What makes "the best" player?

I've seen and heard some people proclaim they're the best [insert class here]. I've heard others proclaim Soanso is the best [insert class here].

It got me thinking - what makes a player "the best"? I feel answering this question relies on perspective. And I think those who are exposed to many high-end players (top-tier guilds, for instance) likely have a higher standard and expectation of "the best" players than those of us in low/mid-tier guilds.

To me, I call out the best players under some general criteria:

1. They are attentive and possess superior situational awareness. These players can roll into almost any group, raid, event - even if it's new to them - and usually come out on top.
2. The best player can be extremely impressive when a situation is bad and worsening, pulling a win when all hope is lost. I've witnessed it time and again throughout the years. These players know their class frontwards and backwards, know the limits of every tool in their toolbox, and have a methodology to constantly evaluate which tools work and which do not.
3. They are collaborators and, I've found, often times portray an understated demeanor. They encourage teamwork and know its value in the group or raid.

Obviously, these are generalizations. These are some common traits I think of when I consider who "the best" player is.

What traits do you think of?

In the modern game, the only thing people who bother to talk about "best" are only referring to raid parses (dps, amount healed, tank parse ... or some combination of all 3). The rest of us realize that it's all an illusion.

Honestly, with dragon glyph in the game, "best" has kind of lost any real meaning. Dragon glyph is like an old game cheat code.

↑↑↓↓←→←→BA

When I refer to “oh they are one of the best <class> I’ve ever seen.” Typically, it’s when they leave me in awe of their ability or play a class in a new or unique way that makes them pull off miracle moments. I’ve seen a bard pull rares to the very top of RSS from the basement ice area in era. Shamans pulling with slow and using slow aggro to offtank while another mob was being killed. A rogue split pulling and using their evac/SoS/skull/mem blurs in some sort of unique method. All these moments stick out. It’s easy to sit at full mana or just use your spam macros but the real amazing players do the same and some by using quality and knowledge of the game to their advantage.

Realistically, if you can't or don't make others around you better, are you really the best at anything? In EQ or in life.
Conq

In my experience, the best players end up being the people who show relatively high intelligence and are constantly asking questions and seeking more knowledge out the game or their class. A few people I've helped over the years learn a class better show these traits early on, and end up being as good or surpassing me entirely after a bit in skill. I can see it a mile away after spending a few days with them.

To me it is a player who shares what they have learned, trys to help others within reason and all around nice person and respectful of others. Lend a hand now and then!

I don't put as much emphasis on how great they are as play style can be "enhanced" when all they are doing is clicking buttons. I have seen some players that know their class stuff inside out but they could not even find the way to a mission.

Players who don't argue moot points on the forums or make snide posts about another posters or keep posts going on and on just to hear themselves is an example of not a good player. If they act that way here, then they usually do in game.

The person who says they are the best probably isn't. The person who knows the most might not be the best at hitting the buttons. The person who's best at hitting the buttons may not understand why they are hitting them and is being carried by the person who gets it.

The best players in EQ don't think they are the best players and are always trying to be better.

Parsing isn't just an issue of things like Dragon Glyph. I can be the highest DPS ENC by casting more DoTs, but this comes at an expense of aDPS causing a net loss to the raid. The ENC with the lowest cast count might be the ENC loaded down with targeting changes and spell swaps. It's so hard to measure the metrics.

In my opinion, the best players are the ones who understand synergy the most, and work to put out the largest net benefit to everyone, and understands it well enough to adapt on the fly. Understanding that synergy isn't just a raid performance issue, but also someone who understands that building players, and even boxes that support the players, has a net benefit.

The player who thinks they are the best is probably just a ball hog. The best players in your guild might be going completely unnoticed stabilizing the ladder the person shouting "I'm the best" is standing on. The best players are the ones that the entire guild would be standing 1 rung lower in their absence.

Though, sometimes the best players really are the top of the parse. I know a few that put out the most DPS, most aDPS, most healing AND help people, recruit, and are morale leaders. In my opinion, the AND rather than the OR is what makes them the best.

Yep, that is what I mean

I am the best one.

From a raid leader's perspective, the person who shows up 100% of the time and fulfills multiple critical roles.

From a guild leader's perspective, the poor son of a **** that does clerical work like DKP or raid organization and doesn't cause drama.

From a forum poster's perspective, gonna go with max DPS on some random parse, without regard to whether that parse is any real indication of anything.

The truth is that because the last few years of EQ have no difficult content, the most skilled EQ players probably moved onto more challenging games and maybe just hop in to clear content every year.

Best at what? Raiding? Group stuff? Those are VERY different environments. The raid env is very focused and stratified. You have one job that you focus on 100% and leave everything else to others. So you are only even focusing on 1 aspect of your character (doing damage, coordinating dps clicks, ect). This is often very parsable and provable.

Best overall group play? Thats harder because best group play isn't parsable. Doing difficult missions/situations that require you to use all your class abilities perfectly to survive. A major issue here is that you generally have to exclude anyone in raid gear from this test, because raid gear trivializes group content. Doing group content in raid gear rarely/never puts you in the situation where you must use all your class's tricks and skills because you can roflstomp it and faceroll everything.

Honestly I think the best player is the one who can reduce the number of people required to do something.

Say there is a named that you need to kill. Who was the best person in the group?
Person 1) Can solo kill the named by himself without a merc but can't solo pull the named (second highest dps)
Person 2) Can kill the named with just 1 merc and can solo pull it (highest dps)
Person 3) Can solo kill the named by himself without a merc and can solo pull it (lowest dps)

So based on that which of those 3 people are the best? I would go with person 3 even though they are the lowest dps because they have the ability to pull the mob and can kill it without a merc being alive. After that who would be the second best would be the quest and I would probably go with the person who needs a merc to kill the mob because he can still do everything by himself just requires using a merc. The worst person here to me is number 1 and is more powerful than person 2 but he can't get the mob solo so would require someone else to help him get the mob to kill.

Sorry if this comes off as clickbait to some. I thought it was an interesting thought discussion.

Whoever has the longest beard imo. Sorry.

You have to be a skelly to even be up for consideration.

Necro skelly, AoN skelly, or Paineel skelly?

friendly and attentive

gear/dps mean nothing

Any skelly is welcome.