Help, I can't play my job!

[geekgirl101]

I'm level 97 dnc, basically I got boosted through aby with there being no other option to level (soloing just still takes way too long and nobody parties no more.)

I tried to tank a few VNMs for weapon trials. First off my damage is horrid, I'm just not doing anything to them. Second I can't keep aggro, people tell me that dnc is a tank class but I just can't keep aggro off anybody and this is mainly to do with low damage output. Third I can't stay alive, I'm losing shadows really fast and getting pelted real hard.

To say that dnc is supposed to be an awesome class that can easily solo I'm not finding that true at all. My thf is more capable of solo tanking than my dnc is. I don't know what job abilities to rotate as there's so many of them, but even so I don't get to use them because I'm having to spam steps and animated flourish to pull the mobs back to me and not always does it get me hate back again.

I don't know what to do, I'm more than convinced that had aby never existed I might've learned my job as I leveled it and not be having to turn here to ask for help on how I can survive and how I can keep aggro.

[Plasticleg]

this is 100% troll post

100% fitting for the official forums

[geekgirl101]

No, I am not trolling. I need help, seriously.

I got all the way to 99, I've worked hard trying to get gear and to work on my empy, and now I've hit a wall where I can't tank, I can't damage, and I can't survive. I'm in a desperate situation where I'm thinking of throwing in the towel and leveling a new job instead.

I'm not screwing around. I want to make this job work and to see it as awesome as everyone else makes it out to be, because right now it looks weak and pathetic.

[Arcon]

this is 100% troll post

100% fitting for the official forums

Nice teamwork.

[Dhragon]

Ok, I'll bite. If you aren't "trolling", how about you share what gear you use for your haste build, evasion build & merits. :)


Edit: Make sure to include the weapons being used. :cool:

[Mirage]

Do you have capped evasion and dagger skill? Also, do you have any evasion gear? My survivability is a lot higher as dnc/nin than it is as thf/dnc or thf/nin. As for the gear, I don't even have all that much stuff. Either the pieces I use are shared between thf and dnc, or they are empy +1/+2 pieces, with some other job-specific stuff here and there.

And I dunno what the hell you're talking about anyway. I usually get from 1-75 outside of abyssea in a few days myself. Is that too slow?

[geekgirl101]

My gear isn't all that great, evasion and dagger uncapped. Using a mixture of charis +1 and aurore gear. Even my weapons are poor - a Kartika with +7 ATT and a behemoth knife. >< Haven't been able to find much of upgrades lately, nobody sells them and to make magian weapons puts me back in the spot where I need better weapons.

I don't know why people think I can tank in this state. They've seen my gear, surely it's an alarm bell that I'm not capable of surviving as a tank to an NM?

And I honestly don't know what steps and flourishes to rotate. I'm currently spamming quickstep, climactic flourish, reverse flourish, desperate flourish, wild flourish, fan dance, curing waltzes, presto, and no foot rise if I miss a step. Am I using the right ones?

[Mirage]

Make an evasion-path Kila (you can do this killing easy prey enemies, mostly, which can be as low as level 60), buy an Aluh Jambiya if you can afford it. That last one is a lv99 dagger, though, so you'll need two more levels. Get an NQ alcide's harness (or HQ if you can afford it), get an evasion torque, blur mantle, and scout robe or sveltesse gouriz waist piece. If you're really low on cash, you can convert some of your cruor to gil. Offer to heal people on whm when doing seals NMs in return for dnc empy seals. The Charis Tights +1 have +10 evasion, and a good amount of haste.

With those things, you should have around +60 evasion in gear, reducing the enemy's hit rate by around 30 percentage points. Also consider evasion skill merits, dagger merits, critical hit rate merits, and enemy critical hit rate reduction merits.

Most of them aren't too expensive, either. One or two items might be, but get the cheapest ones first. The evasion-path kila can be upgraded to +1 without having to spend any gil on it (at this stage, it gives you 18 evasion and 9 agility already). This trial is simple and easy, but it does take a bit of time to complete.

