What if you agree with an answer, except for one part that is not really on-topic but you find very wrong?

Question

For the context, I am speaking about KRyan's answer to How much money can I make up with class features?.

As it is I completely agree with it, except for the last sentence I find completely wrong. On top of this I don't think this sentence is essential to the answer nor that it helps the OP in any way:

At the same time, though, he might be happy to do so—the gunslinger class, unfortunately, is hideously weak and needs all the help it can get.

If I posted an answer myself it would be a big paraphrasing of this answer just without the last sentence.

I could also just downvote the answer and let it as it is, but that would imply I don't agree with it, where most of this answer is exactly what I would answer.

I have thought about just leaving a comment saying "I approve this question, except for the last sentence", but KRyan reacted defensively to my suggestion to alter the post and then dopplegreener just deleted the thread.

If the last sentence was answering to a part of the question I could make an other answer covering only this part of the question and refering to KRyan's one for the rest, but this sentence doesn't cover at all any interrogation from the question.

What is the solution to this?

Just to be clear, my question is not about whether this last sentence is right or wrong, it's about what I should do if I considered it wrong.

Answer 1

That sentence is appropriate, on-point, and on-topic for responding to the question, so I'm going to put that aside and focus on the "I think this bit of the answer is wrong/unhelpful" part.

In general, here's your options:

1. You might want to make a suggestion to the post author about that one bit. Provide an actionable suggestion.
2. Whether they decline, accept and edit, or do nothing: vote and move on.
3. Provide your own answer if you're not satisfied with the ones presently there.

Comments along the lines of "I agree but not with this part" are likely to get deleted; I don't advise it as a very fruitful course of action.

In this specific case I suggest skipping #1. You and KRyan have a philosophical difference about the accuracy or wrong-ness of the statement in question. It's valid from a certain playstyle and we embrace different playstyles including that one. You acknowledged in comments you'd already had a discussion about this with KRyan before. (I deleted the comments on that basis: I decided to save you both the time and energy of having a second discussion, because I know neither of you are likely to convince the other. KRyan had already declined at that point to action your suggestion to remove that sentence.)

On #2: Voting is personal so how you vote is up to you. It's tricky to know what to do when part of an answer is good but there's some other part that feels like a deal-breaker. I tend to upvote answers that contain good and not-quite-as-good material; if I feel it contains suggestions that I believe would be altogether damaging for anyone to follow, I err on downvoting it. That's just how I do it though. Not voting at all is also an option.

On #3: As you've noted, re-pasting the same answer sans one sentence wouldn't be received well, but you've still got the option of writing an answer from scratch. I find that for myself, doing so is more easy after a mental break (like a night's sleep) has cleared my mind of clear memory of the original post.

(Note that excerpts of another answer would have to be attributed by our CC Attribution-ShareAlike licensing. Paraphrasing is fine.)

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Super short version: leave a suggestion (if it'll do anything); vote your conscience and move on; provide your own answer if you want. Remember that we embrace a plurality of playstyles, and not all of those playstyles will sit well with everybody, but it's OK for people to hold benign perspectives other members may disagree with.

Answer 2

Use comments to raise objections where you find them.

I've been leaving comments on the site to a variety of answers and questions, explaining what issues I have with a given answer or question. That's the same as what you did. We can't control if someone responds defensively, but we can control our reaction to that.

What to do?

1. Leave your comment (as you attempt to be helpful) but accept that the person who wrote the answer may not agree.

2. If you feel strongly enough, down vote.

3. If not move along to another question or answer.

While I may agree that that line in the answer was a digression (I have similar one liners in some of my answers) is that a reason to get into an argument about it? There are other options.

If one feels that an answer, or part of an answer, is wrong enough to argue about then posting an excellent answer of one's own is a fine way of resolving that. (@nitsua60's comment paraphrased)