What is parsing?

[Canadane]

But sorry to burst your bubble, the game is really straight forward when it comes to rotations. There isn't any variables like for example on world of warcraft where you can use differend specs or talents and all that stuff. In XIV there is one fix rotation made by the developers, there is one way how a job is meant to be played. And you don't need a guide to tell you that especially if you play from lvl 1 up to max level where you can get used with every new action to said action and new combo chains they give you.

I wish it was as simple as that. Then people would know how to play well.
The average player isn't uh, isn't performing as well as they could be if they only had a bit more information.

And it still doesn't answer the question, how do you guys (and gurls) think they did it before parsers and guides? Guess fellas never cleared stuff before these people descended from the heavens to bless us with their wisdom cause we can't use our brains. Guess back then in ARR all our clears were just pure luck, especially when the game came fresh out. Weird.

There were parsers for FFXIV before ARR even existed.