DNC Analysis for 6.0/6.05

So Dancer is one of my favorite Final Fantasy jobs in the series. For me, there's something about jobs like Dancer, Bard, Gambler, etc. that fight with entertaining methods has always just been interesting for me, and I was really excited to see it in Shadowbringers and main the job.

As a whole, I really enjoyed Dancer and felt like it had a lot of room to grow, so how well does it accomplish this transitioning into Endwalker?

The Changes
Not much changed with Dancer's existing tools in functionality, but there are a couple things that I think are worth noting:
1. DNC's proc'ed weaponskills now share a resource between single target and AoE. Cascade, for example, now procs both Reverse Cascade and Rising Windmill and you choose one or the other. These procs now last 30 seconds instead of 20.
2. Weaponskills now grant Esprit making Saber Dance more consistent.
3. As mentioned in one of the live letters, there were some damage formula changes that altered a lot of potencies for all jobs, but the damage potency on both Standard and Technical Step was dropped pretty significantly.
4. Improvisation was reworked into a channeled regen with a follow up max HP% barrier based on how long the ability was channeled for.

The first of these changes was likely an attempt to address probably Dancer's biggest performance issue in ShB. During burst windows, you could generate so much Esprit from your party and thus were obligated to use so many Saber Dances on your GCDs that you could time out one or some of your proc'ed weaponskills and lose out on them. You technically were getting more damage, but it never felt great to see that Rising Windmill go unused knowing you could've gotten an extra feather perhaps. Now, you have half as many procs to use and they last longer.

The consistent stream of Esprit is a really nice touch that makes Saber Dance a more prominent tool less dependent on luck to obtain. The new Improvisation is nothing special really, but a nice change from what it used to be. I feel like it's awkward that it's still a channel and don't really understand why DNC needs to have that, but now it feels like it has a much clearer use as a form of utility that you can double weave between GCDs.

The changes to the procs was the thing I was most skeptical about going into things as it halves the effectiveness of Flourish as an action before going into 81-90 content. I get the idea here, but simply increasing the duration of the procs to 30 seconds was probably enough to eliminate that issue, and I'm a little sad that Rising Windmill and Bloodshower are no longer always relevant buttons.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I kind of hate this departmentalized separation of single target and AoE tools--that so many jobs have handfuls of buttons that are largely just for trash mobs and rarely anything else. I much prefer when we have useful tools that just happen to be AoE.

Having said that, this change also gives DNC a touch of fluidity when transitioning from single target to AoE or vice versa. If your Windmill ends up killing one of the two remaining dungeon trash, you can follow up with Reverse Cascade for a bit of extra damage, though this is an incredibly small QoL aspect.

As a whole, though, I feel like DNC has become slightly less fun at level 80 and under, which is really sad for me because I love a lot of level 80 content, and the less satisfying Flourish does feel noticeable for me. I also really liked that the old Flourish made me think about my position on the battlefield more, since I'd need to be close to the enemy for my AoE procs to land. This is rectified after level 80, but it's still a bit of a shame.

What's New?
Dancer received several new actions starting at level 80 and going up to 90 and they are as follows:
1. At level 80, Improvised Finish is that AoE max HP % barrier. It is not set to the hotbar and replaces Improvisation while it's being used and must be activated before Improvisation is canceled.
2. At level 82, Tilana, 1.5 second GCD that combos out of Technical Step/Finish. It is not set to the hotbar and replaces Technical Step for a single use. It reapplies Standard Step buffs to yourself and your Dance Partner
3. At level 86, Fan Dance IV, a point-blank cone AoE OGCD that combos after Flourish is used. It is set as a different action on the hotbar.
4. At level 90, Starfall Dance, a powerful line AoE GCD that combos after Devilment is used. It is set as a different action on the hotbar.

Can you pick up on the reoccurring theme here? Everything new can only be used after a specific other action has been taken and cannot be used in any other way.

Essentially, Tilana, Fan Dance IV, and Starfall Dance act as new elements to spice up the DNC's burst window, giving us more different actions to work with each with their own unique eccentricities. Tilana is a short GCD, Fan Dance IV is a cone AoE, and Starfall Dance is a line AoE. These elements make the burst feel a little more exciting and restore some of that focus on your position on the battlefield that was lost with Rising Windmill and Bloodshower.

