The Last Dance III: A Dancer's Guide *New*

Actually doing damage/draining mp wouldn't hurt

They only need to add TP Samba to the mix and DNC is back in every party/alliance. And by TP Samba, I mean actually drains the target's TP

Dancer's highest level samba is from level 65... it'd be nice to get another tier of all of them and/or one with a new effect.

Remove the prerequisites from Drain/Aspir samba OR actually let them DRAIN hp/mp from a target. It's silly for Drain Samba to not work on undead if its not actually damaging them... and why should a target need to have MP for Aspir Samba to work if it isn't reducing the target's MP?

An Honor March-esk Samba would be kinda cool. Always grants JA haste, plus randomly drains either HP or MP every swing.

Samba enhancement ideas:
1) remove the party check so anyone hitting the monster gets the effect
2) Make drain/aspir samba actually steal HP/MP
3) add a higher level samba that both steals HP/MP and gives 10% JA haste (15% with merits)


I think a lot of the DNC problems come from two places that aren't sambas, though:
1) Step JA delay - eliminate this (like they did for maneuvers) and the job plays very differently
2) WD damage - if MNK is the yardstick, dagger WSs need a boost again

Not sure they can technically do that.
Maneuvers are self-based, Steps are enemy-target-based.
I think this implies a different cycle of communication between client and server for the two categories.

It would be a neat change, I just doubt they can easily pull it off.
I wouldn't boost Dagger WSD but give DNC more tricks and stuff, if anything.
Part of these things can be done through Empy gear too.
Imagine the head getting another 10% cdmg for instance.


Either way, despite people complaining I think it's a long way of adjustments to DDs have to come before they really "need" to fix DNC's damage.
It's not where it used to be a while ago, but it's nowhere near the bottom of the DDs either.

I think this change would just end up making sub DNC more popular... Box step is one of Dancer's main selling points. Making /dnc able to stack it more easily would bite us in the ***.

Presto being instant cast OR changed to a job trait would be pretty awesome, though.

Steps are fine, IMO. With attack buffs you always have the options to use it sparingly and without attack buff bringing dnc itself probably outweigh another DD without def- WS. I personally dont see step being the main reason holding the job back.

I do think both dagger and katana needs wsd boost. Katana more so than the dagger. But dagger is still slightly weaker as a weapon in today's FFXI. DNC is kinda fine dmg wise because it has pretty good +2 neck, strong SP and SC bonus. So daggers disadvantage is not that obvious because DNC still performs well in situations that favors it. THF is in a worse spot and both brd and Nin uses SB build even though their best weapon shouldn't even be a sword. That's something really wrong with dagger/katana IMO.

I think they need to get rid of the concept of building up FM. Flourish timers already slow down their use so why add a second delay on top of them by having to build with steps especially if steps aren’t needed OR are already capped thus making building up FM tougher. Would speed up job play and still leave a place for steps to be used when needed for the debuff.

For those interested, I posted some new tests about the "shared" daggers: Aeneas, Twashtar and Tauret.

Not sure how any of that data can be meaningful for DNC as well.
SA/TA can be compared to Climactic Flourish to a certain extent for Twashtar and Aeneas, but for Tauret you would be relying more on spamming Building Flourish.

Furthermore I think DNC has less Crit Hit/DMG gear and gifts than THF (excluding random augs), meaning that Tauret could probably be a bit further behind than it is for THF? I dunno...
I feel Twash and Aeneas numbers might be consistant for DNC as well.



Man... wish there was a working BRD spreadsheet so I could do some tests for BRD as well ;_;

This is a completely different topic, but the waltz potency received cap is 30%, right? I can't find enough gear to hit that cap, at least that's still at i119. (I haven't looked too closely at older gear.)

Mummu Bonnet +2 in the head slot gives +9%, Passion Jacket in the body slot gives +13%, Asklepian Ring gives +3% for a total of 25%. (Maxixi Casaque +3 gives +8% but conflicts with Passion Jacket if you're going for Waltz Potency Received.)

Was the cap attainable with some older gear that I ignored because it isn't i119? Or is there some obscure augment that I've overlooked? (Taeon and Herculean are just Waltz Potency, not received, and I couldn't find anything for Escha Zi'Tah or Ru'aun augment paths.)

I believe someone tested passion jacket and it ended up being normal waltz potency rather than received and that it was a translation error, unless I'm mistaken.

This is correct

Iirc there are cure potency received buffs (Cor roll?) And that is how it was tested.

Edit: actually, I think they told us the cap when they boosted the waltz potency cap to 50% (should be early 2012.)

