Class Concept: Dancer

[Balipu]

Hello everyone. I'm here to share with you a concept I've been thinking about a lot, so I hope you'll like it. (This goes double for Yoshie-P and co.)
Yes, so dancer. For a long time I didn't like the idea of a dancer class, but something in me changed and I'm thinking more and more about how cool it would be. So assuming the dancer outfits shown in the last Live Letter were just for glamour and Yoshie-P isn't hiding something major from us, here is my idea.

Traditionally the dancer was either a debuff oriented DPS class or a healer. Sometimes both a bit. Problem is, what XIV desperately needs are more tank. Even as a healer you might wait a long time for a tank to pop. Unfortunately dancers can't be tanks.
Or can they? In Final Fantasy XI Ninjas tanked a lot, despite the development team not designing them to be able to do that. Still, a lot of parries and evasions transformed the ninja from assassin to a tank. In theory a dancer could do the same with the right moves.

Long story short, I think it is time to bring in the first class that can potentially fill all 3 roles with different stances. It would help the game a lot if it could que as a tank for dungeons but otherwise the dancer would have a stance for each role that would buff either maximum hp, hp regeneration and enmity or mp regeneration spell based healing and so on. Additionally these stances could give bonus effects to some abilities and enable some of the finishing moves exlusive to that stance (more on that later).

Now to the hardest part. How to make the dancer feal like a dancer. Making it a mage with different casting animations would do the class a disservice and we can't make the dancer gameplay automatized as that would be boring. My solution:
Dances will be instant abilities that grant status effects. It will be these status effects that enable dancer's to use most of their abilities. Some dances will last longer others will be shorter but give additional stat boosts. While the dances are active you will execute dance moves, to heal, tank or dps. Some are instant, some have a cast time and others are chanelled movements so you'll have to think carefully how to use your time. Using one move places a debuff on you that prevents you from using that ability immediately a second time. Additionally each movement will grant you a stack of something I couldn't find the right name for yet. After the dance status effect expired you will be able to execute finalees or finishing moves that consume these stacks and will be more powerful the more stacks they consumed. Acitvating another dance removes the stacks.

When thinking of ability names the first ones to come to my mind were Dancing Mad and Vamo Alla Flamenco so I decided to look for Final Fantasy song names that could be good ability names. The ones I found so far are:

Eyes on me (increases enmity)
Withouth Shadow (increases evasion)
Blinded by light (inflicts blind)
Under the Weight (inflicts heavy)

Dancers traditionally wield daggers, but I'm a great fan of the idea to give them fans to fight with. They could still get a dagger as an offhand weapon.
Incidentally fighting with fans was a real thing in feudal japan. It was called Tessenjutsu. Fans were/are excellent for parrying spears
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessenjutsu

The dance trainer would be located in the Gold Saucer. Godbert Manderville is hosting a dance tournament. Everyone is thrilled, but one team is worried. Their star dancer is missing. You volunteer to search for him and indeed find the poor guy who was beaten up by a rival team. With a broken leg he can't participate. All seems lost but when you show the other members your sweet moves (the harvest dance, the ball dance and the step dance) they decide that you have potential and agree to train you to be ready in time for the competition. Of course the rivals might resort to cheating again. They may do nasty things like kidnap someone from the team to force you into losing.

What do you think?

[Eloah]

I think this concept could work in theory, I never played XI, but I know about the Ninja-Tank, lol. My suggsstion is to flesh out a concept of abilities and a play-style, (defiance, astral fire/umbral ice, greased lightning, etc) so that the idea has a bit more weight to it. Depending or not on how you want Dancer to be, class/job or just job, I would use the current game model to start thinking of ideas and then use the new info from Heavensward to refine and redefine said abilities.

I made a Dancer concept, that you can use as a guide if you like. Someone used my Red Mage concept to create a DPS version and I helped "tweek" it, I can do the same if you like. I plan on adjusting my concepts once Heavensward is released and I have more info on the new abilities.

Here is the link to the post where you can find my concepts, the link is also in my signature. http://tinyurl.com/ff14arrjobs

[Balipu]

Hmm, not bad. You fleshed out the abilities a bit more. The Trance - finale mechanic is like what I had in mind. And yes, steps is a pretty good name for the stacks. Due to the unusual mechanics and abilities I had in mind the dancer would only work as another classless job that start at a lower level (like 15). I wouldn't mind a jobless class, but we need artifact armor, so job it is.

[heynowjose]

omg ive wanted to play as dance for so long and i love the idea of doing it as a tank based on evasion and movement and dancing (duh) as getting enmity

[Underlord]

i played FFxi for a long time....mainly blm n drk. then when Dnc came out... that was my choice.I will say at that time Dnc were kinda OP... with a nin subjob to blink tank, u could easily solo or tank almost anything many jobs couldnt. It was by far my most fav job. If i was to go as dps, i would put a differ subjob on instead of nin. They had all differ dances... ones for buffs, and debuffs... like i know they called some mambas. Although it would take some planning, i could see dnc being any one of the 3 classes..dps, healer, tank. In FFxi i ran in full groups to do dps, or in groups with less healers to help heal, and in other cases just tank easily.

[Eloah]

Hmm, not bad. You fleshed out the abilities a bit more. The Trance - finale mechanic is like what I had in mind. And yes, steps is a pretty good name for the stacks. Due to the unusual mechanics and abilities I had in mind the dancer would only work as another classless job that start at a lower level (like 15). I wouldn't mind a jobless class, but we need artifact armor, so job it is.

Why thank you, I'm glad you like it, and I hope it can help you think of ideas for your own Dancer. I look forward to seeing it.

[Balipu]

omg ive wanted to play as dance for so long and i love the idea of doing it as a tank based on evasion and movement and dancing (duh) as getting enmity

Glad you like it. ^^ I wanted to get 50 for Scholar this morning but abandoned the idea after not getting a tank for Autum Vale in 40 minutes. We definitely need more tanks.

Although it would take some planning, i could see dnc being any one of the 3 classes..dps, healer, tank. In FFxi i ran in full groups to do dps, or in groups with less healers to help heal, and in other cases just tank easily.

Yeah that's the idea. Ideally you would tank in random groups, heal in premade groups and dps during solo play.

Why thank you, I'm glad you like it, and I hope it can help you think of ideas for your own Dancer. I look forward to seeing it.

Well the mechanics are pretty much done as you can see. It will work a bit like Blitz in FFVI, or rather like Zell's limit break in FFVIII. The weapons and even the story has been figured out. But your concept did show me how in depth I should go with the abilities. I searched for a few good spell names, and will flesh out the ability list more later today.

[Maero]

I would very much jump to the class should SE add dancer
#yesplease

[Pomelo]

Not as Tank please ;( Anything but Tank...anything.

[Balipu]

Not as Tank please ;( Anything but Tank...anything.

I know. I'm not a fan of tanking either. But currently even healers must wait a considerable time to get into duties. We need more tanks. Far more. Of course the dancer will have a healer and a dps stance as well, but we need a tank surplus.