A Reality Check on DPS Parses and Buffed Dummies

Taarente · February 9

Let’s stop pretending that a DPS number from hitting a piece of wood—while swimming in guaranteed buffs you will never reliably have in real content, is any meaningful guide to a player’s actual capability.

A fully buffed trial dummy parse doesn’t show how you play. It shows how well you can follow a script under laboratory conditions.

If you’re going to post a parse and claim it represents you, then show an unbuffed skeleton dummy parse instead. That at least answers the honest question: what can you do on your own, without perfect uptime, perfect positioning, and imaginary supports?

Because that 180k “god build” everyone loves to flex is far more likely to land somewhere around 30k on a good day, with favourable wind, cooperative enemies, and the stars aligned.

One real downside of this culture is how these inflated numbers get used to gatekeep. Trial-dummy parses become a shortcut for judging players, even though they say very little about awareness, survivability, mechanics, or consistency under pressure. We end up filtering for rehearsed DPS rather than actual reliability, and that’s bad for groups and the game.

Parses aren’t useless, but let’s stop confusing rehearsed numbers with real performance.

Renato90085 · February 9

real performance can did more better than in dummy parse
the dummy parse just prove you in safe parse stage how good your build can did

Ardriel · February 9

Dummy parses are intended to show the maximum DPS output of a build and the player's skills. They are used solely for comparison purposes. In 95% of all cases, dummy parses are significant: a player who achieves 150k on the dummy with their best build will also do more damage in a real boss fight than a player who only achieves 90 with their best build. The system is fine as it is.

Orbital78 · February 9

It depends on the dummy used, but if you can do 100k+ on a trial dummy you are going to be fine in almost any content minus a few of the more recent hard modes maybe. Parsing just means you understand the fundamentals of your rotations, plenty of parsers cannot stay alive or do mechanics well.

Morvan · February 9

That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what a trial dummy is for, it's not a laboratory condition, it's used as a ruler that simulates buffs you'd get in a group setting, and yes, you can easily get all those buffs reliably on any competent group.

No one who's parsing on a trial dummy is claiming they can do that damage on their own, everyone knows that's not what they represent, DPS builds used on parses are builds optimized for GROUP content, not solo content, so parsing on a unbuffed dummy is irrelevant, the best way to polish your build and fix possible mistakes is by using the dummy that mimics the situation the build is intended for.

If your intent is to create a build for solo content, then yes it would make sense to parse on an unbuffed dummy instead to test your DPS/Sustain, but that's not what the parses you're seeing are trying to do.

Just look at any optimized group in content, you can actually parse WAY higher on actual content than on the dummy, if you think the damage on the dummy is inflated, you'll be baffled seeing something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxjisWESWY

Taarente · February 9

Morvan wrote: »

That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what a trial dummy is for, it's not a laboratory condition, it's used as a ruler that simulates buffs you'd get in a group setting, and yes, you can easily get all those buffs reliably on any competent group.

No one who's parsing on a trial dummy is claiming they can do that damage on their own, everyone knows that's not what they represent, DPS builds used on parses are builds optimized for GROUP content, not solo content, so parsing on a unbuffed dummy is irrelevant, the best way to polish your build and fix possible mistakes is by using the dummy that mimics the situation the build is intended for.

If your intent is to create a build for solo content, then yes it would make sense to parse on an unbuffed dummy instead to test your DPS/Sustain, but that's not what the parses you're seeing are trying to do.

Just look at any optimized group in content, you can actually parse WAY higher on actual content than on the dummy, if you think the damage on the dummy is inflated, you'll be baffled seeing something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxjisWESWY

I don’t actually disagree with most of that.

Trial dummies are a ruler for optimised group DPS, and for builds explicitly intended for organised group content they’re the correct tool. Nobody sensible thinks a trial dummy parse represents solo damage.

Where I’m pushing back is not against trial dummy parsing itself, but against how those numbers are increasingly used outside their intended context.

