Dancer Job

I know Dancers in past FF games have been labeled as a mix of multiple roles, ranging from support, to dps, to even tanking, but due to the nature of the roles in this game and how they are generally portrayed I would personally like to see them as evasion tanks with multiple buffs and dances they use in order to gracefully avoid attacks while retaliating and pissing off their attackers with their fantastic display of movement (AKA gaining threat).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5Lfb...outu.be&t=1m7s

Dancers in combat are seen gracefully striking their opponent while avoiding lethal blows. Going toe-to-toe with multiple opponents while coming out on top with style.

Multiple locations could be used as influence for the Dancer job, Costa Del Sol seems like a good spot for the quests to take place due to all the dancers in the area, possibly in one of those currently closed off tents as a hidden combat art.

Regardless of what role this job actually becomes in the end, I just hope to see it someday. It's always been my favorite job in the series. DPS, Healer, or Tank I'll play it either way.

Though if this game has an evasion tank one day, I feel Dancer would be a very good fit for it. (Though I might be a bit bias since I played Dancer as a tank in FF11 with very good results.)

I also believe they could be a Pugilist's tank branch perhaps (unless that is reserved for Puppetmaster in the future). Mainly due to their high evasion and light armor/weaponry. If not, then we'll have to wait until dagger classes are introduced to the game.

Here's an ability that could make them slip into the tanking role from pugilist fairly well when you first obtain the skill. Level 30 skill: Fan Dance.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fan_Dance

"Reduces physical damage taken and increases enmity. Physical damage reduction gradually decreases with each hit taken."

If they are able to implement skill into FF14's mechanics it would be perfect first ability to obtain at level 30.

I always kind of liked Penelo's dancing style with using a Bo. Using knives and cloth were really nifty ideas too in FFT. I wonder if it would be possible to make a class use cloth as a weapon and have it still lead into more than one job... hmm... looks like I'll be theorycrafting in my sleep some more haha.

Would be neat to see a Thief as a class that would branch into Ninja and Dancer as well. Then the NIN and DNC could swipe stuff too, just like real life! (The one time my friends convinced me to go to a club with them, one of the dancers swiped my wallet funny thinking of it like this now! haha)

Personally hoping for Healer dancer, just off the bias that Archer / Bard is dps.

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Originally Posted by Laiyenu

Personally hoping for Healer dancer, just off the bias that Archer / Bard is dps.

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Perhaps, but generally healers won't really work out well in close combat unless some dungeons and combat situations get sorted out since they are dagger users. Since bard is a melee/support, I wanted to see a tank/support.

Also what could take the spot of evasion tank save for a few other classes. This time around I think I would like to see ninja as a dps instead of a tank.

A dancer could be a great support class, a buff and debuff catapult of swinging hips , legs and arms.

AoE sleep -> for a short time only
Singel polka kick -> interrupts
break dance -> mute (why on earth could a break dance mute... :p )
classic dance -> enemy gets more damage
headbang -> enemy gets a accuracy debuff

Sure, a lot work to get it sorted. But i would love to find another game with a real support class. Such a class which LotrO had with the lore master in its early times. Migthy debuffs but low damage. (you could potenially debuff a mob into oblivion...)

I'd love it, it definatly needs to be an offshoot of Pugilist but more support than DPS, so Mantra will definatly have its uses.

All the dances should be Coeurl form finishers, and probably buff the party temporarily or something. I'd honestly hate for it to be a tank class :S

Lilisette <3
I just want DNC in general. It has always been one of my favorite jobs in FF alongside SMN and I played both in FFXI. I personally did prefer healing as DNC rather than attempting to tank, but I enjoyed the versatility to be able to do both at certain points.

Personally, I think Dancers as healers is a bit more interesting. Dodge tanks could probably be tied to a bunch of different concepts, but Dancer is about the only healer I could see working with DoW, and I would like seeing a healer in DoW and a tank in DoM, silly as it may be. That and I found the concept interesting, would give me a reason to level Pugilist too, since that's a likely place for the Dancer.

While I don't mind healer as well. I was hoping putting it in a somewhat offensive position would mean we actually get to see dancer fighting gracefully while avoiding attacks in close ranged as it's portrayed in cut scenes and such.

