how long did it take you to learn your dps job to a comfortable level?

[Silverquick]

It was actually pretty easy with SMN because you had to start from the beginning back then.

You started with Ruin, then to Bio, then to Miasma, Bane, then Golden Carby, then another Bio then another Miasma, then Ruin 2 (insta cast), Pet commands, you didn't get the Enkindles until 50th so it didn't come for a while. It just didn't tell you all the Bios and all the Miasmas stacked. So you had to figure that out for yourself. I seem to remember there being 3 Miasmas (one was an AoE), and 2 Bios, and then you'd use Bane to spread them in an AoE.

You also had to use the Contagion from Garuda once you went SMN so that it would extend the duration and you didn't have to keep spamming 5 different Poison DoTs each with a different duration and constantly keep tabs on the timers. That was the hard part. Figuring out how they all fit together though was pretty easy. Eventually they added Dreadwyrm past 50th, but they show you how to use it in the Quest Line. The only thing they didn't tell you was to make sure you use the controls on Egis as little as humanly possible or you'd regret it.


The wonky one was RDM when it first came out, because that one doesn't even show you the basics like BLM did.

So I remember taking up the class and going ok... so supposedly this job double casts. *casts Verthunder*
OMG this takes forever to cast, then casting it a second time right afterwords, like a dual Verthunder, or a Veraero afterwards thinking OMG this is wayyyy too long of an initial cast time.
Well this Jolt one is pretty fast maybe if I use that one first it will work.... yup, guess that's how you do it. (Not exactly intuitive, but doable)

Then I decided... ok well it looks like the Red Button is the first one you use... so... lets try the AoEs now...
*casts Scatter*....
Huh? Why is this taking so damn long to cast!
*Clicks Verthunder2*
Well that was fast... wait... wtf? This one is completely backwards... you do the opposite for this one?
The first version was Jolt to start it off... the AoEs you do the complete opposite and start with the Verthunder first... then close with Scatter?
Who thought that a good idea?

I don't know if it's better these days... but back then it was just a lot of... ???... and that was before you even got into the more complex stuff like putting all the other things together in a coherant whole.

[Rongway]

It was actually pretty easy with SMN because you had to start from the beginning back then.

Playing with an incomplete action set for many levels makes it really easy to develop bad habits. Good rotations are easier to learn with a complete action set.

The wonky one was RDM when it first came out, because that one doesn't even show you the basics like BLM did.

The RDM NPC literally tells you how to Dualcast in the first combat quest.

...Ah, but before we resume the hunt, let us be sure of your technique. As a red mage you are capable of casting two spells in rapid succession using what is known as the “Dualcast” effect.

Intone a short spell, and you will find that a lengthy incantation can now be cast in an instant. Take advantage of this technique to bombard your foes with arcane destruction!

In other words, hardcast a fast spell and then instant cast a slow spell.

[Silverquick]

Playing with an incomplete action set for many levels makes it really easy to develop bad habits. Good rotations are easier to learn with a complete action set.

The RDM NPC literally tells you how to Dualcast in the first combat quest.

In other words, hardcast a fast spell and then instant cast a slow spell.

Well that is actually what I did.

The problem is that's kinda vague. So you have to experiement with it yourself. It's not like BLM where they tell you outright to use Fire to do damage and Ice to do MP restore and then use Transpose to switch between them and walk you thought those parts. On top of that, its completely backwards doing Single Target vs AoE spells. Which of course takes another very non intuitive leap. Which is what made RDM so wonky to start with vs SMN back then.

I also disagree,

It is better to get the techniques one at a time as they fit together so you understand how they fit together, then you can start experimenting with what works best for you. You need to learn to crawl before you can walk. Case and point if you try BLM without every having learned those basics, and try to jump straight into Enochian, first of all you're likely going to be lost. Secondly, you have a better chance of developing bad habits if you don't even know the basics of how to run it and manage to figure it out anyway.

RDM though you had no choice, it was figure it out on the fly whether you wanted to or not.

[Rongway]

It is better to get the techniques one at a time as they fit together so you understand how they fit together, then you can start experimenting with what works best for you. You need to learn to crawl before you can walk.

Secondly, you have a better chance of developing bad habits if you don't even know the basics of how to run it and manage to figure it out anyway.

What I said was:

Playing with an incomplete action set for many levels makes it really easy to develop bad habits. Good rotations are easier to learn with a complete action set.

Obviously nobody expects someone to try to make sense of later actions in the set without understanding the earlier actions; however, if a player spends too long using the early actions without the later ones they may develop an inaccurate understanding of the earlier actions that makes it harder to use the later ones effectively.

Red Mage for example. If they try to learn it like a Lv1 starter job, by only playing low level stuff until they're used to the basics, without cross referencing the higher level actions periodically, it's really easy to develop two bad habits:

1. Starting a melee combo at 50|50 or some other balanced value.
2. Casting Verstone-Verthunder when White is at +1 or Verfire-Veraero when Black is at +1, which leaves them balanced.

These two mistakes have no negative impact until 68/70, at which point they suddenly become significant mistakes.

Which also brings me back to my original statement,

One of the things the game doesn't do well is explain what the intended or optimal rotation for any job is. They leave that to the players to figure out. This is fine from a game design philosophy perspective, but it does make learning how to do things well almost impossible without reading a player-written guide, for most players. Once you've found a good guide, learning a rotation is mostly just a matter of sitting down at a Lv1 target dummy and pressing buttons until you get used to it.

Starting at Lv1, the vast majority of learners can't learn how to play a job well unless they have some outside party warning them about possible mistakes like that. Like, "Hey, Rongway, I know the whole job concept alleges that you're meant to keep your Mana balanced, but make sure you keep them not-exactly-equal. Trust me." Without outside advice, if they're just looking at the actions one at a time from Lv1, they're going to learn the job wrong.