DNC Merrits

what should i merrit on dnc and why ?

i dont really get the job that good yet

5/5 Reverse Flourish, 5/5 Haste Samba.

1 Saber Dance and Fan Dance
at least two in No Foot Rise
and 5/5 Closed Posistion.

The last point I personally put in saber dance, but some choose 3/5 no foot rise. I find it unneeded due to presto, and the extra 30 seconds off on saber dance is nice if I had to take it off for a cure and need it back as fast as possible.

Shes 'more or less right.

Many battles have been fought about this, and what Austar says is the consensus.

Thank you for the input.

i forgot about this thread. i like my 3rd NFR so i don't have to depend on presto.

I'm still using 4 SD, 1Fan, 5 NFR. I've swapped them a lot but stick with this setup most often, my reasoning;

4 Saber: I keep this up as much as possible. My xml removes saber if I attempt to waltz so it doesn't slow down an emergency cure. The lower recast allows me to reapply asap. I would transfer 3 of these to closed position if I still boxed a healer.

1 Fan: emergencies, don't full time unless there's a chance something's going to 1-2 shot you.

5 NFR: Start everything with at least 100tp. Don't have to worry about step acc cap when doing an important Clim->NFR->Rudra->Reverse->Rudra

If you tank or solo a lot, consider more merits in Fan Dance and/or Closed Position. And just go from there. Personally, I find No Foot Rise a luxury and have it at 2/5, but I know some people absolutely swear by having it at 5/5. I've been seriously considering taking my 1 merit in Saber Dance out and putting it in my 4/5 Fan Dance or 3/5 Closed Position.

5/5 Reverse Flourish, 5/5 Haste Samba are pretty standard and you'd have to have a good reason not to do them.

Ive gone through a lot of cat 2 setups as well and finally settled on 1 saber, 1 fan, 3 CP, and 5 NFR.
Never went past 1 saber because I never saw the need to. Had full fandance merits when I did a lot of outside abyssea tanking (was priceless for HF mobs like feurenke), but outside of that I never saw a need for it. 5 NFR for me is mostly for downtime. Was quite nice for when i was running around for VNMs.

I personally have no real use for 5/5 NFR, I feel. I go 5/5 CP and 2/5 NFR, with 2/5 Saber Dance so I can keep it up without issue and time it to use as a WS buff.

Dancer T2 merits are pretty unique. People agree on at least 1 Saber/Fan and 2 NFR, but after that it comes down to personal playstyle. It's not like some math wizard can come up to you and tell you that 5/5 Closed Position is far and away the most practical option for you personally and totally beats 5/5 Closed Position. You just have to start with the four recommended and spend your last 6 points where you see fit.

5/5 Haste samba, 5/5 Reverse Flourish,
1 saber, 1 fan, 5 NFR, and 3 CP, just like Kalima.

Thanks to the fact that I only do stuff with my husband and brother on their DDs or completely solo, I'm kind of a whm in dnc's clothing so 1 saber is all I ever need and only if I'm feeling lucky.

I don't have any problem with 5min recast time for fan dance even when I'm soloing, it just isn't an issue.

I would have put 5/5 in CP if it weren't for the fact that I wanted to make sure to have 1 point in saber and 1 in fan

I refused to go any less then 5/5 NFR for 2 reasons. 1-having full finishing moves in a pinch is fantastic, and 2 having the ability to turn those into 87 instant TP, SAVES LIVES! well, in my case anyway lol.


The real point here is that you are going to want to test them all out based on how you play and pick what makes YOU happy, and no one else. YOU pay for this game, play it the way you want and HAVE FUN!

:)

Good Luck <3

5/5 haste 5/5 reverse
1 saber 1 fan 3 NFR and 5 closed position is what i'm doing, because my dnc is mainly going to be used for soloing/tanking

I personally use 5/5 RF 5/5 HS for cat 1 and cat 2 is 2/5 NFR 1/5 saber 2/5 Fan and 5/5 closed position. 2/5 NFR (I looked up Niniann's guide here and it made sense) is all you really need. you pop NFR and 1 presto step and you're at 5FM again.

other than not needing to rely on presto to give you 5 steps, i like having my saber dance recast the same as my berserk recast.

what's so wrong about relying on steps for FM? its not like presto can fail.. 95% hit rate is pretty easy to hit on dnc (though i guess since if you presto and dont give the mob +2 daze you dont get the added FMs? is that what you're talkin about?) just use a different step...

that post references my last post further up the page. i don't like to have to use presto to get 5/5 steps after closed position. that combined with keeping saber dance and berserk on the same timer are the reasons i went 3/5 NFR as opposed to 2/5 saber dance.

been a while since i played, but if memory serves i did 5/5 haste and 5/5 reverse. which i think most everyone does, no arguments there. in the second set i did 5/5 fan dance and 5/5 closed position.

no foot rise is fine, i just didn't feel like i needed it alot so i got rid of it. and i had a couple points in saber dance but after finishing my dagger it would've actually decreased my tp gain so it got the axe.

well whenever I was dnc it was because I was solo or tank, but then I got better gear for thf and hardly ever used dnc. I've learned not to discount the use of fan dance though, so I put 3/5 in that, 1/5 in saber, and 2/5 CP. I may have enjoyed dnc more if I had a healer where I went so that I'd have been able to use saber dance more, but w/e. it was a fun job.

