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

Dancer not worth a slot in a party for either of those events

Maybe 50% then.

Also re: the above discussion, I kind of have to agree. DNC used to be positioned as a highly technical job that could do some really impressive damage while also benefiting the rest of the party through Steps / Samba.

Now it's basically just a mediocre DD with a unique source of Defense Down when played well. My Monk's Raging Fists do comparable damage to my DNC's CF Rudra's. Your appraisal has to lean on skillchain damage and generalist utility pretty hard to make up the gap.

Given how easy current content is, I'm not sure we have to min-max so hard that bringing a couple of DNC is gonna suddenly make your alliance wipe or time out.
Just sayin', eh.

We have cleared wave 3, Ambu and master trials with DNC. Not sure why it matters really what job you take as DD. Hardest content is 2 years old and by this point any decent group would have no problems. If you want me to record some things I guess I could.

Yeah that would be nice to see how it can work in dyna w3.

I dont see why this job couldnt have a spot in those content as it bring utility and good damage once geared. I think its more the "busy/management" side that get ppl scared to play dnc more than the dmg.

I think there ought to be some sort of "how to play" section in DNC guide.

Dnc is pretty technical compare to say... Monk. There are sequences to do things. Like a dance of sort. For fresh DNC, I doubt they have a clue what to do unless they actively work on it. For people without a DNC job... it would be like some arcane magic to them.

It would be nice to see how other Dnc approach things like doing 3-step, 4-step chains and how/what would they buff those. Or maybe how people use /Thf compare to /Sam for skillchains...etc.

I mean stuff that Dnc experience rather than checking out the 'wiki' info then skip to the "gearsets" portion and call it a day.

I bring dnc to dyna w3 and ambu. If someone willing to invite me I'm always down to kill things.

That being said, for some things I prefer to tweak pt setup slightly if I'm on dnc. Dnc really isnt an amazing ws spamming job if SP isnt used. There are just way too many jobs in this game that can pump out 35k-40k ws avg at 1000 tp these days, by comparison dagger ws just avg slightly lower, to the point that even BRD and THF uses SB builds lol. The most efficient way to use dnc has always been sending it solo engage 1 mob with multistep SC while cor brd tank all DD another mob spamming their WS.

I've found that if this multistep strategy is used, generally pt efficiency will beat 4 DD spamming ws on the same mob. Multistep Sc is just that strong, but it has diminishing return that it works best as solo dps. The more DD on the same mob the less dmg increase from multistep SC.

And vice versa, if you send dnc to spam ws on the same mob like another drk MNK war SAM drg then it's not necessarily the better DD choice over everything else. Anyone can spam WS these days and certain job just spams it exceptionally well.



Generally....if NMs are pulled dnc would be solo multi stepping 1 NM and everyone else on another.

Between pull pop JA like presto/building flourish to save some JA delay time once engaged for a bit extra dps.

On boss just pop SP and zerg. There are tutorials on how to SP zerg in guides.

If mobs with strong physical dmg are pulled, pop/refresh fan dance immediately.

It's not too different from other DD tbh, but needing to remember popping JA between pulls makes it a bit busier to play. Sometimes I do that a bit too late and another DD will kill the mob, causing DPS loss.

I've found that DNC works best with an SC partner on fights that you can't kill in a single SC, since you're not as reliant on MA procs, you'll have more breathing room to squeeze in more JA usage, and you'll have more tp-overflow for bigger Rudra's.

DRGs are DNC's best friend, since they have decent physical Fragmentation and Gravitation WSs, bring an additional stackable form of def down, and they gain TP at about the same rate as DNC. Basically that pair doesn't need as many buffs to cap attack and can 4-step to infinity.

From my experience I dont have much issue self chaining if I also get SAM roll, and have significant acc bonus.

The reason why I prefer to solo SC is because of the diminishing returns. If 1 multistep can do the same dps as 3 DD spamming WS, then you get 2 extra manpower worth of DPS as solo multistep DD. If you go with 2 people then that's only 1 man power worth of extra dps.

I guess it also kinda depends on the ws and your weapons. Certain ws has bigger increase at higher TP so it's less dps loss. But using weapons with TP bonus, I almost always ws at 2000 TP+ if I go with 2 people, that's a lot of dps loss with TP bonus weapon.

