If you arent aware, parsing craze and culture has completely taken over Season of Discovery. Id like to escape from that hell - not my idea of fun. Does this culture exist in wotlk? Will it exist in cata? Trying to figure out where to play (maybe even retail if that is an option).
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Wrath is where that nonsense STARTED. This was the expansion that led to the GearScore addon existing in the first place, which my pet theory is that it also directly led to ilevel and the entire notion in gaming of defining a power level by a single number, whether it be ilevel here or FFXIV, Power in Destiny 2, whatever your other preferred live service game uses for the same purposeâŚ
At the very least Retail has enough people playing that it shouldnât be much of a problem unless youâre in a srs bsns hardcore raiding guild. Hell, my slightly-more-than-casual guild took me along for some Mythics when my ilevel was so low I couldnât queue for HEROIC and was two-shot if anything so much as looked at me.
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There is no escaping this anymore in WoW. It is amazing to me that as you progress backwards through iterations of the game, people seem to be more fixated on parsing. Which is somewhat ironic as older versions of the game are much easier.
It is very prevalent in Wrath, and I doubt the fixation on parses diminishes at all in Cata.
Warcraft Logs is a very useful website for people who want to optimize/improve their gameplay, but sadly, the depth of analysis most people do on that site can be summed up by saying:
âBlue and green bad. Orange good. Pink more gooder. Purple less bad.â
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There are casual guilds available that do not just parse.
My guild is an example.
We had 2 teams that were high parse and kill everything heroic elite members, which has 2 teams of 25 and 1 team of 25 that was casual some heroic mode some normal mode and as long as everything died and they were progressing, it was totally fine. And yes the more elite teams killed everything heroic, including LK w/o Buff.
Each team helped others in a pinch or if they were short - so it worked really nice, and no one cared which team you were on it was one big family, but I will say the less elite members were a whole lot more fun to be around!
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You could simply do what I do and donât look at any logs/parses. When people ask me what my numbers are or tell me Iâm high, Iâm like, âI donât care.â This is a video game, not a job. You aint paying me to care about arbitrary metrics, logs, or compete with other people. I do my job, not leech, but I couldnât care less if Iâm # 1 out of 25 people on the damage chart.
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Itâs pretty crazy how Retail is far less tryhard toxic than Classic.
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its the competitive nature.
People like to be competitive. And people like to win said competitions.
There is really nothing wrong with that.
The only real issue is occasional unreasonable standards for easier tier of content.
It also serves as âresumeâ for a lot of raiders. Same as you âparseâ at work to get a better job later, WOW players parse in the game to get into better groups and be eligible for earlier upgrades.
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Some people seem to really enjoy parsing, and it seems to be increasing in popularity among players. I wouldnât say âitâs taken over,â from my point of view, but it sure is a lot more prevalent these days than it was a few years back.
Having said that, there still also seem to be a lot of players who donât care about parsing or parses.
I also recently invited a new member to our guild who linked all gray parses. Some of our members regularly parse well above 90.
I agree. Thatâs besides the point(s) I was making. To reiterateâŚ
- I find it intriguing that the fixation on this is more prevalent in older/easier versions of the game.
- The average person does a very rudimentary analyses of the combat log data and thus the site will be used improperly to gauge a playerâs skill.
And much like oneâs job in the real world, a personâs future âemployerâ might have unreasonable expectations. âLooking to fill entry-level position. Must have three years experienceâ didnât become a meme for nothing.
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Yeah those are real. Sadly.
I remember, many many years ago coming out of College and looking into Entry level positions. It would be titled âEntry Level XYZâ and have multiple years of experience, a dozen certifications and an ability to prove that you saved your old company millions of dollars in 1 project. xDDD
So glad Iâm way past that lmao
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One time i did gruul with this guild and i was in pvp gear pvp spec resto druid (with insect swarm). I decided to keep insect swarm on the boss since i was on tank healing and maintaining lifebloom on 1 guy is mad boring.
I apparently parsed a 99 in dps and the guild was all super impressed and was convinced that i was the reason they downed him.
I looked at the logs. I parsed like a 60 for healing. 99 for dps. Lol.
Lots of folks are returning and did all of the other stuff in OG WoTLK (ie: Holidays, Dungeons, Events, etc). Now- they are back to raid only and to see how well they can.
I know for a fact this is what I did. I logged on to do my raids, did a dungeon once a day for badges, got some consumables and was done. I was on like 8-9 hours a week at most and off to do other things.
I donât have the 300+ flying, I have zero holiday cheesements, I barely have fast flying - it is of zero interest - I did it I done it I have it on retail. Classic was going back and having fun in raids only.
Come to Maladath. No one cares about your parse. If you have a heartbeat, youâre set.
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I mean, I donât remember hearing about anyone requiring full (looks up the last raid tier in SL) Sepulcher equipment to do the first DF dungeon. 
The main difference there is that WoW doesnât buy me food while my job does.
For what itâs worth you could be a healer in FFXIV doing that; half the time the tankâs not in danger of getting one-shot, so you keep up either DoTs or use the occasional ability while you monitor the tank along with making sure the DPS donât end up tanking the floor. 
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Sure. Right up to the moment someone runs M+ Keys. Then, well, Retail is every bit as toxic. Itâs all the same type of players regardless of the game version.
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Yeah ff14 was way too slow for me. I hear it gets better after ARR but i couldnât stomach past 30.
You think Gnomeregan requires the same amount of min/maxing as Mythic+?
I once got into a raiding guild by showing a purple hogger parse. Honestly itâs better to find a casual guild that has fun. I actually ended up just getting into a raiding guild with a âsocialâ tag. I supply them with flasks and feasts for new phases/expansions, and they carry me some times. Everyone wins.
Casual players are actually very handy. You just have to do some searching and be up front about everything.
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About âtoxic playersâ was the comment being made and that being the point.
I canât dodge the attacks I have to DPS and get my 100%
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