How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[RuleofThree]

If you consistently parse content and take note of your own gear or the gear of others, you can very easily tell when someone is falling behind. But that comes with familiarizing yourself with DPS trends. If you have a BLM in i370, they should be pushing 6,000 DPS easily, even breaking 7,000. If they’re at 4,000 though? That’s way too low. A BRD in i370 should be pushing 5,500 minimum; breaking 6,000 if they’re really good (and have the appropriate comp).

i180 is going to be skewed now since that’s from the previous expansion, all previous expansion content has been nerfed, and a lot of jobs do not have the same 60 rotation that they did in Heavensward. But we aren’t talking about damage in i180/level 60. We’re talking about the damage people should have in current Extremes and Savage content, which is level 70, i360/i370 minimum, and i380 is currently “standard” since not enough people have upgraded to i400 (the current cap).

I understand wanting benchmarks, but it doesn’t take much to see when someone is falling behind based on the gear they are wearing if you know what to look for.

So while an official parcer in the game would undoubtably be a good 'learning tool.' It would be only for current content. The moment it becomes outdated content, no one cares anymore. While that may be useful for the modern raider, or for someone that is level 70 looking to get in to raiding...it's not useful at all for the person currently leveling. He gets to look at his dps in Say...Void Ark, and just assume it is good at this point in time, or go with what appearantly is being suggested, and not care until it is relevant...at level 70.

Seems to me if you want to advocate using a parser as an official learning tool...it should be useful for all levels not just current savage or extremes. Granted, I'm sure only the elitest of the elite care what dps output is at level 45, but I'd say by Alexander Savage - and the iLevel there about - having benchmarks that say 'alright, in around this iLevel area, 'x' job should be pushing around 3,000dps.' This way you are knowing whether or not the best you can be at that iLevel rather than just hoping you are doing it right, and checking when you are 70.

[KaivaC]

snip

Not sure what warranted my posts being deleted, but *shrug*

It can still be useful, though not relevant because the focus at present is on current endgame. That's how it has always been, to my knowledge. Doesn't mean that it still won't have its uses in below-70 content.

[KaivaC]

snip

When I posted that comment, I really was just checking to see if my deleted posts were a precursor to something else...had not been expecting a large reply, if I could be honest. I don't know about others, but from my experiences, nobody really cares so long as you have some basic competence in stuff like dungeons. From the many players that I have played with, parsing becomes a factor in endgame because what you are doing matters there a lot. With people still pushing towards ilvl400, a single DPS right now can be the difference between clearing and a wipe. For previous SB raids, a good portion of the players that you'll run into doing this content out-gear the fights.

And yes, I'll add some to your ending sentence - while parse tools are nice to see where you are at and how you are doing, I find them useful only when it comes to endgame, because that's where it matters the most, in my opinion. If I didn't raid, I generally would not care about numbers - I'm somewhere around average, maybe slightly less than average, but still competent enough in whatever job I happen to be on at the time.

[RuleofThree]

When I posted that comment, I really was just checking to see if my deleted posts were a precursor to something else...had not been expecting a large reply, if I could be honest. I don't know about others, but from my experiences, nobody really cares so long as you have some basic competence in stuff like dungeons. From the many players that I have played with, parsing becomes a factor in endgame because what you are doing matters there a lot. With people still pushing towards ilvl400, a single DPS right now can be the difference between clearing and a wipe. For previous SB raids, a good portion of the players that you'll run into doing this content out-gear the fights.

And yes, I'll add some to your ending sentence - while parse tools are nice to see where you are at and how you are doing, I find them useful only when it comes to endgame, because that's where it matters the most, in my opinion. If I didn't raid, I generally would not care about numbers - I'm somewhere around average, maybe slightly less than average, but still competent enough in whatever job I happen to be on at the time.

Just to clarify, I don't mean to call you out specifically, I used the term 'you' loosely to include everyone else.

[KaivaC]

Just to clarify, I don't mean to call you out specifically, I used the term 'you' loosely to include everyone else.

Oh I know. No worries.

[Aerlana]

cause it only benefits a small portion of the raiding population.