Solo skillchain is the best way for many jobs to optimize dps from one DD tho. Drg, Sam, Chango WAR has huge dps increase self skillchaining over spaming WS same as DNC. The problem is in dynamis none will hold TP to let you self 4 step, unless its your birthday and people will do it as a gift XD

Ideally you could split on trash mob and everyone could self sc their own mob, but usually people go for easier or more important jobs to kill, so people usually end up on the same mob. You would need to set up some order and who goes for what before run and everyone are to lazy for that :)

If you optimize run for something like RNGs and CORs massacrating e erything with magic WSs then for sure DNC has no place there, but if you do regular melee oriented setup, then DNC is for sure worth it. It has competitive damage output, because downtime between engaging increases impact of flourishes on avg dps. Unique 23% def down effect that is not nerfed like geo debbufs is very good on NMs and can be applied very fast on every NM. Additionally other steps and/or haste samba can be usefull to increase whole ally dps on wave 3 NMs and bosses too.

DNC also has one of the strongest SP zerg potential among melee jobs, so its nice for taking down wave 2 and wave 3 bosses.

I feel like Simon is the only guy who has been with a decent dnc in wave 3 because that’s basically exactly how it’s done. Ain’t nobody doing sc’s with a good group and down time doesn’t exist between mobs so doing ja’s between doesn’t really work either..

You do steps on NM’s or if something about to die and you don’t need/want to WS and you have a chance for a step to build a FM. Wave 1 and 2 you one shot at least 2 mobs per CF doing 99k each time. Should also be Doing your CF’s for every NM on Wave 3 and honestly subbing DRG to high jump after that second WS in case it ain’t dead and for the W3 boss anyways cause it is impossible to not pull hate with the number of CF rudra you do with SP’s. And I average near 40k WS a run so no idea wtf that was about being behind other DD. Get that offhand tp set in order.

Stop dicking around and doing JA that have no point or wasting tp by overdoing waltz. Saber dance should be up nearly full time and fan sparingly, similar to how a sam should have hasso up way more often than seigen.

Then on top of that the DNC box step gives you more options in buffs and debuffs for bosses.

That has nothing to do with TP bonus offhand.

Dynamis mob in certain zones increase ws avg and the fact that CF are more likely to be up due to engage downtime also increases ws avg. So dynamis certainly isnt correct ws avg indicator because mechanics are so different from fights like ambu. I see 60k- 70k rudra in dyna very very frequently, but outside of dyna its significantly lower.

Math doesn't show 40k rudra avg at 1000 TP without JA. 40k wasn't the number when I had ws avg discussion with Baniak last time(if I remember correctly his number float around 32k max), nor my spreadsheet shows such number even with r15 twash dmg bonus + cento.

If you insist dagger ws avg is same as other weapons, I'm happy to bring a sword and compare it on a target that lasts more than 5 min. I'd be really really surprised if dagger ended up having higher ws avg than something like a sword.



...I meant the leader mob, obviously. There are almost always 2 leaders up. One DD can solo SC it and everyone else on another.

On fodder obviously everything dies too fast for that to work.

I wasn't saying that most LS do things this way. I was saying this strategy has a chance to potentially increase alliance dps than "normal" way.


Jobs like war doesn't have sc bonus and chango naturally SC with SB so what's the point. The best way to use a chango war in 6 man pt is probably just upheaval/decimation spam for light SC. Sword avg pretty high so having sc from sword is just equally strong. Dagger doesn't SC with sword the same way thus more ideal to split.

I believe the most ideal way to use SAM is also splitting since fudo is light/distortion. Not too sure about DRG since I rarely pt with one in ambu.

This is basically what I was saying. DNC could do steps from a tank party, though.

We streamed it and have a recording of us goofing off with it. DNC averaged 39k WS for the run and I think was 34 on the boss. This was for Windurst which I believe is the only one of the zones without a damage boost to melee of any sort.

The spreadsheets have two major issues. One, most of them have the formulas screwed up because too many people who don’t know what the hell they doing have messed with them over the years. If you have one for dnc and it seems to not line up I’d be happy to take a look. Spreadsheets is what I do for a living (well sorta). Second is no one WS at exactly 1k (or 2250 in this case) tp cause of MA or animation delay or what have you so they understate actual results. This is the issue people talk about when they say it doesn’t handle overflow properly.

