Parsebrain - The Scourge of Raiding

In this video, I go over the condition of parsebrain, how it affects tanks, dps, and healers.
/ zatar_wow
/ zatar_wow

[@lasergames1798]

How do you know how to tell dad if you're winnin or not without a parse?

[@brandonkruse6412]

Can’t wait to see how many parsebrains die on Sindragosa when she puts this debuff on you that damages you every time you cast a spell. I think the dps tunnel vision can be a bad habit to have when you play later expansions of WoW where bosses do have punishing mechanics that require awareness.

[@inflames8019]

I have a FERAL Druide in my Raid that is highly infected with Parse Brain. He never wants to use Rebirth unless everybody else is on CD , when it's called and he just used Haste Potion / Trinkets he refuses to B-Rezz right away lol... one time he claimed "oh sorry didn't hear you" eventhough the RL had to call it like 3 times. also he uses his Inervate for his shapeshifting Mana instead of using it for Mages / Healers.

[@dennisbrglum4035]

As long as peoples worth as a player, is judged by thier parse, then this is going to be a problem.

[@Nopenotagainhaha]

I will not stop executing as prot . on a different note, how can one stop getting kicked from raiding guilds?

[@sean7269]

Something else that really helps prevent parsebrain is having a raid environment that encourages proper play through incentives ie. having the gm check the logs and punish/reward people accordingly through loot.

[@richardgregory3684]

And even then you need a GM having the sense to make allowance for stuff like some classes being frankly over or under tuned, or pulling exceptionally high or low numbers for no other reason than a particular boss or mechanic happens to play to all the strengths of a class/spec.

[@richardgregory3684]

In my original guild back in the first TBC we had kind of a similar issue. We had a hunter who consistently topped the DPS chart (esescially on trash, lol I can mash my multishot button skillz) - usually at the expense of doing anything else, or just by padding. Not only that but he would post the DPS chart after every single damn encounter, including trash pulls. It made for an extremely toxic environment because at that time hunters were one of the metas and we had other dps who were never going to pull those numbers. It just made them feel humiliated and inadequate even before we pulled a boss. It got so bad that pretty much everyone had to message the guild master and raid leaders to say "either this guy quits posting dps all the time or he needs to be kicked". In my view a raid is no place to put up dps charts at all - espescially given how some classes are inevitably over or under tuned, or perform differently on different bosses). If someone is seriusly underperforming, then a quiet word from the raid leaders AFTER the raid is appropriate. I'm glad I left wow years ago. ParseBrain sounds just even more horribly toxic. DPS is bad enough with people chasing numbers in bad ways. But this crap is even worse!

[@arc-sd8sk]

healers who try to parse are just closeted DPS players

[@Nonxsn]

My favorite one is the warr MT swapping to zerk stance to execute and risking dying lmao

[@nicholasjohnson1200]

It really only sounds like he's referring to bad players who are obsessed with parses. Good players can parse well without doing any of the negative things he's saying. The trouble with parsing is that most people don't know how to interpret performance from the data in the logs. A parse number by itself is only half the story. Parses are definitely a good indication of performance, as long as you aren't just looking at the color of the number and nothing else. The logs give a lot of info, and parse is only one part of it. It almost seems like this guy is trying to be a copium dealer saying that high parses are bad, but that just isn't true for all cases. A high parse should definitely be sought after, just not at the expense of failing mechanics. The biggest truth will always be that you can't get a good parse if the boss isn't dead. This guy really did just over simplify the importance of parses and what it indicates. It is true that someone who gets a blue parse, or maybe even green, could still be a high performing player if you can look at a given log and see reasonable excuses for the average / below average output for whatever the circumstances were, but if someone had a grey parse and tried to excuse it by saying they were focusing on mechanics, that wouldn't fly. You can almost always go through the logs of someone who got a very low parse and then afterward justifiably ask, "what the hell were you even doing?" Recently I was talking to a Holy Paladin who was trying to defend his single digit parses on Muru by saying he was doing his job and watching the sentinel tank. I showed him in his logs that if you straight up just subtracted all his heals from the tank, the sentinel tank still would have lived. He literally could have afk'd without saying anything, and nobody would have noticed. For healers, being given an assignment doesn't mean you can't heal outside your assignment. There's times when healing off assignment would be stupid, but those instances are not the majority of the time. When you're assigned to something, it means it's your responsibility. You prioritize that assignment, but that doesn't mean you tunnel that assignment. That's the kind of playing that makes your raid require more healers than should be required and keeps your guild from making the best competitive kill times.

