I just wanna doublecheck something (BLM)

[Karilyn]

...Generating unnecessary hostility in the playerbase. It also has trickle effects into endgame where DPS are extremely defensive to being called out on bad rotations, and generally get away with subpar playing because of it.

*nods* I'll report it if I see it again. I try to make a big deal out of being calm and understanding with players; almost nobody wants to be bad, and if they aren't afraid of you, they tend to be surprisingly open-minded to change (I must've seen 20+ GLDs in the first 3-4 dungeons spamming Riot Blade to get more MP to spam more Flash instead of using Savage Blade, which I walked through how to tank better, and watched them miraculously improve in mere moments). Everyone didn't know what they were doing at one point; we only stop growing when we refuse to accept our capability for further learning, and not a minute before then.

I have a long history of playing tanks and healers. I don't think I've ever played a DPS before in the entire 13 years I've been playing MMOs. The Armory system let me branch out, and my immediate reaction upon playing a BLM is wondering how I ever thought DPSer's jobs were easy; feels way harder than tanking or healing ever did. I now find myself speculating that a large part of the reason behind the seemingly common under-performing DPS is due to the seeming omnipresent MMO myth that DPSing is supposed to be really easy, when in reality it seems like this seemingly endless mountain of tiny tweaks you can make to squeeze another little bit more DPS out of your play. Which hasn't been a thing in MMOs for tanks since threat was made trivial ("Wait 10 seconds for the tank to get threat before DPSing, then DPS very slowly"), and it was never really a thing for healers, as HPS doesn't matter so much as good judgement calls.