Why do so many people FAIL at dps.

[Klamor]

snip

So, you just proved how the game shows you how to play, and then downplayed it by basically saying that it only does so if the player puts forth some effort on their own. Reading the tooltips is the fundamental way to learn how skills chain together. Every job (as far as I can remember; it's been a couple years since I leveled them) has a nice little help window that describes how the intricacies of the job operates.

Monk help tells you about Greased Lightning
Black Mage help tells you about Astral Fire and Umbral Ice
Ninja help tells you about your Mudras

I'm speaking off the cuff here, so forgive me if I don't capture all the ways the game tells you how and what to do in order to be a decent player. The tooltips specifically show how utilizing positionals will net you higher potency attacks and other additional effects. The game highlights and makes sparkle the next ability that is an option for your current ability chain. For Monk, I know that you have a couple paths and that you have to weave your abilities together following buff timers and such. Figuring that out isn't nearly as difficult as people make it seem to be. We're not arguing that people aren't topping charts with the world's best opener and such. But if you were a Monk in my party and you were using Fists of Earth instead of Fists of Fire, and your response to being questioned was "I do what I want" I'd feel the urge to quickly remove you from my party. Claiming ignorance that one didn't know which buff increased their damage is a shallow excuse at that.

This is like a Dark Knight refusing to use Darkside because it "makes [his] MP drain too fast" as if that isn't the whole mechanic to that skill, and the effective use of it is what makes a Dark Knight, a Dark Knight.