Of openers and rotations

[Atoli]

Basically, the Opener is a certain amount of time where you use the skills and buffs you have in a certain manner that can't be upkept for the entire fight (often combined with potions as well).
It tends to deal a huge amount of dmg (more than it would if you spread out selfbuffs and the like over the course of the fight) and therefore increases your overall dps.

For example on BLM, during the opener I have a full timer on Enochian, the buff that allows me to use my main dmg spell (which gets shorter and shorter after each refreshment during the rest of the fight), so of course that gets paired with spellspeed+ and dmg+ and a pot and MP regen so I can throw a crazy amount of superpowered Fire 4's in a short amount of time. After that I have to switch back into a normal-powered cycle of dealing dmg and regenerating MP + refreshing Enochian (the last 2 ones not exactly great for dishing out dmg ). So no, the opener rotation can't be upkept throughout the entire fight.

How much dmg exactly you'll lose nobody can tell you, it depends on how much dps you normally do in the first place, how well you can pull off your opener (there are different ones for different playstyles/level of play), and so on.
You can parse yourself or use SSS to measure the difference though to see how well you fare with and without an opener
But it IS a significant chunk.

[nilh]

Basically, the Opener is a certain amount of time where you use the skills and buffs you have in a certain manner that can't be upkept for the entire fight (often combined with potions as well).

Thanks Atoli this makes sense

However it seems the normal rotation is not just the opener minus the long cooldown support skills? At least in the guides I have read, it is not presented this way and a lot less emphasis is given to the normal rotation even though this takes up most of the fight. I might be wrong though?

[Frizze]

Thanks Atoli this makes sense

However it seems the normal rotation is not just the opener minus the long cooldown support skills? At least in the guides I have read, it is not presented this way and a lot less emphasis is given to the normal rotation even though this takes up most of the fight. I might be wrong though?

Its a little different for each class. For some of them the opener is more or less the standard rotation with all the buffs they can have sequenced in the most efficient way. For other classes you do things out of the "normal" order during the opener to take the best advantage of all those buffs that you wont typically have for the remainder of a fight(which often have different refresh times, so even when they come back it isnt always together). For instance: if your rotation takes 30 seconds to get through but you only have 20 seconds on your best buff, you might want to hit as many of the hardest hitting parts of your rotation as you can before the timer is out. Different guide authors might have different reasons for emphasizing different elements, but in many cases its because the standard rotation is easier to understand and pull off. Look at the DRG rotation from the DPS forum. If i oversimplify a bit, the standard rotation listed is essentially buff move > combo 1 > filler move > combo 2 > repeat. Its not super hard to remember and the reason you do it in that order is obvious enough once you look at the moves(the first move enhances your damage, the first combo applies a DoT and debuffs the defense of your target, the filler is an additional DoT, the 2nd combo hits hard, and you start your repeating just before all the timers run out). The opener is more complex because youre trying to do more in a limited time window, and they discuss it in greater detail so they can understand and explain why their way gets the most out of the tools they have available.

tl;dr The rotation is the basics, the opener is the advanced stuff.