Dancer 6.0 Speculation

[Crushnight]

Definitely would be nice to see more options behind Esprit, but the trick ultimately is about making something that has a viable use. We're a pretty aggressive community of min/maxers when it comes to end game content, so we would need some kind of damage to come out of Esprit that wouldn't just usurp Sabre Dance. If I'm getting "Not Sabre Dance," then what exactly is going to encourage me to use that and Sabre Dance at different points in the fight. It can be tricky to get the right balance between the actions, and if the option option isn't damage, it would need to have some pretty powerful form of utility that would outperform the Sabre Dance.

Single target Sabre Dance essentially 800 potency 50 espirit nuke and viola Sabre is for 2 or more targets , new skill is for single target bosses, if give new skill a buff where next Sabre is 850 potency base for 1st target that lasts 60s then both skills will be used regularly in a raid fight.

[Jirah]

Playing Dancer It feels too easy, givin the room for error is way to large with the dance steps and the finish buff being 60 second. Its also boring as hell for many many levels until you get flourish or Technic step. But Supporting for it is fun and unique choosing a Mate for close position and raining on all ur support onto them with Finish, Devilment, waltz ect

My issues with Dancer as not only its difficulty as a mindless job but gives me MCH 4.0 Flashbacks of spamming 1 attack praying for RNG to give u a proc, While MCH has 2 skills at that time that guaranteed it being reload (15) and quick reload (30) DNC has only flourish a 60 second CD which results in...well i hope ur a fan of ciara cuz youll do alot of 1-2 Step until flourish procs

DNC desperately needs a other layer of depth, appreciate it if its sooner in the progression rather than 81+ as the core of DNC doesnt change much if at all for 10 levels at a time. But a good start is to do something with Bland ass Shield samba, aka the ranged role action.

[Rai_Takara]

Playing Dancer It feels too easy, givin the room for error is way to large with the dance steps and the finish buff being 60 second. Its also boring as hell for many many levels until you get flourish or Technic step. But Supporting for it is fun and unique choosing a Mate for close position and raining on all ur support onto them with Finish, Devilment, waltz ect

My issues with Dancer as not only its difficulty as a mindless job but gives me MCH 4.0 Flashbacks of spamming 1 attack praying for RNG to give u a proc, While MCH has 2 skills at that time that guaranteed it being reload (15) and quick reload (30) DNC has only flourish a 60 second CD which results in...well i hope ur a fan of ciara cuz youll do alot of 1-2 Step until flourish procs

DNC desperately needs a other layer of depth, appreciate it if its sooner in the progression rather than 81+ as the core of DNC doesnt change much if at all for 10 levels at a time. But a good start is to do something with Bland ass Shield samba, aka the ranged role action.

There is depth for Dancer, about on par, if not more than the other ranged in optimized play. There's a lot of nuance, much like other jobs, but it is definitely an easy job to pickup. The problem is, it's also RNG dependent, so even if you do everything right, having better RNG will win, always, unless you play right AND have better RNG.

[Jirah]

There is depth for Dancer, about on par, if not more than the other ranged in optimized play. There's a lot of nuance, much like other jobs, but it is definitely an easy job to pickup. The problem is, it's also RNG dependent, so even if you do everything right, having better RNG will win, always, unless you play right AND have better RNG.

I wouldnt say its on par with BRD and saying it has more depth than MCH really isnt saying much. But what are these nuances? Ive leveled my alt to 80 as DNC and it feels very one note even more so if your running solo supporting as a DNC is neat which puts it above BRD automatic nature

[Rai_Takara]

I wouldnt say its on par with BRD and saying it has more depth than MCH really isnt saying much. But what are these nuances? Ive leveled my alt to 80 as DNC and it feels very one note even more so if your running solo supporting as a DNC is neat which puts it above BRD automatic nature

Most of it, naturally, comes with optimizations with your fellow party members. Syncing your buffs up with your partner to the GCD, dumping resources into raid buffs, prioritizing the right GCD (whether saber, proc, combo), weaving improv, maximizing curing on party, and so on. It shares a bit with BRD but for the most part BRD can ignore what other people are doing and just focus on proc RNG while rotating songs, which is similar to standard refreshes. However, since BRD is an 80 job and RNG on when it has resources it kinda ignores the party and does its own thing which takes away from the depth. MCH of course falls into that trap but it also doesn't help that it's a simple combo system so no variation whatsoever.

DNC has a high skill floor so it's hard to really do terrible on dancer and playing with parties that don't optimize means it can feel very boring, especially if there are no other buff jobs to throw resources into. But start bringing in optimized groups and buff jobs and all of a sudden DNC becomes a lot more fun with increased decision making and depth. On average, this would put it about on par imo, but with potential to have more depth the more you optimize.

