Dancer 6.0 Speculation

[ty_taurus]

So outside of the physical ranged DPS damage as a whole being very low, Dancer is largely in an amazing spot with very few areas to complain about for those of us who enjoy the playstyle. There are a few areas that could use some improvement of course, like a way to extend the duration of Flourish buffs so that there's no fear of losing them during our burst window if we get too many Sabre Dance, but otherwise it doesn't feel like we need any major change to what we already have.

The question I have is where could we expand?

I have a strong feeling we'll be getting some kind of single target Sabre Dancer (Dancer Xenoglossy), but what about new elements toward gameplay?

Something I have been thinking about for aesthetics would be something like a Phoenix Dance that upgrades our Fan Dances from peacock feathers into phoenix feathers. I think the fiery dancer would be a cool aesthetic to have. As far as mechanics, I'd like to see that work in a way to give us a phase of guaranteed feather procs. Specifically, I'd like to see this be something we're doing halfway between one Technical Step and the next.

As it stands, we have a very heavy burst window every 2 minutes, but inbetween that can be a little slow at times, especially if you get some bad RNG with procs. Having some kind of mini burst that can somehow trigger between Technical Steps would feel better, I think, then just adding more to technical step burst windows, but that's just my opinion.

I'm curious what other dancers are interested in seeing happen with our kit.

[Rai_Takara]

I'd like to see Flourish be a 30 second cooldown.

Now I know what you're thinking. "We're already running into situations where we have to drop procs and you want more procs?" Yes I do.

The reasoning is that I think dancer is one of those jobs, much like other RNG jobs, focused on making right decisions, given the circumstances. One of the main complaint's I have heard about dancer is that outside of the 2 min Technical Finish burst window, there's a lot of 1/2 and sometimes only 1/2 if you get unlucky. Bringing Flourish to 30 seconds would mean that at most, you'd have 4 GCDs of downtime between procs (really just 2 GCDs because standard takes 2 GCDs to use). What this would mean gameplay wise is, you'd certainly always have procs and never really dabble in the combo system unless you get very unlucky with Esprit and even then, you won't be unlucky for long. RNG jobs work well when they can play by quantity to avoid heavy swings towards good or bad RNG, allowing them to average out. So the more procs you can throw, the more you can average out their performance without having massive swings between runs.

This would also put certain emphasis on decision making which is a fun part of current dancer, but is only felt currently, when you get too lucky. For example, with reduced Flourish CD, you might end up in a situation where you might often end up in a situation where you would want to drop procs to use Saber Dance but also end up in situations where you'd want to stay capped on Esprit and get finish using all procs. It also allows for some flexibility with Flourish instead of it being uniquely a 1 minute CD.

Furthermore, it would also add some more complexity into dancer naturally, as you now have twice as many AoE procs to unload every minute than before and that means having to plan its usages or perhaps forgo them for Sabers.

Just this one change would add quite a bit of depth to dancer without making it any harder to pickup, which I think is a good thing.

Aside from that a minor change would be making it so Standard and Tech Finishes either never Crit or Direct Hit, or always do. Having such a high potency hit Direct Hit Crit is equivalent to another use and causes too much variability and thus makes it hard to balance. Other jobs like PLD suffer from this with Confiteor but while the number of jobs are few, the negative effect is still too much.

There's also removing the improv requirement of needing people, because it's silly.

All in all, I'm unsure what they can do to dancer after these proposed changes. The job is complete for the most part as is. I know there's a suggestion to make Saber Dance extend procs, but I feel like that would make dancer too simple. I think having to make a decision is what makes dancer nuanced versus straightforward.

[Rika007]

I would like to see a higher proc rate on four fold feathers so the job can be a bit busier in its down time between its major burst phases. Mobility tax has always been a poor execuse for ranged DPS having such low damage, and ranged DPS should be doing much closer to comparable DPS to the other jobs. The way you make it fair is you make them press far more buttons per minute and have to play at a higher tempo than any other job since they are able to keep their rotation going no matter what (Machinist is making good on this and while Bard took a hit on it's APM this expansion it's still one of the higher ones). I would also like to see a third step to the proc of the combo's, one ability that you can proc off either Fountainfall or Reverse Cascade, and if you manage to get that proc, a hit on the boss guarantees a Fourfold Feather. A similar third step to the AOE's would be nice too.

