I disagree, summoners can easily go from 30 to 50 with only Miasma, Bio, Bio 2, fester and a pet. 99% of the content before coil simply melts too quickly to need anything beyond that, whilst the fraction of content that does have enough HP to stand up for more than a few minutes simply requires that you stay alive for the ride. Note that dots do not show up in the combat log, also keep in mind that all single target dot damage is compressed into a single flying text element, there is no way of telling if a particular dot tick critted. Due to the lack of precise timing with dot ticks it's also borderline impossible to weigh up the merits of more subtle elements of SMN play, 'should I be using shadow flare on a single target or should I only use it with swift cast', 'is Miasma II worth it's GCD?', 'Does contagion make it worthwhile?'. These seemingly minor details have a huge impact on a SMNs potency and they are not things you will learn whilst levelling.
Again, I disagree, Turn 8 is a timed DPS race with dance dance revolution elements mixed in for good measure. Whilst as far as Turn 9 goes, the first phase rewards ever stronger DPS, phases 2 and 3 will effectively wipe you if you don't kill the adds before the mechanics progress on, whilst phase 4 is strictly timed with a hard enrage that will test a group still in the process of gearing up. Savage coil dials everything up to 11, it honestly makes Turn 5 look like Tam-Tara.
I suspect the problem isn't parsers in general, but rather the people you played with.
And part of the process of checking and testing mechanics in Savage Coil is digging through parser output to understand what they need to be achieving to clear the content.
A) I would wager that every single party making serious progression (as in managing to push a turn to at least phase 2) in savage coil will have at least one parser, the majority will have everyone parsing quite honestly. And for the PS4 players? They will be using parser info from someone else in the group. This isn't me speculating. This is the cold hard truth, I can only apologise if it hurts you.
B) If you think using a parser 'trivialises' the time, effort and sheer willpower that goes into committing a serious amount of time to clearing a Savage Coil turn, you are rather mistaken.
Ps, don't take the discussion and differences in opinion too much to heart, lets keep this as an enjoyable debate please?![]()