"Don't Explain; Learn by Doing"

One thing I always try to do in dungeons and trials, especially when paired with new people, is to explain the mechanics of the fight for whoever might want to hear them. It's something I started doing when the folks in my FC started farming World of Darkness about a year ago for our respective Demon sets, because the bosses in that place like to eat uncoordinated raiders for breakfast.

Lately, too, I've been trying to help groups succeed at Final Steps of Faith, explaining the complex mechanics at the start of the fight--and when half of the group is new and has asked for that explanation, I'd expect people to be okay with a bit of explanation (especially for a fight that complex).

However, lately I've seen a resurgence of an attitude I haven't seen since I was farming WoD, where people are openly hostile towards people who try to explain the fight, and will pull before all of the mechanics have been described.

I endeavor to always be succinct in my explanations; in World of Darkness, I actually generated macros for each boss that would explain all of the essential mechanics in 40 seconds for every boss. But people were so opposed to even the idea of an explanation that they would spam those explanations away - even to the protest of people who'd asked for them.

In my most recent attempt, I got into it with someone who was trying to tell me that explanations didn't help, and the point he (and his FC mates) kept coming back to was that you learn from doing, not from reading an explanation.

So my question: is it worth explaining a fight to new people? Should I only limit it to key mechanics that can screw over the whole group? Or should I just not say anything at all?

My static and I love learning by doing, we despise information being hand fed to us the first time in somewhere. That said, there's no reason to be hostile about information being given, especially if people ask for it. If you have folks asking, please continue to provide information! We could do with more folks willing to help others out, so kudos to you for taking the time to explain!

It's a mindset that some people have, and honestly, I'm fine with them having that mindset so long as they actually LEARN from their mistakes. Too often have I seen those 'learn by doing' folks wipe from the SAME mechanic 10 times. That's when I get urked. It's one thing to want to learn yourself, it's another to force everyone else attempting to make it through to be at a standstill because you're too stubborn to get some help.

On top of this, I dislike when people force other's to not get an explanation. If that's your method, good for you. But that doesn't mean everyone likes trial by fire. If you don't wanna read, then don't. Hide your party chat while the explanations are going through. Or heck, just change which log you're looking at. It's not that hard to avoid seeing the chat. And if they are impatient, then that's on them. I'll gladly kick someone as soon as the chance arises if they are impatient and unperceptive to helping the group as a whole.

i like doing new fights blind. but however, explainations are fine if people want it.

but i think for the first try you should explain nothing. that leads often to a wall of text and nobody understands anything because they have not seen a single bit of the fight. when people have seen the mechanic you can explain it and then it is much more likely that people understand what you are trying to explain.

if someone puts a wall of text in the chat before a fight i don't care and just pull the boss. it doesn't matter because almost nobody can read all these, understand it, remember it when mechanic A, mechanic B, mechanic C... happens and then doing all the mechanics without failing.

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Originally Posted by Tint

if someone puts a wall of text in the chat before a fight i don't care and just pull the boss. it doesn't matter because almost nobody can read all these, understand it, remember it when mechanic A, mechanic B, mechanic C... happens and then doing all the mechanics without failing.

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So you would put your own playstyle and impatience above the desire of some people to actually see an explanation, anticipate mechanics, and survive? Is it really worth the 2-3 minutes and probable wipe for you to head off an explanation like that?

The greatest irony is that usually, the people who rail against explanations are the ones who die first, and the people who asked for and presumably read them typically survive until those people's failures cascade to the whole group.

EDIT: I also really hope you're not pulling as a WHM. Not only is that rude to the people who wanted the explanation, but is also detrimental to group play, because you're taking damage you should have avoided, and are making the tanks' job hell for the first 30 seconds.

Are you ok with wasting people's valuable time? Don't take advice or learn about it by reading a few lines of text.

Are you ok with actually learning? Take at most 5 minutes to understand the info and take advice.

