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

Wonder if [Path C/Taming Sari] will beat [Tauret/Taming Sari]
Also, I kind of want to see how [Path C/Twashtar] will be in comparison to EMA combinations in longer fights.

You wont have FMs to use that lowered cooldowns on flourishes if you going to keep steps capped and only refresh them when they about to go down. That duration is actually bad imo. You want some steps to wear off in longer fight so you can get full return on FMs when you do steps. With only getting 1 fm with capped all steps, your DNC life is getting really sad.

Ofc it wont beat it. DNC lacks good native WS.

Rudra is only good with TP bonus and/or massive dex and/or boosted Rudra damage, so you need:
a) Aeneas/Twashtar
b) Twashtar/Taming(/Tauret)
c) Twashtar/Cento
Twahstar main also gets benefit of higher white damage to compensate for lower WS damage in option b) and lower white damage from Centovente in option c)

Evisceration is only competitive with Tauret main.
Pyrrhic is only competitive with Terpsi main.

Both Terpsi and Tauret also has other bonuses like massive TP gain on Terpsi and +1 FM on steps and Tauret very high white damage from crit rate when you spam Evisceration and don't hold TP.

Path C doesn't look attractive in any way.

Just hit 99 DNC last night. Excited to get my hands dirty. I have Tauret/Sari, mid to high tier gear wise (from master cor, mnk, nin, gimp thf). Settling on a sub job, is DRG really worth it over WAR or SAM? I was leaning towards SAM then I read this whole thread.

I used /DRG for high jump in zergs where we were trying to keep hate on a tank.

For everything else, /WAR, /SAM, or /NIN.

(Unless something has really changed in the last year and a half)

DRG got a WSD job trait, first tier works as a sub +7% (all hits)

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/WS_Damage_Boost

Hey kat, just got the cait sith stone tonight, looks pretty good, maybe add it to main page sets? Certainly BIS for exenterator at least.

Thanks Meril, I will do that asap.

I must say that DI gear is a wonderful upgrade to DNC, its almost as having Awakening status!
On Mieru, "Clim Rudra" was doing 55-60k with trust buffs, and not even once I died during its "flail".

It's a constant 55-60k Rudra @1250 TP on regular dragons, and lag issues are a thing of the past.

Shall I add a DI Sets Section in the guide?

I dont see the point of making sets for 3 items that are super obvious when to equip. +50% WSD, +50 store TP and -50% DT is self explanatory.

decided to start dancing, and was wondering- are the gearsets on the main guide still BIS?

i have very large portions of the gear collected for this job already, and am pretty much just waiting out cards/clears for JSE upgrades now, and just want to make sure im not missing anything.

Sets should be up to date, yes.

They are up to date, and always open for improvements by other Dancers.

Well it wasn’t a solo but I was finally able to 2box Gin as DNC with my geo alt, nothing fancy just 900 skill. Midboss is truly the hardest part of doing these runs.

Wonder if [Sailfi Belt +1] is a better option for PK than Fotia Belt after update.

I know Malignance gear is basically BIS for pdt at the moment, but what would the next step down be? Herc gear?

Meghanada +2 5/5 is your way to go if you don't want to stress over DT augments on Herculean.

Nope. Not even without AM3 and with positive fSTR.

With Ruaomoko's recent tank video coming out highlighting all of the traits that make each of the tanks in the game shine,(war, nin, run, pld). What issues does dancer face when it comes to being a viable tank at endgame levels? Is it a lack of high damaging enmity+ gear to slot when Weaponskilling?

With Malignance gear, as well as fan dance modifications that can potentially bring our total PDT above 60%, and the potential to sub RUN for extra magic evasion, plus an innately high subtle blow -- is it just a lack of total HP? Or is it just that with all the effort to slot a Dancer in as a tank, you could just bring a RUN or PLD that would do a better job?

I've been loving the job and working at gearing a ton, but I want to know if I'm wasting my time trying to get to a point where I can tank endgame content over other DPS.

Bolded pretty much answered your question. DNC doesn't have native CE generation tool. So the only source of enmity are

1) damage, but any DD job can do that too. You will probably run into the issue that DNC tank in DT sets fail to do enough damage v.s other DD going all out and lose hate.

2) JA/spell from subjob such as RUN or BLU. But any job can do the same. Also small MP pool.

3) Animated Flourish, and it SUCKS.

