Scrub DNC advice.

[Hotsume]

Alright guys, I'm an old school player who still isn't up to speed with all this post 75/Abyssea/Atmas/etc business. I'm thinking of taking DNC up as a possible main but I'm wondering if there are guides I can look up or things to keep in mind? Besides healing I'm not really certain what a DNC's role in a group setting is (both in/out of abyssea) and I'm also not sure how to gear DNC (must-have mandatory items, etc) or what the necessary SJ's are.

So, help a brotha out? Thanks in advance.

[Byrth]

This is generally where people will point you:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/15518/ninians-dnc-guide/

[Misi]

Chances are if you are taking Dnc into abyssea you'll be pulling if you don't have a thf doing that all ready. If that is taken care of, just back up healing if needed and landing dagger triggers for NM fights (if you don't have a thf or nin in your party.) Ether way dnc seems like one of the easier going jobs in terms of party responsibilities. You get a natural duel wield trait without subbing nin at level 20, but ultimately, you will still want to be subbing nin anyway. (subbing sam if you have it was nice for lower levels but not a must)

A few things you might want to collect as you fight abyssea NMs would be Rapparee harness ( Brygid non abyssea quest), Atheling Mantle, Twilight Belt, Twilight Knife and Ocelot gloves. I'm still getting used to a level 90 dnc myself so you may want to check the job forums here and what others suggest just to get an idea of the variables.

[Hotsume]

Thanks a lot guys.

[Eeek]

The guide that Byrth linked is a fantastic place to start.

As your gear improves, you'll probably find yourself naturally transitioning from DD/support to DD/tanking. It's quite the beast, especially inside Abyssea. DNC will also open plenty of soloing opportunities to you ranging from the mundane to the dangerous and exciting. :)

[Demonicpagan]

I've been looking for something like this to help me adjust my current gear I have for my DNC. I'm currently working on upgrading my daggers, one of which to be Twashtar and the other to be Kila +2 or the Twilight Dagger.

[Urat]

They told you not to wear dual wield gear. Motherofgodnope.jpg.

The cap on -delay is 80%, with 25% gear haste (easy to do on dancer)

Optimal set to aim for:

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/164787

Advancing march: 92/1024 haste
Victory march: 128/1024 haste
Spell: 150/1024
Gear: 256/1024
Total: 626/1024 = 61.1% haste

That means you are NOT at the cap yet.

Amount of delay remaining: 38.9%, which means you need enough Dual wield to account for -18.9% delay.

18.9/38.9 = 48.6% DW required to hit the absolute god tier cap of -delay.

At level 80+ Dancer has dual wield IV giving 30% DW, meaning you need 18.6% DW in gear to hit the cap.

Lo and behold, Charis body+2 = 10% DW, Suppa = 5%, and charis neck = 3%, putting you at a grand total of 61.1% haste and 48% DW, putting you just .6% DW away from the absolute max cap.

That's all without using haste samba of course. When you add in haste samba you could probably swap out one piece of dual wield gear out for something better. Except instead you should be asking for minuet + march, as that'd be a far more significant increase to our damage.

However, with fan dance (Which the majority of the time you'll be using in 90% of situations, even in huge alliances my dancer is always the one with hate due to my insane dps with all our mods on crit dmg, on top of my insane attack speed) hands down use all three pieces of dual wield gear we have access to.

Next: practice practice practice.

Dancer is a micromanaging job to the max. ALWAYS use reverse flourish unless you're about to weaponskill, then save your RF for after the WS. And when I say always I mean as soon as RFs timer is up pop it asap. It's more tp efficient to spam RF then build up finishes.

Desperate flourish is an important move you want to stick for longer fights, the -eva is substantial and can save your life if you need to book it.

Try to trim your tp down to just above 100% before weaponskilling. Instead of dropping a 150% Evi, use a CW 3 on a party member first, or refresh your samba.

