Ninian's DNC Guide

**UPDATED 2/24/11** (I might have missed some important things, but hopefully not.)

**Saber Dance/Haste Gear update 5/11/11**

Fixed up a post I did in the "Taking DNC Seriously" thread from a while back, and added new information/fixed it some. This guide is aimed towards the new dancers and veterans alike. If you have any good information you'd like to see added in here feel free to mention it. If you have any questions as well, also feel free to ask. I'm sure this will turn into some huge flame-war over something or other anyway, probably completely unrelated, somehow. It always does~ With that said, let the games begin.

-TP Set-

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE YOU CONTINUE:

First order of business, you need a decent TP set. Here's something that's decent, and easy to get/cheap.



Several places I left blank because I'm not sure prices on things.

Neck best bet would be Tiercel Necklace(used to be cheap, maybe not anymore), or Agasaya's collar if your haste is capped, but you should really try to go for Charis Necklace at some point in your career, especially if you're often not fully buffed (Haste + Marchx2).

Edit: I finally got my Charis Necklace, like 1/50. This was before they figured out how to nail down proccing 's which dramatically increase the droprate of the designated 'rare' item. Between the hours of 22-6 in game time a MNK+WHM with h2h/club/staff skilled/WSNMs done can proc .

For Rings, really REALLY try to get a Rajas Ring if you haven't. Otherwise, any Store TP/Subtle Blow/DA, and maybe even an Attack+ ring could be decent situationally, since accuracy is starting to become a non-issue on a lot of content. Remember accuracy caps at a 95% hit-rate!

Now, after acquiring those items, your life isn't set just yet! There's the new AF3 pieces that are also om nom nom to TP in. Several ways to obtain these, you can quest your seals or you can fight NMs for them. Honestly, the quests don't drop very often.

+1 Set here.

(Note that the body is a situational TP piece, and the hands are not for TPing in.)

As stated below, these sets are for both the curative DNCs and the DD-DNCS, more TP = more curing, or more weaponskills. Soloing anything of difficulty wearing something like this is just asking to get your ass handed to you though.

For your set, you want to get as close to 25~6% as you can, and rearrange items accordingly if you get to the point where you have more than that(25% is more or less the haste cap, 26% is 'true' cap, but it only adds on a few decimal points of effectiveness, so it's not always worth whatever sacrifice you need to reach 26%). Otherwise, fill the rest of your slots with STP/Accuracy/Attack/STR/DA%/Crit Damage, and sometimes Dual Wield wherever it can be fit in.

You DO NOT want to wear Dual Wield+ (charis necklace, auric dagger, suppanomimi, mirke wardecors, Nusku's sash, charis casaque +1, charis casaque +2) gear while receiving Haste and Victory + Advancing March. It's fine for when you're receiving just Haste, or just Marches though. If you have less than 24% in gear Haste, you have your choice of one 5% Dual Wield item to TP in, but that's it. Anything more and it's a hindrance to your TP-gain.

With March+4 x2 and Haste, you only need to wear 20% gear Haste (no Dual Wield). With March+3 x2 and Haste, you only need to wear 23% gear Haste (no Dual Wield).

Also, Charis Feather is pretty neat, grants a 5% increase to your Critical Hit damage. You should pick one up, it's pretty amazing.

Best TP set without Haste+Marchx2:



Best TP set with Haste+Marchx2(ignore weapons):



Won't completely cover this, but there are times where you'll need more accuracy. Items like Taranis's harness are a nice trade off. However, you very rarely need accuracy, and Sushi usually solves that problem fairly swiftly.

-Merits-

Group 1:

This isn't negotiable. 5/5 Haste Samba, 5/5 Reverse Flourish.

A lot of people are like 'What about Step Accuracy?'. Well, it goes like this. With Sushi and properly gearing for Steps, you can land steps without a problem on anything. There's a 95% cap on accuracy, so YES you do occasionally whiff steps, but it's nothing No Foot Rise can't take care of. You're not going to whiff more than the timer on that anyway, and if you do it's just you being super unlucky.

About Haste Samba:

Even with the discovery of the 'Delay Reduction Cap', and not needing merits (or even Haste Samba occasionally) in high-haste situations(as stated above), I'd still recommend 5/5'ing Haste Samba. There's really no better merit, and on the off-chance you're not receiving Haste + Marchx2, it'll be quite beneficial.

Group 2:

You can pick what fits your play-style here more or less.

Saber Dance: You should have at least 1/5 in this. With the new testing done, 1/5 and 5/5 doesn't do much of a difference in the way of DPS. It's only useful because you can reapply it more often if you're curing yourself every 3 minutes, or you can reactivate it for WSes or whatnot. Also, for the record, the DA from Saber Dance DOES NOT stack with /WAR Double Attack trait. (ty Byrthnoth for testing that ; -;) This however doesn't make WAR sub useless, it just makes us sad in the pants.

