How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[RuleofThree]

Yes you can! Compare logs and look at casts. Look at buff windows, compare downtime, it shows deaths and debuffs taken as well. Lots of details that don't care about your item level.

What content were you running when you were called a bad DRK just because of your gear?

*takes deep breaths*

No sir. No you can not.

I can look at buff windows. I can look at downtime on cooldowns. I can look at their used rotation. I can see all that wonderful and juicy detail....

...that I already know, because I follow the general rotation already. Do I circle shirk properly? No...I don't play my tank in extremes or savages...that would be rude to the people that actually know the job they are playing. I play dark knight in some normals, some raids, and often in them...I only tank adds, and let the other two tanks play. Why? because I don't want 23 people telling me what I already know. I refer you to the fucking 28 page thesis on Dark Knight...I make sure I follow everything I can for my dungeon running. I'm not perfect...again, Dark Knight is not my bread and butter. I know I'm not suppose to let your blood gauge get too close to max...but I'm not a perfect Dark Knight..I make mistakes. I know you aren't ever suppose to go OOM on a dark knight, and to keep spare change in there for The Blackest Night...but I am not a perfect Dark Knight.

But - and this is the crux of the matter here - the number displayed by the dark knight who is doing O10S on savage? It is no help to a scrub teir dark knight just trying to do his best in mendacity gear. Comparing my i360 self to i380 gods is like bragging about bench pressing 120lbs to a professional bodybuilder.

[Sigma-Astra]

You are asking things that if even a game parser were existing, it surely does not give you. If you really are asking in game a parser with all that, your only answer is "NO". And you need deal with it.

SSS tells just you have the numbers to reach the kill and it is only a starting point to pass before starting the real fight. All the mechanics handling and everything else, you just have to do the real thing.

SSS tells you that you are good at wacking something while standing still with an over-inflated health bar compared towards the real thing. It's not a good indication. A person could clear the o8s dummy flawlessly and actually struggle to even see enrage in the real fight.

Calling out that others simply need to "deal with it" is one of the poorest arguments to use since the other people on the other side of the fence can simply just call out and say people against parsing need to just deal with it when it's official.

FFlogs gives you a database to compare towards people who have bested the fight in how many times they've used a certain ability, when and where it was used, how much healing they were receiving, damage they were receiving and dealing, as well as any buffs or debuffs. The list goes on, SSS is not a good enough indicator. It merely just tells you that you did your rotation correctly.

It's ignorance like this that breeds unnecessary fear mongering with parsers.

[Penthea]

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.'

This is where a lot of parser toxicity begins. Many people just glance at the parser and use the numbers presented as if they're the only defining factor of a person's performance. Often they don't look at ilvl or if the gear doesn't have ideal stat weights. Being the lowest dps doesn't mean you're the worst player. You could even be the best player if the numbers you're producing for the gear you have are amazing.

The main context for performance people often use is their own. They judge other people versus their own performance. This is flawed if you don't take gear into consideration. Someone might look bad compared to you but if they're 15 ilvls lower...then no wonder?

People reading this post will likely think "but of course I look at their gear, anyone would" and great if they do, but my time in WoW taught me that it is very common for people to not take gear into consideration.

Of course someone doing great dps in bad gear doesn't mean they do enough dps for the fight. In that case if you remove them you can just say to them "sorry your gear isn't good enough for this fight". But if someone only looked at their numbers and didn't bother checking the gear may instead say "learn to play your class properly" and this is where arguments can start. The player about to get kicked may be aware they have good numbers for their gear and of course they would usually try to defend this. Or even worse the person isn't aware that only gear is holding them back and they may end up feeling that max lvl content is out of their reach and might respond with comments relating to elitism against beginners.

The problem with parsers is that too many people use a mere glance to judge the potentially more complex situation of their fellow players. They can make people lazy, and therefore often inaccurate, when it comes to judging others and/or themselves.

