Trying to get better as a RDM

[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.)