Violent flourish is an important flourish to use if you have a spare finish. Unless you have someone proccing a weakness, then don't use it.

Protip: Making a macro that always violent flourishes then follows up with utsu: ichi is a godsend.

And finally, keep up Quickstep -> Boxstep -> Feather step, don't spam one of them up to 5 then move on. Rotate them all instead, as tier 1 boxstep + tier 1 featherstep is substantially better than tier 2 boxstep.

As for atmas, if you are in any kind of serious danger, Razed ruins + Gnarled horn + shadow, otherwise swap out shadow for sanguine scythe for maximum damage.

[Alkalinehoe]

Don't let the above poster fool you, If you're good about watching shadows, making hybrid eva/haste sets, using -dt sets when necessary, you won't be using Fan Dance in 90% of all situations. But having Fan Dance against that one enemy where it counts is a godsend.

[Urat]

Don't let the above poster fool you, If you're good about watching shadows, making hybrid eva/haste sets, using -dt sets when necessary, you won't be using Fan Dance in 90% of all situations. But having Fan Dance against that one enemy where it counts is a godsend.

Unless of course you're enemy uses AoE.

Or you are /sam for maximum damage.

Losing the ability to cure myself for saber dance is far to dangerous in any real fight. And losing a -20~90% pdt to be able to put up a samba that increases attack rate and doesnt speed up my shadows is retarded.

tl;dr: Saber dance is retarded in a dangerous situation, and not using fan dance is equally retarded, so yes, you will have fan dance up at all times. ESPECIALLY if the monster can strip your shadows at any moment.

[Alkalinehoe]

Fulltiming Fan Dance for most things is just downright stupid. You have Violent Flourish for -ga's, if the mob is spamming AoE moves, chances are it's not something Fan Dance is going to save you from. I often ride Saber Dance for most solo NMs since it's so easy to push EVA so high and thus I don't get hit regularly. Honestly, if you are /SAMing it up it's not maximum damage if you are Waltz III'ing yourself whenever the timer is up and losing out on SD, not to mention losing out on Haste Samba if you are fulltiming FD.

tl;dr Saber Dance is incredibly powerful, not /NINing on anything even remotely challenging is just retarded and you end up wasting more TP on Waltzs then you would be using that TP on WSs. Fulltiming FD is still retarded too.

[Byrth]

<_< He also forgot to factor in Haste Samba when he was doing the math.

Victory March + Advancing March = You don't wear any DW in gear.

[Urat]

That's all without using haste samba of course. When you add in haste samba you could probably swap out one piece of dual wield gear out for something better. Except instead you should be asking for minuet + march, as that'd be a far more significant increase to our damage.

Do you not know how to read? =/

[Dijana]

Anything I read about dnc posted by urat just makes me cringe..

Anyway, alot depends on how you like to play is what I say to people. Dnc as a hybrid job can naturally fill in many roles, and needs several gearsets to make it work. A good haste/tp set is needed for support or party play obviously, if you are soloing alot you might want to take the time to make a decent eva set early on. Most of AF3 set can be used in a TP set (minus hands which should be only macroed in for specific things), and taking the time to get both af1 and af2 sets to macro in for certain things would be good too.

Dnc does very well in aby. I had 5/5 fan dance but with a decent eva set it really isnt needed that often. Some situations its worth it, or if you are pulling, but I never have much problem as dnc/war with capped eva, 1 agi/eva kila+2 and a single eva atma. Even when Im fighting NMs I will usually only use fan dance if things are going bad and I need to pad out what I have to get myself back to full hp and get things back under control.

In exp pts as someone said already you'll probably just be pulling. Otherwise dnc can make a very good tank if you are using what you have to DD (biggest mistake I see alot of dncs do is just sit on their tp for cures. With how quick we can gain tp as well as reverse flourish there's no point in sitting 200-300tp all the time and not wsing). Actual DDs will still pull hate off you if they arent underskilled and are doing their job, but thats where you can switch to support to help cure them back up and it usually ends up putting more enmity back on you anyway.

