Future Battle Balance Adjustments

[Sapphires]

Greetings,

I’d like to give you all a bit more background about the dancer adjustments that are planned for the upcoming February version update. Currently the development team is aware that dancers are having difficulties finding a spot in parties, and they would like to make adjustments to make it easier for them to participate in party content.

In the February version update we will be making adjustments to waltzes, and these adjustments revolve around the idea of the dancer being an attacker that, while falling somewhat short of the firepower possessed by monk and dark knight, are able to give curing support in situations where enemies have crushing attacks. The planned adjustment to waltzes is a very large change, and we’ve decided to implement only this adjustment to start out.

As an adjustment for the future, we are currently looking into having dancer contribute even more to the party by using their specialties, such as increasing the effect of steps much more when dancer is your main job. Additionally we are looking into adjustments for the times when it’s difficult to build finishing moves once you’ve reached the maximum number of steps.

going to reply to this in pieces below...

while falling somewhat short of the firepower possessed by monk and dark knight, are able to give curing support in situations where enemies have crushing attacks.

In my experiences as dancer main in delve, skc battles, and new archangels and divine might, a full waltz potency set dancer + divine waltz II is a nice instant burst aoe heal,
However:
*Please increase area of effect radius of Divine Waltz and Divine Waltz II (currently ~10' yalms) to match that of WHM Curaga (15' yalms). The difference seems minor but its quite relevant for things like post-meteor attack hp recovery during AA TT/DM
*Paralyze aura monsters make us an unreliable as support healer because a paralyze proc resets the timer.
*Dancers lack the ability to area of effect healing waltz (remove 1 status effect from all party members within a distance of the dancer). 'Crushing attacks' right now usually apply multiple status down effects, it would be helpful if dancers could at least emulate the affect of a sch/whm or whm/sch doing accession+erase, with a high tp cost or cooldown to balance it.

As an adjustment for the future, we are currently looking into having dancer contribute even more to the party by using their specialties

Increasing the haste samba benefit more from dancer main jobs would be nice here, subbed dancer gets a significant amount of JA haste from it compared to dancer main- a broader difference between the two would help.

A combination like Drg/Dnc for something like Tojil was generally taken over a dancer main because they are a more potent dps choice and could also bring 2 of the best dancer JA to the fight (haste samba + box step, while still being a must-have job for runs because of Angon)

, such as increasing the effect of steps much more when dancer is your main job.

The only step non dancers generally care about usually is capped out Box Step, The new AA-MR fight on harder modes is the only time I remember ever where Quickstep has become highly desired.
Feather step feels like it needs a boost, especially when harder content monsters appear to have significant critical hit evasion, its never something you willingly apply unless you somehow capped out box and quickstep.

Dancers would be more appealing for others to bring for events if we can further 'out step' others subbing dancer. Consider letting presto give 1 more finishing move than it currently does (it would then become +4 moves when you presto+step on a new target) and an additional level increase on the step affect (daze Lv. 3 on a new target with presto+step).

Additionally we are looking into adjustments for the times when it’s difficult to build finishing moves once you’ve reached the maximum number of steps.

Usually dancers swap to a different step if they want presto+step to give 3 finishing moves and the previous step level was capped. I don't see this as a crippling issue

Finally, in closing, I would like to still be able to use some fair amount of TP and finishing moves for dealing damage on hard content. Healing support is great, there's been lots of times i've felt good about saving people with waltzes, but the joy of attacking extremely fast, doing competent damage and being able to self skillchain and solo lots of things is why most people love the job.

Can you please look into reducing the cooldown on Climactic Flourish from 90 seconds to maybe 60 seconds? Its ability to do damage combined with Rudra's Storm weaponskill makes it one of our best options on extremely hard targets (delve boss/hardmode skc/aa/dm) but the cooldown time seems rather extreme when you look at how far we lag behind in damage contribution to pure DD jobs.

