Dancer Tank!!!

[Februs]

On the other hand, fighting is often described as dance, figuratively and in slang terms. In my eyes, it's easier to dodge attacks if you're a capable and nimble as a dancer ( not really dancing TO evade just speaking of aptitude ). Just my opinion though.

Only it's really not. Only cartoons and comic books refer to combat as similar to dancing, and their comparisons are usually flawed. Real fighting is much different. You have an opponent, not a partner. You're not working in synchronicity and harmony with one another, you're actively trying to disrupt one another to gain positional advantage using maneuver. Even the flashier styles of combat that look more elegant to the eye have very few similarities to dancing.

Even if they decided to use it as a Tank class and base it on a high parry/evasion rate... how would that work? A tank that could never get hit? Not likely. A single impact would be enough to interrupt the momentum of a Dance, so even auto attacks would make this class look ridiculously out of place as a Tank... and what about their clothes? Dancers wear light outfits to move fluidly, not heavy armour. So... a Tank that is just as squishy as a Mage? Paper tank FTW? No... I think not.

As for Dancers making for good healers, that's at least an easier pill for me to swallow than Tanks (forgive the medical pun). As much as I agree that putting Dancing with the Stars on in a recovery room would likely be more painful than Chemotherapy, proper dancing (along with music) has long been considered therapeutic and invigorating. There are a lot of cultures which traditionally incorporated dancing into their ceremonies for this very reason (proper dancing, not some hack tv competition). The idea is to let the elegance of the dance sooth your soul (similar to the feeling people get when they watch an emotional Balet. Even if it's a tragedy, it's often described as being emotionally liberating). It still doesn't really fit in a combat situation, but it sounds a lot more related to healing than tanking to me. I suppose you could make the argument that the Dancer would be enchanting the mobs in a similar way ... but unless the goal has changed to wanting to sooth their anger and send them all home happy and content, I don't think Dancing really fits.

[Calypsx]

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Your stance dancing Dancer tank idea sounds super fun by the way! I totally support the ideas you discussed.

[Leogun]

Only it's really not. Only cartoons and comic books refer to combat as similar to dancing, and their comparisons are usually flawed. Real fighting is much different. You have an opponent, not a partner. You're not working in synchronicity and harmony with one another, you're actively trying to disrupt one another to gain positional advantage using maneuver. Even the flashier styles of combat that look more elegant to the eye have very few similarities to dancing.

I said figuratively, which can be finding similarities between the two. Take a simple Bruce Lee quote:

"Absorb what is useful, discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own."

Since dancing and fighting tend to take the direction of styles, it's not farfetched to bridge the concept of developing your own style to suit yourself or the situation.

That being said, please don't try to separate flashy movies and cartoons from another entertainment media (video games). I shouldn't have to remind you we're talking about video games so if you've seen or heard it described as dancing in an anime or movie, guess what? A video game is within poking distance of the same concept

There are a lot of cultures which traditionally incorporated dancing into their ceremonies for this very reason (proper dancing, not some hack tv competition). The idea is to let the elegance of the dance sooth your soul (similar to the feeling people get when they watch an emotional Balet. Even if it's a tragedy, it's often described as being emotionally liberating). It still doesn't really fit in a combat situation, but it sounds a lot more related to healing than tanking to me. I suppose you could make the argument that the Dancer would be enchanting the mobs in a similar way ... but unless the goal has changed to wanting to sooth their anger and send them all home happy and content, I don't think Dancing really fits.

PS: I think this concept is covered by Bard, evoking emotions through music. Dancing, as you mention, really doesn't fit a combat situation so how would it heal? You have to SEE the dance for it to effect you, right? So taking your eyes off the enemy? Bad idea. Unless we're talking about some other effect (i.e. the dancing creating an effect which then influence those around them similar to a rain dance summoning a rain storm)...

I could see Dancer working in various concepts with specific conceptual directions, be it healer, DPS or tank. I just think tank would work best for the pure dance theme since it could be about dancing out of harms way or distracting foes with your movements. Every other concept likely has some pseudo-magic effect for it to rely on.

[Calypsx]

I just think tank would work best for the pure dance theme since it could be about dancing out of harms way or distracting foes with your movements.

You hit the nail on the head. Look how dancer is shown in FFXI in cutscenes.

https://youtu.be/3eg_Xz-OFyI?t=1m50s

Distracting foes with movement and dancing out of harms way is exactly what she does. Also Dancer in FFXI lore wise was specifically developed as a way to turn dancing into a weapon. Dancers were used as frontline fighters during the great war and it is not used primarily to bring comfort to allies like bard is.

