Quote Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim View Post
A DPS parser is fetching your chat log in raw data and compiling it in an excel sheet, just in real time. We could theoretically do this without parsers, it is just massively tedious.

Is quantified damage data toxic? I better hope not.

The problem isn't parsing per se, but the fact that we are treating parsing and damage info with such malice. The knowledge of how to properly analyse combat data is being pushed in obscurity in fear of public backlash and catching the ire of the FFXIV TOS - and because of this knowledge becoming obscure, what remains is people misunderstanding the data and proceeding to misuse it, intentionally or not.

Citing a friend who has raided cutting edge in WoW a long while ago, his raid group had dedicated logs analysts and if someone who was not part of the analysts decided to give his uneducated input to literally judge anyone, they got permanently benched - they were both wrong and out of place.

Once again - parsing isn't the issue, but the lack of knowledge of how to apply parsing correctly is, thanks to being pushed into obscurity, basically the equivalent to the Dark Age messing with technological advancement.
Again, I don't mind parsing, but I simply think what we have now is perfectly fine. If you wanna know your numbers run the parsing program, but its basically keep it to yourself or risk a ban. I've seen first hand how bad a completely open parsing tool is to a community in WoW. Its not good and I'm completely against having one built into the game and agree with Yoshi-P that it would lead to an extreme level of bullying/toxicity. It sucks for console players who can't gain easy access to their numbers, but at the same time this game really truly doesn't need a parser, especially if you're not doing end game...and even then, meh its not really needed. Its a nice to have kind of thing, but its not necessary like in WoW where the meta in M+ has basically been built around it. I did savage for years without ever using one and just relied on log uploads from static members that would upload them.