Dancer improvisation

Hi fellow dancers
I ve discovered this job that I like a lot so far. I just wanted your opinion regarding improvisation... I feel it\\'s a very disappointing level 80 ability that you mostly never use. All lvl 80 dps abilities are doing big figures (except mch

Is just there something I m missing with Impro, or is it somewhat useless?
(sorry for double post, and missing text...)

It has two purposes, which often occur simultaneously and it is good at both.

1. Used during boss ultimates (or possibly even heavy hitting abilities like Ahk Morn, although it's dps loss for these) right before the damage hits to help out the healers.

2. Used during boss jumps or other breaks in a fight to make up somewhat for not being able to generate espirit.

You can think of it as a combination twist on Astrologian's Collective Unconscious and Samurai's Meditate.

I am wondering about this skill as well.

You can use it when the boss jumps away and prepares his ultimate raid buster. The healbuff will make the shields of AST and SCH a bit stronger I guess...

But because I don't use the skill often I often forget to use it in these situations xD

Really a disappointing skill...

if anything i think the DNC could use a dot skill or two

Is a ridiculous buff on healing a lvl80 ability?? There lies my deception. Something you ll never use every 2 min because you forget it ever existed.

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Originally Posted by Rakith

Is a ridiculous buff on healing a lvl80 ability?? There lies my deception. Something you ll never use every 2 min because you forget it ever existed.

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You don't use it every 2 minutes. You use it during a boss jump. There are lots of guilds that have abilities designed for this niche, Dancer just happens to have theirs occur at level 80. Others had theirs at previous level caps.

I know boss jump is the only occasion you can use it to gain esprit... But it's an ability you ll never use in dungeons for instance unlike any other job...

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Originally Posted by Rakith

unlike any other job...

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What part of "There are lots of guilds that have abilities designed for this niche, Dancer just happens to have theirs occur at level 80. Others had theirs at previous level caps" did you not understand? I dare you to say that in any Monk thread. Improvisation is an S-tier ability when compared to their version of a boss jump ability. Might want to hold off on making claims about other job's abilities until you've played the jobs or at least unlocked them.

There's nothing that says an ability gained at a level cap has to be the most powerful ability. Is Improvisation a powerful ability? No. Does it fill a useful niche? Yes. Is that niche situational? Absolutely, yes. Does that make Improvisation bad? No.

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Originally Posted by Rakith

I know boss jump is the only occasion you can use it to gain esprit... But it's an ability you ll never use in dungeons for instance unlike any other job...

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I'm certain that some other jobs have skills they don't use in dungeons. SMN's Physick, BLM's Scathe, etc.

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Originally Posted by Rakith

I know boss jump is the only occasion you can use it to gain esprit... But it's an ability you ll never use in dungeons for instance unlike any other job...

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Not everything in this game is designed around expert roulette.

Personally, I’ve always disliked Improvisation as a level 80 ability. It’s not the greatest thing to have, compared to getting things like Technical Finish at level 70. That felt more like a “level cap” skill as opposed to Improv.

If it wasn’t tied to Esprit generation, I would likely not hate it as much as I do. But it bothers my OCD way too much to use Esprit during downtime—and people move out of it, thereby jacking up my Esprit gain. You can’t do anything with 1~9 points of Esprit, and it irritates me so much. It is possible to weave it in for a quick healing boost, since the buff does linger for a few seconds after it deactivates—but then again, if people aren’t stacked, your Esprit gain is messed up. And, honestly, for most content, it’s overkill because healers are already extremely powerful.

Honestly, I’d almost be happy with the Esprit generation being removed entirely. Even my statics in the past have had members that refuse to stand in it, and then they get mad when I tell them to stand in it because they’re screwing me over. I don’t care if you don’t need the healing buff but I want Esprit generation, and we aren’t doing anything else during transition phases/downtime. The tank in the group I was in for Eden’s Verse was really bad about moving out of it during the transition to Titan Maximum, so I’d go into him with 59 Esprit and be mad about it.

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Originally Posted by Rakith

I know boss jump is the only occasion you can use it to gain esprit... But it's an ability you ll never use in dungeons for instance unlike any other job...

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Improvisation is your downtime damage loss mitigation skill. Quite a few jobs have one, and the only reason Dancer has theirs at level 80 is because they don't unlock Espirit until level 76. Samurai for example has Meditate, while Monk has Meditation, Anatman, Six Sided Star, Tornado Kick... way too many of these really.

Besides there's plenty of abilities that are for Trials rather than Dungeons.

They seriously just need to make it just like Meditate. Every tick, you get 10 Esprit instead of reliance on your party for the whole 10. No more reliance on party(we already have that with abusing Tech Windows, as well as Partner). Just let it be static and the ability will feel a bit better and DNC won't be butthurt about Tanklander walking out of their 'social circle'.

I never use Improvisation. Mostly cause I can't stand my numbers not being even cause everyone doesn't always stand together.

Eidt: Also please don't give DNC a DoT. I personally hate keeping track of DoTs and BRD already fulfills that role anyway.

