DNC Analysis for 6.0/6.05

Personally, I think FD4 is fine as its own button, as it helps compartmentalize between the setup and push-all-the-buttons-now! parts of the burst. It also leaves space for future updates to maybe add more chances to use FD4 outside of Flourish.

Starfall though, could really just change the Devilment button. If not outright replace the ability itself so it grants the buff and does the damage in the same press. Being that Starfall auto direct crits, it shouldn't matter if the buff portion somehow lags and doesn't apply before the damage?

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Originally Posted by Kazimere

Yeah, Dancer has it bad right now. 10% behind in aDPS, and completely crushed in rDPS. What's the ballpark Dancer would need to bump in aDPS to even out with bard in rDPS?

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Bard's buffs are pretty much just as good as dancer's buffs/partner. You'd have to add like 500 dps to dancer's personal dps to bring it up to bard, which is like a 10% bump. Either that, or make it's buffs even better, because they aren't better than bard's right now. I'd much prefer to just have higher personal dps.
Bard is competing with SMN/RDM/BLM right now, while MCH and especially DNC are sitting at the kid's table.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

You can double weave Improvisation without halting your GCD and get the regen and a 5% max HP barrier. It's not a massive amount of utility, but that little extra could really come in handy in a tight situation, so the channel isn't required.

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It's this tiny amount of utility that's possible with double weaving that annoys me the most. The shield feels inconsequential and the heal unnoticeable but it's the optimal way to use the skill. It's really unsatisfying in practice even if logically I know it's the right thing to do. You need a long transition to get the full use of the skill but that makes the heal unnecessary because an actual healer could make use of the same downtime to heal more efficiently. Personally I wish Improv was something that needed to be weaved between weapon skills intentionally. Let it be like Continuation or the old Dark Arts to charge up the shield and release a small heal with each use.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

It's this tiny amount of utility that's possible with double weaving that annoys me the most. The shield feels inconsequential and the heal unnoticeable but it's the optimal way to use the skill. It's really unsatisfying in practice even if logically I know it's the right thing to do. You need a long transition to get the full use of the skill but that makes the heal unnecessary because an actual healer could make use of the same downtime to heal more efficiently. Personally I wish Improv was something that needed to be weaved between weapon skills intentionally. Let it be like Continuation or the old Dark Arts to charge up the shield and release a small heal with each use.

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Correct. It's better than it was before, but it's still odd in regards to implementation. It was intended to be a downtime button, but DNC has never needed a downtime button. Phase changes are once a battle if even, and it's really unnecessary to dedicate an entire action to solely give DPS something to do during that time. The only counterargument in my opinion was Anatman before the Greased Lightning purge because it was such an easy buff to lose (though they could've also just made Formless Fist reset its cooldown similar to BLM's Transpose). Now, I really don't think Anatman, Improvisation, or Meditate are good ideas, nor why they're so committed to these buttons.

As it stands, I find the new Improvisation to be inoffensive, so not really something I felt was worth going into. It would be better if it was just an AoE regen that gave you a 30 second window to use Improvised Finish.

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Originally Posted by illspirit

Personally, I think FD4 is fine as its own button, as it helps compartmentalize between the setup and push-all-the-buttons-now! parts of the burst. It also leaves space for future updates to maybe add more chances to use FD4 outside of Flourish.

Starfall though, could really just change the Devilment button. If not outright replace the ability itself so it grants the buff and does the damage in the same press. Being that Starfall auto direct crits, it shouldn't matter if the buff portion somehow lags and doesn't apply before the damage?

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I agree, I was mainly just pointing out that, as it stands now, I don't really know why they're separate buttons when they don't have any kind of way to be used outside of Flourish or Devilment respectively. I do want them to eventually gain more functionality in the future though, like in some of the suggestions I brought up.

So I would like to give some feedback and suggestion on DNC now that I'm 88.

*Fourfold Feather just doesn't seem to proc enough. Would love to see a slight bump in this as well as Threefold Fan Dance.
*It would be helpful if Improvisation added a 1% or 2% DPS bonus to anyone standing within range of the Dancer while they build up stacks.
*Enhanced Devilment should reduce Devilment recast from 120s to 60s. Obviously you would need to reduce the percent of the buff but it would allow for more casting of Starfall Dance.
*Tillana grants a second Closed Position to another party member for 30s.
*Fan Dance IV adds a 1% Damage debuff for the target for 10s.

