Suggestions to Improve/Rebalance Vanadiel's Divas

[Byrth]

Okay, a few things from looking at the revised version:

1) Wild Flourish only costs 2 FMs. The bad part of it, though, is the long recast and the fact that it shares a timer with Reverse Flourish. It makes multi-step skillchains easier, but not that much easier.

2) 1 FM is worth a quarter of a WS, but not necessarily 25 TP. Reversing a single FM will get you 26 TP with AF3+2 hands, but you will be reversing either 4 for 87 TP or 5 for 100 TP if you're going to self-skillchain. There's a pretty reasonable chance that you'll end up with over 100 TP when you 5FM Reverse for a self-skillchain, really, so a single FM may be wasted. Unfortunately, Violent is the only one of our useful Flourishes that takes a single FM.

3) Turning Building Flourish into a mini Berserk/Blood Rage/Aggressor would be cool, but I'd likely just use it during zergs or situations where I have a lot of FMs. If it was powerful enough to be worth using ever, it would be powerful enough to be worth using all the time, and we could use it all the time given its recast. I don't think this change is very likely.

4) I would like to see Wild Flourish upgraded, as it would have the potential to out-class Reverse and encourage Rudra's usage if it could allow me to mirror Darkness, but I'm not holding my breath for the same reason.

5) Reverse Flourish is so powerful already, I'm not sure they're going to buff it further. I'd love it if their "we're giving DNCs regain!" thing was a hint towards a buff like what you describe though.

6) Building off something that Camate said in the THF thread, I think that Waltz adjustments are going to have to be passive (not a new timer), but I also think they're potentially not going to split Waltz timers:

We are looking into separating the two. However, we are close to reaching a point where there are too many recast timers going on simultaneously, so this isn't something we can implement right away.

7) I still can't make myself care about a Raise or Reraise dance. That said, I haven't been playing DNC in any supporting capacity in almost a year.

8) I still don't think they're ever going to give us "defensive" debuffs. It's not our schtick.

9) Haste Samba's superiority is unquestionable. The only way that Drain/Aspir Samba will ever be useful is if SE lets us keep two Sambas up at the same time and receive both effects. With 2 minute Samba durations, it would be possible.

10) I like the idea of an "offensive" and "supportive" stance, but I feel that it somewhat overcomplicates the issue. The things you're suggesting shouldn't be tied to a specific stance, or if they are going to be tied to a stance then we should just use Saber/Fan. Having two "stances" is redundant, although the Arts/Addendums show SE isn't entirely opposed to redundancy in the pursuit of stubbornness. When would I be in the supportive Stance with Saber Dance up, for instance?
I'd do this instead:
* Make the En Cote changes fulltime job traits not tied to anything.
* Add the benefits that you're suggesting for your offensive stance to Saber Dance, and permit penalized Waltzes instead of blocking them altogether.

11) I think your "Tango" idea is very nifty and would be a very fun way to play, but it also sounds complicated to program. I like thinking about it, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

12) JK, there is no 12. Thanks for writing all this up.

[Asymptotic]

1.) So it does. Shows you how often I use it
2.) This is a good point, ~18-20TP or "1/4 of a WS," as you describe it, would probably be a better estimate for the opportunity cost. I don't think it ends up changing much more than the numbers, though.
3.) In this ability, I had the potency decrease over time until wearing off and then being consumed on the first weaponskill. I think it's a lot more balanced than you point out due to the decisions it forces you to make. You can either use it right before your weaponskill for a major boost, or ride it out and WS later. Perhaps if it couldn't overwrite itself and the recast were increased to 0:30.
4.) I'm not holding my breath, but no one really saw Konzen-Ittai coming either.
5.) The SAM notes today mentioned something about a "Shikokyo" like ability to give party members Regain, and the response from the dev team was positive. I'm not throwing in my hat on making an already awesome ability more awesome. The responses from the on the SAM notes are basically along the lines of "If this isn't obviously broken, or impossible from a system perspective, we like this idea and we'll look into it." Then again, a lot of the requests they respond to on the SAM notes are absolutely ridiculous/
6.) It's not the reason I have been citing all along for not splitting waltz timers ever, but I think if the DNC community would realize that it's just not going to happen, we could get some interesting discussions of other ways to fix it. Unfortunately, people cling to the idea.
7.) I agree. I don't care, but a lot of people do, especially on the JP forums. I figure it's worth mentioning as something that people want. As I admit openly, I don't know how I'd balance it.
8.) They've done more random things. SCH got the ability to skillchain with magic (lol?), BLM got two powerful survivability tools (mana wall and enmity douse), when previously BLM survivability was up to the support job, gear, and the rest of the party. Even the abilities "Saber Dance" and "Fan Dance" were kind of out of the blue for DNC when added originally. Seeing as they respond to requests like "I want to be invincible during weapon skills," (those crazy sams) I don't see the harm in suggesting them
9.) That would be a samba buff worth seeing.
10.) Actually, the multiple stances was specifically designed to address "redundancy in the pursuit of stubbornness," LOL. I'm glad you found a way to word it!
11.) (It's secretly my favorite idea on the whole list. I reaaaaaly hope Camate finds it and passes it on to the dev team! I think it would be really fun! It's just a shame Rudra --> Ukko's doesn't chain!)
12.) <3

