The Last Dance III: A Dancer's Guide *New*

Looking through the Sword section

Ah I see, yeah thats definitely just a copy+paste mistake

Guessing nothing really changed for dancer? War and Sam are still the best subs?


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I still think terps step augments should have added an extra % to daze effects instead of that acc nonsense.

DRG has always been competitive for fights where hate matters and now it is even better

Havent used /war or /sam in ages. /drg only

If valiance is useable as a /run, that could be a useful sub when you are taking a lot of magical damage or you are tanking as dnc/run.

What's more, dragoon gets weaponskill damage boost II at level 55, so if they do another round of mastery levels at some point in the future we'll be getting 10% weaponskill damage boost from our sub. Dark knight also gets upgraded smite at 55 for the 2 handers, so it looks like while this round of sub job increases benefited mages more than melees, the reverse will be true when and if we get another round of boosts. And super jump alone is a nice addition to the /drg kit tbh.

I figured the WSD 2 at would help terps users alot more since its on all hits vs RS

Not more, the same.
First hit WSD helps Rudra more, all hits WSD helps both the same.

That's certainly new to me thank you. I do wonder Aeonic vs Empy debate.

I see some having Aeonic R15 main hand and Twash offhand. Tho thats for thf does the same apply to dnc?

Dragoon's sub job is a flat percentage increase tacked on at the end of the weaponskill. If Rudra's would do 50k and pyrric did 40k without the trait, then adding the level 2 trait would boost rudra's to 55k and pyrric to 44k. It's an associative property that affects all weaponskills equally.

For group 1 I have Haste Samba 5/5 and Building Flourish 5/5. Should I leave it like that? or should I change Building to Reverse 5/5

Reverse Flourish 5/5 is mandatory imho.
For the second it's Haste Samba 5/5 vs Building Flourish 5/5.

BF 5/5 can be nice according to the type of weapon you decide to use. If you're mainhanding Tauret for instance, you're gonna be using Building Flourish a lot and the additional bonuses you get can be nice for that build. 5% crit, 5% att and lol10acc is good!
In that cause I would suggest going BF 5/5 instead of HS 5/5.


Haste Samba is cool but I feel like these days it doesn't really matter as much as it used to a long time ago.
Then again it depends on your playstyle, the content you do and who you do that with.

Also BF is semi-useless unless you're using the Tauret focused build I mentioned before, I think?

Isn't BF still good for Terp/PK spam?

Is BF still usefull when att capped ?

Building flourish only affects the first hit of a multi hit weaponskill, so PK doesn't really benefit from it much. You're still better off 5/5 reverse flourish even with Terpsi.

Its actually more useful for Rudra. Its especially good for uncapped attack Rudra.

Thats what i thought, the other day on w3 boss i was wasting steps for the same amount of dmg w/ and w/o lol...

Didn't the att% and crit% work on all hits of a ws?
It's what has always been written on bg wiki, at least.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Building_Flourish

Someone should update with the source of info if we recently found out that's no longer the case

The accuracy and attack carry over to all hits, but the current discussion is about PK and that weaponskill only benefits from the the 25% attack. That's not worth the finishing moves when you could just use reverse flourish and get two weaponskills instead. The crit rate is relevant for evisceration, and the WSD is relevant for rudra's, but PK is better off just used as is.

The biggest thing of building flourish is 20%WSD, Which only really works well with Rudra. Crit and attack are nice, but usually not worth losing and building Finishing moves for it (they are better spend on Climactic+Reverse combo, even with Terpsi).

Yes but I remember quite clearly people posted tests and numbers (was it Byrth?) showing how with Tauret Build the most efficient use of FMs was to spam Building Flourish whenever ready (the CD is quite low thankfully) and use it in conjunction with Evisceration.

All the Att bonus granted to all hits of the WS might not be "OMG!" but it sure helps.
The Crit% is a nice bonus for Evisceration (and, again, replicates on all hits), the accuracy probably hardly makes a difference but better to have more than less and, last but not least, the WSD bonus that applies only to the first hit of Evisceration hardly matters, but it's a decent cherry on the cake in the end.


Edit:
Personally I've tried Tauret with Evis+BF spam in Dyna W2 (Windy? Other zones too maybe) as DNC/DRG and I was honestly quite underwhelmed.
Results were much lower than the expected numbers I was calculating with the spreadsheet.
I wasn't getting super hot buffs, think I was missing a COR in that run or w/e else. You'd figure the ~30% Att from BF would then be quite a noticeable boost, whereas my DPS was sorta meh.
To the point I wondered if perchance the Att% and Crit% applied to the first hit only as well.
It's been discussed here a long time ago.
Other people shared my doubts but I don't think we ever reached a conclusion on the topic.

Can I ask a very naive question? I have no experience with dancer outside of a sub job, but it has always interested me.

Is it a desired/end game job or is it something that is a personal interest job?

Do they get included in content or is it a, "my linkshell lets me take my dnc to..." situation?

Thank you.

This is my opinion:

DNC still has a mostly negative stigma in the community. You won't always be welcome in pickup groups.

The stigma isn't entirely unfounded. DNC falls behind on DPS against other DD, like WAR, SAM or DRG. A lot of people don't take the debuffs, Haste Samba, and the emergency healing or tanking that DNC brings into account when putting together parties. And to be honest, a lot DNCs don't fully utilize all their abilities either.

I also think DNC is one of those jobs that gets exponentially better with better gear. That is to say, It's kind of disappointing right up until you're pretty much best in slot, and then suddenly it gets pretty good.

