Dancer Tank!!!

[Duelle]

That is an interesting tank idea and I'd like to see it implemented in ffxiv. The biggest concern is that the delayed damage tanks may eat in to healer dps times, which makes it a huge detriment to endgame groups and thereby unpopular in the meta. There's probably a few tricks and testing to find the best ratio of damage:delayed-damage, but it is something to be aware of when developing the idea.

Here's more info on stagger if you're curious.

I won't go into how many things are wrong with the current meta, so off the top of my head giving the job on-demand self heals would be an option. Brewmasters have Purifying Brew to remove the "DoT" from Stagger, but it costs them a unit of Chi, which is their unique resource. You could give DNC something similar by having it consume steps/count as a finisher (if we were to use FFXI's step/finisher system).

[Alex_Lenderson]

Really silly concept. Would prefer dancer to be pure support.

[Shurrikhan]

Here's more info on stagger if you're curious.

I won't go into how many things are wrong with the current meta, so off the top of my head giving the job on-demand self heals would be an option. Brewmasters have Purifying Brew to remove the "DoT" from Stagger, but it costs them a unit of Chi, which is their unique resource. You could give DNC something similar by having it consume steps/count as a finisher (if we were to use FFXI's step/finisher system).

Could you explain a bit about the step/finisher system and your impressions on it/how it might work if adapted for XIV? Just if you think that system might have merit here, I mean; I wouldn't want to waste your time.

[Duelle]

Could you explain a bit about the step/finisher system and your impressions on it/how it might work if adapted for XIV? Just if you think that system might have merit here, I mean; I wouldn't want to waste your time.

I think a good starting point would be finishers being split between mitigation and attacks with special effects or that generate enmity. Assuming you were to give DNC something like the Stagger mechanic, you could then have one of the finishers remove the staggered damage at the cost of generated steps. If required healer attention is an issue, a HoT effect could be applied with it or implemented via a separate ability; could even make DNC's equivalent to Purifying Brew turn the staggered damage into a HoT.

The tricky thing would be just how steps should be generated. I'd probably design them as something to be constantly generated and consumed, as opposed to generating steps and pooling them like with Wrath stacks on WAR.

[Duelle]

Looking for input while trying to get this idea together. Barebones version for now:

Dancer

Weapon: Shawl. Note: DNC's style of fighting involves "iron cloth" techniques, where the shawl is moved, pulled and spun in such a way that it is capable of cutting flesh. And yes, these weapons would be made by weavers.

Core Mechanics: DNC is designed around generating finishing moves and consuming them to deal damage or mitigate incoming damage. Their primary method of mitigation is staggering damage (70:30 split). Good candidates for secondary mitigation would be parries (no samples presented) or self healing (Drain Samba).

Abilities
Animated Flourish - Increases enmity generated by your abilities for 30s. Cooldown: 20s. Only one Flourish effect can be active at all times.
Violent Flourish - Increases damage dealt by 25% for 30s. Cooldown: 20s. Only one Flourish effect can be active at all times.
Drain Samba - Converts 10% of the damage dealt by auto attacks to HP for 20s. Only one Samba effect can be active at all times.
Haste Samba - Increases skill speed by 10% for 20s. Only one Samba effect can be active at all times.
Feather Step - Increases evasion rate by 30%.
Steel Wing - Delivers an attack with a potency of 180. Can only be used after Evading, Grazing or Parrying an attack.
Perpetual Motion - Increases evasion rate by 75%, but converts all Evades into Grazes. Effect ends upon reuse.
--Graze - You barely evade attacks, causing 70% of the damage to happen instantly and the remaining 30% to be divided over 15 seconds.
Healing Waltz - Converts damage over time effect from Perpetual Motion into a HoT that heals for 20% of the projected total damage over 12 seconds.
Deflective Sweeps - Reduces damage taken from the next three attack by 40%. Cooldown: 60s.
Aplomb - Perfectly evade most attacks for 10s. Cooldown: 420s.

