How to Increase DPS?

Hi!

I'm Eryn. Would like to know how to increase my DPS as Samurai.

Been to some Sigma 3 Extreme groups and, although I've already cleared this stage, I get kicked by groups. They call me trash and idiot because I can't even reach the "average DPS", which is like... 5k? Then they kicked me out... Even though I didn't die a single time. :(

In this specific party they said my "parse" was 4.8k. I was:

SAM, iLv362, full Quick Arm Materia VI where I could fit it > then Direct Hit > then Critical.

My Gear is Tsuky Wep (iLv365), Diamond Gloves and Earring (iLv370), and the rest is the iLv360 self-crafted green gear.

I didn't use any food/pots for the run. Plain Gear, Materia and what I know about the class. Believe that mechanically I don't make many mistakes, like... SAM, right?

Please, would like to know what can I improve, so people stop calling me trash. Just don't want to be a burden to anyone.

English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance for any horrid mistakes.

Hello ^^

Check this image. It is the simplest guide I could find, hope it helps.

Also this video is a must watch for all melees.

If your computer is fast enough, I suggest recording your own game play with recording software like OBS (Open Broadcasting Software). Personally, I record my own game play every time I raid for Savage or Ultimate. It is a habit I developed when I played in other organized group-based games.

As a DPS, it is imperative to always be casting and keep your GCD rolling. Higher skilled players use their strongest moves when party raid buffs are available in order to maximize damage. Reviewing a strategy guide is helpful, but you may have to tailor your play to each specific situation you encounter.

After reviewing video, I notice a lot of things that could have been executed better. When you are playing in the moment, you may not notice the sub-optimal play. For example, not pressing enough buttons or pressing buttons in the wrong order.

Lulunami suggested to record your gameplay. The other option is to record your logs (though others probably did it in your stead) so you can analyze what's wrong in your rotation etc...

Sigma V3 savage is a big difficulty step over V2S, and starts to require people to have decent DPS. Around 4k DPS is a good tank DPS, a decent SAM at ilvl 360+ should be around 5.5k - 6k. I'm not saying that to make you feel bad or anything, just to point out that you have a lot of room to make progress and get better at playing SAM.

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Believe that mechanically I don't make many mistakes, like... SAM, right?

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I might think you do make mistakes. If didn't make that many mistakes, your DPS would probably be way higher.

I'm no SAM expert, but I'll try to point out some things that would need attention (I'll look at this parse in particular, which seems to be your last O7S kill):

- (EDIT: Forgot SAM can bypass combos with Meikyo).

- Pretty average uptime on your Higanbana DoT: you used it 9 times on a 11 min fight. It lasts 1 min, don't let if fall off ! You have around 75% uptime on the DoT (which means it could be active 15-20% more).

- You can maintain a better uptime on Shifu and Jinpu buffs (92% and 87% respectively).

- Only one use of Hagakure. It's the common SAM "noobtrap". It is better to convert your Sens into Kenki, because of Shinten, rather than spending them on Midare. You want to use as much Kenki as possible on Shinten, since it is an oGCD ability. On the same fight, the best samurais use Shinten around 60 times (you used it 17 times for example), and a lot less Midare (15 times instead of 28).

- Looks like you delay your GCD a bit sometimes.

I can't say much more about it, since I don't play SAM. But those should fix a lot of you issues. Though it was mean for them to call you that way, they had a legit reason to be pissed off. Be more critical about your performances ! Try to face a SSS dummy, see if you can kill it in time. Check fflogs to see what the DPS of an average SAM (like at 50th-75th percentile). You have very few kills in savage, nobody's perfect on their first couple of runs, but practice makes perfect.

Forgot to invite you to take a look at The Balance's website and/or discord. It's an information goldmine, and a place to discuss and ask things to some very good players.

wanna increase your dps?
get a dps parser and experiment a bit, on what works better in raids, like saving a CD for possibly more aoe damage, or trying out another opener and see how your CDs are back up before or after the next phase change etc...., with parsers you can experiment and improve

(dps parser.... muhahahahahaha gaha haaaa ghh g g gg rr grgrg rgrgr grrrrrr, .... why does SE invest in a new App before giving PS4 players a parser?????????????????????????????????)

You can also compare your casts timeline to higher performing sams on fflogs. Find a 90th % sam and just scroll through his actions and figure out why he does these things differently.

