Thoughts on Dancer as a Ranged DPS

[Kabooa]

"Bard needs to stop being mandatory!"

SE: "So Dancer's a Ranged DPS."

[Shurrikhan]

"Bard needs to stop being mandatory!"

SE: "So Dancer's a Ranged DPS."

Result: Four jobs left relatively unplayed, up from three?

[Baxcel]

"Bard needs to stop being mandatory!"

SE: "So Dancer\\'s a Ranged DPS."

They're removing the piercing/slashing/blunt up buffs from the game.. Bards and Dragoons are already going to be less required..

Honestly since they weren't going to make a healer.. This should of been the first physical magic DPS class

[Kalise]

They're removing the piercing/slashing/blunt up buffs from the game.. Bards and Dragoons are already going to be less required..

Removal of these debuffs won't make Bard less required. Since they were ubiquitous because of their buffs (Passive crit buff from songs, Battle Voice and role action Refresh) and their unique debuff Foe Requiem.

Dragoons were required because you generally always wanted a Bard or a Machinist in the party for Refresh. Both BRD and MCH deal piercing damage but only DRG provided the debuff that improved their damage.
Hypercharge for 5% vulnerability debuff)

If anything, removal of Piercing debuff from Dragoon actually hampers MCH more since with their higher personal damage output, it affected them more.

So, if DNC is going to be competing with BRD/MCH... It could lead to some potentially big issues.

Such as:

If DNC is going to be a support DPS like BRD... It will need some support buffs/debuffs.

The issue is, if they get the same stuff as BRD, then it'll be a matter of which one has the highest personal DPS = the new mandatory job.

If they get different stuff to BRD... Then you have the possibility of BOTH BRD and DNC being mantatory (Especially since you no longer feel required to drag a DRG with you for Piercing debuff) due to the increase of party DPS.

If DNC is not made into a support and is more of a raw damage dealer like MCH, then it's going to be stuck in the same spot as MCH trying to be justified while BRD improves party DPS which makes it more desirable.

The worrying thing is how quickly things can turn into a "mDPS are irrelevant" situation. Given that they have to deal with uptime and DPS losses from not being able to use positional skills. Which has lead to DRG and NIN being the 2 mainly used mDPS because of their Piercing and Vulnerability debuffs respectively. Like, if things started to become BRD/DNC/SMN/BLM as the new meta, I wouldn't be entirely surprised.

[Grimoire-M]

Dragoons were required...

I'm gonna hit ya back with the other thing that makes DRG required with BRD specifically. Crit. Rate. Boosts. Matter. Piercing was not the only component of their raid DPS. Dragon Sight and Battle Litany commonly both went on the Bard when they aligned. And when they align you also know that SCH's Chain Stratagem, MCH/SMN/RDM's raid buffs, and NIN's Trick Attack would line up as well, and Bard exploits all of that extremely well. Litany makes up more of DRG's total raid DPS contribution than people give it credit for. Both it and Piercing are comparable to Trick Attack than other raid buffs in the right composition.

That synergy is not dying unless Bard gets a static proc rate rework. And even then Monk and the general fact that crit stacking is exponential remains. I imagine DRG will need a personal DPS boost to make up for Piercing but they will 100% remain a strong melee contender at worst.


That aside, I'm hoping SE doesn't wind up making Dancer's utility equivalent to Bard's in value. Their rotation I'm sure will be distinct. This is the only thing that worries me.

[Hustensaft]

That synergy is not dying unless Bard gets a static proc rate rework. And even then Monk and the general fact that crit stacking is exponential remains. I imagine DRG will need a personal DPS boost to make up for Piercing but they will 100% remain a strong melee contender at worst.

Currently NIN is already (frequently) taken out in favour of other jobs with much higher personal DPS, and weaker (to no) group buffs (whatever your group doesn't currently take). Then you can ask why doesn't this happen for DRG and BRD?

Because their personal DPS is higher, and their support is universal. RDM is restricted to physical support, SMN only supports magical, and MNK also only supports physical. That's not only incredible hard to tune across raid setups, but also highly restrictive on raid setups. If you take DRG + BRD on the other hand, you get consistent DPS with 2 variable slots.

