How do I solo most efficiently as DNC?

[Laago]

Hi guys.

Recently hit 90 DNC(my first lvl 90 job) and i'm getting the hang of things now.

Slowly building up a TP and EVA set using Ninians guide

Quick question though.

I was recently looking for a group to fight Khalamari and most of the people said that I should be able to solo it with no problems....

So off I went solo to fight Khalamari in Aby, Grabbed my curor buffs and my atma or razed ruin(only have one lunar abbysite atm)

I grabbed Khalamari but within a few moments I knew I was fighting a losing battle.

He ate through my shadows. and still hit me pretty hard even with fan dance up.

Is there something I am doing wrong?

What is the typical rotation for a DNC/NIN solo?

[Byrth]

Step 1: Cap your evasion skill
Step 2: Cap your merits
Step 3: Make an AGI/Eva Kila +2
Step 4: Get three Lunar Abyssites (you can ask people making empyreans to let you join for almost enough wins to get both)
Step 5: RR/DD/GH and you pretty much can't be hit

[Laago]

Great thanks.

What merits do you suggest?

[Byrth]

5 Haste Samba, 5 Reverse Flourish <-- not arguable, though someone might try
2 or 5 No Foot Rise, 1-5 Fan Dance, 1-5 Saber Dance, 1-5 Closed Position. I'm personally 2 NFR, 1 Fan Dance, 2 Saber Dance, 5 Closed Position

Closed Position is where you dump your tier 2 merits when you think your recast on Saber Dance/Fan Dance is low enough.

[Kasandaro]

Re: That annoying Squidbeast that took forever to drop my necklace

Is there something I am doing wrong?

Is it his normal hits that killing your shadows? Or Mantle Pierce? MP makes you love Violent Flourish and two Utsu spells. If it's his normal attacks, then I'm guessing your evasion needs to be brought way up. (Parry, too, if you can swing it.)

Step 1: Cap your evasion skill
Step 2: Cap your merits
Step 3: Make an AGI/Eva Kila +2
Step 4: Get three Lunar Abyssites (you can ask people making empyreans to let you join for almost enough wins to get both)
Step 5: RR/DD/GH and you pretty much can't be hit

Other good evasion atma besides Dark Depths (synthed from Salvage clears, adds AGI and crit rate) are Siren Shadow (Tahrongi VNM3, adds attack) and Cloak and Dagger (Konschtadt tonberry NM, adds accuracy). Gnarled Horn adds too much Counter and Crit Rate to not use for this (though I could argue Apoc if you're soloing), and well, Razed Ruins is Razed Ruins.

But once you cap your evasion (not counting merits and Closed Position) and have a single AGI Kila, you'll find you can straight tank most first- and second-tier NMs in Visions zones.

5 Haste Samba, 5 Reverse Flourish <-- not arguable, though someone might try
2 or 5 No Foot Rise, 1-5 Fan Dance, 1-5 Saber Dance, 1-5 Closed Position. I'm personally 2 NFR, 1 Fan Dance, 2 Saber Dance, 5 Closed Position

Closed Position is where you dump your tier 2 merits when you think your recast on Saber Dance/Fan Dance is low enough.

Yes to 5 Haste/5 Reverse. I'm currently 1 Fan, 1 Saber, 3 NFR (I like going into a fight with Samba already up), and 5 Closed, since I'm often enough solo or small group that it's worth it. (May move these around later. Not like merits are hard to come by anymore.)

[Kaych]

Re: That annoying Squidbeast that took forever to drop my necklace

Same. About 15 tries ^_-

[Byrth]

I'd recommend fighting him during piercing time and confluxing away if the weakness isn't dagger. I think it took me 20+ times personally, but I did it at 80.

[scaevola]

I prefer Sanguine Scythe to Dark Depths because you can cap evasion but you can't cap HP, and if you're in danger of dying a spell or some other big hit you can't evade is usually going to be involved in there somewhere. YMMV, of course, and otherwise I have nothing to add.

[Byrth]

My problem with SS is that I only have about 1100 HP outside Abyssea, so it only gets me a little over 200HP. 200 HP isn't shit in there, so I'd rather have capped Evasion in my WS gear.

[scaevola]

Oh, Taru with no HP merits? Yeah, that might make SS appear to have less of an impact, but for camparison's sake even as a Hume with max HP Merits I'm at 1400 outside of Abyssea, so you're probably on the low side for dancers in general. The larger point is that survivability only matters insofar as it ensures you don't die. The hit that might get through while in your WS set that wouldn't in your TP/evasion set won't kill you anyway. If SS means the difference between 2000 and 2500 health, though (which it does for me), and you take take back-to-back 900-point hits in between waltzes, well.

I was just doing Iku-Turso (badly) this morning solo for NIN seals and SS saved me twice in an hour. I'm sure capping evasion naked helps a lot but it's hard to compare to that.

EDIT: I could add a comment on Group 2 Merits as there's something to be said for Saber Dance that hasn't been mentioned yet. the reason for putting more merits into it isn't necessarily to get more damage out of it (though this is generally a result of doing so); it's to shorten the recast so you can cancel out of it to heal yourself and jump back in more often. As someone who usually uses his DNC to solo, I'm 5/5 and I couldn't see myself doing otherwise. It actually gives Waltz V a lot of functionality in that it's usually enough to completely cover once-every-three-minutes healing but probably couldn't handle five. For the record, I'm 5/5 SD, 1/5 FD, 4/5 CP. I concede NFR has its uses but I consider those too situational to justify multiple merits out of such a strong group. DNC Group 2 is one of the strongest groups in the game, actually, so there isn't really a right answer about how to allocate merits there.

Naturally, the gear and atmas don't just fall out of the sky, of course, and especially in DNC is your first 90 you're going to run into tangible survivability issues before you get Merit abyssites up to spec. To that end (and also because meriting is so damn easy now that there's not much of a downside to changing up even Group 2s), you might consider going 5/5 Fan Dance and fulltiming it aginst NMs until you're really comfortable with your Abyssea solo survivability; it causes a serious hit to your damage potential, it's true, but you still do more damage than you would if you were dead and it idiot-proofs a lot of the solos you'll find yourself doing, particularly Adze if you're going for a DA Parazonium eventually.