If they can make a close ranged healer, that's awesome, but if they are just going to stand in the back row dancing, might as well be like any other healer. They would have to make it interesting, seeing as they use either daggers (or fist weapons if they are pugilists) it doesn't seem like a very back row based weapon.

Making a close ranged healer would be tough due the the need to dodge AOE damage while keeping tanks alive, but if they can figure out a system where dancers do instant cast heals instead of casting ones like other healers, it could very well work as they can move around, attack, and buff and heal party members while fighting up close with the enemy.

A close ranged and agile healer sounds like a really fast paced and fun experience. I just hope they could pull it off right with this games mechanics.

And now you get why I want it. Dancer's in XI were, from what I gathered, a TP-based healer, which put them close-range. If they have to mix combat with the dancing, preferably with several aggro removal things (punching and healing (or stabbing) is liable to get enemy attention often), personally it sounds like a lot of fun. If they just have a backrow dance to heal kind of thing though, it would be pretty boring, and I wouldn't be in favor of that.

The only concern is making a viable healer when it isn't the main class. If they tweak Monk enough then maybe it'd be fine, but it's hard to see with just a little tweaks. We'll need to see how second Jobs go overall.

I am feeling the DNC as a tank for XIV. Being a distraction has always called for some "flare" and what is a tank but a giant distraction for the mob so everyone else can do their jobs? I am feeling an Evasive/Counter Stricking Tank all the way for DNC in XIV ^^

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Originally Posted by Maku

I am feeling the DNC as a tank for XIV. Being a distraction has always called for some "flare" and what is a tank but a giant distraction for the mob so everyone else can do their jobs? I am feeling an Evasive/Counter Stricking Tank all the way for DNC in XIV ^^

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Well at least i'm seeing one similar mindset, I want a graceful tank. It's not seen much in games, and I feel it would fit an evasion tank as well.

I was originally hoping bard was going to be a healer. That way bard and dancers could go well together not only thematically but in actuality as well. Bard plays some healing tunes for the dancer while the dancer goes toe to toe with enemies with style, unfortunately ithey oddly picked it to be a dps class.

Healers work well though, in actuality it can be anything. In FFXI it could be a tank, it could be a support, and it can even be a damage dealing based class.

Th Lalafell emote "dance" now boost the team power by 2

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

In FFXI it could be a tank, it could be a support, and it can even be a damage dealing based class.

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I definitely like the idea of it being an evasion tank, since I don't see the lore of NIN fitting in the world so easily, I really loved playing DNC in FFXI I would put my DNC right up there as being as evasive as my THF (of course my THF was still better at evading and that's without shadows from NIN since I started to sub DNC), but DNC with NIN sub was great at tanking imo, plus I saved my bf's butt a lot with the heals when he would do soul eater.

Plus I'm just a big fan of dance animations and wanna see those in XIV.

I really like the concept of dancer as tank too. There's a song by Sting (the night the pugilist learned to dance) that just paints such a great story for it.

Coincidentally, if you want to make dancer a healer, I would recommend making it a TP-based dps leech healer. The basic mechanic is that the player gains a stack of a certain buff every time they total a certain amount of damage. Players then gain a skill that lets them spend those stacks as a heal. So essentially, this boils it down to the more damage you deal, the better your heals will be. This will of course make the class a very bursty heal (in more ways than one) by design.

Unfortunately, there's some major balancing issues with this idea. First, the monk combo is already difficult to use because of the combo chain and positioning. If you have to add the fact the same player has to watch the party's hp bar and the enemy's status bar to maximize heals, it can be quite overwhelming. It is also difficult to say how the healing and dps will be balanced after testing, as I'm certain the possibility of a tanky dps healer will most certainly be considered with the above mechanic. It'll be a challenge to make it viable but not overpowered.

Here's a link to my Thief class that branches in Assassin job (kind of like a ninja DPS specced, I guess). I could easily see Dancer becoming a tank or healer out of some of those abilities. It would need to be tweaked of course, but they could do something like a link between dancer and a single target, or stance it out for group and single target, and have that target get healed for 300% of the damage the DNC is doing?

I dunno, I like this theorycrafting for new jobs and classes though!

