Why do so many people FAIL at dps.

[Phoenicia]

I don't agree with the OP's attitude or "wording".. But the issues he's pointing out are real. I'm gonna point out a few things I read in the "general context" of this forum thread and what their counter points are.

It's funny how people get so angry at the people who try hard and expect everyone else to try hard (A.k.a. elitists or jerks). When the exact opposite in the spectrum of try hard is as aggravating for different reasons. An elitist flaunting his e-peen is upsetting and rude (even if I'm not the target of their attacks, which is rarely the case). But also an ignorant-not-even-gonna-try "jerk" who doesn't even accept constructive criticism is just as upsetting.

"I pay my sub so I play how I want!" Sure, but I also pay the same sub. It's not like you're the only one paying or you're paying more. I also pay the VERY same sub and I expect to enjoy my time. If you wanna "play how you want" do it on your own account... Not in a dungeon with 4 others. But when you craft or undersize things or just in the open world. But don't drag me into your ignorance because you pay the very same sub I pay. You paying a sub doesn't give you a right to "suck" and drag others down just as much as it doesn't give that top-tier raider to pull his elitist attitude towards anyone because his DPS is twice that of the rest of the party combined. But come on, when 1 guy does TWICE the DPS of one other DPS + tank + healer? Or even worse.... The TANK pulling off the DPS of the 2 other DPS + healer combined?.. We have a serious issue here.

Luck doesn't factor 1200 DPS. RNG from crits and procs may contribute 100 DPS on a 3 minute dummy parse. You'll do 1650 instead of 1600 in optimal rotation and BiS on BLM, not 2600... For example. There is a reason why people ask for longer and/or multiple parses.. It's so RNG is "normalized".

Also, we all have bad days. We all can come back from work with steam popping out of our heads in anger. We all come home to worse tension at home than at work. We all have "family" issues, etc. etc. But really, if you expect to go into an instance and literally get carried, you shouldn't be playing. Trust me when I say this, I have more bad days than good ones... So often that I actually count the good days per month. I don't use that excuse to get carried. On the contrary, I vent through the game. And people who can't pull their own weight just make it worse. Luckily I rarely queue alone and it only takes 2 votes to kick for AFK, which let's be honest, you gotta be AFK if you're doing sub-600.

The mentality of: "Who cares, dungeons can be 2 manned anyways!" should really go out t he window. It is just unfair to the people "2 manning" the dungeon while you have one hand in your pants and the other on the beer bottle while watching netflix. If I want to two man a dungeon, I will literally do that. All it takes is ask a friend and literally 2 man content (either by undersizing or queuing with friends and have them leave instance). But if I want to do an under 25 minute dungeon, I do not expect someone with your mentality to go in and semi-AFK to make it 35+ and end up getting free esoterics or exp from my effort and time. I also play 2 characters and I do not want to spend whatever's left of my (already bad) day on (bad) expert roulette runs.

There is really no excuse ever to do sub 600 as a DPS (and probably a tank) class. You REALLY have to go out of your way to do some of the bad numbers those DPS on DF/PF do. Specially when we're not talking "optimal" DPS, but passably decent. Optimal DPS requires full understanding of the class, game mechanics (server ticks, latency handling, etc.) AND full knowledge of the encounters. But we're not asking for that in a Pharos Sirus HM, we're asking you to actually press your buttons. Which takes us to the next major point:

"The game not teaching people how to do their jobs" is also a very bad excuse. Do you expect it to hand you a manual with video guides of how to use your job and adapt to encounters? Where is the fun in that? That's YOUR job, not SE's. The game already does a pretty darned good job at teaching you the jobs and classes. It's almost holding your hand through your job entirely. Just look at the following things that the game already does:

1- The game doesn't throw a lot of skills at you at once, but the opposite... You literally start with 1 skill to spam (even arcanists can't summon their pets at level 1 because that's considered another ability), and the second level gives you your second ability with a pop-up help window to teach you how to use it. Whither it gives a buff (BRD and BLM), or if it combos (all melees and tanks) or whatever.

