The Last Dance: Gearing Paradigms For A New Age

That is because SE does not want anyone to get Bynes from that zone without severe competition.

So with the way y'all are talking, If one were to get rudra's on a Twashtar would it be worth dropping Exenterator for?

My problem lies in having stardiver and Exenterator, and wanting ruinator/redemption/last stand and not being able to decide between the three. Not having to worry about Exenterator would help me a lot, but I love the WS so much.

Absolutely not.

They're really not very fun anyway. They hit pretty hard, they double attack frequently, they have high evasion, their TP moves suck (one that has ridiculous knockback to send you flying into groups of repops, one that stuns you for a long time), they link from miles away, and wander around a lot on top of having a wide spawn area.

Do they double attack frequently, or triple attack? They are probably THF type monsters. Either way, if they ever restore test server access I could potential test some Accuracy stuff on them (like 99 Mythic AM1).

The EP ones explode and drop bynes everywhere if you look at them crosseyed.

I've never seen them triple attack.

That said, Nightmare Hippogryphs don't appear to have any evasion bonus traits at all.

They do have a Drop O. Bronzepiece trait, though. Gimme.

Are you making another relic or something lol?

:3 <secret>

I've sidetracked your thread. I'm DNC friendly though, so I can?

It's all good.

And now for something completely different.

There is a Cua +1 headpiece on AH, but the new NI head is making me not want to buy it. Also, I have 18 Riftdross still staring me down.

Is Cua +1 worth owning at the moment?

So now that save tp is being adjusted does that change what atmacite's we use?

It means that Atmacite of Discipline will be almost useless if you don't have a COR in your party.

Looking here, I think that our next best bet is probably Valiant. It's unfortunate that it is so ungodly expensive, but all stats +15, 5 Acc, and 5% Haste looks like it beats out other options to me.

Second place looks like Qilin's Atma if you are in a decent DD party. Your friends would get a total of Regain+5 (including Coercion), at least.

i was thinking valiant looked nice, lets us shave off 5% haste

herp?



(assumes you need some acc)

i was trying to think of a reason to use nusku's kinda like byrth did back in the day with atma of the omnipotent

or windbuffet belt? i think thats the TA one

the only problem is it makes me have to add the 2% missing haste somewhere else ><

Sylow, quick question. Is that rose dagger a .dat swap or is that a dagger I just haven't seen?

It's a DAT swap. It's listed under Dancer Daggers on the new ffxidats site.

There's a male and female version.

Heh, I REALLY hope it is since after your earlier suggestions I splurged on one a couple of days ago...

It's currently the best option for Dancing Edge (except for maybe Maat's Cap?), Pyrrhic Kleos, and Evisceration.

Okay then, it remains on my shopping list then.

Cua +1 : 4mil
Kacura feet +1 : 2mil (I should unlazy and synergize these)
4 Garudites : 200k
Flume Belt : 2mil
Airy Buckler : 1mil (If I can ever find one)
18 Riftdross : 13.5mil

So 23 mil, about

Updating 201: The Damage Dealing Archetype

In situations where dancers can function as a damage-dealing class, it may surprise you that they are actually quite potent damage dealers. Blistering attack speed, high critical hit rate, critical attack bonus, and a high multi-attack rate (when Saber Dance is active - which it will be if you're functioning under this paradigm) bestow upon dancers firepower like they have never seen before. On top of this, dancera have a plethora of offensive abilities at their disposal and they have gained access to a great deal of powerful offensive equipment and weaponry.

The obvious downside here is that Saber Dance restricts access to waltzes. That said, Square-Enix has not done a lot to make the dancer miss them. Shared timers and a pathetic curing formula has left waltzes sitting in the dust wondering when they'll be useful again for more than emergencies and solo play. Square-Enix seems to have realize this, however, and have turned to beefing up the dancer's offenses to compensate (either that or they're just incompetent, which is an equally plausible explanation). This strategy has been hit-and-miss and remains pretty controversial with the playerbase.

While we're on the subject of damage, however, let me make something extremely clear that applies to every battle archetype:

NO MATTER WHICH ROLE ONE IS PORTRAYING AS A DANCER, YOUR GOAL IS TO MAKE AS FEW OFFENSIVE SACRIFICES AS POSSIBLE WHILE STILL EFFECTIVELY AND EFFICIENTLY MEETING THE DEMANDS OF YOUR CURRENT POSITION IN THE GROUP.

