The Last Dance: Gearing Paradigms For A New Age

Does this mean we get to talk about reconsidering 5/5 SD?

I guess you could drop it for Closed Position (there's still no good reason for Fan Dance beyond LV1) but over time you'll probably still get more mileage out of Saber Dance merits (spending less TP / JA delay).

I would submit that Fan Dance is one of the few things DNC legitimately can say it has going for it (heavy PDT while still maintaining high attack speed/damage/evasion) compared to other light DD jobs, and the 5/5 enhancement is very, very powerful in the situations you would actually use Fan Dance*, but the thread's initial caveat of always having a healer makes that moot.



*which, again, arguably define the job, because these are the situations where DNC ends up being legit superior to other light DD options (3 or 4 DCs on you while soloing dynamis etc)

Once Fan Dance has decayed, it's not doing much for you. Vs. 3-4 enemies, that will happen pretty rapidly, unless you have shadows - at which point - why not just abuse your shadows have have Samba?

Also there's really no reason to be fighting 4 DC enemies at once solo (but that's another discussion entirely).

Twash 90 is technically superior to Aluh Jambiyah - but whether or not it's actually worth the investment if you're not going to take it past 90 is dubious.

Well, the idea is that one or maybe two are dead before it fully decays. The important thing is ***happens and if it didn't I would be doing this on THF/DNC.


So Fan Dance is never useful? Should I just be 0/5?

It is useful to have 1/5 in case of emergencies, but it is not used enough to justify 5/5.

Edit: The difference between 1/5 and 5/5 is not enough to justify 5/5.

Personally I think if they want Fan Dance to be worth 5/5ing they should make each merit level -1 waltz recast instead of 5%. 20% is what, like 1 second of curing waltz III? Not worth a 10% drop in JA haste.

Vs. what? 15 accuracy?


I would not suggest you stay in Fan Dance all the time, or even most of the time.

It's 2 seconds off Curing Waltz III, but it isn't very useful in my opinion. In low support situations without Haste Samba, you won't be able to gain TP quickly enough to take advantage of that. In higher support situations, you won't need to.

I personally like 5/5 NFR for extra TP when I use it for Rudra. With that I have 1/5 FD and 4/5 SD. Extra duration helps reduce tp lost over time.

If you plan on 5/5 FD, I hope you would have 1/5 SD and 4/5 NFR with that. If you really have a hard on for a slight waltz delay reduction when you use Fan Dance, by all means go for it.

That...hasn't been my experience*, but everyone's experience is going to be unique with something like this, most likely.

The larger point is that now that Etoile +2 is mostly obsolete, other options just don't give you that much.




*and if I were going 5/5 Fan, I'd be using IV or V anyway

So, in situations dangerous enough to force you to use Fan Dance, you use the least HP/time efficient waltzes?

I do not think it means what you think it means

The truth is none of our options really matter make-or-break anymore.

Benefits

Saber Dance
Reduced TP usage and JA delay.

When can you take advantage of this: most of the time

Fan Dance

Decreased waltz recast.

When can you take advantage of this: occasionally to rarely

Closed Position

12 evasion

When can you take advantage of this: well, it would, in general, cap your evasion versus DCs in Dynamis.

I'm sure if I were 5/5 Fan I would experiment with what worked best!


pretty sure i meant exactly what i said, professor

My main issue with Fan Dance is that, at least the way I use it, I pop it for 30 seconds to 1 minute and then go back to using Sambas when I get things under control.

But you are also a guy who made a thread about DNC predicated on the assumption that you'll have healer support, which is not a situation that screams "better get on my DNC!" to me.

Backing up a bit, if 12 evasion is capping me on dyna DCs, why did I ever stop using Charis +2 in the first place? Taking, what is it, 30% more hits (assuming I'm getting the full value of the 12 evasion) for the privilege of a whopping 5% DA?

I don't even understand the argument you're making. Are you comparing 4 Closed Position merits to the last 4 Saber Dance merits, or are you actually advocating meriting Fan Dance more than once?

I'll just be here.

I am advocating meriting 5/5 Fan Dance in a world where Etoile +2 is not best-in-slot TP gear with Saber Dance up.

Closed Position is relevant to this only insofar as it's the main competition for the merits that going 1/5 Saber frees up, which I guess is a premise you can quibble with if you want to argue that 20% Samba duration is a game-changer.

None of them are game changers. You could leave both Fan and Saber at 1/5 and never notice.

Do the skadi+1 legs beat out 5/5 saber augment AF2+2 pants now? Is it the STP on it?

So what are we arguing about?

You could have just said "yeah 5/5 FD makes sense for some people I GUESS (EYEROLL)" and that would have been the end of it!

EDIT: nah that is beneath me

I actually haven't been very argumentative or forceful about it.

And the set bonus with other SK pieces, see page 83~

They've always been at best a side grade to thaumas, and more often than not, a downgrade.

I do not mean to imply I think you've been uncivil, but there's clearly a disagreement here on some level, and I am trying to figure out where.

Your position, as I understood it, was that 5/5 SD was mandatory even post-merit-buff because of Etoile +2. A fair point! However, the landscape's changed, and since we have not, as of yet, had an actual discussion about G2 merits that accounted for 1/5 SD rather than 5/5, the viewers at home could benefit from such a discussion, wouldn't you agree?

My position is that while sitting in Fan Dance is dumb and a DNC should endeavor to do so as little as possible, the situations where such a thing is unavoidable are themselves important enough to justify using DNC in situations where, all other things being equal, I might otherwise opt for another DD with more damage, or THF. Given that other merit options are lackluster and you apparently agree that 2 seconds off Waltz III is significant enough to see the waltz delay augment on anwig as mandatory (or you did at one point), why wouldn't I invest 5/5 in it?

What about that is objectionable?

The real answer is solo on BLU/DNC and AoE sleep all aggro :)

/run