2- The game gives you 1 ability or trait every 2 levels. At level 50 you end up with 22 abilities, INCLUDING situational and dead weight ones.

3- The class and job quests give you a hint of your role and concepts behind abilities, which also happen every 5 levels. Your basic rotation is literally handed to you with ample time to learn and incorporate them.

4- Every time an ability should be used, it lights up for you. This is not just for combos, but also for procs.

5- The game requires you to play multiple classes so you end up learning multiple roles or concepts.

6- The tooltips are pretty dang detailed and easy to read. Yes there are the odd ones that have localization issues (Ninja had a flank bonus on Dancing Edge which didn't exist for example and Enochian had a pretty confusing description at first) but those get fixed fast. And that 1 ability you understood wrong won't be why you're missing over 700 DPS from the one right next to you.

7- Rotations aren't overly complicated. Outside of the openers, it's basically combo your skills, keep up buffs/debuffs and pop CDs as they come back up.

Yes it's true it doesn't apply to all jobs (Ahem LNC and Impulse drive spam for 20 levels), but come on. Stop with the "spoon-feed-me-my-rotation-and-gear" attitude. But come on, all that's left is a voice in game telling you which skill should be up next.

Now let's look at why "you have to go out of your way" to do that low DPS:

- Auto attacks are literally 25%+ of anyone that auto attack's DPS in optimal rotations. So a monk at 1500 DPS would have done 400+ worth of DPS just auto attacking.

- SMN's pet (garuda) does about 30% of its single target DPS, so if you do 1k DPS (which is barely "not bad" level), you can do 300 at least just by having your pet on sic.

- In AoE situations: Every job (with the exception of MNK and SMN) can literally spam 1 button for "decent" AoE DPS. NIN has Death Blossom, DRG has Ring of Thorns (Not optimal but wider range) and Doom Spike (if you can hit everything), WAR has Overpower, BRD has Quick knoc, so on.

You see, the problem here is not people can't learn overly complicated rotations, it's more about people not bothering to use obviously better abilities. Why spam blizzard 1 and drop thunder entirely when obviously Fire hits MUCH MUCH harder than Blizzard? How can you do 200 DPS when all you need is to auto attack + do your 1 > 2 > 3 combo to pass the 650 DPS mark. What's so hard from pressing the button that lights up after you used an ability?

I am not even expecting you to try hard... After all, it's only expert roulette. I don't expect you to pop potions and food and wear BiS.. Heck, I use my least geared DPS classes, being BRD (192) and MCH(190), when I feel like I don't wanna give it my all. I still end up with a passable over 1k DPS on bosses and over 1600 on packs. But come on, when I queue as a healer and find that the two DPS are below me and my tank on both packs and bosses? All WHILE I'm busy healing their a$$es out because they don't even bother getting out of red circles? This is far beyond ignorance and #gitgud.

[Ironos]

- In AoE situations: Every job (with the exception of MNK and SMN) can literally spam 1 button for "decent" AoE DPS. NIN has Death Blossom, DRG has Ring of Thorns (Not optimal but wider range) and Doom Spike (if you can hit everything), WAR has Overpower, BRD has Quick knoc, so on..

Except PLD as well, unless you count 250 potency every 25 seconds as "decent." I can't blame you though, most people forget PLD even exists -_-

Side note: I figured you were just talking about DPS jobs but I saw WAR in that list

[Phoenicia]

Except PLD as well, unless you count 250 potency every 25 seconds as "decent." I can't blame you though, most people forget PLD even exists -_-

Side note: I figured you were just talking about DPS jobs but I saw WAR in that list

Pfft, WAR is a DPS that comes with a tanking option.. we all know that. Lol!

Also PLD's 500 potency "flash" is "decent" aggro. It's still 1 button press.

My point is, all jobs, aside from loladin (sadly might I add), is capable of "easily" dishing out DPS. There is no excuse to do abysmally low DPS. I'm not asking you to dish out 3500 AoE DPS. But I also don't want to see you doing 650 in AoE as a goon. Heck, even as PLD, if you flash just enough to have aggro on everything and then go down to the VERY easy 1, 2, 3 combo you'll probably pop 500-600 DPS lol.