Fan Dance: 1/5 is worth meritting for anyone. The PDT after taking a decent amount of hits will go to and stay at -20%, so it's like TPing in an Earth Staff, fuck yeah. If you find yourself soloing/tanking a lot you might want to put more into this to reapply for the higher PDT/safety net.

No Foot Rise: When you're 100% engaged on a mob, this isn't so useful. It's great for building TP before fights, and it's nice for when you whiff a step and need to quickly recover TP. I'd recommend meritting at least 2/5 on this so it'll save your ass if you whiff a step and need it, need to build TP for a fight, or want FMs before a fight for Violent Flourish or Animated Flourish.

Closed Position: Great, but if you're fighting with a group you can't typically fight in front anyway (unless you're the tank). Conal AOEs and such. Neat for soloing/tanking though, the extra evasion can really help, assuming you're not already capping evasion (80% evade rate), or accuracy (95%).

-Steps and Flourishes-


Steps are pretty straight forward. Use Step Accuracy gear, pile on normal Accuracy gear ??? Profit. Granted, you don't even need a whole lot of accuracy nowadays to begin with, so whatever accuracy gear you have on your person for other reasons should suffice. If you are having issues please use accuracy and step accuracy gear and DO NOT merit Step Accuracy, please keep in mind accuracy caps at 95%.

Three key pieces of step accuracy gear, give about ~20 accuracy to your steps total. These pieces are the AFv1 hands(AF3 hands are fine too), Relic Feet, and Choreia Earring.

How do you know which steps to use? It's pretty simple.

Quickstep: Use if your accuracy isn't capped. (95% is cap.) Your accuracy is usually capped if you're eating food, which you should be. This step isn't used much.

Box Step: Use if your accuracy is capped/near cap, and your attack isn't capped. Good example of when your attack WOULD be capped would be in old-content with proper buffs, and Abyssea zones with proper buffs/Atma.

Stutter Step: Use if you NEED to land Violent Flourish and you're having problems sticking the magic effect. If you're using this to 'help your mages' you're probably at an event on DNC you shouldn't be DNC to. If DNC's your only job idk what to tell you. :(

Feather Step: Use if your accuracy/attack is capped. If your party members are using Atma of the Razed Ruins, chances this is more beneficial even if your attack isn't quite capped. Something to do with math stuff.

Rarely the case, but if you're on a mob that's lasting a long time, be sure to use two different steps instead of one since you'll only receive one Finishing Move per Step once the daze reaches level 5.

If you're trying to DD, I wouldn't step any more than just a Presto+Step at Presto's timer since Reverse Flourish is TP-neutral (you gain as much as you would've from just DDing in the time it took to use the JA's). Not to mention you're losing out on potential damage by using steps.

Now, Flourishes are a bit different from steps. Also, the only Flourish that really requires gear is Violent Flourish (and I suppose Desperate Flourish), but we'll talk about Violent. It's a stun, but the stun effect is Magical. HOWEVER, you need to hit the physical portion otherwise it'll just... not work. The optimal set for this is rather difficult to obtain--I don't even have it. However I'll post it (might mess up since I don't remember everything off the top of my head) and try your hardest to come as close to this as possible. The stats to stack are Physical and Magic Accuracy.



A neat piece of gear to macro in during the appropriate moon phases for Violent Flourish and Feather Step is Artemis' Medal If you use Spellcast you'd put something like this as a rule.

<if advanced='"%MoonPCT"<="75"'>
<var cmd="set DNCVFNeck Artemis' Medal" />
</if>
<else>
<var cmd="set DNCVFNeck Noetic Torque" />
</else>

A lot of Dancer's use Stutter Step to increase their effectiveness in landing Violent Flourish, but I've never really found this necessary unless you're fighting mobs that are much higher level than yourself, or have a strong resistance to magic.

-Evasion and Soloing-

For soloing, you want to mix Evasion and Subtle Blow (there's a cap for this, it's 50 with traits+gear) to evade taking hits so your shadows don't wear as fast, and to feed as little TP as possible so you don't eat scary stuff to the face. The following set has more evasion and doesn't cap Subtle Blow. A few swaps you can make are alert ring->rajas ring, scouter's rope->Nusku's sash.



Quick mention, but Evasion 'caps' depending on the mob you're fighting's accuracy. The cap is 80% evade. On easier mobs, you should be able to wear at the very least a mix and match evasion/haste set, if not be able to wear your full DD gear(such as Visions zones content). It's still not a bad practice to macro in full EVA+ gear into your Utsu: Ichi macro. Ni should be in Haste, however.