Most everyone, i however did 5/5 building instead since thanks to af3 +2 hands i still get 85 tp back which is the same as if you had 5/5 with reverse without hands, of course most don't agree with that but it is funny how i still get 100 tp right after using it (due to tp return mainly) or is low i still get it 100 long in time to self skillchain instantly due to dnc high rate of attack, and it has worked fine for me this whole time yes i use building quite alot. nor do intend to take them out, sure 100 tp is nice to get instatly but you don't need it. have to go with what works best for you.

Imo NFR should never move beyond 3/5 due to getting 2 from one step, 2/5 also works if you use presto however. but this is coming from older 75 days merits.

5/5 CP really does seem like the best route since you're mainly soling with dnc. altho fan dance is temping to merit more but meh.

I'll admit, when I first read this the red flags went up in my head, but then I thought....hmm, maybe.

The norm, of course, is to either use your FMs for CF, to boost Rudra's with some form of stepping/reversing and using another RS to close, or to just use PK > RF > evis. But obviously you can't do this all the time due to the 30 second recast on RF.

So with your choice of merit setup, your 3 FM + WS every 10 seconds (at best of course) would have to beat the damage of WS + WS + SC every 30 seconds.

But then I remembered that it's not just a factor of BF timer VS RF timer, but the only effective way you're going to be able to use BFWS is with 3 FMs (we're assuming you're using this for evis since using BF with any other WS would be a huge waste). And the only way you're getting 3 FMs right after using them for BF is with presto...which is on a 30 second timer...(or alternatively using 2 steps in a row which will also take 30 secs)

So, unless that extra 10 acc, 5% attack, and 5% crit hit rate is doing more than triple your WS damage (which would have to beat two WSs and an SC in the same time frame) then you're more than likely wasting your time using BF and wasting merits putting them into boosting BF.

So even though I do agree with you that RF merits have lost some luster due to the AF3+2 gloves, it basically comes down to putting your other merits into BF (which BF is pretty worthless as I am arguing), step accuracy (which is worthless since that can be made up by gear and presto), or RF...which may not be as important with AF3 gloves, but still gives you a boost in TP...

That is the thing, due to dnc insane tp gain with the basic hundred fisting (in my case at least) i am almost constnatly wsing if there is no need to cure. which is why i choose to keep the BF merits, They defaintly make a diffrence with evis and even some small amount to Rudras which i use to build up for while waiting on CF timer recast, i dont think they are worthless and they do increase damage output and presto pretty much instantly gives me the FM i just used back or if i happen to miss the stp i use NFR, so it works for me perfectly.

I still can self SC with ease, and i still have 100+ tp right after i use it due to other means, i see no problems with it. they also do help drasticly outside where i obviously have very little critical hit help.

With Haste, Saber Dance, Haste Samba, and 5/5 RF merits I can self-skillchain with 3 FMs. Sometimes I use Building when I'm dicking around, but it isn't worth a self-skillchain.

My argument wasn't against having the TP to do another WS, but it was with using FMs towards a BFWS when you can do much more damage getting 5 FMs to reverse and do another WS + SC in virtually the same time frame. Really no matter how you slice it, the boost from BF in no way, shape, or form, will give you more damage then using those FMs reversed towards another WS...period.

And RF merits in no way, shape or form is needed to acomplish what i can already do without them so it matters not if i merit them or not, i perform exactly the same, What's your point.

Personal preferance etc.

I have 5/5 samba/reverse flourish
and 1/5 fan dance
4/5 saber dance
5/5 no foot rise.

I get the feeling 5/5 noo foot rise isnt that usfull since I usually end up with 170 tp after using reverse -_-

But in same time, I used to have closed position and never found any HUGE difference between having them or not.My eva set still make them blind caus of sexyness! (joke there)

Always though group 1 is an absolute haste/reverse
and Group 2 was up to you and your playstyle.

Due to how it's easy to obtain merits, I've been switching around alot lately.

Honestly, as long as you have 5/5 RF and 5/5 Haste Samba. the rest is up to you.

I personally like 5/5 closed and 3/5 NFR but to each their own on that really.

When I use Building Flourish, I use it like this:
Step (2 FMs) -> Building -> Presto Step (3 FMs) -> WS -> 2x Rounds -> Reverse -> WS -> Darkness

It gives an Attack boost to the first WS of my skillchain and costs me 3 seconds of delay. Because it costs me 3 seconds of delay and we swing really fast, it isn't really worth doing unless the monster has a lot of Defense.

Case in point.

As long as you have 5/5 haste samba the rest is up to you. that is the only One that is set in stone and cannot be beat.

Closed postion is just one of those hidden secrets, more evasion for free is always good, and if you're soloing alot of course you'll want it.

If you read my first post, I actually agree that RF merits lose luster and that you can indeed get similar results w/o them.

My point AGAIN is that BF is useless...therefore meriting BF is also useless...

You could say that about most gear, too. That doesn't make you any less wrong. You'd do more damage, however slightly, with RF merits than with BF merits. Period.