[@Zatar]

If you do the mechanics properly and still pump a lot of damage there’s obviously nothing wrong with looking at logs. When it comes to healing assignments, specifically in the holy paladin example, It is more complicated because they don’t have regular instant or fast cast heals that are powerful. If your holy paladin is not precasting holy lights on a sentinel tank, their 1.5k flash of lights are not going to do anything to keep the tank alive. There’s several bosses where your paladins can’t afford to heal other targets without falling behind, simply due to holy light being their only strong heal.

[@brianmorin7022]

"Good players can parse well without doing any of the negative things he's saying." This happens with good players in good raids too. Because good players want great parses to demonstrate mastery, make it easier to find a strong guild if things go south or to move up the guild ladder (assuming they can keep up in playtime.) Because if you're not in a parse guild going from Purple/Orange parses to Pink 99s requires stuff like: o Getting a stacked group comp o Being greedy/lucky with gear o Fast kill times ... in addition to blowing off mechanics or getting lucky with them. Parses DO correlate to player skill *up to a point.* For DPS they correlate a quite a lot up until Purple/Orange (depending on the content, in hard content it's harder to parse because weaker players aren't in the pool to prop you up.) For Tanks/Healers the correlation drops off much faster. If you can't parse well, there is clearly something going on with assignment, missed button presses, behind on gear, just a bad pull for you, bad comp, etc.

[@arc-sd8sk]

poppin Blood Fury on eredar twins 💪

[@Mellistron]

good luck when the juicy gdkps want top parses to ensure smooth runs.

[@onix3539]

Plottwist, you can play WoW without ever attending a GDKP

[@Ashanthala]

"Various performance cuts bonuses" "Oh, we forgot to mention that our clique will get good groups and double lusts, whooopsie no extra cut for you :^)"

[@splitframe]

It's not just people being selfish during the try itself. We also sometimes have problems with damage allocation. Say a Venthyr Boomkin does overall more damage, but you need consistent damage outside of 3min timers, because they don't align with phase push at 2:30min.

[@knusperkeks2748]

I can't wait to see the wipes on Anub'Arak because parsebrain healers decided to continue to heal when they shouldn't, eventually leading the boss to leech more hp from the raid with Leeching Swarm.

[@Duedelue]

Best idea for tank parses imho: (thread per second) divided by (damage taken per second)

[@brianmorin7022]

This might correlate stronger to skill than measuring either one, but it still fails to correlate to skill at a high percentile. There are lots of ways to cheese incoming damage that matters even less than damage padding. Minimizing damage taken has diminishing returns in terms of risk mitigation vs just pushing more threat/damage. The things you need to ask about a tank are: Would they pass a trial in your guild as DPS? Do they blame healers or do what they can to minimize deaths? What does their cooldown usage look like? If you don't like the answers to those questions start trialing tanks. Even if it means uncomfortable discussions with officers and friend groups. Your raids WILL run smoother.

[@Duedelue]

@@brianmorin7022 I agree with you - but I still think it would be wiser to compare this quotient rather than raw dps. But, yeah, tank parses are quite unwise in general :)

[@andreaskvaloy]

Love this, so true!

[@sparda_]

rogue player, and what you said abt dps players is extremely true, even though I've stopped, I'm guilty of parsebrain, but the only flaw in your statement is not recognizing that what causes dps to have parsebrain, it's not ego, its because bad parses = no raid spots. for me it's just mostly taking my anger out on the community due to the uncountable amount of times I've been denied a raid spot just solely because of my class

[@Zatar]

Yeah maybe I should have mentioned the pressure to parse for raid spots being a big issue.

[@sparda_]

@@Zatar yeah, the problem itself is that when you create in-depth statistics for anything it starts to get competitive and people stop having fun, if anyone is to blame its warcraftlogs

[@mikali1704]

@@Zatar just do parse - dmg taken = true skill. You can do it for melee classes and for ranged classes separately. Both dmg done, and dmg avoided should be combined together to show player's skill. But ofc it will never be done, it is too late for wow now

[@TheThunder367]

Being honest though, 95-99 parses you can almost always get if you Play well without fucking the raid. Sure to hit 100s you need to have the whole team Play around you, but if you are in a hardcore/minmax guild you can do that easy.