Overview
I'd say that as a whole, DNC is still largely around the same place it was in terms of its playstyle. It's got a fun burst at level 90, but its transitional periods are still pretty slow and uneventful as we focus on saving resources for the next burst phase. The added Esprit generation on weaponskills does help this very slightly.

While I don't think DNC is necessarily in a bad place as far as gameplay is concerned (we can talk about damage output later), there are a few things that I find very odd.

First, all of these new tools being restricted the way they are feels a little needless, and it's odd that Improvised Finish and Tilana replace the buttons they combo from, but Fan Dance IV and Starfall Dance don't. DNC is not suffering from a bloat issue, but it's just a little odd.

As for how the new actions flow, it feels like we moved around the furniture only to recreate the same layout at a different angle, if that makes sense. We took away half of Flourish's procs and any feathers they may have generated for 3 new actions to perform only during your burst phase (with the exception of Fan Dance IV which gets a second use halfway to your next burst phase). I'm not really opposed to this on concept, but I don't like that burst engagement was taken out of level 80 only to push it even farther up the level tree.

Something I didn't bring up yet that could be argued as an issue for DNC is how dull the job can be at low levels. The bulk of what made DNC fun and entertaining at higher levels wasn't introduced until level 70 and up, and now that situation has only been exacerbated, even if only slightly.

One other small note is that I have absolutely no idea why they made Tilana reapply your Standard Step buff. I mean don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing or creating some kind of problem, but it feels superfluous.

Lastly, there is the hot topic of damage output. Even with buffs included, DNC seems alarmingly behind the rest of the DPS at the moment and really could've used even just some emergency potency buffs like what DRG got.

Future Suggestions
I imagine Dancer will likely not see any sort of substantial gameplay changes throughout EW as it doesn't need to be reworked or anything. Potency upgrades seem to be the most significant thing right now, perhaps restoring some power back into Standard Step and Technical Step? Having said that, there are a few small things I think would be nice to see over the course of the expansion, and a few key thoughts for where to go beyond that.

1. I'd like to see DNC get a bit of that SMN/MNK treatment in regards to introducing some of its key buttons at an earlier level. Some ideas:
- Add in Sword Dance at level 30, a weaker version of Saber Dance and introduce Esprit generation much earlier. If the potency were something like 300, the same as Fountainfall, it would still be useful while not really adding that much extra damage.
- Lower Flourish down to level 50. Since it lost half its procs and the feather potential from those procs, Flourish really doesn't feel like it belongs up at level 72 still. if need be, you could also increase the cooldown to 90 or 120 seconds and have that lower down to 60 at 72 with a trait.
- Lower Fan Dance IV down to 72 since it's basically the replacement of the lost two procs from Flourish.

2. Perhaps Starfall Dance's damage could be lowered, but gains a 50% chance to proc off Saber Dance as well as being granted by Devilment?

3. This one's more of a long-term thing, but with Tilana granting the effects of Standard Step again, I feel like there's a clear opportunity to one day add in an a different 2-Step action that shares a recast timer with Standard Step, but its effect is different and does not grant the effects of Standard Step. The buff currently lasts 60 seconds, and Standard Step is every 30 seconds. We have plenty of room to alternate between Standard and some other kind of dance, and then use Tilana to give us 2 back-to-back alternate dances.

Final Thoughts
I really enjoy DNC and think it's had a really solid foundation for a kit, but has just been wanting just a bit more oomph in places. I'm a little disappointed that Endwalker didn't really 'level up' DNC's gameplay that much outside of cleaning up the burst phase and making it a little more active, and still think it suffers from being so heavily back-loaded in levels.

I definitely feel like it can improve a lot over the course of EW, damage numbers included, and I hope the future after EW tries expanding on DNC's gameplay moreso than we did this time around.

I would trade any support tools to be just a pure damage DNC.

But that's just me.

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

I would trade any support tools to be just a pure damage DNC.

But that's just me.

