Dancer Flourish is badly designed and not actually enjoyable to use

[Raqrie_Tohka]

For a class clearly geared at newcomers, the flourish skill sticks out like a sore thumb.

Because of the complexity surrounding its usage:
You have to check for proc overwrite.
You have to time for saber gauge usage and plan extra gcd for devilment and another standard step before technical buff runs out.
You can’t use it before technical or else the buffs would run out anyways, but not using it before technical means you are wasting the internal cd on flourish and will drift it so that by 3rd technical it’s impossible to even use all the procs due to not enough gcd window instead of running out.
You also have to fit fan dances in during technical burn phase.
You also have to use it once off-technical phase per cycle, and this skipping sync is just more drift.

All in all it’s just a clusterfludge, and reminds me of the horrible self-defeating ninja cross-proc system we currently have (minor changes due). This kind of bad design it seems SE hasn’t clearly found a way out of yet. Apex arrow on bard. Etc. Trying to simplifying classes as much as possible, but ending up with boring classes, uninspired rotations, and non-existent combo-ing.

[HyoMinPark]

Hmm, I never heard of DNC ever being advertised as a job geared towards newcomers. And, honestly, newcomers would likely not complain about the things you’ve had listed here—especially if they don’t care too much about optimizing the way the job is played. They’ll just play it however they want.

I’d say that most of this is opinion—and having an opinion that Flourish is poorly designed doesn’t necessarily make it so. Personally, I think the skill is fun to use; and I don’t find it inherently difficult to optimize or cumbersome in its execution. Reprogging UCoB goes to show you just how empty and boring DNC’s rotation is without Flourish forcing your procs—and the lack of it also shows how much it and Saber Dance affect the job’s personal damage output.


The entire idea during one’s Technical Finish window is priority—DNC is a job based on a priority system (much like BRD), so you should always prioritize your most potent skills prior to the lower potency ones during big buff windows (e.g., Saber Dance > Fountainfall > Standard Step > Reverse Cascade/Bloodshower > Rising Windmill). Using Flourish after a Technical Finish cast doesn’t seem like much of an inherent problem, and more so like it’s a personal nitpick on your part. Optimally, that’s how the skill should be used so that you squeeze in all of your procs—especially the higher potency ones—under buff windows for more damage; I’m not sure why you’d want to use it before Technical Finish and risk losing your procs or not lining them up with things like Trick, Litany, or Chain. The internal cooldown of the skill shouldn’t be an issue, as the skill should be on cooldown each time you begin to prep Technical for buff windows if you have been using Flourish properly: I tend to have 7 to 9 seconds worth of cooldown remaining on my Flourish when I’m playing the job at any given Technical window (sans the first) if I haven’t had to delay it for a sudden proc prior to its between-window usage. So is your complaint regarding delaying Flourish in your opener until after you have Technical set up?

If you don’t have to delay Flourish more than a GCD or two prior to each usage, you shouldn’t have any issue lining it up with every Technical Finish window and getting at least your most potent procs into the window (primarily Fountainfall, since it’s 400 potency); especially if you are running the dead skill speed build and have a 2.50s GCD (both of our Finishes line up nicely with virtually no skill speed—only Technical runs into holding your GCD for a split second, but Standard will always line up without any holding or drifting if you are keeping your GCD rolling). The only time I’ve had a proc drop during a Technical window is when Esprit generation decides to go more than a bit insane and I end up with 3 or more Saber Dances during a given Technical Finish window. The only way to really rectify this would be to extend the timer on Flourished procs from 20 seconds to 30 seconds, but you’d still run into them falling outside of buff windows should they be delayed for Saber usage. Frankly, I don’t see what you mean by how it’s “impossible” to use all of your Flourished procs during your third Technical Finish. I don’t recall having that issue unless I have a huge influx of Espirt—which doesn’t always happen.

I disagree with the insinuation that weaving oGCD Fan Dances adds any sort of difficulty to Flourish’s use or during a Technical window. The Fan Dances are the only other oGCDs DNCs have outside of Flourish and Devilment (and I guess Improvisation if you want to try to fish for 10 Esprit during a window); so double-weaving them between your Flourish-proc’d GCDs is not that huge of an impediment—especially at the dead skill speed build where double weaving FD3 > FD or FD > FD3 is seamless. At most, sometimes you end up with a Technical Finish window where you generate a feather after every proc, and sometimes that leaves you with a feather or two you still have stored in your gauge by the time the window ends. But I’d rather that than have no Fan Dances to weave at all. Not having things to weave at such a slow skill speed can make the job feel extremely slow.