[Ironos]

Pfft, WAR is a DPS that comes with a tanking option.. we all know that. Lol!

Also PLD's 500 potency "flash" is "decent" aggro. It's still 1 button press.

My point is, all jobs, aside from loladin (sadly might I add), is capable of "easily" dishing out DPS. There is no excuse to do abysmally low DPS. I'm not asking you to dish out 3500 AoE DPS. But I also don't want to see you doing 650 in AoE as a goon. Heck, even as PLD, if you flash just enough to have aggro on everything and then go down to the VERY easy 1, 2, 3 combo you'll probably pop 500-600 DPS lol.

Oh, I thought you meant actual damage. Not that pretend damage that flash makes the enemies think they take. I wasn't disputing PLD's dps in general (though still lacking), just the claim of "literally" every class pressing one button for decent AoE DPS, save for MNK and SMN.

[Phoenicia]

Oh, I thought you meant actual damage. Not that pretend damage that flash makes the enemies think they take. I wasn't disputing PLD's dps in general (though still lacking), just the claim of "literally" every class pressing one button for decent AoE DPS, save for MNK and SMN.

Well, what I basically was trying to point out is the lack of "complexity" needed to do "decent performance". I excluded MNK and SMN because their AoE happens to be a "combo" of sorts and not a button spam. Considering the use of certain abilities and CDs (Bane+Painflare, PB, AoE being every third hit). I was not disputing or "teaching" AoE DPS though. I am just pointing out the simplicity.

All I'm saying is: Contrary to optimal DPS, it doesn't require max focus to do decent DPS, but rather pressing buttons in order will get you somewhere. I tell you, I have my "lazy days", but I end up with over 1k on single target. How? Muscle memory. As a BLM, if I'm not focused, you WILL see Enochian drop early... More than I'd like even. But instead of just standing there and staring at the monitor, I just turn to your ol' friend, spam-Fire-1-until-out-of-MP. Which brings me to another point:

Some classes got more complex in 3.x, true, but come on, just revert to your old lv50 rotation and you'll still pass 1k. Don't tell me that almost a year, or in some cases, 2, of playing the same job didn't engrave the old rotations into your muscle memory now.

Yes, it is ignorant to assume everyone played since beta. But all it takes is a few sessions of a few minutes on a dummy over a few days, give or take, for said rotations to be pure muscle memory.

[Seryl199]

You know, one thing I wish I could implement is a compassion patch to the brains of all players so that they can understand that the only way to be 'bad' at this game is to play it, but not enjoy it.

Now, this is not a comment on Pinkie_Pie and their ability to play, as I don't know the player and have no idea how they play; however, something that a lot of self professed 'good' players need to understand and remember is that in this game, just like any other, players who are good enough to progress through the main story, are good enough that you can stop disparaging their ability. It doesn't matter how their dps numbers compare to yours. It doesn't matter if you're stellar and they are doing about half your number. It really, really doesn't matter. What matters is are they enjoying the game, playing with friends and progressing to their satisfaction?

If you can't change gears and coexist with players like this, then you need to adjust yourself, because the majority of players in this, and any other game are players who are good enough to complete the primary content of the game and have fun with their friends. I don't know of any other measure of success in an MMORPG that counts more than completing primary content and enjoying the game with friends.

That's all sunshine and rainbows, but people really ought to have some level of accountability. As a pretty decent DPS healer, I've carried tons of tanks and DPS through various roulettes, and I'm ok with that. The way I see it, most players don't roll out of bed and say, "Today, I feel like playing FFXIV and performing my role at 50% capacity." If they're sucking hard, they probably don't know the area, don't know their job well, or just don't care, and nothing I do will improve them in the ~25 minutes I'll be around them. Dungeons are ultimately pass/fail, and even with shoddy randoms and ok gear, most dungeons can be reliably passed as long as someone knows and shares relevant mechanics.

