank nor a healer. A dps can take those; melee with bloodbath might not even need a healer at all. You won’t learn without a little limit testing, and what’s the worst that could happen anyway? You wipe, lose two minutes and try again, and now you’re better for it. Accept that occasional failure is an expected part of the learning curve, and DF randoms won’t remember your mistakes beyond the 20 minutes you spend in a dungeon together.