All this said, if the skill does involve a bit of complexity to optimize, how is that inherently a bad thing? Personally, I’d rather jobs have more complexity than less, as they feel more rewarding with successful execution. Compared ShB BRD to SB BRD: the latter was far more complex in how it was optimized, and it felt more rewarding as a result; the former is incredibly dull by comparison, and doesn’t take nearly the amount of skill to optimize than it did in the past. Removing any complexity from Flourish optimization and DNC’s priority system would really just make the job’s rotation boring and slow.

I wouldn’t go so far as to compare DNC’s Flourish to a skill like BRD’s Apex Arrow. At least Flourish is interesting enough to use—Apex is literally “Ignore me until 100 gauge” and (until 5.1) “Sometime I make you automatically press PP because our sound effects are the same”. Apex being GCD also just makes the skill feel even more terrible, in my opinion.

[Skye_]

OP is off base. Good Dancers manage and line things up to maximize their dps. During the window is it busy? yes, but I wouldn't say that it is poorly designed. Dancers problem is RNG and dependency on party for its gauge fill. On feather generation, I can go almost a full min or more sometimes without a feather and if gauge isn't filling I just watch my dps go down and down even with perfect rotation and technical windows. With good players, my gauge spikes often which helps, but I still can get RNG screwed by feathers in a bad way and it happens often.

DNC has it the worst of the physical ranged. I hope its potency buff don't get drowned out by the Bard and MCH changes.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

You are almost right, it's quite a personal nitpick. But it seems very messy and not exactly beautiful in concept and usage. Dancer is basically "big downtime with dull rotation that is newcomer friendly" then "technical window where you go ??? disco".
Idk, is that supposed to give people some sort of a kick? Is it supposed to be fun? After the 980th time where your compulsive thingy kicks in because you couldn't fit all 4 procs within technical window without overwriting one?
I just don't see how this is some kind of class design philosophy, or if it is, how it's supposed to be good, and I'm worried about SE and their design department if they design all classes further and further down this road. (But some changes are coming back, so I'm not too worried.)

[HyoMinPark]

Flourish will always line up nicely with buff windows—which is about as far away from messy as you can really get. Your first, third, fifth, etc. will always be present during a Technical Finish window (alongside other buffs such as TA, Chain, Divination). If your party has a NIN, every Flourish use will line up with Trick Attack—so you get the benefits of TA’s increased damage on your strongest hitting procs (you also should use feathers here if you have any stored). If you have a DRG, your 1-minute, 3-minute, and 6-minute Flourishes will like up with Litany. The entire idea is executing Flourish during a raid buff window to maximize your damage. It’s not that complicated.

And it doesn’t feel clunky to use or execute—the only times it feels bothersome is IF you lose a proc during a TF window because Saber Dance is going a little crazy. But that doesn’t happen all the time. If you’ve had to delay it a GCD, continue to use it immediately after it comes off CD during a TF window, and prioritize your highest procs first so that they can still land under the buff window (especially if you have TA up as well). If your managing your rotation well enough, Flourish delays shouldn’t happen often enough to cause a huge delay on your TF Flourishes. If you’re constantly losing/dropping Flourished procs completely, it’s likely your execution of the skill itself (e.g., unnecessary delays, using it before Technical Step, etc.). Like I said: it may happen that you lose one during a TF window because of Saber Dance, but you shouldn’t constantly be letting them fall off.

Only Technical Finish Windows can get really crazy if you’re in a party with good players that are feeding you lots of yummy Espirt. But it’s honestly no different than 4.x BRD was whenever your burst window (Minuet+RS) would like up with Litany and/or Chain Stratagem. Frankly, I like the ups and downs of DNC’s rotation—I’ve always liked jobs that offer periods of busy-ness followed by periods of cooldown. And that’s what DNC is. It’s incredibly boring without your busy periods. As I said in my first post, I’ve come to a newfound appreciation of both Flourish and Saber Dance after reprogging UCoB, which syncs you down to 70 and causes you to lose both of them. Let me tell you how boring DNC’s rotation is without Flourish to force proc my strongest skills: it’s really boring. It also makes your Feather RNG particularly egregious; I personally don’t have issues with the Feather RNG from level 72+, but it’s quite abysmal at any other level.