[Chuchuroon]

I actually find desperate flourish quite useful, especially so before you get violent flourish, it should be put on every mob that isn't immune or THAT is wasted potential. A gravity effect as potent as a rdms and an additional -10 evasion is not something to undervalue, and I find from personal experience that the gravity effect is actually quite easy to land.

Yes, violent flourish may have a lot more situational usage than desperate when soloing, but the way you write it make it sound like you think it's absolutely worthless, which it's not.

It's much more useful than wild flourish, and even after you get violent flourish, if you are fighting something that does not need stun, or something that already has a dedicated stunner, gravity can help in many ways. Smack it on when you need to kite something (e.g. during a 2hr like invincible or mighty strikes), smack it on something slept without waking up the mob so it doesn't make a mad dash after the mage who slept it when it wakes up, smack it on a mob with high evasion, there are many scenarios in which it has useful application. Yes, any RDM or /RDM can do gravity, but that's like saying any BLM, DRK, /BLM or /DRK can stun. Gravity is one of the most undervalued effects and people really should be exploiting every single opportunity to use it wherever it can be used.

I'm also a little wary that you place DAMAGE as the #1 issue as opposed to healing and utility/support, which is really the area where DNC can truly shine. DNC was not created as a "pure" DD, and "heavy" DDs such as MNK and DRK etc are not even half as versatile as DNC. To appear to ask SE to focus first and foremost on their damage-dealing abilities as opposed to the unique abilities (instant heal and erase, sambas, steps) I fear would lead them astray from the uniqueness of the job. You can deal great damage on many other classes, but no other class can be in the frontlines and yet dish out a ton of healing and support as well as a dancer can.

I'm not convinced, as many Dancers are, that splitting the waltz category into multiple categories is a viable option. I think instead adding a new tier of abilties to improve the Dancer's healing prowess would be a better option.

While you may not be convinced, it may be prudent to include that in your post since your thread is getting so much feedback and visibility, especially, as you said yourself, that many many many of us feel this way.

Most notably, splitting recast timers for the different waltzes would be much easier to implement than most of your suggestions, most of which involve adding new abilities or traits - and splitting just healing waltz on its own timer apart from the curing waltzes alone would do wonders in actually allowing dancers to actively assist in removing debuffs instead of only being able to cure in situations where they are relied on heavily to heal. Additionally, splitting up the timers between different tiers of curing waltzes would avoid the situation where healing dancers are forced to only spam Curing Waltz III due to the long recast and shared timer of the higher tier waltzes.

I think SE already tried to adjust for potency of steps with the introduction of Presto - not saying that it's the ultimate amazing solution to the problem at hand, but at least it's....something, but also I suspect it means they most likely will not further boost steps for Dancer as a main job anytime soon again.

Subjobs don't get presto, and it increases the potency of the daze. Most mobs die to fast before more than one or two steps get applied anyway, and when soloing we usually cap out on level 5 dazes long before the mob dies. Besides, from my experience anyway, the majority of people who /DNC never even bother using steps <_> (a lot of dancer mains also don't, which is a different reason altogether to cry rivers of shame, but I digress).