[geekgirl101]

Oh cheers, I'll start investing in those. I'll go pick up a new peeler and start making another dagger. The level 99 one though is a bit out of my budget at the moment though, I'll have to make do with 2x evasion kilkas.

Working on capping evasion if I can, I've a long way to go. It's only 265.

[Asymptotic]

Sort of outdated, but:

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/27566/the-last-dance-gearing-paradigms-for-a-new-age

[Mirage]

Oh cheers, I'll start investing in those. I'll go pick up a new peeler and start making another dagger. The level 99 one though is a bit out of my budget at the moment though, I'll have to make do with 2x evasion kilkas.

Two eva kilas will probably be fine too. At the max upgrade level, those daggers have just 1 dmg less than the Aluh Jamiya, although the Aluh also has more str and attack. With two of those daggers, you will also have a lot more evasion, but for abyssea use, it will probably be overkill to use two eva kilas when the rest of your gear is up to date and your skill is capped. At that point, you should probably use some other dagger instead of one of them.

Additionally, you should also consider maxing out str merits to increase your damage. Merit Haste Samba too, to get 10% haste when using it. That will speed up damage dealt, TP gain, and also make you skill up those daggers faster.

Also, which atmas are you using, and do you have evisceration unlocked? Exactly how high are your dagger and evasion skills?

[geekgirl101]

Wow, thank you Asymptotic! That's a lot to read on, I'm gonna bookmark that page. Thanks so much. ^^

[geekgirl101]

Also, which atmas are you using, and do you have evisceration unlocked?

Haven't got any atmas yet and currently working on unlocking evisceration. So much to work on, ugh.

[Mirage]

Ok. For atmas, the priority list for dnc (and just about every other melee job) is something like this:

1. Razed Ruins - Very big damage boost, that's about it.
(Dex+50, crit rate +30%, crit damage +30%)

2. Gnarled Horn - Medium damage boost, high survivability boost from counter and agility
(Counter +10%, agility +50 (i think), crit rate 20%)

3. Atma of Apocalypse - Increased damage and TP gain from TA, quick magic occasionally saves your ass with utsusemi recast, and auto-reraise lets you just keep going even if you accidentally die.
(Triple attack +15%, Quick Magic +10%, Auto-reraise)

4. Sanguine Scythe - Big HP boost makes big-damage attacks safer to deal with, increases damage dealt considerably when combined with RR and GH atmas. Enmity boost makes it a bit easier to hold hate.
(+20% HP, crit damage boost, and enmity gain boost.)

If you see anyone talking about getting any of these, drop everything you've got in your hands and join them. Especially if it's Razed Ruins, because people don't fight that NM as often as the others.

Keep in mind that you can't get AoA without having all zone bosses and catuare kills complete.

Of course, these aren't all the atmas you'll ever need, but for seal NM farming, I basically use three out of those 4 all the time.

Additionally, if you're going to tank an NM with another mage doing yellow procs, make sure that you have the Ni-version of the elemental ninjutsu spells, so that you can cover the nin procs, while the mage (BLM usually) covers most others.

[Byrth]

If you have some friends and want an adventure, you could try doing the 4 Salvage zone bosses to get access to "Atma of the Dark Depths" too:
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Atma_of_the_Dark_Depths
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Silver_Sea_Remnants_Guide
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Arrapago_Remnants_Guide
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Zhayolm_Remnants_Guide
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Bhaflau_Remnants_Guide

[Nawesemo]

1. Cap skill (takes asmuch effort as time) but is priority 1 if you want to do what the cool dnc do.

2. Play the job a lot, find out what works, try others sugestions, make up your own mind given any situation.

This game takes a lot of time. Time sink quests for moderate gains, but all of the moderate, add to a significant gain. Slowly but surly, but does take time... From chocobo licenses, to +10 to all stat abysites for Abby,.... But cap them skills. You'll see a huge difference in survivability.huge.

