DNC Endgame

Sky, Dyna, Sea. What role and subjobs should DNC be assigned?

Should be assigned to the mog house for a more useful job.

LOL!!!! no but seriously. Its the only 75 I have atm on this account and I'm really asking for advice. Hell, if I'm stuck on it, I might as well be good at it right? =\

Sounds about right for me.

Dyna I usually main heal a DD party /nin for AOE's. Box step to lower DEF for faster kills, Stutter Step and Violent Flourish for stuns on ninja mobs.

I don;t have Sea/Sky access so I cant say much about that.

mk, what about subs?

the roll will differ greatly by who you play with!

mostly your be asked to change LOL! ; ;

Sadly few people know how to really play DNC and what it can do so your be stuck never making the most of you job!

Haste Samba, support, debuffs, damage when you can. Basically what DNC always did in Dyna except now that we're higher level you could take it to gods and ***too if you wanted. Sea's a little tricker, a lot of that may be kited or simply prohibitively strong (hi2u JoL).

EDIT: Subs: /NIN when you need shadows, /SAM when you don't, I've heard banter about /WHM to circumvent the godawful Healing Waltz recast but that would be really situational.

"/nin for AoEs" - I tried going /sam after the update and never realized how many AoEs there were in dyna. I spent too much time healing myself and it wasn't very productive.

Anyone who thinks dnc is useless is just affraid of trying a different job.

Haste samba, extra Dot, and free curing (now outside of pt) is very very useful.

Dont forget steps, Eva down, Mag eva down, free stuns. So on, so forth

alright and now, aside from the obvious max dagger, what merits would be expected? I had a friend that went support dnc and another that merited for straight dmg dnc...which would be more expected and which merits would I need for making that happen?

P.S. sorry for all the nub questions. I've only used this account and its DNC to help me with duo-box soloing lower end NMs that my BLM just couldn't handle alone so I don't have much endgame exp with it x.x

DNC is a great sub for a DDer who is going solo. Other than that there are better subs depending on the situation.

Support *usually* takes priority over DD, but use your head. If you're shitting TP and are confident in your ability to heal and WS at the same time then go for it.

5/5 haste samba
5/5 reverse flourish

G2 varies, the main thing is NFR but from there it's up to you. It's been discussed a few times here.

full haste samba
full reverse flourish
full no foot rise
full closed position is nice

ah, I was looking for a thread but I didn't see anything lol maybe I didn't look hard enough

I don't know that there's an actual thread about it, I just know the question has come up at least once in the past. Might not be easy to find if search isn't cooperative.

cool ty =D

I sugggest 5 NFR 1 saber 1 fan and can either put extra 3 into closed position our pump up fan or saber. Never really found a time where i was swaping between the 2 for anything other then campaign so mor then 1 in each might be a bit of a waste imo.

Cookie cutter says do haste and reverse flourish but could substitute reverse for building if you wana focus more on the damage aspect (can pull some pritty high numbers with the right set up) step acc i cant suggest just because if you really need it you can macro cobra body and legs into your steps to get the same effect that 5/5 merits would give that.

Best bet would be to find out what your shell wants from you, if damage you will notice more from the building and haste then getting 15tp more from reverse but if your looking at support go for reverse and haste.

edit: You might not always want to be useing saber or fan dance by the way probably should be with out either as often as one but trust me when i say you want them. 50% double attack -10% every min is nothing to shake a stick at and 90% phys risist -10% a hit make an effective panic button.

I did 5/5 NFR, 3/5 Closed Position, and 1/5 for both Saber and Fan Dance. Even if you won't be using them that often, I think they're both handy enough to at least unlock.

Did some math in another thread showing that Building Flourish merits are vastly outperformed by Reverse Flourish merits even for a DD DNC. There's really only one good build in G1.

I'd have to agree but would also like to point out you're going to be wanted as DNC for healing far more then you ever will for DD, RF covers both aspects, you shoot yourself in the foot when you put your merits into BF.

"DNC endgame"
You're wanted for waltzes and haste samba. I don't see why you'd merit fan or saber dance.

Well for one they are a separate tier of merits from haste samba.

Well the only *super* important thing I can think of in Group 2 for dnc is No Foot Rise, so the rest really shouldn't make all that much of a difference.

Fan Dance has saved my *** more time then I can count and I just put a merit into it not that long ago.

After No Foot Rise, I think what you merit in Group 2 more or less depends on how you play your dnc.

HaHaHaHa... fool!!

I'm on my phone, so I'll keep this short and sweet.

DNC is *AMAZING* in Dynamis, and Einherjar. It's role is a Haste Samba *** for the BEST DD party, and mainhealer for everyone. *** yeah out of party heals. A DNC is best placed in a party alongside a BRD and COR (or BRDx2 if you lack COR.) I'm sure DNC is great for some Limbus zones, I don't have personal experience here, but unless DNC is your only job you're most likely better off going another job, but that's a whole Thorny efficiency issue, not a DNC sucks issue. As for Sky and Sea jailers, I wouldn't bring DNC.

