Trying to get better as a RDM

[Virlym]

o1s Dummy video

Here's an example of o1s dummy I did on an alt just for your reference. Gear is hovered over at the beginning. ilvl 319 with mostly trash melds, no food, and no pots (just to show you it doesn't matter for o1s).

I knew I was going to finish so I tried to show you a double melee at the end, but I ended up killing it before I could finish. After the first melee, I would use the proc'd ver-spell I had setup before I started the first melee in order to get both colored mana up to 41/40, then would use manafication to hit 82/80, and would start another melee combo that would still finish in the embolden window.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Some have suggested not bringing swift cast, but thats dependent on the fight/group composition imo.
Swift cast can help with DPS depending on the fight, since there are times your dual cast just went off as you need to move for a mechanic.
And even when my Spell Speed was like 1,900, it wasnt enough to get a hard cast in, in time, and get to a safe position.
in most situations where u can get a hard cast in, even with 1,000 Spell Speed, u can make it in time. So yeah, spell speed is pretty sub par.

If you're, lets say, 70 / 80 in mana and you just finished your dual cast, your embolden just highlighted, and your NIN is about to trick attack, its better to swift cast Aero to get those 10 point of mana, and not waste another GCD to dual cast. So you can rev up your melee combo, and embolden between the 1st and 2nd WS. (though its relatively safe to activate it on the 1st WS honestly)

This has mainly been useful for me in O3S, when I have to finish my burst combo before embolden completely wears off, and the boss starts up mechanics. So Swift Cast helps me do my melee combo in time, 50% of the time.

Over all, when im at my worst, and not using swift cast effectively, using embolden 1 GCD too early or late, etc, barely effects my DPS. (It does effect it though)
RDM is pretty forgiving.

So as most people said, organize your hotbars, so you dont have as much trouble figuring out which button you need to press, and thats the biggest step.
Once you do that, all u can do is practice for 2 weeks, so that you no longer have to think about which buttons u need to press, it becomes muscle memory.
(It will feel no different than walking. You wont confuse which foots goes in front of which, and how much distance u need to step. You do it naturally.)

You should always make ur most commonly used/needed abilities on your face buttons, where you dont have to press any extra buttons.
So you have 16 buttons, before needing W/X hotbars.
Vercure is nice, and Verraise is nice, but shouldnt be used commonly, so they go onto a different double press hotbar.
Your AoEs should honestly be put on another hotbar, as you'll only use them in trash pulls usually, and you can get away with not using single targets during trash too much. (Technically its best to rev up a dual cast, using scatter, and dual cast aero/thunder IF there are 3 mobs. If 4 or more, just scatter spam/Moulinet. If 2 or less, single target)
You will use acceleration a lot, and you'll use contrasixe/fleche a lot. (contra/fleche are roughly 10% of your total dmg surprisingly, if i remember correctly, if not 10% it was a high %)
It would be hard to weave them bwteen GCDs if not on face buttons for quick access.

Your melee combo wont happen as often, so it could be safe to place it on another hotbar, but it can make weaving oGCDs in harder, if you dont place them on that hotbar too, but chances of it happening are not too high, but it does happen every fight to me. (Same with flare/holy, as you'll do them right after)
(This is a matter of personal taste of u want to do that or not)
Embolden/manification would probably have to be on both hotbars, as ull want to use it dependent on being mid AoE or mid melee combo.
that "should" be all of the available space you have on your face buttons.

You can also assign the chocobo/mount and other minor out of combat stuff to yoru keyboards num pad or something, to help make things easier. (u can do this with your CDs as well if you want.)

[AphraelAmarantha]

Thank you everyone for your replies and very insightful advice. You have all shown me that there is so much I still don't know about this game. However, I am learning and I appreciate all the advice. Thank you!

[SpiritMuse]

Others have already explained hotbar setups so I'll just add that I noticed you have sprint and auto attack on your main bar. The first thing I do when unlocking a new class/job is always to remove auto attack completely, because that can just as easily be accessed by simply pressing X on your target a second time (and on many jobs it's automatically activated anyway as soon as you start attacking). Sprint is useful to keep on your bars, but it's not a very high priority ability so I usually put it on my secondary/expanded bar. That will free up two slots so you can, for example, pull Verholy and Verflare out of your potion stash and put them in a more easily accessed place.

[lujate]

...
You spend an awful lot of time at range. You should spend most of your time in melee distance so you get auto attacks with each dualcast.
...

Really? I've heard a lot of hate for RDM's being in mêlée range.

[magnanimousCynic]

Not too sure where to ask so I'll just ask here:

After I use Manafication and Embolden for my opener, how should I use it then? Do I hold both until the next 40-50/40-50 mana, or just use it on cooldown where it could cause a non-guaranteed VerHoly/VerFlare proc?

[CharlieBlake]

You can also set the hotbars to cycle only ones with stuff slotted in them by tapping the R1 button.