Why do I suck so much at RDM?

[MelvinK]

OP, dps is acrnym of damage per second and guess what, it is a function of time. Ur dps is dependent on fight length and varies based on how many capable players in the same group. If you have 4 dps with good skills it is easy to get 4k DPS, if u r the only good player among the 4 DPS< guess what u will never reach 4K, do not be so obsessed with DPS meter and instead you should use it as a tool to learn stuff

[Yorumi]

OP, dps is acrnym of damage per second and guess what, it is a function of time. Ur dps is dependent on fight length and varies based on how many capable players in the same group. If you have 4 dps with good skills it is easy to get 4k DPS, if u r the only good player among the 4 DPS< guess what u will never reach 4K, do not be so obsessed with DPS meter and instead you should use it as a tool to learn stuff

Um no. It should not vary wildly with fight length. Since dps is damage per second it's the average amount of damage you are doing every second. Any fight longer than about 1 min should show the same dps regardless of length or other dps classes. The only difference would be buffs, more balance uptime will increase dps, as well as other buffs from other classes.

All you ever hear is how brain dead easy this class is, and while the skill set is pretty straight forward I find myself having slow reaction times when it comes to deciding whether to cast either Jolt, Impact, Verstone or Veraereo.

What can I do to improve reaction times?

I'm only i313 with verity weap and can barely keep up 3900 dps on SSS Susano. Am I just undergeared? Or just lack experience? What are pro RDMs doing that I'm not?

Are you comparing to other rdms in the party or just fflogs? It's possible the ones in the logs are getting better buffs from other members.

In terms of priority though verstone = verfire > impact > jolt. For stone, aero, fire, and thunder aero and thunder should never be cast without dual cast, never hard cast them. For all 4 cast the one that gives whichever mana is lower. This does mean alternating around. Say for example you have 40 black mana and 38 white mana. If you cast jolt or impact follow it up with veraero. If instead you cast verstone follow it up verthunder(cause after the stone cast white mana will be higher than black).