[Arcon]

I really wouldn't recommend evasion daggers at all. I have to admit I'm not as familiar with DNC as others, so feel free to correct me if you know better, but once evasion is capped (and it will cap, very fast) you'll rarely need an Evasion set at all for most mobs. When you do, you can replace some other slots with evasion gear that will be less of a drawback than missing out on two (potentially) great daggers. There's good evasion gear for several slots that will not impact as negatively on your performance as daggers, and you can switch between them and DD gear at any time without TP loss.

If you do Magian daggers, go for STR Thokchas. You can also do just one of those and get an Aluh Jambiya. It costs a lot, but that's just a few Dynamis runs worth of farming, way less than what it would take you to make a second Magian dagger, even with your skills and gear. Go do Dynamis and get a great dagger out of the money you'll make.

[Raksha]

I really wouldn't recommend evasion daggers at all. I have to admit I'm not as familiar with DNC as others, so feel free to correct me if you know better, but once evasion is capped (and it will cap, very fast) you'll rarely need an Evasion set at all for most mobs.

Sure but when you have basically no gear, no atmas, and uncapped skills, 2 evasion daggers is gonna be the shit.
The biggest reason to do evasion daggers over STR (for someone just starting out) is that they are super fast to make. I finished both of mine in a single weekend (up to geode stage).

So in conclusion I very much recommend getting at least one EVA dagger in your current situation.

[Mirage]

You're right in that at level 99 with capped eva and merits, a dnc won't need eva daggers all that much. Dnc does have less evasion than both nin and thf though, so I'm pretty sure it could help evade certain TP moves more easily. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't many TP moves have an accuracy bonus?

It's still nice to have one of them though. Who knows what the future holds? Might be some enemies added in the new expansion that you can't cap evasion on as easily.

Also, for someone who doesn't have a lot of money (like i think is the case with this person), a fire path dagger is gonna cost a lot more money than a wind path.

[Byrth]

DNC has less evasion than THF (depending on gear) and more than NIN. I would also recommend making one Eva dagger because your sub slot is often the best place to trade stats for Evasion in the rare situations where you need it.

Before you make anything, though, go cap your skills. You don't need good weapons to skill up (the worse the better really) and they will make everything you do on DNC more efficient. You can probably do it by fighting EM-T crabs in Grauberg even without Atmas. Just get cruor buffs and keep yourself alive with Waltz.

[geekgirl101]

Thanks, this is a lot of advice to read on, I'll get working right away on trying to at least look like a tank instead of trying to jump straight into VNM trials.

[Mirage]

Yeah, sorry Byrth. I forgot to include the evasion bonus DNC gets when I made my last post. That bumps them up past nin again, even if their skill rating is lower than nin.

[Raksha]

Skilling up is another good reasont to do magian trials. If you're gonna be killing shit anyway might as well be getting progress for it.

[geekgirl101]

Yeah I agree with you Raksha. Might as well do those trials even if in the end I don't finish them but get my skills capped.

[Nawesemo]

Ooooo, you'll finish, they're a lot like pretty girls to highscool boys, once you kiss one, you on em like flies on poo. ;)

[Catmato]

Hello Pipps. I see you're on Leviathan like me. I have some friends who enjoy stuff like getting atmas for people, and desperately need stuff to do. We'd be glad to help you out since you really seem to want to improve. What kind of hours do you play? We aren't usually on at any certain time, but we can probably arrange something. You can reply here or if you see me on in-game (not likely) feel free to send a tell.

[geekgirl101]

Hi, well I play usually from 12pm - 3 or 4am. Not had much luck getting atmas and ZB wins with Ombro yet, it's a huge work in progress.

On the good side my survivability has improved quite a bit after getting merits. Spent hours in Aby last night earning merit points. Also unlocked evisceration.