I will admit, I'm one of those people that write up huge wall's of text with lots of details. But I will also say, whenever I do them, I've never had a group that's wiped more than twice. Sometimes you do infact need to see the mechanic to really understand, but it's not that hard to correlate what I said in my explanation to what happened in the fight.

"When you see a big flashy arrow AoE marker above a player, stack on A"
1st time, people didn't get it because it caught them off guard and they weren't near.
2nd time, oh yea, that's the big frickin flashy AoE marker he meant.

Huge wall of text means nothing to me if I haven't seen a video of the fight. If I've seen a video of the fight, I don't need huge wall of text.

edit - I prefer to go in blind, and figure out from there

Simple solution really: Ask if people would like an explanation and if one person wants them, you kindly as the others to tab the chat away or minimize the chat window while you explain for the person who wanted it. Then you give it a couple seconds so people can hide their chat and then start explaining.

That way, people who want to go in blind can do that and people who rather not can do that too. Win-win.

I'll admit I never thought of not explaining as a courtesy to people who want to go in completely blind. The hostility I face usually comes from the "GOOOOO" guy, or from the veteran and his friend who have already cleared this place a bunch and, because they don't personally see the value in explanation, think all attempts at describing mechanics are a huge waste of time.

When I ask if anyone wants an explanation, I've never had anyone new ask that I not explain. It's usually either met among new raiders with ambivalence or gratitude. It's only ever the people who've already done the fight who are opposed to explanation of any kind.

Personally you can give me a huge wall of text or tell me to watch a video but it's not gonna help me even a smidge if I can't DO the fight.
I learn by actually doing, so...
Is that harsh? I don't care. I love going in blind the first time I do a run. Though especially for the first few days of new content, why do you want to tell everyone? I mean, for example if the fights in Praetorium were still hard or something, and I waltzed in as a new player, I'd get that someone explained the mechanics to me. That content came out almost three years ago. Patch 3.3 just dropped a week ago; it's not wild to think that everyone hasn't done it yet.

Not every player can simply learn by doing. There are players that need and explanation like it or not, explanations need to be given for people who can't learn by doing. If you don't like explanations close your alliance and party chat windows for a few minutes. You can let someone take a few minutes to explain or wipe repeatedly cause you got people in group who can't learn by doing. Me personally Ill take either path learning blind or explanation did Nidhogg blind the night it came out while I took and explanation in Weeping city.

I only really hate explanations when they are crazy walls of text that aren't necessary. Most fights in this game have very few mechanics that aren't obvious, especially now that the devs are thankfully standardizing the AOE indicators so that specific ones always mean the same thing. Typically I only try to explain stuff with obtuse status effects or the random AOE that you need to get hit by instead of avoid, since those are the exception instead of the norm.

So for example, tell me "don't face the boss during move X" or "don't move or do any actions while you have dice over your head" since stuff like that will have people die and give them absolutely no indication why. Don't make people sit there while you tell us to avoid AOEs on the ground.

My FC and I did Final Steps of Faith this weekend, we were 7/8 and all blind to the fight and we got an 8th who vomited a several paragraph macro immediately upon loading in. You can't really expect people to memorize all that stuff in a timely fashion and it turns out the only bullet points that were necessary were "Attack the middle add first since it has random hate" and "Stay gathered for Akh Morn until it's finished" (which coincidentally wasn't even in their explanation), everything else was pretty easy to figure out. No wipes either.

Get killed by the same mechanic 10x
Learn while doing sure

I do most of my learning by actually experiencing the content, but if I'm new to an instance I usually don't mind a quick rundown if someone is willing to give it, it can save me the trouble of dying to something needlessly. I won't usually ask though. Most of the time I'm already in voice chat going over the fight with friends I'm running the content with.

That said, there's no reason you should be stopped from giving advice especially if people are asking for it. It's rude behavior, but I think it amounts to people being impatient and not wanting to wait for someone to take two seconds out of their time for any reason, even if it's just to hit a macro. Doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider that it might help someone catch on to fight mechanics a little quicker and save the group from a wipe which would waste more time than it took to explain the fight.

