Quote Originally Posted by Kaethra View Post
I'm starting to think there is multiple definitions of Parsers within the community. Would you be more specific which ones you are talking about? When I think of Parsers, I'm thinking of a program that goes through the log files, parses them, and then gives you the results.
While I don't believe parsers are the devil that gameplay purists want you to believe they are, it should be noted that parsers for FFXIV access read-only clientside data that is invisible to the user in order to produce more accurate numbers, due to the difficulty in using raw text logs to calculate things like damage from DOT abilities is in this game. For a long time, SMN was actually considered 'underpowered' or at least in a mystery area damage-wise due to this limitation.

YMMV on whether this is appropriate or ethical behavior, but we have been told that a modding API would allow players to access clientside data like this.