DNC Merit Priorities?

TThis thread is hilarious. On a serious note, having fully merited saber dance probably has higher survivability in most cases. That up with haste samba leads to wicked tp gain, allowing more cures. Fully merited saber dance lets you drop it to cure yourself then put it right back up in 99.9% of situations. Fan dance shouldn't be up 100%. Personally it's an 'oh ***whm DC'ed' or other similar situation JA. If you played warrior would you keep berserk up full time?

Oh god, is this what happens when I take a nap?

Anyway, it seems that people STILL don't understand this, so I'm going to say it REALLY LOUDLY.

1.) Steps are based on your melee accuracy. Also, they have an innate accuracy bonus for DNC main. Also, presto is +50 acc. Also DNC is one of the most accurate jobs in the game, NAKED (sitting after Amanomurakumo SAM, DRG, and RNG. In a standard DD-oriented TP set, you are capping accuracy on everything but VWNM, and there, you're doing better than just about everyone else. Steps probably don't even need it, but a few random +ACC pieces will absolutely ensure capped step accuracy on nearly everything. Don't believe me? Parse it yourself. I've already parsed it for you, though. And done the math. But guess what? Melee accuracy and step accuracy caps at 95%. So you're going to miss 1/20 times anyway. Think you're missing more than that? It's confirmation bias. Once again, don't believe me? Parse it.

DO NOT MERIT STEP ACCURACY. Get a GD Anguinus belt. It's 50% more potent than 5 step accuracy merits. ***, Relic body is more potent than 5 step accuracy merits and you should be carrying that around anyway

(2.) will come in a second post.

(2.) Anything that Fan Dance is "saving you" against (you evade it enough to make the PDT last at a high enough level can't really kill you anyway. Conclusion? You don't need to be using Fan Dance against it. Anything "difficult enough" against which to use FD hits for at least 300/hit, and Fan Dance will only save you 60dmg/hit once it hits the floor (which it will).

If you're able to "conserve" Fan Dance to keep it high between even fully merited recasts, then whatever it is isn't hitting you enough to make it worth it anyway. You will be better off capping haste, using a hybrid evasion set where necessary, and using at least Haste Samba. Many of our solo activities will allow us to run Saber Dance, too.

(Note that there's little excuse to not have Haste (spell) up solo, either, due to Oynos Knife, making Haste Samba that much more useful due to haste's increasing returns)

Killing faster = time saved and/or in timed events, means more of a result.

You're free to merit Fan Dance if it makes you feel safer, but not free to not realize that you're reducing your own performance/potential, or to give people poor advice based on your less-than-optimal decisions.

In nearly all solo situations, Fan Dance just a crutch for your own incompetence (the exceptions are a few emergencies, for example, you just got a double link at low HP/TP and need some time to activate JAs or hit a few times to get a waltz in), and in all tanking situations it's doing absolutely nothing for you because you should have a mage, meaning you should at least be using Haste Samba to make things die faster.

That was...odd. Probably needed, but still. lol

On Topic: Tier 1 has pretty much been a lock since it's existed. 5/5 Haste Samba + Reverse Fl.
My tier2's are currently set at
1/5 Fan Dance
4/5 Closed Position
5/5 NFR
because I'm a solo-junkie on DNC.

I hate fan dance with a passion purely because it means I have to give up haste samba whenever I use it and I feel I'm taking 1 step forward and 2 steps backward. XD

I'm finding it hard to justify not going with this set up though

1/5 Fan
4/5 Saber
5/5 NFR

I know someone outlined you only need a certain amount of NFR merits and rest should be spent on closed position but honestly it boils down to playstyle for me. I like building tp on the side that much quicker and I use it for self skill chaining purposes. Maybe I play dancer old fashion...

I'm open to alternative suggestions if they are substantial.

240 coins and 25 forgotten items in Dynamis last night. I used Fan Dance once in two hours when I had a quadruple link and my WHM mule got stuck on a corner. I used Saber Dance continuously.

