Stop pretending that stone, sea, sky is good practice.

[Ronduwil]

Congrats, you watched a youtube video at 2x speed to figure out your class rotation and now you're memorizing the wrong buttons to press. On a stationary dummy. Please tell me more about how you're comfortable doing that while moving for mechanics, while swiftcasting, while staying max melee if need be, adjusting for forced downtime, grouping up with partners (or spreading!), and delaying raidwide buffs.

Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is just the first step. The school board has never considered eliminating addition and subtraction from the curriculum just because it's not enough in and of itself to calculate an integral. They've never decided to ditch reciting the ABCs just because the alphabet song by itself doesn't help you appreciate Shakespeare. But here you are deciding that target dummy practice is worthless because it doesn't teach players about raid mechanics. While I agree that we could stand to have an advanced Stone, Sea, Sky that teaches players about common raid mechanics like gazes, ladder puzzles, etc., I don't think that getting rid of the current basic one is necessary. Learning the basics is better than not learning anything at all.

[Jettinson]

Don't let OP find out about target practice FPS , training mode in fighting games etc

[Packetdancer]

The point of SSS is not: If you can beat the dummy, you can beat a fight.

It is: If you cannot beat the dummy, you cannot contribute fair DPS to clearing the fight.

Because even without all of the stressors of an actual fight, you can't put out enough distraction-free DPS to kill a stationary dummy. In this way, it is good practice and very accurate at demonstrating when someone is definitely not ready to attempt a particular fight.

This.

As I've said before, it's the rare test that cannot tell you whether or not you'll succeed -- it can just tell you whether or not you're guaranteed to fail.

If you can beat SSS, it doesn't mean you're ready for savage. But if you can't beat SSS, it means you aren't ready.

[FoxyAreku]

It's good for what it is. There's never going to be better practice than just doing the dang fight, though.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Sadly, that's asking a lot.

*Record scratch*

Bruh.

[EaMett]

My healer rotation: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 I got this guys.

[Sicno]

SSS is A tool which you CAN use for some improvement. It all depends on how you use it. Sure, in the real fight you'll have to do mechanics, you'll have to adapt your rotation, but for that to occur you need to have some idea of what's your optimal rotation first. What are you going to adapt if you don't have a base to adapt in the first place? Trying different things, seeing what works and what doesn't and then practicing it until it becomes second nature is a very good starting point.

Think of this like the equivalent of going into training mode in a fighting game. Even though the nature of fighting games is to have real time matches pitting players against each other with nothing scripted a good player will do a lot of lab work, outside of matches. Practicing their combos until they can perform them without dropping them, or trying to find solutions to particular situations. They'll try mixup setups, maximize the damage they can output from punishing a certain attack, optimize combos against a certain character, etc. Of course being able to perform a combo against a stationary dummy isn't indicative of how they'll do in a real match because there's other skills involved (reflexes, making decisions, etc.), but that's still ONE of many important steps to take.

Practicing your rotation until you can perform it without looking at your hotbars will allow you to focus more on the mechanics and the arena. The adaptation of the rotation will soon follow. Also, be a little more creative and use this tool in a way that can be useful: if you know parts of the fight are separated by downtime you can practice them individually, setting yourself a time limit and seeing how much hp you have left on the dummy. And you don't need to practice only openers. You can choose to not use certain abilities that you know you won't have available for the part of the fight you're practicing and see how much dps you can squeeze with whatever else you do have.

[kaynide]

This is like saying a driving course is useless because it doesn't match real world road conditions.

What's the problem with trying to mostly get your rotation muscle memory done so you can focus on the actual fight mechanics? Would you rather be frustrated at the new level boosted white mage who decided to learn how to be a White Mage in some random level 70 dungeon, or allow them an opportunity to work out how their job works in a controlled safe space?

[Colt47]

*Walks into thread*

"Stone Sea and Sky is not good practice!"

*Goes into PF for p3s for new pug group* "Okay, everyone watched the video? Here is the diagram for how we handle the fires..."

*dies on very first attempt at dark fire because of confusion on numbers* "Hey did you look at the chart?" "Yes"

*dies on the second attempt to dark fire due to not attacking the dark fire right away* "You need to attack the dark fire on your left!" "okay."

*dies on the third attempt to dark fire due to still getting used to the positioning, but does slightly better* "What is the matter with you? Didn't you watch the video? Attack the dark fire!"

Me: "I'm brand new to the fight and I'm getting used to the pacing. I didn't attack the dark fire because I'm working out a way to make sure I hit the right spot for the numbers."

*fourth attempt makes it past dark fire.*

Just wanted to point out this experience on PF. We don't have issues with stone sea and sky. The problem is that people are asking others to look at videos, expect the execution to be perfect on the first few runs for people who are 100% new to the fight, and the reality is everyone needs time to sort out the mechanics even with a video. Information overload is a big issue with both statics and those first runs of a fight, and sometimes it turns into a cacophony of voices all trying to explain things when the best way is to just do the fight and see the mechanics. Only then is the video going to start making some sense.

And stone sea and sky is very important for practice. DPS is a serious problem right now for a lot of people starting the tier, and while lots of people are looking at the current state of dps, just about any job within it's role should perform good enough to succeed now after 6.08. There probably needs to be more work on the ranged dps because I still feel they are underpowered compared to what they should be (utility does not trump raw damage given the game we are in), but otherwise, things are okay.

[Floortank]

Sorry it's elitist to expect my teammates to have more than one brain cell active during fights?

Glass houses.

Your OP makes it obvious that you don't understand the purpose of SSS because you appear to be unaware of its actual use and are critiquing its misuse.

IE, you are unable to tell "using it wrong" apart from proper usage, and thus you're getting dragged.