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We already have MCH for that. I'd argue dancer's utility is pretty heavily ingrained in its identity, and if we were to change that, we'd be losing a very unique role in exchange for something we already have in several jobs that have little-to-no utility.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

We already have MCH for that. I'd argue dancer's utility is pretty heavily ingrained in its identity, and if we were to change that, we'd be losing a very unique role in exchange for something we already have in several jobs that have little-to-no utility.

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As I said. That's just me. I don't find MCH aesthetically pleasing or even it's gameplay very fun.

Also when I play DNC I don't think about, how am I helping the party. It barely registers in my mind. I'm always thinking, am I in range for my Dances to not miss. How should I get the most out of my dance buffs and oGCD buffs to get the most out of my damage.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

1. At level 80, Improvised Finish is that AoE max HP % barrier. It is not set to the hotbar and replaces Improvisation while it's being used and must be activated before Improvisation is canceled.
2. At level 82, Tilana, 1.5 second GCD that combos out of Technical Step/Finish. It is not set to the hotbar and replaces Technical Step for a single use. It reapplies Standard Step buffs to yourself and your Dance Partner
3. At level 86, Fan Dance IV, a point-blank cone AoE OGCD that combos after Flourish is used. It is set as a different action on the hotbar.
4. At level 90, Starfall Dance, a powerful line AoE GCD that combos after Devilment is used. It is set as a different action on the hotbar.

Can you pick up on the reoccurring theme here? Everything new can only be used after a specific other action has been taken and cannot be used in any other way.

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Can't agree more, that this is beyond lazy design.
With Tilana, I wonder if there was some original intent for swapping dance partners during fight, which was ultimately scrapped.

FDIV and Starfall Dance absolutely should just replace flourish and devilment when you press them. Immediate (read: do it today) fixes to DNC's pathetic dps (getting beat by over 10% by Bard. Bard's personal dps is leagues higher and it's party buff dps is almost identical) include 1) making starfall dance actually gain some form of buff from devilment, seeing as how it literally is only usable during devilment and is consuming a GCD during devilment where another GCD ability could actually gain the benefit of devilment, but you are forced to use SFD during this window, 2) boost standard finish potency by a LOT. Standard finish is so weak that it's not worth using over basic weaponskills on 3 targets. It makes up a large portion of our damage, sure, but its potency compared to other job's skills of similar cooldowns is not good. 3) Rip improvisation out and add some other level 80 ability that does damage. Improv is so pathetically weak that it likely does less healing over the course of an encounter than your passive regeneration does. It is almost never used as designed (15 second channel for a 10% hp shield), because fights aren't designed so that it can be used. An oGCD 100 potency HoT isn't "bad" on paper, but it doesn't do anything in actual gameplay simply because of its design. For it to be the lvl 80 capstone ability of the expansion that brought the job into the game is just disappointing. Imagine if redmage's lvl 70 ability in Stormblood were Vercure.

I think upping the chance to get Flourishing Flow / Symmetry and of getting a Foretold Feather from 50% to 75% would also do wonders for the neutral gameplay between burst windows.

Dancer does not have enough utility, nor is utility even *generally* useful enough in FFXIV encounter design, to warrant it's damage output being so low. I don't know if SE intentionally is taxing the job so hard for having what, curing waltz?, or if they simply ran out of time with the physical potency / weapon rebalancing going into EW, and just missed the mark so hard. 6.1 really, really, really needs to be the patch of the dancer, because as fun and pleasing as the job is to play and look at, it has never actually been a very good performer. It can clear, and if you're a solid player you're not weighing your team down, but that shouldn't be the taste left in your mouth.

I like the concept of Improvisation but the execution is just bad, really really bad. The time/risk vs reward just isn't there. I have to stand still for 12s just to give a minor regen and barrier to a small AoE area. Not going to happen in a fight.

Maybe if it gave the party a dps buff, maybe if it added Fourfold Feathers, maybe if it charged up Espirit. Maybe...but no, it does none of those things and is a really dead on arrival.

Tillana, I get it. It give you a nice 1 2 combo so I'm fine with that.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

I like the concept of Improvisation but the execution is just bad, really really bad. The time/risk vs reward just isn't there. I have to stand still for 12s just to give a minor regen and barrier to a small AoE area. Not going to happen in a fight.