[@TheThunder367]

Also, not using threat gear on hkm is trolling, all good guilds killed hkm in 20 sec zergs where the tanks threat is most important. Tanks shouldn’t wear more defensive gear than needed to live, after you live, you get dps so the threat is less of an issue and raiddps is higher.

[@ryuranzou]

As a prot pally that built a ret set and looking to do 25 man content as ret would being in the prot pally's group so they get sanct aura be pretty good? I know it'd hurt my damage not having windfury or whatever, but if the tank can do 10% more holy damage while having avengers shield it sounds like it'd help the raid out more.

[@Zatar]

Ret is very windfury reliant, and some prots take sanc aura anyway. Usually you guys won’t be in the same group together, especially for bosses.

[@filipp269]

Ret with not wf is such greif why would you want to play in the support group when u can do serious dmg if you just have optimal group

[@cameronweiss1424]

If you and your raid really don’t care about your dps at all, it is an option. In sunwell a lot of prot pallies take avenger’s shield which doesn’t have sanc aura. Usually the holy pally takes sanc and gives it to the prot pally but if you want to completely destroy your dps in order to give the hpal better healing then yeah it’s an option

[@Ashanthala]

Like with slam warrior: no windfury, no raid. Tyvm this has been my tedtalk

[@coza10]

Real talk.. nothings gonna change in wrath though, maybe if the heroics are difficult people will care less about parsing but gold buying and gdkps will continue to ruin the game

[@lvsoad22]

They are less difficult than tbc for sure

[@coza10]

@@lvsoad22 heroic raids I’m referring to

[@knusperkeks2748]

Parsebrain has festered and evolved within private server players for over a decade, it's partially the reason why I didn't play DPS before I quit wow for good. It's the raid leader's job to give incentives for proper play. Bad raid leaders and officers will look only at damage output and ignore mechanics and pass out loot and praise accordingly. Chances are, if there is a parsebrain in your raid that consistently causes issues or even wipes, you're better off kicking them from the raid and go with one less person. Have a much smoother and pleasant experience. This is coming from somebody that got a rank 14 warrior and did extremely overturned content for many hours every day in Lich King private server (dalaran wow). Parsebrain is an affront against everything that constitutes a team player in WoW. I have no idea how people even enjoy raiding with these individuals. I can't conceive of a reality in which I, of all the ways to spend my free time, choose to play a game in which my own teammates make it their objective to undermine my and my guild's efforts to accomplish an objective, solely out of selfishness.

[@Lee-jc1gb]

I think we should treat this like drugs and start a harm prevention model. If anyone is going to “try and get away with it” they should tell a buddy to keep an eye on them so they don’t wipe the raid. Hopefully this will save many lives and many hours of wipes.

[@pWallyy]

I'm not using Tricks of the Trade on anyone in Wrath until my Tier 10 set. That 15 energy could of been allocated toward more personal dps!

[@brianmorin7022]

Pfffffft, n00b. Rogues use Ticks of the Trade on each other for the % DPS buff.

[@pWallyy]

@@brianmorin7022 flew right over your little head

[@Pizzathyme117]

I agree and disagree with parsebrain simultaneously. It gives some camaraderie and competition for people who want to flex on each other to see who can pump the most and gives people a reason to excel and become better players and master their dps rotation. It's also infuriating when there's a fight where you have to remain below the tanks in absolute threat or stay below 2nd threat. I can't tell you how many wipes we've had on Twins in SWP where a Huntard or Lock didn't push a button (hunters could've even pushed a second button in MD) and cost 25 people a repair bill, consumes, and 5-10 minutes of their time. Str and Agi scrolls aren't cheap, and neither is my sanity.

[@andyevans9356]

genius

[@WoWSpartacus]

Says the Protection Warrior player..... lmao

[@boarderz8275]

This sounds like something a green parser would say

[@Drakshl]

Sans people not doing their jobs, it is optimal for everyone to try to do as much damage as possible. Particularly tanks. You should want your tank to wear as much DPS gear as they can without wiping the group, because the more damage your tank does the better. Survivability gear that isn't nessasary is wasted, unless it saves enough healer globals to do more damage than the difference in your damage as a tank between what your wearing and full tank gear. Healer logs are a complete joke though.