[KaivaC]

But - and this is the crux of the matter here - the number displayed by the dark knight who is doing O10S on savage? It is no help to a scrub teir dark knight just trying to do his best in mendacity gear. Comparing my i360 self to i380 gods is like bragging about bench pressing 120lbs to a professional bodybuilder.

But....you shouldn't be comparing to a raid you can't even access though...

[RuleofThree]

But....you shouldn't be comparing to a raid you can't even access though...

AHHHH!

You guys can't even agree upon an answer.

Yes you can! Compare logs and look at casts. Look at buff windows, compare downtime, it shows deaths and debuffs taken as well. Lots of details that don't care about your item level.

What content were you running when you were called a bad DRK just because of your gear?

Ok...so look at dark knight raiders and compare and contrast.

But....you shouldn't be comparing to a raid you can't even access though...

....or don't...? oh....oka.....what?

I don't want to compare myself to a raiding dark knight. I want a gd benchmark of another dark knight of similiar iLevel, to compare myself to. That's what should be offered if you want a gd parser to be used as a 'learning tool' for the community. Give them references to compare and contrast to that is relavent to their progression in the game. Not LOL CHECK FFLOGS. DERP

[Dualgunner]

*takes deep breaths*

No sir. No you can not.

I can look at buff windows. I can look at downtime on cooldowns. I can look at their used rotation. I can see all that wonderful and juicy detail....

...that I already know, because I follow the general rotation already. Do I circle shirk properly? No...I don't play my tank in extremes or savages...that would be rude to the people that actually know the job they are playing. I play dark knight in some normals, some raids, and often in them...I only tank adds, and let the other two tanks play. Why? because I don't want 23 people telling me what I already know. I refer you to the fucking 28 page thesis on Dark Knight...I make sure I follow everything I can for my dungeon running. I'm not perfect...again, Dark Knight is not my bread and butter. I know I'm not suppose to let your blood gauge get too close to max...but I'm not a perfect Dark Knight..I make mistakes. I know you aren't ever suppose to go OOM on a dark knight, and to keep spare change in there for The Blackest Night...but I am not a perfect Dark Knight.

But - and this is the crux of the matter here - the number displayed by the dark knight who is doing O10S on savage? It is no help to a scrub teir dark knight just trying to do his best in mendacity gear. Comparing my i360 self to i380 gods is like bragging about bench pressing 120lbs to a professional bodybuilder.

Lol i380 gods.

Also if you're following the general rotation like you say you are, you're good. If you genuinely believe there's nothing you can glean from doing cast comparisons then you're a better player than I am, and good job on that. Given how good you seem to be you should also be well aware that FFLogs also tells you the average per cast damage in the casts tab, which should help formulate an idea of your benchmark at i380.

[Sigma-Astra]

I don't want to compare myself to a raiding dark knight. I want a gd benchmark of another dark knight of similiar iLevel, to compare myself to. That's what should be offered if you want a gd parser to be used as a 'learning tool' for the community. Give them references to compare and contrast to that is relavent to their progression in the game. Not LOL CHECK FFLOGS. DERP

iLevel literally means nothing in comparison between two people because a person with your iLevel could be worst than you possibly. Just because the other person has i380 gear doesn't mean that they're doing anything correctly or even know what they're doing either.

FFlogs gives you relevance for MOST of the major fights that you'll be progressing through the game except MSQ instances usually. And you're not even telling us what content you were running so we can't even estimate what you should have been at or doing around that time either. I'm not sure why you're fervently avoiding in mentioning that.

[RuleofThree]

iLevel literally means nothing in comparison between two people because a person with your iLevel could be worst than you possibly. Just because the other person has i380 gear doesn't mean that they're doing anything correctly or even know what they're doing either.

FFlogs gives you relevance for MOST of the major fights that you'll be progressing through the game except MSQ instances usually. And you're not even telling us what content you were running so we can't even estimate what you should have been at or doing around that time either. I'm not sure why you're fervently avoiding in mentioning that.

