[Feedback] We need a solution to help players improve... Simple Idea.

[Kosmos992k]

I think this is a poor idea. I'm not talking about whether or not there is a personal parser in the game, or even a optional group parser, I'm talking about the leaderboards, rankings and rewards. This is a cooperative game, not a competitive game. If you start injecting more competition into the game, people will cease cooperating, and start playing the blame game when their numbers are somehow held back by others.

The last thing we need in FFXIV is anything that makes the game itself a competitive environment. In my opinion (and experience) team members who compete with each other, do not cooperate effectively. Because doing so harms their personal ability to compete against the very same people they should cooperate with.

[MihaelB]

I think this is a poor idea. I'm not talking about whether or not there is a personal parser in the game, or even a optional group parser, I'm talking about the leaderboards, rankings and rewards. This is a cooperative game, not a competitive game. If you start injecting more competition into the game, people will cease cooperating, and start playing the blame game when their numbers are somehow held back by others.

The last thing we need in FFXIV is anything that makes the game itself a competitive environment. In my opinion (and experience) team members who compete with each other, do not cooperate effectively. Because doing so harms their personal ability to compete against the very same people they should cooperate with.

The same thing could be said with a non-competitive environment because there is no purpose for competition, no standard of game play is held and co-operation isn't even a necessity at this point.

Most fights are a tank n spank with whoever wants to use their optimal rotation to heal/tank/DPS whilst carrying their team members who don't.

Co-operation between members to achieve something more than the standard is far more worthwhile than co-operation than to just clear the benchmark in my opinion.

[Kosmos992k]

The same thing could be said with a non-competitive environment because there is no purpose for competition, no standard of game play is held and co-operation isn't even a necessity at this point.

Most fights are a tank n spank with whoever wants to use their optimal rotation to heal/tank/DPS whilst carrying their team members who don't.

Co-operation between members to achieve something more than the standard is far more worthwhile than co-operation than to just clear the benchmark in my opinion.

I believe that your perception of the need for cooperation is skewed by the current situation where all content, except the end-game savage raid and EX content, is overgeared by players who therefore no longer need to work together. Competition between team members hurts cooperation and this is a game based on cooperative play.

[Azazua_azura]

I think this is a poor idea. I'm not talking about whether or not there is a personal parser in the game, or even a optional group parser, I'm talking about the leaderboards, rankings and rewards. This is a cooperative game, not a competitive game. If you start injecting more competition into the game, people will cease cooperating, and start playing the blame game when their numbers are somehow held back by others.

The last thing we need in FFXIV is anything that makes the game itself a competitive environment. In my opinion (and experience) team members who compete with each other, do not cooperate effectively. Because doing so harms their personal ability to compete against the very same people they should cooperate with.

This pretty much,

you guys don't seem to know what other people saying. This idea is no different then every other meter topics, and no offence meters DO NOT HELP being a skilled player means YOU WORK AS A TEAM. i NEVER see people debufing a set of mobs ita rare to see lancers use their slow skill. which does help. its rare to see ppl actually work together, instead you see dps e-peen contests and people witch hunting who they carried. High numbers =/= skill.

[Phoenicia]

its rare to see ppl actually work together, instead you see dps e-peen contests and people witch hunting who they carried. High numbers =/= skill.

While you do have a valid point in numbers =/= skill. I'm not pointing at you in person or anyone here either, but still, every time I see someone opposing performance indicators (Mainly meters, but also rankings? Come on!), I read an underlying: "I'm bad at the game, and I refuse to improve myself even if it's obvious to others that they can point out that I'm bad".

I am not exactly a supporter of parsers. Nor am I a nay-sayer of parses. Yes I do parse, but I forget to turn it on most of the days unless it's a raid day. And when I do, I only look at my personal numbers and where do I fall among the others. Or in the case of raids, I look at where our raid DPS is. Rarely would I look at others' numbers in specific unless it's "eye-catching" (i.e. 1600+ single target bard or sub 350 dragoon) and even then rarely would I point that out unless it's someone I know and run often with... Usually for advice I could benefit from. The good bard will probably know he's good, so I don't need to compliment him. And the 350 DRG is probably AFK and not reading the chat log anyways. So why bother?

I agree with you, mentoring and community networking would be GREAT! Specially when Square-enix succeeded in this before. Remember in FFXI where mentoring was awesome? Also remember parties in Valkurm Dunes and Yuhtunga Jungle actually taking the time to help you learn (not gonna use "teach you") how to play your job? Yes, VD was NOTORIOUS for its "noobs". But that never stopped us from going through it and learning job basics in there. But the problem isn't SE.. It is the consumer (player in this case). Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of nice players that didn't mind showing me the right steps (even though I'd like to consider myself a decent player that spends time reading the tooltips, experimenting and then checking guides. Heck! The striking dummy probably has my name on it because of how many hours I spend beating on it with every job I have).

