Dancer 6.0 Speculation

[ElysiumDragon]

I switched to Dancer a few weeks ago, and from my own playtesting, I'd mainly like to see four things.

1. Removing cooldowns from Fan Dance abilities if possible. Having to deal with that cooldown while trying to manage my GCD at the same time is kinda clunky.
2. Having Standard and Technical Step replace the AoE combo on usage. Just a QoL change that'd make AoE'ing a lot more convenient for controller players.
3. Having Saber Dance be oGCD, or remain on GCD, but carry a DoT effect for a touch of added complexity.
4. Improvisation actually made usable outside of fringe cases. Maybe a per player chance of a feather proc every tick?

[Rongway]

1. Removing cooldowns from Fan Dance abilities if possible. Having to deal with that cooldown while trying to manage my GCD at the same time is kinda clunky.

I don't understand. In what way does it interfere with your GCD? Are you trying to

GCD > Fan Dance I/II > Fan Dance I/II

?? You're not meant to. You should only

GCD > Fan Dance I/II > Fan Dance III
or GCD > Fan Dance III > Fan Dance I/II

3. Having Saber Dance be oGCD, or remain on GCD, but carry a DoT effect for a touch of added complexity.

You generate so much Esprit during a Technical window that you might use it three or four times. If you want it to be oGCD then its potency needs to be reduced by about 300 to account for not replacing any GCDs. If you want to make it a DoT, it'll get overwritten multiple times during a Technical window.

[Raikai]

I dunno if they'll improve this with a trait, but the only thing that makes me prefer BRD or MCH over DNC right now is the fact that DNC got to go through 2 layers of RNG to get their Feathers... Add a 3rd layer if you take in consideration Fan Dance 2.

To me this leads to a rather inflexible playstyle regarding feather management... Because as soon as you get 3 feathers, you gotta hoard them for the TS phase, because you wouldn't wanna risk these layers of RNG not allowing you to enter in the burst phase with 3 or 4 feathers.

[Rymi64]

I dunno if they'll improve this with a trait, but the only thing that makes me prefer BRD or MCH over DNC right now is the fact that DNC got to go through 2 layers of RNG to get their Feathers... Add a 3rd layer if you take in consideration Fan Dance 2.

To me this leads to a rather inflexible playstyle regarding feather management... Because as soon as you get 3 feathers, you gotta hoard them for the TS phase, because you wouldn't wanna risk these layers of RNG not allowing you to enter in the burst phase with 3 or 4 feathers.

There's really nothing to improve with it since you're highly likely to get them even with the layers. If you have a ninja in your party you can even use them during the in-between trick attack phases since floursh also comes off CD by that time. Plus you don't really gain much by using the feathers outside of burst windows anyways so the RNG isn't really a problem. You have 120s to get back your feathers anyways XD.

[Raikai]

There's really nothing to improve with it since you're highly likely to get them even with the layers. If you have a ninja in your party you can even use them during the in-between trick attack phases since floursh also comes off CD by that time. Plus you don't really gain much by using the feathers outside of burst windows anyways so the RNG isn't really a problem. You have 120s to get back your feathers anyways XD.

I mean, yeah you have a point that the chances of RNG not having you at 3/4 feathers after 2 minutes is pretty slim, my biggest issue is more with the inflexibility of having just 1 feather to spend through 2 minutes because there's very little to weave through your regular rotation with just 1 feather - the pace feels way too slow (as opposed way too frantic in TS phase).

If for example, Flourish (the skill) had it's proc'd abilities to grant 100% a feather, it would be great because it meant that you'd have a 4 feather flexibility through your downtime phase, but also would have a guaranteed way to replenish your feathers while getting close to TS.

[ElysiumDragon]

I don't understand. In what way does it interfere with your GCD? Are you trying to

GCD > Fan Dance I/II > Fan Dance I/II

?? You're not meant to. You should only

GCD > Fan Dance I/II > Fan Dance III
or GCD > Fan Dance III > Fan Dance I/II



You generate so much Esprit during a Technical window that you might use it three or four times. If you want it to be oGCD then its potency needs to be reduced by about 300 to account for not replacing any GCDs. If you want to make it a DoT, it'll get overwritten multiple times during a Technical window.

I play on controller, so from my experience, it's been fairly clunky trying to use Fan Dance procs, then immediately switch to using GCD, then back to using more procs, then back to using the GCD, all within the space of around 4-5 seconds, all while trying to make sure I don't let my dances drift, that my buffs are up, whether or not to use Esprit, AND doing mechanics, all at the same time.

For me, it usually ends up as Fan Dance I>Fan Dance III>ohnomyGCDslippedismyEspritat80doIhaveFlourishuparemydancesoffCD, etc.

Everything else is absolutely smooth sailing, but I've found the Fan Dance cooldowns can make the burst windows awkward and clunky.

