Parsing unfair but okay?

[Rolder50]

This is in addition to frequent communication, and planning with the team that I run with. We break down each others good points and weaknesses and provide feedback to each other, using various end game content as our active yard stick and the speed with which we tackle it.

An example I can use is Hades Ex, and the frequent checks the fight involves. If we as a group are able to burst him down to 3% hp in 1st phase in relatively short order without any echo or other benefits, we know our checks are on point, as is our rotations. We also communicate damage windows, etc to help. Eventually, you run with the same people enough, it kind of becomes second nature.

I see one major flaw with this method. How can you use this to improve your own personal performance? Hitting different HP thresholds can be a result of so many different factors, I'd call it near impossible to track on a pull by pull basis. Maybe one of the DPS got a bunch of lucky crits? Maybe another messed up their rotation causing you to be slow? Maybe someone stood in a circle so healers are doing less DPS because they need to heal or rez? Whereas with a parse you can see clear as day "I did X damage" and not only that, there's another tool that will further analyze it and tell you "You could've used this skill 6 times but only used it 5" or "You clipped your GCD here, here, and here"

I feel the only way to get as much information without a parse would be to record every fight, and review them personally on a second by second basis. Which monumentally more work then just looking at the numbers + above tool.

[EaMett]

I see one major flaw with this method. How can you use this to improve your own personal performance? Hitting different HP thresholds can be a result of so many different factors, I'd call it near impossible to track on a pull by pull basis. Maybe one of the DPS got a bunch of lucky crits? Maybe another messed up their rotation causing you to be slow? Maybe someone stood in a circle so healers are doing less DPS because they need to heal or rez? Whereas with a parse you can see clear as day "I did X damage" and not only that, there's another tool that will further analyze it and tell you "You could've used this skill 6 times but only used it 5" or "You clipped your GCD here, here, and here"

I feel the only way to get as much information without a parse would be to record every fight, and review them personally on a second by second basis. Which monumentally more work then just looking at the numbers + above tool.

I ultimately don't see much difference between collecting data in game (UI) and collecting data in game logs (short of precision like you mentioned). You're still collecting data and making decisions based on it. Trading "the group is doing x dps" with "the boss is at 90% 1mn in" still allows you to discriminate all the same. Only the semantics change. So you might as well use the more precise option.

Not only that but I'm willing to bet that players like this that don't use log tools like parsers or just excel sheets, still benefit from them immensely. A lot of people take their rotation or their substats (gear/materia/food/pots) for granted when it's said tools that allowed us to even know what to use. Imagine all the tenacity tanks we'd have.