But the real problem is not that people aren't willing to help. It is that EVERY TIME someone actually helps, they get shut out, called elitists for it. Just like how I posted on the other thread in these forums, every time I try to "mentor", and I like to think of myself as a nice person who tries to be VERY nice and subtle at giving advice, I get shut out. I once told a BLM it is better to use Fire 1 instead of Fire 2 when fighting 2 targets because you end up casting 2 more Fires, spending more time in AF3, having higher chances of getting procs and resulting in more overall encounter DPS. His reply? "You're not my real dad! You don't tell me how to live my life!" and to "Stuff myself". Another case I told a tank to move back right after the AoE marker disappears and the mob/boss is locked in animation so that the mobs don't spin around, I got told that he needs to dodge AoEs (as if I asked him to get hit) and that I seemed to have no idea how to tank... Which is hilarious considering beating every encounter in 2.xx before overgearing or it getting nerfed. My reaction? "Lol!" and let it slide. Then I come to the forums and see these very same people complaining on the forums why everyone is such an elitist jerk.

Warning: This post will probably get a wee bit technical.... Also kinda ranty lol.

You see, the thing is, a bad tank is obvious, he loses aggro and/or dies to busters. A bad healer is also obvious, he lets people die after extended time of no healing even though they were low health, or the opposite, spamming his biggest heal causing an over 80% over healing. And the in between that can't really stance switch to help with DPS and would just stand there throwing a heal every once in a while.

But DPS? It's harder to see who's under performing. Why? A good tank and healer will probably do their job! If not, the other DPS will carry him. The only way to have an obvious DPS problem is to have BOTH DPS (or all 4 in 8 mans) to underperform and you see that you're not cutting DPS checks or things take years to die.

Another thing, when a DPS fails... it is only the DPS failing, when a tank dies? Things get messy. When a healer dies.... RIP everyone. Heck, when DPS fails, and boss gets angry, healer runs out of MP from a fight that never ended, then tank dies... Said "failing DPS" can get away by pointing at the healer or tank and say "You died!" or "You took too much damage the healer ran out of MP because of it!" ad nauseam. You see, in a team game where EVEN the DPS have a role to fulfill, we need indicators of who's not fulfilling their role! This game has no means of telling us how HALF the party is doing other than "how fast do things die!"

Do not get me wrong, yes, numbers are NOT the only indicative that you are good. Doing 2k DPS for 10 seconds and then face planting the whole rest of the 10 minute fight is not being good. But then again, this very same DPS will drop as the encounter goes on. Since 20,000 damage (in case you missed it: 2000 Damage per second x 10 seconds = 20,000 damage total) over 10 minutes is only 33.3 DPS. Now what do you think of a guy doing 33 DPS over an encounter?

While only numerical values on their own don't mean jack, together with other information is an indicative of a player's skill... or lack of, anyways.

Yes, people don't use debuffs "anymore", true. but there are valid underlying reasons that aren't DPS related: Let's take your lancer example.

1- The skill costs 80TP. When every class runs into TP issues based on encounter, why add an unnecessary strain on your TP?
2- The status effects have diminishing returns. If the slow lasts 15s, the next one will last only 7. The next one will last 3s. So if you apply and reapply, you would have spent 24% of your total TP just to slow ONE enemy for 25s.
3- Slow only affects auto-attacks and some spell casts, the first is considered "fluff" damage. In most cases (even A4S), fluff damage is handled with fairy heals and regen effects. Along with the tank's natural passive mitigation (PLD shield and/or Parry) or HPS (bloodbath/Souleater/Inner beast/Storm Path). Also the tank-damaging "busters" and AoE moves are on a static CDs unaffected by slow effects.
4- Most bosses (anything that is worth slowing really) are immune to the slow effect.
5- There are other jobs that are actually better than DRG/LNC at applying the same effect..... On EVERYTHING, indefinitely without diminishing returns. A.k.a. Shadowflare from the ACN based jobs. You talk about teamwork? Let the job that does something better than you do it.
6- While at it, why not? The skill interrupts combos (DPS loss!), the skill does low damage (DPS loss!!), and running out of TP means you just stand there and look pretty... or ugly, depends on taste really. (*gasp* DPS loss!!). On a job whose main (and only) role is DPS? That's B. A. D. (Specially when DRG had 0 support until Battle Litany came into play).

