Quote Originally Posted by Duelle View Post
Looking for input while trying to get this idea together. Barebones version for now:
I'll just go ahead and revise here as your edits come out except where necessary for clarification between different instances.

1. Love the shawl weapon idea. Personally, I was debating between chain-blades (with a cloth wrapped around most of the chain for that dancer aesthetic touch), segmented staves, and a couple other, similar choices. A weaver-made weapon is an outright fun idea.

2. The core premise seems solid, though I'd very much like to know the generation rate for your stacks.

3. Does Drain Samba convert (dps loss) or duplicate (what the game calls 'converting') damage as healing? Also, unless your doing some really extreme auto-attacks, this seems very underpowered.

4. Are any of these dance buffs party-wide?

5. If a DNC tank goes into combat with Animated Flourish faded and no stacks at the ready, is s/he screwed?

6. Graze aids eHP, but it does not itself supply overall mitigation. Even if DNC had the same Defense as other jobs, it would still be a heal-spunge. What does it actually have to make it a tank and not just a threat-holder?

7. What's its rotational flow?

8. Is Waltz a CD, a persistent effect...? Will there be any other Waltzes? Will be it be mutually exclusive with them?

9. Is Steel Wing oGCD or GCD?

10. Given the 20s CD on the Flourishes, we can quickly swap from one to the other, but must then stay in that 2nd flourish for the remainder of the first's 20-second CD?

11. Are the flourishes oGCD or GCD?

12. Deflective Sweeps seems easily pinched by rapid attacks. Either it takes a real TB and two autos or half an attack stream. There are certain instances it would probably excel in (e.g. Bahamut's Claw), but also many that would wreck it. I almost imagine that using half the mitigation but at specific attacks/timings of your choosing (think Lustrate?) would get more average mitigation, and might well feel a tiny bit more Dancer-like??

13. Enmity bonus/stance is no longer paired with an eHP increase, but is still exclusive with damage bonus/stance. Can enmity itself really be considered worth enough to have no additional benefit? Consider: Defiance -25%dps, +20%hr, +25%eHP, +100%enmity. Shield Oath -20%dps, +20%miti, +100% enmity. To me at least, enmity without being attached to a better-mitigating unit (or causing an overall improvement by holding said threat in raid damage taken vs. dealt) isn't tanking--just directing. For DNC to come out balanced without mitigation attached to its tanking stance would mean that even its OT stance has a significant mitigation. If that's the case, it would seem that its stance dancing would have nothing to do with incoming damage, but rather just maxing personal dps while keeping up with enmity needs, bereft of healer/tank synergy and probably getting far more out of Shadewalker and Quelling Strikes than any other tank (curse those Monks/DRGs).