DNC - a class of "healing and succor"

If you haven't played SHB or DNC yet, please don't read. Thanks!



Not to give too much spoilers, but the NPCs for DNC describe their dance as one that brings healing and succor. They've mentioned that phrase a few times, actually. (I actually have a screenshot of one time, but I won't post it just yet just in case).

- Looks at healer-dancer FFXI -
- Looks at DPS-dancer FFXIV -
- Squints -

Soooo... why did they make this a DPS again? Thematically for it's lore, it's about healing.
Yes, we "needed" a third DPS, but it didn't have to be DNC, which was already a healer in FFXI.

[s]That said, I do like DNC as DPS, so it doesn't matter one way or the other to me, it's just... They already had a theme/storyline built for a healer class, so I don't really get why they decided it HAD to be a DPS.

I feel like they use ‘healing and succor’ in dialogue as a generic way of saying ‘supports the party’. I also think they do take liberties in job quest dialogue, in that it doesn’t exactly match with the job itself.


I mean, in the Bard quests they go on and on about how Bards sing to inspire men to greater heights, then in battle has just three songs in their entire skill set that support the party, and one of them isn’t even a buff (Paean). In fact, the only songs you do have that see regular use do nothing but deal damage to the enemy lol

Scholars are described as ‘providing support’ and employing ‘powerful healing magics’ through their fairy. There’s no mention of aetherflow or how the job mostly revolves around dealing damage to the enemy, or even of healing through abilities rather than traditional spells

Also, not that it means much now, but we might see more healing related abilities added in future expansions.

The SCH job questline also goes on and on and on and on and on and on about how Warrior and Scholar are perfect synergy, when they've actually been one of the worst synergies for most of FFXIV's history. Don't read too much into things off the story as gameplay mechanics do trump lore for how a job will actually function.

Also, I think the way providing "succor and healing" is shown in the quest line for Dancer, it being a DPS with support tools is very fitting. Also, it's not physical injury that Dancer's heal, but rather the soul. Don't take the phrase too literally.

It wasn't a healer in FFXI either. That's just what the players used it for. If you had your skills leveled and good gear sets, dnc could hold its own.

That's what a support class does. It supports. Doesn't fit into one role, otherwise you lose out on its entire kit. Which is why I never understood why people hated it when rdm would go into melee and be a refresh turret. The FFXI jobs had so much wasted potential because of the players putting restrictions on what they wanted each job to do.

DNC was absolutely a healer in FFXI. It was just a healer designed to also put out some damage. As for RDM meleeing, if you knew how to do it right, it was fine until 51 when you got the elemental staves, which made going into melee impossible against more difficult mob pulls. Against easier stuff where you didn't need the benefit of the elemental staves, you were fine to melee if you did it right (which required having a full set of melee dps focused gear to swap in and out of). The main issue was that hitting mobs gave them TP, so the more times a mob was hit, the faster it would be able to use its special attacks, which could be devastating, so you needed to be doing enough dps to justify the tp you were feeding to the mob.

Well I guess that's the difference between a casual like me and the more hardcore players. You're right though, as I dabbled in rdm enough to level it to 75, but I still preferred to melee. As memory served though in a merit party I would stand back though. Was better to keep the whm mp up and give haste to my Sam and ninja friend.

I melee'd on RDM in XI until 50, and since I didn't level it past 60 until ToAU came out, I was able to melee more often there because of things being weak to piercing and the tendency to level on VTs instead of ITs, so I didn't need the elemental staves to land my enfeebling spells. But I also had full DPS gear available because of leveling MNK and WAR to 75.