My feedback on new DNC

[Averekia]

As a job I play as my secondary Main, I enjoy DNC a lot... however... the changes to it feels... redundant.
First of... DNC only have ONE(1) skill locked to the gauge. A skill that is part of the global cooldown. Had it been an ogcd skill, I wouldn't feel the need to complain as much. But changing Tillana to only fill the gauge, instead of renewing the partner buff... why? As much as I want to understand how efficient it can be to put the renewal of the partner buff on a much shorter skill combo... I'm more often than not, just gonna go for the standard finish instead.
Currently, Dance of the Dawn and Tillana do pretty much the same thing. One just does more damage. If there truly is a need to have a skill that can fill the gauge... remove one of them and make Saber Dance an off-global cooldown skill instead. Or add another skill that needs the gauge. Maybe a single target skill.
I did expect having to relearn DNC once DT dropped... and I'm fine with that. It's just this change has made me ask "why?" far too many times.

[Ppj_Ninek]

Dance of the Dawn and Tillana do not do the same thing. I think you meant Saber Dance.

I think Tillana needs to be changed, it should give Dance of the Dawn ready and make it not cost Esprit. However, Saber Dance / Dance of the Dawn being a regular gcd is completely fine.
There's also no point in adding a single target option, because Saber Dance already is both the single target and the AoE option...

[NightHour]

I play DNC in High End Content (mainly Savage and Ultimates).

I'm not a world racer, I'm not hardcore. I'm a midcore player.


The biggest issues with DNC are

1. Tillana granting Gauge.
2. Finishing Move takes forever for it's animation and damage to register
3. Last Dance is also extremely slow to register it's animation and damage


Before I explain the Tillana issue, let's look at how Esprit is generated.


1. Weaponskills used by yourself during combat.
2. Chance to be gained through weaponskills or spells used by your Dance Partner
3. Chance to be gained through weaponskills or spells used by your party when under the effects of Technical Finish



Esprit's generation for the most part is extremely random, while Tillana does alleviate some of that randomness it also causes another problem - Unintentional overcapping



Imagine this - You're in a raid group and your group is performing relatively well, You're at 20 gauge, you're about to hit Tillana and as you hit Tillana you get some esprit procs which takes you over 50 gauge. Tillana now also grants 50 gauge causing an overcap in resources that you have absolutely no control of.


You can't "hold Tillana" because you have no idea or control over when Esprit is going to proc or how many of your party members will trigger a proc during Tech.


The 2 minute window for Dancer is already extremely tight, holding abilities on the hope that a random proc happens will cause you to put important abilities outside of buffs.






Here's 2 ways we can resolve this issue -


Suggestion #1:

- Tillana no longer increases Esprit by 50.
- Tillana now grants a buff, we can call it "Saber Dance Ready" or "Enhanced Saber Dance" for 30 seconds.

This buff will make your next Esprit spending ability cost no Esprit.


Suggestion #2:

- Tillana no increases Esprit by 50.
- Dance of the Dawn no longer costs esprit to use.



Doing either of these would remove the random unintentional overcapping from the already Esprit flooded 2 minute windows.



I'd also like Finishing Move and Last Dance to register the hit quicker than they do now.

[Rongway]

"Saber Dance Ready"

"Flourishing Sabers" would be more appropriate. "ACTIONNAME Ready" should be reserved for actions that require and consume a buff and cannot ever be used at any time except when that buff is active.

[Carighan]

I honestly dislike the unnecessary UI spam of these buffs, but it's probably far easier than making it so that we get the +50 energy, and until we are below X% the max of the bar is extended by that amount, and all of this without any selfbuffs to keep the UI more clean. It's more intuitive to get +50 energy, tbh. It's just overcapping that's an issue.

[Averekia]

Apologies, my biggest gripe is the fact that they changed Tillana so that now it feels like applying the party buff is merely an extra step that takes away from my rotation. When before it was part of the rotation.

It appears, however, that I have no idea what I'm talking about. So once again, apologies.
... yes I know I'm overdramatic... I'm not proud of it... doesn't help that this whole expansion has left me grumpy -.-
Maybe I should just save everyone the trouble and find a new secondary main job...

[NightHour]

I honestly dislike the unnecessary UI spam of these buffs, but it's probably far easier than making it so that we get the +50 energy, and until we are below X% the max of the bar is extended by that amount, and all of this without any selfbuffs to keep the UI more clean. It's more intuitive to get +50 energy, tbh. It's just overcapping that's an issue.

Heck if they removed the +50 gauge and removed the Esprit cost from Dance of the Dawn even that would be better than what we have right now.


No need to add anymore buffs to the UI in this case.


Tillana is used to enable Dance of the Dawn anyway, so why not just make DOTD not cost Esprit and remove the Gauge granting from Tillana?


Removing the Esprit cost from Dance of the Dawn wouldn't break balance either as the ability is gated behind Technical Step which is a 2 minute cooldown.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Also play DNC as a secondary class, and maybe it’s just my hot bar setup (on controller) but it feels a bit more awkward to me now. Having the option to have Devilment proc Starfall helps, but maybe something similar could be done for Last Dance? I don’t have room for it on the Standard Step side of my hot bar! lol

[Jaltaer]

I played DNC for every bit of high-end I did in EW and loved it, after playing it in DT just long enough to get it to 100 I dropped it and haven't touched it since.

People have already addressed the glaring issue with Tillana granting +50 gauge instead of a buff (in the expansion where nigh on every other job had their "grants gauge" skill changed to "grants buff for free use without gauge", no less...) - overcapping was already an issue during Tech windows in EW and this just makes it worse, to the point where you actually need to make sure your gauge is empty before going into a burst window.

My own personal issue with the changes to the job are - too many damn GCDs. DNC's burst window was already busy enough, now with three new GCDs you can't even make use of your procs and have to let them fall off in order to fit everything in the burst window - so you have nothing to weave except for your buffs and (for reopener) whatever fans you managed to bank in between bursts, no chance to fish for more fans to get some more oGCD damage while your buffs are all up. It just... feels bad to play with nothing but GCDs, it feels slow which is the exact opposite of how, imo, it should feel. Genuinely, if Dance of the Dawn and Last Dance were changed to be oGCD vs GCD, it'd go a long way towards improving the almost clunky feeling of its new burst.


I won't even get into how the new changes have actually kneecapped the job in older content - since literally all of your main attacks have had their damage reduced, just so you can get it back at level 94. So now not only does the burst feel bad (and I agree with who pointed out the really obvious and terrible delay with Finishing Move, that combined with it's lackluster sound design - although that's a problem with a lot of the new skills for the majority of jobs - often had me questioning whether or not the move even went off), you are doing less damage for all but 6 levels. And when the majority of available content is well below level 94, well.....

[NightHour]

I won't even get into how the new changes have actually kneecapped the job in older content - since literally all of your main attacks have had their damage reduced, just so you can get it back at level 94.

I noticed that pretty early on in DT too and it's infuriating.

Are they really lacking creativity they need to lower potencies and then give it back in a trait?


I think the only "buffs" in the level 94 trait are Technical Finish and Standard Finish. Weren't they 1200 and 750/800 in Endwalker?