After that I went out solo on DNC/THF and farmed Light Elementals in Sky. Saber Dance continuously. 8 HP/tick in my idle set (between monsters) and a Waltz once every 3-5 minutes was enough to keep me capped HP.

Byrth actually brings up an interesting factor idt some may be taking into account: Access to a mage-job for dual-boxing

I don't have this option available to me so losing waltz to saber dance is a death sentence for solo purposes. However if you do have a mule to keep you cured up, I can definitely see saber dance being higher on the list.

When I solo EPs in Dynamis (DNC/THF), I keep up Saber Dance unless I have too many links or am fighting something that consistently uses status moves.

Edit: And mind you, my saber dance set has 15 less evasion than my normal TP set and I use Rancor Mantle when SD is up, so I take 10% more damage.

I have no problem bringing in 200-220 currency that way.

Regen in your idle set goes a long way.

DCs, I only use Saber Dance if someone else can keep me alive. Although sometimes I try to get away with it anyway.

With AF3+2 body, No Foot Rise gives back 5 TP per merit level and AF3+2 hands increase the squared term modifier for reverse flourish. If you are doing WS -> No Foot Rise -> Reverse Flourish, then:
TP = 15+ 5*x + 9.5*x + 1.5*x^2 + 3*y

x is the number of NFR merits
y is the number of Reverse Flourish merits. 5/5 makes that term 15.

We want 100 TP so we can WS, so lets set it equal to 100.
30 + 14.5*x + 1.5*x^2 = 100
0 = 1.5*x^2 + 14.5*x - 70

Hullo quadratic equation. I missed you! It solves for 3.53 and -13.2. -13.2 isn't a valid answer, so you can go with 3.53. This means that (in order to self-skillchain with NFR and without an attack round) you need more than 3 NFR. 4 is safe, because it allows you to compensate for one of the gear pieces not swapping with an attack round.

Also, I tend to duo dynamis (v. DCs) with a DNC (DNC/THF + DNC/RDM) friend a lot, and more than half the time we'll both have Saber Dance up, lol.

We usually get ~250 currency and ~25 forgotten items that way. It's less of a gil return for me to duo, but it is also less lonely.

i have a brd/whm mule and i absolutely LOVE it ^^

I should really get a mule someday.

and omg that giant red text is making me all hot and heavy <3 sylow

What is idle in Dynamis?

My mule (my friend's old account) had WHM, BRD, and RDM leveled to 75. I leveled BRD to 90 first and kind of didn't see the need for any other job because FREAKING MARCH+HASTE, MAN!

That said, I regret not leveling his WHM sooner. White Mage is such an overpowered healer at this point that it is very hard to argue against. It can also sub THF in Dynamis for me, where the increased kill speed of March/Minuet is offset by the fact that you spend a lot of time turned around.

I get at least one tic of regen gear everytime I disengage and switch to a new mob :P

Well since this thread is up.. And I just started playing again.. My current merits are in Haste Samba, Reverse Flourish, No Foot Rise and Closed Position..

This build is completely built around soloing and duoing. Can someone give me a simple dumbed down version of how my merits should be allocated? Is that even possible? I'm not one to sit there and do math or calculations.. I really don't care about all that.. I play the game to have to fun, not 'be all I can be'.. I only ever duo with one person, the only people being harmed by my short comings are me and him..

I read the descriptions to fan dance and sabre dance before I merited anything, I just really didn't see how they'd fit into my play style.. But am I missing out on something here? Are they just that good? I don't really have any basis for comparison, as I said, I solo and duo.. It's not as if I can have someone 'try out' for me and show me what they can do..

I'm only asking here because it popped up and I'm not making yet another thread on it. Every time I try to read the other threads though, I just go stupid, it's not simple and direct enough for me. If someone would be kind enough to either clear this up, simply, or say "it can't be summed up that simply" I'd be grateful.

I'd recommend dropping two levels of CP/NFR and opening Saber and Fan Dance. They are incredibly useful when they are useful. If you have other things to spend merits on, I would spend them on other things until the Tier 2 merit readjustment hits.

Fan dance is good to have at 1/5 because sometimes it can save your ***.

