"Don't Explain; Learn by Doing"

[Vulcwen]

I don't understand why people get uptight about explanations. I always give one to those who are new so that way its easier instead of having them going in blind. explanations work wonders and minimizes the number of wipes for the entire group. A little patience goes a long way in helping a fellow player instead of acting like a bozo

You don't understand why people don't want story spoilers either then?
Going in blind gives it a fresh experience, and full blind runs are one of the most fun things to do in the game, unfortunately, not everyone that wants this is capable of getting a group to do this with. I find it OK to have stuff explained after the first wipe, you'd expect that even going full blind, but ruining the surprise element really takes away from the experience, in a way that's permanent for that fight.

As you say, a little patience goes a long way.

[Xenos88]

Explaining boss fights in a dungeon or a trial fights are completely different then spoiling a story. I completely understand where you're coming from but I would rather minimize the number of wipes by just explaining the boss fights.

[Brill_]

Not everyone is going to retain a wall of text explanation. I know I don't. Seeing the mechanic for myself combined some explanation usually makes things click for me.

[Taika]

It depends on the content and how new the content is. If it's the first few days of new content and people are coming there for the first time, I consider explaining the mechanics as spoiling the fights - when explanations aren't asked for. It's really horrible entering the new normal Alexander or 24 person instance on day 1 and there being people already expecting others to listen and follow the strategies they're calling. When the content isn't completely new anymore I usually ask if the newbies want explanations or not. And even if they do, I'll do my best to not actually spoil the fights and instead just warn them about the stuff that they might wipe everyone else with.

Personally, I'll enter all fights blind, but most of the time I'll do that with full premades so it doesn't even affect anyone else. For 24 person stuff I'll turn off the alliance chat if there are people spoiling the fights.

[RiisWolf]

I don't get how people expect newbies to ask when they almost NEVER do that. Much less trust them to know what to do at all.

Don't get me wrong I hate long text walls (along with overly short smartass ones that leaves out an important detail) as the players who overexplains wastes time with things the newbie doesn't need to know, but I absolutely hate blind runs with randoms and hardcore raiders in particular- the kind of hardcore raider whose never seen the likes of A2 or a horde boss; the kind who is useless in big pulls because they do NOT know how to fight with AoEs or my favorite a healer who honestly believes that healer DPS is part of the raids' design when they are in fact obviously not. Can't trust them to fill me in the blind run. I might even leave happy I'm not wasting my time with them. Last time, I was the only one who knew what to do, and they got mad at me for not telling them about the goo and using them to seal the cracks, even though they told me not to help or say anything. After that wipe I had enough and told them how to fight the bosses. And the person responsible for that mess was a hardcore raider.

There was one moron who couldn't wait for four short lines so he dashed off into the boss while I, usually the tank or healer (most of the time as the healer), was too far out of the zone (I know the place, and I will stop at the last encounter before the gates to explain what the newbie needs to know) after only saying two lines, and gets snappy with me for OVEREXPLAINING and staying out of the zones, ensuring he and anyone blindly following him in would fail. And normally we get rid of the moron, and if he happens to be a tank, then I replace him to do his job myself RIGHT, even if it cheats me out of healer/DPS gear and the roulette bonus.

Granted I do like Thordan normal better blind, even though you got more than enough time to figure it all out. No need to say anything, let's roll! I say.
You don't need to explain Final Steps of Faith for the exact same reason as Thordan normal, because by then you should know how to evade huge line AoEs like in stone vigil ,spot an obvious DPS check like foreshadowing in movies, remember what the stacking AoE marker looks like, and most importantly healer who HEAL and tanks who can stomp damage into the dirt. But the saddest thing, none of it happens. Gordias Savage did not teach anyone how to fight better or even properly, so now we're stuck with useless DPS healers who think it's all baby damage like before the Vitality update. Tanks constantly eating up too much damage and think that using CDs solely means they don't trust the healer can carry them or in some way will interfere with their DPS, and the worst thing of all, when people do the absolute worst things think they are safe when in fact they are only ensuring they will faill, like ending up too deep in a line AoE to even dodge it because they were hugging the edge or standing in bad puddles because they thought it was worth casting fire 4 one more time long before the fight got to phase 2. Clearly they need help

Just be patience. Keep it simple. Fill them in on if you want a blind run. Be nice. Be competent or IMPROVE from the bad. Or someone is going to be really mad and out to ruin the fun.

[LalafellDown]

(when I was on US servers) I queued up for mentor roulette and we got Garuda EX. The PLD tank was brand new to EX and tanking. He had no clue what to do nor did he speak. Few wipes and a short hint to the tank on where to be and who to do. More wipes follow. I tell the tank he should looks up this fight online it will help because me explaining it wont do anything for him. The party gets mad that I don't explain it to him well enough. I agreed and told them it will take the entire time we have left for me to explain. They get mad. I proceed to explain to the group on what to do, few minutes later the party votes to abandon. :/

[Destous]

Taking a hard stance on either side of this issue is silly. You're supposed to do both.

Do a dry run to see the encounter, then research the encounter to understand what you saw. Then you run it again with a better understanding of what's happening, and you end up understanding the fight even more each time you run it and confer with information about the fight.

As it pertain to new players in old content, for instance while you're leveling through DF, you can take time to explain and shout out queues during a fight if it seems that the newer players aren't picking up on it as it happens. It's the best way for them to actually learn and understand the fight, rather than letting them scrape by without a solid grasp of the encounter.

The correct motto is "research the fight, then learn by doing". You're not robbing anyone of a "first time" experience by telling them about a fight because it takes more than reading or watching a video of a fight to actually clear that fight.