Is dancer a waste of time?

[Trixze]

I am worried about the low dps. Is the utility enough to make up for how low they are? I fell in love with this job, I would like to make it my main but would also like to do Titania extreme and not be the lowest dps. I am going to stick with it and hope they make it better soon!

[oph]

It smelly smells, but here it goes:

Outstanding raid contribution = Low personal dps

or

Low or non-existent raid contribution = High personal dps

Pick one.

[Hydrium]

It smelly smells, but here it goes:

Outstanding raid contribution = Low personal dps

or

Low or non-existent raid contribution = High personal dps

Pick one.

Except logs show DNC is near the bottom for both rdps and pdps so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TheRealQuah]

Except logs show DNC is near the bottom for both rdps and pdps so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's because it includes a lot of logs where the dancer has buffed the tank or healer to get them a high pDPS parse, thus generating lower rDPS and bringing the averages down. Also, a Dancer's rDPS is hit harder if their dance partner dies at any point.

Once the DNC logs where they buff a non-dps are not included in the averages, we will see more accurate figures.

[HyoMinPark]

DNC can hit over 10,000 in terms of rDPS. It could use maybe slight potency buffs, but at 95th percentiles for the current EX fights, it’s only ~400 rDPS behind MCH, ~300 rDPS behind BRD. We’ll see how well it fairs in Savage, but thus far it is in a better state with its direct competitors compared to SMN and RDM versus BLM.

[LunarEmerald]

DNC can hit over 10,000 in terms of rDPS. It could use maybe slight potency buffs, but at 95th percentiles for the current EX fights, it’s only ~400 rDPS behind MCH, ~300 rDPS behind BRD. We’ll see how well it fairs in Savage, but thus far it is in a better state with its direct competitors compared to SMN and RDM versus BLM.

Those are some cherry picked parses. Dancer doesn't do dps like that unless you get lucky with procs. Dancer has pretty bad sustained dps if your luck is average. I'd say 9000 is a more reaistic dps number for dancer with rDPS. It's a good 1000 or so behind everybody else.

[HyoMinPark]

Those are some cherry picked parses. Dancer doesn't do dps like that unless you get lucky with procs. Dancer has pretty bad sustained dps if your luck is average. I'd say 9000 is a more reaistic dps number for dancer with rDPS. It's a good 1000 or so behind everybody else.

Those are not cherry picked. I specifically stated 95th because it's a fair representation of higher level play. I also only brought up its rDPS against jobs it directly competes against (the physical ranged). It doesn't compete against melee or against a caster for a spot in a raid.

95th percentile on Innocence has DNC at 10,244 rDPS. 90th percentile is 10,028. 80th percentile is 9,718. Even 75th percentile is above your 9,000 spitball (9,595). At 75th percentile on Innocence, DNC is 900 behind BLM, the highest damage dealer. For MCH and BRD, the gap is ~600 to ~700. This gap lessens the higher you go (95th is ~200 to ~250 between DNC and BRD/MCH for Innocence). It widens for DNC versus BLM at the higher levels, where it actually exceeds the 1,000 you presented, but my comparison was against the physical ranged (and the difference between DNC and other DPS above it in terms of rDPS only exceeds 1,000 with regards to BLM; the second highest DPS [MNK] exceeds by ~900, and each one beneath MNK lower than that)..

The numbers are present on the website under statistics. That's where I pulled them from. Not from a handful of parses I randomly looked up. The lower you go, the larger divides become - but this applies to any job.

[wololo]

Like Oph said, Dancer is the most 'Support-like' of the DPS classes, with strong raidwide buffs. If that appeals to you, then I don't think Dancer is a waste, but like others said, being a DPS-support means that you won't be doing as much personal DPS

[Saefinn]

Given utility, yeah, it is expected to do low DPS and at the bottom of the DPS table is where it belongs...this is me saying this as a DNC main too. It's a great job to play and I'm loving it regardless. Of course, where there is disparity they're kind of things to get addressed in patches anyway. And a 300 dps difference once contributions are taken into account is not that bad.

And top percentile only affects a small population. Some people seem to get in a habit of basing job choices on what's meta for top percentile groups. Anything below that just means some jobs will be harder to maximise DPS than others, so you might have to be a better player to compensate any differences. If you are looking at top percentile groups then my point of course is moot.

But I generally go with the argument, unless you're looking to optimise to the max, go with what you enjoy playing because chances are, you'll be better at it versus a meta job you don't enjoy. And if bigger deeps and bigger numbers are what do it for you, then yes, DNC might not be what you're looking for.