[Jirah]

Most of it, naturally, comes with optimizations with your fellow party members. Syncing your buffs up with your partner to the GCD, dumping resources into raid buffs, prioritizing the right GCD (whether saber, proc, combo), weaving improv, maximizing curing on party, and so on. It shares a bit with BRD but for the most part BRD can ignore what other people are doing and just focus on proc RNG while rotating songs, which is similar to standard refreshes. However, since BRD is an 80 job and RNG on when it has resources it kinda ignores the party and does its own thing which takes away from the depth. MCH of course falls into that trap but it also doesn't help that it's a simple combo system so no variation whatsoever.

DNC has a high skill floor so it's hard to really do terrible on dancer and playing with parties that don't optimize means it can feel very boring, especially if there are no other buff jobs to throw resources into. But start bringing in optimized groups and buff jobs and all of a sudden DNC becomes a lot more fun with increased decision making and depth. On average, this would put it about on par imo, but with potential to have more depth the more you optimize.

....I feel your drawing straws on most of this, i mean maximixing curing on party? DNC isnt a healer. But ill give you the Optimizing part if abit token as ive never optimized but also never really had issues with the content DPS wise but i dont think thats dancer fault.

[Rai_Takara]

....I feel your drawing straws on most of this, i mean maximixing curing on party? DNC isnt a healer. But ill give you the Optimizing part if abit token as ive never optimized but also never really had issues with the content DPS wise but i dont think thats dancer fault.

If it saves a healer a GCD, then it's a gain. In high end optimizations, curing optimization is planned to the point that not using it will wipe the party. While DNC isn't a healer, it still has healing and mitigation tools like one and should use it. But like I said, if the group isn't optimizing, then it doesn't matter and the depth vanishes.

[Jirah]

If it saves a healer a GCD, then it's a gain. In high end optimizations, curing optimization is planned to the point that not using it will wipe the party. While DNC isn't a healer, it still has healing and mitigation tools like one and should use it. But like I said, if the group isn't optimizing, then it doesn't matter and the depth vanishes.

If this nuance is only found in the hardest of content and not basic performance, its token which again I dont think its DNC fault but "In high end blah blah blah" thiers 4 maybe 5 instances where that applies everything else its a non issue or a non nuance. Even said that this is one skill one 60 second skill. I remain unconvinced of DNC depth and if "high end optimizing" is a must to see it shine

[MartaDemireux]

I don't really see the need for a single target Saber Dance. In the interest of saving on button bloat I'd rather see Saber Dance have a higher potency if no other targets are hit by it.

More Esprit usage would be nice. Maybe a move inspired by Quick/Box/Stutter Steps in FFXI could use it. 180s recast that applies a debuff to the enemy. Maybe it could even start at an earlier level and start the Esprit part of the job earlier than 80 - perhaps right when you can use Closed Position or shortly thereafter. It could apply a Blind effect and later gain a trait that adds increased damage taken similar to Trick/Chain - maybe a mid-way point could add a Slow effect. Or maybe it could echo an old dancer move in the series and randomly apply Blind or Slow and maybe even the increased damage taken could be random between a flat damage taken boost, a crit rate boost, or a direct rate boost once it's added via trait.

Dancers always had some form of debuffing which is absent in XIV. It would be nice to see that present hete even if it's nothing major (like Blind/Slow).

[Rai_Takara]

If this nuance is only found in the hardest of content and not basic performance, its token which again I dont think its DNC fault but "In high end blah blah blah" thiers 4 maybe 5 instances where that applies everything else its a non issue or a non nuance. Even said that this is one skill one 60 second skill. I remain unconvinced of DNC depth and if "high end optimizing" is a must to see it shine

Basic performance of every job lacks nuance. If you don't optimize your job, then every job in the game is brain dead easy. Of the Physical Ranged, DNC is the easiest to pickup, assuming you are comfortable with RNG, but that varies per person. In terms of optimization, with DNC and BRD there's more to optimize than say MCH and with DNC a little moreso than BRD. Until you get to that level of play, none of the physical ranged are going to have much depth.

It's fine if you remain unconvinced, but if you don't push your job to the limit or put it in hard content, then you won't get the most out of it and DNC is one of those jobs that shines at the top end and not so much at the casual/midcore end.

I don't really see the need for a single target Saber Dance. In the interest of saving on button bloat I'd rather see Saber Dance have a higher potency if no other targets are hit by it.

To be fair, Dancer doesn't have that many buttons compared to other jobs. So we can afford to have another Esprit spender button, if not Saber. Personally, I do agree with you that, I think Saber is fine as is, not because of potential button bloat but because it lends itself to choice between Saber and Procs.