Anyone who wants decently farm the current primal will have a good use of it to improve himself, and so help to get faster clear, so need less time to do 99 kills (just to say, 30 second win => 49,5 minutes in the end ! nearly 1 hour)

But, the parser is usefull with this and not really usefull for lower content, it is right yes. But except healers that doesnt want to DPS (so slack 66% of their time) and this kind of matters, there wont be any matter due to "parsing" people dont need parsers to insult and be mean to other in small content. a pack a little big where the tank dies, sometime "ok, it may happens" sometime, lets insult tank to not have good use of his CD or the healer to not heal enough. With or without parser behind this. And for the "slacker" no need parser to see this...
And, with or without parser, if it comes to insult, just, no reason. temporary ban, or even perma if the guy did it too much time (after 4-5 temprary ban, lets say him good bye forever)

Also, parser is a really good way to give some fast help in "low content" (not xtrem primals / savage) to the "sprout" (or any guy learning the game).
Even in daily dongeon, i could see people trying to do well, but had a clearly lack of damages. when it is so clear, no need to read 1hour of the logs... just see the list of skills and how much, and will be ok. then you can give 1, 2 or more fast hint to be a begin to his own improvment. "oh, hey black mage, i see you dont use a lot "szcathe" spell when moving". Or any kind of advice, yes, it can be seen in guide but some people in those content dont read them. and i prefer getting a direct advice than "your DPS is not so good, should read this guide"

And you can also use old content / "low" content to improve yourself. No need to permanently train in savage content. you are blackmage? A matter of this job is heavy movement fight. you can try to train this in nearly any other content. An example.


Yes, those kind a resultats are only usefull in some content, but you can train in any, you can use parser to help other people.

for the benchmark to know if you need to improve, it is an idea, just have t odo one for each job on each content. (enjoy). It could be a good thing yes. and no one here (i think) is against it. But the parser is a first step before anything else.

[RuleofThree]

Anyone who wants decently farm the current primal will have a good use of it to improve himself, and so help to get faster clear, so need less time to do 99 kills (just to say, 30 second win => 49,5 minutes in the end ! nearly 1 hour)

But, the parser is usefull with this and not really usefull for lower content, it is right yes. But except healers that doesnt want to DPS (so slack 66% of their time) and this kind of matters, there wont be any matter due to "parsing" people dont need parsers to insult and be mean to other in small content. a pack a little big where the tank dies, sometime "ok, it may happens" sometime, lets insult tank to not have good use of his CD or the healer to not heal enough. With or without parser behind this. And for the "slacker" no need parser to see this...
And, with or without parser, if it comes to insult, just, no reason. temporary ban, or even perma if the guy did it too much time (after 4-5 temprary ban, lets say him good bye forever)

Ok, this thread has established numerous times that trolls will be trolls, parser or not. I am just saying, the trolls will now have access to numbers to fuel their asshatery. I am in no way saying "No parsers cause parser encite trolling." That's not true, I am saying "Parsing will give trolls more fuel." They will troll with or without a parser...this is an agreed upon fact.

Also, parser is a really good way to give some fast help in "low content" (not xtrem primals / savage) to the "sprout" (or any guy learning the game).
Even in daily dongeon, i could see people trying to do well, but had a clearly lack of damages. when it is so clear, no need to read 1hour of the logs... just see the list of skills and how much, and will be ok. then you can give 1, 2 or more fast hint to be a begin to his own improvment. "oh, hey black mage, i see you dont use a lot "szcathe" spell when moving". Or any kind of advice, yes, it can be seen in guide but some people in those content dont read them. and i prefer getting a direct advice than "your DPS is not so good, should read this guide"

Once again, people advocating the desire for an official parser are skirting what I am asking: Where are the benchmarks? I can't be more serious. You advocate use of parsers, you want the population to 'git gud,' and yet all you do is throw us a parser, give us no benchmarks to go off of based on gear or level we currently are, and expect us to just 'know how to interpret it all.' I have been bending over backwards, trying to figure out how to improve with my dark knight, despite only playing it for the second tank mount. So much so that I've read this 28 page monstrosity, twice, and despite everything, apparently I'm still bad according to the general populace. I am in full i360 gear, I am not going to pull the dps projected by people in raid gear. Yet, I have no benchmark with which to determine if I am doing the best I can for the gear I have, or if I really am bad.

Where is the benchmark so I can have something to compare my numbers to? Without this, the number I'm looking at after a dungeon is just that...a friggen number! Where is the context? I can't use the data on fflogs, because they are minimum i380...not i360. I can't ask another dark knight, because again, they are in better gear. The best they are going to tell me is 'Just follow rotation. Dark Arts everything when you can, especially for Carve and Spit. Splice in a Hate combo Rotation every now and then when taking a boss outside of tank stance, and always, always use Delerium for Blood weapon, not blood price. Other than that...it's pretty easy.'...

....that doesn't help me with the number I am looking at. Where is the number to compare that tells me if I'm ok, or if I'm far off the norm for my gear? Jesus, you guys promote this parser as a wonderful learning tool....but it's akin to giving a guy a German dictionary, and plopping him in Berlin and saying 'Well, you have the tools! Use them!'

[Shurrikhan]

Jesus, you guys promote this parser as a wonderful learning tool....but it's akin to giving a guy a German dictionary, and plopping him in Berlin and saying 'Well, you have the tools! Use them!'

You know what, I can't wholly disagree with that. At all.

