How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[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.