In practice, trial dummy DPS gets:
• quoted as a proxy for player capability in general,
• used as a blunt gatekeeping metric,
• and compared directly to builds that are not designed around permanent group buff uptime.

At that point, the nuance you’re describing gets lost.

My argument isn’t “trial dummy parsing is wrong”, it’s:
• trial dummy DPS answers a very specific question, and
• it stops being meaningful the moment it’s treated as a universal measure of performance.

For players building for solo, mixed, pug, or unpredictable content, an unbuffed dummy tells them something trial dummies never will: what their build actually delivers when support assumptions fall away.

Both tools are valid.
The problem is when one ruler is treated as if it measures everything.

Taarente · February 9

Ardriel wrote: »

Dummy parses are intended to show the maximum DPS output of a build and the player's skills. They are used solely for comparison purposes. In 95% of all cases, dummy parses are significant: a player who achieves 150k on the dummy with their best build will also do more damage in a real boss fight than a player who only achieves 90 with their best build. The system is fine as it is.

Dummy parses compare potential under ideal conditions. Real content compares performance under pressure. The problem isn’t the ruler, it’s pretending it measures everything.

Morvan · February 9

Taarente wrote: »

Morvan wrote: »

That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what a trial dummy is for, it's not a laboratory condition, it's used as a ruler that simulates buffs you'd get in a group setting, and yes, you can easily get all those buffs reliably on any competent group.

No one who's parsing on a trial dummy is claiming they can do that damage on their own, everyone knows that's not what they represent, DPS builds used on parses are builds optimized for GROUP content, not solo content, so parsing on a unbuffed dummy is irrelevant, the best way to polish your build and fix possible mistakes is by using the dummy that mimics the situation the build is intended for.

If your intent is to create a build for solo content, then yes it would make sense to parse on an unbuffed dummy instead to test your DPS/Sustain, but that's not what the parses you're seeing are trying to do.

Just look at any optimized group in content, you can actually parse WAY higher on actual content than on the dummy, if you think the damage on the dummy is inflated, you'll be baffled seeing something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxjisWESWY

I don’t actually disagree with most of that.

Trial dummies are a ruler for optimised group DPS, and for builds explicitly intended for organised group content they’re the correct tool. Nobody sensible thinks a trial dummy parse represents solo damage.

Where I’m pushing back is not against trial dummy parsing itself, but against how those numbers are increasingly used outside their intended context.

In practice, trial dummy DPS gets:
• quoted as a proxy for player capability in general,
• used as a blunt gatekeeping metric,
• and compared directly to builds that are not designed around permanent group buff uptime.

At that point, the nuance you’re describing gets lost.

My argument isn’t “trial dummy parsing is wrong”, it’s:
• trial dummy DPS answers a very specific question, and
• it stops being meaningful the moment it’s treated as a universal measure of performance.

For players building for solo, mixed, pug, or unpredictable content, an unbuffed dummy tells them something trial dummies never will: what their build actually delivers when support assumptions fall away.

Both tools are valid.
The problem is when one ruler is treated as if it measures everything.

The issue with your argument is that the skill required to achieve those numbers on a trial dummy won't just disappear anywhere else, everyone parsing on the trial dummy are subject to the same conditions, that's why it can be used as an universal ruler.

To reiterate what Ardriel said, if X person can parse way higher than Y person, this gap will be reflected generally on the same degree on any content, it's just what it is.

If you can recognize that the trial dummy is the correct tool to mimic an organized group scenario, then you should also recognize that its usage as a "gatekeeping metric" for said groups is also valid. Much of the high-end content in this game is designed with high DPS in mind, you can't just add people to your core group based only on faith and expect things to go smoothly.

Not the ideal comparison, but you can't expect to become a licensed surgeon without a degree by just going "trust me, I can do it". Anyone who's good enough for the content they're trying to sign up are also good enough to make a decent parse to back up their claims, the rest is done in practice.

Renato90085 · February 9

Taarente wrote: »

Morvan wrote: »

That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what a trial dummy is for, it's not a laboratory condition, it's used as a ruler that simulates buffs you'd get in a group setting, and yes, you can easily get all those buffs reliably on any competent group.

