Musings on DNC and meta comps in ShB

[Nominous]

When NIN was released, they expected it's personal DPS would be lower to compensate for Trick Attack (it was higher). When AST was released they under-tuned it because they thought card buffs would be so good that people wouldn't look at the other healers as positively (AST was looked at as barely viable). Point is, these Jobs aren't exactly easy to balance correctly in one go, and usually they get it wrong on launch.

I think this is going to be very similar to the AST situation, actually. I think DNC will be under-tuned to compensate for (what they expect to be) incredible support values. I think they will be proper bonkers, but I think that it won't necessarily outweigh having another party member that could offer more reasonable DPS and support, especially in prog. The baseline for how good DNC needs to be is basically where DRG is now, DPS and support-wise. And I doubt the DPS aspect will line up.

They'll almost absolutely be used for speedruns, but I don't think it'll be nearly as rigid as DRG/NIN/BRD where you have 3 whole slots almost locked because of their interplay/party synergy. At worst, you'll have one slot that's highly preferred to be DNC, but that slot is also where BRD and MCH compete. BRD being a pretty big staple in the game, MCH probably seeing a huge popularity boost. Not to mention, sometimes casters compete for that slot, and even melee. All of which might retain more inclusive, less selective party buffs, which I think will be more appealing overall.

All to say, we have to wait and see, but I think DNC is gonna have a tough time tbh.