Dancer (DPS Concept)

[drgonzo]

I was thinking of a DPS that was also an off tank and off support. Dancers would be able to tank single enemies by inflicting a debuff that made their next attack miss. It would be part of their regular rotation, perhaps toggled with a stance skill so they could choose a more dps oriented style of attack if it was more appropriate. They would also have dances that would be aoe buffs/heals, but not as strong as a healer.

People wonder why the devs don’t take this forum seriously. So you want it to be a dps but an off support and off tank, hell why not off healer that shoots lighting out it’s taint. This would be a utter train wreck and if you actually understood the job design of this game you would know that but eh great community brother.

[Freyt]

People wonder why the devs don’t take this forum seriously. So you want it to be a dps but an off support and off tank, hell why not off healer that shoots lighting out it’s taint. This would be a utter train wreck and if you actually understood the job design of this game you would know that but eh great community brother.

Well, you know, you got a Bard that has a defensive cooldown and some defensive abilities and a heal, Machinist that also has Palisade, Red Mage that everyone takes as a revive tool that can also be semi filled with Summoner, of which the summoner can also use Titan-egi to tank to a degree, all the healers are DPS to begin with, and Paladin can heal as well.

What I suggested is merely just a little bit more effective in regards to this. Rather than being specialized, it's an all rounder, which takes all the archetypes of a dancer and wraps it all into one. I guess I'll put a tiny amount of effort into explaining this to you.

In my suggestion I pointed out that the method for Dancer to tank a single enemy is through their basic rotation which would make the enemy miss. Naturally you can easily make bosses or even some basic enemies immune to this, such as with silence or stun. It also doesn't effect aoe's in this slightest. It merely serves as a slightly more effective tank than what you can already do by stunning and silencing until something is dead. Additionally one could foresee that Dancer would have weak defense in general, and as such tanking more than one enemy or failing to use your rotation would make you a very flimsy off-tank. As such, this is more of a niche idea than what you have in mind.

I didn't even mention any specific buffs or heals. It could easily be just a weak party regen, or something else entirely. The idea is that dancers dancing is not exactly an offensive action, but meant to raise the spirits of those who are watching, so what else should a dance do other than that? Towards the previous point, the nimble and flexible dancer technique is what allows a dancer to engage in a 1v1 fight without too much risk, even if they should not be geared as well as the enemy, to which you can further include level disparity to weaken its effect.

Or maybe you have any further concerns other than a healer that's also a dps? Maybe you forgot that White Mage, Astrologian, and Scholar all exist.

[kikix12]

Well, you know, you got a Bard that has a defensive cooldown and some defensive abilities and a heal, Machinist that also has Palisade(...)

Both palisade and the heal can only target others and have pretty long cooldowns. They don't make them "off-tanks" by any means. Any healer is closer to being an "off-tank" thanks to their low-cooldown shields than any of the existing DPS.

(...)Red Mage that everyone takes as a revive tool that can also be semi filled with Summoner, of which the summoner can also use Titan-egi to tank to a degree, all the healers are DPS to begin with, and Paladin can heal as well.

At higher levels titan is useless. When a tank in my party went away from keyboard at the start of the lvl61 dungeon, the summoner brought titan egi for the very first group of three. Not only did it die quickly...but it couldn't hold aggro for more than few seconds. A good, physical DPS will be a comparable tank to titan, if not better. Paladin cannot spam the heal. Due to its cost it requires them to restore the MP with combat skills. Red Mage CAN spam its heal, which is also pretty decent, but it was put there simply because of the theme. Red mages are red mages because they dabble in both black and white magic. Hence why they were given a decent heal. But only one, and it's not good enough to save from any major mess-up in harder content. On the other hand, Red Mages are very straightforward with only one innate skill that's not a straight-out damage skill or a self-buff related to their damage mechanic (yes, yes, there's still "Tether"...but yeah).

And healers are not "DPS to some degree". You seem to not understand the difference between "being" something and having "some" tools. Healers have maybe five or six damaging skills, out of which maybe three can be regularly used without drying them off their mana or being on cooldown. They merely have DPS because otherwise they could not play solo content.

