Beginner's Guide to DPS: Avoid Common Mistakes, Master the Basics & Learn Advanced Tricks

You just got to level 80 and your goal is to become the best DPS player in your groups? You're in the right place!

We'll start with setting up your character correctly, move on to practicing your rotation on the golem, and finally cover how to bring everything you've learned into real fights.

If you put everything you learn here into practice, you might be surprised by how much your DPS can improve!

Having comfortable keybinds is one of the most important things when learning to play DPS. You don't want to be constantly reaching across your keyboard or clicking skills with your mouse.

Your goal should be to make every important skill easily accessible so you can press it without thinking. There is no single "best" keybind setup. Find something that feels comfortable for you and stick with it.

Your settings can also have a surprisingly big impact on your ability to perform.

Make sure your skill retargeting, ground targeting, camera settings, and other combat options are configured in a way that makes your rotation comfortable.

Having ground targeting on Fast with Range indicator or Instant will make it easier to cast ground targeted skills faster. A good setup removes unnecessary obstacles and lets you focus on the fight rather than fighting your controls.

After keybinds & settings,having the correct gear is the first thing we should take care of.

If you've asked someone in-game for a build, you've probably been recommended this website. Whichever build you decide to play, it's important to copy the recommended gear stats, sigils, runes, relic, and traits as closely as possible.

Even if you're using Exotic gear, try to use the same stats as the build recommends. This way, when you eventually upgrade to Ascended gear, you can simply replace your Exotic pieces with Ascended pieces using the same stats.

Now that you are properly set up, it's time to start practicing.

The Special Forces Training Area is the perfect place to learn your rotation without having to worry about mechanics or other players.

On the build page you've chosen, you'll find both a written rotation and a benchmark video.

Don't let the rotation scare you! At first, these can look extremely complicated, especially when a build has a long list of skills to use. Instead of trying to memorize the entire rotation immediately, start by learning how your skills feel. Practice casting them in a general order and get comfortable with the class.

If it all seems like a lot at first you can try one of our beginner builds and slowly transition into the full rotations as you get used to the class!

It's also highly recommended to read your skills and understand what they actually do. Try to understand why the rotation is structured the way it is rather than simply memorizing a list of buttons.

Most rotations follow a relatively simple idea: use your strongest skills as often as possible while filling the downtime with your best filler skills.

However, buffs from skills, traits, relics, or other effects can change the order in which you want to use your abilities. (e.g., if the class has a temporary damage buff usually you will try to fit your best skills during it.)

Because of this, it's important to learn which skills you can safely queue and which ones you need to be careful with.

Ideally, you want to queue every skill that can safely be queued while avoiding unnecessary delays and cancelled auto-attacks between your abilities.

Even small gaps can add up over an entire fight.

Once you've learned your rotation and started practicing on the golem, it's time to look at your DPS numbers. However, don't worry about reaching the benchmark right away.

The benchmark is a goal to work toward, not a requirement for playing the build.

When you're practicing, focus on consistency first. Try to perform your rotation correctly and keep your skills flowing rather than constantly resetting because your DPS isn't high enough.

Don’t just learn the order of the skills you need to press, try to learn what each skill does. As an example, knowing your Defiance Break skills, or where your Blocks are could help you succeed a mechanic or survive attacks!

Start by learning what each important skill does and how it affects your rotation. Try to remember simple things like:

• "This skill moves me forward."
• "This skill is an evade."
• "This skill is a CC."
• "This skill gives me a buff."

After you've practiced for a while, check your DPS and compare it to the benchmark. You can start off by comparing the first number, there is no need to do the whole training golem if you didn’t learn the first 20% properly.

Try to practice until you are satisfied with the numbers you are getting, building up muscle memory with the keybinds you press will help you a lot in real fights.

Doing great DPS on the golem is one thing. Doing it while mechanics are happening is another.

Real encounters will force you to move, Dodge, avoid attacks, perform mechanics, and sometimes completely change your rotation.

The goal isn't to play exactly like you do on the golem. The goal is to do as much of your damage as possible while dealing with the encounter.

One of the easiest ways to lose DPS is simply being in the wrong place. DPS builds rely on boons. If you run away from everyone, you may lose important boons and your DPS can drop dramatically.

Try to stay within boon range of your group whenever possible and pay attention to where your subgroup is positioned.

Positioning yourself correctly also makes it easier to keep attacking. If you know where the boss is going to move, try to position yourself so you can continue your rotation while following the boss, rather than having to stop attacking and chase it.

The more familiar you become with an encounter, the easier it will be to know where you need to stand, when you need to move, and when you can just keep attacking.

** DPS uptime is how consistently you are dealing damage to the target. This one will improve with experience, the better you know the fights the better it will be. **

You should always be looking for opportunities to keep attacking. Knowing your abilities helps with this a lot, which ranged options you have, which skills you can use to avoid mechanics, which ones you can use facing away from the boss. Learning how to avoid mechanics by Blocking, Evading with skills or simply moving out of them instead of Dodging will increase your DPS significantly.

In the GiF below, you can see two ways of avoiding attacks: Dodging on the left and moving out of the attack on the right. Both methods are perfectly fine, but whenever you can safely avoid an attack through movement instead of Dodging, it can be a DPS gain.

When mechanics force you away from the boss, think about what you can still do:

• Can you continue attacking while moving?
• Can you use ranged abilities?
• Can you use movement skills to return quickly?
• Can you delay a skill slightly so you don't cancel it during a mechanic?

If a mechanic requires you to stop attacking, move away, or perform an important role, do it.

A dead DPS player does zero damage.

Having good keybinds that let you move without interrupting your rotation will drastically increase your DPS uptime.

Precasting is another way to increase your DPS and improve your DPS uptime by casting your skills before the boss becomes vulnerable. This can be done at the start of a fight or when a new phase begins.

The goal is to save time on skill cast times by casting your skills before the fight or phase starts, allowing them to hit the boss as soon as it becomes vulnerable. Depending on your build, you can take this even further by precasting skills that you don't normally have equipped, or skills that you wouldn't normally use at the start of your rotation.

Let's take Power Amalgam as an example. In the GiF below, you can see both examples lined up with the combat start to simulate a fight starting. You'll notice that the example on the right gets ahead in the rotation much faster because they saved time by casting their skills before the combat started.

Some skills deal damage shortly after you cast them so you can cast them before the boss fight or phase starts and that way save all the time you would otherwise be wasting during the phase and potentially even get extra skill casts.

This might only save a few seconds, but especially in shorter fights or phases, those saved seconds can make a huge difference in DPS. Almost every class has some way to take advantage of precasting. Practice your build, learn the fights and find out how you can get the most out of it.

Once you've mastered the basics, there are plenty of small things you can improve. Recording and watching your gameplay is super helpful if you take improving your dps really serious!

Don't obsess over your DPS number after every fight. Instead, look at why your DPS was lower than expected.

Maybe you got downed. Maybe you cancelled one of your important damaging skills. Maybe you stopped attacking during a mechanic when you could have continued.

Every mistake gives you something to improve.

The goal isn't to become perfect overnight. The goal is to be a little better every time you play!