[Ataraxia]

This is probably the best post i seen done by Camate and I for once am very happy to know that they are looking into making future adjustment to Dnc job. For 5 long years i never bother to sign up but Thank you to that post Camate made i have sign up in Forum and I am very interested in what kind of adjustment to dnc. Like Camate said increasing the effect of steps is a very good start. Since people that sub dnc have access to quickstep, box step and stutter step. I was wondering would that make more since if a Main job Dnc like for example feather step have multiple effect like box step and quickstep in it? Or can add a new Ja steps that bring down enemy attack and magic attack it be nice. Anyways I'll hold off on what i want to see on Dnc and let Camate and the Director come up with some good ideas for Dnc and I'm all for it whatever you got cook up. =) In the meantime I am looking forward into February 18 update it's gonna be fun and excitement.

[Vivivivi]

Break Dance ((Can I Have it?))

Seriously though- glad to see this. Dancer's a fun job I haven't played in a long long time because there's even less of a party opportunity than PUP. I could totally see Dancer shining with increased waltz potency, and perhaps a major resist sleep trait, and the ability for healing waltz to remove petrification effects. At that point while it wouldn't be a top healer, it could fill a unique role in dealing some decent damage while making sure the main healer is alive, awake, and not petrified!

[Selindrile]

Waltzes don't need to be more potent in my opinion, they cure plenty of HP, they need reduced cost and recast timers, and probably new abilities to be relevant. In the current higher level content, you can cure the crap out of someone, and then wait for your timers while they go from full-dead in the interim. Or have everything you do be paralyzed.

[Byrth]

The Waltz recast change will make DNC a viable main healer for a lot of content. For instance, against AAs that don't spam unblinkable AoEs.

Currently: PLD, WHM, BRD/WHM, COR/whatever, DD, DD
Future: PLD, DNC, BRD/WHM, COR/WHM, DD, DD

COR and BRD can handle a Haste order and status removal along with back-up cures and Dia II + Light Shot x2. DNC could main heal and provide Haste Samba/Steps. It's a pure upgrade even if the DNC sits on TP and doesn't use WSs. The biggest problem in the above setup, imop, is that the DNC runs the risk of getting hate/killed while WHM does not, and a weakened DNC won't be able to get TP and heal very well.




Demonjustin already hit the main problem with the DNC job, which is JA delay. DNC is the most useful to parties in high Haste situations (due to Haste Samba), which are exactly the types of situations where its JA delay hurts it the most. This delay needs to be decreased significantly.


Other random wishlist:
* Waltz Potency - Decrease the base potency and increase the effect of CHR+VIT on Waltz HP healed. Balance it so that a naked player Waltzes for about the same amount as they do currently. This will let Waltz be more affected by increased stats on gear.
* Saber/Fan Dance - Decrease the delay after canceling these abilities until we can use Waltz/Samba, respectively. Currently we have to wait over a second, which is quite annoying.
* Steps - I like the idea of increasing potency on the main job (which I have been suggesting for several years). Please do that so Steps might even be worth using when lowman.
* Drain/Aspir Samba - Minor gripe, but please make these based off weapon delay before delay reduction. Also, it would be nice if they did damage. If you made these changes, Haste Samba might not be the only Samba people use.
* Building Flourish - Move it to category III and make it apply to melee hits (but be consumed by WS).
* Wild Flourish - Make this work with Tier 2 skillchain properties (like Konzen-Ittai). Currently we are unable to use this ability with some of our WSs, like Rudra's Storm.
* Striking Flourish - Please make this ability allow the first hit of WSs to crit at a normal rate, and have Charis Casaque +1/2 add their critical hit rate bonuses to that. If you do that, it might actually be worth using.
* Ternary Flourish - I don't know how to save this ability, but please try something! Making the additional swings mimic the fTP of the first hit would be a possibility.

[Raging_Oracle]

Waiting on the update..

I can only say that I hope S.E. has done something about Rune Fencer Damage Mitigation/Taken. All of the information pre-date has centered around offense and possibly maintaining hate. Hopefully we are not going to be dealing with the same defensive issues. Its one thing to get hate/keep hate, its another to consistently be able to take the punishment of these NMs in the new areas.

