Just realized something: FFXIV is a terrible DPS player's DREAM come true...

[Hitsuzen]

You're actually far from correct. As a tank I could tell 100% of the time which dps didn't carry the lightning to the other platform or which one lined the cloud up with the party in susano ex. In my mind those were the bad dps. I would rather have dps who had sustained damage and didn't cause party wipes then insane dpsers that died to boss fire.

[RichardButte]

As a tank I could tell 100% of the time which dps didn't carry the lightning to the other platform or which one lined the cloud up with the party in susano ex. In my mind those were the bad dps. I would rather have dps who had sustained damage and didn't cause party wipes then insane dpsers that died to boss fire.

But we're not talking about situations where it's apparent whether or not DPS know mechanics.

We're talking about situations where you have no idea if any of the DPS are ACTUALLY doing their jobs by doing a decent amount of damage, because the game basically does everything it can to conceal that information from you.

If a healer does only 25-50% of their potential healing, the tank will die and everyone will know the healer was bad.

If a tank holds the aggro of only 50% of the mobs in the dungeon, the healer will die and everyone will know the tank was bad.

If a DPS does only 50% of the damage they could be doing for their level/gear/job, no one will ever know without a 3rd party program that can possibly get you banned if you talk about using it (at least that's what I've heard, not about to start using it to find out...).

Seems fair, right?

But not every dps wants to get better. Some have horrible rotations that they refuse to fix, and brush you off or spit poison when you offer advice. Some aren't even aware they're bad. So the OP is concerned about how to identify and deal with bad dps in situations where healers are blamed for a lack of dps (in a game where all dungeons and instances are tuned for dps to be able to clear dps checks by themselves). If an identified dps refuses to accept advice to the point where it makes things difficult for others or the dps points fingers at other players? My opinion is that dps needs to be kicked. If you're concerned about how the kicked player will improve, sometimes the road to improvement starts with realizing that you're wrong.

A hundred million times, THIS...

I'm not sure where this gentle pat on the head for DPS players is coming from.

It's basically like saying, "Oh, I'm sure every DPS is trying their hardest!" when the actual problem is that we simply lack tools to KNOW if this is the case or not.