[Angrykitty]

I'll acknowledge there are a few problems with dancer, one is that most of their abilities to cure or remove dubuffs are on a shared timer. This doesn't really make dancer a major tanking/soloing class for abyssea because most of the mobs that you are able to fight inflict status ailments that require full freedom of removing debuffs and curing (exception to those that have all the proper atmas to compensate for this). From my experience the best way to do anything in the game is to be as flexible as possible, sometimes subbing pld or whm is more effective than subbing ninja, also a lot of people forget that they have temporary items they can use. Other people focus way too much on stacking offensive capabilities that they completely forget about macroing defensive (-pdt/mdt) gear. All in all, it doesn't hurt to reference wiki as a resource and never be afraid to ask a stranger for help.

[Lokithor]

Also unlocked evisceration.
Right there is your major issue. You need to skill up! Evisceration is unlocked at 230 dagger skill. My dancer currently has 420 dagger skill (with max merits). I would guess that evasion is probably equally under leveled (mine is 412, also with max merits). Use skill up food while in merit parties and get that combat skill up!

[geekgirl101]

Yeah mine is really crappy at the moment. Dunno what skill up food is. Tried getting skillups in merit parties and the problem is some mage or warrior rushes in on my target and completely steals hate. Getting those skills are not easy and then I get yelled at for expecting to get skillups in an xp party where they want to kill fast, but if I get lucky in fighting my own target then those points are already flowing in at 0.4 and 0.5 every few seconds. Currently eva is 299, dagger 257, parry 232.

[Lokithor]

There are foods that increase the skill up rate for combat skills. There is also a family of foods that does the same for magic skills. For combat skills (including evasion and parry), the progression is Saltena, Elshena, Montagna, Meringa. Saltena is used at the lowest skill levels and meringa at the highest. They are, though, very expensive.

[Mirage]

Yeah mine is really crappy at the moment. Dunno what skill up food is. Tried getting skillups in merit parties and the problem is some mage or warrior rushes in on my target and completely steals hate. Getting those skills are not easy and then I get yelled at for expecting to get skillups in an xp party where they want to kill fast, but if I get lucky in fighting my own target then those points are already flowing in at 0.4 and 0.5 every few seconds. Currently eva is 299, dagger 257, parry 232.

Just focus on the dagger skill for now. When your dagger skill gets high enough, you'll gain TP fast enough to keep healing yourself while you get evasion/parry skillups outside of an exp alliance. While you are in the alliance, it doesn't matter too much that you're not able to evade anyway, because mobs will either be attacking other people, or you'll be healed anyway.

Until recently (a few months ago), parry was also incredibly slow to level and many players who have had max level jobs for years would still not have anywhere near capped parrying. So yeah, don't worry too much about that.

To give you a feeling of exactly how much that low dagger skill of yours affected your damage and accuracy though:

If you just got to the level where you could use evisceration, that means your dagger skill was over 150 points below cap. This means you were having something like 70%+ less accuracy than other dancers at your level. Even if you put on the same gear as them, where they would hit the enemy 90% of the time, you would be hitting 20% of the time. And that's not even touching the attack you're missing out on from the skill level.

[geekgirl101]

Yup. I've done a lot of work today in getting skills boosted. Now up to 379 dagger and 339 evasion tanking my own flea to gain tp for healing a thf cleave. Worked quite well actually. ^^ Tried the food too, couldn't tell if it was improving my chances of gaining skills or not but they were definitely flying in almost every hit.

Still only capable of tanking only 1 decent challenge mob in aby though as long as nobody else hits it. If I try more than that I get hurt real bad and hate is lost off the bat when another dps starts attacking. My thf is still more capable of handling 5-6 mobs at a time in comparison to the 1 my dnc can handle. Maybe more evasion is needed, maybe more better gear...

At the moment this is what I got:

Main: Peeler
Sub: Kartika
Ranged: War Hoop
Head: Empress Hairpin
Body: Alcide's Harness
Hands: Slither Gloves
Legs: Aurore Brais
Feet: Aurore Gaiters
Neck: Arctier's Torque
Waist: Scouter's Rope
Back: Blur Mantle
LEar: Suppanomimi
REar: Dodge Earring
LRing: Heed Ring
RRing: Demonry Ring

[Dohati]

Oh cheers, I'll start investing in those. I'll go pick up a new peeler and start making another dagger. The level 99 one though is a bit out of my budget at the moment though, I'll have to make do with 2x evasion kilkas.