I found it quite surprising that the organization would provide the player base a job (Rune Fencer) (to whose base story is apart of a) within a new expansion and the job turns out to be among the least suited to handle the content battle wise. Consistently getting destroyed because its doesn't have the tools to take the punishment the new content brought.

Rune Fencer needs to be able to stand in front of nms just as well as a Pld does. All the leaked information seems to be geared towards getting the monsters attention... then what????? What covers the 3.5 minute gap when Battuta Is Down, shadows have been absorbed and the NM is focused on the Rune??? *If we have to worry about getting hate off the Rune then you can't call it a tank. * Hopefully this update brings solutions in that regards. If not, my opinion is you keep the job updates until its resolved. If survivability is not going to be addressed in this update it would clearly indicate that there has been a rather backward approach with respect to the job adjustments strategy AND you will do more damage to the jobs reputation than good.

So.. we wait... and hope..

[Camate]

Greetings,

I have some additional information to share regarding future dancer adjustments, which focuses on steps.

First, to ensure that steps land, the team plans to make it so step accuracy can be better supplemented with equipment. Additionally, we’ll be making it so the effect duration can be lengthened through the use of job points in the March version update.

Also, as mentioned previously, the team is continuing to look into adjustments so that the effects of steps are much more powerful when using them while dancer is your main job. While I cannot give an exact time frame for this as of yet, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the status.

[Sapphires]

As long as we have a minimum ~5% chance of missing a step/violent flourish due to the current accuracy check mechanics, we aren't a reliable source of stunning so people won't bring dancers for their stunning skills or place them in a stun rotation with a stun mage. This is a good example of where our job utility isn't a selling point to someone making a party/alliance for hard battle content.

We already sacrifice significant dps due to JA delay and although longer step duration initially seems nice to have, it doesn't address the dps loss from JA delay when we want to aggressively build steps and use finishing moves.
As it stands, we are only a fair DD option if you have near perfect gear and compete with less hardcore players playing mnk that gets KO'd during the fight allowing us to catch up on total damage dealt.

I'm fortunate enough to have friends and a LS that lets me bring dancer to these events and avoids the current meta-bandwagon of throw monks and rangers at everything, but for most of the playerbase i'd say the Dnc job still has an uphill battle for acceptance.

We might have better luck getting more dancers into endgame/hardcore content if you do indeed make box step from DNC main much stronger while still making it stack with all other defense down effects.

For parties that want accuracy, our current quickstep (+24 after spending time stacking to level 5 and incurring a ton of JA delay) isn't competitive enough with Corsair's hunter roll (up to +65 acc) or 1 bard song (blade madrigal +34acc or more)

[Selindrile]

"Step Accuracy" is a stupid statistic, 99% of the time people are better off with just normal accuracy+ gear, but with the natural 95% acc cap along with the magic accuracy component, it's just another thing that can go wrong when trying to stun. So your missed stun rate is already much worse than a Blm's (Blu suffers from the same issue.).

Step potency could be increased, the amount of time it lasts on a monster (without being reapplied) could be increased, but you know what would make steps more viable in the long run? Making it so you didn't have to lose 50% of your attack rounds to use them. (Job ability attack delay) beats out the positive debuff aspects of steps thoroughly in short battles, and often in long battles as well, but, people don't bring dancers to anything with long battles, generally.

[Byrth]

Greetings,

I have some additional information to share regarding future dancer adjustments, which focuses on steps.

First, to ensure that steps land, the team plans to make it so step accuracy can be better supplemented with equipment. Additionally, we’ll be making it so the effect duration can be lengthened through the use of job points in the March version update.

Also, as mentioned previously, the team is continuing to look into adjustments so that the effects of steps are much more powerful when using them while dancer is your main job. While I cannot give an exact time frame for this as of yet, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the status.

In order for this to be really useful, you also need to make the changes to Finishing Moves that were being considered a while ago. Make them so that they still give full FMs even when used with level 5 Daze already active on the monster. Currently it defaults to 1 if the daze is already level 5, which means that you need to let debuffs wear off (made more difficult by increasing duration) in order to continue to build FMs very well.