A good example is 2 DC hippogryphs linked onto my right after I used a WS yesterday and I was at half HP. They took me down to red pretty quickly (immediately)

Popping fan dance allowed me to ... well not die while I got my HP up and finished killing the one I was already fighting.

We don't need access to waltzes all the time, and when we don't, Saber Dance is +20-25% double attack (with AF2+2) pants, which is a significant (understatment) boon to our killspeed. I recommend at least 1/5.

Saber Dance is one of the best offensive JAs in the game. Unlock it.

Anyway, I've already given the two "best" merit setups:

Non-negotiable
Haste Samba 5/5
Reverse Flourish 5/5

Saber Dance Setup for G2*
Saber Dance 5/5
Fan Dance 1/5
NFR 4/5

*Likely optimal now and almost certainly optimal post merit point adjustments, unless they turn fan dance into an invincibility star.

Closed Position Setup for G2
Saber Dance 1-2/5
Fan Dance 1/5
NFR 2-3/5
Closed Position 5/5

*You'll have more accuracy/evasion, but do less damage. It's sub-optimal, but it works.

It really just comes down to what style you play DNC under tbh, but i think what Sylow just said basically sums it up.

That's actually my exact merit set up for dnc lol

If it helps to better diagnose the situation, I almost never end up tanking when we duo.. Solo, yeah obviously, but I tend to not solo things that are iffy or require specific set-ups or merits.

The friend is way ahead of me, and most times, he's on BST.. I've been a Dancer for a long time, and kinda know my role, but I'm not always really sure. If a fight is hard, I don't WS I save TP for cures/sambas, and do my best to keep the mob enfeeb'd through steps depending on what is needed.. It's pretty rarey that I have hate though...

On RDM my job is much more clear cut, if I'm on RDM, he's on BLM, and my job is to keep refresh and haste and cure when needed and to keep the mob enfeebed with whatever is necessary and nuke when I can.. BLM/RDM duo is much more clear cut and obvious and I know what to merit on a RDM.. Just DNC I'm not 100% sure..

I don't solo a lot, anything I do solo, I can usually just throw on a drain samba II every third samba and not even need to waste ninja tools.. Would this mean my merits are appropriate since I understand they are always situational and what you do, I'm just not sure the whether my unique situation negates the need for readjusting merits or not.

Merit Saber Dance and see how often you actually need to Waltz your BST friend when duoing.

Quite often actually :< at least for now... We're now working on all my Abyssea ***.. Lots of NMs that love to use AoE's..

Saber Dance really starts to count in events like Dynamis/Limbus/ElementalMagianTrials where the clock is always ticking so the faster you kill things, the more you get done in your allotted time.

i've had conflicting views about melee jobs such as dnc using regen in their idle sets for a little while now, sure with 160 hp regened a minute is ok and granted it's really there as a buffer, but do you honestly think that sacrificing other sets for an extra set for your idle is benificial? for jobs such as ranger or your mage jobs i can see this working fine since you spend the majority of your time in idle (no true engaged set) but for the amount of time you are idle on dnc, that amount of hp returned is so minimal that for it to be really worth while time is ticking away at your saber dance or you are just being slow. What kind of compromise are you making to fit in the 4 or so extra gear? I say that because i know in my current setup im full in my active inventory and i do not have all the major pieces such as toci's harness.

I leave my PDT gear, MDT gear, heavy evasion gear, Aeolian Edge gear, etc. in my satchel. I run about 65/80 inventory including three pieces used just for Regen (Sheltered Ring, P.ring, Wiglen Gorget, and then also Ocelo +1). I sort of double benefit from Sheltered Ring, because I generally get Protect/Shell while idle.

Check out Group=GC in this xml:
http://pastebin.com/BVsDq0mZ

That is what I pull into my inventory. I probably don't really need a few of the items (like Rancor Collar, most of the time), but I keep them anyway.

^ This exactly.

I can't imagine not having my MDT set on me. The split second I see the word "casting" on my screen that ***goes on.

That and I use the same set for THF and most of it for PLD (all 26%).