Observations on DPS in End Game

[skaterger]

I recall trying to research my class on the internet and I realized that there were a lot of conflicting opinions on how to optimize one's dps as well as out of date documents. It isn't like trying to research a rotation for World of Warcraft where it was very easy to find a good guide simply because of the game's massive popularity. MMOs aren't quite like that anymore.

They should really not be trying to create rotations in this day and age. I'm all for having a variety of abilities that do different things, but the dps choices should be very obvious.

I can't really agree with this sort of mindset. May I know what class you were researching with that had many conflicting opinions on their rotation? Afaik, all 5 dps classes are fairly consistent in their rotations, with the possible exception of monk having side-only, back-only or side-back movement dps. But even so, the rotations have a few governing principles that all non-mmo newbies should possess

1) Keeping uptime on dots and debuffs on enemy as much as possible
2) Using offensive cooldowns as much as possible and as soon as its off cooldown
2) Weaving off gcd cooldowns into your normal 2.5 sec gcd rotations
3) Correct positioning during skills and right order of skills used to maximize damage

In cases like whether fracture are useful for dragoon or whether to open with thunder 2 or 3 with blm, yes there are many opinions on this but you need to realize that these are the players who min max and its not going to affect your dps by a significant amount whether you choose to use it or not. People who are doing sub dps as OP is talking about usually have much more major problems like spamming full thrust or casting blizzard for 90% of the fight to conserve mana.

I think a large part of what keeps a game interesting is that there are still certain unknowns or variables in the game. This keeps players interested and discussions alive as to the optimum rotations, skill tree, gear choices etc. If there is only 1 build or a cookie cutter build, then everything becomes homogenized and becomes nothing more than everyone mindlessly button mashing. This was what led me to leaving some other games and I personally do not hope SE goes down this route.