I think SE did a very good job of designing DNC to flow excellently at level cap. It’s only sub-72 where the job feels slow and empty—Flourish gives us something to do.

[Duskane]

I think SE did a very good job of designing DNC to flow excellently at level cap. It’s only sub-72 where the job feels slow and empty—Flourish gives us something to do.

my thought is that this job is missing something major that RDM and Old MCH had was a guaranteed way to break through the RNG while Flourish helps one part
i think DNC really needs a way to stock fan 1 and 2 either similar way to MCH ammo system or just standard step gives 2 fans and tech step gives 4 as a example

even at 80 DNC doesn't feel complete to me comparing to some jobs

[Raqrie_Tohka]

my thought is that this job is missing something major that RDM and Old MCH had was a guaranteed way to break through the RNG while Flourish helps one part
i think DNC really needs a way to stock fan 1 and 2 either similar way to MCH ammo system or just standard step gives 2 fans and tech step gives 4 as a example

even at 80 DNC doesn't feel complete to me comparing to some jobs

An extra layer, depth in the form of multilayer gauge could be one possible way to add depth and identity to the class.

[AnimaAnimus]

I main dnc on my alt and I find everything you complain about, enjoyable. I like that dancer is busy, and tbh its really not that much busier than other classes. There is plenty of time to weave in fan dances, the dance procs are easy since you get them all at once and don't have to wait to see which ones next, making each step easier to execute, the high dmg phases is the most enjoyable part of dnc rotations imo.

There is so much time between cool downs that weaving with dancer is a cinch. Sure you have to pay attn but since when is that a bad thing. I can only see this job being difficult if you want to just tap the same 3 buttons in the same order constantly and not have to worry about procs or weaving.

As far as combat goes I think dnc has the most thoughtful design behind it. They really took a lot into consideration so things lined up nicely.

And since you need to be level 60 just to unlock the job, its clearly not meant for newcomers....

[Allooutrick]

Perhaps try to consider what counter arguments others will make. As others have pointed out, Dancer isn't intended to be a beginner class. Thaumaturge, arcanist, rogue, those are beginner classes. What's more, since this is near the start of your post, it makes for a bad first impression and makes it hard to take anything that follows as well thought out.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

Perhaps try to consider what counter arguments others will make. As others have pointed out, Dancer isn't intended to be a beginner class. Thaumaturge, arcanist, rogue, those are beginner classes. What's more, since this is near the start of your post, it makes for a bad first impression and makes it hard to take anything that follows as well thought out.

Nice. As always, it’s about appealing to the preestablished prejudice and focusing your argument on where other people agrees instead of having discussion on the arguable parts where other people disagree. Though I’m not saying my writing and organizing ability is blameless here.

But Ninja as a starter-friendly class? I really can’t agree with that.
The way I see dancer as an obvious class designed to make newcomers fit into the game, is because of its
- Easy rotation due to a lack of complex OGCDs,
-A “cheap thrills” type rotation revolving around and I quote myself, the “?? Disco phase”,
-Boosting someone else’s dps in a form of psychological feel-good instead of having everyone focus on their own dps,
- Tools for mobility to help newcomers
- Even a handy tiny aoe heal for the feel-good and stuff (I’m useful) compared to more complex and indirect buffs like bard Minne,
- All the flashy stuff, including improvisation during downtime (look I’m flashy)
- ETC.

A lot of semi-newcomers aka. HW/SB quitters would want something easy to return to, without having to start from square one. The “cash whale” type dream players would also have no problem of reaching higher level quickly, either directly or through exp boosts from gear and whatnot. Or want a quick secondary class to ease their boredom.

99 players would have 99 impressions of a class, and if designed by themselves, probably many different “true” images of a class. But what would not do, is to have a cheapened image of the class due to accessibility reasons (cough AST cards, Bard songs) infringing upon the uniqueness and spirit of the class itself. A line has to be drawn.

And my bottom line is, at least for me, I am not very satisfied with the ... innate feeling, whole representation of this dancer combat design philosophy. Sure it matches up with the “support others in spirit” and all, but it just feels ... off, weak, neutered. It’s a bit extreme, but try to see what I’m trying to express here.

Including how some people mentioned dancer was dull without flourish, so dancer with flourish suddenly becomes un-dull? It sticks out like a sore thumb in how it’s “supposed” to add so much for the class.