-Subtle Blow-

Have you ever wanted to minimize the amount of TP you feed to a mob? Well, it's as simple as throwing on a few pieces of gear!

Whether you're soloing or in a party, there are instances where you do *not* want to feed TP to a mob. Of course, the best solution is to just not melee the mob, but if you need to you should come prepared.

Since DNC has Subtle Blow IV (+20), you need +30 in Subtle Blow gear to cap. You want to stack as much Subtle Blow gear as possible while trying to sacrifice as little haste/evasion (depending on what you're doing) as possible.

The following is a list of relevant items that will increase your Subtle Blow. I should note that some items are more worth the slot than others, but if you're having a hard time getting some of the better items all of these options aren't *terrible*.

rajas ring
peiste belt +1
Enkidu's harness
Enkidu's leggings
Enkidu's subligar
tiercel necklace
Ninurta's sash
heed ring
ebon wristbands
Agasaya's collar
ambusher's hose
auric dagger
charis necklace
ebon gaiters
ebon headgear
Nusku's sash
slither gloves
Vellaunus' mantle
torero torque

Example Subtle Blow set:



This set has 26% Haste and +31 Subtle Blow(max for both).

-Magic Damage Taken-

I made a pretty boss snarky post regarding MDT sets, and it's written in a very condescending manner because the person it was directed at was a moron. Please don't take it personally, I don't think you're a moron~

While fighting, it is not unlikely to encounter a mob that casts magic. Of course, a lot of magic (or in some cases TP moves) can be very, very painful. If it doesn't kill you, there's a very good chance it's next melee swing will. Unless your healers are Jesus, you stand a very decent chance at dying.

It's best to mitigate this damage before this scenario plays through. The best way to do this is through a MDT Macro. What is this MDT Macro you ask? Well it's simple boys and girls, it's a macro that equips a bunch of -Magic Damage Taken% gear! This can cut your damage taken by up to half! Amazing. If you're really lucky, it can even completely nullify damage(through Shadow Ring)! I know, completely awesome right!

Well what are you standing there looking at me for? Let's go make a Macro! First, you're going to have to gather a bunch of MDT gear. merman's ring, merman's earring, Twilight torque, denali wristbands, Colossus's mantle, avalon breastplate, the Lore +1 set, and lieutenant's sash are good items for this. You can also go farm some Dark Rings in Tahrongi, or even buy a Minerva's ring! In fact, with a Minerva's ring you can cap -Damage Taken with a shadow ring(Of course, you'll need Shell V)! Pretty neat huh!? Your set will probably look something like this... you can take the shadow ring out if you want something a bit more reliable.



Now that you have the gear, what now you ask? Well, you put them in a Macro! Now just macro them whenever you see something scary come your way, and you'll feel right as rain~ :3

Note: MDT caps at -50%. Without Shell, you need -50% in gear to cap, with Shell V you need -26% in gear, meritted Shellra V you need -23%, etc.

-Waltz-

Get an anwig salade. Now. I don't care if you're poor, I don't care if your mommy doesn't want to pay for it, go mow some lawns and buy the expansion. It is an absolute MUST. Must must must must must. If you have another augment for another job, FIX IT. If you love that job more than DNC, stop playing DNC. You need this hat with -waltz timer. So, so much.

Do you have the hat? No? Get it. Yes? Okay, let's continue.

So now you have the hat. Wat do. You use Curing Waltz III exclusively, Divine Waltz II if a REAL -ga happens, none of this lazy shit.

I was asked why Curing Waltz III over IV, so in case people think I'm bullshitting you, the reason is this. It's more HP cured per second compared to Curing Waltz IV, somewhere around 20 more HP. When you're curing DD, typically it's MNK/WAR, SAM's fulltiming Hasso, etc. It's about being able to keep DDs alive so they can go balls to the walls and not have a need to use their defensive JAs. Waltz III handles the worst situations with ease (Hi to you Sedna), and if you really really need to, you can pop a Violent Flourish after a Waltz to prevent further damage taken to your DDs before your 8 second timer is up. With my awesome use of Recast(which you will see below), there is no argument of human error, since it's very easy to waltz immediately after your timer is up. As for Waltz V... it is only useful if you're full-timing Saber Dance and are using it to touch yourself up every 3min. Otherwise, just like Waltz IV, it's too dangerous to use as a primary source of healing.

Now for Sets. Stacking CHR is kind-of silly since it's only a few points of HP cured(and inventory-), but you can if you want. If you're tanking, you'll want to stack on Enmity+ gear.