No one who's parsing on a trial dummy is claiming they can do that damage on their own, everyone knows that's not what they represent, DPS builds used on parses are builds optimized for GROUP content, not solo content, so parsing on a unbuffed dummy is irrelevant, the best way to polish your build and fix possible mistakes is by using the dummy that mimics the situation the build is intended for.

If your intent is to create a build for solo content, then yes it would make sense to parse on an unbuffed dummy instead to test your DPS/Sustain, but that's not what the parses you're seeing are trying to do.

Just look at any optimized group in content, you can actually parse WAY higher on actual content than on the dummy, if you think the damage on the dummy is inflated, you'll be baffled seeing something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxjisWESWY

I don’t actually disagree with most of that.

Trial dummies are a ruler for optimised group DPS, and for builds explicitly intended for organised group content they’re the correct tool. Nobody sensible thinks a trial dummy parse represents solo damage.

Where I’m pushing back is not against trial dummy parsing itself, but against how those numbers are increasingly used outside their intended context.

In practice, trial dummy DPS gets:
• quoted as a proxy for player capability in general,
• used as a blunt gatekeeping metric,
• and compared directly to builds that are not designed around permanent group buff uptime.

At that point, the nuance you’re describing gets lost.

My argument isn’t “trial dummy parsing is wrong”, it’s:
• trial dummy DPS answers a very specific question, and
• it stops being meaningful the moment it’s treated as a universal measure of performance.

For players building for solo, mixed, pug, or unpredictable content, an unbuffed dummy tells them something trial dummies never will: what their build actually delivers when support assumptions fall away.

Both tools are valid.
The problem is when one ruler is treated as if it measures everything.

but 21m dummy it name trial dummy,soIt is used for test your build how good in trial group buff...
we really have other 6m health no buff dummy,main use to test solo build,solo, mixed, pug, or 4 man dungeon content

Angnos · February 9

Taarente wrote: »

One real downside of this culture is how these inflated numbers get used to gatekeep. Trial-dummy parses become a shortcut for judging players, even though they say very little about awareness, survivability, mechanics, or consistency under pressure. We end up filtering for rehearsed DPS rather than actual reliability, and that’s bad for groups and the game.

For me, dummy parses are one of the things people have to show in my guild to demonstrate that they understand their build and rotation, and that they can reach a certain level of DPS. But this is always combined with people’s trial clears and/or logs if they want to join a trifecta group.

And about gatekeeping. There really is no " real gatekeeping" in this game. Everybody can enter a trial or dungeon. Raid leaders and GMs don’t have the power to keep you away from content. We don’t work for ZOS. If you don’t like the requirements in a guild or group, just start your own with your own requirements. And maybe then you’ll understand why certain groups have certain standards that some people dislike.

ZhuJiuyin · February 9

Bringing a solo build into the Trials is a mistake (most of the time). In a competent Trials raid group, there are dedicated tanks and healers. Therefore, the DPS's responsibility is to maximize their own damage, not to carry a bunch of useless healing or defensive skills.

Until recently, I've seen many players deal very low damage on the first boss in VOC, precisely because they carried too many useless healing skills. For example, a Sorc I encountered the other day had 8 healing/shielding skills and 2 buff skills in his 12 skill slots, leaving only 2 skills for damage: Bound Armaments and Dark Shade.

Any experienced player could guess that his DPS was extremely low, but unsurprisingly, he used the same old excuses: "But I helped heal, blah blah blah," "But high DPS doesn't matter," "I helped with the mechanics."

No When you're only dealing 5% of the DPS, you're actually dragging the team down. I'd rather you be on the monster's side than be a teammate, at least I know I'll be safe when you attack me.

It's perfectly reasonable for a raid to have DPS requirements. Most HM Trials I've heard of require around 120-150K DPS, depending on whether some tricks are allowed, such as Highland Sentinel, Power Overload, etc. V-Trials generally require 80-100K DPS. These requirements are easily met even without mainstream builds; I've even seen Templars achieving 120K DPS while wearing Wrathsun gear.

