Thoughts from a loyal Dancer

[Sixtythree]

Hello Dancer community (and devs if the messages reaches across).
I wanted to share some thoughts based mostly on experience playing Dancer in high level endgame content.

With that said....

► Being that I am front line class, I am exposed to a great deal of damage and a host of crippling status effects. I find myself more often using my own tools to support myself competing to stay alive instead of fulfilling my role as a capable and flexible support class. The question of worth and value is raised as party slots are limited.

As it is, Negative status effects simply reduce Dancer to nothing at times. What I mean is AoE knockback + Blind + Plague + Paralysis every 15 seconds, as one example.

I'm not suggesting immunity, simply that in exchange we should be given shining abilities that give us a reason to exist in organized endgame content.

► Steps have the great benefit of never facing resists. They are consistent and we have sufficient gear to ensure accuracy. Thank you, I feel this is a highlight of the job. Can new Steps be introduced?

► The following abilities greatly under-perform:
+ Aspir Samba
+ Desperate Flourish
+ Violent Flourish

► Wild Flourish is fun! Can it be moved outside of Flourishes II? :o

► I don't understand the entire Flourishes III category. If anyone would be willing to explain the benefits over other abilities that consume finishing moves I would genuinely appreciate it. As it stands I question the value of these abilities over something like Reverse Flourish, unless you have Terpsichore and endless finishing moves at your disposal.

► More of what's commonly used as Dancer is available to /DNC. I'm not suggesting taking away from /DNC but instead adding more unique abilities to Dancer as a main job.

► Fan Dance & Saber Dance are highlights, I immediately notice a drastic change in the way I perform despite the opposite drawback (Samba / Waltzes). I would welcome other abilities of this nature. Part of being flexible is finding a new purpose and a new role in an instant. Fan Dance improves survivability and Saber Dance greatly increases TP gain and output. I enjoy this style of switching roles.

I understand job adjustments are an ongoing effort and we do see improvements from time to time.
Dancer is built right from the ground up, however I feel too few of what it can do in practice show enough value to be welcomed in high level content.

[Camate]

Hello,

I’d like to give you an update on the current status on the future dancer adjustments that were mentioned previously ( http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/39497-Future-Battle-Balance-Adjustments?p=493090&viewfull=1#post493090).

In the version update that took place yesterday, adjustments were made so that the attack capabilities of dagger wielding jobs such as dancer could keep up with other damage dealing jobs. We’d first like to monitor the effects of this for a bit.

The step adjustments that were mentioned in my other post are currently on the development team’s task list; however, the will need some time to work on this.

In regards to samba, we’ve made it possible to extend its effect duration with job points, and by increasing the ways in which you can earn job points as we move forward I believe it will be easier to receive boons from this.

I apologize for keeping you waiting for so long since we announced these plans!

[Olor]

In the version update that took place yesterday, adjustments were made so that the attack capabilities of dagger wielding jobs such as dancer could keep up with other damage dealing jobs. We’d first like to monitor the effects of this for a bit.


How did changes which give SAM 13K weaponskills that they can essentially spam... help dagger jobs keep up? What a joke. Seriously.

[Sixtythree]

Thanks for the reply Camate; a band-aid post but a dev stamp on the thread nonetheless. I'm happy to see Steps are expecting adjustments.

[Ataraxia]

Hello,

I’d like to give you an update on the current status on the future dancer adjustments that were mentioned previously ( http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/39497-Future-Battle-Balance-Adjustments?p=493090&viewfull=1#post493090).

In the version update that took place yesterday, adjustments were made so that the attack capabilities of dagger wielding jobs such as dancer could keep up with other damage dealing jobs. We’d first like to monitor the effects of this for a bit.

The step adjustments that were mentioned in my other post are currently on the development team’s task list; however, the will need some time to work on this.

In regards to samba, we’ve made it possible to extend its effect duration with job points, and by increasing the ways in which you can earn job points as we move forward I believe it will be easier to receive boons from this.

I apologize for keeping you waiting for so long since we announced these plans!