All that aside. It can be one of the most fun jobs out there. And a good DNC can certainly turn heads. It's also one of the best solo jobs in the game. Nearly unkillable in a lot of fights.

In short: Don't play DNC if you're looking to be the flavor of the month. But its pretty fun and can bring a lot to the table.

Because these abilities aren't very useful unless
1) pt has an extra slot for a 1 handed war(H.samba)
2) whm doesn't do their job(waltz)
3) geo bubbles are nerfed(steps)

If I'm putting together a party, I'd consider finding a whm that can do their job before shouting for a DNC to heal.

I would possibly make it a little wider here, but even more niche
1) 1h RDM - Especially in future where RDM/run with Embolden Temper II would be crazy with Haste Samba, even more with Corcea and Embolden Enspell, if you can reset Embolden. Dia III is great with box steps too.
2) 1h BST - Mythic/Farsha. Again Ooze works perfectly with Box steps
3) RNG/DRG with Kraken adn strong physical ranged WS - TP gain would be crazy and with ML gains to accuracy Kraken should be more viable. You can now do super jump too, to drop hate from RNG and at /55 DRG you will get another few % to WSD trait.
4) 1h BRD - Sometimes you want non DW sub. Also Mythic 1h has amazing TP gain and Mordant doesn't require TP bonus, so with Haste Samba it probably beats DW build without Haste Samba. Naegling and Twashtar wouldnt be that bad too, because BRD has Fencer with +300TP bonus, so it's something.
5) COR Rostam B /DRG - Same as RNG, but with Rostam you also has macc to use ranged magic WS.

So generally several jobs could switch to 1hand instead of DW if you fight one target and DNC can provide Haste Samba and you can then take advantage of other sub jobs which provides great option now and will provide even better in future (both offensively and defensively) like /DRG WSD trait and super jump, /run Foil and Valiance (2x /run or Run and /run could provide full time effect) or maybe /SAM and other.

The only time I was asked to come specifically Dancer for --ANYTHING-- in this game was for Wave 3 clears with an elite group when Wave 3 just came out. I don't remember how they solicited me, but I think one of them had seen me on Dancer before and they were looking for multiple sources of Evasion Down on THF mobs on the final floor. I think they only wanted me for Quickstep, since it is a consistent, unique eva-down debuff, but I helped with DPS and occasional healing too.

That's it. Nobody "asks" for Dancer. Party leaders ask for DDs, and I say sure, and then I show up as Dancer. Normally it's not a problem, because the people I play with know the kind of output and utility it can offer (for reference: R15 Terpsichore)...but, with randos... a lot of time it feels like I just about have to TRICK people into letting me come Dancer.

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In many situations the raw DPS is competitive with high-geared (not TOP-geared) WAR/DRK/DRG, even WITH ability delay with regular stepping and JA use. (If I'm being honest, the hardest part is precisely timing out stopping WSing to get 3000TP the second AM3 wears off). But if you have to justify a DNC in a party based on its DPS capability alone, you're going to lose.

What people always forget is that human beings play this game, and human beings are not perfect decision-makers in real-time situations. (This is true even from a Cognitive Neuroscience standpoint. Humans are not great at reacting in the heat of the moment, scientifically.) You can look at spreadsheets and theorycraft about optimal party setups and you would probably see that in those optimal conditions, DNC is just mid-tier. But in reality... ***happens. Sometimes your buffer is 30seconds late on his Haste cycle. Sometimes your healer enters an AoE at a bad time and gets silenced or paralyzed and can't get a heal or Erase off in time. Maybe your tank gets petrified, or there's a hate-reset move and your tank is dead. Maybe your healer is tired and has lowered reaction time. Somebody misses a stun, somebody's spell gets resisted, somebody misses a gearswap... this ***happens all the time. These are errors. Sometimes errors compound upon each other and make it harder to achieve equilibrium again.

This is where Dancer shines.

If everything is going fine, no problem, then half of our abilities are useless. We're a good DPS, yeah. But in reality, our role is DPS+Support. How many times have we been hit with some awful AoE move, where the healer has to focus on keeping HP up, so I Contradance+Healing Waltz to remove paralyze from the party? How many times have we been hit with an AoE Slow move, where having Haste Samba "just in case" ends up being a life-saver? How many times has -something- happened to the tank where I need to come in and take over for a few dozen seconds? Hell, how many times has somebody died mid-battle, and I took over main healing for a few moments while the WHM uses Arise? This ***happens all the time, and it's those moments where I'm glad I'm on Dancer instead of, say, WAR.

DNC in a party adds flexibility and room for error. But, you really, REALLY need to understand the job, its capabilities, and spend the time farming gearsets for potentially niche situations. I think a lot of the DNC hate comes from a history of poor representation and understanding of the full utility of the job. It's a stigma I still personally experience every now and then. But the job is far from useless.

Maybe put more simply: if my goal was to win the parse, I would just let the WAR die. But I'm not an idiot, and I recognize that it's not my parse, or even the WAR's parse that matters: it's the PARTY's parse. So my job is to take actions that maximize the total damage output of the party, even if it means taking a few hits of JA delay to let the WAR keep doing what he's there to do.

This is more complicated.
1. If you fight many targets, then yes.
2. If you fight one target and are attack capped, then yes.
3. If you fight one target and are attack uncapped, then DNC might lose DD vs DD dps, but will improve overall party dps, because of box steps alone.

Scenario 3. seems to be getting more common, because of Geomancy debuff being constantly nerfed by 75% in most new events.