While I think both sides of the parser debate have pretty solid arguments I think the core of it boils down to two main points, which I think my solution addresses.
1. People who genuinely want to get better at their rotations and would like some kind of feedback mechanism to help in an environment that doesn’t have people berating them while they learn.
2. People who want to tackle difficult content or pug faster runs of normal content who want a similar mechanism to lend validity to claims of skill from would-be party members.
My proposal is an in-game ranking system using a “proving grounds” environment that keeps the numbers hidden from view and is based on the numbers the devs are building the end-game raid encounters around. There is a similar system about to be introduced to teach beginners and could be expanded to include this solution, which I think makes it more viable as well.
So to illustrate how this works imagine the following:
You que for the dps “Proving Grounds” where you are met with a raid boss, tank, and healer. The npc tank will auto generate an appropriate level of threat, the healer will heal for an appropriate amount (as determined by dev testing for raid level encounters) and your job is to kill the boss while dealing with raid style mechanics (maybe simplified a bit, but should at least create some movement, etc.), within a given window. Your performance would then be ranked from F – SS where A would be adequate dps for the first 2 bosses of a raid, S would be adequate for any raid and SS would be reserved for players pushing the absolute upper limits of what the devs expected for that test, and showing mastery of their rotations.
The encounter would be designed to last 5ish minutes based on your classes expected dps, and would adjust health based on new dps expectations as more gear became available. I would also like to see your gear be set to an average ilvl for the duration of the encounter so that everything could be assumed even, leaving the skill of the player as the only real variable. Potentially having a random order to some parts to make sure the player can think on their feet as well. I think you get the basic idea. make the encounter fair for everyone in terms of gear etc, but make sure its challenging enough to give a decent representation of the skill of the player.
This would obviously not satisfy everyone but should address the concerns of the bulk of players. The absolute extreme of the min-maxing would still congregate together and use their parsers as they are now but, I think this type of system where the numbers are less important is key for the larger base because the devs know what the theoretical max for a class is, and your performance should be measured in a way that is a reflection of your mastery of the class and not your classes relative power level.
This idea still would need a solid amount of fleshing out, but so many of the pieces already seem to be there that I don’t think it would be unreasonable to see implemented.