I feel like most times its nearer to a audio-testing pronunciation guide being given before class, but there are certainly less intuitively understandable situations for which we only have the numbers to help and where those numbers feel insufficient for understanding. Which is why I'd like to see more from an official parser, but in the meantime...

FFlogs. The answer is generally fflogs and tools for weighing your own stats before attempting comparisons between yourself and the players (not numbers) you're studying. And knowing your raid DPS buff intervals. (The "context" of DRK dps apart from fight-specific uptime tricks.)

[RuleofThree]

You know what, I can't wholly disagree with that. At all.

I feel like most times its nearer to a audio-testing pronunciation guide being given before class, but there are certainly less intuitively understandable situations for which we only have the numbers to help and where those numbers feel insufficient for understanding. Which is why I'd like to see more from an official parser, but in the meantime...

FFlogs. The answer is generally fflogs and tools for weighing your own stats before attempting comparisons between yourself and the players you're studying. And knowing your raid DPS buff intervals.

I am not suppose to swear on the forums, I think. I think it's one of the reasons I was temp banned from the forums a while back...got so frustrated, it got the best of me...but...

Where is the benchmark so I can have something to compare my numbers to? Without this, the number I'm looking at after a dungeon is just that...a friggen number! Where is the context? I can't use the data on fflogs, because they are minimum i380...not i360. I can't ask another dark knight, because again, they are in better gear. The best they are going to tell me is 'Just follow rotation. Dark Arts everything when you can, especially for Carve and Spit. Splice in a Hate combo Rotation every now and then when taking a boss outside of tank stance, and always, always use Delerium for Blood weapon, not blood price. Other than that...it's pretty easy.'...

j...f....c

I can't be any clearer.

I get that you are not disagreeing, or at least neutral with what I am saying. But you are skirting it as well..it's getting frustrating. I'd make that bold, underlined, and italicized text 64 point size if I could as well, because you clearly missed it.

I. can not. use. fflogs. It will give me an approximation but that is it at best I have no idea if I should be under that number of the i380 geared dark knight by a few hundred, or a few thousand. There is nothing fflogs - a source dedicated to parsing and analyzing current raid content - can give me, for an i360 dark knight that is so fucking tired of being called a bad on a job he is playing for fun.

[Shurrikhan]

I get that you are not disagreeing, or at least neutral with what I am saying. But you are skirting it as well..it's getting frustrating. I'd make that bold, underlined, and italicized text 64 point size if I could as well, because you clearly missed it.

I. can not. use. fflogs. It will give me an approximation but that is it at best I have no idea if I should be under that number of the i380 geared dark knight by a few hundred, or a few thousand. There is nothing fflogs - a source dedicated to parsing and analyzing current raid content - can give me, for an i360 dark knight that is so fucking tired of being called a bad on a job he is playing for fun.

I can't be any clearer.

Okay. And I should have been more clear. Fair enough.

You're very wrong that FFlogs can provide nothing for you. You're entirely wrong that you cannot use them. There is only one thing they cannot provide, which is an easily accessible bank of parses at precisely i360. Its benchmark, however, can still be approximated via trends from 340 to 370 to 380 (yes, the former tiers still exist on FFlogs), as all their lead parses will still equally account for DRK's only buffs since 4.0. You have the appropriate number available to you. Not conveniently, but you have it. And, as I said, you can come up with an even tighter fit estimate by checking your stat weights before drawing the comparison. That's as close an estimate as anyone else can get; crit chance, jump-sync, and compositional factors will often cause more difference than any 10 item levels to perfect play.

Which is why I have to wonder... Why do you need that number? You just mentioned that a "friggen number" is just a "friggen number" without its context. Well, the context has not changed since the earliest-tier parses accessible. The meta has scarcely if at all changed this expansion. DRK balance and raid buff uptime have not changed since, again, the earliest tier lead parses on FFlogs. Rotation, therefore, and all damage-increasing tricks, have not changed. The context is the percentile. Do what they do. Read the context of their raid buffs against their use of Bloodsplitter. Check their TBN usage against their cotank's skill deployment. The number itself does not matter.

You're right; I dismissed certain portions of your post, almost if I hadn't read them. Because you can do the things you claimed impossible, so long as you -- as you yourself suggested -- pay attention to the context. You say FFlogs can't work for you; I can determine then that you're not using them to their fullest.

I wish it was easier. I wish it didn't damn near require FFlogs. But it's possible to do all the things you claim impossible, all because you're comparing numbers alone--or else asking for precision that is simply not possible save across tens of personal and guiding parses each--not their tricks or rotations or synergies that should be guiding you.

In the future, I'll apply bold.

:: Should it be easier to do this analysis? Yes. Should we need an external site for it? No. But for we now we do need it, but it can technically do all those things you're requesting.