Maybe if it gave the party a dps buff, maybe if it added Fourfold Feathers, maybe if it charged up Espirit. Maybe...but no, it does none of those things and is a really dead on arrival.

Tillana, I get it. It give you a nice 1 2 combo so I'm fine with that.

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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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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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Yea, but the point of a channel ability is to balance risk with reward. It you gave this to say a BLM, the mage would standstill charging the spell for more potency at the risk of damage and requiring healer to keep him alive. The reward of that effort would be a powerful DPS spell. Along that grain DNC is a DPS so it's main focus is DPS, be it pure dps skills or a dps buff to other players.

Passively Improvisation should grant either Regen or Barrier in that AoE area to help other and help keep the DNC alive during charging. The charged Improve could be used to improve Devilment, add Featherfold, or charge epsirit.
On the flip side you could have the AoE zone grant players a Damage buff while DNC charges up Improve Regen/Barrier.

My point is it needs a better reward for the risk/time of standstill with none personal dps output. Basically DPS lose vs Healing benefit isn't going to work, at least in my opinion.

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?

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.

One thing to note, is that to me, Fan Dance IV seems kinda redundant with FD3... They both do nearly the same thing with small differences, but one looks way cooler than the other. I feel that FD3 should've just "evolved" into FD4 and allowed the action to accumulate 2 stacks.

Other than that, sans the much needed potency buffs, DNC seems to be really good in its EW design. Yes, it is similar to ShB, but I feel that not every job need a drastic element of change every single expansion. Perhaps 7.0 will actually add some heavy rotational increments to DNC?

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

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.

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Absolutely not. Dancer already has one of the widest swings from pull to pull among all jobs because of the nature of proc RNG. We do NOT need more proc RNG. We need flat number increases to finishes and our base weaponskills. Procs may be subjectively more fun to some players, but more of them does not fix the core issue.

Dancer feels so boring at lower levels. I really wish they put more thought into how the changes would affect the leveling experience. Not everyone is going to buy a jump potion and head straight to end game. Roulettes place you in low level dungeons and trials regularly. I wanna have fun in all content when I play a DPS. I expect to have an interesting rotation and as a healer main with one button DPS button for everything I get annoyed when I switch to DPS and still have to be bored out of my mind.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Dancer feels so boring at lower levels.

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It does, and even at higher levels. I was running one of the Nier raids last night and although Saber dance procs more often, the devilment windows felt empty with Flourish just granting 2 procs instead of 4. It felt like there wasn’t much to do at all. As it is, it is underwhelming.

Flourish should come before lvl 72 anyway.

I’ve just recently hit level 89 on my Dancer and I have to say that it’s been the least enjoyable class to level that I’ve done so far (others were Scholar, Bard, Sage). I know we get Tilana and Fan Dance IV, but since they’re both locked behind cool downs it doesn’t actually feel like I’ve gained anything new.
I do like that Fan Dance IV can require some repositioning to make best use of the aoe, but even then it doesn’t feel like it adds very much to the job besides another button to press.

Improvisation is more frustrating than fun because of how you’re only supposed to use it during downtime and the reward for full uptime is a really weak shield lol.

Also it still really depresses me to use Flourish during burst window just to remember that I only get two procs instead of four lol.

Yeah it’s weirdly implemented too at 89+
with Technical finish turning into Tillana yet devilment does not turn into Srarfall dance.

I also don’t like having needlessly two of each steps when I begin dancing with only one of them working once I have started a sequence. I got used to it but I’d rather have had windwill/bladeshower greyed out during that time.

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Originally Posted by Mysticunicycle

Absolutely not. Dancer already has one of the widest swings from pull to pull among all jobs because of the nature of proc RNG. We do NOT need more proc RNG. We need flat number increases to finishes and our base weaponskills. Procs may be subjectively more fun to some players, but more of them does not fix the core issue.

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SHB DNC I was constantly procing Fan Dance I off combos, but after EW went live, I suddenly noticed my Fan Dance I proc chances are so little to the point it feels like I have nothing but gcd weapon skills. Burst phase and opener is quite busy which makes the afterward rotation a bit boring, especially when I'm trying to fish for Fan Dance proc and got nothing I can weave.