DestroyerPewnack · February 9

As others have pointed out, dummy parses are used for comparison purposes. No one thinks they will actually be doing that same dps in real content. People who do 180k dps are using unrealistic builds, and they know that. When trial groups ask for dps screenshots, no one submits their 180k parse, because they know they will be laughed at.

Other than that exception, what you call gatekeeping, others call making sure that every member of the team can carry their own weight. That's what dummy parses are for; to prove that you know what you're doing. No one is responsible for carrying you through a vet trial with your off-meta, 20k dps build. You are not entitled to that.

Before criticizing something, you should really try to understand what it is.

MorganaLaVey · February 9

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Before criticizing something, you should really try to understand what it is.

"Seek to be understood before you seek to understand"
- Sokrates

tsaescishoeshiner · February 9

The way you test and compare something is by providing a standard metric.

Dummy parses may seem different from actual content, but your DPS numbers in actual content will vary way, way more widely depending on your group and how the fight goes. So there's nothing else to use as a simple relative estimate.

PvE guilds know that trial dummy buffs benefit some builds more than others—some use the non-trial dummies for a different metric, or have build and class differences. No one thinks the exact number is directly indicative of performance.

Ultimately, dummy parses just shows that you know what you're doing more than most and obviously if you underperform in content, that tells the trial leads a lot.

I was lucky to join some trial guilds without parses, and I would sometimes do better than some people who had met the parse minimums even though I couldn't, because of knowing the mechanics and what to focus on. That's roughly why trial guilds request clears, as well as parses.

alpha_synuclein · February 9

While trial dummy might not be a perfect tool, common sense suggests that if you can't hit high on an enemy that stands still and don't fight back, you won't do better on one that does.

It's just a baseline for comparison purpose. Best we have for group content.

Taarente · February 9

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

While trial dummy might not be a perfect tool, common sense suggests that if you can't hit high on an enemy that stands still and don't fight back, you won't do better on one that does.

It's just a baseline for comparison purpose. Best we have for group content.

I don’t disagree that a dummy shows a ceiling. My question is why we treat the ceiling as the primary indicator, rather than the floor.

In real content, the limiting factor is rarely “how high can I spike when nothing interrupts me,” it’s “how much damage can I keep doing when things go wrong.”

Most players aren’t failing because they can’t hit hard on a stationary target — they’re failing because:
• they lose uptime under pressure,
• they have to block, move, or self-heal,
• buffs drop,
• or mistakes happen.

In that context, the low end of a build — the damage it can maintain while staying alive — is often a better predictor of success than the absolute peak.

The trial dummy is a useful ruler.
The issue is assuming the ruler’s maximum mark tells you more than its minimum usable range.

Skorro · February 9

The argument of "they parse high but can't do mechanics/are dead all the time" always make me smile.

Practicing a parse and learning your build and rotation gives you that muscle memory to be able to indeed do better damage then someone that doesn't. Just as an example: while ParseBob and RegularBob are avoiding the kite in vAS HM, you can probably bet ParseBob is still also dropping damage instead of purely focusing his feet.

As many have said, if you are getting gate kept because of your parse, look around a bit - there are some crazy nice guilds out there with friendly folks that are willing to help with damage, advice, etc.

Taarente · February 9

Skorro wrote: »

The argument of "they parse high but can't do mechanics/are dead all the time" always make me smile.

Practicing a parse and learning your build and rotation gives you that muscle memory to be able to indeed do better damage then someone that doesn't. Just as an example: while ParseBob and RegularBob are avoiding the kite in vAS HM, you can probably bet ParseBob is still also dropping damage instead of purely focusing his feet.

As many have said, if you are getting gate kept because of your parse, look around a bit - there are some crazy nice guilds out there with friendly folks that are willing to help with damage, advice, etc.

