The Last Dance II: The Show Must Go On

You might do less DPS than a BLU, but you do more than him when he's dead.

Get yourself a good -DT set, on a panic button. Between that, Fan Dance, and Waltzes, you should have amazing survivability. You might do less DPS than a BLU, but you do more than him when he's dead. The number one issue I see with DDs is a lack of survivability due to not wanting to use -DT gear because "it hurts my DPS".

In parties with decently geared BLU, you'll want to hold Pyrrhic Kleos for every other Chant du Cygne, so that you're getting your WS off between his Light skillchains. The odds of doing Darkness with a BLU in the party are low outside of stuff where you specifically need one of those damage types.

DNC can put out a significant amount of DPS. Kleos does a good deal of damage. The problem with doing DNC in most content is a) people want BLUs, even if the BLU in question is actually worse than you, because "it's the best" and/or they can't do anything but specific strategies due to poor gearing, skill, or stubbornness; b) unless everyone is just spamming WSes as soon as they get TP and not caring about chaining, you'll often find yourself either having to WS between Light skillchains or relegated to closing Double Darkness with Rudra's Storm with Building Flourish and Climactic Flourish, when Flourish III is off cooldown; c) having to use Waltzes, at all, in any capacity, will lower your DPS. If ***is going so south that you must Waltz like everyone's lives depend on it, there are enough people who only care about parses to give you ***over your low DPS (since healing is something a lot don't consider, since they have a very narrow, stunted view of things); d) Tanking falls under the same reasons as c, but I feel like noting in a separate point.

The mythic is the better choice over the empyrean dagger, in my opinion. Not only does having to perform fewer job abilities to cap Finishing Moves have a significant impact, given how much JA Lock screws you in both DPS and eating up time when you could be doing other things -- 2 Steps and a Reverse Flourish versus 3 Steps and then a Reverse Flourish can be the difference between getting a Waltz off in time or not -- the Occasionally Attacks Twice or Thrice means higher TP income, which means more frequent weapon skills, and more TP for Waltzes. It also means that you lose less DPS if you're forced to swap out DD gear for -DT gear, because the up to .8 additional attacks per round on that hand, on average, make up for it. It also makes low accuracy situations less stressful, as you retain more TP income. This is also why I recommend Blurred +1 or Atoyac as offhands, especially if you find yourself tanking, and I apologize for my advice, as I spent years as the tank/DD out of a DNC, WHM, and GEO trio, so most of my view on DNC is as a highly survivable DD, or a tank that's expected to put out good damage, depending on how you want to look at it.

Having 2.8 or 3.2 attacks per round, on average, without any DA/TA/QA gear, is very, very nice. A good set of herculean with -%DT on it means you can keep high attack average, while getting a good chunk of -DT, while keeping a good hit rate. Throw on a Defending Ring, and you're at up to 30% DT without major accuracy loss. Or a Twilight Torque instead, and that's up to 25%. With Fan Dance up,with a good set of herculean, or other comparable DT gear you can get -40% PDT with the Torque, -44% PDT with a Defending Ring, or up to -48% PDT with both of them. Depending on how much accuracy you need, and how much support you have, you might not even need the Herculean.

Your role as a Dancer, from my recent experience in the last year, is to deal damage, either via white damage, or skillchains, particularly closing a Double Darkness, while being able to contribute to the survivability of others. Your Waltzes mean the White Mage can focus more on healing the Tank, if the rest of the party is taking little damage, or you can use Divine Waltzes to help top off the party to help save MP. With a good enmity set, and /WAR you can be a back up or off tank. Depending on what the fight is, you can actually tank just fine, as long as people are willing to meter their DPS.

You're front-line support, with less focus on the support and more on the front-line part. It's a fun job, it's a varied job, and it can deal damage. It's just not must-have BLU, doesn't have any magic damage outside of skillchains, has to be in range of AoE attacks and auras to function, and even with a really good MAB set, you still have poor AoE damage with Aeolian Edge.

That was rambling, probably often redundant, and possibly less then you wanted in the actual advice department. Byrth and Skudo will correct me and provide a better perspective, I'm sure.

Get yourself a good -DT set, on a panic button. Between that, Fan Dance, and Waltzes, you should have amazing survivability. You might do less DPS than a BLU, but you do more than him when he's dead. The number one issue I see with DDs is a lack of survivability due to not wanting to use -DT gear because "it hurts my DPS".

In parties with decently geared BLU, you'll want to hold Pyrrhic Kleos for every other Chant du Cygne, so that you're getting your WS off between his Light skillchains. The odds of doing Darkness with a BLU in the party are low outside of stuff where you specifically need one of those damage types.

DNC can put out a significant amount of DPS. Kleos does a good deal of damage. The problem with doing DNC in most content is a) people want BLUs, even if the BLU in question is actually worse than you, because "it's the best" and/or they can't do anything but specific strategies due to poor gearing, skill, or stubbornness; b) unless everyone is just spamming WSes as soon as they get TP and not caring about chaining, you'll often find yourself either having to WS between Light skillchains or relegated to closing Double Darkness with Rudra's Storm with Building Flourish and Climactic Flourish, when Flourish III is off cooldown; c) having to use Waltzes, at all, in any capacity, will lower your DPS. If ***is going so south that you must Waltz like everyone's lives depend on it, there are enough people who only care about parses to give you ***over your low DPS (since healing is something a lot don't consider, since they have a very narrow, stunted view of things); d) Tanking falls under the same reasons as c, but I feel like noting in a separate point.