Anyway, while I don't agree with you on some of your points, and admit to skimming (wall of text, etc), I applaud you for taking the time to write out a well organized and articulate post addressing the dancer job.

[Alkalinehoe]

I'm also a little wary that you place DAMAGE as the #1 issue as opposed to healing and utility/support, which is really the area where DNC can truly shine. DNC was not created as a "pure" DD, and "heavy" DDs such as MNK and DRK etc are not even half as versatile as DNC. To appear to ask SE to focus first and foremost on their damage-dealing abilities as opposed to the unique abilities (instant heal and erase, sambas, steps) I fear would lead them astray from the uniqueness of the job. You can deal great damage on many other classes, but no other class can be in the frontlines and yet dish out a ton of healing and support as well as a dancer can.

I think he places damage as the (currently) most important aspect of DNC is because that's where DNC is very competent in. DNC can't hold it's own to a WHM ( and really, who doesn't have one now a days) SCH/RDM/BLU are also superior outside abyssea as well. Just for the fact that they have mutliple tier'd cures, -na's/erase that aren't tied to the same recast timers as cure, etc. However, on the DD side of DNC, they can rank as one of the highest DPS jobs.

[Asymptotic]

I actually find desperate flourish quite useful, especially so before you get violent flourish, it should be put on every mob that isn't immune or THAT is wasted potential. A gravity effect as potent as a rdms and an additional -10 evasion is not something to undervalue, and I find from personal experience that the gravity effect is actually quite easy to land.

Yes, violent flourish may have a lot more situational usage than desperate when soloing, but the way you write it make it sound like you think it's absolutely worthless, which it's not.

If you have Rudra's Storm, it becomes completely useless, as the Gravity effect from Rudra's is both extremely potent and highly accurate. And -10 evasion is something to undervalue, because you should be aiming to cap accuracy in gear without any help from special effects. It is absolutely worthless.

Gravity is one of the most undervalued effects and people really should be exploiting every single opportunity to use it wherever it can be used.

It's undervalued because you can't rely on it. Gravity lands on almost nothing worth talking about. No, Cirein-Croin isn't worth talking about. People have been soloing it since the day it came out just because gravity lands. Which is why gravity doesn't land on anything.

I'm also a little wary that you place DAMAGE as the #1 issue as opposed to healing and utility/support, which is really the area where DNC can truly shine. DNC was not created as a "pure" DD, and "heavy" DDs such as MNK and DRK etc are not even half as versatile as DNC. To appear to ask SE to focus first and foremost on their damage-dealing abilities as opposed to the unique abilities (instant heal and erase, sambas, steps) I fear would lead them astray from the uniqueness of the job. You can deal great damage on many other classes, but no other class can be in the frontlines and yet dish out a ton of healing and support as well as a dancer can.

I actually offer fewer suggestions to increase damage dealing capacities than any other category o_O, I can really tell you skimmed. I also state that I'm giving suggestions to improve each category without much regard for the others, meaning that I don't mean all of these suggestions would be to put in place at the same time. Obviously if you're going to greatly beef DD, you wouldn't adjust healing/support so much and if you were going to all of a sudden make DNC a healing machine you wouldn't want it tearing things apart as much. That's why I also offered a multiple stance model, allow the DNC to choose between two different modes of action - increased damage or increased support, both at an enhanced capacity to what they are now.

While you may not be convinced, it may be prudent to include that in your post since your thread is getting so much feedback and visibility, especially, as you said yourself, that many many many of us feel this way.

Most notably, splitting recast timers for the different waltzes would be much easier to implement than most of your suggestions, most of which involve adding new abilities or traits - and splitting just healing waltz on its own timer apart from the curing waltzes alone would do wonders in actually allowing dancers to actively assist in removing debuffs instead of only being able to cure in situations where they are relied on heavily to heal. Additionally, splitting up the timers between different tiers of curing waltzes would avoid the situation where healing dancers are forced to only spam Curing Waltz III due to the long recast and shared timer of the higher tier waltzes.