I’m not being gate kept and i’m perfectly fine with my builds. I’m saying that if someone is going to post a build and say this will do 140k and not follow it up with actually day to day you’d be doing well to get 30-40k out of this. if the average in game dps is 30k-40k and someone sees a build that does 4 times that. What happens is most players will say “well clearly i’m wrong because all these builds do 140k dps.” so, sure make a build post it and say in a fully optimised test dummy it did 190k dps. on a non optimised dummy it did 30k. Expectations set.

Ardriel · February 9

I completely agree with you that real content shows how good a player actually is. But it can never be a benchmark because conditions can change constantly (DPS, healer/tank sets, people's skills, etc.). A DPS can do 100k+ on a raid boss or only 50k. But you can't see why. Was the support good or bad? How good/bad were the other players? Did the player rezz other players a coupple of times? Did the player die through no fault of their own (e.g. because the tank died) and how quickly were they resurrected? Was the player even familiar with the raid? And how was the server performance on the day of the raid? All of these things can make a huge difference. If a player does 100k+ on the boss, that doesn't automatically mean they're a top player. Maybe they ignored the mechanics and just parsed the boss, didn't care about resurrections, etc.
If you want to use real content as a benchmark, you have to take all of this into account and evaluate the logs thoroughly. Really thoroughly. You’d have to observe and evaluate a particular player in a large number of raids with different conditions.

Of course, the dummy parse doesn't say anything about how competent and team oriented the player is in the raid. However a very good dummy parse is only possible with high concentration and full attention, as well as fast reaction speed and practise of course. All of these things are also crucially important in real content.
It's important to do the right thing at the right moment and as quickly as possible. And as Skorro said, people who have mastered their rota at the dummy will also be better in raids because they can focus on mechanics.

Koshka · February 9

Taarente wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

While trial dummy might not be a perfect tool, common sense suggests that if you can't hit high on an enemy that stands still and don't fight back, you won't do better on one that does.

It's just a baseline for comparison purpose. Best we have for group content.

I don’t disagree that a dummy shows a ceiling. My question is why we treat the ceiling as the primary indicator, rather than the floor.

In real content, the limiting factor is rarely “how high can I spike when nothing interrupts me,” it’s “how much damage can I keep doing when things go wrong.”

Most players aren’t failing because they can’t hit hard on a stationary target — they’re failing because:
• they lose uptime under pressure,
• they have to block, move, or self-heal,
• buffs drop,
• or mistakes happen.

In that context, the low end of a build — the damage it can maintain while staying alive — is often a better predictor of success than the absolute peak.

The trial dummy is a useful ruler.
The issue is assuming the ruler’s maximum mark tells you more than its minimum usable range.

No, "low damage+survivability" is actually not a good strategy in the difficult content. Less damage means more mechanics to deal with (sometimes several mechanics at once) and it greatly increases chances of wipe. Individual tankiness won't save you in the new trials.
And while there are some people (usually beginners) who focus on their dps meter so much that they cannot play, when someone cannot show a decent dummy parse, they won't magically perform well in content.
Also, you can get a spot in an average group (or a tag on a raiding discord) without absolute peak dps. The groups that require it are going for trifectas/scores, and this kind of content would be too stressful for a beginner dd anyways. It's not gatekeeping, really. Imagine having to do a diffucult fight like hm twins in DSR when you are already struggling against the dummy - it just won't be fun. Neither for you nor for the group. That's why trifecta progs require parses and logs.

sleepy_worm · February 9

Speaking of target dummies, who are you arguing with?

Taarente · February 9

Koshka wrote: »

Taarente wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

While trial dummy might not be a perfect tool, common sense suggests that if you can't hit high on an enemy that stands still and don't fight back, you won't do better on one that does.

It's just a baseline for comparison purpose. Best we have for group content.

I don’t disagree that a dummy shows a ceiling. My question is why we treat the ceiling as the primary indicator, rather than the floor.

In real content, the limiting factor is rarely “how high can I spike when nothing interrupts me,” it’s “how much damage can I keep doing when things go wrong.”

