Dancer Guide by Carnivor

'''

A Dancers guide by Rafage of Garuda.
''' First off, please consider that Dancer can be played in numerous different ways. I will give a recolection of my experience about the Dancer job as i have chosen to play it. This guide may or may not fit your own playing style. Even so, there are some things that are very important.

Introduction
I choose to write this guide because Dancer is a new job, and one that i found very exciting to level. I havent been bored even once while playing this job. And i have explored many aspects of the job. Things like normal EXP parties, NM hunting; solo and Duo/Trio, God runs, Dynamis, Farming (sky and normal) and Campaign.

There will be no speculations into Math in this guide. I have never liked calculation, even though many parts of it fall easy to me. Instead i will describe Dancer from what i have seen work in different situations.

I hope some will appreciate this guide, and want to level DNC.

Dancer in general
Dancer is, like most of you allready know, a Healer job. Yes i know they engage in combat and that they debuff and have some buffs, but bottom line is, it is a fully fledged spot healer job. This do not however mean that you should disregard or toss the other aspects of the job. I will explain this during the guide.

What is so remarkable about Dancer is that for it to function properly, you have to use the other aspects to its full advantage. you cant do like mages and avoid certain spells to be able to do your job more fluidly. With Dancer, the table is turned. You cant do your job properly if you dont do steps (post reverse flourish) and fight. To be able to do Dancer correctly you will have to use steps, and fighting, which comes directly into advantage to yourself and the rest of your party/alliance.

Finishing Moves
You will get these up to a maximum number of 5, as a reward for each step landed on a mob. Finishing moves is the baseline of a dancers more powerfull and noticeable effects. Gives access to perform Flourishes to yourself or a mob. The cost of each Flourish depends on the type of Flourish. Also the potency of Reverse Flourish, Animated Flourish and Building Flourish is decided upon the number of Finishing Moves

Steps
The baseline of every Dancer, is steps. In the time i have played Dancer i have found it wise to focus on two types of steps max. to pimp each out and to be able to keep them on the longest. Personally i tend to vary between Quickstep and either Box Step or Stutter Step.

Every step can be increased to a level 5 daze effect. With increasing potency with every step landed.

A good rule: Make hits land, then worry about how much they hit for.

Quickstep

Your very first step, gained at level 20. This is, in my opinion the most valuable and versatile step. This is simply because that it lowers evasion. And apart from making you and your party able to hit the mob more, it also makes the following step combinations easier to land.

The Quickstep will do the following:

1st Step:    -10 Evasion.

2nd-5th Step: -5 Evasion each.

Totaling to -30 Evasion

With each step landed, the chance of Desperate Flourish to land is increased. On Kirin with 5 Quicksteps i have yet to see Desperate Flourish not land, and thats saying something.

Box Step

The second Step you get. Amazing on high def mobs. could possibly ruin the mobs deffences if applied correctly. I have used this Step on Kirin to great success (allthough Kirin is a complicated mob to fight, ill get into this later). As i said on Quickstep; Make sure hits land to a certain degree before applying this step.

The Box Step will do the following:

1st step:    -10% Defense

2nd-5th Step: - 5% Defense

Totaling to -30% Defense

Stutter Step

This is the step i use the least. unfortunately maybe, but as it is i feel im more a melee support than a mage support. The only times i use this is when i really need Stun to land, like when dangerous spells are being cast, or if i need to reapply Utsusemi. I have been able to test it somewhat though, and my feedbacks are that it makes magic attacks more potent and debuffs and dispels stands a greater chance of landing.

The Stutter Step will do the following:

1st step:    -10% Magic Defense

2nd-5th Step: -5% Magic Defense

Totaling to -30% Magic Defense

With each step landed, the chance of landing Stun with Violent Flourish increases. Stun has a very high proc rate with 5 Stutter Steps. You can even stun with acceptable proc rate with 3 Stutter Step

Flourishes
The end-line of steps. Divided into two categories. Flourishes I and Flourishes II. The first one are targeted and affect your enemy only. Animated Flourish does not require you to be engaged in combat. Which is great ;). The second is centered upon yourself, with different effects. These effects move through many aspects of ways to play the game. You have Provoke, weight, stun, boost, skillchain and ofcourse TP regain.