[Freyt]

Both palisade and the heal can only target others and have pretty long cooldowns. They don't make them "off-tanks" by any means. Any healer is closer to being an "off-tank" thanks to their low-cooldown shields than any of the existing DPS.

At higher levels titan is useless. When a tank in my party went away from keyboard at the start of the lvl61 dungeon, the summoner brought titan egi for the very first group of three. Not only did it die quickly...but it couldn't hold aggro for more than few seconds. A good, physical DPS will be a comparable tank to titan, if not better. Paladin cannot spam the heal. Due to its cost it requires them to restore the MP with combat skills. Red Mage CAN spam its heal, which is also pretty decent, but it was put there simply because of the theme. Red mages are red mages because they dabble in both black and white magic. Hence why they were given a decent heal. But only one, and it's not good enough to save from any major mess-up in harder content. On the other hand, Red Mages are very straightforward with only one innate skill that's not a straight-out damage skill or a self-buff related to their damage mechanic (yes, yes, there's still "Tether"...but yeah).

And healers are not "DPS to some degree". You seem to not understand the difference between "being" something and having "some" tools. Healers have maybe five or six damaging skills, out of which maybe three can be regularly used without drying them off their mana or being on cooldown. They merely have DPS because otherwise they could not play solo content.

If you can try to change your viewpoint just slightly, and assume that what you've stated here isn't any disagreement with what I've said, but expansion of the principals of what I've said, then you'd start to get a good idea of what it is I propose. Titan-egi can't tank very well at high levels. That is what I had in mind. Paladin cannot spam heals. That is what I had in mind. Healers are not full on DPS. That is what I had in mind.

You argued about specific terminology or classifications, and about Red Mage in particular for some reason, but you haven't argued against the principal idea that I put forth. I'm sorry to say that you've wasted your time, but you seemed to approach this with the idea that you'd be teaching me why I was wrong, without ever telling me I was wrong about anything.

Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the intention of your reply. Regardless, I think you've misunderstood the idea I've proposed.

[kikix12]

Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the intention of your reply. Regardless, I think you've misunderstood the idea I've proposed.

An "off-tank" is a character that can successfully tank, just with more difficulty. An "off-healer" is a character that can successfully heal, just with more difficulty. Just how actual tanks have an off-tank stance. They can tank perfectly well in it, but there are times they shouldn't.

What you seem to misunderstand is that by saying "off-tank", "off-support" and similar you suggest a character that could do these roles very well, taking place of the respective "specialists" with only mediocre decrease in ability. Now, if you said "a bit tankier against single foe" or "with some support" no one would have a problem. Dancer is expected to be rather support heavy anyway, no matter the role it will get. But the way you said it implies a character that is simply too good in all these fields. Even if you did not mean that.

[Freyt]

An "off-tank" is a character that can successfully tank, just with more difficulty. An "off-healer" is a character that can successfully heal, just with more difficulty. Just how actual tanks have an off-tank stance. They can tank perfectly well in it, but there are times they shouldn't.

What you seem to misunderstand is that by saying "off-tank", "off-support" and similar you suggest a character that could do these roles very well, taking place of the respective "specialists" with only mediocre decrease in ability. Now, if you said "a bit tankier against single foe" or "with some support" no one would have a problem. Dancer is expected to be rather support heavy anyway, no matter the role it will get. But the way you said it implies a character that is simply too good in all these fields. Even if you did not mean that.

I would suggest to you to think twice when pointing out what someone else misunderstands, because you've spent so much time trying to correct something that you didn't need to correct. I don't at all suggest for Dancer to off-tank anywhere near as well as an actual tank, or heal anywhere near as well as an actual healer (if they were to heal at all). From the very beginning I limited the idea to tanking one enemy at a time, and I further expanded that even this should be limited.

I'm sorry, but your observation that I've proposed for a DPS to have a tank stance or similar is unwarranted and not based on facts.

What you've decided that I've implied is not based on facts.

You've simply taken terms that have regularly been used as general blanket terms and arbitrarily decided fit specific things, and then disagreed with me for having used those terms that you decided that I had used incorrectly, when even if you could obtain a general consensus as to such, still does not go to the heart of the discussion.