If not a higher proc rate on the feathers then I would mimic Rai's call for a lower cool down timer on Flourish, just something so that the peaks and valleys between Dancers fast and slow moments are so insanely steep. A change to the way Improv gets Espirit is of course still absolutely necessary as it has been since day one. I also know others would disagree but I'd like a single Dot to manage as well, I don't want to turn it into Bard or Summoner, but to me jobs miss out on something without a dot to manage. I really miss lead shot on Mch. Even if it's something longer and simple to put on like Higanbana for Samurai. Outside of that nothing to major Dancer has a very strong concept for a job, much like Red Mage, the foundation is perfectly set, now they just need to give it a few things to really allow for a skilled player to flex their muscles on the job.

[Crushnight]

I like another dance, a 3 step one that does huge burst dmg like the others but causes debuffs to go on anything hit, I'd think 10% reduction in damage dealt, be on a 180s cd so keeps busy work as low as possible after opener to every 6 mins in a fight.

Sabre Dance to be ogcd.

Closed position available at level 50 at the latest(love if level 15 but May just be even more overkill)

Personally I'd like to lean more on dancer having debuffs but not DoTs going forward I think as a buffer we are very solid

Obviously anything added to dancer would result in Brd and Mch getting an equivalent type of skill or flat out more damage as compensation.

[Rai_Takara]

I like another dance, a 3 step one that does huge burst dmg like the others but causes debuffs to go on anything hit, I'd think 10% reduction in damage dealt, be on a 180s cd so keeps busy work as low as possible after opener to every 6 mins in a fight.

Sabre Dance to be ogcd.

Closed position available at level 50 at the latest(love if level 15 but May just be even more overkill)

Personally I'd like to lean more on dancer having debuffs but not DoTs going forward I think as a buffer we are very solid

Obviously anything added to dancer would result in Brd and Mch getting an equivalent type of skill or flat out more damage as compensation.

Just wanted to mention any new dance would have to have an even number of steps because of the nature of our GCD, if it's an odd number we'll start clipping into it.

Also Saber Dance being a GCD forces choice and that's a good thing. It's also nice because as a GCD you can use it as filler to prevent procs from proccing before using Flourish.

I would like to see a higher proc rate on four fold feathers so the job can be a bit busier in its down time between its major burst phases. Mobility tax has always been a poor execuse for ranged DPS having such low damage, and ranged DPS should be doing much closer to comparable DPS to the other jobs. The way you make it fair is you make them press far more buttons per minute and have to play at a higher tempo than any other job since they are able to keep their rotation going no matter what (Machinist is making good on this and while Bard took a hit on it's APM this expansion it's still one of the higher ones). I would also like to see a third step to the proc of the combo's, one ability that you can proc off either Fountainfall or Reverse Cascade, and if you manage to get that proc, a hit on the boss guarantees a Fourfold Feather. A similar third step to the AOE's would be nice too.

If not a higher proc rate on the feathers then I would mimic Rai's call for a lower cool down timer on Flourish, just something so that the peaks and valleys between Dancers fast and slow moments are so insanely steep. A change to the way Improv gets Espirit is of course still absolutely necessary as it has been since day one. I also know others would disagree but I'd like a single Dot to manage as well, I don't want to turn it into Bard or Summoner, but to me jobs miss out on something without a dot to manage. I really miss lead shot on Mch. Even if it's something longer and simple to put on like Higanbana for Samurai. Outside of that nothing to major Dancer has a very strong concept for a job, much like Red Mage, the foundation is perfectly set, now they just need to give it a few things to really allow for a skilled player to flex their muscles on the job.

Given how feathers are lower potency, I think the proc rates are okay? Assuming the base procs themselves are plentiful which is the aim I had with 30 second Flourish. Just a simple change like that would really add more complexity that naturally flows into the job and make it busier but not necessarily busy for the sake of being busy.

I'm unsure on the DoT bit since I think dancer as is flows nicely without one. Reason MCH lost it was because there was little depth with a fire and forget 60 second DoT. With SAM you had setup and you couldn't freely put up your DoT so you had to think ahead about it, so it had a reason to exist. Even jobs like NIN it's also funnily enough fire and forget and kind of lame. I think the better way of adding complexity is to just let us flex our mobility that we have with En Avant and require us to constantly jump back and forth between melee range and not which reduced Flourish accomplishes with more frequent AoE procs.

(I swear I'm not trying to sell the Flourish idea but please, I don't want to go more than 30 seconds with no procs again)

[ty_taurus]

Another thing I've been thinking about is Improvisation. As it stands, it kinda feels like an empty skill. It's not useless per say, but it's a totally unnecessary button. We dancers don't need some kind of phase transition button since we don't manage some kind of important buff prone to falling off. I suppose you could maybe make an argument for Standard Finish, Esprit, and Technical Finish. Maybe Improvisation could put those buffs on all party members in range on hold during a transition, which could be very useful, but I also don't think that's where we really need to go as Dancers, not to mention it could possibly be exploitable with certain timings.

