Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
The "elitists" you're talking about are also aware of how much impact different factors have and how long they take to correct. Your jumping off cliffs, wearing last expansions' gear, and breaking your own combos will come well before any discussion of talents.

And it's not the actual number crunchers who tend to enforce meta comps, probably because they look less at the classes and more at... the number. They don't need to oversimplify situations in the absence of numeric values; they have the values, and often enjoy the testing and experimentation that surrounds those numbers as produced by new ideas.
Number crunchers were the first to add BLM back in alongside SMN and make use of all-physical Monk parties despite the NIN/DRG/MCH/BRD meta, because when one actually paid attention to what they're doing the numbers were just as high (and eventually just barely eclipsed double-Ranged).

Who did insist on meta comps? (1) People who couldn't clear without every advantage of ease of damage, (2) people who obsessed over their pDPS numbers but had no idea what tDPS was, and (3) farm parties for whom conventional setups could at least also suggest conventional knowledge, a sort of tangential proof for you knowing what you're doing.
None of those communities were the direct result of actual number crunching.
Given how ingrained "Know the fight" is to the game that even trying to find a good learning party is at times a slog outside of an FC(seriously who puts Duty Complete and then puts down "Learning Party" in the description?), that's a subject I didn't think to actually address. It's just assumed these days. Much like Talents are going to be assumed. The community will assume talent line up X even if you find something more fun.

I don't blame the people that full on experiment, number crunch, and keep actively trying to find that 5% extra damage or 30 second faster clear time. They have the numbers in front of them and they hopefully also have the skill to back up taking what might be a crazy risk. That's fun and interesting. Not for me but if they find it fun, go for it.

It's the people that take that data and run with it as the gospel one truth that I have a problem with. The "Copy Crunchers" as it were, those that readily accept the data and choose not to find a different way. It might not be the top player's or number crunchers FAULT but that's still going to just happen. Play the 'correct way' or be kicked. The info the crunchers put out is going to be picked up by the playerbase. It's what happened with STR accessories in Heavensward.

Talents will just be another 'solved' issue and you'll be expected follow it by the community. Heck I already can see some fights where failing the DPS check even on normal is going to have people chime in with "We failed the check, who's talents are wrong?".

I still see no reason as to why Talents will fix everything when the community is just going to accept talent set up X and everyone is expected to run it or be bad.