DPS Basics: How to move into a medium play tier.

[Shaolinz]

There's a lot of information talking about cracking into the elite DPS Tiers. However, I've noticed a lot of DPS are missing some basic concepts. Getting basic DPS skills down is a fundamental concept of being able to perform well. Through all the meta talk, the basics always come first. So, this intends to be just a basic reminder of skills you need to have down cold before you try to push to the next level.

#Balance of Power
Presently, it's pretty uniformly agreed upon that Samurai is ironically in the worst spot DPS wise, despite having high personal DPS. This is because although they have high personal DPS, it's not that high, and they have no raid buffs to boost the DPS of others. This likely won't be able to be fixed this expansion as they'll basically need a new ability to be viable. However, keep in mind this statement only applies to the end of end game and not in general leveling up. Additionally, the class is very fun to play, with a very good storyline. Since waxing and waning of class balance is a given in MMOs, don't let its current sitting prevent you from playing the class. You can always level up something else for the meta.

#Leveling Basics
-Although Raids are the end game, getting there is 90% of the play time you'll put into your class. So, you should get there with style, and enjoy your trip. This is the fastest way I've seen to level a DPS class, and you can have a fresh level 70 DOS in as few as two weeks (faster with the road to 60 buff) with casual play.
-1-50: Hunting Log completion, class quests completion, leveling roulette and waiting in queues for the highest level dungeons. Vendor your gear to keep up. Partner with a friend leveling a tank or healer to really speed things up.
-50-60: Alliance roulette, Leveling, Trials and 50-60, then palace of the dead and class quests in the gap. Gear in this range is frequently expensive and unnecessary since you're level capped at 50 for your dungeons, and palace progression for palace. So, level 50 tomestone gear usually suffices.
-60-70: All the above roulettes, spamming highest dungeon, doing highest Fate in the mean time. Augmented Shire gear will get you to 70 and is easy to get.

#Pushing your character
-There are three fundamental concepts to learn to DPS well: GCDs, buffs/debuffs/dots and AOE.
-GCDs stands for global cooldown, and in general this means the skills tied to a common recast timer. Although this speed is different for all classes (and there is a reddit spreadsheet out there that defines the GCD for all classes), the big concept is that you always want your GCD timer going. Delay in activating the GCD timer is truly lost DPS, plain and simple. The trick here too is lots of classes have off-GCD skills (you might see those referred to as oGCD) that can be cast while the GCD is recharging. In general, you want to use these skills as soon as they are up, and while under a GCD recharge. Weaving in your OGCD skills without missing a GCD is a core skill of all DPS classes.
-Buffs/Debuffs/DoTs: These are skills that boost your character's DPS, or the DPS of others. In general, the following order of skills takes precedence: Flat DPS buff > Damage Resistance Down > Stat increases > DoTs > GCD decreases. The math is a little different for every class and you should look into the specifics of the class you want to optimize, but that's a good rule of thumb to follow.
-AoE: Another often missed concept for DPS folks. Although your AoEs usually do lower potency than weaponskills, their blessing is that they hit multiple targets. At a specific number of enemies, the group damage output you're able to dish out is higher if you're using AoE. This of course only applies if you're actually hitting the mobs with your AoE, so check your damage radius. In general, a good mantra to follow is "more than three, AoE".

#Next-Level Skills
-Once you reach 70 and start breaching the end game, you'll often find you've been doing certain aspects wrong, or that there are better ways to play your class. Don't be stubborn: there are folks who basically spend every waking hour playing FFXIV and getting good at it. Although that's likely not you, you can at least learn from their success and incorporate it into your own play.
-Resources: Several guides exist on google/reddit that are class specific. Imgur usually has visual guides for optimal rotations of each class. The Balance discord is a very supportive group that will help you if you ask for tips. Ariyala usually keeps a fairly good table of BiS (best in slot) gear and melds.

#Summary
I hope this helps you on your road to be a better DPS. Although these tips may be obvious to some, I can confirm they are not obvious for all, and I hope this helped the ones who didn't know what they were missing.

[Neela]

Although Raids are the end game, getting there is 90% of the play time you'll put into your class. So, you should get there with style, and enjoy your trip

actually this ^

first and only advice to archive the underlined part until you are seriously facing any kind of savage/ultimate: dont give a shit about Bis/fflogs/Elite-Talk - knowing your base-rota and understanding skills and their synergy for real is the only thing people should focus on... dying by doom or grabbing aggro in daily runs is always pain in the ass... cause even leafs run without esuna or in atk-stance just because they adapt elite-talk to casual pve... without knowing why they are dooing what they are actually doing... (potd and the upcoming dragon ball tower are not really helping to solve this situation near by...) - so yeah Shao thx for this reminder here : o

[TelosNox]

The most important DPS advice in my eyes: Don't copy skill rotations. Instead learn the reason for that rotations. This automatically leads to learning and understanding the class concept.

[Popotato]

The #1 tip for any DPS player looking to bump up their DPS is to always maximise uptime and keep that GCD rolling. Obviously you want to learn your job's rotation, don't neglect that. But if your looking to take your damage further than that, rather than learning the niche edge cases within your kit that advanced guides will tell you, look to learn the fight better. Look for times where you could've gotten an extra GCD in or times where you could've used something like Arm's Length. Your first priority is to clear the mechanic, but often times you can clear a mechanic with a tighter timing. Using things like Shoulder Tackle and Shukuchi, or even just using Sprint a lot more will let you spend more time hitting the boss, and you'll see a noticeable increase in your damage.