I've addressed this like 100 times already, they haven't split waltz timers yet, they aren't going to ever. I could be wrong, the dev could post the DNC manifesto response today and make me eat my words, but responses they've given to the suggestions of other jobs and the like have led me to the following conclusions:

1.) SE views splitting of waltzes as either too powerful, or
2.) SE realizes that waltz timers are a huge hindrance to the original role of the DNC, but is unable to make this change for system reasons (check the response to the THF thread, or in Byrth's post at the top of the page), and has turned to increasing DNC's damage output as a "consolation prize."

What sounds easy to you may actually be very difficult to implement, either from PS2 limitations standpoint, or game balance standpoints. It's hard to say what the dev team is thinking. I mention that many DNC believe it's the route to go, and there are 900 threads about it on both EN forum and the JP forum so the idea is getting heard, lol.

I think SE already tried to adjust for potency of steps with the introduction of Presto

Even at max daze (5/5) steps are still weak in comparison to the similar debuffs other jobs are able to inflict for much less effort and maintenance time. The potency should be adjusted.

Anyway, while I don't agree with you on some of your points, and admit to skimming (wall of text, etc), I applaud you for taking the time to write out a well organized and articulate post addressing the dancer job.

Skimming is bad, but I'm glad you appreciate it anyway XD
Sorry if this post in particular feels argumentative, but this is a discussion forum after all.

[Chuchuroon]

If you have Rudra's Storm, it becomes completely useless, as the Gravity effect from Rudra's is both extremely potent and highly accurate. And -10 evasion is something to undervalue, because you should be aiming to cap accuracy in gear without any help from special effects. It is absolutely worthless.

As you said - for dancers who have Rudra's Storm. Many do not, so it doesn't really seem fair to undervalue it's use because there exists a weaponskill that not everyone has easy access to. I know everyone and their mother seems to have an empyrean or the WoE equivalent these days, but for folks who are still leveling, casual players who don't have the time/energy to get the weapon, and non-abyssea (yes "lolthereareplacesoutsideabyssea"?) situations, it's still handy. Of course it's important to cap accuracy, but you know and I know that there are tons of players who don't/can't/won't, and who could use any extra help they can get <_>

and, as I said, for people who still solo/party their subjobs instead of keywhoring or FCburning it up, it's still a great ability to have for those levels. Yes, not many people do, but they still exist. Just because it greatly loses value as you get higher in level doesn't mean it should be changed or removed in favor of other things, which is what your original wording made it seem like - "It's useless to me at this level/with my gear/in abyssea so I would get rid of it for everyone if it were up to me" which was mildly off-putting.

It's undervalued because you can't rely on it. Gravity lands on almost nothing worth talking about. No, Cirein-Croin isn't worth talking about. People have been soloing it since the day it came out just because gravity lands. Which is why gravity doesn't land on anything.

But gravity saved my mages from Cirein-Croin quite a few times when the frontline was charmed! ;_;

I actually offer fewer suggestions to increase damage dealing capacities than any other category o_O, I can really tell you skimmed. I also state that I'm giving suggestions to improve each category without much regard for the others, meaning that I don't mean all of these suggestions would be to put in place at the same time. Obviously if you're going to greatly beef DD, you wouldn't adjust healing/support so much and if you were going to all of a sudden make DNC a healing machine you wouldn't want it tearing things apart as much. That's why I also offered a multiple stance model, allow the DNC to choose between two different modes of action - increased damage or increased support, both at an enhanced capacity to what they are now.

Yeah, I'll need to read over it more in detail when I'm not working, heh :P

I've addressed this like 100 times already, they haven't split waltz timers yet, they aren't going to ever. I could be wrong, the dev could post the DNC manifesto response today and make me eat my words, but responses they've given to the suggestions of other jobs and the like have led me to the following conclusions:

1.) SE views splitting of waltzes as either too powerful, or
2.) SE realizes that waltz timers are a huge hindrance to the original role of the DNC, but is unable to make this change for system reasons (check the response to the THF thread, or in Byrth's post at the top of the page), and has turned to increasing DNC's damage output as a "consolation prize."

Not even only splitting healing apart from all the curing/divine, or diving from /healing? Not trying to intentionally butt heads here, just honestly curious of your thoughts. Do you only oppose this idea because you don't believe SE would do it, or do you have other reasons as well?

