Dancer Flourish is badly designed and not actually enjoyable to use

[HyoMinPark]

99 players would have 99 impressions of a class, and if designed by themselves, probably many different “true” images of a class. But what would not do, is to have a cheapened image of the class due to accessibility reasons (cough AST cards, Bard songs) infringing upon the uniqueness and spirit of the class itself. A line has to be drawn.

How has DNC been “cheapened” in any way? Comparing it to BRD and AST is a flawed argument, because those jobs have existed in FFXIV for 6 years (BRD; not counting 1.0 since that game is its own thing) and 4 years (AST); and both had very well-established identities that were stripped away with the release of ShB (in terms of BRD, party support; in terms of AST, versatile card system and Time Mage aspects to the job). The neutering of BRD’s support, overhaul of AST’s card system, and the removal of AST’s Time Mage aspects did infringe upon the already existing design of the respective jobs. But DNC has never existed in FFXIV before—how is it being infringed upon? Please explain how you think the spirit of the job is being infringed upon?

And my bottom line is, at least for me, I am not very satisfied with the ... innate feeling, whole representation of this dancer combat design philosophy. Sure it matches up with the “support others in spirit” and all, but it just feels ... off, weak, neutered. It’s a bit extreme, but try to see what I’m trying to express here.

Your main point of contention here is Flourish optimization—which, again, is not hard to do. If you’re arguing that DNC’s gameplay as a whole is now flawed (“off, weak, neutered”), you’ve shifted the goalposts of your original argument.

Really, the only thing that may be considered weak about DNC is its personal damage and potencies (but this is the case with all three physical ranged right now). It’s sitting very comfortably at the bottom even in terms of rDPS (and its aDPS is quite abysmal). Not sure what the potential potency adjustments coming in 5.1 will do for it. At most, you could argue about feather/proc RNG. Personally, I have very little problems with feather/proc RNG at level cap, but it does feel particularly bad sub-72. (Which, Flourish helps mitigate proc RNG by force proccing all of your Flourished skills every 60 seconds, and it can semi-help mitigate feather RNG, since feathers only proc off of Flourished skills. Personally, I also really like the Flourish gives us a free reason to use Bloodshower and Rising Windmill even against a single-target; I thought that was neat.)

Including how some people mentioned dancer was dull without flourish, so dancer with flourish suddenly becomes un-dull? It sticks out like a sore thumb in how it’s “supposed” to add so much for the class.

It does become “un-dull” with Flourish. The skill gives you more buttons to press; pressing 1-2 and just waiting for a proc is very dull, so it’s nice for Flourish to actually give them to you automatically. And moving into melee range to land your two AOE Flourished skills is also something I personally find engaging, as it requires me to move my character instead of just turret-ing at range. I encourage you to spend weeks playing DNC in a Savage, or other optimized, level-cap setting; and then venture into UCoB or UwU and sync down to level 70. You will notice a very obvious “dullness” to the way it plays immediately—the opener is particularly painful, because you do your standard SF on pull > Technical set-up > and then no Flourish so you gotta do the good ol’ 1-2. Not even a Saber Dance to break up that great fun...

I still don’t know why you’re complaining about it “sticking out like a sore thumb”—it’s a basic skill that you use on cooldown every 60 seconds to guarantee 5 procs. Before utilization, you manage any existing procs you may have so as to not overwrite them—this is just a simple “pay attention to your procs” mechanic, much like you have to do with BRD in Minuet and Mage’s Ballad (especially the latter with Empyreal Arrow and Bloodletter), or even with RDM (since you don’t want to overwrite any Verstone or Verfire procs). If you have to delay Flourish by 1 GCD, it’s not the end of the world, and it will still continue to line up with future buff windows. The only time it will not is if you have screwed up your own buff windows, either by delaying Flourish or Technical Finish too long. Practice helps reduce the change of that occurring.

Flourish sticks out like a sore thumb TO YOU. Be sure to clarify that, because you’re making it sound as if that’s the case for a lot of other players, and I don’t see any evidence of that being the case. Your entire argument about how the job is beginner friendly/should be beginner friendly is bordering on synonymous with “please dumb this job down even more”—DNC is not hard to play; and if you’re having difficulties with it, practice your rotation is really all I can suggest to you.

I’m sorry, but I cannot agree with such a sentiment. I’d rather not another job lose an added layer of something simply because you seem to be having issues with a particular skill.

An extra layer, depth in the form of multilayer gauge could be one possible way to add depth and identity to the class.

It seems odd to me that you’re asking for Flourish to have more depth when your opening post was complaining about how hard it was to utilize/optimize.