The VERY same applies to PLD's stun. Except PLD's stun-lock lasts only 10s, costs 36% of your TP instead and costs you WAY more in terms of aggro/DPS from the dropped GCDs and lack of TP 1 whole minute earlier than normal. Not to mention, PLD also happens to be the tank already with the lowest DPS and aggro. But the funny thing is, every other melee (DPS and tanks), 2 of the SMN pets and MCH can stun with a free oGCD ability that is on a relatively short CD (20-ish seconds). So why have the PLD stun if the WAR, DRK, MNK, DRG, NIN, MCH, Ifrit-Egi, and Titan-Egi (but no one should care about Titan egi) can do the same thing for free? And with that many options, what are the odds of NOT having one of those? THIS is also sign of "teamwork" and "good play". Similar to why have a scholar silence with Selene (and her delay) when the BRD, MCH and ninja are MUCH better at silencing with must less animation delay?

But I agree, as a PLD, it is VERY good play to drop your halone combo (or perhaps stop for 1 GCD after a combo) to stun a very dangerous AoE move if no one else can do it. Remember Chimera for a relic reborn?

Again, just because you have an ability, doesn't mean you gotta use it. Just because Summoner can Physic doesn't mean SMN should drop ruins to cast it while SCH is applying DoTs and Shadowflare. The SCH should instead Adlo the tank and then apply DoTs and SF then heal. if MORE healing is required, it doesn't fall down to the SMN dropping ruins, but to the SCH not applying DoTs and do his primary role of healing instead. Again, team play.

However, in the same SCH and SMN example above: tank dies (probably because the SCH forgot he's not the SMN or the tank being bad and not using a CD while not having Grit up and in STR gear), mobs run to the scholar, THEN summoner should drop everything and raise tank and maybe use Eye for an Eye on the SCH (since SCH can't E4E himself) while scholar heals himself so they don't die while the tank gets back up and picks the mob again...... Good team play!

So we go back to what each class does, DPS should do most DPS they can, tanks should generate most aggro they can (usually generating most DPS in the process) and healers should keep everyone alive and DPSing when they don't need to heal helps. And what better than numeric values to show how well each is doing? DPS has to do more damage, in this game, damage is calculated by numbers. Even if it weren't, you will start to say "stuff dies faster", But time is measured by numbers too! But instead of higher number is better in case of DPS, lower number is better in case of kill time.

The problem isn't really the meters, the problem is people stroking e-peens over their personal DPS over team DPS. For example: A double ninja team with 1 ninja using Sneak Attack instead during the Trick Attack of the other ninja to boost his personal DPS over Trick Attacking at the end or after the other Ninja to prolong the vulnerability debuff and increasing EVERYONE's DPS. But that's not the problem of the meters, that's the problem of the community egoes.

If you think DPS meters are bad, you are wrongly blaming the tools. This is very similar to blaming guns (not the gunner) and cars (not drunk drivers) for killing people.

I agree with you, numbers =/= skill. Numbers aren't everything. And "optimal" DPS on a striking dummy is not valid for all fights. Doing 1800 as a BLM in Ravana is viable, especially if you destroy Ravana during the damage up phase and you skip the damage down buff phases (this probably means you're with a party of MAD DPS skills). Also doing 2000+ in A2S as SMN is "good" (some do 2.5k+). But expecting a ninja to do the same DPS as SMN in there is foolishness. Doing 1800 in A4S with current gear is probably not possible. Heck 1350 in there is probably DANG GOOD. I think all the DPS meter naySayers assume that everyone expects them to pull the 1600 dummy parse from them in Titan Ex or Bismarck Ex, fights that are known for their bad down times, when most of the yay-sayers want is an indicative to their performance against most others in the same fight. (Which is what the OP is basically suggesting).

Again, we have far more problems with bad players than not doing passable DPS. We have tanks that forget they are there to tank and pretend to be DPS by dropping Grit/Defiance, refuse to attack the proper kill target order, and then die to the first final sting in the level 35 dungeon Temple of Qarn and then rage quitting on the group. We also have the opposite end of this spectrum that think by flashing, casting stoneskin and surviving damage is all they need to do as tanks. The difference is one is trying too hard to be something he's not.. And the other is trying too hard to be something he should be, but is doing it wrong.

Then we also have that BLM that did a 2500 opener and died after right before he cast his first Blizzard 3 because he was too infatuated with his DPS rather than dodge the attack that killed him or at least use the proper tools the BLM has (Manaward and wall) and then blaming the tank and/or healers for not saving his bum because he can do 2500 DPS for a whole 25 seconds. Then we have the DPS that does sub-600 (which I cannot fathom how they can pull it off without literally going AFK and/or dying) and then tell you they're good just because they survived the encounter and the encounter died (while you did all the work).

