Why is my damage so low?

[Chaletamale]

Indeed your gear is decent, BUT you're in a FATE there, which means your level got lowered to the maximum permitted for that FATE. Now, as others already said, Potency is not the actual damage of your skill; It's just a way to easily see how big the actual damage will be in comparison with all other skills. For example, Kaeshi: Setsugekka is a Samurai skill with a potency of 1,200. It doesn't mean that a level 80 SAM will deal literally 1,200 damage, it just means the actual number will be pretty big (like 50k for example).

in this particular case yes it was a fate. but i went to the practice dummies and it was the exact same numbers. i even went to lvl 3 mobs and its the same numbers. so its universally hitting way low numbers.

[Shougun]

in this particular case yes it was a fate. but i went to the practice dummies and it was the exact same numbers. i even went to lvl 3 mobs and its the same numbers. so its universally hitting way low numbers.

Your cobalt sword is 32 damage:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...m/4a5f2c3b67f/

While this augmented magitek sword is 57 damage:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...m/695c329d011/

Alternatively you could buy the GC (grand company) weapon with seals, the level 50 weapon from the shop with gil, or do the next dungeon in the series and get a little lucky. But 20+ points of damage is a pretty hefty boost. If you've the tomestones the augmented items (50, 60, etc) will be nice because they'll last pretty much till the next tomestone set.

You'll -feel- the difference from that amount of damage difference. You might have enough tomestones already if you've not used them yet, or you might have the feathers if you used a friend code, if you haven't you can get a random recruit a friend code and use that for the benefits (if you haven't already passed the time to use the code- link: here).