Flourishes I
Animated Flourish This is your Dancers provoke abillity. It only gives half the enmity of provoke, but that only makes it more efficient at pulling, as a voke would have no problems taking hate over the mob. This abillity is instant, have the same range as provoke, and thus it can be used as effectively and quickly as any instant claiming abillities. Ofcourse it requires 1-2 finishing moves to go off. This require you to fight some before you are ready.

Not much else to say about this. Its a claiming/pulling move. Could also be used to draw hate if you ever would want to do that.

Desperate Flourish Your own personal weight abillity. This Flourish doesnt do anything except inflict weight upon the mob. but weight is quite effective in what it does. Proc rate is affected by Quickstep. Wht it does if it lands is that the movement speed of the mob is reduced, and evasion gets jacked down 10 points. i.o.w. 5 Quicksteps + Desperate Flourish = -40 evasion and Movement Speed decreased. This is invaluable if you are fighting a mob that has high evasion bonuses. Even more invaluable if that mobs hate is flying around the table.

Violent Flourish This Flourish does 2 things. Firstly it almost always deals a regular hit damage to the mob you are fighting. Secondly it has a chance of stunning your target. Affected by Stutter Step the Stun proc rate skyrockets with each step applied. Unless the target mob is immune to stun, 5 Stutter Steps has up to 100% proc rate. With the abillity to cast Utsusemi with /nin this is a great tool for Soloing and Duo/trio, even any situation where your alliance doesnt require Box and Quick more than stutters. Great to get utsusemi up again or interupt devastating spells or job abillites.

Flourishes II
Reverse Flourish This is what you will be doing for the most part. this gives you TP back from the number of Finishing moves you have collected. At level 40, this gives your dancer a big jump in the healing department. you build up steps, like yo should have done anyway, butinstead of always sitting at 5 finishing moves, you just convert them straight back to your TP pool. The best way is to stack two steps and then Reverse Flourish. This means you get full effect from all steps, and it fits surprisingly well with the recast timer.

Building Flourish This boosts your next weapon skill. Havent used it much, it works, yeah, but it consumes 3 finishing moves, or othrwise empties them if less than three. I tend to only go with Wild Flourish. Its different opinions ;) make up your own. Ok, ill give a reason. if you are going to weapon skill your enemy, you empty your tp. to land back at 5 finishing moves right after skillchain you have to build this up over time. if i go weapon skill, its on weaker mobs where i dont have to worry about healing, but still takes some time to kill. either way i want it to go quick, i dont want to spend half a minute justto get a bigger blow out. Like i said id rather just fling in a Wild Flourish. But like i said, work out your ow opinion when you get this :)

Wild Flourish Amazing abillity that start a skillchain. However debated that the power of this abillity isnt strong enough to be worthy of mentioning. I just laugh at that, they do not know enough about any type of skillchain to even start a general discussion about it. This abillity and a Samurai..... yeah enough said. easy like nothing else to go Fragmentation --> Light (Skillchain). And if you know anything about skillchaining you should know that the potency of one skillchain is improved by stacking a skillchain before the next hits. I have jacked this char from the Skillchains Guide to let you know how the pure dmg output of a skillchain can be improved by following them up with more weaponskills resulting in multiple skillchains.

The Levels represent What type of skillchain ie is it a Scission Fragmentation or a Light (Skillchain) (there are multiple but i just used examples.) In my example of me duoing with my samurai friend, we used Fragmentation --> Light (Skillchain) The effect this has on Light (Skillchain) can be viewed below. instead of using only a level 3 skillchain, which would make the dmg output a maximum of 100% of the ending skillchain. Now me and my bud included a Fragmentation skillchain. This means we could bump the light up a notch, and make it produce a maximum of 150% dmg output.

Now you can see the benefits of having a player, that relatively cost free, can open one of these chains. The recast timer is also excellent and it has always been ready for when another player has had tp ready. There are though few ws's that produce a level 2 skillchain with Wild Flourish. But a level one isnt that bad. its 10% lower dmg output than a level 2 skillchain. If you are soloing this is what i prefer to use to get things done quickly. its the difference between a 800 dmg ws and a 1200 dmg ws. go figure :)

Sambas, Waltzes and Jigs
I will not say much on these abillities. it goes by itself. instead i will shortly explain what they do, and list links so you can peruse them at your leisure.