As for merits, I'm with 5/5 Reverse Flourish and Haste Samba.

No one cares about G2. 5/5 NFR is the best option in my opinion, but also keep in mind if you're engaged fulltime you'd only use it if you whiff a step. Closed Position seems great at first, but keep in mind conal attacks, which greatly limits it's actual use. Fan Dance is neat for an oshit macro (PDT- degrades as you get hit, useless to fulltime) and Saber Dance is really just for the wannabe DDers, I'll pop it for a WS but that's it.

I'm 5/5 NFR, 3/5 closed, 1/5 Fan Dance, 1/5 Saber Dance.

You're just a waste of a party slot without capped G1, but IMO it's completely acceptable to have no G2 merits.

still wondering why everyone is saying 5/5 NFR.. i was thinking that same way when dnc merits showed up, but really started thinking about it as time went on. In my personal experience, when im doing things on dnc in a group (dyna, limbus, now abyssea) i notice im usually spamming my steps more for the debuff than i am for the actual finishing moves, and often find myself sitting on 5fm with over 225%tp (would be a waste to use RF with anything over 200% as we can only store 300%) and still using steps to debuff the mobs. btw, i play my dnc as a complete support healer while in a pt, i dont ws unless im goofing off solo or in a low-man situation with another healer present.

I have 3 in NFR and think its more than enough, especially now with Presto. if it didnt cost me 5 merits i would take 1 out of NFR and put it into fan dance probably.

Tier1 merits are pretty straight foreward:
Haste samba
reverse flourish

Tier2... fine tune it to your personal playstyle. If you solo alot, put more in Fan dance and closed position. DD more through a few in saber dance. No matter which way you go, you cant really go wrong in tier2 merits.

I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. Everyone I see talking about Dnc endgame brings up Dynamis and that's about it. I think people are overlooking Dancer's HNM potential.

Putting aside my aspirations to tank as Dancer, the job would be able to operate in useful capacities even on mobs you don't want to give TP to because of one often-overlooked aspect of the job: you do not have to be facing the enemy to do steps. With this in mind, a dancer focusing on step accuracy through merits (haste samba is useful but I'm still not sold that every dnc should have it...) would be good in dynamis and party situations but that's not really end game to me) can use ninja shadows to absorb physical AoE damage while Stutter stepping the enemy. This will gain them steps and lower the enemy's magic evasion - thereby enhancing the magical damage of the alliance's mages. The steps can obviously be used to get tp.

People who say "go get a more useful job" are, I think, just too stuck in the way they've always done things. Don't let talk like that get you down. This job has a lot of possibilities. Up until now I've not wanted to finish it because it can't wear Salvage gear and I abhor Dynamis. But with the recent new gear, I don't think a Dnc tank is out of the question, either.

I have to say end game dancer is more useful then most think, I know I have held pops in sea. I know that in limbus and dynamis haste samba is more then appreciated as well as box step for def down. I think really most people underestimate what a difference the def down does for larger groups of people. I have personally been leading a few Abyssea runs and have been able to main heal two farming parties, so I think there is a lot of worth to telling them to shove it if they say change jobs, besides the point of a game is to have fun, do what you want, but do it well enough that the negatives disappear cause you are more then they expect.

As for sub, Sam all the way, even in dynamis I have never had trouble healing my party and my self despite the AOE. I sometimes sub war for tanking/holding. Secound voke, double attack, and Defender are useful in some situations.

Merits, Teir 1 is like everyone says haste and reverse.

Teir 2 I say 5 NFR, 3 closed position, and one each of fan and saber, if you don't plan to use those two then put extra into closed position.

As for the use of NFR, I find it more useful when you are using other abilities like voke if you are holding a creature, stunning, etc. cause you can use it to replenish tp then continue stepping for your other flourishes.

Just my opinon though, I since 60 I have never subbed nin, only war or sam depending if I was holding/tanking or I needed more tp.

@Priest:

It's true that it's not essential, but it's nice to have if you're healing batshit crazy DD (ones who aren't subbing NIN) since if you whiff a step it could mean death. That's of course situational, but so are the other merits. I just find NFR the most useful of the situationally useful merits. It's up to you, though.

As for Presto, it's kind-of garbage. It's nice for pre-fight enfeebles so you start a fight with a charged enfeeble, but it's nothing so major to build merits around.

@Ravax:

Yes, but is that really an efficient use of a party slot? No, not really. "Too stuck on your ways".... not really, it's just not practical, as much as I wish otherwise. If you only have DNC, it's not completely useless, but ehh....

Every Dancer should merit Haste Samba. Exactly how often do you whiff steps....? 5%? Merits won't change that.

@Xex:

There's a place for /NIN. Dynamis Windurst AoEs are *** balls, for example. Otherwise I'd agree, SAM is an excellent choice. I've yet to do Abyssea, but I'd love to be able to add another event to my DNC plate.