For waltzing, AF Body is a must. You can get a Waltz potency+ Dance Shoes from A Sterling Speciment. I personally have 3% on those (4% is max). roundel earring, phurba, Sonia's plectrum, and an augmented desultor tassets(waltz TP-) are also nice supplemental pieces. Waltz Potency caps at 30%, so keep this in mind when putting together your waltz set.

Waltz Potency Test:
tl;dr: Caps at 30%, VIT and CHR+ still help you.

Now, some of you sillies are insisting on etoile tiara. It's not a bad macro for certain situations(assuming you're not already capped Waltz Potency), but honestly quantity > quality. And if you don't need the quantity, you probably don't need the extra few points cured from etoile tiara, and having your timer up sooner means you can fix problems if they happen in an instant. If you're absolutely sure nothing is going to go south fast, then etoile tiara is fine. You still must have an anwig salade though, at the VERY least for Healing Waltz recast, and those off-times where you're fighting something that deals more damage than you can cure with a longer recast. If you've never experienced such a situation I don't know what to tell you.

-Using Windower-

A really nice tool for PC users is Spellcast. If you don't know what that is, go to Windower.net and open your eyes to the awesomeness that is Windower. If you'd like to see my XML, just PM me. I'm more than happy to share it, and offer tips/suggestions/troubleshooting.

Anyway, moving on. Go to Windower > Plugins > Resources > abils.xml There's a bunch of JA's there.

<a id="192" index="255" prefix="/jobability" english="Curing Waltz III" german="Heilnd. Walzer III" french="Valse Soin III" japanese="ケアルワルツIII" type="JobAbility" element="None" targets="Self,Party" skill="Ability" mpcost="0" casttime="0" recast="0" alias="waltz" />

Notice how at the end it says "alias=waltz". All I have to do is type /ja waltz name, and it'll Waltz III whomever. I did this with a lot of abilities, divine is Divine Waltz (I) Divine II is Divine Waltz II, etc etc. Very handy though.

Now for Recast. One of the reasons everyone must have the waltz timer anwig salade is because you're supposed to spam Waltz as soon as the timer is up. Best way to do that? Move your recast by the HP bars you're watching.

Windower > Plugins > Recast.ini, right click, Open With Notepad.

Play with the recast position, my personal one is...

[Recast_Position]
X=1580.0
Y=940.0

Now you can watch your timers while you watch your party's HP!! Super totally awesome right?

-Weapons-

I'm going to start this by saying I'm not very good at math, and I'm also going to state that I don't know the complete optimum dagger setup for each play-style. However, the following are all very solid choices for DNC.

Twashtar/Fusetto(WS Damage+)/Daka+2/Kila +2(STR and AGI are safe choices)/Parazonium +2(Double Attack)/Twilight Knife/Yataghan(augmented)

OaT/2-3 Parazonium oftentimes feeds unwanted TP, and with the amount of Double/Triple/Quadruple attack we receive in Abyssea it's usefulness has been greatly reduced. If you're going to Saber Dance DD, DO NOT use an OaT/2-4 weapon. Period.

With that said, take a look at Trials of the Magians Daggers until you find something that fits you. They're all pretty decent.

A note about Twashtar/Daka+1--Rudra's Storm isn't very impressive on DNC. Keep this in mind.

Also, to all you Joytoy users, you should ditch it. The difference in skill paired with it's high delay and TP feed makes it rather undesirable. Seriously, do us all a favor and get rid of the stupid sword.

-Weaponskills-

1. In Abyssea, Evisceration Onry. Old-content Evis/DE are about equal, and I think even Pyrrhic Kleos is about the same.
2. Building Flourish sucks, don't use it.
3. Wild Flourish sucks, don't use it. Unless you're like... breaking a trial weapon or something.

Use Finishing Moves for Reverse Flourish/Violent Flourish only, the other job abilities suck/aren't worth it. The more TP you have, the more WSes you'll be able to put out, the more damage you'll do in the long-run. Building Flourish is just for silly DNC epeen. Wild Flourish is just lame, with the TP spent on that you could've done Self-Dark, or just Eviscerated the hell out of something.

To maximize Evisceration damage (aside from obtaining Atma of the Razed Ruins), you'll want the three Crit damage+ items--Charis Feather, Loki's Kaftan are all great WS pieces. In Abyssea it's best to stack DEX over other stats (mostly since things like Accuracy/Attack are capped in a lot of situations).

The following is the best inside Abyssea. Note that the Jupiter's Ring augmented with attack+. Use Rajas instead of Jupiter's if fSTR uncapped. Jupiter's Earring, ele gorget/belt, Nifty Mantle, Matre Brazegenn if pDIF capped.



If you need help with a WS build, there are a few competent helpful people who are happy to answer questions.