Here's a random sam with a good o7s parse timeline:
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/vfW8VTJwy93NFcXg#fight=8&type=casts&source=208&view=timeline

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/AtkDh...one&source=171

This looks like the log in question, or at least, one close enough to the one in question.

Your Shinten usage is disturbingly low, while your Gyoten / Yaten seem abnormally high. This goes towards Kenki mismanagement which is going to be your primary method of improvement, as Samurai Weaponskills are fairly straightforward and without much room for improvement.

Your Hagakure usage seems limited to your opener. The commonly accepted ideal approach is to alternate between Midares and 3 Sen Hagakure's for SHinten Spam.

This is because Midare is itself a GCD while Shinten is OGCD. The two math out to near the same Potency in the Hagakure transfer, but as Shinten is OGCD, it doesn't delay -further- GCDs if that makes sense, and becomes a gain.

Here is a similar timed run with another higher DPS Samurai
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/4PhwX...-done&source=7

The per-hit cast is less important than the number of casts. (His gear is likely better than yours). The two most important parts of increasing DPS is priority of action use and uptime.

A few of these have been mentioned, but common things to look at are:
-uptime, make sure you are always hitting something/gcd rolling.
-unless you cap resources, try and time your big hitters (midare, higanbana, shinten dump) during party buffs like TA. Dots snapshot on application, so a higanbana during TA will get the 10% bonus for the full minute.
-always try and use guren when adds are present.
-More hagakure, sen are more valuable as Kenki than as a midare.

I’m sure there are more but these are what came to mind.

Complete tangent topic, but this is so far one of the most helpful forum postings I've seen in a long time. No one arguing no one being mean or overly critical, just some down to earth constructive criticism. This is a breath of fresh air compared to the proverbial trash pile that is the forums lately!

@Yeol

Hey, thanks a lot for these links. That SAM chart was simple too good to be true. Lot's of good info condensed. Is there something similar for other classes too? SMN and BLM, specifically.


@Megguido

Thanks for pointing out my problems. I did know about the log, but I was not sure how to use it. It's very overwhelming at first. I'm sure to use your tip for improving. Thanks again for spending your time for helping me.


@Kabooa

Thanks for your reply. The "distubingly low" part really hurted me, but at the same time, I laughed sooo much. Didn't know that Shinten was such DPS increase. For me it was like a - "don't have anyting to do? Use it" - thing.




Well... If it wasn't a great amount of info I got here! S2 :D

On my way to improving! What I liked most is that I didn't just get information on improving as SAM, but I also see lot's of general guide lines for other jobs as well. Will take some time, but I really don't want to be a burden anymore. Started this game as purelly casual, but the "hardcore" stuff got my attention. Really want to be someone people want to party with.

Again, thanks a lot for every bit of information and the respect that you all treated me with, every single one of you in this post.

All the best!

One last thing to mention, and it's kind of a small thing, but every little bit helps. When Guren has about 20-25 seconds left on CD, stack your kenki up for it so you can use it immediately when it comes off CD. Doing this could actually net you at least one more Guren in a fight before the end. Also note that the damage of Guren is affected by the slashing debuff. Only use it when Jinpu and the slashing debuff are up so you get the max potency out of it. This is something I've had to work on recently because I get caught up in spamming shinten when I should be saving kenki for Guren.

And to give you an idea of why Hagakure is important to use, generally using Haga on 3 sens will net you 4 Shintens if you're keeping up with your positionals. 4 Shintens have a combined potency of 1200 whereas Kaiten + Midare potency is only 1080. So a lot of your potency is being lost on not using Hagakure.

To get a little more in-depth with it, rule of thumb should be to use Haga for 3 sens UNLESS A.) Your DoT is about to fall off. An example of this would be if you're using the 2-sen opener, you will actually use your 2nd Hagakure to consume 2 sen so you refresh your DoT after your next combo. Or B.) Using Haga on 1 or 2 sen will allow you to use Guren as soon as it comes off CD. For example, if Guren has about 5 seconds left on CD and you have 20 kenki and one sen, and you're about to start your second combo, using Hagakure will allow you use Guren within the next two GCDs so you're able to use it immediately when it's up.