You seem to be correct, I had no idea first, but your post prompted me to look for the source of that information. Sylph.Chocobro posted on that item's description here on FFXIAH. https://www.ffxiah.com/item/25727/passion-jacket

So as far as gear goes, the effective received cap is 19%, then? (Mummu Bonnet +2 9%, Maxixi Casaque +3 8%, and Asklepian Ring 3%)

Presumably there's a cap at 30%, given the 2012 posts you mentioned, but what I mean is, given our options in gear, the max attainable seems to be 19%.


Healer's Roll affects Cure potency received, but I thought Cure Potency Received and Waltz Potency Received are two distinct categories. Doing a test going DNC/COR just now, if my roll of Healer's Roll X (+14% Cure Potency Received) applied to Waltzes, I'd expect Curing Waltz II to heal more than 672 HP with my current self-Waltz set, but that roll didn't have any effect still just exactly 672. (I don't think there's a Waltz Potency Received roll, Dancer's Roll just applies Regen.)

(as DNC/COR, 92+120 VIT, 97+148 CHR, 50% Waltz Potency, though my Maxixi Casaque is only +2 atm so my Waltz Potency Received in this set is 18%, not 19%)

Odds are that info was in some patch notes past from back then. Thought I'd clarify any potential confusion about Cure Potency Received (or at least Healer's roll) for anyone who finds this thread in the future, at least. (Right now I'm taking it for granted, but I can try modifying my set and trying again with some Cure Potency Received gear I have on-hand.)

I wanted to unpack this part a little. Right now, I just limited my search to the Evisceration sets listed in THF and DNC guides, since I'm assuming that people have done math for total Evisceration damage and take into account other factors like the WSC contribution to base damage or otherwise choosing to use a different piece over something with higher crit chance/crit damage. I haven't examined this too closely, so I just wanted to provide that disclaimer.

Guides I was looking at for reference:
THF: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Community_Thief_Guide
DNC: obviously this very thread https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/53853/the-last-dance-iii-a-dancers-guide-new/#_user-5-ws

Some things to keep in mind about crit chance: common to either job, there's dDEX (max 15%), "Other" category merits to increase crit chance (5% at 5/5), and Evisceration has an inherent 10% crit chance at 1000 TP, scaling up to 25% at 2000 TP, and 50% at 3000 TP. Not sure if the crit inherent to Evisceration is just for the first hit or for all hits, though.

As far as traits/gifts inherent to each job, they both get 8% total Crit Damage in job point gifts once mastered, and in traits, THF gets 14% crit damage (tier IV) while DNC gets 11% (tier III). So, before gear, THF has 22% crit damage, DNC has 19%.

Gear-wise, the capped attack THF Evisceration set gets +35% crit rate, not accounting for mainhand or offhand. I can't find anything in THF's abilities that increases crit rate, other than Trick Attack and Sneak attack forcing crits -- I'm not as familiar with THF, so it's possible I'm missing something.

Pieces in the THF set I was looking at that have +critrate: Yetshila +1, Plunderer's Vest +3, Mummu Wrists +2, Moonshade Earring (+250 TP translates to +3% critrate from 1000-1750 TP), Mummu Ring, Begrudging Ring, Toutatis's Cape augmented with 10% crit rate

Gear-wise, the DNC Evisceration set gets +24% critrate (or at least the Dream Tier set, which eschews the critrate+ rings in favor of Regal Ring and Ilabrat Ring -- but it doesn't list variations for attack (un)capped situations).

Pieces in the DNC set I was looking at that have +critrate: Mummu Wrists +2, Lustratio Subligar +1 Path B, Odr Earring, Mummu Ring, Begrudging Ring, Senuna's Mantle augmented with 10% crit rate

In addition, DNC can use Building Flourish to add 20% crit rate to all hits of their weaponskills. In my experience, the cooldown is still high enough at 10s that I TP fast enough so that each Evisceration at 1000 TP can't be boosted by Building Flourish -- I'd call it every other one?

DNC can also add +14% another critrate by debuffing the target with Feather Step Lv. 10, if it's not too impractical for the situation. THF can benefit from this too if another DNC in the party/alliance does this, but if a DNC intends to Evisceration spam with Tauret, they can guarantee they get a boost to crit rate with Feather Step this way.

As far as crit damage goes, the attack capped set for THF has +22% crit damage.

Pieces in THF set that have +crit damage: Yetshila +1, Adhemar Bonnet +1, Plunderer's Vest +3, and Pillager's Culottes +3

(THF does have a few more +crit damage gear available to it, like the AF +3 hands and crit damage augmented Herculean Boots, but I'm not precisely sure why they're unused in the set. At a guess, Mummu Wrists +2 for critrate, and Lustratio Leggings path D for STR for attack and fSTR and DEX for dDEX and WSC.)

Dancer's Evisceration set has +26% crit damage.

Pieces in DNC set that have +crit damage: Charis Feather, Adhemar Bonnet +1, Meghanada Cuirie +2, Herculean Boots (assuming +4% crit damage augments), Senuna's Mantle (on base stats of cape; crit damage isn't an augment path)

Obviously, Maculele Tiara is an option for +25% crit damage if we're using Climactic Flourish, but that only applies to the first swing of a weaponskill.

