Merged parse vs. what alternative?

[Allyrion]

Except every game parses you while you're in combat, even during downtime. It's the only way to normalize the encounter for the entire player base.

"dps is lower than it should be"? Compared to what? I want to see how I do compared to others regardless of what happens in the fight. Parsing phases is stupid, because you can't compare. You don't know who used what cooldown when and whether it pays off over the entire fight. Parsing the entire fight in one go also gives you a baseline for yourself to beat in future runs with no variation.

Nobody serious about raiding takes merged parses seriously. It's pointless other than wanting to see bigger numbers for your e-peen.

I don't think you understood what I meant.
Parsers can account for the whole of an encounter and have uptime cutoffs while not being merged.
Once you're in-combat, the parse starts and only ends till you get out of combat. Nothing is lost.
DPS gets measured during uptime. You see the damage people do while they're fighting.
That doesn't mean that everything else isn't still recorded during the downtime.

E-peen really has little to do with it because the damage is relative.
In those parses, everyone's numbers are higher and that's the standard. Even if it was like that here, it's not like people will feel better about the numbers because everyone will have those.
All it would do is distinguish damage contribution over the course of the fight and the DPS people sustain during uptime. That's it.

Like I said, I use extended parse timers cause if you merge then you lose data.
It wouldn't have to be like that if every parse started recording once you're in combat and ended once out of combat. The cut-offs are simply built-in for the dps counter itself but all the data is recorded and damage gives you an accurate assessment of your contribution overall.
Also, just to be clear, everyone's data has their cut-off individually to their own attacks so there's no disparity. After 5-6 seconds of a person not attacking, their dps stops being affected but everyone else who's attacking is.
It's just a distinction (damage per second when attacking vs damage overall in the fight) that I've found helpful in guilds before.
Again, everything is recorded. I didn't say otherwise, just said downtime doesn't need to affect dps.

You will still have a baseline dps and no data is lost, including cooldown usage.
Since you said that in retort, I don't think you understood.

In fact, you have a much better baseline across different fights since phases affect the dps number itself.
There's less if a disparity between fights, where each one needs a new standard due to different amounts of downtime.
That's one of the better things about that system.