In both above examples, the first cases are "probably" encouraged by caring about DPS meters too much, the second however are encourage by NOT caring about the DPS meter at all. By why are we talking ONLY about the extremes? When there is a whole spectrum of in between?

Also, "elitist" and "bad players" have become relative terms. Because there is no "set standard" to performance in this game, almost anyone performing below the average of the people someone knows is considered bad, and anyone playing "better" pointing out your "relative under-performance" is considered an elitist jerk. But let's face it, if I keep a circle of top tier players, I will see that 1400 as a DPS average (which the DPS-headed WAR in my static can do) and see anything below 1200 as "bad". When realistically, only optimized played and geared warriors can reach said numbers.

However, if the game had a ranking system per encounter/dungeon where it shows average numbers (at least data-center wide to accommodate for lag and play times?), we can have a more clear-cut line of where the mean is and where to expect people to be. As I said earlier, it is unrealistic to expect a ninja to do 2500 AoE DPS when AoE DPS is not its aly. This is SPECIALLY good when it's something only YOU can see after said encounter or dungeon is cleared. So even if I parse others to see something the game doesn't intend me to see (like their DPS), knowing the average DPS of a specific class in an encounter will help reduce the prejudice against the player. Since it will be obvious that a certain class can't perform as well as others in said encounters. Again, the SMN example in A2S against every other job really. However, this is not going to help against the class prejudice if a specific class underperforms because of certain mechanics sadly.. *cough*PLD in savage*cough*. But hey! It's a step forward in the right direction.

Also regardless of meters, elitists aren't rampant just because of DPS meters. It really is not hard to see if the other player is underperforming when you see a

• BLM never popping Enochian (or even worse, never casting fire spells!!!!?... Yeah, I had that.. A level 52 BLM even!) Not to mention my favorite, BLMs that cast Freeze and ONLY Freeze in AoE.
• It's not hard to see when a MNK not paying attention to ANY positionals... Or even worse, spamming ONLY Bootshine!
• It is also not hard to not miss the VERY cool and obvious (and no need to mention LOUD sound effect that accompanies the) animation of Blood of the Dragons and a DRG is NOT using it.
• As a healer, it is not hard to see that even though the tank is taking 0 damage the first half of a big pack pull, then he starts getting DESTROYED because he ran out of CDs and you run out of MP heal bombing him while 90% of the pack is still alive! A case where the tank or healer end up blamed (as mentioned earlier in this post).
• As a tank, you can see when you're not doing aggro combos and still see the DPS miles behind you on aggro. Yes, there are aggro dumps and reducing moves, but come on, those have CDs and don't last forever.

Elitists are only "obvious" and obnoxious because the other end of the spectrum is also very "rampant". I speak from experience as someone who does 2 expert roulette runs almost per day, I end up with at least 1 bad DPS each run. I can't speak much for tanks since both runs I run with my pocket tank <3. But I have also seen a good share of terrible healers. I just happen to not point out and just carry them. Specially on Phoenicia (since as a SMN or BLM I can get away with doing over 2k AoE DPS and just think of it as a 2 ninja run lol). But when I'm on my ninja... I feed terrible when I end up with a 350 DPS dragoon.

"Mentoring", and other "social" and network" solutions, are not perfect since not everyone wants to be mentored and not everyone mentoring is good. So what if I get someone that never wanted to be mentored, or was mentored wrong, yet plays like a disabled frog that pressed keys with 1 finger and had a total of 1 and a half brain cell functioning? And when I tell them nicely that option A is better than B in their rotation, I end up called an elitist? Then that very same person coming to the forums ranting a wall of text as big as this one about me being the "elitist" and he never improves because of the like-minded community members support him? Yes, I just suck it up and move on. Which is what we do now.

However, set a SOLID CLEAR-CUT LINE of where the average play should be, and it will be clear to THAT person that they are not doing as well as they think they are. When a dungeon clear time is 10 minutes longer than average while no one had to take a bathroom or any other emergency breaks? We have a problem. When a SMN or BLM doing over 700 DPS less than the average in an AoE encounter? We have a problem. When the tank has 3 deaths more than the average tank death in an encounter? We have problem! Not only that, but this problem CAN be pointed out! And no one passing the blame, wrongly, to others! And NO ONE in the room can ignore the big elephant in it.

Yes, there will be negatives, after all, the blame will probably still be there. But let us not ignore the positives. At least, the proper person/people will be blamed. Not the healer for running out of MP after a 20 minute fight (or the laughable 5 DPS party blaming the solo tank for his low DPS when they failed to meet the DPS check. When all the tank did was compensate for the longer encounter by turtling harder than they normally should).