[Rongway]

I play on controller, so from my experience, it's been fairly clunky trying to use Fan Dance procs, then immediately switch to using GCD, then back to using more procs, then back to using the GCD, all within the space of around 4-5 seconds, all while trying to make sure I don't let my dances drift, that my buffs are up, whether or not to use Esprit, AND doing mechanics, all at the same time.

That's basically any job that double weaves, though.

[Katie_Kitty]

DNC needs to have some RNG removed from their toolkit. I believe there is way too much random chance involved and I consider that lame gameplay.

[Rai_Takara]

DNC needs to have some RNG removed from their toolkit. I believe there is way too much random chance involved and I consider that lame gameplay.

I agree. That doesn't mean we can't have RNG of course, but we need to better reduce our RNG spread. They reworked AST because RNG was bad, and surprisingly kept it with DNC. Having a high RNG spread means you can't balance the job well to its peers. If you balance it based on the average damage, then half the time DNC would be the best ranged. If you do it based on best RNG, then you'd have to farm RNG to make it comparable to other ranged. And of course, if you balance based on the lowest RNG, then most runs DNC would be superior. It's kind of ridiculous that you can be in a situation where DNC has more raid contribution than a melee DPS if you farm enough RNG.

Ideally, they'd just reduce flourish to 30 seconds. This makes it so you rarely end up in a situation where you won't have a proc. This won't fix the fan dance 1 and 3 RNG though. Also depending on whatever new dances or other procs/combos they add, it might be too much.

[ty_taurus]

I've mained Dancer since Shadowbringers began and have played it roughly 95% of the time outside of leveling other jobs. This is my personal wishlist/prediction for 6.0:

1. Move Flourish down to level 54 from level 72. Synched content as dancer is particularly boring and while I do hope that we see some sort of solution for this for all jobs, I see no reason why Flourish needs to stay at such a high level for what it is really. It's a small thing, but I think it would be well worth it.

2. Change or remove Improvisation. I see no real value from an engagement standpoint for these "use-it-once-during-phase-change-channels" such as this, SAM's Meditation, or MNK's Anatman. There used to be a case for MNK where holding onto your Greased Lightning was important, so it made sense there, but now that that's gone, I really don't feel like these abilities add anything. You get a few extra resources during a phase shift then never touch these buttons ever again anywhere... woohoo?

One thing I've thought of is if Improvisation gives some effects to Emboite, Entrechat, Jete, and Pirouette when performing Standard Step--rather than having a predetermined pair that you have to Simon Says, you choose which two you want to use, and each is associated with some kind of utility. The question is, what would that utility be, and how could you make them all feel balanced without one feeling more important than the rest?

3. A trait that increases Esprit generation when you do not have a dance partner (roughly you should be gaining the same amount of Esprit as you normally would with a Dance Partner). This is largely just to make you gain more Esprit in solo content, not invalidate your dance partner in raids or dungeons, although perhaps it could have some niche value in fights where your party is dying a lot like when you get a rough party in Bozja.

4. New Action: Mincing Minuet - An OGCD Esprit spender that consumes 20 Esprit or something in that range on a 10 second CD. This is to help smoothen out burst phases where you're generating so much Esprit but don't have time to use Sabre Dance, like when you're at 80-90 Esprit during your technical window and Standard Step is about to come off cooldown. The damage should ultimately not overshadow using Sabre Dance.

5. New Action: Tempting Tango - This is not really a necessary action, but something I'd like to see anyway just as a throwback to the Dancer in older Final Fantasy Titles. This is a pointblank AoE that Confuses all enemies in range for 6 seconds and reduces their magic damage dealt by 10% for 15 seconds. Sits on a 60 second cooldown. You can totally argue that there's no point in adding this and I agree, but the confuse would be fun in dungeon pulls, deep dungeons, and instance zones like Bozja, and the magic damage gives is some added utility in raids. I'm really just throwing this out there to shoutout Dancer's origins.

6. New Action Phoenix Flourish - Using Flourish while in combat changes your next Flourish into Phoenix Flourish once (meaning once you use Phoenix Flourish, it changes back into regular Flourish. Phoenix Flourish not only grants you all of your Flourishes, but also grants you the Flight of the Phoenix buff for 20 seconds. Flight of the Phoenix increases the proc rate of all your flourishes to 100% and upgrades Fan Dance, Fan Dance II, and Fan Dance III into Phoenix Dance, Phoenix Dance II, and Phoenix Dance III respectively. They each have increased potency.

I find Dancer's burst phase a lot of fun, but the downtime between the end of your first Technical Step and the next can get a little slow, so this is designed to try and rectify that, though the challenge comes into trying to enforce it's use outside of your technical window as the point is not to just make the technical step burst more insane which is why Phoenix Flourish is something you alternate between Flourish uses. I think the idea needs a bit of work to iron out some complication areas, but I like the idea of thematically upgrading our peacock feathers into phoenix feathers for a period.