Offhands like Shijo for THF (provides both critrate and damage) or Skinflayer augmented for crit rate or crit damage (mutually exclusive augments) can add more, though Twashtar seems like the best option if available (I assume to cap dDEX and contribute to the WSC component of Evisceration's base damage).

So, in summary, ignoring offhand options:

THF gets 35% crit rate and 22% crit damage from gear, alongside the max of +30% more crit rate at 1000 TP assuming capped dDEX, merits, and the 1000 TP crit bonus inherent to Evisceration and 22% crit damage from traits, totalling up to 65% crit rate and 44% crit damage.

DNC gets 24% crit rate and 26% crit damage from gear, can debuff the enemy for 14% more crit rate, and can use Building Flourish for at least 20% more crit rate from the job point category alone, alongside the same assumptions for THF about merits, dDEX, and Evisceration's TP contribution to crit rate and DNC's inherent 19% crit damage from traits+gifts, that totals up to 54% base crit rate before Feather Step or Building Flourish (68% with Feather Step Lv. 10, at least 74% with Building Flourish, and at least 88% with both) and 45% crit damage.

I'm not discounting that there might be some other disparity between THF and DNC Evisceration that exists (like I've completely ignored multiattack procs and Thief's Triple Attack damage, fSTR, total DEX for WSC), but unless I'm missing something major (like I just looked at those specific sets, which might be a form of cherrypicking), I don't think it's in anything to do with crit rate or crit damage.

I want someone to actually redo testing for building flourish giving 20% WSD on all hits (and possibly crit rate too), because whenever I used it, it definitely didn't felt like my Evis was doing 20% more damage (and it should be more actually with added crit rate).

Also Building flourish Crit rate is only with 3 FMs used. Good luck generating enough FMs to keep using 3/3 building flourish every 10 sec. you would lose half the time doing JA and JA delay would probably lower your dps more than building flourish would increase it.

I used to use Tauret when I started and developed playstyle around it, after I got Aeneas I stopped using it and never look back. Its incredibly overratted in the community and I have no idea why people like it so much.

From my experience using building flourish before ws never yield good parse result in real game play since ws frenquency drops. The only content justify ising BF is probably dyna D due to down time.

But more importantly Tauret really lacks SC flexibility since its not a rudra focused weapon. In order to do a strong multistep, Evis needs to be on the 3rd WS in a 3 step and first 2 will be much weaker ws. So if I *** up on the 1st or 2nd ws, entire SC chain gets *** up and the only way continue is to redo the entire chain starting from 2 weaker ws again. This is unlike rudra weapon that can just change ws order around however I want since rudra can be 1st, 2nd or 3rd ws in a 3 step. If I failed the chain at some point I never need to restart the entire chain, I just continue on with the chain.

Ive thought of swapping weapons mid fight and have tauret on when CF is on recast in ws spam situations, but I found that its really not worth it. Anytime rudra sc itself its bigger dmg increase than VERY minor extra dmg from evis.

So I just dont get how and why Tauret is being praised like this. Its like Naegling -1 or kaja axe -1 to me, they do the same thing but weaker, and has worse SC property than swords and axe.

If people want an easy to obtain dagger, IMO skinflayer with DEX WSD augment or aeneas is way to go.

Self skillchaining is a matter of solo playstyle Afania. I know you are defending DNC doing self SC even in group content, but that is rather niche imo. Now how good is sc property of Evisceration in group depends who is available to SC with you.

Also Tauret is obviously praised by many, because people play with low buffs often and critical based WS and boost to crit rate on melee is very powerful then.

Not sure what you meant by 3 step with evisceration being 3rd. You can still just do Rudra > Evis > Rudra with Tauret. Both Rudra will be weaker, but Evisceration will be stronger. It wont be as strong as evis > rudra > rudra with Twashtar/cento when fully buffed, but low and mid buff scenario.. I think Tauret would be at least competitive and whenever you cant use /cento it could actually be bis, because then Rudra with Tauret would only be like 15% weaker and Rudra in general would be much weaker than Evis at lower tp during self SC.

Tauret is also better for things like Omen farming, Evisceration with trusts buffs is usually enough to finish the mob. Rudra very often isnt. Rudra > Evis also kills Tran. mobs, while Rudra > Rudra often doesnt.

If you use tauret Rudra > Evis > rudra dmg sucks because Evis is on 2nd step and tauret isn't strong for rudra, so this order just ended up having lower SC dmg overall. The best 3 step SC order for tauret is shark bite/Exen > pk/rudra > evis. You can even add another rudra after this if you want.