Basically what a DNC tank can do, it can be done on other DD/RUN or DD/BLU in PDT set/defensive stance. If people want to promote it then they should be promoting tanking on other DD jobs like MNK NIN BLU DRK too. In the end people will just bring a RUN and get the tank slot done in a more efficient way.

DDs(not just DNC) can* tank but it's not their specialty, that's why. Tanking on DNC is about as effective as tanking on WAR and WAR was considered bad tank in another thread.

4) With Waltzes curing people and himself


Mostly true, but it also kinda depends what you are doing with how many people. Dnc will shine as tank DD in lowman scenario where you would want to maximize buffs and debuffs but only have like few people. DNC RDM COR for example can be self sufficient, heavy on debuffs, have awesome skillchain synergy (assuming mob doeant resist darkness). Its situational like always.

I don't have the means or knowledge to promote tanking on DNC, but you're missing a few points in your analysys I think, Afania.
You're saying DNC can be as good as a tank as the majority of other melee DDs. Which is not entirely wrong, but DNC has a couple of unique things.

Fan Dance is pretty nice, not many DDs can go beyond the 50% PDT cap. I can think only of BLU with Barrier Tusk and it's only like what, ~8% past the cap?
Sure you can't have Sambas up with Fan Dance but lol at that.
Fan Dance also grants you Enmity+15, which is quite nice and unique, no DD has specific enmity boosts other than NIN.

Fan Dance also make Waltzes more spammable.
Speaking of which, Waltzes are a nice source of Enmity. It has comparable values of CE/VE to Foil and can be used the same way to keep enemies on you once you've tagged them.
Divine Waltz II is a pretty huge amount of enmity

Animated Flourish gives VE and it's basically like Provoke. It costs 2 FMs ok, but it can be used the same way as Provoke, without binding you to go /WAR.
Other DDs don't have that luxury unless they go /WAR.


On DNC you basically use Fan Dance, get a RDM in your pt for Refresh and Phalanx2, go /BLU for AoE tagging and Cocoon, and you're set.
I don't think I've ever seen people extensively trying this setup but there's a lot of potential in it, more than in other DDs imho.




tl;dr
I think the rest of the jobs either suck at tanking (just a few) or are pretty much in the same boat, each with different and neat pros/cons.
DNC, imho, has a couple more pros than most other DDs if you ask me.

Mostly true Sechs, but:
a) if you use waltzes for enmity gain, you lose time and tp, which means you dont dps, which means you lose enmity from dps, so waltzes makes you more versatile (you can generate enmity on many tagged targets) but wont give you edge when you tank single target. Unless its some specific fight when you need to stop/limit dps anyway.
b) divine waltz is bad example of tanking tool. You only get enmity from healed hp, so you will get nothing if none is taking damage. Single target waltzes are different, because you can control your own hp (can throw in a lot of hp gear and cure fake HP). I mean in theory if you boxing, you could exploit divine waltz too. Just set macro for all your chars to wear hp+ gear and dnc to divine waltz. That sounds funny tbh. With full party like that, it would be like 1400CE and 8400VE per divine waltz.
c) Animated flourish is not worth the delay of additional steps you need to do. Unless again you need to stop damage anyway or want to tag target you dont fight atm.

Overall DNC is for sure more versatile than typical dd tank.

Yes absolutely.
Just theory-crafting here, but I think you would need to strike a balance between damage and enmity.
I mean not like PLD needs to DPS to tank.
Honestly the same can be said for RUN. While the fact that RUN can deal nice damage while tanking is one of its selling points, you don't *need* to DPS to keep enmity on you.

For DNC clearly you can't focus just on damage alone (Fan Dance and Relic+3 hands already are a DPS loss in that sense) so you need to balance other things out.
Where is the right balance? Where is the threshold where the enmity gained by sacrificing damage for other actions is less (or equal) than the enmity you would gain from that lost DPS itself?

Also I think you need to balance CE and VE and damage generates only one, well I think?

You're absolutely right on Divine Waltz II, plus it has a really really high cost compared to, say, HWII and III. Speaking of waltzes, I think they have a small amount of CE/VE generated regardless, plus another amount which is relative to how much they heal, right?
DWII can be nice if you put other DDs/melees in your pt and you're fighting something that does moderate, seldom AoE damage. In such a situation it would be an incredibly nice enmity tool.