Samba A duration determined dance that inflicts daze effect upon the mob you are hitting. each daze has a very short duration, but are refreshed every time you hit the said mob.

Three kinds

Drain Samba Causes party members attacks to convert some of the mobs taken damage into their own hp.

Aspir Samba Same as above, only converts the damage into MP.

Haste Samba This abillity gives every party member Haste when landing a hit. Haste % is 5% and you can increase this rate with 1% for every Haste Samba Effect merit.

Waltz Healing and Erasing for you survival needs. Dancer is a Spot healer. This is why.

Curing Waltz Tiers up to IV. Based on you Charisma and the target Vitality. Some pieces of equipment have a "Curing Waltz" Potency attribute to it. Means it cures for more. Not much else to be said, other than they are powerfull.

Divine Waltz Your one and only Cureaga. Can be powerfull with the right gear, but i have always seen that gear to be wasted because you put aside so many other things about being a dancer. This gear does ofcourse also affect Curing Waltz.

Healing Waltz Erase. Be carefull with it, especially if mob is hitting hard or fast. long recast timer. other than on Petrification it works wonders. Only one status at a time though.

Jigs Two kinds, both affecting only you, but omg how free it makes you feel.

Spectral Jig Your own personal Sneak and Invisible. Both put down in one instant package for your survival needs. Short duration. Be aware.

Chocobo Jig My own personal favorite. Increase your movement speed with 25%. Ive praised this abillity so many times i cant count them. Nothing beats being able to travel faster in a way that never cease to function. You can just recast this as soon as it wears. with af boots it lasts even longer. City's, Cave's, open areas, it always works.

Gear
First off, this section is gonna be my choice of gear and why i have chosen that road. I am not gonna list up a ton of gear fo you to choose. Instead im gonna tell you what to focus on the way i have played Dancer. You my want to focus yor gear in another direction, that is for you to decide.

Gear in general
When it comes to my choice of gear, this is what i have focused on. It might not be according to the "commonly known" choices on how to build dancer.

Acc > enmity - > Store TP > atk <> haste > Dex > Str > evasion > Chr

As you can see from the first 3, Cobra Unit Gear lands perfectly here. often i even use Cobra Cap over Turban. It all depends on the situation. if im farming it all comes down to atk and haste, but in any hard fight, exp, gods, higher NM's, Kirin etc its all about acc. you dont waste acc for chr to be able to cure for more if you cant hit your target as much. I think the only chr gear i have on is the af weapon.

Furthermore, every healing or damage dealing job should be focusing on enmity-. This has always concerned me. Enmity will simply make you able to deal more damage, spam more cures, before it hunts your sorry ass down and sends you to oblivion. even in Duo you should wear enmity- gear. it keeps hate on one target, which makes your job a whole lot easier. Remember, Dancer is a spot healer. Even when theres only 2 people to cure instead of one, you feel it.

Store TP is nice. even though you wont feel it much unless theres much of it. my complete cobra gear, chiv chain and ring with +1 gives me like 1,5 more TP per swing. this starts to count when you get Joyeuse and Saber Dance. Whith both activated, Joytoy and saber, 4 swings arent really that rare anymore, and it gives me 21-22 tp each attack round. which is nice. 3 swings which are normal is always 17 TP.

When it comes to atk. I have read alot on forums of people saying dancer isnt a damage dealing job. The statement falls down dead to me, i cant understand them even if i tried. Wear your attack gear and eat your meat if the situation allows it. Dont let them box you in.

A Dancer is a melee job, because we are not fully fledged damage dealers does not mean you should disregard this aspect of the job.

The more you can do to advance your job to be as effective as possible, in all ways possible the better. For atk i have chosen to wear Amemet Mantle +1 and Assault Jerkin. The mantle is always on, but for body i also carry with me Scorpion Harness Dancer's Casaque and Rapparee Harness.

On a general thought on gear, anyone is able to see a very good piece of equipment, but as there are many, you should also keep in mind what you loose when choosing the one you want.

Weapons
As you level up stay with the acc atk daggers/knives only. This is a great way to get an extra bonus there. As you get higer aim for dagger with higher dmg as well. Double atk is also something to aim for, so you mightwant to consider getting Joytoy. Dancer got a low sword level skill though, so its not always plausible to use it in a beneficial way.

Azoth and Ermine's Tail would be a very nice combo.