Working on capping evasion if I can, I've a long way to go. It's only 265.

when you're 99 and your skills are around that of a lvl 75 char, of course you're going to suck <_< once you cap your evasion though, between that and the heavy PDT gained from fan dance, you're pretty much invincible.

[Mayoyama]

Put a merit into fan dance and full time it (until you gear better). wont help with magic but will def help with melee hits. Consider also 3 levels in Closed Position, 5 no foot rise (will help you get tp faster with reverse flourish).

Buy some squid sushi (+1), will help you out if accuracy still an issue :) The +1 lasts an hour.

Try get some Ballerines from Durinn (common drop... 100%?) in abyssea vunkerl. Relic feet for step accuracy, and relic body for violent flourish accuracy/duration

Make sure to keep collecting abyssites as some of them will give you things like extra boost to your cruor buffs, which will also help

[geekgirl101]

Ballerines better than aurore gaiters? I thought they were the same or at least the gaiters better because of extra stats, or am I wrong?

[Mirage]

They have more haste, the same evasion, but a penalty to attack power. Use them in your haste and evasion set until you get something better. If you cap haste with aurore gaiters, however, you might as well use Aurore gaiters because they don't have an attack penalty.

You might also want to get a pair of Tandava Crackows, they give you +12% movement speed and are a 100% drop off of Ironclad Cleaver. They are nice when you want to run away from/kite a mob, and when you're out of combat combined with Chocobo jig, you can get around really fast.

Also, your skills are starting to get to an all right level. I mean, it's not something to be ashamed of anymore, even if they're still not quite there. The difference between now and cap for evasion is however going to let you evade something like 40 percentage points more.

[Byrth]

Yeah, Ballerines are better than Aurore Gaiters.

[geekgirl101]

Oh right... I'll switch to using those instead then.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Hope I'll soon be less of the dancing queen of lame.

[Behemothx]

Dunno if you got your atmas yet but you'll have a much better tanking experience with Razed Ruins and Gnarled Horn.

* Razed Ruins comes from Ironclad Pulverizer in Aby-Misar. (F-8) Some dumbasses are selling this atma for some reason ><

* Gnarled Horn comes from Sobek, you can go in Aby-Misar. (J-11) and just ask the people doing it if you can join for atma, I don't see why they wouldn't.

[Infidi]

I'll tell you the way I got my dagger crazy high for DNC was soloing that Kraken/squid nm thing in abyssea. Drops DNC neck I think. Went from like 200 to almost 300 something. Probably easier at 99 now, I did that at 85ish. Maybe try solo an NM throw up a skill up food and some ACC gear and ACC/evasion atma like SS. Might me easier on normal mobs. XD

[geekgirl101]

Thank you thank you thank you for all the advice! I've now got as far as a +2 and a +3 kila, and that with my improved skills have made a major improvement in my survivability, and last weekend I finally pelted Feuruenke all the way to Kazham and back. He was still fairly tough to handle though.

What I noticed with Feuruenke is that I was still doing bad damage at the start of the battle despite having improved weapons. I later found out that he has some kind of a physical shield until he 2hrs, then it's a race to down him as fast as possible before he takes out whoever's tanking him. I wondered why my dps was so horrid to begin with, let alone that he was stripping the shadows as fast as I applied them. It's no wonder I struggled so badly at the start. I thought it was my skill and gear that were rubbish... and yeah, they were rubbish, so all that advice and hard work into improving them helped a lot. It made us both even match instead of him incredibly tough and me too weak to be worthwhile. :P

I'm slowly getting there with atmas. Picked up GH today, my guild my DNC is in was supposed to help me get VV and RR at the weekend but haven't heard anything from them yet.