Previously, the best I could ever parse was 79 - and that required me to play damn near perfectly. Now I’m parsing 95-98 on average.
Same gear. Same player. Same world buffs. The difference? I switched guilds to a hardcore(ish) guild.
So does this mean parsing high isn’t really about personal performance at all then? It’s about guild performance? Guilds who clear quickly will naturally parse higher?
Edit: Thanks for a lot of great and informative responses. Feel free to let this thread die. 
It isn’t just about you, you know. Heals keeping you in the fight lets you parse more. Tanks keeping agro longer lets you parse more. Debuffs stacking more lets you parse more. Coordination lets you parse more.
The more tryhard the guild, the more likely EVERYONE is to be pushing to the max, coordinating debuffs, taunts and heals more effectively, which allows everyone to do better.
Yes, I know it’s a team effort and believe me, I’m a team player. I get it.
But my point is that parsing isn’t an accurate reflection of personal skill. Guilds that clear MC in 30 minutes could have sloppy players in some respects, yet those players will still parse infinitely higher than a great player stuck in a casual guild.
So it’s not really a useful tool for personal measurement against others?
It’s useful for measuring you against the others in the guild.
The shorter the fight, the higher the DPS.
If you are in an average guild parsing above 70 is pretty good imo if you are comparing yourself to the overall population. As long as you arent in the low greens/gray while being in an average guild, then your performance is fine.
I usually get 65-90 on my priest and have no doubt that would go up with better healing organization and shorter fights(higher DPS).
You ideally would compare your performance to boss fights of similar duration of other guilds. Comparing a 10 minute nef fight to a 4 minute nef fight is not a fair comparison of individual player skill.
Yes and no. Against others in your guild, it tells you how well you’re doing compared to the rest of the guild. Against someone in a very different situation, then it is less useful.
Parsing let’s you know who’s good and or bad. Higher parce means your a better player.
Did you read my post?
I did. Try convincing meter hogs. They are just going to point to parses and flex the good ol’ epeen. Somethings never change and being top meter dog is the way they measure the virtual “D”.
Ok thanks. That’s a bit of a disappointment to me. I like leaderboards and I’m pretty competitive. But this means a high parse isn’t necessarily a good reflection of how I stack up individually against the top players.
Still useful, I guess. But I was hoping for more of a personal leaderboard.
Just means your old guild was holding you back.
Kill speed means the bosses die faster, meaning mroe time under cooldowns and more DPCT from thigns like sappers. That being said everyone still needs to be doing their damnest to get to that point.
As a raiding boomkin parses can be fun. I can break into top 10 if we’re missing our shadow priest because open debuff spots and I can weave in moonfire.
Though I can certainly do better
Personal opinion: Min maxing is a detriment to your health.
In Classic, parsing high often relies upon a great deal of things outside of your control.
Kill times.
Crit RNG.
Proc RNG.
Whether or not you have the right gear yet.
Player pool.
For example, I had top parse on my realm for ragnaros for ret pallies, yet my gear really wasn’t that great, and it’s not like I was pulling off a difficult rotation(lol). How can this be? Am I just that amazing at the game? No, it was because I got lucky with SoC procs and crits, and the fight was short. Pallies in full BiS were still behind because their kill times were longer, and/or they didn’t get as lucky.
In addition to this, I frequently get high percentiles without even trying. How can this be? Simple; there really aren’t that many raiding rets, making it easier to have a higher position in the pool overall.
Parses are not wholly meaningless, but are a great deal less of an indicator of ones personal performance compared to retail. This is why it is not good, foolish even, to play Classic for the goal of parsing high. It’s fun to try every once and a while, but don’t get too invested in it.
All that matters on mine is 100% up time on COE and having a good show on Netflix.
Took you long enough to figure that out. This isn’t exactly a news flash.
He’s finally figured it out!
… don’t tell him how meaningless everything else is too…
parsing is really only meant to show you where the major gaps are in your raid. Is a rogue pulling 35% and doing less damage than the tank? why? Time to investigate and either help them out of find a new dps.
When someone parses well below average you can use it as an indicator, but getting into the minutiae makes it less helpful. The different between 93% and 95% is negligible.
The parser beast is more dangerous to the raid than any boss in the game.
Yet we all wish to slay the mythical parser beast.