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Originally Posted by Toutatis

Yeah it’s weirdly implemented too at 89+
with Technical finish turning into Tillana yet devilment does not turn into Srarfall dance.

I also don’t like having needlessly two of each steps when I begin dancing with only one of them working once I have started a sequence. I got used to it but I’d rather have had windwill/bladeshower greyed out during that time.

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Can Devilment and Starfall Dance be macro'd together to be one button?

Yes I know it isn't optimal but it just seems so unnecessary for it to be two buttons.

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Originally Posted by Brixy

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.

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Yea, some sort of bad luck protection would be nice. At least on cascade/windmill and fountain/bladeshower.

Perhaps some sort of hidden counter where if a flourishing thing doesn't proc after 2 or 3 tries, the next one is guaranteed, and the counter resets. This could help smooth out the droughts.

So i've determined that Tillana, Starfall Dance, and Fan Dance IV only exist to re-add the complexity to the burst window that was lost from old Flourish. That's what it feels like anyway.

If I would change things, i'd detach Fan Dance 4 from Flourish and simply make it an upgraded Fan Dance 3 that has a chance (or maybe guarantee) to proc on Saber Dance and Starfall Dance. I would also detach Starfall Dance from Devilment and just....i'm not sure. I just wanna use it more often because it looks neat. Maybe stick it to Flourish instead.

Tillana's fine where it is maybe, just needs a little extra. I'd love it to have another, different, buff it provides. More party support is good for dancer.

I'm not 100% about it, but these new abilities look really good and it's a shame we don't use them more often.

I love dancer, conceptually, i love having all these supportive abilities, to be able to buff the dps, help the healers, help the tanks (and also be able to hit like a mack truck once every now and then). They seem to want it to be all about the burst window as far as personal damage goes, and i'm not totally certain how i feel about that. I like a little more even spread.

Edit: Also give Improvisation a bigger radius.

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Originally Posted by Averax

So i've determined that Tillana, Starfall Dance, and Fan Dance IV only exist to re-add the complexity to the burst window that was lost from old Flourish. That's what it feels like anyway.

If I would change things, i'd detach Fan Dance 4 from Flourish and simply make it an upgraded Fan Dance 3 that has a chance (or maybe guarantee) to proc on Saber Dance and Starfall Dance. I would also detach Starfall Dance from Devilment and just....i'm not sure. I just wanna use it more often because it looks neat. Maybe stick it to Flourish instead.

Tillana's fine where it is maybe, just needs a little extra. I'd love it to have another, different, buff it provides. More party support is good for dancer.

I'm not 100% about it, but these new abilities look really good and it's a shame we don't use them more often.

I love dancer, conceptually, i love having all these supportive abilities, to be able to buff the dps, help the healers, help the tanks (and also be able to hit like a mack truck once every now and then). They seem to want it to be all about the burst window as far as personal damage goes, and i'm not totally certain how i feel about that. I like a little more even spread.

Edit: Also give Improvisation a bigger radius.

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What I think Tilana needs is an alternative to Standard Step that you'd choose instead, opting out of reapplying the buff in exchange for something different. Since Standard Step lasts 60 seconds, we can afford to choose something different on a shared cooldown already, and Tilana allows for the flexibility for that potential other dance to always be available during technical windows.

I'm not a huge fan of the DNC changes, but I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

The good:
Esprit generation. There's not much to say, this was a great change and using Saber Dance more feels good.

The meh:
Improvisation. Old Improvisation was terrible so it wasn't hard to do better, but the skill still feels annoying. The AoE regen is pretty good, but channeling the skill (which isn't always possible) for a weak 10% AoE shield is really bad.

The Bad:
Tillana, Fan Dance IV and Starfall Dance. Not a fan of all the new skills being locked behind other cooldowns (two of them behind 120s CDs). DNC suffers from a boring downtime during burst and the only thing that helps slightly with this is FD4 because of Flourish.

Flourish change. This was the "make or break" skill for me because DNC was very boring before obtaining this skill, but now it's just not as exciting anymore. I also liked the AoE procs which gave sense to DNC's hypermobility.