The Long Road
Now we have come to the part of playing the job. The first part is ofcourse Experience Points.

Partying
What should you do as a Dancer in exp parties.

When i leveled up, i was rarely invited to parties to main heal. But some actually did, and they were always good parties. When i told them i'd love to main hal, but was surprised they wanted me to do it, because some people were laughing when i said i'd main heal. They said to me; its not our fault many people are stupid in their heads, please main heal. I went to party and played up the cards for 18k exp an hour, no Bard.

When it comes to party tanks my favorite and also yours should become Paladin. Like i said before, Dancer is a spot healer, and nothing keeps hate like a Paladin. Ofcourse it doesnt lower the attraction that since Waltzes are also based on target Vitality as well as your own Charisma, your cures are gonna hit a Pally for more HP than a Ninja tank. This beats stacking up on all that chr gear you eventually aint gonna need. TP shouldnt be a problem with an Acc setup anyway.

My the party setup i have found working best for incredible EXP, is Paladin Dancer Bard and 3 high DOT Damage dealers. The problem here is often enough mobs to kill. Move around, and kill everything you see, having the Pally voke each next target. The tower camp on lesser colibris is excellent for this, even though mobs are sometimes short.

Beware of the hate flying parties, Dancer aint very good here, allthouh i managed some parties with a Samurai tank, you find yourself quenching macro's at a speed you didnt think possible. If you have gear swap macro's on anything except you samba here, you have a problem.

Finally, always keep a Samba active. I tend to rely on Drain Samba, since it makes you able to focus your spot healing. Let the DD regain HP with samba, unless he is hit for more tan 75% of his HP. I use Haste Samba if i get a good tank that can keep his hate.

Now for the levels.

Starting Dancer
In the beginning your dancer are gonna feel much like a Monk. Sub monk until you can get /nin at about level 24+ (if you have H2H merits, you might wanna hold on a little longer).

Level 1-10
At level 5 you get drain samba. up to 10-11 your exp is gonna be rolling in like chips in a casino.

Level 10-20
Not much are gonna happen here to your playing until you reach 15. You get your first waltz. it Cures like a Cure II and the recast is so low the animation wont have time to finish before you can recast it. If you focus on landing hits and eat acc food, your tp should be ok. You should however only act as a backup healer. this way you can store your TP and cure when the healer is resting, or is in trouble. Functions for great exp.

Level 20-40
At 20 yo get Quickstep... Spam it, always, so it never wears until mob is dead. you wont be able to use your Finishing Moves for other than Animated Flourish until later on, but hey, its never to early to take on a good habit. It means a great deal to your Damage Dealers that you do.

Divine Waltz yo get this at 25. a real life saver in the jungle. Whenever that AOE sleep hits your party, demand that you gets cure first until it happen. Toss out a Divine Waltz and your party is all good. Again, lovely with a Paladin tank.

Level 30... Box Step and Desperate Flourish is your main concerns. You also get Curing Waltz II Very nice, but also use more TP. Even so, if you use it correctly, you should be able to save tp. Just hold back a bit more than usual before you cure the tank. the TP cost from each Waltz is not greater than the cost of using 2 lower level waltzes, and your tank isnt really in danger unless your cures regains more than he is loosing, which i have yet to see. Again, the problem is hate travel.

Box Step - Like i said on steps, make sure your party hits, before counting what it hits for. Good on crabs.

Desperate Flourish - Get that Eva Down! get it in there along with your Quicksteps, make sure it lands, spam until it does, then spam again when it wears. Hate on mages are almost nullified, because the mob cant get there before tank has hate back (gotta love paladins here).

Level 35! Drain Samba II... {Sweets}. Healing Waltz... nice to have, your own party eraser, long recast, be carefull (all waltzes affect other waltzes recast).

Level 40-60
This is where it starts to happen for you. At level 40, you get Reverse Flourish, and what a change. all those steps you where loosing TP on before is now suddenly returned to you with a bonus. Now you can start playing like a Dancer. Stack up those moves to 4 and reverse. When you are safe at 300 TP you should not wait and do nothing, instead keep on going with steps and flourishes.

Level 45. Violent Flourish and Haste Samba. People will often want you to do Haste Samba, but you will have to weigh the situation at hand. Drain Samba is invaluable if hate is flying a bit. If you are able to keep cures, and does some flourishes to add up, you may want to switch to Haste Samba.

