Why is my damage so low?

[Hasrat]

You get tomestones as soon as you reach level 50 and do content that rewards tomestones like the roulettes, also your first cleares of Castrum and Praetorium. You just cant use them till you completed "The Ultimate Weapon" and unlock the vendors.

I'm only slightly put out that y'all made me put this to the test. And I don't think this is new. I ran ARR back during 3.x, and I remember my slow ass getting poetics from beast tribes (yes, you also get them from beast tribes prior to 50), so I was fully decked out by the time I hit Castrum.

[Melichoir]

Just some thoughts on damage for you:

1) Not using a correct combo/rotation will result in lower damage. Certain skills on jobs that are melee orientated chain, and will only do boosted values when proceeded by a certain skill in the chain. If youre just spamming riot blade, it does 100 potency out of combo. Make sure youre using your combos on melee jobs correctly. As others have pointed out, potency doesnt equal damage. You can think of it as a modifier. so 100 potency is 1:1, 200 potency is 2:1, etc etc. So a higher potency means a skill will hit stronger relative to other potency skills. Keep in mind, however that the potency isnt universal to all classes. What I mean is you could have a 1000 potency skill on WHM do less damage compared to a 700 potency skill on another class. The potency concept is only in relation to skills on the class you currently are on, not in comparison to other classes.

Lastly, become familiar with your job. In extremely simple terms, there are two kinds of damage dealer types: Burst and Sustained. Burst types have phases of really high burst damage with phases of moderate damage. This would be something like a warrior who pops their Inner Release and spams Fell Cleave five times for massive damage before returning to normal rotation. Sustained is that your average damage output over time is overall higher compared to burst but you dont have big damaging attacks typically. PLD is more in line with this. You have a few stronger attacks but overall you arent all that bursty. You just do more consistent damage. So if youre seeing a Warrior go up and 2-3 shot something, its cause theyre bursting it down usually, where as it might take you longer to kill it cause you dont have that kind of burst. But on a prolonged fight, youll edge out a Warrior in damage overall (assuming both of you are similar ability and gear) simply because you have better sustained damage.

There are obvious caveats to this, and this is a super simplistic way to think about stuff, but the point is be very considerate to the class your playing. It's not going to necessarily be like other classes in terms of how damage is put out. It may take you longer to kill a standard trash mob cause you dont have that burst compared to a warrior, but you may do more damage to a boss overall on a long fight.

2) Gear. Gear is a huge deal in FFXIV and a matter of 20 ilvls can mean a huge difference in output. Furthermore, there is a stat prioritization you need to consider when dealing damage. In the case of most classes, the first consideration is Weapon Damage, then Primary Stat, then Secondary Substat. 2 Atk no a Sword for PLD is going to matter a lot more than 20 STR, and 20 STR is going to matter a lot more than 40 crit. So to maximize your damage output, make sure your weapon is up to date, followed by your armor and accessories having as much of your primary stat as possible. Try to avoid gear with stats you dont need.

Keep in mind that iLvLs jump up a bit at the level caps per xpac. So at the end of ARR, the default gear is between ilvls 50 to 90, but goes as high as ilvl 130. HW gear goes from 130-270, SB is 270-400, and ShB is currently 400- 505 (and will go up with the next major patch.) 30 or so iLvLs will make a big impact on your damage as well as survivability as a PLD. The typical rule of thumb is if its for your class and its 10 ilvls better than what you have right now, use it. At end game content you can start tinkering with equipment sets to min/max output, but for leveling purposes it's generally highest ilvl goes.

3) Content. Being synced to content will sync gear and stats down to the appropriate ilvl. You still should do relatively more damage with better gear but it wont be your 'natural' output.

4) Party Buffs: Depending your party composition, you will get stat buffs. Furthermore, some classes help improve your damage output with their skills. Certain items will also boost your damage for a small period of time (potions and food).

[Shougun]

You missed a key word in my post, "feel", not actual damage, as all the tanks are basically identical with minor differences every time there is a patch. Paladin doesn't feel very DPSy, not that it's actually doing less damage.

--Edit:

Also Literally and Figuratively, Paladins do not feel like a DPS class, the do not feel like masters of dealing Damage, The do not feel like DPS, they feel like a Tank. They feel Tanky McTank face, Here let me shoulder this shield and get your attention, so you can't do me damage while the DPS kills you.

Warriors & Dark Knights feel like DPS sacrificing DPS for tankyness. Gunbrakers feel like well "Like here I am, I'm cool, I've got a Gunblade look at me act cool with my shiny new Gunblade". Paladin is like "I'z gotz a Shield, dur, so I'm a Tank"

I might have agreed somewhat earlier on in the history of FFXIV, especially like ARR era, but with all the changes to be frank I feel like WAR is now the dur dur class lol.