The evasive combat dancer isn't that far fetched if that's what Dancers have been portrayed as in the series. They even have a tank stance in XI.

[Brightshadow]

You hit the nail on the head. Look how dancer is shown in FFXI in cutscenes.

https://youtu.be/3eg_Xz-OFyI?t=1m50s

Distracting foes with movement and dancing out of harms way is exactly what she does. Also Dancer in FFXI lore wise was specifically developed as a way to turn dancing into a weapon. Dancers were used as frontline fighters during the great war and it is not used primarily to bring comfort to allies like bard is.

The evasive combat dancer isn't that far fetched if that's what Dancers have been portrayed as in the series. They even have a tank stance in XI.

They were created as healers in FFXI and fan dance wasn't made for tanking but rather for protection against AOE's

[Calypsx]

They were created as healers in FFXI and fan dance wasn't made for tanking but rather for protection against AOE's

I used fan dance as a dancer tank (Also if you merit fan dance it's even more amazing for tanking) Also fan dance builds enmity which is very strange for a move that is just used for protection against AOE's. It wasn't that far fetched and there were plenty of Dancer tanks I've met. We held enmity pretty well, had good sustain and evasion really helped with taking damage. It was kind of like Pal/Nin with higher numbers. DNC/WAR (for provoke) worked out very well.

I like the idea of dancer being an entertainer that draws attention to themselves though.

[Februs]

I shouldn't have to remind you we're talking about video games so if you've seen or heard it described as dancing in an anime or movie, guess what? A video game is within poking distance of the same concept

That's true... however, we are speaking specifically about an MMO which has a set and required lore behind each and every job, as well as a Tanking Meta that each specific Tank needs to be at least capable of upholding.
In movies and Cartoons, they can use flashy choreography to allow the viewer to suspend your disbelief for the few seconds you are viewing the bull crap. It doesn't make sense, and they don't have to make it make sense for it to be visually entertaining. An MMO does not have that luxury. The screen is literally a cluster bomb of bright lights, text, and numbers. There is no way to make the Dancer appear to be suspending anyone's disbelief except putting up the words (Parry) over and over again. Now, does that mean they couldn't invent a convincing lore for it? Of course not. You're not wrong to say that the forms of media are within poking distance of one another, and it wouldn't be shocking for a game developer to fall back on silly whimsical nonsense, but that wouldn't make it look any more convincing. In practice, we'd have an idiot doing a tap dance in front of the boss and getting the living hell beaten out of them, and we'd be expected to believe that they were somehow not dying.

More importantly there are certain aspects of the current tank meta that would be absurd to try and apply to Dancer tank. For one, with the exception of rare job specific sets, most Tanks share gear.... so, we're expecting someone who is light on their feet and elegant in their movements to be dancing around in clunky plate armour... really? Not only would this be visually ridiculous, but it wouldn't make sense with the skillset that a Dancer would likely need to employ to hold aggro, because all current and past tank gear are spec'd for physical hit and soak mechanics. That won't, and can't, change. They'd have to completely rebuild the armour database from lvl 1 up to 60. Not to mention the actual mechanics of the boss fights. Tanks are made to soak and recover, not avoid.

I just think tank would work best for the pure dance theme since it could be about dancing out of harms way or distracting foes with your movements. Every other concept likely has some pseudo-magic effect for it to rely on.

This is, actually, exactly the point. The tank meta works in such a way that you don't want your tank dancing out of harms way. You actually want them in harms way so that the rest of the party is not (specifically, imagine shared soak mechanics like in T11 or similar fights. Dancer would be so out of place they would never be used). Which is exactly why all of the current tank jobs are made to buff and soak, not avoid. Even a Dark Knight's Dark Dance ability works with this concept of soaking dmg. It's a mitigation that relies on deflection, true enough, but deflection implies impact. You only deflect a %. Hence, Dark Knights wear armour to protect their bodies.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work, and SE will probably figure out a way just to prove me wrong. I can picture Dancer using mechanics that create stacking buffs to increase dmg/enmity potency for each successful parry or some silly nonsense like that, but SE would have to change a ridiculous number of things in the current tanking meta to get this concept to work out (Fixing Parry so it wasn't a tip toe shy of being useless would be the first among them). Personally, I think it's just too much trouble to try and make a job work with a meta that wasn't designed for it.