I'm going to assume you didn't read my post 5 or so posts above, cause you were busy typing this:

I play dark knight in some normals, some raids, and often in them...I only tank adds, and let the other two tanks play. Why? because I don't want 23 people telling me what I already know.

but I will break it down further...

Ala Mhigo
Kugane Castle
The Temple of the Fist
The Drowned City of Skalla
Hell's Lid
The Fractal Continuum (Hard)
The Swallow's Compass
The Burn
Saint Mocianne's Arboretum (Hard)
The Void Ark
The Weeping city of Mhachi
Dun Scaith
The Royal City of Rabanastre

Edit, because I see it coming:

I don't tank in The Ridorana Lighthouse, cause evidently I'm bad...and I don't want to ruin the lives of 23 people unless I feel confident enough to try it. Currently, I don't.
...I honestly didn't think I needed to rundown a list...

I already know your answer though...or at least the general gist of it.

*ahem* LOL that's not even end game content. Who cares. Are you losing hate on boss fights? Are you keeping hate on trash mob pulls? Are you following general rotation as best you can? If so...then who cares, lol. Only savage/extremes matter.

iLevel literally means nothing in comparison between two people because a person with your iLevel could be worst than you possibly. Just because the other person has i380 gear doesn't mean that they're doing anything correctly or even know what they're doing either.

Also? Bullshit. Yea, there will be 'bad apples' from logs of dark knights that aren't cutting it. But if there are enough samples of similiar geared dark knights - like there are millions of sample of extreme/savages - then I have a more rounded set of data to look at.

[KaivaC]

I don't want to compare myself to a raiding dark knight. I want a gd benchmark of another dark knight of similiar iLevel, to compare myself to. That's what should be offered if you want a gd parser to be used as a 'learning tool' for the community. Give them references to compare and contrast to that is relavent to their progression in the game. Not LOL CHECK FFLOGS. DERP

Well, for one, based on your posts, the first thing you need to do first is get used to playing DRK at a high level raid area. You can't possibly compare unless you have enough experience on that job to even consider taking it into endgame like that. You get this practice from the normal raids. Then, once you have the experience and the necessary min ilvl to even enter Savage, that is when you want to start doing comparison. Can't jump straight into comparison on a savage raid that starts at ilvl 370, when you haven't even met the prerequisites to even enter it in the first place. FFLOGs does not track ilvl. I dunno why, but it just doesn't track ilvl. You say that you want a benchmark, but in this scenario, that's essentially the same as making a comparison because it sounds like you want to meet a standard that you should have started back in February when everybody was in the 340-370 range. You want a benchmark for current content, now is a good time to look at those DRK logs before people start getting their full BiS.

You want a benchmark for 360? Best thing I can tell you is to look through the stats for 4.2. I just looked and the average at present for DRKs for Phantom Train Savage is 3k DPS - those are the 20th percentile averages. So there's your benchmark. 3k for DRK DPS. 50th percentile for the same job sits at around 3.5k - 3.6k.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I don't want to compare myself to a raiding dark knight. I want a gd benchmark of another dark knight of similiar iLevel, to compare myself to. That's what should be offered if you want a gd parser to be used as a 'learning tool' for the community. Give them references to compare and contrast to that is relavent to their progression in the game. Not LOL CHECK FFLOGS. DERP

So compare yourself against Sigmascape parses? The highest ilvl was i370, thus you'd have a rough idea of whereabouts you ought to be. Otherwise, wait until your ilvl is closer. It's also fairly simple to make rough estimations. If you see Dark Knights pulling in the 4,500-5,000 range, your aim should be pulling as close to that as you can get. Of course, you aren't going to hitting their numbers yet, but you can ballpark and improve as your ilvl climbs. You can also look at their rotation and see how they're adapting to each fight. When I started optimizing, I pitted myself against an orange tier Dragoon who pulled far higher numbers than I. She, too, had better gear. My goal was simply getting closer to her numbers as I pushed up my ilvl. You're able to do the same.

Just because you can't get exact i360 comparison doesn't make FFlogs or parsers any less of a beneficial learning tool.