Not going to jump in here and rail on people as per usual in these kinds of threads. Thief and Dancer both possess levels of utility that far outweigh the DD output of well... DDs... The other DDs are kind of one trick ponies when it comes to playing, and these arguments are kind of narrow in scope.

My dancer can solo Durinn from gathering pop items, to killing the key item NMs (Div-e Sepid, Dvalinn, Kadraeth the Hatespawn) to Durinn himself. With the exception of one, maybe two, of those NMs, I can't do that on any of my other jobs. Thief could do more, but lacks cures to bring it to completion. So between the two, I'm sacrificing cures for Treasure Hunter, and none of my other jobs have the balance of evasion to DD that either thief or dancer has save for Ninja. And my ninja trades a little bit of DD potential and evasion for spell interrupt, more shadows, enfeebles, and the ability to trigger red, as well as the ability to sub dancer and get 'just enough' cures; but no TH. Headed up the line further, once you add one healer to the equation, everything goes nuts. Thief can drop some evade gear for more DD potential, Dancers can drop evasion and cures in lieu of more weaponskills and such, Ninjas can sub war and gain access to more DD potential and even more triggers, and you can add other jobs to the equation, like Mnk, War, Sam, etc.

In a exp party situation, I find the argument to be lost. Half the group or more is underleveld to be at max potential, and mobs die so fast that it doesn't even matter who's killing what and how.

In NM/HNM situations, Thieves either step back from their soloing position or advance it to tanking. Either you back up and support the group balancing hate and providing TH, or you're in the mobs' faces building hate. Dancers aren't very far off. Mnks do it, obviously better/faster, but require a tiny bit more support to do so, so the tradeoff is more than worth it, war too etc.


The point I am rambling on about is that we're experiencing actual game balance right now. Some jobs shine in a broad range of aspects, but still not as bright as jobs that excel in any one of those facets specifically. Thief and Dancer are far from back-seat here. I'd go so far as to say Thieves' TH is their greatest ability if anything just to guarantee a slot in the alliance. And Dancers' ability to provide 'the third haste' while adding cures and debuffs no other jobs can, makes dancers' deficiencies more a matter of other peoples' perspectives and level of knowledge of the job than anything.

And while i agree that thief kind of got mildly shafted on their Empyrean weapon's weaponskill, it DOES stack with SA/TA, as do all thief WS that are useful. But like with everything on the job, it's a B+ at best, but... that's with EVERYTHING with the job. We don't have the A+ abilities(save for TH) and the D's in others, everything is pretty B- to B+ where it counts. And I agree that Dancers' usefulness could raise tenfold if the waltz timers were split, or at the least were given an AoE debuff removal like Blus got.