Dancer In Merit Parties

I first want to apologize. This is going to be a fairly long read. I know this thread is going to attract a huge amount of controversy and "trolls," but I ask that you guys please at least read through the information before you spam the thread with useless memes and such.

The goal of this post is to dispel the common belief that dancers are not good additions to merit parties. The math that will be provided is somewhat theoretical, and based off of a traditional merit setup with a COR BRD and RDM (or WHM) for support. This post will mostly observe the damage over time through basic melee attacks only and how the addition of a dancer will greatly improve that output.

For this example, we will assume that everyone is receiving the haste spell (15%), double march (Assuming 20%), haste gear (25%), and the SAMs will be using hasso (10%). The concerned jobs will not be using any weaponskills or spells in this calculation. This is simply a calculation of the damage they do with auto-attack per minute, since using job abilities and weapon skills actually slows down your auto-attack rate slightly per use. Weapon skills are covered at the bottom of this post.

Samurai's base delay with Leviathan's Couse: 480
Samurai's modified delay with aforementioned haste: 144 (480 * 0.3)
Samurai's rate of attack: 1 attack per 2.4 seconds.
Samurai's damage per minute from auto-attack alone at this point assuming a generous average of 175 damage per hit: 4,375
DPM assuming 15% double attack with /war and Brutal Earring: 5,031
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Now, we will view the same Samurai's attack rate and damage per minute with the addition of a Dancer. The dancer will be utilizing a meritted haste samba, providing 10% additional haste to the party.

Samurai's modified delay with aforementioned haste and added Haste Samba: 96 (480 * 0.2)
Samurai's rate of attack: 1 attack per 1.6 seconds.
Samurai's damage per minute from auto-attack alone: 6,562
DPM assuming 15% double attack with /war and Brutal Earring: 7,547

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Now to view the dancer's actual damage over time.

Modified delay with dual wield and Suppanomimi assuming combined weapon delay of 411: 328.8
Modified delay with haste: 98.64 (328.8 * 0.3)
Rate of attack: 1.64 seconds per attack phase
Average damage per minute, assuming 63 damage per hit on average, with 3 attacks per phase on average (55% double attack with both hands): 6917.4 (36.6 attack phases a minute * 189 average damage per attack phase from three hits)

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Now for the important part, since the numbers are now available for reference. This section compares the addition of a Dancer to a party instead of adding another Samurai.

Party Setup 1: Sam, Sam, Sam, Brd, Cor, Rdm
Each Sam will theoretically do 5,031 damage per minute with their normal melee attacks at this rate. This nets a total of 15,093 damage per minute.

Party Setup 2: Dnc, Sam, Sam, Brd, Cor, Rdm
The Dnc will theoretically be doing 6,917 damage per minute while each of the two Sams will be doing 7,547 for a total of 22,011 damage per minute.

The concept: Adding a DNC instead of a third SAM will have a larger effect than adding 2 SAMs in its place in basic attack damage. Not only does haste samba mean substantially faster ws's, DNC also comes included with defense and evasion down debuffs to further benefit the party. These benefits were not calculated within this post, as it would require way too much explaining.

Proof, with a "7 person party" which is impossible: Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Brd, Cor, Rdm
4 Sams, 5,031 damage per minute = 20,124 total, compared to a 2 Sam, 1 Dnc party's 22,011 damage per minute.
As you can see, adding the Dnc is the rough equivalent to DoT as replacing it with 2 additional Samurai.

Though DNC itself doesn't do outstanding damage that will defeat a good Sam or War in a parse contest, its significant boost to party members makes a massive difference in party strength. It should, however, be noted that Dnc are quite capable to put up decent numbers, however. It is very easy to hit 1100-1300 DE's consistantly with a properly geared DNC, with occasional spikes as high as 1500-1800 when all 8 hits land from Saber Dance's massive double attack boost. Though a Sam, War, or Drg will still out WS them by a bit, it is still a notable contribution to damage itself, even without the massive increase it gives other jobs.

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I wasn't going to include this part of the discussion, but oh well. Now we’ll take a very brief look into the effect of DNC on the total number of WS’s used within a minute’s time frame.
This is not entirely accurate, as every time you use a Job Ability, Weapon Skill, or Spell you will be unable to auto attack briefly, thus lowering the amount of attacks netted per minute. It is, however, still a reasonable comparison between the two different parties illustrated above in the body of this post as they both share the benefit of ignoring the said parameter.
Anyways, here are the examples:

3 Samurais without a Dancer: 25 attacks per minute with a 6 hit build would net 4 WS’s per minute from each Samurai, meaning they will total 12 WS’s per minute (3 Sam * 4 WS)

2 Samurais with a Dancer: 37.5 attacks per minute with a 6 hit build would equate to 6 WS’s a minute per Samurai, netting 12 WS’s between the two of them. The Dancer will also, of course, be able to WS as well in this scenario, netting even MORE DoT and spike damage than the alternative (3 Sams).



Conclusion: Dancer adds a whole lot more to a merit party than most people think. Though it takes decent gear to effectively DD as a dancer, it is not too hard to obtain. Almost all of the relic and artifact pieces will have uses in your life as a Dancer, and all are pretty easy to get. The Rapparee Harness is also relatively easy to obtain, as well. Though you are not a heavy DD, and will not outparse a good Samurai, Dragoon, or Warrior, your benefit to the party will be a hugely substantial one. On top of that, you will still be able to maintain pretty recognizable damage dealing potential. Ignoring a DNC's contribution in damage to the party would be a mistake, even though their strongest suit is making everyone else in the party perform substantially better.

This being said, I'm going to go take a nap. I'm sure in a few hours when i wake up this thread will be full of useless replies and meme spam. But at least the information will be out there and maybe fewer people will doubt the potential of a dancer in a merit party.