Speaking of SJ options:
BLU for traits (icing on the cake, really), Cocoon and most of all AoE tagging.
RUN if you're fighting something with magic damage, plus Flash for single target enmity/tagging.
Both sorta require at least Refresh 1 I'm afraid, to be reasonably mantained.

Set-wise I dunno but I was thinking something like this:
ItemSet 372065
Ear2/Belt can be regular DPS options I suppose.
10 PDT aug on cape.
Arguably you could put HP/Eva/Meva on it as well, sacrificing DPS further. Worth it? Eh... depends what we're fighting I suppose.
The overload of Malignance gear is for the Meva, same reason for Yamarang.
Malignance also goes along well with Terpsichore users who are riding AM3.

I thought of this set for the "best" tanking gear. If you're fighting something easier you can remove some pieces for better DPS options, but Malignance is nice for DPS as well if you're att capped.

With this set and 5/5 Fan Dance merits you should be at ~70% PDT right? Excluding the first few hits, not counting those.

DNC can equip Turms Hands/Feet. Similar Meva and Acc values, more HP, no STP, no PDL, no STP.
I guess it could be a decent swap if you're going /RUN and fighting multiple, weak enemies (or a NM with weak adds).
In other situations and/or when you're not /RUN I don't think it's worth to swap Malignance for Turms+1.


Opinions?



Oh I forgot to mention Animated Flourish.
Yes Simon you're right, but can't the same be said for Provoke? Granted you don't have to "waste" FMs for that.
I see Animated Flourish more like something that can be useful in situations where you need a small, quick enmity spike, not something to spam every 30 seconds.

Nope :) fan dance is multiplicative like Barrier tusk, so 60% base and 62% with relic gloves.

Ah right, forgot that, ~70 seemed a bit too good :-P
But 62% is still something very nice, ~12% above what other DDs (except BLU) can achieve so nothing to complain about that.
And +15 Enmity!

Admittedly I forgot about waltz enmity gain when I typed that, I don't find it being THAT good, personally. Mostly because it conflicts with 1) dealing damage due to TP loss/animation delay. Spamming cures for enmity is so old school in today's FFXI -.-

The idea of pairing up with RDM and /BLU tagging all mob...you can do the same on something like DD/BLU and it would be exactly the same. Its relying on SJ.

Most other job has defensive stance that they can use. BLU has cocoon, DRK has high HP/dreadspikes, NIN has shadows, MNK has counter etc, even THF Eva build can be viable on some easier things (not sure about this)? So defensive stance isn't exclusive to DNC really.

In today's FFXI if you want a DD to "tank" in a party, it's just too much work when things can be done with RUN or PLD much easier. I wasn't talking about lowman setup with 1 DD and several other supports when DD pulling hate isn't an issue. We had that argument in PUP forum already.

Yes but other jobs cannot reach 62% PDT and +15 enmity, which was my point.
Is it a small difference? Is it big? Let's discuss but regardless of that it's a difference.

All jobs have unique pros and cons that can be useful to tanking in one way or another, I can't think of anything like Fan Dance though. Except Yonin maybe but NIN *is* a tank, in theory lol.

Most other job has defensive stance that they can use. BLU has cocoon, DRK has high HP/dreadspikes, NIN has shadows, MNK has counter etc, even THF Eva build can be viable on some easier things (not sure about this)? So defensive stance isn't exclusive to DNC really.


Wut.
No I mean, I didn't get what you're trying to say.
If you mean "you want someone who can tank and deal damage close to that of a real DD" I can get the logic behind, I don't agree but I can understand that and it's surely the most desirable option, especially for lowmen groups.

But... you put PLD in there. PLD has many pros but it doesn't exactely shine for his damage dealing capabilities, which doesn't mean it sucks completely but... I mean, wasn't one of the main points why RUN got so much favoured over PLD these past years the very fact that RUN can also deal some decent damage while tanking with the proper setup?
I'm not getting your point really, what were you trying to say? °-°

Oh, I wasn't meant to say tank needs to deal damage. I mean to hold hate. Last time I checked PLD is still somewhat ok at holding hate.

For tagging sure, but you are ignoring the fact that you wont be able to hold hate on anything, beside main target. The whole poimt is that dnc can self heal building hate on anything that was tagged in similar way to RUN with foil. Only other dd job who can make it is BLU or DRK with /blu, but it wont be easy for DRK. You would need sird set and probably wont be able to reach 80% fast cast.

You actually dont even need /blu on dnc for initial tag. You can do aeolian edge.