The mythic is the better choice over the empyrean dagger, in my opinion. Not only does having to perform fewer job abilities to cap Finishing Moves have a significant impact, given how much JA Lock screws you in both DPS and eating up time when you could be doing other things -- 2 Steps and a Reverse Flourish versus 3 Steps and then a Reverse Flourish can be the difference between getting a Waltz off in time or not -- the Occasionally Attacks Twice or Thrice means higher TP income, which means more frequent weapon skills, and more TP for Waltzes. It also means that you lose less DPS if you're forced to swap out DD gear for -DT gear, because the up to .8 additional attacks per round on that hand, on average, make up for it. It also makes low accuracy situations less stressful, as you retain more TP income. This is also why I recommend Blurred +1 or Atoyac as offhands, especially if you find yourself tanking, and I apologize for my advice, as I spent years as the tank/DD out of a DNC, WHM, and GEO trio, so most of my view on DNC is as a highly survivable DD, or a tank that's expected to put out good damage, depending on how you want to look at it.

Having 2.8 or 3.2 attacks per round, on average, without any DA/TA/QA gear, is very, very nice. A good set of herculean with -%DT on it means you can keep high attack average, while getting a good chunk of -DT, while keeping a good hit rate. Throw on a Defending Ring, and you're at up to 30% DT without major accuracy loss. Or a Twilight Torque instead, and that's up to 25%. With Fan Dance up,with a good set of herculean, or other comparable DT gear you can get -40% PDT with the Torque, -44% PDT with a Defending Ring, or up to -48% PDT with both of them. Depending on how much accuracy you need, and how much support you have, you might not even need the Herculean.

Your role as a Dancer, from my recent experience in the last year, is to deal damage, either via white damage, or skillchains, particularly closing a Double Darkness, while being able to contribute to the survivability of others. Your Waltzes mean the White Mage can focus more on healing the Tank, if the rest of the party is taking little damage, or you can use Divine Waltzes to help top off the party to help save MP. With a good enmity set, and /WAR you can be a back up or off tank. Depending on what the fight is, you can actually tank just fine, as long as people are willing to meter their DPS.

You're front-line support, with less focus on the support and more on the front-line part. It's a fun job, it's a varied job, and it can deal damage. It's just not must-have BLU, doesn't have any magic damage outside of skillchains, has to be in range of AoE attacks and auras to function, and even with a really good MAB set, you still have poor AoE damage with Aeolian Edge.

That was rambling, probably often redundant, and possibly less then you wanted in the actual advice department. Byrth and Skudo will correct me and provide a better perspective, I'm sure.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

It's really great when you have competent team mates, no matter what the job, but not everyone is competent. And even competent people have their off days.

And I would reiterate that it's gonna be rare for you to be skillchaining in any content where there are BLUs with you unless you're specifically closing a double darkness. Even if you're pumping out 15k Kleos, it could well be a reduction in total DPS, and if you're timing them so that you do it immediately after the second Chant, you could easily be at 2k/+ TP.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that Kleos is superior to non-Climactic Rudra's until the 1750~2000 TP range, iirc. Rudra's should never be used except when closing a double darkness. A 1000 TP on the money Kleos will be five attacks, base, including offhand, at 1.95fTP, after belt/gorget, with fTP transferred to all attacks, and Kleos can scale off of STR as well, which contributes to your fSTR and you ATT. With high hit rates and decent multiattack and/or Mythic AM3, it's not uncommon to get 7 or 8 hits off. And then there's the Mythic +30% damage modifier.

Even once you get to the point where your average damage from your Rudra's Storm is comparable to a Kleos, you have to consider how many Kleos you could have gotten off in the time it took to build that TP up, especially if you're spamming WSes.

That and I'm under the impression the +DEX on Twash still applies even if Twash is in the offhand, and Kleos will benefit from that DEX as well. I would suggest going for Terpsichore first, and then Twashtar if you're insane...ly dedicated.

I thought they'd unbanned me from the OF when I read this:

Leviathan.Katriina said: »
The core concept of Dancer revolves around utilizing DEX, the more you have of it the more competent you become at DPS and effortlessly conquer anything you want.

PK is better than unstacked Rudra's at least up to 2500 TP with Terpsichore (PK damage +30%), and Rudra's might honestly never catch up.

Offhanding Aeneas negates its TP bonus+500 (due to the typical offhand-ultimate weapon rules), so it doesn't particularly benefit Rudra's. Aeonic is a great Aeolian Edge weapon, but I haven't found much of a use for it apart from that.

Also, again, Evisceration -> CDC is Darkness. You don't necessarily sacrifice any TP and contribute to skillchains if you swap to Evisceration. Evisc is a very strong WS with a dedicated set.

Greetings Byrth and thanks for feedback, but I have few responses:


I honestly don't know what you mean by this, yet I will address my argument more clearly below.

The mere fact that you can't do the math to understand that Pyrrhic Kleos blows away Rudra's Storm at 1kTP makes me hope that no one would ever take your advice on Dancer.

Rudra's Storm has a 5.0fTP at 1kTP, and is a single hit. Assuming you're using a moonshade, at an effective 1250TP, it will have an fTP of 6.2975.

Furthermore, you're the one who said "I'm not quite sure on what level you assumed that PK will surpass Rudra at 1k TP, this case almost never happens, and if you have Aeonic offhand, Samurai Roll and Moonshade this becomes even impossible to occur."

I enjoy arguing with people who want to piss all over their WHMs using Thaumas Coat.

Lustratio Leggings +1 Path D would probably be better than Herc boots in all 3 WS sets.

10-15 DEX Acc Attk 15+ and WSD 5%

DEX 10+ Acc Attk 15+ and Critical Hit rate 4%+

STR 10+ Acc Attck 15+ and TA 4

STR 10+ Acc attack 15+ and WSD 5%