Allow me to clarify, because it may seem out of place for a main healing dancer, for example, to worry about his or her offenses. As a dancer, you are a front-line class. You must justify your presence on the front line. As a main-healing dancer, if you are not contributing a worthwhile amount of damage to the party, then you are just a gimped white mage who is forced to stay at range, and increases the enemy's rate of TP gain for a less-than-favorable damage tradeoff. Why would you bring a front-line supporter who offers less support than a back-line supporter and contributes poorly to the front line? Well, you wouldn't, and that's the point. Similarly, while soloing, you want to optimize your damage output while keeping it balanced with your survival. In other words, you want to be just defensive enough -- if you're more defensive than you need to be, well, that's just wasted defensive effort that could have been put into offense. It's rather appropriate that dancers are subject to a perpetual balancing act, don't you think?

Anyway, here are your dancing goals for the damage-dealing battle archetype:

1. Contribute to the front line by optimizing your damage output

2. Maintain fully-merited Haste Samba to boost both your own effectiveness and that other front-line classes

3. Light debuff support through the use of steps, albeit mostly as a byproduct of collecting finishing moves

This pretty much directly implicates that you will be using Saber Dance. Which brings us to an important point:

Playing the Dancer class as a damage dealer essentially depends on having mage backup. As a result, we must justify bringing a dancer over some other damage-dealing class:

• Dancers are relatively survivable, taking less damage than many other damage dealers.

• Even in full-on DD mode, dancers provide support to other classes through Haste Samba and the significant bonuses of Steps.

• Dancers change gears very easily, making them ideal for events such as Salvage, Nyzul Isle, and Dynamis where enemies are high in number, but low in power, and conditions are highly variable.

• Contrary to popular belief, the damage output of the Dancer class is very competitive with the more popular damage-dealing classes, at least assuming aftermath is viable.

*The WAR/SAM/MNK/DRK onry crowd is going to disagree heavily with this statement, but I give fewer *** than Julie Andrews does while spinning happily through a field of wildflowers in alpine Austria. Properly played and geared, Dancer will provide similar damage output to a MNK.

What you need to optimize as a Damage Dealer:

• Competitive Daggers. Twashtar, Coruscanti, Thokcha come to mind. Aftermath is a huge boost if you can take advantage of it.

• Saber Dance unlocked. Preferrably 5/5 with Etoile Tights +2

• High-tier WS sets.

• Warrior support job for harder content, Samurai support job may win out for easier content.

• Guts. You need to have the gall to be extremely aggressive.

• Efficient macro setups.

It's also important to note that without efficient macro setups, and very good gear, you will not be competing with the heavy hitters. So, don't be surprised if you (as a new dancer) aren't able to provide the damage output I've hyped up, or if you (as an observer) don't see a Dancer performing as well as I've mentioned. It's something for which one has to do a lot of work, and a lot of learning, to accomplish - especially since it's so contrary to our "classic" position in battle.

I "think" I'm done with all of my buyables for now. Was considering Kacura +1 feet but I'll probably wait for a bit since I would only use them for PK. Rest of my gil is probably gonna go towards metal plates...



Yeah...thats right. I'm finally working towards ungimping my mainhand dagger. 13/50 glav, 5/50 itza, 0/75 doggie, 3/1500 plates =P Gonna be a long road, but I might as well try to get it done...

I'm working on getting my gil-flow up to the point where I can bang out the HMP stage of my dagger. I've been working on random crafting (fishing + goldsmithing).

I'm actually really enjoying goldsmithing.

Starting is really the hardest part, in my opinion.

I might hold off on Kacura +1 until I have Athos' Tabard. It wouldn't be good for Evisc (compared to Athos hands/feet) before then anyway.

PS. Sylow, you may want to emphasize the good gear sentiment with bigger letters and EVEN MORE BOLD or something. We gain an incredible amount through equipment.

PPS. I think we do less damage than a Vere MNK on a 1:1 basis at a medium Haste level, but not by much. We have higher TP phase damage and higher WS frequency, but lower average WS damage. Another advantage we have is lower HP. Sounds stupid, but it lets Earthen Armor and Scherzo proc.

i made it more bold and bigger letters and even more bold

With Haste and no outside buffs, my Dancer would have about twice the TP gain of a similarly geared Monk and equivalent or superior melee DPS.

People really underestimate Dancer. I get the feeling this is why we're so far down the priority list for adjustments. They're afraid of breaking us. The Save TP nerf should work in our favor, too.

Just throwing this out there, but do you think there should be a section on steps? Like what to keep up/not bother with and all of the gear changes that may go along with them? Or are they not significant enough to warrant their own section? Or are there too many variables to consider based on the situation?