Notes:
- Unlike WAR's Wrath system, finishing moves (I'll think of a better name later) can be consumed piecemeal. I was thinking of setting the max at 5, with Flourishes requiring 3 finishing moves, Sambas would require 2 and Steps/Waltzes requiring 1.
- As probably noted, Flourishes are effects that mimic stances. Animated Flourish would be the default tank effect while Violent Flourish would allow the DNC to go into DPS mode as needed.
- Flourishes can be activated for free, but require 3 finishing moves for the effect to be refreshed.
- Adding to the above, Sambas also play similar roles, with Drain Samba being meant for tank upkeep (not burst drains like WAR and DRK have, but an effect that can be kept up full time for minimal healing over time).
- Perpetual Motion and Graze are meant to allow DNC to mitigate hits from enemies without having to wear heavy armor.
- Healing Waltz plays into this as well, since it converts staggered damage into a HoT. What would happen is your staggered debuff (indicating the amount of staggered damage) would vanish and you'd receive a Regen effect. Your stagger "count" would go back to 0, allowing you to continue to stagger damage while the HoT is still ticking.
- Aplomb is DNC's answer to Hallowed Ground and would be subject to the same limitations.

PS: Here's your stance-dancing tank. :O

[Shurrikhan]

Looking for input while trying to get this idea together. Barebones version for now:

I'll just go ahead and revise here as your edits come out except where necessary for clarification between different instances.

1. Love the shawl weapon idea. Personally, I was debating between chain-blades (with a cloth wrapped around most of the chain for that dancer aesthetic touch), segmented staves, and a couple other, similar choices. A weaver-made weapon is an outright fun idea.

2. The core premise seems solid, though I'd very much like to know the generation rate for your stacks.

3. Does Drain Samba convert (dps loss) or duplicate (what the game calls 'converting') damage as healing? Also, unless your doing some really extreme auto-attacks, this seems very underpowered.

4. Are any of these dance buffs party-wide?

5. If a DNC tank goes into combat with Animated Flourish faded and no stacks at the ready, is s/he screwed?

6. Graze aids eHP, but it does not itself supply overall mitigation. Even if DNC had the same Defense as other jobs, it would still be a heal-spunge. What does it actually have to make it a tank and not just a threat-holder?

7. What's its rotational flow?

8. Is Waltz a CD, a persistent effect...? Will there be any other Waltzes? Will be it be mutually exclusive with them?

9. Is Steel Wing oGCD or GCD?

10. Given the 20s CD on the Flourishes, we can quickly swap from one to the other, but must then stay in that 2nd flourish for the remainder of the first's 20-second CD?

11. Are the flourishes oGCD or GCD?

12. Deflective Sweeps seems easily pinched by rapid attacks. Either it takes a real TB and two autos or half an attack stream. There are certain instances it would probably excel in (e.g. Bahamut's Claw), but also many that would wreck it. I almost imagine that using half the mitigation but at specific attacks/timings of your choosing (think Lustrate?) would get more average mitigation, and might well feel a tiny bit more Dancer-like??

13. Enmity bonus/stance is no longer paired with an eHP increase, but is still exclusive with damage bonus/stance. Can enmity itself really be considered worth enough to have no additional benefit? Consider: Defiance -25%dps, +20%hr, +25%eHP, +100%enmity. Shield Oath -20%dps, +20%miti, +100% enmity. To me at least, enmity without being attached to a better-mitigating unit (or causing an overall improvement by holding said threat in raid damage taken vs. dealt) isn't tanking--just directing. For DNC to come out balanced without mitigation attached to its tanking stance would mean that even its OT stance has a significant mitigation. If that's the case, it would seem that its stance dancing would have nothing to do with incoming damage, but rather just maxing personal dps while keeping up with enmity needs, bereft of healer/tank synergy and probably getting far more out of Shadewalker and Quelling Strikes than any other tank (curse those Monks/DRGs).

[Duelle]

2. The core premise seems solid, though I'd very much like to know the generation rate for your stacks.

I was thinking your standard attacks (AKA your enmity rotation) would generate stacks of Flair (what I've decided to call it) at lv8. The idea is that you're constantly generating and consuming Flair because you have a Flourish to keep active in addition to a Samba.

3. Does Drain Samba convert (dps loss) or duplicate (what the game calls 'converting') damage as healing? Also, unless your doing some really extreme auto-attacks, this seems very underpowered.

I guess duplicate would be the word. The idea was basically an auto-attack focused version of Bloodbath that could be kept up indefinitely. The 10% is sort of a placeholder, though I agree that it could be more depending on how Graze is tuned.