Why do people keep trying to make THF a class? It doesn't deserve to be downgraded.

I'd love to see Dancer added as job.
The idea of implementing it as tank is not bad but I think I'd still prefer the supporter role.

Bard, for me, is not a real support job and getting a job that can boost attack/spell speed, evasion, critical strike chance, HP regeneration,... would be fun to play.

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Originally Posted by Kyana

I'd love to see Dancer added as job.
The idea of implementing it as tank is not bad but I think I'd still prefer the supporter role.

Bard, for me, is not a real support job and getting a job that can boost attack/spell speed, evasion, critical strike chance, HP regeneration,... would be fun to play.

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A lot of people think this but it simply can't happen. SE won't break the Duty Finder Healer, Tank, DPSx2 set up to add in a pure support class.

I like the thought of healer myself. Make it focus on Dex (smoother dances = better healing) and have it fill in the missing HOT niche. If its a tank then evasion would probably not be the best way to go as one moment of bad luck would drop you. Active mitigation would be better, hit this dance to make threat and this one to reduce damage and what not so you don't end up with a dancer in plate mail.

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Originally Posted by Maku

A lot of people think this but it simply can't happen. SE won't break the Duty Finder Healer, Tank, DPSx2 set up to add in a pure support class.

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We could mix it a bit, so SE doesn't has to change this setup. :)
What if...
- a dancer is an indirect healer? (shielding, strong debuffs connected tank<-> boss for example)
- a dancer motivates his group to regenerate HP (LotrO minstrel)
- a dancer can distract enemies
- a dance is a jack of all trades :cool: (just kidding!)
- a dancer can strengthen the whole parties attack

He for sure has to be "bad" at other parts.
- lowest HP pool
- mediocre attack value

I'd really like to see dancer be implemented into FFXIV. My favorite class within the series for sure.

I've been working on a writeup for the DNC that draws it out of THF (THF branches into NIN for DPS and DNC for healer). It doesn't really use much of what the THF gets (similar to how SCH doesn't really use much of ACN), aside from the gimmick resource idea (similar to how SCH uses Aetherflow; ability Pilfer is an off-GCD attack that provides the "Ill-gotten Gains" buff that stacks up; there's also a trait that, whenever you score a crit, you get 1 stack of Ill-gotten Gains; it's consumed for attacks like Gil Toss which gets turned into a potency 200 heal when you're a DNC).

The abilities I gave the DNC itself were relatively streamlined:

Faerie Waltz: AoE heal, potency 350, consumes TP
Kiss-kiss: Cleanse, consumes TP
Jitterbug: Increase spell and skill speed of you and all allies within 20y by 50%, 15 second duration, 60 sec CD, off-GCD
Tango Finale: cure potency 400, heal over time cure potency 50 for 18 seconds, consumes TP
Sword Dance: attack potency 300, 15 sec CD, consumes TP, grants Ill-gotten Gains

The assumption I operated off of was that either Cure or Physick would be taken as a "necessary" additional (just like the devs assume that WAR is *going* to take a bunch of surv CDs and Provoke as additionals). Maintenance healing, driven by the use of Cure and free healing through Gil Toss, would be mp based whereas burst and AoE healing would be TP based, essentially forcing the DNC to balance both resources which focus on different aspects of their healing.

The set up would provide all of the things that a healer job requires: an AoE heal (Faerie Waltz), an efficiency heal (Cure/Physick), a strong heal (Tango Finale), a fast heal (Gil Toss), and a cleanse (Kiss-kiss). It would start off without much, just like SCH, but it would grow into its entire suite (I figure Sword Dance at 45 and Jitterbug at 50, or vice versa, with the explicit heal functionality abilities gotten asap)

Kiss-kiss could feasibly be done way with if Esuna were one of the additionals given to DNC, which would open up another ability which I could see as an ability like Mage's Ballad that heals, instead (i.e. drastically increasing the baseline regeneration rate, turning it into a pseudo-percentage based heal) or debuffs the enemy. Another option would be a different Ill-gotten Gains consumer that returns some quantity of TP and MP (not explicitly *necessary* since you'd have the whole "2 resource pools* thing, but it might be required to maintain the mp pool).