Most players aren’t failing because they can’t hit hard on a stationary target — they’re failing because:
• they lose uptime under pressure,
• they have to block, move, or self-heal,
• buffs drop,
• or mistakes happen.

In that context, the low end of a build — the damage it can maintain while staying alive — is often a better predictor of success than the absolute peak.

The trial dummy is a useful ruler.
The issue is assuming the ruler’s maximum mark tells you more than its minimum usable range.

No, "low damage+survivability" is actually not a good strategy in the difficult content. Less damage means more mechanics to deal with (sometimes several mechanics at once) and it greatly increases chances of wipe. Individual tankiness won't save you in the new trials.
And while there are some people (usually beginners) who focus on their dps meter so much that they cannot play, when someone cannot show a decent dummy parse, they won't magically perform well in content.
Also, you can get a spot in an average group (or a tag on a raiding discord) without absolute peak dps. The groups that require it are going for trifectas/scores, and this kind of content would be too stressful for a beginner dd anyways. It's not gatekeeping, really. Imagine having to do a diffucult fight like hm twins in DSR when you are already struggling against the dummy - it just won't be fun. Neither for you nor for the group. That's why trifecta progs require parses and logs.

Nothing I said originally mentioned low dps builds, tanky builds or anything else. What I said was If a creators build does 100k on a target dummy and 30k in any other day to day content. Which one is actually a true representation of how it performs. Not every player is going to be doing Vet trifecta trials every day, they might want to go do a group dungeon or a world boss or a harrowstorm or an arena. Is 100k trial dps going to be a useful benchmark when they are dodging mechanics or taking hits or whatever? Probably not. What is wrong with saying here’s a build you can use average player, yes it will put out 100k on a trial dummy regular. on its own day to day you could probably get 30k. At least that way an average player knows what to expect and doesn’t think “i must really suck where’s my 100k gone?”. Is that too difficult?

Renato90085 · February 9

Taarente wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Taarente wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

While trial dummy might not be a perfect tool, common sense suggests that if you can't hit high on an enemy that stands still and don't fight back, you won't do better on one that does.

It's just a baseline for comparison purpose. Best we have for group content.

I don’t disagree that a dummy shows a ceiling. My question is why we treat the ceiling as the primary indicator, rather than the floor.

In real content, the limiting factor is rarely “how high can I spike when nothing interrupts me,” it’s “how much damage can I keep doing when things go wrong.”

Most players aren’t failing because they can’t hit hard on a stationary target — they’re failing because:
• they lose uptime under pressure,
• they have to block, move, or self-heal,
• buffs drop,
• or mistakes happen.

In that context, the low end of a build — the damage it can maintain while staying alive — is often a better predictor of success than the absolute peak.

The trial dummy is a useful ruler.
The issue is assuming the ruler’s maximum mark tells you more than its minimum usable range.

No, "low damage+survivability" is actually not a good strategy in the difficult content. Less damage means more mechanics to deal with (sometimes several mechanics at once) and it greatly increases chances of wipe. Individual tankiness won't save you in the new trials.
And while there are some people (usually beginners) who focus on their dps meter so much that they cannot play, when someone cannot show a decent dummy parse, they won't magically perform well in content.
Also, you can get a spot in an average group (or a tag on a raiding discord) without absolute peak dps. The groups that require it are going for trifectas/scores, and this kind of content would be too stressful for a beginner dd anyways. It's not gatekeeping, really. Imagine having to do a diffucult fight like hm twins in DSR when you are already struggling against the dummy - it just won't be fun. Neither for you nor for the group. That's why trifecta progs require parses and logs.

Nothing I said originally mentioned low dps builds, tanky builds or anything else. What I said was If a creators build does 100k on a target dummy and 30k in any other day to day content. Which one is actually a true representation of how it performs. Not every player is going to be doing Vet trifecta trials every day, they might want to go do a group dungeon or a world boss or a harrowstorm or an arena. Is 100k trial dps going to be a useful benchmark when they are dodging mechanics or taking hits or whatever? Probably not. What is wrong with saying here’s a build you can use average player, yes it will put out 100k on a trial dummy regular. on its own day to day you could probably get 30k. At least that way an average player knows what to expect and doesn’t think “i must really suck where’s my 100k gone?”. Is that too difficult?