[@ryuranzou]

He mentioned examples where threat gear isn't needed like maulgar. The tank on maulgar is hitting him for a very long time before any dps is even touching him, because they're killing the adds first. In this case like he said full mitigation gear can be used and that tank will never lose threat. If the tank can hold threat just fine when dps use their shatters and feign deaths, then they have enough threat gear and should wear more mitigation gear to make sure the raid doesn't wipe. The raid as a whole will do a lot better if those dps use their globals on losing threat abilities and the tank can take an extra hit. Like he said just because you could get away with it doesn't mean you should, because it could cause more wipes wasting way more time than that one global would've saved.

[@richardgregory3684]

_it is optimal for everyone to try to do as much damage as possible._ It isn't. It is optimal for everyone to do as much damage consistent with the situation. You won't raid well if everyone focusses on nothing but their damage. The guy actually gave multiple examples of how just everyone maxxing out damage exclusive to other consideration sis a bad thing.

[@Preacher_.]

If a healer is dispelling, using their utility cds, and their tank isn't dying due to lack of heals, parse your brains out. A healer who meets those requirements and has "parse brain" just means less DPS are going to die.

[@Kardurst9789]

A healer who is dispelling, using utility, and keeping their tank alive, is by definition free of "parse brain"

[@aes783]

i see nothing has changed since classic

[@huthutify]

I disagree with tanks not being a big deal. It 's a massive deal

[@Drakshl]

Yup, tanks who don't try to do as much damage as possible whilst staying alive are a real problem, it makes no sense when people play fully defensive builds unless absolutely necessary

[@Zatar]

With good healers parse tanks can get away with playing too offensively.

[@huthutify]

@@Zatar @Drakshl Offensive builds are for sure a problem. Okay so being in both a top 1% guild and a top .1% guild the difference in tanks is massive. The better guilds' tank has a very safe playstyle. While he still is pushing the speed of the raid he will do everything he can gear wise to make the raid smooth and dealthless. The last thing you want to do is change to threat gear. Only after you've already gotten insane speed and just want to shave off a couple seconds. Our first deathless sunwell run was sub one hour. Then we improved mechanics/mana efficiency and route. Even with a wipe due to a bad dps on conflag we still got a sub 50 min run. In mitigation gear. It's common sense.

[@huthutify]

@@Zatar With good tanks parse healers can get away with playing too offensively.

[@erich1380]

killed brutallus in five minutes? holy shit

[@ravendogperson]

thats good still but my guild does it in even less its pretty wild how much damage your raid gains from good debuff management

[@erich1380]

@@ravendogperson yeah I guess I'm thinking of the old days where it took like 15 minutes when people sucked lol

[@ravendogperson]

@@erich1380 brutallus instantly wipes the raid after 6 minutes though

[@erich1380]

@@ravendogperson oh well I guess I'm wrong it was a long time ago

[@purkz1]

Ur talking about people being selfish cos they don't stop DPS when they're high on threat meanwhile ur playing prot warrior lmfao

[@Dualities]

No he is talking about furry warrios who dont apply sunder armor or demo shout

[@Dualities]

@@MesmerBaas warrior aoe get massive buffs tho. thorns ons teroids, buffs to thunder clap can hit all targets now and buffs to revenge aoe also u can be 2 hander and shield tank xd or jsut 2 hander xd

[@Dualities]

@@MesmerBaas shield block got buffed. shield wall too... they have improved demoralizing shout which is udnerrated, thunder clap, sunder armor really good, thorns on steroids the more block u have, revenge big buff, thunder clap can hit all... and single target aitn a problem even right now

[@Dualities]

@@MesmerBaas full plate warrior with shield getting 1 shoted? yeah nice story bro. that that pally talent to take reduced dmg under 30% hp is also usefull when things already go bad

[@jefftc14]

I unsubbed honestly... the game and player base simply aren't what it used to be.... seems everyone is a douche now and only cares about themselves and how much gold they buy and shit.. it's not going to change... it's sad

[@brianmorin7022]

If you're looking for a reason to not have fun playing Classic Wow, you will find it. GL finding what you're looking for.

[@sofianehassen7398]

The only one taking selfish action is you griefing your raid by playing Prot War

[@Amber-t4d]

Love this video know a few who this targets it's a terminal disease which is untreatable