4. Are any of these dance buffs party-wide?

As of right now, no. Drain Samba is there to supplement healing while your staggered damage ticks away. I guess Haste Samba could be turned into an aura that affects allies nearby, but that would require me nerfing it since it'd be too powerful if left as is. The idea of one Samba is also to not create needless overlap in the event a party ended up with 2 DNCs in it.

5. If a DNC tank goes into combat with Animated Flourish faded and no stacks at the ready, is s/he screwed?

If you mean entering combat without Animated Flourish active, no since the flourishes can be activated for free. If you mean a DNC entering combat with 5 seconds left of Animated Flourish and having no Flair stacks to refresh the effect, sort of. I was thinking of giving DNC an ability like Infuriate (call it Trance, since we're lifting stuff from FFXI) so that in such a situation you could activate it and get some stacks to renew or reactivate a Flourish.

6. Graze aids eHP, but it does not itself supply overall mitigation. Even if DNC had the same Defense as other jobs, it would still be a heal-spunge. What does it actually have to make it a tank and not just a threat-holder?

I'm still trying to decide between focusing on parries or maybe buffing the self healing. Tying into this, Healing Waltz basically removes the DoT effect and replaces it with a HoT.

1) You get hit by a mob attack for 10,000 damage
2) You Graze it, meaning 7,000 affects you on contact and the remaining 3,000 affects you over 15 seconds
3) Assuming you have one stack of Flair available, you can use Healing Waltz
4) The DoT worth 3,000 damage disappears and is replaced by a HoT that heals you for 600 HP over 12 seconds.

Using one single hit may make it seem like nothing, but the Grazed damage stacks as you continuously gets hit, making the challenge in playing DNC managing your Grazed damage by using Healing Waltz to remove the DoT before the Grazed damage overwhelms you and the healer, and recover some HP in the process. The numbers would obviously need to be tuned, but that's one of the ideas for the mechanic.

7. What's its rotational flow?

Not sure. The key points I have in mind right now is properly dealing with Grazed damage, keeping your chosen Flourish active and keeping your chosen Samba active.

8. Is Waltz a CD, a persistent effect...? Will there be any other Waltzes? Will be it be mutually exclusive with them?

Since Healing Waltz is based on Purifying Brew, I'd set the cooldown to 2.5 seconds. As for other waltzes, that may be a possibility.

9. Is Steel Wing oGCD or GCD?

OGCD, though that would require removing the graze requirement.

10. Given the 20s CD on the Flourishes, we can quickly swap from one to the other, but must then stay in that 2nd flourish for the remainder of the first's 20-second CD?

This is an oversight in my write up. My intent was that activating a Flourish would put both on a 20s cooldown.

11. Are the flourishes oGCD or GCD?

OGCD.

12. Deflective Sweeps seems easily pinched by rapid attacks. Either it takes a real TB and two autos or half an attack stream. There are certain instances it would probably excel in (e.g. Bahamut's Claw), but also many that would wreck it. I almost imagine that using half the mitigation but at specific attacks/timings of your choosing (think Lustrate?) would get more average mitigation, and might well feel a tiny bit more Dancer-like??

I'll admit that Sweeps is my answer to the gripes people seem to have with Shelltron. I was also trying to avoid copying another Brewmaster Monk ability (Guard, which creates an absorb shield based on your max HP), though it would seem to better fit.

13. Enmity bonus/stance is no longer paired with an eHP increase, but is still exclusive with damage bonus/stance. Can enmity itself really be considered worth enough to have no additional benefit? Consider: Defiance -25%dps, +20%hr, +25%eHP, +100%enmity. Shield Oath -20%dps, +20%miti, +100% enmity. To me at least, enmity without being attached to a better-mitigating unit (or causing an overall improvement by holding said threat in raid damage taken vs. dealt) isn't tanking--just directing. For DNC to come out balanced without mitigation attached to its tanking stance would mean that even its OT stance has a significant mitigation. If that's the case, it would seem that its stance dancing would have nothing to do with incoming damage, but rather just maxing personal dps while keeping up with enmity needs, bereft of healer/tank synergy and probably getting far more out of Shadewalker and Quelling Strikes than any other tank (curse those Monks/DRGs).

