The Future of the "Ranged" Role - Feedback for 5.1 Onward.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

...Why are you complaining about that when Dancer is one of the most mobile jobs in the entire game? Just because you're Ranged doesn't mean you have to be away from the enemy at ALL times, that and you have plenty of chances to engage an enemy and then keep your distance or avoid AoEs/Do mechanics freely than the other DPS roles. Frankly, I like that Dancer has some short-ranged attacks to give it a little "weakness", or else the job would be too easy.

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Uhm, did you actually read what I wrote? I'm saying DNC is supposed to get into melee range to do their damage and the offset is we still do damage on retreat (moving out of mechanics) however it's clear they absolutely over compensated for that given the DNCs performance in content.

Mobility is good, sure... Except that En Avant clips skills and cancels autos. That's a dps loss so we can't use our mobility tool to retreat if we have an auto or skill in animation, as such En Avant is for gap closing or mobility while in Tech/Standard Step. That's a pretty big restriction and using it in a way to ensure you lose no dps means it becomes like every melee gap closer without a damage component (a fair trade given we continously damage while they have a single slow ranged skill at their disposal)

I love the aggressive playstyle and risk of the DNC, what I don't love is the lack of reward.

Remember to be optimal we absolutely have to use AoE abilities on single targets after using flourish in Raid situations. Half of our kit reflects this with skills like our step finishes, Sabre Dance and Fan Dance III having shotgun like effects (more damage to first target, or for being closer, less to subsequent targets) our other AoEs should have that same coefficient (when highlighted for combo bonus/feather generation chance) That would be a great improvement and make us more than that class that's helps others get phat dps while being really good at trash clearing but really bad at single target.

It's not a great ask, it's simply asking that our risk is rewarded appropriately..

Well, how you worded things isn't really the best I think. You talk like Dancer having melee attacks is like a problem, "a pseudo melee being treated like a backliner" if you will, but sure you did acknowledge that it has the abilities to make that kind of playstyle effective.
En Avant, like a few mobility skills like Elusive Jump and Repelling Shot, do that. This shouldn't be an issue really as a Physical Ranged. There's more than plenty opportunities to close the gap even without En Avant. Also I don't think using it will actually significantly or noticeably decrease your DPS, and it's always better use it (if there's no other choice) to move out for mechanics than not.

I'm sure using the AoE abilities in single-target is intentional design in the first place, and it makes sense aesthetic-wise because...Dancer. I agree though that the rest of Dancer's AoEs should have the shotgun-like effects with more damage (on the first enemy) would be nice to have, though.

But yeah, Dancer could feel more rewarding for sure. Physical Ranged in general is just too weak.

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Originally Posted by JanVanding

As someone that plays DNC with some regularity I\\'m gonna have to disagree on Espirit Gauge changes.

Espirit is for Sabre Dance, letting us use that single skill a little more often changes very little, what needs to be addressed is the fact that DNC is a pseudo melee being treated like a backliner.

Yes, that\\'s right, despite our "range" most of our damage requires us to fight up close. Our step finishes are effectively shotgun blasts and maximising our output requires the use of combed (highlighted for bonus potency) Bloodshower, Rising Windmill and Sword Shower to maximise our fourfold feather procs.

The range advantage we have affords us the ability to keep damaging while retreating from mechanics and trying to build our Espirit/Feathers.

How does a 5% damage, buff a 2 min cooldown group buff, crit buff, a 90 second cooldown low potency heal and 10% mitigation skill equate to us being so heavily penalised on dps I\\'ll never know, compare our kits to SAMs, NINs and DRGs, whom while more selfish are not that far detached (they also have more base mitigation and access to much better self sustain)

I think someone grossly overestimated the strength of the range advantage and as a result it has left DNCs as half a Job Class.

Imho they could make a good start here by retuning the DNC AoE skills since we have to use them to do more when only a single target is struck, give us more of that shotgun effect we have with Fan Dance III, Sabre Dance & our step finishes and it would absolutely improve the DNC.

P.S the "support" excuse doesn\\'t cut it for BRD and DNCs low performance, especially now that you have two dps classes with the most invaluable skill (Raise) regularly fighting for the top of the pile.

No more excuses, it\\'s time to redress the balance.

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Originally Posted by JanVanding

Uhm, did you actually read what I wrote? I'm saying DNC is supposed to get into melee range to do their damage and the offset is we still do damage on retreat (moving out of mechanics) however it's clear they absolutely over compensated for that given the DNCs performance in content.

Mobility is good, sure... Except that En Avant clips skills and cancels autos. That's a dps loss so we can't use our mobility tool to retreat if we have an auto or skill in animation, as such En Avant is for gap closing or mobility while in Tech/Standard Step. That's a pretty big restriction and using it in a way to ensure you lose no dps means it becomes like every melee gap closer without a damage component (a fair trade given we continously damage while they have a single slow ranged skill at their disposal)

I love the aggressive playstyle and risk of the DNC, what I don't love is the lack of reward.

Remember to be optimal we absolutely have to use AoE abilities on single targets after using flourish in Raid situations. Half of our kit reflects this with skills like our step finishes, Sabre Dance and Fan Dance III having shotgun like effects (more damage to first target, or for being closer, less to subsequent targets) our other AoEs should have that same coefficient (when highlighted for combo bonus/feather generation chance) That would be a great improvement and make us more than that class that's helps others get phat dps while being really good at trash clearing but really bad at single target.

It's not a great ask, it's simply asking that our risk is rewarded appropriately..

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dont wanna argue but if thats your opinion - u haven't understood its core... actually the only skills which needs max melee-range are the two aoe-skils after using flourish (which u can even skip in some situations without a loss) - all other skills even the finisher have a far wider range. its stupid to say dnc have to be upfront all the time - cause that's actually just not true. we are blessed using step combination every 30secs for moving in dngs or avoiding mechanics in savage/ex primals without losing uptime and en avant is one of the best charges we could have cause of its 3 stacks - talking about auto-min-max is deplaced here cause this discussion-lvl is far from optimizing. That being said I don't wanna talk about esprit/feathers here cause Min already told you how to handle them in (and out of) our 2 mins burst windows in the other topic.

Dnc is not complicated nor "broken" in range/movement or design - it just needs a lil bit more raw power and would become one of the best working/flowing cls in the game by now. your personal experience with this cls is just a bit lacking I guess... so maybe before asking for balance changes... u should take your time for some in-depth researches first : /