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Originally Posted by Estellios

My FC and I did Final Steps of Faith this weekend, we were 7/8 and all blind to the fight and we got an 8th who vomited a several paragraph macro immediately upon loading in. You can't really expect people to memorize all that stuff in a timely fashion and it turns out the only bullet points that were necessary were "Attack the middle add first since it has random hate" and "Stay gathered for Akh Morn until it's finished" (which coincidentally wasn't even in their explanation), everyth--ing else was pretty easy to figure out. No wipes either.

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^ I actually agree with what this guy says though. I've seen those macros plenty of times myself in the 24 man raids, and there's no way anyone can read and understand a wall-of-text explanation macro before everyone else starts moving, so anyone new to the raid just ends up skimming over it and missing a lot of relevant information. There's no need for entire paragraphs, it just confuses people. If you're using a macro, just keep it sweet and simple.

Those who really want explanations AND don't want to waste everyone's time, can read/watch something beforehand.
I hate players who walk blind and then request tactics/strat (unless its a coordination issue like who goes to each corner in Nidhogg EX) at each boss.

The thing is, if you have no idea as to why a certain mechanic is killing you then you can run it a billion times and still not learn anything. Sometimes it's essential for some explaining, like when it's required to have a certain status from a marker to survive a mechanic but every instinct tells you to *never* stand in the AoE puddle. If you don't stand in it you'll wipe for eternity.

In a group like that, with some new, but some of those new people not wanting any pre-info, stick only to the things that are learned by punishment. Ozma's triangle form and acceleration bomb, for instance, give no clue of what's to come. You just hopefully notice when or why some massive jolt of pain occurred. Final Steps of Faith on the other hand, until Ex version, hasn't got a single mechanic you haven't seen before, and marks every single one of them for the raid. A person with decent internet and/or increased movement speed can zone out and just dodge the red zones, step into the stack zone, and they're good. So, just let them be until people (usually the laggier) are obviously having trouble. ("It will either be Hot Wings, which forces you inward from the sides, or Hot Tail, which forces you outward to the sides—start between the edges of those two different option's AoEs so you can dodge either possibility.") Mark kill order preferences. Type "LB!" with an attached spammable sound effect if needed. At that point you shouldn't get in trouble with anyone, but your clear time should be basically unchanged.

tldr; People don't need to know all the mechanics. They just need to know how to situate themselves for certain combinations thereof. Most of that will be obvious, but correct or advise as needed if it's not.

Honestly, I find wall of text macro's to be annoying, but not walls of text written out (or at least spread out decently if in macro). Because when you get so much text all of a sudden to read that you have to enlarge your chat box to full size just to read the start of it, then it feels like it's a race to finish reading it as quickly as possible so everyone can get started.

But if you write it out or spread out the macro into decently sized steps, people can read along and actually take in what you said while you are writing the next part. To me, this is a world of difference. I can take my time to read what you write vs I feel like I have to skim and say "got it" as quickly as possible so as not to hold up the entire party.

Another thing that helps but is a little more work is to only really bring up stuff when it's soon to be relevant, as long as there is a moment to do so. Most non-extreme, non-savage content gives you some breathing room between phase changes to throw in a quick macro message or type something if you're decently quick.

Using the Weeping City as an example, I'd tell the alliance to "run into the green puddles/orbs while the boss is casting mega death" right after the adds are dead, since you get a few seconds and it's going to be relevant immediately after and will still be fresh in their minds. I also tell groups "turn for assimilation against the Ozma Shade" when Ozma uses black hole and everyone gets sucked in since there's a good couple of seconds of that animation where you can't do anything.

Throwing out all the mechanics before a fight starts when you won't see several of them until halfway into it doesn't let people retain the information.

