Mine? That is the exact definition of viable. Do you even look up words and their meanings? Ever? “You disagree therefore you are wrong despite using the exact meaning of the word correctly!”. Holy hell how dumb can people be?
Imagine not being able to understand that if your definition of “viable DPS” includes afk dead players and empty raid slots, then you are using an invalid definition.
Alternatively, imagine not being able to understand why the definition of “viable” is important when discussing what = viable.
Imagine thinking you know what viable is without even knowing the definition of the word. 
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No one in the history of this game has ever complained that their spec wasn’t viable DPS and meant that their presence guarantees that a 40 man raid will always wipe. That isn’t the definition of viable and it never has been in this context. Moreover, by that standard “nothing” is viable DPS because you can down bosses with empty raid slots.
When your definition of “viable DPS” includes dead afk players and empty raid slots, your definition is clearly and obviously broken.
I’m not sure, but you are certainly testing the limits by trying to use an internally invalid definition even after it’s been explained to you why it cannot possibly be a valid definition in this context.
Imagine thinking that a dictionary definition of a word always applies in every context including highly specialized communities that never ever use the word that way.
Caxtren, answer this question.
Are afk dead players “viable DPS?”
Question: If I say “I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse!”, do you take that literally, too?
Connotations and denotations exist for a reason.
Nobody is disagreeing with you, but you’re getting hung up on a word that can be used in different ways depending on the context. Being nitpicky isn’t getting your argument everywhere. It makes you look like you’re reaching. Obviously, yes, a dead person in a raid because they’re bad is still “viable” DPS.
But if you look at the picture of the thread and what the person you’re arguing was trying to say, it literally had nothing to do with that. It had everything to do with countering what is and isn’t “favored”.
nope because they do no dps. Next?
You also seem to confuse the words viable and optimal…
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No, I am explaining that in this context it means something very different from what you guys are trying to get it to mean.
But you can down bosses with afk dead players filling a DPS slot and that was your gold standard for defining “viability.”
And what context is that, exactly?
Because from what I’ve read in this thread, nobody is talking about the viability of bad players in a 40 man group. We’re talking about the exclusion of certain specs, not players.
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No, I certainly am not. I’m not talking about which specs are optimal. I’m talking about which ones can even possibly be competitive.
You can yes. But dead = 0 dmg so 0 dps is not any dps. It’s really easy to understand… Is 0 sandwich viable sandwich? Heeerrrrrdeeerrrrrr
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Compete? That is what optimal is. Noone ever said anywhere that all specs compete with all others. Not even me. But they ARE VIABLE. derpaderp
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The context is within the discussion of class tuning. No one has ever asked for their spec to be viable DPS and meant that they wanted to do less than half the DPS of other specs. No one has ever asked for their spec to be viable and meant that they just wanted their spec to not be so inferior that it guarantees the group would wipe on every boss pull.
But that wasn’t your definition of viable DPS. You never set any threshold for how much DPS they do. Your definition was totally about whether or not the boss could be killed with them in the group. Which is it?
In the early raids viability could easily be thrown out of the window. The goal of course is to attempt to get the most optimal composition of players that you can. But so far on WarcraftLogs most of the fights are lasting between 30 seconds to 3 minutes. So it’s not a big deal if you aren’t sporting a top tier comp. I’m pretty sure anything will be able to get through these raids.
Mages gear for spell powrr and spam frostbolt, warlocks gear for shadow damage and spam shadow bolt. Moonkin gear for arcane damage and spam starfire. Do they deal a little less damage on a longer fight? Maybe. But they arent going to cripple your raid. Starfire crits are supermassive! I dont know much about elemental but i assume its in a similar boat.
Nope, that isn’t what optimal is. Being optimal means being the best possible. You can be competitive in DPS without being optimal.