DNC Merit Priorities?

I'm curious to know which order the more experienced Dancers of XI think I should put my merits on DNC.

I'm planning: Haste Samba 5/5, Reverse Flourish 5/5 for T1. My T2's I'm not too sure, but I'm thinking something like: Saber Dance 4/5, Fan Dance 1/5, NFR 5/5.

I don't plan on using my DNC for anything special, mainly Dyna/messing around.

If you plan on upgrading AF2+2 legs, I'd recommend Saber 5/5, Fan 1/5, NFR 4/5.

Byrth or Asym can feel free to chime in if that's no longer optimal.

Yes this is pretty much the new standard with the af2+2.5 set. I myself went with 4 saber 5 NFR though just out of preference.

Keep in mind that G2 merit changes should be coming soon so that may vary the current standard, but probably not by much

precisely, if you get the augmented af2 with enhances no foot rise effect you get a tp bonus when you use no foot rise, i believe it's 5tp per merit you have in no foot rise, even without 4 steps should be enough to put you within self skill chain range anyways

Depends on what you're doing. I actually went 5/5 Fan Dance because I knew I'd be soloing/tanking, put 2 in NFR (to complement Presto) and 3 in Saber Dance. Though these guys are probably right.

The reasons against additional merits in Fan Dance have been discussed numerous times, and I'm not aware of any new factors that mitigate them. Perhaps you could elaborate on your reasoning?

the only justifiable use for a reduced fan dance cast time is for hedjedjet when have a fresh fan dance as soon as plausible helps in the fight with him, but.... ideally soloing him does not turn up drops majority of the time.

Even then it's a very minor convenience, and that was no different at 90 cap. RR/GH/SS and a handful of PDT items was sufficient for survival even with a floored Fan Dance, and his TP moves are completely predictable so there was no excuse to not be in said PDT gear by the time a TP move went off if VF missed.

You don't need Haste Samba and Fan Dance. Unless you are going the jack-of-all-trades route, decide if you want to attack faster or defend better. If you are soloing, I recommend not doing Haste Samba, since you will have Fan Dance on.

That's just what I have, I'm sure I don't have the best merits.

I just have a little bit of comfort when soloing knowing that I can have 90% pdt sooner, since most of the time I am soloing when I am on the job.

Granted, it's not very often that I actually am reduced to 10% pdt before the timer is up. This is one of the reasons against multiple merits I suppose?

I personally like my setup, but I haven't tried the alternatives, so in general it's best to listen to these guys.

Also, what's the AF2+2 augments for NFR and Saber Dance? I'm sort of out of the loop.

Edit: herp derp, it was mentioned above. That's really awesome actually. I did my merits a long time ago, so I should probably redo them.

Going to pretend this never happened.

Sort of (though the floor is 20%). The other primary line of reasoning is that it's unlikely that a NM is only doing whatever move actually needs that full PDT rarely enough for the recast reduction to save you.

Saber Dance mechanics

AF2+2 for NFR is +5TP per merit (+25 at 5/5) and Saber Dance is +1% DA per merit (so +5% at 5/5).


What would you guys consider the more important merits?

I'm considering 5/5 Haste Samba > 1 Saber & Fan Dance (just to unlock them) > Then I have no idea which would be the better ones to merit after that. Should I finish SD before NFR/RF? Or do RF before the others?

Whoops, 10% was typo. And I see.

And I don't remember seeing that about Saber Dance on the wiki, but it's there too now. Sorry, didn't mean to spread misinformation, it's just the last time I checked there wasn't any information on the decay. Suddenly Saber Dance merits 5/5 seem more desirable. Thanks for clearing this up.

Haste 5/5
Reverse 5/5
Fan 1/5
Saber 5/5**
NFR 4/5

For now, this is only useful if you have AF2+2 pants upgraded. Post merit-point adjustments, it's highly likely this will become optimal regardless of your pants.

For now, if you don't have AF2+2 pants...

Fan 1
Saber 1-2
NFR 2-3
Closed Position 5

Is probably the best you can do.

It wasn't all that long ago that Byrth tested Saber Dance mechanics, so you weren't exactly years out of date or anything. It was just easier for me to drop the link for you since I was on my way out the door.

I know speaking against Haste is sacrilege among the cookie-cutter crew, but that aside, why would you want to merit a samba if you have Fan Dance on? And why would you use Saber Dance if soloing, unless you /NIN?

That's what I did. 1/1/3/5.

Oooo, I'm cookie-cutter now. New and exciting.

Better question, why are you wasting time by using Fan Dance on everything?

You realize Haste Samba and Fan Dance are in different groups right?

step acc merits onry

Yes. And you realize you can't use Sambas with Fan Dance on, right?

What going to reply to that until I saw


so I'll just stop there. Take care

You're right... NEEDZ MOAR HASTE!! I opt for survivability, and my steps almost never miss. I can RF more often and VF more reliably because I can keep Steps effects up reliably.But hey, you swing a barely noticeable amount faster (and get hit harder yourself but that's beside the point).

Tenshi, you might want to go read through the DNC thread before posting in this thread again.

Krizz's link doesn't really cover the true pointlessness of step merits unless there's a later (non-OP) post I missed, so I'll just leave this here.

i really really am not intending to be rude but...

if your accuracy is already capped (which it should be in abyssea) then there really is no point to step accuracy merits.. presto itself give an accuracy bonus if i remember correctly

Fan Dance is wonderful for certain situations but at level 99 evasion AND acc arent that big of a problem, especially in abyssea

My question to you is what monster are you fighting that requires those merits? With step acc+ gear (if you have it macrod in) you are pretty much at the accuracy cap for dynamis, znm, ToAU missions, nyzul, einherjar, abyssea, assaults, and you should be damn near close to the cap in voidwatch but that varies based on the monster in voidwatch

@99 your evasion should be at a point, through hybrid sets or regular tp gear, that most mob's generally miss most of the time which makes /nin not even really needed bar magic nm's or some other ones with severely damaging tp moves (or in abyssea for ninjutsu procs)

when your evasion and acc is capped what do you merit? Haste samba and Saber Dance, and i can say for myself that Haste samba's 10% haste when merited is completely visible. Saber Dance also aids in getting tp back quick for a quick recovery.

You can be completely survivable with saber dance, keep one fan dance as a backup, keep capped accuracy on steps and melee hits, and kill faster with the merit strategy mentioned above. For the wide variety of thing's id say i mostly agree with it. Your set really offers nothing from the step + merits other than being able to hit high evasion mobs (the only ones that come to mind are voidwatch)

edit: Actually if your dagger skill isn't capped it could explain why you feel that way but i dont know if thats the case :x

also that was so painful to type..

my "c" key is broken ;_;
i gotta ctrl+v to paste a "c" ive copied

HAHHA xD that made me laugh. but sorry that you have to do that o,o