Even at max daze (5/5) steps are still weak in comparison to the similar debuffs other jobs are able to inflict for much less effort and maintenance time. The potency should be adjusted.

I'm not 100% certain of this, but in the case of box step, aren't there limitations on how defense down effects stack with each other and a cap on how much can be applied to a target at any given time? E.g. acid bolt will stack with both box step and dia, but the total amount of defense down combined that can be applied to a target is -50%?

I'm wondering about this because it may be one of the reasons they are reluctant to increase daze/step potency - because they want people to include a greater variety of job types. If the cap is indeed -50%, for example, and box step max potency was increased to -25%, then you'd only need a DNC, DRG with angon and any mage with dia, as opposed to needing acid bolt ~12% lv.5 box step ~13% dia II ~10% those blu spells 5%~10% and whatever else has def down effects these days.

It would be nice if it were improved, but I'm not sure where you think it requires much effort/maintenance to keep up a level 5 daze. Might require pressing more buttons frequently then simply hitting a dia or /ra macro, but it's not that much harder. Steps/finishing moves are the lifeblood of dancers anyway, even if not to keep the daze at level 5, we would still be using steps every 15s to get finishing moves.

I would LOVE for dancer to get more debuff-type abilities, but doubt the wisdom of having it in the form of new steps. Even with the ones you suggested, it would probably still only be Box and Stutter or Box and Feather being used the majority of the time if we still only get to keep 2 types of dazes up, at least, I don't really see many situations where the new steps would be used over the current steps that we have.

Skimming is bad, but I'm glad you appreciate it anyway XD
Sorry if this post in particular feels argumentative, but this is a discussion forum after all.

No, I agree. I'm not a particularly mathy person but I'm always open to try to hear about and learn new things, and discussion is a great way to do it.


P.s. oh and hell to the yes with lowering climatic flourish recast. It makes me sadface when I get tp fast enough to WS at least 3~4 times before the timer is up again. :C

[Chuchuroon]

I think he places damage as the (currently) most important aspect of DNC is because that's where DNC is very competent in. DNC can't hold it's own to a WHM ( and really, who doesn't have one now a days) SCH/RDM/BLU are also superior outside abyssea as well. Just for the fact that they have mutliple tier'd cures, -na's/erase that aren't tied to the same recast timers as cure, etc. However, on the DD side of DNC, they can rank as one of the highest DPS jobs.

DNC can be an impressive DD, yes, but any equally impressive MNK WAR DRK SAM or even RNG can easily outdo it. If you PURELY wanted deal damage only, why would you level dancer? DNC may not be able to hold it's own to a WHM, but it's the only frontline job that can replace it in a pinch, and to completely ignore its unique abilities in favor of "showing down" other DD jobs that do not have the ability to buff/debuff/cure/give your entire party job ability haste, just to prove that DNC is a competent DD, seems like a huge waste of potential to me.

Because of this, I do NOT think, ever, that damage should be the first and most important thing to focus on for dancer -- that's like saying because SCH can be a decent nuker, they should first and foremost priotize on improving their nuking ability.

THFs have the potential to be very good damage dealers too, but if any THF starts going on an epeen damage dealing rampage without bothering to properly TA/collaborator/accomplice/manage party hate/pull etc when it's needed I would smack the shizzle out of them.

[Shibayama]

This is incredibly well planned and thought out and most of your ideas would be incredible if implimented. Personally I don't think dancer needs anymore situational combat flourishes, and they're thinking of adding a new one that does triple attack. A triple attack every 2 mins seems like a worthless addition, and even striking flourish is so laughably underpowered especially when you consider the buff to climactic. However there is one thing that I desperately want to see.

Defensive abilities. Yes we also need more support and abilities to augment our current bread and butter abilities but I would love to see SE move away from offensive flourishes and give us some defensive type moves to go along with the fan/saber dynamic. An example of this could be...

Stalwart Flourish: "Consumes all finishing moves. Autoparries the number of enemy attacks equal to the number of finishing moves. Not only would that give us some defense when subbing /sam /war or /whm as well as making it worlds easier to cap parrying (seriously... I've been trying for awhile and even with 8 fear deargs, AGL atma and the defense skill increase food on me I cant get past 200 skill...) but it would also give dancer more options on what to do with their FM's other than "convert it with reverse for self skillchains/heals" which is largely why the Flourish 3 category is so unpopular. Climactic was a joke because it consumed all of your moves. Now you can get big numbers with it but ONLY if you have Thwashtar/Daka+2, are in abyssea and have atleast 4/5 NFR merits. Striking has an obscenely long recast timer for a single forced double attack/potential crit with the charis casaque.