When it comes to the new light party dungeons, I usually ask if the others are fine with one blind attempt on the bosses before they shed around the advice. That's only three other people and most of the time they are quite fine with it. When it comes to the larger group content I'm quite fine with getting some information before the boss, but I sorta don't like the huge text wall / ascii graphic help macros. Mostly because they are so spammy that they stop being helpful for me. Preferably on the first attempt with new players give out few notes that while failed can kill whole group but not try to explain the whole fight. It just goes over the head before seeing the stuff.

I also prefer to go in blind and look at it this way, those who have posted videos were once new to the fight at some point also and none were there to explain to them.
I do not oppose however explaining to new people as i also do it when i can.

No harm in going over the fight before hand. There are some things that can help out by knowing what to look for..other times you're just screwed doesn't matter how many times you read it. For me personally, the text will tell me some things but there are other things I have to see for myself and word them in a way I understand it more..so I admit, I'll have the wall of text, read it and still screw up like a champ.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

The hostility I face usually comes from the "GOOOOO" guy, or from the veteran and his friend who have already cleared this place a bunch and, because they don't personally see the value in explanation, think all attempts at describing mechanics are a huge waste of time.

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These are the guys that are the most annoying on the opposite end of the situation here. What annoys me a bit is that I believe these people likely died a few times themselves. It wasn't annoying so much for them I'm sure at that time. Best to take a few minutes and let someone learn something that might help them. But hey, these snowflakes are important IRL!

Then again, some people can't be taught. We ran this last night and our team kept wiping, I mean bad at the sphere of death. People explained the mechanics but for some reason our white mage kept moving to the wrong side with meteors, not esuna bleeding. Tank kept dying, the dragoon was doing the same and standing in the line of sight of the beam in its square mode. One guy finally said to us "Just tell us, what is it you're having trouble with?" well besides the meteors, some people were saying how they were dying instantly from the cubes over their heads. It was explained...our healer left, we got a new one. Tank DC'ed, we came back and we were able to crawl by even with a few mistakes.

I usually just explain boss fights, just so that the new guys can understand it better. If other people have an issue with well tough noogies

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

So you would put your own playstyle and impatience above the desire of some people to actually see an explanation, anticipate mechanics, and survive? Is it really worth the 2-3 minutes and probable wipe for you to head off an explanation like that?

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i am impatient when i am expecting a wipe? i think it is better to explain stuff wich people actually have seen. i know they don't understand it if you explain the whole fight in a textwall, i have seen it doesn't work. i think it is just better to try and wipe an then explaining the specific mechanic which failed.

do you know wich people are impatient? these who explain the whole fight, expecting everyone understands it. they don't do this for the other people, they do it for themselfs in the hope for a fast clear. often these are the same people who rage after a wipe and are the first ones who leave. it takes time to learn a fight, you can't expect people understand it with just a textguide given to them a few seconds before the fight starts. step by step...

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Originally Posted by Tint

i am impatient when i am expecting a wipe? i think it is better to explain stuff wich people actually have seen. i know they don't understand it if you explain the whole fight in a textwall, i have seen it doesn't work. i think it is just better to try and wipe an then explaining the specific mechanic which failed.

do you know wich people are impatient? these who explain the whole fight, expecting everyone understands it. they don't do this for the other people, they do it for themselfs in the hope for a fast clear. often these are the same people who rage after a wipe and are the first ones who leave. it takes time to learn a fight, you can't expect people understand it with just a textguide given to them a few seconds before the fight starts. step by step...

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Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe those people who tried to explain ragequit after you pulled because they perceived your pulling as ungrateful and insensitive to new players who wanted to hear what they had to say? Did you ever think that they might be so annoyed by your unwillingness to wait a minute for an explanation that has a chance at saving a wipe, that they don't want to run with you? Did you ever think they might see a WHM who pulled as immature and not willing to coordinate and work with them or anyone else?

I never see people who explain quit after a wipe unless someone pulled mid-explanation.