Here's where I get evil with the number tuning, since DNC skills would not have bonus enmity attached to them and could even have lower base potencies sans Flourishes. This is also why the bonus from Violent Flourish is relatively greater than what you see with FoF, Darkside or Maim. In theory you'd generate less enmity if you focus on dealing damage and should open the fight in Animated Flourish to secure aggro (Animated Flourish would have generous enmity modifiers to make up for that lower base potency). If you trust your aggro lead, then you can swap to Violent Flourish.

While all this is going on, you'd still have Perpetual Motion active to Graze damage, self heals from Drain Samba and the HoT from Healing Waltz ticking along, on top of heals from the healer and whatever other methods of mitigation you might have access to.

Something I'm considering is scrapping the "converts all evades into grazes" bit, instead simply throwing in the 75% graze chance as a benefit from Perpetual Motion. This may allow DNC to have actual evasion buffs (Feather Step) come into play. Haven't made a decision on this yet.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

Just real quick before replying to anything else, in regards to Healing Waltz/PuriBu (yes, I definitely have yelled that at my overstaggered Brewmaster on occasion), one thing I'd love to see, and this would be very exclusive to the idea of Dancer as a full-on tank, is just for the staggered amount to be usable in a variety of ways. In other words, it can kill you, but as long as you have a tool still at the ready you can also use it to damage/heal/utility/whatever. Like a spinning top where you can rip off some of the added energy, hold it back for a little bit, etc, possibly even where it speeds up your GCDs (though then you'd want ability-based ways to do that too to fill in the gaps and min/max it), and maybe have certain abilities or rotations be highly dependent on your GCD. That would just be so amazing to me... !

On the side of turning damage dealt against you into a heal, however, would be a massive... almost... what... 36% mitigation at all times if you were hitting Waltz every 2.5s (every GCD?). You remove 30% of the damage, and heal for another fifth of that 30%. I feel like it'd be hard for Sambas to be worth their weight against that in most content, especially since they have twice the cost.

7. What's its rotational flow?

Not sure. The key points I have in mind right now is properly dealing with Grazed damage, keeping your chosen Flourish active and keeping your chosen Samba active.

The only worry I'm having with that is the same discomfort people started mentioning eventually with having to Purifying Brew asap (I can't remember about when, but pretty heavily the case by when I was playing it in WoD) of feeling like you're just rolling with the punches, while commanding less aim of your own. Somehow that seems more Pugilist than Dancer to me. A Dancer I'd expect to be more confident, unstoppable, purposed, I guess, not so much a Wrath Feral / WoD Brewmaster maintenance case.

12. Deflective Sweeps seems easily pinched by rapid attacks. Either it takes a real TB and two autos or half an attack stream. There are certain instances it would probably excel in (e.g. Bahamut's Claw), but also many that would wreck it. I almost imagine that using half the mitigation but at specific attacks/timings of your choosing (think Lustrate?) would get more average mitigation, and might well feel a tiny bit more Dancer-like??

I'll admit that Sweeps is my answer to the gripes people seem to have with Shelltron. I was also trying to avoid copying another Brewmaster Monk ability (Guard, which creates an absorb shield based on your max HP), though it would seem to better fit.

If you're looking for a possibly slightly OP fix to Shelltron/Swipes, you could have it trigger a parry-all shield for one to one-half second following the next attack attempted against you, three times. Hit Defensive Swipes, next attack will be parried and cause a .5 - 1.0 second auto-parry shield, at the end of which it detects the next, repeats buff, next. Though I'd worry about how the servers would handle the transfer from 'auto-parry next' to 'duration auto-parry' buff, it's not like Shelltron's all that responsive either. I've had it fail to proc on the next ability used a full second after the animation (not a crit, either), not procing until an AA two and half seconds after the buff appeared...

9. Is Steel Wing oGCD or GCD?

OGCD, though that would require removing the graze requirement.

Yeah, that would be pretty OP otherwise... oGCD should be pretty nice for both feel and control.

[DamianFatale]

Lets just have a class revolved around controlling lalas like puppets, and then it eats them for its own vitality. Mm.. yes.. I could see that.

[Brightshadow]

Dancer as a tank isn't actually such a bad idea I mean they are the center of attention. It could work like a mixture of nin/dnc from ff11 very squishy but has great evasion and skills to avoid tankbusters. It's definitely going to be a harder tank to master than it's peers but perhaps they'll make it up by having great utility like haste samba.