Another positive is we will know if the failing is due mechanics fails, or a #gitgud case!

After all, it is just information - It is up to the individual who interprets those numbers and put them to use.

In the end I got a question for you : If you are confident with your DPS and you have indeed the numbers to back it up, what will be the problem for you?

It is not about it just being information. The main elephant in the room is people "getting away" and calling any advice to them as the advisor being an elitist and then never improving because they're doing "just fine" because they cleared story mode x or y content. But when there is a clear-cut line of average performance, which by the way will also be low since a lot of players are also bad, no one can just be "ignorant" when they know they can't even stand or float in the swimming pool they're jumping in.

TL;DR: Bad players have no excuse to be bad. People should STOP being insecure about being bad. They should accept criticism. In the end, this is only a game, if you're not serious enough to perform your best, why get serious about someone pointing you out for being bad at it? DPS meters may not be the best solution, but a solution nonetheless.

[Shurrikhan]

<Seriously solid stuff>

This. In my case a lot of this is exactly why I support parsers, personal if not group. You should know when you're under-performing. Sadly, that only fixes roughly half of the problem, though the awareness parsers provide, in combination with clear speed, is almost entirely linked with the second half.

Too many people do not understand the idea of tracking other party members' abilities or raid dps. Gear, skill, and CDs determine kill speed. Party composition and mob output vs. party output determine kill spread. In the end, numbers may not be a complete indicator of individual and party skill (the dps numbers of that AoEer padding by letting mobs linger at 10% rather than just killing it and reducing tank damage taken by ~1/n are still being carried by healer and tank, who are usually losing proportionate or greater dps to support that if mass-DoTs aren't able to be maintained or tank stance dropped)--but instance clear time is always thus representative. Always.

The thing is there's a fair portion of people who don't really seem to think about how to clear an area quickly, how to maximize their party potential. Sometimes this is because they lack the incentive; there are plenty who simply don't like looking for maximization in the few ways that XIV offers proof thereof. But in many other cases it's because, having gotten use to under-performing even in an individual aspect, they lack the vantage point by which to even start that step, be it through speedrunning or just being really damn competent in general. And that's what's really sad to me. It's like a good portion of the game is just going unseen. And half of that is simply because there's a world of numbers under the game, which parsers alone cannot reveal but they can at least make you much more aware of, that just goes by the wayside while they spam certain rotations for ease or aesthetics, either incidentally or purposely unaware that it doesn't line up with the gameplay that everyone else is going through, and leaving them, too, eventually by the wayside. Getting a new ability should be exciting. Mastering it should be exciting. It shouldn't be something that you take off your bars because it confused you the first time you used it (e.g. Gauss Barrel, Wanderer's Minuet, Blood of the Dragon, Enochian). Of course, all but the mastery portion should be clear without parsers, but with parsers--and with some manner of training via revised job quests, improved guildhests, new adventurer training halls, or whatever else to think in a raid dps-oriented manner--it all couldn't be clearer.

[Solarra]

I think this is a poor idea... I'm talking about the leaderboards, rankings and rewards. This is a cooperative game, not a competitive game. If you start injecting more competition into the game, people will cease cooperating, and start playing the blame game when their numbers are somehow held back by others...

...team members who compete with each other, do not cooperate effectively.

I agree with you 100%
I think the notable difference in the performance of JP groups compared to EU/NA at endgame reflects this. NA and to a lesser extent, EU culture promotes individuality and competition. Endgame requires cooperation; it's not just about dps. People who only care about the numbers are not always team players.

As to us 'needing' a solution to help players improve. I think the problem has been blown out of all proportion. In DF you get a random selection of players, some will perform better than others for various reasons. That isn't a problem, it's normal.

I'm all for giving players tools to improve their own performance, but having seen how meters are abused in WoW and having been in raid groups where nobody wants to do the mechanics because, 'Muh dps!' I'm sceptical that it will bring about an improvement in the general standard of play.
I'm also completely opposed to anything that could be used to publicly shame and belittle others.

[Azazua_azura]

I agree with you 100%
I think the notable difference in the performance of JP groups compared to EU/NA at endgame reflects this. NA and to a lesser extent, EU culture promotes individuality and competition.

This

killing the mobs faster also helps the tank get hit less. trust me, i wish the dps would just finish off those low hp mobs in big pulls so i have less strain when healing the tank. no amount of slow is helping me keep that tank up. what are you doing with feint anyways? hit every mob, then cycle through the mobs again with feint making sure it doesnt fall off while your dps partner pushes numbers making up for the ones youre lacking? thats not team play, thats dumping your load on another

and this is a good example of why i am not fond of the NA community.