[Byrth]

Do you not know how to read? =/

I know how to read, but it's borderline retarded to use March/Minuet over March/March unless you're literally the only DD. I do duo with my bard mule (March/Minuet) sometimes, but that's about the only situation where I'm going to have less than a full party and a bard.

Realistically, if you're in a party situation you're going to be getting March/March and should just swap to your double march set, where you drop all your DW gear for more useful stuff (Loki's Kaftan or Mirkegon, Rancor Collar, Aesir Ear Pendant, Vulcan's Pearl, or Regain Moonshade).

[Defiledsickness]

eva is a huge factor in not using fan dance and violent flourish shares a recast timer with reverse flourish. so you have to go by the situation, there isnt a 'best way' that you can fulltime. if you NEED stun (which you often do) then reverse flourish is a horrible idea because you could be one-shotted waiting for the recast timer.

if you dont need stun then you need to decide if you should use fan dance or sambas. i care more about living then killing fast (unless you have an empy you're not solo-zerging anyways). but i would agree with those who can build awesome haste sets because fan dance is only completely necessary for stuff that does massive damage (if you dont have a brd using sentinels scherzo). im not talented enough at dnc yet to get away with not using fan dance, but if it was my main job that would be a good goal to have.

i'd think most people lvl dnc like me, just to solo easily. so cap gear haste (24% is super easy and you can still have a ton of dual wield, 25 cap is wasteful imo) and use fan dance when needed. haste samba is a luxury so merit step acc and use stutter step when you NEED to stun with violent flourish. better to take your time then to die :P

[Byrth]

eva is a huge factor in not using fan dance and violent flourish shares a recast timer with reverse flourish. so you have to go by the situation, there isnt a 'best way' that you can fulltime. if you NEED stun (which you often do) then reverse flourish is a horrible idea because you could be one-shotted waiting for the recast timer.

if you dont need stun then you need to decide if you should use fan dance or sambas. i care more about living then killing fast (unless you have an empy you're not solo-zerging anyways). but i would agree with those who can build awesome haste sets because fan dance is only completely necessary for stuff that does massive damage (if you dont have a brd using sentinels scherzo). im not talented enough at dnc yet to get away with not using fan dance, but if it was my main job that would be a good goal to have.

i'd think most people lvl dnc like me, just to solo easily. so cap gear haste (24% is super easy and you can still have a ton of dual wield, 25 cap is wasteful imo) and use fan dance when needed. haste samba is a luxury so merit step acc and use stutter step when you NEED to stun with violent flourish. better to take your time then to die :P

A few things:
* Violent Flourish is Flourishes I and Reverse Flourish is Flourishes II, so they don't share a recast.
* People aim for 26% to cap Haste, not 25%.
* Don't merit Step Acc ever. You already get a 10 Acc bonus to your Steps, and they're capped at a 95% hit rate like everything else. If you have a 95% hit rate, then you have a 95% Step hit rate.

[Defiledsickness]

10 acc bonus from what? my steps use to miss often till i merited them, now i never miss :P

[Byrth]

10 Acc bonus from the 10 native Step Acc bonus you get. (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Category:Step) Check out the reference. It was true for both Box and Feather step. I couldn't check Quick (because Quickstep would give me a variable hit rate) and Stutter is pretty irrelevant.

[Ninian]

10 acc bonus from what? my steps use to miss often till i merited them, now i never miss :P

"All the time" isn't a very accurate representation of how often you actually miss. Accuracy for anything caps at 95%, so you're going to miss at least 5% of the time no matter what. If you're actually missing more than 5%, there's steps accuracy gear and accuracy gear you could macro in for steps before resorting to useless merits. :x

[Asymptotic]

Do not in any circumstance merit step accuracy.
Step accuracy merits are probably the most pointless things the SE dev team has ever released, ever.