At that point, they aren't the problem; people who do as you do are.

It is not impatient to explain a fight, it is helping the group succeed. No one likes to wipe, and no one likes to wipe repeatedly. If through someone's explanation, the amount of wipes a group experiences in content can be lessened, then that explanation has value to the whole group. People who explain fights in long-winded form often do not do so because they want to show off their knowledge of the fight; they do so because good explanations are proven to help groups succeed more, and more often.

Often if it's a mechanics-heavy fight (like The Chrysalis), if someone comes in and says "first time," and says they haven't even watched a video but want an explanation, I'll groan, but take the 45 seconds it takes to explain the fight so they have some idea what to do. And usually, we succeed in one or two attempts.

I'm sure there are jerks on both sides, but if someone is explaining, it is extremely rude and inconsiderate to interrupt them or not let them finish.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe those people who tried to explain ragequit after you pulled because they perceived your pulling as ungrateful and insensitive to new players who wanted to hear what they had to say? Did you ever think that they might be so annoyed by your unwillingness to wait a minute for an explanation that has a chance at saving a wipe, that they don't want to run with you? Did you ever think they might see a WHM who pulled as immature and not willing to coordinate and work with them or anyone else?

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nope. i never thought that, because i played the whm for 2,5 years now and i never pulled as whm. but this stuff happened all the time. people enter an instance for the first time, expecting they are entitled to get an explaination (we are all just people who want to play this game, no guides. but hey, i think that's what mentors are for? good, i am NOT a mentor and i will never be one). however, i am playing tank now...
if someone wants an explaination so hard they should watch a guide BEFORE they enter the instance. nobody should expect to get an explaination inside. if the people explain it, fine, i'll wait with pulling. but i will not explain it, especially not when nobody was asking for an explaination, and not the whole fight in english, wich is not my main language. i will explain after all have seen the machanic i'll explain. i have seen this works better than the textwall at the beginning. they already know when X machanic will happen and how the mechanic looks like. and then they know: NOW i have to do THIS to avoid the machanic.

i was refering especially to those people who write text-macros for all the bossfights in weeping city and nidhogg, fights well known for their rage quitters.

and still: if people don't like my way to handle things, they should watch a guide >before< they enter an instance. otherwise - live with what you get.

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Originally Posted by Tint

i am impatient when i am expecting a wipe? i think it is better to explain stuff wich people actually have seen. i know they don't understand it if you explain the whole fight in a textwall, i have seen it doesn't work. i think it is just better to try and wipe an then explaining the specific mechanic which failed.

do you know wich people are impatient? these who explain the whole fight, expecting everyone understands it. they don't do this for the other people, they do it for themselfs in the hope for a fast clear. often these are the same people who rage after a wipe and are the first ones who leave. it takes time to learn a fight, you can't expect people understand it with just a textguide given to them a few seconds before the fight starts. step by step...

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I've seen every combination of texts walls working and failing as I continue with DF groups while playing. There was a time I entered a sync'd odin trial with DF and 6 people were new to the fight (and out of those 6, only 2 even had ironworks gear). The other tank and myself were both overgeared and I started to explain the fight to people. The other tank said, "not needed" and pulled and to my surprise, we beat it in one go. I've had that happen in god knows how many other DF odin runs and this was the first time I passed odin in DF sync'd. Ever.
I've also had runs where someone macro's everything and we wipe horribly because no one read or understood the explanation. There's every instance inbetween because you're playing with random people. Everyone has a different understanding and reaction to game mechanics. Some easily correlate certain boss moves with previous ones while others find the subtle difference in appearance to be a complete throw off to them. Some are able to bypass mechanics through pure DPS pawnage because they'll only have to worry about encountering it once, maybe twice instead of 5 times due to high DPS.