Also we are on, or at least were, the same server. If you want to test something let’s set it up I don’t care.

It would only work if you are leader and force people to do this. I havent seen a single time in dynamis that people split into 5 DDs on one leader and let 6th DD self SC 2nd leader. Also if 5DD spam WS on 2nd leader you will barely see any skillchains even with some WSs match with properties, simply because WSs are done on top of each other instead of one after another.

It doesnt matter if Chango WAR has SC bonus, because self sc from Chango WAR still creates massive light and Radiance doing way bigger damage than WS spam. DRG has probably the strongest selc SC, maybe beside dnc using CF on 2 closing rudras.

Is there any way to rewatch the stream somewhere?

CF is up MUCH more often in dyna than outside, If you avg 39k in dyna it'll probably drop a few more thousands outside. How much it drops will depend on how fast you pull too since pulling speed affects CF frequency. that's another uncontrollable factor that we dont know in this thread.


I didnt just plug in the number, I also manually add r15 twash bonus and physical limit. So it's not possible to show you the file because the file itself will be wrong to begin with.

The number I got line up with my in game parse result, as well as Baniaks screenshot on apex, and his own numbers when we had a dagger debate in a different thread.

It's your number that's different from spreadsheet and Baniaks number lol. If dagger really avg 40k ws like you said, even without CF/PDL it will still be the next "meta" weapon, not sword. jobs like BRD will outparse some not BiS CORs and DDs with a dagger. I'm not witnessing dagger being THAT strong in game in any way.


The way how spreadsheet works is that it will automatically calculate average ws avg with TP flow from MA procs. So MA proc doesn't matter.

It does not calculate lags if you over Tp for another round. Say for example, if you are at 900 TP, a MA proc push you to 1500, spreadsheet will calculate your avg with that considered. That's why when you increase stp value in the sheet ws avg increase too. If spreadsheet always calculate ws avg at 1000 TP then stp value won't have any effect on ws avg.

A lag is different from MA TP overflow, say if you have 900 TP, next round get you 1100, and you failed to ws on time and TP for another round and get to 1500, that's a lag. In that case you will fire off ws at 1500 TP in game but spreadsheet only calculate ws avg at 1100. You can change TP overflow round in spreadsheet to address it, but I almost always set to 0 when I discuss the numbers.

So yes, it's more likely to have ws avg higher on parse than actual spreadsheet number because your DD may lag regardless of the job(as long as you use a ws that scales with TP). Idk if your DD lags on ws because if you did, the 39k likely came from TP overflow, not actual ws avg at 1000 TP(overflow included).

I try to unify setups when I discuss mathematical ws avg so it's easier this way. So 0 lags, no down time is the situation that I apply on all ws avg comparisons. Having lags, human error or play in dyna WILL increase ws avg. But if we just randomly pull out different situations that cause ws avg increase, then it's not possible to discuss anything with different numbers all over the place.

Anyways, my point is that I dont believe your "40k ws avg" unless its performed in a more controlled environment. Not saying you lied, only meant to say that it has too many factors going on causing avg increase in real gameplay. I've seen tons of THFs avg 40k+ years ago, but they hold TP to 1750 so it's not the avg to use when we compare ws avg side by side.

Hence I said this:


I always feel the reason why DNC is underrated in the community is because how everyone run events. They way people normally run event strongly favors jobs with high ws avg at 1000 TP, more so if their ws sc with itself or other jobs.

That's why jobs like MNK become preferred DD in the community lol.

But yeah, there are 15+ DD jobs in game and each has very different pros and cons. Some jobs only shines in certain setup or using certain strategy. If we just use the same strategy for everything then a few jobs will always perform better than everything else. Like how majority of community strategy favors MNK and now MNK is meta.

Be creative and use different strategies that favors other jobs, so they can shine like "meta jobs". IMO min maxing isnt just grinding gears, but also using strategies that favors different jobs. Remember that BLU cleave ambu video last month? People complained about BLU being weak, cleaving is useless all the time and yet 1 strategy change BLU turned into the most efficient job for that ambu.

Changing the strategy is the real way to push the potential of a job to its limit IMO.