SAM is an easy enough job to pick up and play, but it's the little things like these that will allow you to boost your damage by quite a bit. And as always, general knowledge of the encounters will allow you adjust where and when you need to. It's never perfect, we just always have to strive for perfection.

I would just add regarding shinten, never forget to use it right after an action while the GCD is ticking to prevent clipping. (so not after midare/Higabanana)
You'll use it a lot so clipping might also start ruining your dmg.

As people said, all the little bit helps.

Perhaps do another run and post back a log so we can see how you improved.

Shh We can't talk about doing dps better or knowing the numbers/gains. People get offended. Just blindly press buttons from stationary dummy guides

Isn't the crafted gear 350 and not 360? Maybe that's a part of it. For extreme/savage you probably want at least 360 gear. Your problems are one of the reasons I haven't run those yet. I'm not going to download a bunch of stuff just so I can parse every millisecond of my play. I'd rather just have fun. Sorry I can't be more help. You're probably like me and not maximizing your dps to it's full potential. Seriously some people are really good at it and know when and how to use every single ability. They'll wait to use certain abilities when certain buffs are up in the raid (which to me seems hard to do with all the constant buffs going on and off). Just a few seconds delay or hitting the wrong ability can probably throw off your dps. If you're not dying then I don't see why they'd kick you out. Seriously your post really makes me never want to even try extrme/savage now. Lag could also be slowing your dps down a bit. Make sure you have all the spell effects for other players turned off. I can't emphasis that enough. It makes a massive difference. Other than that just try to read all the guides you can. It could just be one little thing you're doing wrong in your rotation. Also melee is a lot harder than ranged, heck everything seems a lot harder than my bard. We have it pretty easy with character placement and being able to dodge and continually do damage. It might just be a matter of you needing to just keep practicing. Don't let jerks get you down. If they're kicking you out then that's just not cool. If you can't learn then how do they expect you to do good enough? Maybe find a group who A. wants to have fun first and B. don't mind helping others to learn. Also wiping can be fun if you have the right people with you. I'd rather wipe a million times and have all of us lauging and enjoying ourselves then do a perfect speed run where nobody talks or has one ounce of fun.

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Originally Posted by whiteblade89

One last thing to mention, and it's kind of a small thing, but every little bit helps. When Guren has about 20-25 seconds left on CD, stack your kenki up for it so you can use it immediately when it comes off CD. Doing this could actually net you at least one more Guren in a fight before the end. Also note that the damage of Guren is affected by the slashing debuff. Only use it when Jinpu and the slashing debuff are up so you get the max potency out of it. This is something I've had to work on recently because I get caught up in spamming shinten when I should be saving kenki for Guren.

And to give you an idea of why Hagakure is important to use, generally using Haga on 3 sens will net you 4 Shintens if you're keeping up with your positionals. 4 Shintens have a combined potency of 1200 whereas Kaiten + Midare potency is only 1080. So a lot of your potency is being lost on not using Hagakure.

To get a little more in-depth with it, rule of thumb should be to use Haga for 3 sens UNLESS A.) Your DoT is about to fall off. An example of this would be if you're using the 2-sen opener, you will actually use your 2nd Hagakure to consume 2 sen so you refresh your DoT after your next combo. Or B.) Using Haga on 1 or 2 sen will allow you to use Guren as soon as it comes off CD. For example, if Guren has about 5 seconds left on CD and you have 20 kenki and one sen, and you're about to start your second combo, using Hagakure will allow you use Guren within the next two GCDs so you're able to use it immediately when it's up.

SAM is an easy enough job to pick up and play, but it's the little things like these that will allow you to boost your damage by quite a bit. And as always, general knowledge of the encounters will allow you adjust where and when you need to. It's never perfect, we just always have to strive for perfection.

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See, this is what I was referring to when I said there's a lot of good players who seem to know how to use a lot of abilities to their fullest. I have never played a Samurai so I can't attest to whether everything he says is 100% but tips like these can make a massive difference. Just learn from those who have come before us and who have done it all through trial and error. It's just little things that can make such a difference.

How to get better at DPS?

1. Pick a job that is good at DPS. SAMURAI or BLACK MAGE
2. Practice the fanciest looking spells [Who needs rotations]
3. Do that what shall not named and call people out on it.
4. Never use Goad/ Apoc/ Mana Shift. Your're job is damage and u need that MP.