You can weave it between GCDs if the party is stacked (usually for heals or a shared damage mechanic). Otherwise during downtime when you have nothing else you can do.

Personally, I wish the people requirement was removed from Improv so you can weave it more freely during uptime.

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

I never use Improvisation. Mostly cause I can't stand my numbers not being even cause everyone doesn't always stand together.

Eidt: Also please don't give DNC a DoT. I personally hate keeping track of DoTs and BRD already fulfills that role anyway.

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While I think a DoT would be neat, I'm not sure which ability they'd tie it too since a good chunk of them are RNG based.

I'll maintain it should be a low cost Espirit damage ability so you can better manage Espirit for your Devilment windows.

Given that it's called Improvisation and all.

I use it during down time then I find Saber Dance is normally nearly ready to go once I stop, plus it helps the healers out.

I think the problem stems from Dancer not really needing this kind of skill. For the Monk, for example, having a way to put your Greased Lightning on pause for a boss's cinematic attacks makes sense because there are now many fights where they can hold on to their GL rather than lose it and need to get it back from scratch, which is a notable DPS loss (not to mention it feels crappy).

For Dancer, we don't really have anything like that. Improvisation's biggest and most frequent benefit is that you can get an extra Saber Dance out of it after a pause in a raid, which is nice, but it's such a small benefit for something that takes up a space on your hot bar. The added healing potency increase is, in the cases of a pause, frankly useless. Healers don't need more healing potency during the most stagnant parts of a fight where the damage is at its most controllable state and with loads of time to rest and let your MP recover. It's the illusion of helping without actually doing anything that improves the experience for your healers.

Being able to pop the buff in the middle of a fight when the team is getting chewed up would be significantly more beneficial, but not at the cost of the Dancer's DPS. The only time where it would be worth the sacrifice is if you'd otherwise wipe as a result. Those kind of wipes only occur when the healers are struggling to stay alive and thus cannot keep up with keeping the team healthy, which are honestly quite rare. Wipes are more commonly caused by not enough people knowing mechanics and you either fail a DPS check, or not enough people are surviving mechanics for it to matter anyway. As long as one healer is staying alive, this problem isn't that prominent, and even when both have been revived, it's still not necessarily wipe material.

It just doesn't feel great to have an action, especially a level 80 capstone action, be designated for such niche circumstances and to be used as fluff between a pause in a raid that doesn't really feel like it's helping you keep your momentum. Dancer just doesn't really have a need for this and it feels superfluous.

What if Improvisation was changed to augment your next Standard Finish or Technical Finish? Here's a random example:

Improvisation - Cooldown is 180 seconds.
Grants the user Improvisation for 20 seconds.
If Standard Step is used, Improvisation is consumed and all enemies hit by Standard Finish will have their damage output decreased by 10% for 8 seconds.
If Technical Step is used, Improvisation is consumed and all allies affected by Technical Finish will receive an 80 Potency HoT for 15 seconds.

This is just an example of what I mean, but you get the point--have Improvisation be an augment of your next dance to provide some kind of utility or survivability aspect. It would be far more usable than the current Improvisation and feel satisfying.

I always did figure that with a name like that, it would affect the Steps in some fashion (like if we're taking literally, being able to use any combination of steps for the full effect)

Love that "improvisation" only has value in very specific cases... SE be trolling

Its a really dissapointing skill indeed. I like dnc a lot and u obviously dont expect your 80lvl skill to be that bad. I would this to change as well

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Originally Posted by Rakith

I know boss jump is the only occasion you can use it to gain esprit... But it's an ability you ll never use in dungeons for instance unlike any other job...

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There are a few classes with skills that never get used in dungeons. You don't use meditate on SAM in dungeons or Anatman on monks in dungeons (you'll never use six sided star either generally speaking)

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

There are a few classes with skills that never get used in dungeons. You don't use meditate on SAM in dungeons or Anatman on monks in dungeons (you'll never use six sided star either generally speaking)

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I don't really believe this is a good arguement, to be honest. Job design shouldn't have "empty" tools that you largely ignore and resort to when there's nothing better to do. I think there's a small value in having a tool like Anatman on Monk not because it's largely useful, but because it's used to avoid losing Greased Lightning in most fights where there's a break in combat mainly because it feels awful to be forced to lose your stacks simply because the game says so.

The thing is, we could also just, ya know... rework Monk so that this isn't an issue. And then when you look at something like Improvisation, you don't even have a reason to use it in a similar vein. There's nothing Dancer really needs to worry about other thank losing Flourish procs which aren't nearly as big a deal as Greased Lightning. (I mean, you could theoretically use Flourish right before the boss disappears and be screwed there, but you could also just learn the boss's timing and not use it then.) So where Anatman at least is a situation where you're avoiding a problem, Improvisation is just there. Yes, it does help you, but it just feels so inconsequential, and I don't that's an example of good combat design.

Now I love dancer and think almost everything else about it is perfect, but I do think this should be reworked come 6.0. Saying that "well there are other actions players don't use" isn't an argument for leaving it be. If anything it should be a wake up call that those other actions should be revisited.