Stone, Sky, Sea

[Bamadeus]

As nice as it would be for SE to provide some form of in game parsing or official toolset, I think this dummy content should do the job. People that use parsers in general, as well as content like this is only ever so that people can observe their own progress and be critical of themselves in order to improve.

The basic premise being "you have 3 minutes to kill this thing. If you can't do it you need to learn your rotation a bit better".

I assume this content will be updated with any major patches to keep hp in line with gear level.

Though this isn't the same as fully parsing something (where you could potentially collect numerous bits of data, rather than just get an idea of damage), it'll finally give people who play console and do not know their dps a means to see whether or not what they're doing is correct without relying on anybody to use a parser and tell them specific numbers. "If I can kill this then my rotation is more or less correct and I can start doing hard content"

I see so many people every day whilst doing my roulette that are clearly not bothering with any positional, keeping up buffs or dots, using the wrong skills etc. Maybe they're lazy and just want an easy no stress roulette, maybe they are new to mmos in general and are having a hard time knowing what to do with this huge list of abilities and are overwhelmed.

I don't know if this is just me, but since 3.0 and the introduction of more complicated skillsets I've seen a much, much higher proportion of players that play badly then I have since 2.0 began. I LOVE that square added a bit of complexity to pretty much every class and would like them to continue down this path going forward, but I was starting to grow concerned for the community at large, which seemed largely unaable to sufficiently grasp these new class mechanics. With the introduction of the newbie hall, the mentor system and this dummy dps test I have a lot of hope going forward that I will see less poor plays and more smooth, nice runs, and more casual players making successful party finder groups.