Dance partners

[Wyti]

Well top parse for ANY job (yes including healers and tanks) have a dancer attached to it, because there is no way you can beat a permanent 5% buff by player skill alone.

Top parses are also meaningless to look at, as everything is done during the run to make one person shine and people takes turn being the one shining.

If what you want is optimal raid usage, giving your 5% to the highest dps is a safe bet, as his 5% would be a lot higher than the 5% of a DNC (who has one of the lowest personal dps to compensate for the highest utility).
You can maybe have a bit more optimization as some classes might benefit more from the other temporary buff and / or devilment and partnering a slightly lower dps might be better, but that's static and fight dependent.
When in doubt partner the highest dps.

[LadyKairi]

Well top parse for ANY job (yes including healers and tanks) have a dancer attached to it, because there is no way you can beat a permanent 5% buff by player skill alone.

Top parses are also meaningless to look at, as everything is done during the run to make one person shine and people takes turn being the one shining.

If what you want is optimal raid usage, giving your 5% to the highest dps is a safe bet, as his 5% would be a lot higher than the 5% of a DNC (who has one of the lowest personal dps to compensate for the highest utility).
You can maybe have a bit more optimization as some classes might benefit more from the other temporary buff and / or devilment and partnering a slightly lower dps might be better, but that's static and fight dependent.
When in doubt partner the highest dps.

I only ask because the standard step stacks with two dancers attached to each other, so I was told the dancers with stacked standard step is a greater gain than having one attached to highest dps and another job with utility. So what I’m told is even though dancers are the lowest dps, their stacked buff in addition to the other buffs makes up for it. I’m having a hard time believing it as technical step doesn’t stack, so one of them is going to lose out on dps having to hold back on using it, but does the ability to have the aoe buff longer serve to be more beneficial than bringing different dps in place of one of the dancers?

[YanderePrincess]

I only ask because the standard step stacks with two dancers attached to each other, so I was told the dancers with stacked standard step is a greater gain than having one attached to highest dps and another job with utility. So what I’m told is even though dancers are the lowest dps, their stacked buff in addition to the other buffs makes up for it. I’m having a hard time believing it as technical step doesn’t stack, so one of them is going to lose out on dps having to hold back on using it, but does the ability to have the aoe buff longer serve to be more beneficial than bringing different dps in place of one of the dancers?

Each Dancer is still only increasing someone's DPS by 5%. Increasing the lowest DPS by 5% is less effective than increases the highest DPS by 5%, especially if whatever you're bringing in place of the second dancer does more than 5% more dps than the Dancer. Having two Dancers, even if they're not partnering each other, also causes one of the Dancer's to do a little less DPS since they have to delay their first Devilment+Technical Finish (or at least the first Technical Finish) by ~20 seconds since it won't stack with the TF from the other Dancer.

[LadyKairi]

Each Dancer is still only increasing someone's DPS by 5%. Increasing the lowest DPS by 5% is less effective than increases the highest DPS by 5%, especially if whatever you're bringing in place of the second dancer does more than 5% more dps than the Dancer. Having two Dancers, even if they're not partnering each other, also causes one of the Dancer's to do a little less DPS since they have to delay their first Devilment+Technical Finish (or at least the first Technical Finish) by ~20 seconds since it won't stack with the TF from the other Dancer.

I mean yeah a single buff from standard step is 5%, but since two dancers can stack them wouldn’t it be more like 10% between the both of them? Say both of the dancers are not even pulling numbers they should be at bare minimum, the misconception I’m hearing is them feeding each other will make their dps significantly higher as well as benefit the party more over all. To the point where they “don’t need an LB”.

I did some log research and comparing the highest dancer parses that have a dancer feeding them to, say, a high parse for a samurai. Between the dps, the damage over all was more in the party with one dancer, because the samurai did so much damage. About 1-2k more than the double dancer group. Comparing top parses can be kinda inaccurate due to the amount of feeding going on, and the overall RNG, composition and skill of the group needs to be taken into consideration, but I’m more inclined to agree that choosing the highest dps as your partner is more of a benefit over all.

[Wyti]

I mean yeah a single buff from standard step is 5%, but since two dancers can stack them wouldn’t it be more like 10% between the both of them

Thing is, all DNC damage are already accounted with the 5% buff (or there are more pressing issue if as a DNC you don't partner someone) So this doubling should be seen as an extra 5% above what they already have with a single DNC, likewise with any other dps where you should compare their dps without a DNC.

So the question becomes, do your other DNC do more damage while alone (so partnered to someone but without another DNC) than the other dps in your group do without being partnered yet. If yes then in that case the other DNC is somehow the highest dps in the party and it would be an exception, but most likely someone will manage to outdps the DNC.

Also the penalty is more than just the LB, as was already mentioned than the technical finish of one of the 2 DNC must be used suboptimaly.

TLDR: 2 DNC is not that good, 2 DNC partnered with each other is worse (except if your goal is padding and not a fast kill)

[YanderePrincess]

I mean yeah a single buff from standard step is 5%, but since two dancers can stack them wouldn’t it be more like 10% between the both of them?

While yes, both Dancers are getting a 10% buff, that's not how it works out for the comparison. Because we're comparing 1 Dancer + Something Else with 2 Dancers, there's only one additional 5% buff, not two additional buffs, so it's only a 5% increase over not having the second Dancer.