Damage Meters

There should be test dummies with damage/healing/cc stats for personal use. That is all.

We all thought the "training droid" would have some use...
Sadly, they went bioware style.

Something is needed.
At least a Combat Log that can be post processed so you can examine your own performance.
At the moment we have no data. We do not know comparitively how any AC/Spec performs dps, healing or tanking. We have no benchmarks to be able to self improve. A combat Log will come. It is necessary to hold people in the endgame. The Story is great, but it will not keep people subbing for months to years. I do not believe Bioware can produce content of a quality to keep people that engaged fast enough to keep them subbed.
MMO Endgame needs a different environment to Levelling and Story and that requires performance reviews. If the tools are not fairly soon forthcoming then the endgame will be stillborn.

This game needs a metric to determine performance.

Yes it will be used to show how bad people really are but the benefits far out weigh coddling of bad player's pride.

I don't want to take the dev's word that something is working and I don't want to have to guess about which specs / rotations do more damage than the others. I like knowing that I am performing at my personal best.

Min/maxing is a mini game for a lot of people and those who stand so stiff against against damage meters are impeding on my enjoyment of the game.

The only ppl complaining about damage meters are the one who say "Well, I don't mind if my spec is doing 15% of the dmg that the correct spec can do. I'm casual and you're a racist full of hate." .
What I think is : Ok, you're casual? Nps. Want to play with fantasy specs and heal as tank? Nps. But you have to understand that someone play on a different way, so don't act like a kid when a group doesn't want you.

The issue I see that no one is addressing is the base assumption that sheer DPS is ever going to be the tipping factor. That you can tell if the tank is "doing his job" because he is the one getting attacked, and the healer (cause you know peoples getting healed)... so if the boss wipes OBVIOUSLY somewhere the DPS failed.
This game is way, way more skill based around timing of when to use abilities that are highly detrimental to "highest DPS". If you try to "power" through some encounters you will get trashed and using a DPS meter to figure out "where the raid wiped" is, in my opinion, completely wrong-headed, lazy, and noobish for this game.
You'd simply ignore highly skilled players for ones who played long enough or were so stupidly over-geared that you don't need skill.
Basically you'd say "Any idiot that is geared enough to put out xxx dps can power through this content even though it would be easier with half that DPS and someone who knew how and when to use their abilities."
And that is the concept of "Leet" that is promoted by dmg meters.
A DPS can completely NOT know how to play in a group and maxes their DPS to the DETRIMENT of the group, but can say "look I capped DPS! I am god and you all suck"
Or the opposite can happen when the raid leader kicks the only dps that was interrupting, ccing or using mitigation abilities at all effectively because this crushed their "max DPS" rotation. Wonders why the raid did worse, kicks the lowest DPS and then gets past that magic tipping point where you have enough dps that skill doesn't matter and then say "I am a raid god... look at how I figured that out!!!"....

I have already seen this on LFG stuff in chat...
Hey, looking for someone for HM BT.... must be geared so ridiculously highly that you could solo HM BT (a bit of hyperbole, there). But to DPS this "effectively" they want you to already be in full end game gear.... not, you know, doing the HM BT to get the HM BT gear...
and with Dmg meters that thought process gets "validated" because, yeah, having 2-3x the DPS needed for a certain level of content means you can ignore a lot of the "knowing what to do and how to beat this boss fight". So that 2-3x the intended DPS becomes the "required" dps because that is "easier".
And you definitely saw this in the game that shall remain nameless.
that is the problem with dmg meters
And if some publishes or advocates a gearscore app, I will start the lynch mob myself...

Interestingly, the other thing I see is that there are actually 2 different arguments going on... the previous post was an argument against a group visible damage meter application. Something everyone can see and publish. I think that promotes laziness and the perception that DPS that maxes out DPS is "good" DPS for group play....

The other issue is the people who want to eke out the last bit of individual effectiveness from their character. Which I don't have a problem with at all. Have at it. theory craft the heck out of your character if that is how you enjoy playing. And you can tell me all you want how you are putting out the absolute most DPS for your DPS class....
Please enjoy that bragging right and sense of accomplishment. (I know that sounds sarcastic, but I am really sincere, I love to crunch numbers too)

I just don't feel that maximizing your individual ability (of any kind) correlates into how well you will support group play. This game just isn't as simple as that. Working together and using all your abilities well has way more potential impact than being so overpowered in one field as to make it unnecessary (and yes that included tanking or healing).
They have non-dps, non-healing, non-tanking abilities that can have huge impacts on the ebb and flow of a combat that are not only not captured in a meter but are often detrimentally 'exposed' on a meter.

dont do it. its a small step from damage meters to addons and that'll be the death of enjoyment in swotr.
when nerds nitpick about that extra .000045% increased damage from chosing one skill over another and youre a total noob if you dont .... thats when MMOs die.
addons killed wow, and they will kill swotr if they get implemented.
no to damage meters, no to addons for healing, no to auto-taunting, yes to banning hackers
dont do it, dont implement this stuff.
swotr will die horribly if you do
learn the lesson of wow, DO NOT IMPLEMENT THESE THINGS

Hahahha very nice answer

Generalizations are....bad. Not everyone who is against damage meters is a terrible player. Even in WoW you didn't need to use a damage meter to get good DPS.