Hello Camate I'm very happy to hear this about DNC. Dnc job are focus mainly on Piercing just like a dragoon or ranger and It would be nice if they have option to use club, axe or even sword. In the end, I think people will prefer dragoon or ranger than DNC over doing delve.

Camate "as we move forward I believe it will be easier to receive boons from this" I do not understand what it said here but are you making samba be like than aura effect? If that is the case i think it be probably be good but anyways looking forward on what you got cook up for us on DNC and THF in future update =).

[Sixtythree]

Hello Camate I'm very happy to hear this about DNC. Dnc job are focus mainly on Piercing just like a dragoon or ranger and It would be nice if they have option to use club, axe or even sword. In the end, I think people will prefer dragoon or ranger than DNC over doing delve.

Camate "as we move forward I believe it will be easier to receive boons from this" I do not understand what it said here but are you making samba be like than aura effect? If that is the case i think it be probably be good but anyways looking forward on what you got cook up for us on DNC and THF in future update =).

He means you will gain more benefit from Sambas because you can extend the duration; each samba will last longer when you invest Job Points into it.

It does not address the fact that as a flexible/support class our ability to give another player MP completely falls short. Especially compared to Corsair or Bard. Aspir Samba doesn't have the potency to be worthwhile and even then you're limited to front line jobs and even then you are limited to enemy types that actually have MP.

[Byrth]

More than anything else, Dancer needs a reduction in Job Ability and Weapon Skill delays.

[Camate]

Greetings,

When it comes to both dancer and thief, neither were designed as jobs that were meant to be straight-up damage dealers. While we will not be making adjustments to give them the damage dealing capabilities that monk and samurai possess, we will be looking into the following adjustments for each job.


Dancer
Just as I mentioned previously, we will be looking into making adjustments to Step effects as well as the Finishing Move system. The development team anticipates that it will take them a bit of time to work on this, and once there are more details we’ll be sure to share.


Thief
The development team feels that thief is a job that is need of adjustments, but as there are other job adjustments that are being prioritized it will take them a bit to shift their focus to thief. Though the adjustments for thief are still a ways out and still in the idea stage, which means they could largely change, I’d like to give a bit of insight as to what the team is thinking.

The development team feels that enhancements to thief’s specialty, enmity control, as well as a slight bump to their attack capability is needed. Currently, thief possesses the means to collect hate on themselves, but is lacking means for diffusing it. This creates a dilemma where they can reduce the hate of other players, but are unable to deal damage.

In order to solve this issue, we’re looking into adding a new ability that transfers hate stolen from players into attack power that can be unleashed on enemies.

Instead of focusing on simply increasing thief’s damage dealing capabilities, we’d like to give them a role that allows for more damage output from the party as a whole by helping party members with hate control.

[Byrth]

I look forward to the Dancer changes. If I was going to suggest two things:
1) Increase step potency.
2) Allow us to get full Finishing Moves from steps even if the monster already has level 5 Daze.

If I was going to suggest a third thing:
3) Reduce or eliminate job ability delay at least for Steps.

[Ataraxia]

Greetings,

When it comes to both dancer and thief, neither were designed as jobs that were meant to be straight-up damage dealers. While we will not be making adjustments to give them the damage dealing capabilities that monk and samurai possess, we will be looking into the following adjustments for each job.


Dancer
Just as I mentioned previously, we will be looking into making adjustments to Step effects as well as the Finishing Move system. The development team anticipates that it will take them a bit of time to work on this, and once there are more details we’ll be sure to share.


Thief
The development team feels that thief is a job that is need of adjustments, but as there are other job adjustments that are being prioritized it will take them a bit to shift their focus to thief. Though the adjustments for thief are still a ways out and still in the idea stage, which means they could largely change, I’d like to give a bit of insight as to what the team is thinking.

The development team feels that enhancements to thief’s specialty, enmity control, as well as a slight bump to their attack capability is needed. Currently, thief possesses the means to collect hate on themselves, but is lacking means for diffusing it. This creates a dilemma where they can reduce the hate of other players, but are unable to deal damage.

In order to solve this issue, we’re looking into adding a new ability that transfers hate stolen from players into attack power that can be unleashed on enemies.