First of the rude assumption, then the rude commenting.



to reply that is deffinately not how i play, I do >heavy thrust >slow each mob > attack the mob the tank is focusing on.
If the dps is only dpsing I think ythey are soloing, just trying to get high dps numbers. I also hate the mentality of mechanic skipping, it's confusing, and people try to do it on all bosses, even ones where you can't.

to me damage is damage faint deals a good base dmg. and a decent slow, coupled that with shadow flare, tank has an easier time tanking and healer doesn't need to cure as often allowing them to add dmg into the mix.

I think any person who only uses 10% of skills, isn't a good player as their not playing a job to the fullest extent.

I also hate the assumptuion of big pulls. The final straw of of me leaving the NA community was my hatalia run as a healer.

I was a lvl 23/24 healer it was leveling roulette the tank was ima assume level 60 i never checked but ihey was in high end gear. I told the party I was there for exp.

the tank said nothing, and pulled pretty much everything at the start, i couldn't keep up with heals and our arn got aggro by a bomb. the tank dies and forget who else. I said what the heck you doing, and the tank said "this is what i normally do" i tried to be nice and say "you coulda asked, this is df you don't know who you get" The arn pretty much said" stop bitchin strt grinding" i said i didn't realise trying to communicate was called bitchin" the other dps did the good ole tried and tested WoW remark of "omg qqmoar". They pulled and i pretty much was spamming the <leave> button.


This is the dungeon report that lead to me asking about the housing resale question.

anyway ya, to sum it up, it takes more then high numbers to be a good player, using team promoted skills like slow, stun. blind sleep etc does help, simply killing faster can make doing a role hard like a fresh tank vs higher geared/level dps, can't tell u how often i lost hate in the starter dungeons simply cuz i didn't get a chance to get hate on mobs before a dps attacks and throttles, much worst is when dps are not attacking the same mob.


heck ppl complain about mob marking in alot of cases eoither if you do or don't which is confusing.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

I understand where you're coming from. DPS heads can be annoying. Those that think tanks, healers and everyone and their mom should focus on how to do more DPS regardless of the encounter are obnoxious and annoying.

I think your problem is that you are looking at this as an either-or thing. You're either 1 or 0. You probably think if someone is a DPS-meter-supporter, then he definitely is a DPS d***head that expects everyone to do the unrealistic 2k DPS on a fight where the boss spends 90% of the time in the air on a flipping BRD. A bit extreme? Yeah, but that's how it sounds to me when someone says DPS-meters encourages nothing but harassment between the community that is already sickeningly filled with it. This thread and the other one with over 19 pages in this very same forum are living prove of it. And the fact is, not all people giving advice are elitists, and not all people receiving said advice are "getting attacked" or as bad as they are called, but there are legit cases of both ends. In reality, the whole situation is getting blown out of proportions.

People are looking at only one extreme end when we're complaining about BOTH extreme ends of a huge spectrum. Yes, I am talking about the end where the person doesn't even bother pressing the button with the flashing square. The one that if you suggest to them nicely ANYTHING on improving themselves, they come here on the forums and fill the threads with posts of how everyone else is an elitist and that they are "just fine" because they killed Sastasha at level 16. Again, I'm being a bit extreme here, but I want the picture to get through.

You, my friend, lie somewhere in between, probably VERY close to the middle. A pretty good place to be in to be honest. You want smooth runs. You want to make everyone's job easier, resulting in a better overall team experience. You don't want to drag your team down, and you don't wanna be told that you are dragging the team down when you really aren't. But that's the thing, most of us want JUST that. You see, though, our problem is not the wide range inside the spectrum, though. Our problem is not the nice guy who is decent enough at his job, and is decent enough and patient enough to give advice. Our problem is not the new person who doesn't know his job but is willing to listen to that guy. Our problem isn't the veteran player that is trying an entirely new role and is not performing as they should. Our problem is the jerk at the very top that thinks he's entitled to tell everyone how to play (including the nice patient decent guy) and the other jerk at the very bottom that thinks he's also entitled to play however the f*** he wants because he pays a sub.

But why make the one problem at 1 end stop us from getting rid of the other problem at the other end? The elitist that will tell you that you suck will tell you that you suck anyways because he is just the elitist jerk he is. He also is already using a parser and is accusing you of being bad based on it. You probably aren't bad either. You're just doing 1200 (acceptable) instead of 1400 (which he thinks is minimum). So let's set a benchmark that is more indicative than clearing story mode and crafting high quality elm crooks to set the line of being "average" at playing the game. Let everyone see their personal performance at least.

