The issue nobody wants to address

[Critical-Limit]

But that's different, people play games to relax and have fun...

I would like to see how much fun would underperforming dps players have if I stopped healing their skin in aoes, or if I would only manage healer's enmity while tanking. Of course there are bad tanks and healers too, but these usually don't last long - because it is "too much pressure" to be responsible for victories and deaths.

You're assuming I don't have fun at work or at competitions...

[Gilraen]

You're assuming I don't have fun at work or at competitions...

And the people pushing parsers as the be-all-end-all of self improvement assumes anyone worth calling themselves a gamer must also love doing work and attending competitions. I'm fairly competent, I hate my job and the last time I was in any kind of competition it was a spelling bee in elementary. I'm not competitive in the slightest so peer pressure doesn't mean a thing to me. I'm much too old for that kind of 'game'.

[Whiteroom]

And the people pushing parsers as the be-all-end-all of self improvement assumes anyone worth calling themselves a gamer must also love doing work and attending competitions. .

I don't think I've seen a single person push it as the be all and end all of in game self improvement. It is however a very effective and well known tool to use actively or passively to improve your own game or trouble shot problems or hurdles that crop up during content. All the better because you can look at much more than just the dps numbers.

Is a hammer and nails the only way to fasten two pieces of wood togeather, no, but its a very common and effective method that pretty much everyone understands. The same goes for parsers. If you have an extremely effective method you haven't tried, people are going to suggest that before trying to be creative and come up with exotic method of unknown effectiveness to do the same thing.