I was talking strictly about dynamises Afania. I know in Ambu you can easily include self SC because you have only few DDs, but in Dynamis there is just too many to split on leaders like that, unless you really force people to do it, but then it would be usually just favoring that one person that can self sc imo.

I dont see why not, to be honest. It may be harder to organize this way but it's always fun to look for ways to improve efficiency.

I dont think you understand what im trying to say. Imo that DD who will be able to solo SC will have much better fun out of it (I would for sure), so only justified way would be /random for that slot, because most DD jobs has way improved efficiency while SCing. Its the same problem as best strategy for Omen bosses would be single DD like mnk, sam or war solo SC with 2x COR, brd, geo and whm only supporting him with buffs and cures. The problem ia that even when thats most efficient, no cor, brd etc. will be happy to just stand around and watch. Its even worse if you have more than 6 ppl and you ha e more DDs with for example worse buffs in 2nd party. Will you say to them they should stand back, because efficiency? For aure not. Its the same really for 1 person to be able to solo SC and get most fun in dynamis, while 6 others DDs needs to spam WS on 2nd leader and be bored to death. At least this is how I see it.

Dnc is all about fun. Who cares if a boss dies a minute slower. That's been the way of the game. Peeps want the fastest setup and forget fun. Break the meta and start to play for fun everyone. Even if it means a bit longer fight.

There is an argument to be made about minmaxing and comparing DPS in a game with only so little left to accomplish. Finding more ways to be more damage efficient is fun, and it's okay to look for ways to optimize play styles. Even in monk forum people were talking about the best JA rotation to utilize for dps.

But I agree with you on what DNC is all about. I have a blast playing that job and it's not because of leading any parse or only pumping out huge numbers of damage and skillchains (though that's pretty amazing to accomplish). It's just a well rounded, competitive and active job with loads of utility and group synergy. I can come Monk to anything and just demolish stuff but there's just a certain satisfaction playing Dancer, I don't get with many other jobs besides DRG. it can be both, I just find that playing Dancer is such a fun experience that stressing over damage on such a high utility role is only a lateral concern with the job. If people want to find a way to optimize that style, so be it

Huh? It isnt tough to take turn doing it. On top of that not every jobs or weapons are ideal for multistep roles. Tiz BLU, SB jobs, kaja axe jobs, shining one jobs are more ideal to spam ws. I'm sure people using these weapons will be happy to spam ws on another target. I use some of the weapons mentioned above and I wouldn't even consider multistepping when I'm on those jobs,



Huh???? I didnt say they should stand back and watch. I said they should be engaging another mob. They are still playing the game.




I dont make parties like that. Not my problem if someone else want to make party that way lol.

Everything you said here is not remotely close to being a "problem" at all.

Yeah, my twitch: twitch.tv/scottydeluxe

Its the video that is incorrectly labeled something about Iroha, but is 2hrs. Bear in mind I wasn't trying to prove anything, I've just been enjoying streaming DNC stuff.

Afania's point about time between pulls is something I like about dyna on DNC, and also the reason I don't use Terpsichore in there. I also agree the frequency of climactics is what can give anything like a 40k wsavg. At end of this Windy mine is about 34k, but I've seen higher wsavg during Jueno due to mechanics.

During bolster on the endboss you can see a string of 40k+ rudras, non climactic, 1k~ish tp, around 1:30:00 mark.

Sure if you dont care. But some of us actually enjoy experimenting different platstyle/strategy and find a way for our jobs to outperform everything else. IMO it's far more rewarding to hear people said "oh I never know this job can do this, its awesome".

There aren't many well geared DNCs around, and even less that play the job well... I think its completely reasonable that most people don't bother to include them in their event strategies.

BUT if you have access to one, it's silly not to take advantage of them. Sambas are normally useless, but steps are powerful and unique debuffs.

I'm almost always on DNC for our LS events, and am normally number 1 or 2 on the parse depending on the event and who else is around.

If you spend the time and gil to invest in the job, it is incredibly versatile. Unfortunately, the investment to get there is much steeper than for most other jobs. My DNC requires its own wardrobe... 11 capes.. 9 weapons (three R15s)... etc

Invest in what you love and reap the benefits.

what could make drain/aspir samba not terrible? would making them not scale w/ attack delay be all thats required? what is some other affect they could do that would be useful? I was thinking maybe something like increased chance to interrupt spellcasting would be cool.