Instead of focusing on simply increasing thief’s damage dealing capabilities, we’d like to give them a role that allows for more damage output from the party as a whole by helping party members with hate control.


Hello Camate thank you for updating us on Dancer and Thief. I really appreciate the Community Team for taking the time to make adjustment to DNC. In addition, as for Thief Adjustment i think you are going in the right direction for that job =). Hate Control will allow Thief to shine more in a PT full of powerful DD like sam, monk, war, drk.

I have a 2 suggestion for Dancer job. If you give them 2 news steps that have 2 or 3 aliment in them like evasion down, defense down, attack down or magic defense down, magic evasion down, magic attack down it might help Dancer become a very good supporter roll. That was just an example on what can be done with DNC.

My 2nd suggestion is allow Samba to be an Aura effect like a Geomancer. Aspir Samba and Drain Samba is useless because it doesn't work on undead while geomancer work on everything as for regen spell as well and many DNC i see always favor Haste Samba overall. More importantly Dancer really need something like Sentinel's Scherzo song in order for them to be useful in High-Tier Mission Battlefields Difficult or Very Difficult where NM TP more one shot. Right now I think Dnc is useless in new delve like Yorcia Weald, Marjami Ravine, and Kamihr Drifts. Finally, without a bard singing a Sentinel's Scherzo or smn doing a Earthen's Armor you are as good as dead one shot :(. I do not want dnc to take the roll of a monk, war, drk or sam as damage dealer but i do prefer they can be a strong supporter for them to do damage and withstand against NM strong TP attack so that way a bard don't have to give Sentinel's Scherzo all the time but give more accuracy bonus or attack bonus song. In conclusion, if there wasn't a bard around in shout people can rely on Cor, Geo or Rdm to support. But whatever the adjustment is made by Community Team I welcome it and I'm thankful that adjustment were made to Dancer up to this point =).

[Glamdring]

with thf the problem is the tanks frequently can't hold hate long enough for us to get SATA>>WS off to land it on the tanks, and when we can they are already at enmity cap, as is the rest of the party in battles long enough to require enmity control. So I do welcome any change. but if it is going to be position dependent then I think the same problems will apply that we have now with TA. So I think an option is to do like you already have with Accomplice and the pld ability cover, let us designate the player via a choice, not a position before the ability is used (yes, I know cover does require positioning for it to work, but it doesn't require it to designate who you are covering). That way even if the mob moves we can get the result where we wanted it to go. After all, the mob moving is not a result of bad thf play, we have no options, the moving mob is the result of bad coordination of the party with the thief. So remove that element like you have done (to an extent) with bard when you gave us pianissimo. and give tank jobs a higher enmity cap so we can still shift hate when the DD refuse to tone it down enough for tanking strats to work.

[Kari]

Until JA delay can be removed or alleviated, any job that uses a ton of them [Dancer, etc] will lose too much DPS to actually do their job. It's not worth it to use most of our abilities after a certain point.

You would have to make Steps ridiculously powerful to be worth using with the current JA delay. We already have less damage than most jobs, each time we do another Job Ability we're throwing ourselves even further behind.

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

What if they added a tp samba or added to act as an effect to the samba's we all ready have? I mean even you miss, the samba's effects seem to still land and if they were to give TP boasting abilities into it to raise tp at the same time then we have a significant amount of TP to boot or more TP to use with dnc's abilities and without the downside effects even when they're used on the skellies! I hope you can really read into my idea here and really see where i'm attempting to go with this idea I'm having for dancers using tp up, granted you might end up using a tp wing to start but I hope that wouldn't be the case with what I have in mind for this to work! ;)

[Babekeke]

Until JA delay can be removed or alleviated, any job that uses a ton of them [Dancer, etc] will lose too much DPS to actually do their job. It's not worth it to use most of our abilities after a certain point.

You would have to make Steps ridiculously powerful to be worth using with the current JA delay. We already have less damage than most jobs, each time we do another Job Ability we're throwing ourselves even further behind.

You can reduce the JA delay penalty significantly by always using your JAs back-to-back, and right before a WS. When doing this you only lose 1 second per JA instead of 2, since JAs can be performed 1 second after the one before, and WS too so you only get the 2 second delay after your WS... and you were going to get that when you WS'd anyway.