It's not all negative either. Now if a jerk comes to you and tells you that you suck because you're not doing 4 digits of DPS as an AST on single target (When it's not even possible because lolASTDPS), you just show them that you are doing fine because you are above most lines. e.g. lower than average over-heals (This alone sets a good healer for a bad one imo), 0 party deaths, and an ok 3 figure DPS number. HPS doesn't matter because it only goes up when everyone scrubs it up and takes more damage than they have to. You can use the very tool he's being judgmental with against him.

Which is what this whole thread is about. Setting an indicative line of where people should be at. Now if people should do 1200 DPS, but this guy is doing 1000-1150? Sure, he's not bad. The other guy is doing 1500? AWSOME all the way from A to E. But if we get a guy who's doing 350?...... And this applied to everyone, not just DPS! Why is the WHM doing 120% overheals by casting cure 2 every time the WAR loses 100 HP? Why is the tank taking too much damage? Why is the tank losing aggro and is doing only 700 TPS (Threat per second)? Why is the tank dying? Is it the healer not healing fast enough? or the tank not using proper CDs and getting 100 to 0? Or the DPS not even bothering so the fight lasts so long the tank runs out of CDs and healer out of MP? Or the healer healing too much with cure 3 and medica 2 that he runs out MP in 30 seconds flat?

If the blame is gonna happen ANYWAYS, why not seek to blame the right person? Why disband the whole Thordan Ex party or break the static because the party can't meet the DPS check when we can avoid that if we have the proper information that the DRG is not doing well because he's not using heavy thrust? Which then we can point out to the DRG and ask him to improve instead of just kicking him because he won't listen since we have no "proof" of his failure. I find a necessary evil is far better than "just evil lying around".

Let's take the marking example, I, as someone who plays all roles tank, healer and DPS, don't care about marking. That mainly goes to my experience as a tank. I do not mean to brag, but I have no problems with aggro in general. Mainly because I had a good teacher (my brother), care about gearing my tanks (Yes I play 2 characters and both have decently geared tanks) and know how to use them. So if 2 DPS members full burst 2 different targets, AoE everything or just focus 1 target, I do not lose aggro. But if I do lose aggro and the DPS that is fully bursting non-primary kill target gets it, they no longer can land positionals or cast freely due to interrupts, so they end up with with less DPS, making getting aggro back an easy thing. I just adapt. I only rarely use the #1 marker to mark a target that needs to die fast such as the small bees in the new Arboretum dungeon, which if they don't die they final sting my bum nearly killing me which would make the healer panic and/or just cause my death leading to a wipe on such a huge pack.

But let's face it, not everyone pays the same attention to game mechanics or gear or their job. There are also those tanks that are overprotective and hate losing control over the fight even if it's not their fault or would cover you even if you don't have aggro. Also those that do not like big packs and like smaller pulls. More importantly, there are those tanks that just aren't confident in their skill and would rather mark a full kill order marking all the way from 1 to 5. Now if I'm a DPS, I respect that kill order. There is no reason not to. I may ask the tank if they want advice or if they mind speeding it up a little or if they wanna know "how" not to make it a problem, but if they say no, I don't go out of my way to "prove a point". And trust me, I'm the stubborn type that LIKES to prove points! It's in the family and we got it from our mother! lol... I mean just look at my walls of text all over the forums!

But again, I'd like to consider myself somewhere in the middle of the DPS-head spectrum. I care for my DPS, as long as it is not a detriment to the whole group. So you will find me do DPS as a healer. You will also see me dropping tank stance and/or switching to DPS stance if I can squeeze in bursts here and there. And I will intentionally get hit by some AoEs if it doesn't cause high damage (usually using a CD that shrugs it off like Mana wall or ward on BLM or Shade Shift on Ninja) if it means more uptime on the boss. But I will not go out of my way to make the healer spend more GCDs just to heal my bum instead of his personal DPS, or God forbid, stealing the tank's heals. Heck, I don't even ask for Esuna after the zerk's pacification on WAR because that 1 GCD I'm losing is barely worth the healer spending 1 GCD to remove it. (For those DPS-headed WARs out there, a 9 GCD zerk gets you pacified as soon as you invoke the 9th GCD, placing ~2.4 seconds of your pacification into the GCD, so you effectively lose like ~1.1 GCD at most). On my ninja I try my best to boost everyone else's DPS by trick attacking at burst times, I even apply DE for my tank when I have to leave the target if it's not a warrior and I will always keep Goad on CD by pre-emptively buffing people so they don't run out of TP (just not on the bard because I need them to sing for my TP ). On my bard I make sure proper songs are up whenever they're needed. This means I will sing Foe's to boost the casters and healers' DPS, but I will also stop it if I know healers will need MP soon, or melee need TP.