My suggestions:

- Give Fan Dance I and II a 50% chance to proc both Fan Dance III and IV. They are already coupled together by Flourish anyway and it feels weird to have Fan Dance IV so disconnected from the feather system. Additionally, make them combo together, so Fan Dance III -> Fan Dance IV
- Make the procs you get from Flourish guarantee Fan Dance I/II upon use
- Get rid of Improvised Finish and just make Improvisation a skill you can weave to get an AoE regen and a 10% damage mitigation
- Make Starfall Dance a skill that uses Esprit. Make it cost 50 esprit and give it a 60s cooldown.

Tillana feels weird as it looks like a skill that is supposed to do something but ultimately doesn't. Don't have a suggestion for it yet.

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Originally Posted by Toutatis

I also don’t like having needlessly two of each steps when I begin dancing

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They do this so you can have a single target bar and an AoE bar and not have to switch back to your single target bar during AoE so that you can Step. This is a major improvement from ShB; it's not "needless".

From what I gather, what I would like to see seems like an unpopular opinion among the dancer mains but here it goes anyways. I would want closed position to work like sage's kardia (in that casting it changes your partner to the selected target instead of needing to deselect the target first), maybe reduce its cooldown to something like 5 seconds and make the standard finish buff linger for a while afterwards (I think full duration might be too much and kind of go against the theme of single target buffer just due to its duration and the whole 2 minute burst focus of EW but somewhere around 5-10 seconds might be a good spot for it). I don't know whether the esprit generation buff should linger as well as you tend to gather a lot of it in the opener and would most likely annoy people due to overcap.

Dancer is refreshing standard step 3 times in the opener. In the meantime, I had so much fun with sage just changing partners with cardia to heal up other's mistakes (or even just raidwides in normal content), treating it just as the infinite HoT that it is.

But back to dancer, other than that,
1) I would like the improvised finish to be double weavable like any other ogcd or at least like double bloodletter on bard and
2) all those new skills are locked behind so many other abilities and they don't see much of a use. Maybe sabre dance could have a chance to proc FD4 for instance as it is fun imo to worry about being close to the boss at times in fights and you will have a gauge to cooldown ratio management to do. You had 3 dashes before to help with doing your aoe gcds in your burst, it's a bit of a shame to use fd4 this rarely now.

honestly the only thing it needs is potency buffs imo. The core design is really fun.

If I had to name a few things, I wish dance partner worked like sage's Kardia, where you just hit the button and it re-applies to a new target.
Perhaps a small tweak to some particle effects, so that the core moves are a bit more color coded to make it easier for newer players to remember where the dance buttons are, and make the aoe effect of dance a bit more clear on exactly how far it reaches.
uhh, more an evant I guess?

I personally don't want FD4 to be a proc off FD3 because being able to double weave all your procs in a single GCD is good to prevent help with overcapping. Starfall feels impactful enough that I don't feel like it needs to be used more at the cost of how strong it feels. Tilana is a fun tool for multi-DP openers for when the jobs are better balanced.
I also don't want the dance buffs to neither go nor get a lot stronger like some people ask. Forgoing the support is lame because machinist is right there for you to enjoy, and making them an even larger portion of your damage means it's now even harder to contribute when you join a party with really bad DPS.

Yeah, personally I just want potency buffs, please.

wat do? wat say?

Dancer doesn't need to do much damage at all, it contributes to the raids damage, so it doesn't need its own damage. I can imagine a dancer in an anime in the background just doing the two step while everyone else beats down the big bad, but at least the dancer is bringing the good vibes.

I think they really captured feel of the job.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

Dancer doesn't need to do much damage at all, it contributes to the raids damage, so it doesn't need its own damage. I can imagine a dancer in an anime in the background just doing the two step while everyone else beats down the big bad, but at least the dancer is bringing the good vibes.

I think they really captured feel of the job.

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DNC has historically had the lowest personal DPS out of any job in exchange for the highest contribution via buffs, but it still needs to be buffing the party to an extent that warrants bringing it over another ranged, and prior to this patch BRD was cleanly outdoing it even factoring all of its support.

It seems like MCH is going to be the one to suffer until 6.1 now, though.