So when I think of the term "Improvisation," what I think of is breaking choreography and improvising based on the circumstances, and something that could be interesting would be to have Improvisation be something that could replace your usage of Standard Finish after beginning Standard Step. Functionally, it would do the same damage, however instead of following the Simon Says minigame, you improvise and do a different combination to yield a different effect for you and your Dance Partner.

This concept would make Improvisation a bit similar to Mudras, but I think it would be best to keep it simple--The first step doesn't matter, but the second step will determine one of 4 effects you'll get instead of the normal Standard Step and Esprit. This wouldn't be bad thing for DPS necessarily because those buffs last for 60 seconds, and we use Standard Step on CD as dancers. There might be a slight issue with Standard Step and Esprit dropping off briefly before the next Standard Step after, but we could also make Improvisation extend those effects by 5-10 seconds for smoothness.

As for the effects themselves, I'm thinking that these would be forms of utility designed when something bad happens, much like why a real Dancer would feel the need to improvise. Here are some ideas.
If your second step was...
Emboite (Red) - You perform Shield Improvisation, decreasing the damage taken by yourself and your dance partner by 20% for 10 seconds
Entrechat (Blue) - You Perform Mana Improvisation, restoring 1000 MP to you and your dance partner
Jete (Green) - You Perform Curing Improvisation, healing you and your dance partner with 400 potency heal
Pirouette (Yellow) - You Perform Cleansing Improvisation, removing a debuff from you and your dance partner

It doesn't have to be this literally, but something like this would I think add a cool layer of complexity and make the Standard Finish and Esprit buff durations actually matter.

[SpeckledBurd]

Espirit as a whole needs fleshing out I think. It currently has an AOE dump, so it's open to gain a Single Target dump and other actions on longer cooldowns that are more than just filler.

[Hazama999]

Definitely gotta do something MORE with esprit. Aside from that, perhaps a new dance or something along those lines?
I feel kinda lukewarm on Improvisation. I generally don't like skills that require you to just stand in place and do nothing for X seconds. I LIKE the animation, but being stuck there kinda takes away from the overall feel of dancer.

That said, I... don't really see them changing a whole lot about dancer. Much like red mage, I felt like this was a job that was easy to pick up and play right out the gate, and so I don't really think it'll get anything too out there as far as changes go.

[Raikai]

On how DNC works right now, my biggest gripe is having to constantly pool 3 feathers for the next burst phase... I literally have to rely on just 1-point combo system. For that regard, I really wish Flourish would guarantee feathers from its proc'd abilities. This way, you would have a much more flexible Feather usage during your regular phases, and as the TS phase approaches, you'd be able to use Flourish beforehand to 100% fish for feathers you miss.

Another thing is Fan Dance III. I really think that ability stands in a really weird spot. I know it was probably designed to be that bonus feeling, but being the "proc of the proc" feels weirdly unreliable. I don't really have a suggestion for this, just this personal remark.

Improvisation still is a really bad ability. The healing bonus is not impactful, since there is a lot of overhealing. The esprit gains are not big enough to warranty such a long time doing nothing... There are only a couple of situations where you can do this. A fix would be either change the healing bonus to something more useful for everyone like crit or dh AND buff the esprit meter gains.

My expectations for DNC 6.0:
Improved Curing Waltz trait that makes it leave a regen effect on you and your partner;
Emperor's New Chakrams, an invisible weapon for DNC
An actual Bladed Fan as a weapon for DNC (this could happen anytime now tbh)

Three elemental dances in the Astral aspects: Fire, Lightning and Wind . They would be OGCD buttons that are available on your standard or technical step phases and share a cooldown. They add a special effect (and added visuals) to your combo buttons and to your dance partner's attacks:
Burning Polka - Each attack leaves a burning dot that can be stacked.
Bolero of Wind - Increase on movement speed and Direct Hit.
Levin Swing - Each attack can cause paralysis and increases Determination.

Also:
- Saber Dance changed to being a single target Esprit spender
- Pirouette, new weaponskill meant to be a multi-target Esprit spender

[ty_taurus]

Definitely would be nice to see more options behind Esprit, but the trick ultimately is about making something that has a viable use. We're a pretty aggressive community of min/maxers when it comes to end game content, so we would need some kind of damage to come out of Esprit that wouldn't just usurp Sabre Dance. If I'm getting "Not Sabre Dance," then what exactly is going to encourage me to use that and Sabre Dance at different points in the fight. It can be tricky to get the right balance between the actions, and if the option option isn't damage, it would need to have some pretty powerful form of utility that would outperform the Sabre Dance.