The above are all examples of team play that prioritize the "our DPS" over "my numbers", mainly via boosting my own DPS and others without hurting mine or others' performances. Again, the SCH and SMN analogy I used before. The SMN casting the physics healing for ~480 so the scholar can cast bio, bio 2, miasma and shadowflare is not team play, it's just stupidly hurting the team, believe it or not. It IS the scholar's job to make sure adequate shielding and healing is happening so they can cast the aforementioned DPS spells, which even at their best would not match the output of the SMN! But when someone dies due to bad stuff, the summoner raising dead people with or without Swiftcast so the SCH can conserve MP and/or focus on healing IS good team play.

So back to your Feint example on the lancer. Yes it helps the tank by reducing SOME target's damage. But let's think of the trade-offs, that is speaking of what do you "pay" for what you DO gain. In the 4 target example I gave in my earlier post, you're spending 320 TP over 10 seconds to slow 4 targets doing only a total of 480 potency split over 4 different targets (That's 1.5 potency per TP spent) only to find out you need to repeat the process after 10 seconds. Whereas had you spend those 4 GCDs on Doomspike, you would have done a total of 2560 potency split over the 4 targets for twice the TP (640). That's 4 potency per TP spent. Again, things would also die faster, which means the tank spends less CDs on that pack, sparing them more CDs for the next pack, all the while the healers healing less. Which goes back to your purpose, making the fight a smoother experience.

Ignoring all the DPS values above, let's again look at the ACTUAL gains. You slow mobs so they do less damage.. But what does slowing a mob that already does low damage really benefit the tank with? (Like everything that can be slowed in the low levels really)... Bosses and most boss adds are also immune to the effect.

Also, I mentioned this before, the slow does not affect the tank-buster moves or frequency of AoEs, the ONLY thing threatening to a tank really is the busters (if those didn't exist, most tanks would probably not even need a healer in party). Even in the hardest of encounters (T13, A4S), boss auto-attack damage is usually shrugged off with just regen and tanks' passive mitigation (be it block/parry or self-heals and drain effects), until the occasional moderate level cleaves and dangerous tank busters happen. The cleaves are there to put the tank at a dangerous level so they die from the busters. That's where healers come in. However, the slow doesn't help on those because it doesn't lower their damage nor changes their timers.

So on single-target scenarios, you're spending 80TP for 120 potency (1.5 potency per TP) instead of doing your combos which have a massive (probably the highest) damage/TP ratio and speed up a kill.

You are right though, you should NOT try to skip mechanics if you 'can't'. But if you CAN, why the heck not? Why not burn Ravana without the butterflies becoming swords and make that phase a whole 1.5 minutes shorter? Why not kill Ravana before Swift Liberation entirely? Especially when that is the phase where almost every party gets a hiccup at? If you can push through a phase that stresses the tanks and/or healers by doing more DPS, then why the heck not? Take Thordan Ex for example, near the end there is a knight that spawns and makes the boss immune to damage and people have to switch to him to get his HP low so he doesn't wipe the party... Imagine, just imagine, that if your party pushed 400 more TOTAL DPS, and used LB1 on Thordan himself, they could kill him and not see that knight entirely, whereas they would use LB2 just so that the AoE doesn't kill them and the healers end up healing a metric ton more HP in a phase where they probably won't have the MP because of all the AoE that happened just before. Pushing phases isn't always bad.

Also you pointed about the tank that tried to "speed run" Halatali normal... I agree with you, it's stupid. I hate it when tanks mega pull mobs thinking they're speeding runs when the only one that has decent AoE sub-30 is the BLM! I had a warrior that chain pulled 5+ mobs in Toto-Rak.. Which was laughable, the WAR spamming Overpower, ARC doing quick noc all over the place, they still did LESS cumulative encounter DPS than my MNK who has absolutely 0 forms of AoE damage at that level. It's pointless to strain the healer just so you can inflate numbers that don't even matter or make sense.

Long story short, performance pushing is not all bad. Trying to push phase skips is not always bad. Legitimately telling people that they suck when they actually DO suck is not "bad", it's necessary evil. Of course, discretion, respect and politeness should be taken into consideration. DPS meters or server rankings or whatever performance gauging techniques used are not "the evil" just as guns and cars and wine aren't evil. It is the abusers (elitists, murderers, drunk drivers respectively) that are "bad".

Okay, I dragged on way too long lol. I'm gonna tap out and play the game. Here's hoping I don't get 3 bad DPS out of 2 expert roulette runs.