So, can we just ban damage meters already.

[Ronduwil]

The thing is, parsers are usually only used in Savage/Ultimate and Savage/Ultimate is designed around maxing DPS. It's still a bit of hypocritical of SE to design content around it but not giving the players the tools to measure it. And as common as enrage-wipes are in this meta (still trying to finally beat E2Ss enrage myself..), I also laugh in the face of everyone telling "Healers don't need to DPS" or "Tank DPS is not that important".

Agreed. It's bad design. Enrage mechanics are lazy design, IMO. I prefer fights with flexible mechanics than can be mitigated in various ways. One such mechanic, for example, is a party-wide DoT that increases over time. You can either beat that by maximizing DPS or by optimizing heals. An effective mechanic I remember from WoW is an AoE attack whose damage was spread among everyone in a specific area. The idea was to assign players to zones so you'd always have a decent amount of players to soak the attack. Again, you can beat that by reducing the number of such attacks, you can beat it by being efficient with your zones, and you could beat it by having a tank solo-soak it with cool downs. I think that's far more exciting and just as challenging as a simple enrage.

[Ronduwil]

Also, leave WoW out of this, because this is FFXIV. Not WoW.

Agreed that this is FFXIV, but many of us with objections to openly allowing parsers have those objections because of our WoW experience. I have yet to encounter any toxic behavior in the duty finder, and I'm inclined to credit the lack of parsers as well as diligent moderation for this. I don't know what else could account for it. You're arguing that parsers make everything better, but those of us who come from WoW know for a fact that the opposite is the case. It's silly to disregard experience from a different MMO for the same feature just because it was a different MMO.

The current don't-ask-don't-tell policy is optimal. Those who want to use parsers properly to improve their own performance can do so. Those who want to misuse parsers to belittle other players are prevented from doing so. Don't fix what's not broken.

[Miles064]

Agreed that this is FFXIV, but many of us with objections to openly allowing parsers have those objections because of our WoW experience. I have yet to encounter any toxic behavior in the duty finder, and I'm inclined to credit the lack of parsers as well as diligent moderation for this. I don't know what else could account for it. You're arguing that parsers make everything better, but those of us who come from WoW know for a fact that the opposite is the case. It's silly to disregard experience from a different MMO for the same feature just because it was a different MMO.

The current don't-ask-don't-tell policy is optimal. Those who want to use parsers properly to improve their own performance can do so. Those who want to misuse parsers to belittle other players are prevented from doing so. Don't fix what's not broken.

I started WoW right before Cata and I played on and off til BFA. The only times people got called out by parsers that I can remember were when it was really bad. Not low(people understood while lvling/gearing up some classes scaled differently) but legit "what are you even doing?" bad. That "what are you even doing?" bad was somewhat rare in WoW but is all over the place in FF14. I cringe whenever i see a NIN in my party now, not because NIN is weak(I'm told they can use some help? haven't leveled it yet) but because they are pretty much always trash. No aoe, rarely use muradas, spam throwing knife, just auto attacking for 4-5 seconds at a time levels of trash. And these are all level 71+.

With public parsers these players would have real numbers showing just how bad they are playing. From there they can improve or the party can get rid of them. Because of this I'd argue parsers should be used from the moment you can go into your first dungeon to allow you to see with numbers how you are doing and how that changes for you and other players/classes as you gain levels and gear. It would give the player base a roadmap of how they should be scaling and the value of each new skill they gain.

[Granyala]

Agreed. It's bad design. Enrage mechanics are lazy design, IMO.

I don't think they are. You have to push DPS players somehow.
Would prefer the enrages not to be THAT strict and also I'd prefer soft enrages (adds overwhelm the raid, stacking debuffs, gradual speed up on mechanics etc) to "lul was just kidding until now, fun's over" instagib abilities.

[galbsadi]

I don’t disagree with you about the state of tanks. However, I am concerned that there are many tanks putting an over-emphasis on damage. I’ve been in dungeons as a healer and there are many bad tanks who simply aren’t using their defensive CDS, they focus on their DPS and expect me, the healer, to just help keep them alive, so I spend my whole time spamming heals to keep them alive (cause they also don’t want to adjust for mechanics), and somehow as the healer, I am also supposed to have high DPS?

This sounds much more like a bad tank rather than a parsing issue.

I mean, I maybe slightly off, b/c I've only leveled one tank to 80 (the others are all 75-76)...but for the most part most of the damage abilities on a tank are GCD, and all of the cooldowns are oGCD...so there's literally nothing stopping a tank looking to maximize DPS from using cooldowns.

In fact, in the case of Warrior at least one CD (Vengeance) would increase your DPS if used accordingly, so a WAR focusing on DPS would want to further ensure they were using their CDs.

The more likely scenario you're looking at here is a case of new (or newer) tanks that simply haven't learned about proper CD usage, be it due to thinking of CDs as something to use in emergencies rather than proactively (which is wrong, BTW, buttons are made to be pressed...even the invulns [yes, even Bolide])...or be it to simply not realizing how impactful those abilities can be.