They've already made it so that monks can "perfect counter" why not add "perfect parry" to dnc as a flourish III? Then maybe they could change the whole "tactical parry" enhancement to be similar to the charis tiara effect that gives an extra parry and extra TP gained from it.

Also something needs to be done about steps. It's far too much work to maintain a level 5 daze when it stymies your TP gain and the overall effect is something anybody *subbing* dance could do just at a much slower pace. Our steps are the key to pretty much every aspect of our other abilities sans saber and fan dance as has been already pointed out, our steps have the same or less potency as other mage spells that just require one use. When we need to spend a minimum of 30% tp over 45 seconds for a paltry 3% increase over dia II there's a problem.

Sure, it's not that much more effort on our part but it's inefficient as all get out and has been a major stick in my craw when fighting big monsters where I want to maintain the effect. Particularly when it misses and you have to start over again...

I really liked the ideas proposed thus far about steps but the biggest problem I have is that there's no real payoff for all the work in maintaining a level 5 daze. So I suggest that similar to a corsair getting bonus effects when landing on XI, in addition to an overall potency increase, a level 5 daze can:

-Have an increased overall daze duration making it easier for us to keep our TP up without having to repeatedly go back and waste a step getting 1 FM to maintain it.

-Do away with the whole level 5 daze = 1 FM mechanic. I don't see why this is like that since it severely hinders our FM gain if we want to maintain a daze.

-Have an added additional debuff effect added once level 5 is reached that lasts for the duration - for example an added attack/accuracy/magic attack/crit rate down effect of sufficient potency on the mob.

-Have an added additional PTwide buff effect once level 5 is reached that lasts for the duration - giving the pt added attack/accuracy/magic attack/crit damage effect of sufficient potency.

I really hope that the dev team pays attention to all these suggestions we have, especially since they're doing this whole "job manifesto explanation" thing. I'd be pretty ticked if all we got was another extremely situational damage flourish on a long timer.

[Asymptotic]

I won't budge on the usefulness or non-usefulness of D.Flourish. If you're not capping accuracy, then you should be eating food which will easily cap your accuracy. BUT REALLY, you should be capping accuracy anyway, and eating meat! Most of the places a DNC has trouble capping accuracy (random NMs) are on things Gravity doesn't land on evarrrr. In XP situations/levelling up, chances are a mage can land gravity much more reliably than you can. I used D.Flourish while levelling up some, but only if and because I had absolutely nothing better to do. Once I got V.Flourish I used that to waste FMs, because at least it returns TP if it doesn't stun, lol.

If defense down effects are in fact multiplicative (which I believe they are) it's harder to reach -50% than you'd think. Angon (x0.8), Box Step 5 (x0.85), Dia III (x0.85), which are the only three which currently stack together (angon overwrites/isoverwrittenby most Defense Down effects), makes for a total of about -42%. If box step 5/5 were -25%, then the three stacked together would still only be -49%. This of course changes if the effects are additive. And IDK if there's actually a cap anyway.

As for waltz timers, I'm mostly apathetic. I wouldn't complain if they split them, but I'm pretty sure they won't, and thus would rather spend my creativity on alternative solutions.

Also this goes out to everyone: Rudra's Storm doesn't just perform well inside Abyssea. Stacked with climactic flourish, it outperforms DE/Evis/PK by far outside, too. Twashtar/Daka+2 is probably the best thing you can do for your DNC outside of maybe mythic, and even then mythic is really only good if you're main healing~

[Alaik]

For DNCs quoting THF's response, please keep in mind those were mainly BS answers.

Hell, they said they couldn't lower steal timers because people would abuse it and hide, when you couldn't hide to resteal for a LONG time. Even if you could hide would be on a 5 minute timer also.

They just like to piss on THF, you guys for some reason I feel might very well get your split timers, maybe not this update though.