If you add DNCas another BRD (with unique, stackable buffs) into the equation, the jobs/slots most likely to be dropped are the restrictive ones (with no or magic support).

[Dyvid]

Currently NIN is already (frequently) taken out in favour of other jobs with much higher personal DPS, and weaker (to no) group buffs (whatever your group doesn't currently take). Then you can ask why doesn't this happen for DRG and BRD?

Because their personal DPS is higher, and their support is universal. RDM is restricted to physical support, SMN only supports magical, and MNK also only supports physical. That's not only incredible hard to tune across raid setups, but also highly restrictive on raid setups. If you take DRG + BRD on the other hand, you get consistent DPS with 2 variable slots.

If you add DNCas another BRD (with unique, stackable buffs) into the equation, the jobs/slots most likely to be dropped are the restrictive ones (with no or magic support).

So I'm going to take a step back and look at the big picture here. First we know TP is being removed from the game. Second, we know SE defines Physical Ranged DPS as: Physical ranged DPS attack foes from a distance. They excel at inflicting sustained damage, and also provide support for companions. Third we know SE felt the need to add a third Ranged DPS to balance out BRD and MCH.

Obviously the removal of TP is a big impact on Ranged, though 4.0 did muddy up what DPS role did what. 3.0 MCH and BRD restore TP/MP and buff/debuff to increase party DPS. 4.0 all Melee have Goad and all Caster have Mana Shift. MCH went more of a DPS route and SMN started to buff/debuff. I'm guessing 5.0 SE is going to do some tweaking in terms of defining what each DPS role in a party is with BRD, DNC, and MCH restoring resources / buffing the group. Caster will be debuff and burst damage, and melee would be split between straight DPS and DPS plus something.

[Grimoire-M]

Currently NIN is already (frequently) taken out in favour of other jobs with much higher personal DPS, and weaker (to no) group buffs (whatever your group doesn't currently take). Then you can ask why doesn't this happen for DRG and BRD?

To put it in context piercing for BRD alone is worth about 40% of DRG's total raid contribution. Litany equalled it in value almost irregardless of your comp. Dragon Sight tipped them over NIN in total raid DPS contribution. It's notable that TA only works on one target which lets DRG and many other DPS get ahead of NIN in raid contribution on fights like O12S M/F and O7S where multiple targets are common and damage has to be spread around to deal with them. If your DPS weren't multi-dotting on those fights they were doing something wrong. And NIN's personal DPS is actually the lowest of all classes at the moment, neck and neck with DRG. NIN/DRG/BRD/RDM are actually pretty close in personal contributions. Their raid contribution is what lets them get ahead at all right now, because the gap between them and SAM/BLM is covered by the contributions of TA, of which 3/4 of those classes can do that currently.

So, yes, DRG needs a personal DPS buff if piercing goes. Not a lot, mind you, just something to put them in the middle of the pack with Machinist. MCH apart from QoL is probably the most balanced class at the moment, which probably means they're the second worst after RDM, but that gap is big enough that they're workable once they get fixed.

RDM is struggling to get ahead of Bard and doesn't offer enough of a raid DPS boost to bring outside of prog or preference. If for some reason BRD doesn't have a DRG then they're better than BRD.

SMN needs Contagion with BLM to come to the level of DRG/NIN in raid contribution but without it they bring enough personal DPS to get by with Ifrit in most comps. They're by far the biggest outlier here and warrant either a personal DPS nerf or a raid contribution change.

MNK needs double ranged or triple melee to work but their raid buff is pathetic. It's all about their personal DPS when 6/8 of their group procs Brotherhood. They like BRD/DRG the most because of all the crit too, meaning the last DPS is probably MCH or NIN. They'll probably really enjoy being in a triple ranged comp next expansion if DRG doesn't get enough of a personal DPS boost to compensate for piercing.

SAM does not care who they have and can fit into weird comps like triple caster (or probably triple ranged next expansion) just fine thanks to their personal DPS, but they like raid buffs that actually work with them so SMN catering to the BLM makes them cry.