Lot of vitriol in this thread, while I still support parsers http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...04#post3699204

There is one comment from an earlier poster I noticed (can't remember who so if it was you I give credit to you) about a concern about the formation of a dps/numbers obsessed community and that is most definitely not an invalid concern and the sort of risk you take once parsers are fully allowed. SE has been very consistent about not wanting to tell the players the actual calculations of all the parts of the damage calculations, a stark contrast to WoW that tells the players absolutely everything about the the calculations and numbers so the players can max out their performance and it does quickly become a "thing" where everyone will change to whatever the best spec is (and there is ALWAYS an optimal dps spec, MMO's are and will always be nothing but number generators with a fancy UI) even for a theoretical 1% increase.

However, I don't necessarily see that becoming an issue with this game and I will tell you why. There is no ambiguity on specializations or different builds in this game, every class has exactly one and only one rotation they can do to achieve maximum dps and (outside of mch, brd, and drg to a lesser extent) there is very little rng or randomness to the optimal DPS rotations. Once you know what that optimal rotation is, a parser just tells you how well you're able to execute that rotation in a combat scenario with actual mechanics and things to dodge or moving enemies.