The dps mean Damage Per Second S mean sec,
so if you met mechanics or taking heavy hits so need roll/block or go whatever( portal mech) to spend time, dps lower is very normal..because you stop attack and lost tank/healer buff and time still passes
if today you need test/build a solo build or mech build,just try 6m dummy..
like i build my vcr+3 solo portal and vdsrhm solo bridge build from this
they not good in 21m trial dummy,because here have pen and some buff skill from sup role for solo,not like meta build is full dmg,dont need worry buff

Koshka · February 9

Taarente wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Taarente wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

While trial dummy might not be a perfect tool, common sense suggests that if you can't hit high on an enemy that stands still and don't fight back, you won't do better on one that does.

It's just a baseline for comparison purpose. Best we have for group content.

I don’t disagree that a dummy shows a ceiling. My question is why we treat the ceiling as the primary indicator, rather than the floor.

In real content, the limiting factor is rarely “how high can I spike when nothing interrupts me,” it’s “how much damage can I keep doing when things go wrong.”

Most players aren’t failing because they can’t hit hard on a stationary target — they’re failing because:
• they lose uptime under pressure,
• they have to block, move, or self-heal,
• buffs drop,
• or mistakes happen.

In that context, the low end of a build — the damage it can maintain while staying alive — is often a better predictor of success than the absolute peak.

The trial dummy is a useful ruler.
The issue is assuming the ruler’s maximum mark tells you more than its minimum usable range.

No, "low damage+survivability" is actually not a good strategy in the difficult content. Less damage means more mechanics to deal with (sometimes several mechanics at once) and it greatly increases chances of wipe. Individual tankiness won't save you in the new trials.
And while there are some people (usually beginners) who focus on their dps meter so much that they cannot play, when someone cannot show a decent dummy parse, they won't magically perform well in content.
Also, you can get a spot in an average group (or a tag on a raiding discord) without absolute peak dps. The groups that require it are going for trifectas/scores, and this kind of content would be too stressful for a beginner dd anyways. It's not gatekeeping, really. Imagine having to do a diffucult fight like hm twins in DSR when you are already struggling against the dummy - it just won't be fun. Neither for you nor for the group. That's why trifecta progs require parses and logs.

Nothing I said originally mentioned low dps builds, tanky builds or anything else. What I said was If a creators build does 100k on a target dummy and 30k in any other day to day content. Which one is actually a true representation of how it performs. Not every player is going to be doing Vet trifecta trials every day, they might want to go do a group dungeon or a world boss or a harrowstorm or an arena. Is 100k trial dps going to be a useful benchmark when they are dodging mechanics or taking hits or whatever? Probably not. What is wrong with saying here’s a build you can use average player, yes it will put out 100k on a trial dummy regular. on its own day to day you could probably get 30k. At least that way an average player knows what to expect and doesn’t think “i must really suck where’s my 100k gone?”. Is that too difficult?

I am not sure what you mean. It is actually possible to do 100k+ in content. If someone loses 70% of their dps in an actual fight, it just means that they and/or their team are very inexperienced.
And yeah, if you have good dps, you will do better against harrowstorms and the like. First of all, being able to clear adds asap helps a bunch since it prevents extra minibosses from spawning, and muscle memory allows you to focus on dodging without thinking about rotation.

CalamityCat · February 9

I don't think the trial dummy parses are very helpful for less experienced players, who might see a build with "150k DPS!!!" and have no figure for what to expect when they take the build into a dungeon or play solo. Or just knowing the basic skeleton numbers so they can actually practice at home and know how they're doing. Then running a dungeon and genuinely not knowing if they did well as a DD because they have no basic parse stats to compare with.