You can't really generalize imo. Every situation is different/unique because you have different people playing. And to each their own. Some strive from reading explanations, some must see to do, others can simply react well enough that they don't need any help. Then there are even some who are practically hopeless. Maybe due to connection latency... maybe due to bad reaction time, who knows?

But I have actually never seen the people who take the time to explain a fight ever rage quit after the 1st wipe. I've seen them rage quit after the umpteenth wipe, but they are usually the one's who stick it out. The one's who pull mid-explanation however, I almost always see leave 1 or 2 wipes in. So I have no clue what kind of DF experiences you are running into, but they seem to be very different from mine xD

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

I've seen every combination of texts walls working and failing as I continue with DF groups while playing. There was a time I entered a sync'd odin trial with DF and 6 people were new to the fight (and out of those 6, only 2 even had ironworks gear). The other tank and myself were both overgeared and I started to explain the fight to people. The other tank said, "not needed" and pulled and to my surprise, we beat it in one go. I've had that happen in god knows how many other DF odin runs and this was the first time I passed odin in DF sync'd. Ever.

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The same occurred with one of my Titan Ex runs... and Levi Ex... and my first attempt at Nidhogg NM. Just had people dodge things as usual, mark targets as needed. For Levi Ex I'd toss out some reminders, like "BLM, you're shooting yourself. Swap targets," or "Any movement ability will break the slide / knock-back," while the healers, both new, would mention stuff as they go like "Hey could you swap in / until this debuff's gone?" Titan Ex was silent aside from a "kill the adds at the same time so we can stack death puddles". A quick run and 6 achievements. DF's just that variable.

But if I were to give a rule of thumb based on my experiences, bringing out the info for mechanics only when they're about to actually occur works a whole lot better than text-walls. On 2.0 PLD, I could easily enough type them out between GCDs, prepping for the next phase shift and its mechanical addition. But if it was obvious, it was better left unsaid; bringing it up made it sound like something much more pivotal than it actually was. "Some raid damage coming up back to back; might want a Medica II" also tends to work a lot better than naming the particular AoE names and their exact damage or intervals when the margin of safety and possible reaction time is still quite large. Tldr; keep it simple, and only as necessary.

I don't understand why people get uptight about explanations. I always give one to those who are new so that way its easier instead of having them going in blind. explanations work wonders and minimizes the number of wipes for the entire group. A little patience goes a long way in helping a fellow player instead of acting like a bozo

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Originally Posted by Xenos88

I don't understand why people get uptight about explanations. I always give one to those who are new so that way its easier instead of having them going in blind. explanations work wonders and minimizes the number of wipes for the entire group. A little patience goes a long way in helping a fellow player instead of acting like a bozo

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You don't understand why people don't want story spoilers either then?
Going in blind gives it a fresh experience, and full blind runs are one of the most fun things to do in the game, unfortunately, not everyone that wants this is capable of getting a group to do this with. I find it OK to have stuff explained after the first wipe, you'd expect that even going full blind, but ruining the surprise element really takes away from the experience, in a way that's permanent for that fight.

As you say, a little patience goes a long way.

Explaining boss fights in a dungeon or a trial fights are completely different then spoiling a story. I completely understand where you're coming from but I would rather minimize the number of wipes by just explaining the boss fights.

Not everyone is going to retain a wall of text explanation. I know I don't. Seeing the mechanic for myself combined some explanation usually makes things click for me.

It depends on the content and how new the content is. If it's the first few days of new content and people are coming there for the first time, I consider explaining the mechanics as spoiling the fights - when explanations aren't asked for. It's really horrible entering the new normal Alexander or 24 person instance on day 1 and there being people already expecting others to listen and follow the strategies they're calling. When the content isn't completely new anymore I usually ask if the newbies want explanations or not. And even if they do, I'll do my best to not actually spoil the fights and instead just warn them about the stuff that they might wipe everyone else with.

Personally, I'll enter all fights blind, but most of the time I'll do that with full premades so it doesn't even affect anyone else. For 24 person stuff I'll turn off the alliance chat if there are people spoiling the fights.