[Glamdring]

Kari, someone's inviting your dnc for damage output? impressive. my dnc is only invited to boost the rest of the party's DPS, take some of the curing load off the backline, supply some TH (I play /thf endgame, shadows get eaten by AoE too quick) and to pull and stun. any damage I do is strictly a bonus, and I still usually self-SC pretty regular.

[Byrth]

You can reduce the JA delay penalty significantly by always using your JAs back-to-back, and right before a WS. When doing this you only lose 1 second per JA instead of 2, since JAs can be performed 1 second after the one before, and WS too so you only get the 2 second delay after your WS... and you were going to get that when you WS'd anyway.

Server communication is discrete with approximately 0.3~0.4 second intervals and you likely accommodate that jitter behaviorally to avoid potentially not being in the proper gear, so you're likely saving closer to half a second per JA by combining it with a WS. I'm sure we've all engaged a monster and used Presto -> Step -> Reverse -> No Foot Rise -> WS and seen the monster's HP drop 50% in the first 10 seconds of fighting. Then you engage the next monster and do the almost same amount of damage with auto attacks in the same amount of time without blowing any of your JAs. It's just crap.


As far as Dancer's damage output . . . it really depends. I've done respectable damage relative to "real DDs" against Tenzen or Tojil, but my damage sucks in Ra' Skirmish (aka the land of piercing resistance).

[Babekeke]

Ra' Skirmish (aka the land of piercing resistance).

Oooh, thank god for that, I thought my DRG just sucked!

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

Kari, someone's inviting your dnc for damage output? impressive. my dnc is only invited to boost the rest of the party's DPS, take some of the curing load off the backline, supply some TH (I play /thf endgame, shadows get eaten by AoE too quick) and to pull and stun. any damage I do is strictly a bonus, and I still usually self-SC pretty regular.

[That Is how I play my dancer job on Yogorock as well is with the /thf set up] but I also play my thf with the /dnc set up as well!! :-)

[Sixtythree]

We'll be looking into improving the advantages of using dancer as a main job. In particular, we'll be looking at samba and steps which are core elements of the job. - Matsui


Just as I mentioned previously, we will be looking into making adjustments to Step effects as well as the Finishing Move system. - Camate

Looks like as of now we're expecting Samba, Steps and Finishing Moves. Thought I'd summarize from a couple of different posts.

[Freyas]

Been asking for years and would like to see DNC get "Encore" as a Reraise ability

[Sixtythree]

Been asking for years and would like to see DNC get "Encore" as a Reraise ability

I fully support this, and not just because my character name is Encore.

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

I fully support this, and not just because my character name is Encore.
Been asking for years and would like to see DNC get "Encore" as a Reraise ability

I suppose if they do it they could do it with two versions one that is self only and the other one that is party based, no this would better yet as whole alliance based since there has yet to come out with one that covers an whole alliance ;-)

[V-1000]

I would say just give us a new tier of samba's which in my opinion is way overdue.

Drain Samba III learned at 65.... thats 34 levels without a single upgrade just sad..
Aspir Samba II learn at lv 60 thats was 39 levels ago.... both of these greatly under perform as it is giving us a new Tier should not be game breaking seeing we would only be using Drain Samba IV under certain circumstances due to prioritizing Haste Samba.
Further more SMN has Endrain and that is AOE and not only heals a huge amount per hit it also deals damage so why is it so hard to give DNC's a new and certainly needed adjustment its not like our Samba'a deal extra damage so how is that game breaking or overpowering?

Drain Samba IV would be a nice addition to our " Support Role Status "
Aspir Samba III maybe this one will be useful......
Haste Samba II 10% + max merit = 15% thats what a regular WHM Haste spell does atm

RDM has haste II 30% if i recall right
PUP Automaton's Haste II 30%
Geo Gives approximately 28% Haste and increases by ~1% per +1 Geomancy.
Blu 30% Erratic Flutter

Soooo why cant Dancer get a mere 15% with max merits on Haste Samba II? just some food for thought.