If I'm honest, I think a lot of the emphasis on trial dummy parses is because the higher dps output numbers look more impressive. I'm not sure we'd lose anything if everyone listed skeleton parses instead.

Ardriel · February 9

There is no true representation of a build. You can only determine the maximum dps potential. And that is only possible with the raid dummy.
Balanced builds that can be used in the vet trial also have a slot left for self-heal/shield or use pragmatic fatecarver, for example, instead of exhausting fc.
A pure parse build, e.g. with 5x Sentinel, is of little use against bosses where you have to run around constantly.
That aside, every build is only as good as the player using it.
It's impossible to say: with this build, you're guaranteed to make at least 100k. How much you make with it in actual boss fights varies from player to player and from situation to situation.
I don't understand the point of this discussion. All these things should be obvious to everyone.

ZhuJiuyin · February 9

If you feel that the data from the trial dummies is insufficient to reflect actual combat situations, there is also ESO-LOG for reference. Many teams have uploaded their data, and any player who is willing to learn can refer to them to improve their own build.

Directly referring to ESO-LOG data is often more accurate than blindly trusting creators online, because this data has been tested in real combat.

ankeor · February 9

CalamityCat wrote: »

I don't think the trial dummy parses are very helpful for less experienced players, who might see a build with "150k DPS!!!" and have no figure for what to expect when they take the build into a dungeon or play solo. Or just knowing the basic skeleton numbers so they can actually practice at home and know how they're doing. Then running a dungeon and genuinely not knowing if they did well as a DD because they have no basic parse stats to compare with.

If I'm honest, I think a lot of the emphasis on trial dummy parses is because the higher dps output numbers look more impressive. I'm not sure we'd lose anything if everyone listed skeleton parses instead.

Back in the day when there was no trial dummies we had to do skeleton parses.
It was much less accurate.
StamDK had major breach, NBs had minor berserk etc. Classes which has these common buffs/debuffs would inflate their dps on skeleton compared to other classes which lacked these buffs/debuffs but it would not matter in an actual trial where tanks and healers would provide them anyway.
Trial dummy is actually creating a condition which you could get all the common buffs and debuffs so you can see the actual performance difference between classes/skill lines that would occur in a trial.

Angnos · February 9

sleepy_worm wrote: »

Speaking of target dummies, who are you arguing with?

I’m asking myself the same question. I can understand what OP is saying if raid leaders or GMs were ZOS employees and you could only access certain content through them. And they imposed requirements. But as many have said before: if you don’t like that groups use dummy parses as a requirement, make your own group. It’s pretty simple.

And it seems a lot of people (See Forum/Reddit) don’t like requirements and just want to use whatever they want. So filling a group would probably be easy. Clearing content (I’m not talking about normal stuff) is another question.

CalamityCat · February 9

Ardriel wrote: »

I don't understand the point of this discussion. All these things should be obvious to everyone.

This is the problem. They aren't obvious to everyone. Why would they be? Parses aren't really asked for until you venture into vet trials, so players can go a fair way in ESO without magically learning this information. I couldn't even find out why everyone used atro dummies and none of the other trial dummies for parses lol.

Also, how is an inexperienced player going to magically know about parsing and what to expect in content when every build they see just brags about their trial parse? When those are the numbers that players tend to talk about most of the time? It creates an unrealistic expectation when players don't realise how these dummies work, or that you need a co-ordinated group to get those numbers.

Taarente · February 9

CalamityCat wrote: »

Ardriel wrote: »

I don't understand the point of this discussion. All these things should be obvious to everyone.

This is the problem. They aren't obvious to everyone. Why would they be? Parses aren't really asked for until you venture into vet trials, so players can go a fair way in ESO without magically learning this information. I couldn't even find out why everyone used atro dummies and none of the other trial dummies for parses lol.

Also, how is an inexperienced player going to magically know about parsing and what to expect in content when every build they see just brags about their trial parse? When those are the numbers that players tend to talk about most of the time? It creates an unrealistic expectation when players don't realise how these dummies work, or that you need a co-ordinated group to get those numbers.

exactly