Damage Meters

There are more things that meters show than just flat DPS. As a healer I would like meters for things like target healed, breakdowns of the abilities and how often they are used by the other healers, uptime of procs and buffs, damage taken from source, targets swapped, CC's done/broken, dispels done by target x, death recap(grim reaper), damage absorbed.

Just because somebody might make you feel bad doesn't mean that meters should be banned. Raid with people who are like-minded and you can continue to play as you wish. Don't force the community to wallow in mediocrity for fear of being called out.

It's hand-holding because it requires you to do nothing other than punch a defenseless dummy for hours on end trying to squeeze out an extra 1%. It's hand-holding because you can easily do the math, AS IS, to determine the optimal configuration for a given character class. The character sheet gives you the raw numbers, and your powers have their base values already listed. Combine these with the cool-down that's listed then solve for the average. The tree even lists the increase or change of values for any ability you're modding. This is simply laziness or an inability to solve complex math equasions. I guess you're just a 'hardcore' raider and not a 'hardcore' math person.

(As a side-note, I am not a hardcore math person either. However, these numbers are all easily found on the character sheet and ability window. I know I'm lazy, but what's your excuse if you really want the answers to these questions. Oh, right, you're waiting for your hand to be held.)

Dmg meter damn The elite are crying if you get the boss you get the boss if not you die
Dmg Meter = Lable ...Elite love to lable ppl you dont have the right gear you dont use the right specc bla bla bla

Wow Plauge

Because everybody enjoys getting that one gimp in their raid who can't spec correctly, mod their gear or even do the correct rotation. Clearly everybody wants to carry this useless player without the knowledge that they are useless. Have fun hitting enrage timers and not knowing why!

Why does this keep coming up?

We were told that combat logs might even be in for launch. Well obviously they didn't make it in for launch, so the conclusion that can be drawn from this is that they are not that far out.

I think this is a pretty good idea actually.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you think features that allow other players to evaluate your performance will make the game less fun for you, you're either a poor player who doesn't wish to improve or you're playing with the wrong people. Yes, MMOs are full of morons who use the meters to stroke their egos rather than to help the group succeed, but they'd be there with or without dps meters; the solution is to stop playing with those people. Do you really want to keep a useful feature from players who use it well so that you can run flashpoints with jerkasses?

Hey dude, Im in your raid, spaming strikes constantly with a few slash here and there. I'M DOING THINGS RIGHT! I GET DEM SPOT IN DEM RAID RIGHT!

You'll never know you are carrying me but hey! I'm doing things and I complete your list here... "Is the DPS even near the boss? Do you see them shooting? Are they standing in a fire?"

Don't tell me how to play also! I like the animation of slash and strike better than anything else! When we hit enrage on nightmare, it is just because you are too focus of watching me and trying to see if I'm doing a correct rotation! Your fault!

(Yes, this post is 100% sarcastic. It's also 100% true.)

I suggest you walk away shamefuly back to your troll raid and never come back.

All of these arguments aside, it's been well established that a 'DPS Meter' or even a 'combat log' isn't the end-all-be-all for determining if someone is making a meaningful contribution. You can be the best player in the universe and still be CC locked or otherwise incapacitated for the majority of a fight. Additionally, a parse doesn't show you if your top DPS is wiping the raid by pulling AoE aggro back to the healers. You only find that one out by paying attention

In my ten year expierence across multiple MMO's combat parsers have led to more troble than value in my opinion. During my tenure in Age of Conan, for example, many raids discouraged posting a parse log since it caused tons of wipes when people who were behind in the parse decided to 'make up' for lost time and went balls-out DPS to 'catch up' and not be considered useless. They then pull the boss, and the raid wipes. While you might not post your parse, and you might call that a solution, the fact of the matter is that keeping a tab on who's doing what with a 3rd-party program has it's own inherent problems. A better solution, in my view, is to keep the parse out of it and pay attention to what everyone else is doing. If you can't keep a tab on the tiny amount of players in a Star Wars raid compared to the monster raids in other games, you probably have no business leading raids in the first place.

I know you don't want to pay attention, but no amount of parsing will ensure everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing anyway. If they want to add a combat log I wouldn't hands-down oppose it, but if it's on their radar at all I would hope it's far down the list from the other things that need doing. (Among other things, a UI that's actually customizable.)

There have only been two serious stated reasons given for a parse:

A) To maximize your DPS chain.

B) To make sure people aren't slacking in-raid.

and the real reason...

C) Need to make sure I have the biggest E-Peen around.

To these points, a smart player doesn't need a program to maximize their DPS chain and if you're that worried about slackers don't play with PuG groups. I know the real reason MOST of you want the parse is for reason C. To those who honestly want it for reasons A and B, I'm sure you'll already have it figured out by the time they get around to it so why waste your time?


You've totally changed my opinion. Well played sir. A parse would solve that problem instantly! Good thing you were spending all that time messing with your parse program to make sure everyone else was doing a good job. Never mind the fact that you're at the bottom of every list since you're alt-tabbing every two seconds to update your parse. Man, I'm so glad you were spending all that time on your parser or that guy right above you in the parse would have gotten away with doing nothing the whole time! CRISIS AVERTED!!!!!!

/sarcasm ^_^

Assuming I do that, what next? As you probably noticed (or not considering how short sighted you are), operations are a group effort. Even if I do all the math, it won't matter if the other 7 people don't. And even if you do all your theorycrafting, it's not worth anything if you can't execute it properly during a fight. Which is what training dummies are for: so you can PRACTICE what you learned. Practicing is hand holding now? Tell that to people playing competitive sports. Messi you noob, stop training, it's hand holding!

The point is, even if you do your math, it won't necessarily mean that you'll play properly - all you get is theory which you might not be able to execute for one reason or another. And when it comes to execution, you want to be able to see which people in your group are capable of doing it. Not to ridicule them. To replace them with someone better who actually contributes to the kill.

And there is NO WAY to see if someone is doing proper dps or not without meters. And you can't prove otherwise, because you DON'T know if a particular player is spamming two buttons or actually trying just by looking at him. You just can't.

@up
Or he could check the parse after a fight so it doesn't affect him at all. No, wait, that would be too difficult. And probably hand holding.