In-Game Parser.

[Lycelle]

DPS checks are like tug of war.

8 People against 1 big man. If all 8 people are pulling, you can pull that big man into the mud. However that big man is strong and can pull all of you, however if everyone pulls their own weight you can resist the pull and manage to pull back twice as hard. That's what a DPS check is, it's a tug of war between DPS and the boss and if you can't do that as a group, then you're going to fail. A parser is nothing more than a tool to spot a weak chain. You cannot blame a parser for how it is used, simply because it is a in itself a glorified calculator. You can however blame the approach made towards the effort to help someone improve their DPS. It's the attitude that matters when you become the bearer of bad news.

Raid Leader Don: Hey. Great job tonight guys, we're gonna however have to try harder. We keep failing the DPS check. Why is that? Let's take a look at the data here and see what we can find.

The raid leader goes though the parsing information.

Raid Leader Don: Amy. Good job on Monk. You were top DPS! Pulling 430
Amy:
Raider Leader Don: Anthony, excellent job on Summoner. Pulling in at 398
Anthony: Hell yeah!
Raid Leader Don: Jackson. You were a bit low tonight, but you still did good as Bard tonight, that song really helped us though,336. Could do for improvement but still good job.
Jackson: Alright. I'll have to work on my rotation and dodging mechanics. I did die so that's my fault, but I can fix it.
Raid Leader Don: Maggie...honey. You were the lowest DPS tonight. What do you think you're doing wrong in your rotation? Your Dragoon did so well last raid, but right now your only clocking in at 297.
Maggie: I'm not sure. I think when Blood for Blood is up and I died, I lost DPS that much is for sure. But I think my rotational is off during some of the mechanics so I lost DPS as well. Sorry I'll work with Jackson next week and we can practice. That sound cool Jackson?
Jackson: Sure. Sounds good to me.
Raid Leader Don: Awesome! Good job tonight guys, let's shoot for improvement next week. Try to cap your Tomes and get a piece in if you can, that'll help too.

This is the kind of motivation a parser can bring if used correctly. There are a number of reasons "why" DPS numbers CAN be low and hold a group back, but that is where a parser is used. It is used to figure out what is going wrong, whether it be mechanics, rotation issues or gear not being up to par in terms of BiS. All it does is take what is already there in the Battle Log and cuts out all the fluff and gives the raw numbers. So if you want to really be technical, the game "has" a built in parser called your Battle Log. You can sift through it, pull out all the numbers and crunch them. Sure it will take you awhile, but it's the same thing as using a parser, except the Battle Log tells you everything that happens, and a parser just simplifies it for you to read. Nothing more nothing less.

[Gardes]

Long post

Parser isn't just for dps. It can also be used to analyze boss moves, tanks and healers too. I think I made a post listing various example somewhere in this forum. Let me check...

Here:

You can check almost anything. Our OT was having trouble taking the adds in phase 3 of t9 and we weren't sure why. He just keeps failing at it and someone else looked around in the parser and turns out he's missing quite a bit. We just assumed that everyone would already know what their accuracy needed to be at but apparently he didn't. Oh hey, guess how we know our acc limits? Some early birds tested them for us! We're now farming t9 with the same method and having no problems with adds.

Another example, turn 9's phase 4 where the boss starts using a multi-hit move that can do a total damage of more than the tank's hp. As the tank I died to it and people start wondering if my mitigation was late or in the wrong order and whether I should switch them around because the attack alternates in damage strength against me. I was sure that I did it perfectly and I didn't get myself killed. Someone else looked around in the parser again and I was right because the damage I'm taking from claws was minimal from all of them and it couldn't have killed me. After an even closer look, it was found out that I got killed by someone's thunder debuff and I didn't need to change my play style.

Another example! Back in turn 8 before echo, we were reforming the group and got a new healer who has never done the turn. I personally recruited him because I used to do the 1st binding coil of bahamut as a static with him and thought he was good. We were having trouble keeping the tank alive (wasn't me at the time) and people started looking at this new whm and he was getting exasperated because he was trying to do his best and our sch started getting sarcastic with him. So again, someone else looked at the numbers and he started noticing that the sch's healing numbers are suspiciously low considering he is much better geared than whm (half when he has i110 book and the whm has i90 zenith). We didn't tell this to any of the healers because we weren't sure if this is normal. Shortly after the sch left due to irl schedules (for real) and we tried another sch and we suddenly don't have anymore problems and we looked at the numbers again. The new sch is also better geared and more experienced at turn 8 and his healing numbers are higher by a little bit than the whm so we now know it was the previous sch slacking and blaming the other healer. But I suppose that's water under the bridge but at least we found out why.

[Havenchild]

snip

You have come full circle to the many benefits of having a parser. This is actually what it tends to be used for more often contrary to popular belief. Not only that, its VERY easy to single out WHERE players lose DPS like on what phase, and having this information allows players to adjust rotations or cooldown usage in prior phases.

Many who are against parsers, so far I have noticed in this thread, do not actually raid on current content (go figure). Why is this relevant though?

I feel there is a lack of understanding of what a DPS check really is to these people. None of the current EX Primals(Odin included) are valuable in this DPS environment as most that have enrage timers, are easily downed before them unless massive amounts of death come into play. Then you see something like Odin which seems different from most fights, which seems intense (even though his "DPS" check really occurs at the 15% rush, easily completed by holding buffs till then.)

Now imagine if you had a DPS check for the entire encounter that was actually rather strict, then mini DPS checks in-between certain phases (adds for example having to die before the next phase/ or usage of certain skill). Parsers help these moments greatly by seeing this information. We don't necessarily have the time to sift through everything in battle log, pull out a calculator, take some averages and see what were doing, granted most people I've raided with as I'm sure others still actually check battle log when "something" did a lot of damage to them to figure out what it was.

Yes it is possible that all of your DPS know their classes and how to play them very well and still fail a DPS check during a particular add phase mid encounter simply because they haven't adjusted their overall rotation to the encounter to better arm themselves for that particular phase. You may then say, "yeah but its obvious if you need more damage on add phase, save cooldowns for the add phase!!! Eureka!", yeah but are you forgetting the overall enrage thats still strict for the entire encounter? I may save buffs in the previous phase to go ham on the adds phase but is that helping us beat the overall enrage encounter? What if im sacrificing too much in the beginning, to burn down those adds and thus my beginning DPS is not very high? This is where parsers come in to better illuminate the entire picture. It can with frequency show you how much sacrifice is enough to do both.

[Massterchef]

stuff

Kudos, you've finally seen the light.