It's the "Cast times are for the birds," BRD/MCH, "I don't feel like managing MP," DRK, or even, as I saw on Reddit today, a tank that, when appealed to to utilize more defensive CD's in the future, replies only: "...nah," that frustrate me. Players with no sense of accountability or acknowledgement that the experience of the 3 other party members is just as important as their own. It's unabashed laziness at the expense of others, and, despite the risk of sounding dramatic, I think that's really uncool. Take all the time you need to be bad, practice rotations, learn mechanics and how those mechanics affect your rotation, position poorly, eat avoidable AoE's, that all happens and is just part of playing the game. To look at a button that objectively causes you to deal more damage and decide not to use it, however, is making an active decision to detrimentally affect your performance at the expense of everyone else in your group, and is inconsiderate to everyone involved. That's not a good attitude to support with "Well, they're just enjoying the game, so I don't mind if they waste my time."

[Zojha]

To look at a button that objectively causes you to deal more damage and decide not to use it, however, is making an active decision to detrimentally affect your performance at the expense of everyone else in your group, and is inconsiderate to everyone involved. That's not a good attitude to support with "Well, they're just enjoying the game, so I don't mind if they waste my time."

The question now would be: Where do you draw the line?

For example, let's say a tank could, without causing problems, drop tank stance in a fight, for example because he's well equipped and has established aggro. He doesn't do so however because he doesn't feel comfortable with it. Acceptable, yes or no?
Then let's go a step further: A tank has enough health to survive the local tank buster just from the left side gear. Yet he's wearing Vit accessories. Acceptable, yes or no?
And then a step further: A player plays a Paladin even though Warriors and Dark Knights are currently better. Acceptable, yes or no?
And just to make it really ridiculous: A tank has two pair of gloves, one with crit and one with parry, otherwise identical. He uses the one with parry because he prefers the look. Acceptable, yes or no?
Or let's take a DPS example: A DPS has three esoteric accessories but no esoteric weapon. Acceptable, yes or no?

The underlying question here is: To what degree are you allowed to make active decisions that detrimentally affect your performance? It's especially interesting considering the current "customization" debate, because it's highly relevant.

[Kaurie]

The question now would be: Where do you draw the line?

For example, let's say a tank could, without causing problems, drop tank stance in a fight, for example because he's well equipped and has established aggro. He doesn't do so however because he doesn't feel comfortable with it. Acceptable, yes or no? Then let's go a step further: A tank has enough health to survive the local tank buster just from the left side gear. Yet he's wearing Vit accessories. Acceptable, yes or no?
And then a step further: A player plays a Paladin even though Warriors and Dark Knights are currently better. Acceptable, yes or no?
And just to make it really ridiculous: A tank has two pair of gloves, one with crit and one with parry, otherwise identical. He uses the one with parry because he prefers the look. Acceptable, yes or no?
Or let's take a DPS example: A DPS has three esoteric accessories but no esoteric weapon. Acceptable, yes or no?

The underlying question here is: To what degree are you allowed to make active decisions that detrimentally affect your performance? It's especially interesting considering the current "customization" debate, because it's highly relevant.

I started a write up, but I felt like I was arguing in circles. I think that the point you bring up lines up with the point of the person you quoted. I am not sure if you are just arguing for the say-so or for semantics, or that you didn't read their post fully?

As for your question, I don't think anyone should make decisions that detrimentally affect your performance. However, everything is "allowed". The only way to curb this behavior is by mechanics that don't let you progress (Steps of Faith, but then nerfed?) or Peer responses (no quoting parsers plox). So basically, everything we can do to curb behavior to what we want is prevented, and that is why we have players playing horribly.

[Twilite]

(Steps of Faith, but then nerfed?)

That fight still has groups that can't clear it for one reason or another.

[RiceisNice]

The question now would be: Where do you draw the line?
.

It'd vary from people to people, but the line has to be somewhere. In the end, no one should be compromising the party or intentionally impeding the progress, esp out of spite or laziness (which then leads me to ask why are you going play a game lazily?)

I said it before, my personal expectaitons is taht people have a general grasp of their class given the circumstances; a monk should not be regularly dropping GL (or rarely going above 1 stack, if they even get one), a BLM should know that astral fire boosts fire damage and does more than blizzard spamming, etc etc. These are things that the game throws at you as early as level 4.