Not all well happening I know but some would improve rDPS for DNC.

I feel like Tillana is good for your opening but i'm struggling to figure out what exactly it's good for beyond that. Doesn't do a whole lot of damage, it just applies standard step, which should always be rolling anyway unless you're fresh into combat. If it did something else that would be great, like the above poster mentioned, if it granted standard step to another party member for 30 seconds, or gave you and your partner increased attack/spell speed so you can squeeze more into the devilment window?

It just needs something more going on with it.

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Originally Posted by Averax

I feel like Tillana is good for your opening but i'm struggling to figure out what exactly it's good for beyond that. Doesn't do a whole lot of damage, it just applies standard step, which should always be rolling anyway unless you're fresh into combat. If it did something else that would be great, like the above poster mentioned, if it granted standard step to another party member for 30 seconds, or gave you and your partner increased attack/spell speed so you can squeeze more into the devilment window?

It just needs something more going on with it.

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I may be wrong, but I feel like it's still better to open with Standard Step for the boost in Technical Step damage rather than open with Technical Step and get the Standard Step buff off Tilana afterwards. I mentioned this before, but DNC is screaming for an alternative dance that shares a recast timer with Standard Step and does something different than apply your buff to yourself and your dance partner. This would make both the long cooldown of Standard Step and the effect of Tilana make sense as ways to maintain your buff while choosing an alternative dance.

One of my main gripes with Dancer is that it could use way more consistency. I feel like that would make it easier to balance in the damage department as well as improve the overall flow of the job. instead of trying to balance around a 50% proc... that procs another 50% proc... that procs... yet another 50% proc? Getting those occasional 1 2 spams without anything is rough. Finally proccing a 3 or 4 and not getting a feather off of it also feels pretty bad. This change would also make it easier to set up for burst windows since you could have 4 feathers built up readily for a rapid burst phase.

Improvisation for me so far has literally been an insti-cancel regen tool for my tanks on large pulls to help them out a little. There are not a lot of moments where I think to myself... You know what, let me stand here for 15 seconds and dance around for a 10% shield. I get it. It's there for downtime. But most fights don't have downtime, and definitely not enough to stand in place for 15 seconds while it charges up... for a measily 10% shield lol. You could just make this a regen button and I honestly would never feel the difference. One thing I think they could do with this ability, that could actually be really cool, is take inspiration from FFXI's dancer and turn Improvisation into Haste Samba.

Haste Samba: While you are charging up, your whole party receives a 15% reduction to their cast times and recasts. Basically a party Huton that would suppliment the lack of you dealing personal damage while it charges. Keep the stacking system up to 4 charges, but change it to unload a massive attack as a finisher. Take a note out of Reaper's book and make it 1000 potency at 4 stacks (250, 500, 750, 1000). This way, it could almost act like an additional burst phase for everyone but the Dancer, but you still get a strong attack out of it and some nice RDPS icing on the cake. Honestly, I wouldn't mind Dancer being behind as far as it is on damage if it could pull some sort of effect like this for the entire alliance to make up that difference.

Since Improvisation is a mitigation/heal ; Drain Samba would make more sense (debuff that give bloodbath effect on hits ; but could be party buff instead). I'm not against Haste samba, but it would probably be broken.

If we're talking about new steps ; and keeping XI steps in mind ; here's an idea (adapted to XIV) :
Shared recast with standard step ; grant a buff with a "tight" window (35-40s ?) and accumulte a stack each time. you can burn the whole buff for whatever buff/debuff/nuke/heal is the end result is (or the buff timeout) ; potency depending on stacks

I know that Yoshi-P alluded to DNC getting their DPS buffed next patch but instead of seeing a flat increase to their damage potencies, I would much rather see feather procs happen more often and maybe allow Fan Dance IV and Starfall Dance to be proced off things other then Flourish and Devilment, like a 50% chance every time you use Fan Dance III and Saber Dance like the OP suggested.