Originally Posted by
Gemina
I'm not a DNC main, but have a firm understanding of the tooltips and rotation. As you probably already know, activating Standard Step locks you out of all your other GCDs until you execute Standard Finish. The steps don't cause damage by themselves but rather pump up SF's overall potency along with the damage boost it gives you and your dance partner. Assuming you perform both of the required steps, the 720 pot and the 5% damage boost is applied when you execute SF. This is when you will see the damage and the DMG buff register in the chat log.
Furthermore, I had some confusion with this tooltip that you might share, and that was whether or not the bonuses are applied to the initial SF being executed. The answer to that is no. They will be applied on your next SF, but will be given to your Technical Step/Technical Finish which you will immediately do following SF.
The idea behind mechanics like this is the non damage GCDs you use are returned to you when using the actual damage skill. WHM Afflatus Misery and NIN Mudras are other examples of this.