I've tested tauret on tons of apex, If evis ends on 3rd step very frequently it will kill an apex butterfly in ra'kaznar with just 3 WS. Rudra > Evis > rudra does not do the same unless you use a different dagger. Letting rudra end on 3rd step just isn't a good combo for tauret because rudra avg isn't high enough with Tauret.

shark bite/Exen > pk/rudra > evis however has very small room for error for multistep because you absolutely have to connect the last ws. Rudra > Evis > rudra is much safer because first 2 ws makes darkness regardless of order. This makes rudra focused weapon so much more desirable in real gameplay because in ambu, pull hate or TP move can occasionally interrupt SC. Tauret also doesn't TP as fast as Aeneas nor terp, makes it even more risky to connect.




Evis doesn't SC with itself too, and sometimes people underestimate the the random SC dmg happened on parses.

Rudra avg seems incredibly close to evis both on paper and real ambu parse. If evis avg 10k higher I'd happily use evis for ws spam, but it's just not happening unless I'm soloing NM or something.

In omen I don't notice much difference, personally. If I can 1 shot mob with Evis then I can do the same with rudra. They are all weak enough.

I think it's just the lack of versatility that make me feel it's overrated. Versatility is something we can't just plug in spreadsheet number and get it calculated. For a job with SC bonus and JA like reverse flourish for instant WS/WS dmg boost, I feel spreadsheet dmg is way too far from actual gameplay for this particular job.

Where does Karieyh Ring +1 fit in the hierarchy for WS rings? For Rudra atm I use Ilabrat & Regal, will it beat out either of those?

Also how is it in an AE WS set, currently I just use 2 Shiva +1's.

I don't have the ring yet but I'm close to finishing up all the requirements, and just wondering where it sits among the other ring options for WS sets.

Cheers

Depends how much mab and wsd you have in your set already, but it should be bis for AE by small margin.

For Rudra it again depends how much wsd and dex you already have. Generally speaking tho Karieyh should be better for raw damage when you compere just 4%wsd and 10dex, but it will only be better by like 0.7%, but then both regal and ilabrat provide significant attack and ilabrat also 5stp. So in practice karieyh will only be marginally bis when you are attack capped. I personally wouldnt use it and chose other ring for other job maybe (especially that epaminondas ring is pretty much better or the same for Rudra and doesnt block other ring options from SoA), but if you have it and you want to be fully optimized even marginally for attack capped Rudra, then I would probably replace one ring with Karieyh.

Stickied. Does the other guide have value still, as in, should I leave it stickied?

Karieyh+1 with Turms cap pair nicely for 10regain a tic. That’s the deal maker for me. It’s marginally the best WS ring for lots of jobs but then regain adds up quickly while buffing/waiting.

Yeah.. the problem is that weatherspoon is just too much broken for any light damage, thurandaut is awesome for pup and bst and shneddick is one of the best qol for every job without 18% movement speed gear, played by people, who are not interested in increasing that statistic with hacks.

Yeah I was thinking this also, however I have shneddick atm, and I really like the +18% movement.

yes.

i kind of actually like this idea; sort of an extra layer to subtle blow? youd have to be cautious that it didnt make it so MNK NIN DNC could feed 0 TP, cause you could do something like BRD COR GEO MNK NIN DNC with brd/geo healing, and just cheese every fight with plauge from shijin and never see a single mob WS if the nin kept threat well and maintained shadows.

YOu can already do that though. MNK + SMN. Penance Chi Blast + Mew. Or BST using Fatso Fargann TP Drainkiss. Zero TP feed, it's done with bosses like Erinys. The only difference this would make is that melee could do it without a support. It's already a strategy with the right jobs, people just don't like using unique setups to accomplish it. But add TP Samba to the mix and everyone will think it is the new broken. It really would not be. Also, many mobs have Regain anyways so you could never stop them from TPing completely, just slow them down.

BTW, Shijin Plague barely lands on anything. But even still, BLU can accomplish Plague via Delta Thrust, which lasts longer and has a stronger tp/tick, so it's not so broken there either. You just never see people using it because there's no way to guarantee it landed.

Not sure if it's the right place to ask, but have any other dancers done the 'make your XI pretty' game mods from nextgames and when updating the icon packs have a solution for any stored finishing moves over 5 (IE: after you've gotten job gifts) to use the updated icon pack icon for it? It looks like anything over 4 my icon defaults to XI's original 5+ finishing move icon.

Side question of is there a way for that icon to show exactly how many finishing moves you're at or is it always just 5+ after you hit that point?

Returning player from last month from before JP was a thing. I can't right now but if a screenshot would help I can load one later

Buff IDs for FMs over 5 are all the same, so they cannot be distinguished.

I'm pretty confident it lands on a lot of stuff, but you need a specific set with macc, like Malignance x5 etc.
Most people care just for the damage and of course with such a setup the Plague ain't gonna stick on anything meaningful.