I don't get how people expect newbies to ask when they almost NEVER do that. Much less trust them to know what to do at all.

Don't get me wrong I hate long text walls (along with overly short smartass ones that leaves out an important detail) as the players who overexplains wastes time with things the newbie doesn't need to know, but I absolutely hate blind runs with randoms and hardcore raiders in particular- the kind of hardcore raider whose never seen the likes of A2 or a horde boss; the kind who is useless in big pulls because they do NOT know how to fight with AoEs or my favorite a healer who honestly believes that healer DPS is part of the raids' design when they are in fact obviously not. Can't trust them to fill me in the blind run. I might even leave happy I'm not wasting my time with them. Last time, I was the only one who knew what to do, and they got mad at me for not telling them about the goo and using them to seal the cracks, even though they told me not to help or say anything. After that wipe I had enough and told them how to fight the bosses. And the person responsible for that mess was a hardcore raider.

There was one moron who couldn't wait for four short lines so he dashed off into the boss while I, usually the tank or healer (most of the time as the healer), was too far out of the zone (I know the place, and I will stop at the last encounter before the gates to explain what the newbie needs to know) after only saying two lines, and gets snappy with me for OVEREXPLAINING and staying out of the zones, ensuring he and anyone blindly following him in would fail. And normally we get rid of the moron, and if he happens to be a tank, then I replace him to do his job myself RIGHT, even if it cheats me out of healer/DPS gear and the roulette bonus.

Granted I do like Thordan normal better blind, even though you got more than enough time to figure it all out. No need to say anything, let's roll! I say.
You don't need to explain Final Steps of Faith for the exact same reason as Thordan normal, because by then you should know how to evade huge line AoEs like in stone vigil ,spot an obvious DPS check like foreshadowing in movies, remember what the stacking AoE marker looks like, and most importantly healer who HEAL and tanks who can stomp damage into the dirt. But the saddest thing, none of it happens. Gordias Savage did not teach anyone how to fight better or even properly, so now we're stuck with useless DPS healers who think it's all baby damage like before the Vitality update. Tanks constantly eating up too much damage and think that using CDs solely means they don't trust the healer can carry them or in some way will interfere with their DPS, and the worst thing of all, when people do the absolute worst things think they are safe when in fact they are only ensuring they will faill, like ending up too deep in a line AoE to even dodge it because they were hugging the edge or standing in bad puddles because they thought it was worth casting fire 4 one more time long before the fight got to phase 2. Clearly they need help

Just be patience. Keep it simple. Fill them in on if you want a blind run. Be nice. Be competent or IMPROVE from the bad. Or someone is going to be really mad and out to ruin the fun.

(when I was on US servers) I queued up for mentor roulette and we got Garuda EX. The PLD tank was brand new to EX and tanking. He had no clue what to do nor did he speak. Few wipes and a short hint to the tank on where to be and who to do. More wipes follow. I tell the tank he should looks up this fight online it will help because me explaining it wont do anything for him. The party gets mad that I don't explain it to him well enough. I agreed and told them it will take the entire time we have left for me to explain. They get mad. I proceed to explain to the group on what to do, few minutes later the party votes to abandon. :/

Taking a hard stance on either side of this issue is silly. You're supposed to do both.

Do a dry run to see the encounter, then research the encounter to understand what you saw. Then you run it again with a better understanding of what's happening, and you end up understanding the fight even more each time you run it and confer with information about the fight.

As it pertain to new players in old content, for instance while you're leveling through DF, you can take time to explain and shout out queues during a fight if it seems that the newer players aren't picking up on it as it happens. It's the best way for them to actually learn and understand the fight, rather than letting them scrape by without a solid grasp of the encounter.

The correct motto is "research the fight, then learn by doing". You're not robbing anyone of a "first time" experience by telling them about a fight because it takes more than reading or watching a video of a fight to actually clear that fight.