How Dancer skills actually work?

[Raikai]

So, I was analyzing the job's skills, and while some of them look purely martial, as Cascade, R. Cascade, Fountain, etc, there are others that appear to be more aetherical in nature, such as Curing Waltz, or even the effects achieved by the dance Steps.

But then, I've rolled through the DNC job quests in their fullest, and they didn't (or I missed?) give any actual explanation on how these, more eldritch, abilities work. For one, we can see in the first quests, in the combat sequences, Ranna using some crazy fiery explosion effects on her dancing displays - not something available as a PC skill.

Or perhaps we'll have to wait for another edition of the Lorebook?

[Enkidoh]

Well, most of the dance names and even the actual title of the 'school' of dance that DNC uses, the Kriegstanz, is taken from DNC in FFXI and, remembering how DNC worked there, it was about using TP to power the dances, so aether would definetely be the closest analogy to that here in FFXIV. Someone more advanced in the Job may have a better explanation though.

[Dezarc]

pretty much every class/job uses aether in some way or another, even the martial ones - gladiators had flash pretty early and that was basically a magic flashbang. dancers having some slightly more magical moves is probably just part of the fighting side of the tradition.

[Raikai]

Yeah, I realize it's aetherical in nature, but my question was more geared towards how. They use their own aether? Or bend the aether around them? Stuff like that...

[Connor]

It’s a bit condensed, but basically I think that Dancers are channeling internal aether to manifest the effects of their dances.

We know that aetherial manipulation is generally influenced by the intent of the manipulator. It’s likely that when the Kriegenstanz was first made - or at least the dance moves - there wasn’t any intention to create a ‘magic dance’. But just as a Paladin’s magic is their fervent desire to protect their comrades made manifest, Dancers desire to bring healing and Succor to the land, and mend people’s hearts with their art. As such, I would guess that this desire resonates with their internal aether, causing the effects to manifest (i.e physically healing someone with a dance, or hurting an evil monster with a dance). Plus, we learn that a Dancer’s true goal is to stop the spread of the Totenkranz, and so the desire to halt the spread of this darkness is likely another reason why there’s a resonance between the Dancer and their aether

Manipulating ambient aether isn’t likely to be how Dancers do this. We know from White/Black magic’s history that attempting to use this kind of aether can be dangerous to both the caster and the land, and it tends to result in much larger scale ‘magics’. As such, I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that a group would inadvertently do, unless going out of their way to create world-shattering magics like in Amdapor / Mhach / That place Black Mages came from in Thanalan (Sil’dih?) during the War of the Magi (Nym were involved too but from the sounds of it they didn’t put up much of a fight before, you know, they got all stabby lol).

I don’t know how accurate it is but this has been my own assumptions on how the Dancers work with aether. Maybe it’s be more accurate to call it a ‘headcanon’ lol

[JeanneOrnitier]

I haven't gone far at all in the Bard quests but I imagine it's similar to how Bard music works.