I tend to come across 3 types of CD usage from tanks:

Tank A doesn't use CDs pretty much ever...and I, as the healer, am cursing them under my breath the entire run...but I don't believe this is a 'because of parsers' issue...they just don't use their CDs.

Tank B is almost as bad as Tank A. They use their CDs, but it's all or nothing. No CD, no CD, ALL THE CDs, no CD. It's great for the 20s where CDs are up, but sucks for the other 70 you're left waiting.

Tank C...is my favorite type of tank. They know how to rotate their CDs, and they're also the tank I try to be when tanking myself (and comments and commends received while tanking would imply I do at least an 'okay' job at striving for such).

Note that none of these have anything to do with parsing or not parsing, either.

Here's where parsing does start to matter, if one cares:

If I cared about parsing first and foremost, I might want certain players in my group to boost my personal DPS outlook. No more WHM, give me SCH/AST instead (and have them buff me and only me). Also, that DNC better use CP on me, etc. That's caring about parses for the sake of parsing...not whether I do or don't use CDs.

If I cared about parsing first and foremost, I would never run with DF groups (or probably even PF groups). I can't guarantee I wouldn't get bad players that way, and bad players can screw up my parse.

If I cared about parsing first and foremost, I probably wouldn't enjoy the game as much as I do, because I'd be too focused on numbers (like a certain former member of my static who quit leading and tanking so he could focus on MNK dps :P) to the extent of missing the enjoyment of playing with like-minded people.

Part of this might be that I don't tend to parse too terribly once I've gotten a fight down...but I've almost never seen someone complain about my DPS numbers even if I knew for a fact that they were parsing....and that's here or in WoW. (Exceptions exist, ofc, but those are typically people I don't want to play with anyhow.)

[Enla]

I think Construct 7 is a perfect example of the necessity of enrage mechanics. That fight can take upwards of twenty minutes of pure torture if people aren't actually paying attention. I still remember when that raid first dropped and almost every run was like that - just one arduous grind where bad players got the carry while every rez-capable role was working their tail off to get people up. It's easier /now/ but christ on a crack an enrage timer would have made that fight so much more manageable. An enrage timer isn't just punishment for bad DPS. It's a chance to stop, reset, and think over what's going wrong in a fight.

[HyoMinPark]

Agreed that this is FFXIV, but many of us with objections to openly allowing parsers have those objections because of our WoW experience. I have yet to encounter any toxic behavior in the duty finder, and I'm inclined to credit the lack of parsers as well as diligent moderation for this. I don't know what else could account for it. You're arguing that parsers make everything better, but those of us who come from WoW know for a fact that the opposite is the case. It's silly to disregard experience from a different MMO for the same feature just because it was a different MMO.

The current don't-ask-don't-tell policy is optimal. Those who want to use parsers properly to improve their own performance can do so. Those who want to misuse parsers to belittle other players are prevented from doing so. Don't fix what's not broken.

My argument here is actually that you can't blame everything on parsers. Learning is insistent that parsers and obsessions over damage are why tanks won't use defensive cooldowns. I'm asking for proof of this statement, because I think the two are unrelated. They keep bringing up unrelated statements about healer DPS, content creators, and WoW instead of answering my question.

I think parsers are wonderful tools. But that's not what I'm arguing with them at all. If you think that, you haven't read what I'm actually saying.

[Andevom]

I think Construct 7 is a perfect example of the necessity of enrage mechanics. That fight can take upwards of twenty minutes of pure torture if people aren't actually paying attention. I still remember when that raid first dropped and almost every run was like that - just one arduous grind where bad players got the carry while every rez-capable role was working their tail off to get people up. It's easier /now/ but christ on a crack an enrage timer would have made that fight so much more manageable. An enrage timer isn't just punishment for bad DPS. It's a chance to stop, reset, and think over what's going wrong in a fight.

I disagree in that scenario. Enrage timer on that would've been frustrating. Think of how it'd be if you're three fights into your raid, and your group just can't get it done before enrage. Would you really want to drop and go through it all again? You've got 23 other players to worry about there, it's a totally different beast from 8 player content.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I disagree in that scenario. Enrage timer on that would've been frustrating. Think of how it'd be if you're three fights into your raid, and your group just can't get it done before enrage. Would you really want to drop and go through it all again? You've got 23 other players to worry about there, it's a totally different beast from 8 player content.

Well, if those 23 other people were forced to actually look up guides and get better the playerbase as a whole would benefit.

[HyoMinPark]

I disagree in that scenario. Enrage timer on that would've been frustrating. Think of how it'd be if you're three fights into your raid, and your group just can't get it done before enrage. Would you really want to drop and go through it all again? You've got 23 other players to worry about there, it's a totally different beast from 8 player content.

On the other hand, it's equally frustrating to be one of those 24 stuck in a 20-minute war of attrition because people aren't punished for repeated deaths and mechanical failures.