Paladin at 80 I think is pretty good. Plus we have some neat emergency tools, not so needed when you've a good group but they're cool to have for DF when you'll just randomly get someone who needs all the help in the world and Paladin can give it unlike some of the other tanks. No one can cure like the tin can man can.

Although each tank does have one thing that makes them special, so not saying PLD is the best (nor worst) but I think it's pretty cool and also definitely, anymore, not the dur dur job lol. Dur dur here meaning fairly easy and simple to play, of course each job has the entry point and then the mastery point- you can still have room to be a 'great WAR' (or insert other job here), but I feel it's pretty easy job now.

Speaking from someone who has 80'd all the jobs, for context, not saying I'm the best at all the jobs but I've a fairly decent idea how to play each job (and have done so).

[Melichoir]

...Also Literally and Figuratively, Paladins do not feel like a DPS class, the do not feel like masters of dealing Damage, The do not feel like DPS, they feel like a Tank. They feel Tanky McTank face, Here let me shoulder this shield and get your attention, so you can't do me damage while the DPS kills you....."

I guess this is up to interpretation but broadly all tanks are just DPS that sacrifice damage for mitigation - at least at savage level.

[Absurdity]

To the two people above me, that was never the point. They're saying that PLD doesn't "feel" like a dps because it's a paladin, the og tank class, the holy knight, the shieldwall that protects allies. This isn't about high dps parses, speed running capabilities or even just comparing it's simulated optimal dps to other tank jobs. This is about the jobs aesthetics, it's looks, it's feel and it's theme and in this case I have to agree, paladin does not "feel" like it would do a lot of dps.

[Shougun]

To the two people above me, that was never the point. They're saying that PLD doesn't "feel" like a dps because it's a paladin, the og tank class, the holy knight, the shieldwall that protects allies. This isn't about high dps parses, speed running capabilities or even just comparing it's simulated optimal dps to other tank jobs. This is about the jobs aesthetics, it's looks, it's feel and it's theme and in this case I have to agree, paladin does not "feel" like it would do a lot of dps.

I got that (the second time, first time I didn't), that's why I argued back that, I, think it's actually warrior that feels dur lol. Where I've so many buttons with Paladin, decent amount of activities and thoughts, and with Warrior I felt dur I haz fel cleave buttons (of course mastery is different than begining pick up). Sure those were DD oriented but with Paladin at 80 I feel I've a button for every occasion, including damage. I also noted the level 80 part because I saw their PLD isn't 80 yet and I think they will like it more at 80 once they get their capstone physical and magical spells and instant casts.


Which is why I said in ARR days warrior was certainly more technical than paladin but after so many changes I don't really feel that's true. And again that level 80 paladin is part of that, including bringing some of the boom / damage vibes. Dur at 80, I argued, doesn't adequately describe paladin. Of course it's all opinion, but since they are not 80 at least on the character I looked up I thought to share, as well because this thread was made by a new player and I had wanted them to see some diverse opinions. So they don't get easily swayed one way or another on which job they want to play in the end, can see different perspectives.

[kaynide]

...

To the OP: +1 to Melichoir’s post, especially point 2.

It’s better to think of the games gear as follows:

Leveling gear (from 1-50 in 2.0, then the following 10 levels per expansion)
Grindy Gear (the gear that exists between expansions)

Generally the best plan is to just get the best available or easiest for you to get Grindy set whenever you hit cap, if feasible.

The “easiest good set” is usually the augmented tomestone set, which should last about the 3rd dungeon of the following expansion.

If you can’t get that, the second easiest is typically the 3rd of the 24 man raid series which should be easy as well.

By all means you don’t need to get best in slot for each expansion... your target should really only be enough iLVL to get to the next dungeon.

[LaughingBanana]

Also when you're sync'd below your level your materia doesn't work at all either.

Huh.

Is this only character level or itemlevel as well?

[ReiMakoto]

Huh.

Is this only character level or itemlevel as well?

Item sync as well, its why ultimate bis uses gear released at the time a lot of the time, because by equipping higher ilvl gear will lose the materia. An "advantage" of ilvl sync is that your substats get sync'd to the cap of that item level tier.

I.E. if you have boots with 120 crit and 80 det, if you're sync'd to a level where the substat cap is 60, your boots will have 60/60 crit/det, despite the boots having less det natively.
Sometimes this is better than having access to your materia, sometimes it is worse, back in SB it was demonstrably worse for tanks as they would lose the bonus strength materia. Its also more clearly worse in situations where you meld for stat tiers like with skillspeed, where if your gear has little SS natively and you meld to make up the difference, losing those melds with an item level sync sucks.