Violent Flourish is a great way to interrupt dangerous spells and abillities, however, it demands a certain amount of Stutter Step, which you gain at level 40. Unless you have a blm or a rdm in party that does elemental damage spells or are debuffing the mob, this will have no effect on the party situation other than your Stun. So its a matter of where your party strength is at.

Level 50. Building Flourish. Like i said when describing this abillity. i dont use this much. you should also dont use any ws at least until Dancing Edge. It improves yo next ws and can be stacked with Wild Flourish. The two are however on the same timer, which makes the build up not very realistic to me. Use this if you havent got any healing obligations to your party and are invited for pure debuffing and damage dealing.

Curing Waltz III Yeay! this is where your cures really start to hit for alot of HP. ofcourse it also cost 50 TP to pull off. But with Reverse Flourish this shouldnt represent much trouble. Just follow what i said on Curing Waltz II and hold your Cures back a bit until the tank takes more dmg, then toss it.

Level 55! By now you should have gotten some of your af pieces. Especially the Dancer's Bangles should improve your game alot. Steps gonna hit way more often now, thus making your curing alot more stable and reliable. These ar the levels where Dancer really begins to shine. You also get Chocobo Jig at 55. Let's just run there!

Level 60-75
Smashing your way to end-game. Opens up new challenges. Campaign Battle is something you should start doing now. Not only to gain EXP, but also save up Allied Notes for your Cobra Cap set. I will describe campaign more in detail later, so lets just stick to parties for now.

At level 60 you finally get Wild Flourish. Another way to cause damage to the mob through your fellow party members. Ofcourse, theres the problem that many DD's doesnt even kno what it does, and some wont even listen to you when you tell them. Those are ofcourse those that doesnt care anything about their jobs as long as they get exp to it. That they can increase the damage to a mob with at least 50% doesnt bother them. But if you are lucky enough to find those who cares, and theres alot of them, exp an hour could get bumped quite a bit if you play your cards right. Listen to tp calls, especially if theres a Samurai in the party. and toss it out there when you know the ws is about to come. Be aware that there is no delay after Wild Flourish befoe the ws can hit to inflict a skillchain. The ws can come half a second later and there will still be a skillchain.

Aspir Samba II will be added to your lists, but you will rarely use it. those who need mp seldom hits the mob or hit it hard enough to get decent numbers. The only exception is Dark Knight which could be profitable. I wouldnt know, i tend to avoid partying with Dark Knight simply because they tend to utterly destroy party exp when they die countless times while laughing and braggin about the damage they did right before they died while waiting for weakness to wear. Any DD can pull hate and die if they have an abillity that is like a constant Provoke and doesnt have the IQ not to use it at the beginning of battle along with a ws, to be sure to screw it up for the rest of the party. ENMITY- guys {can i have it?}. Blue mage could be a plausible player who does want Aspir Samba II. But on a general note, its not worth it.

When you reach level 65, you are gonna see what Drain Samba is all about. Drain Samba III my friends is incredible. When i got it while leveling up i was using Haste Samba, but as i dinged 65 i said we should probably switch to Drain Samba III because we didnt have a real tank and because it was kinda powerfull (my words). after a few fights on the next colibris and trees, the party leader said; Kinda powerfull? it damn near destroys it. And it did. With the numbers our dd's were hitting those birds 50 hp each attack round wasn't unusual, counting in double attacks and so forth. Party moved from struggling without tank to a good exp party simply because the fights went along so much easier.

At level 70 you will gain your last dance. Curing Waltz IV which cost a whooping 75 TP, but oh so worth it. tank @50% HP? no problem just toss this in there and Reverse Flourish Stepx2 and your back. Powerfull spot heal that rivals Cure V and its instant. A bit longer recast on waltzes, so if you need to do massive curing throw in a Curing Waltz III first or Curing Waltz II.

The rest of the way to 75 its just smashing and macro crunching and you will finally arrive to start on merits. What you should focus on in my opinion will come in a later section.

Level Sync
I just want to say a few things here. While its an excellent step from SE to implement this, it does have its drawbacks, and as a Dancer you should take extra care. Since you sync your level down, you wont be able to gain skillups for your higher level combat skills. Specifically with dagger, remember this as your accuracy and somewhat attack is very important for you to be able to gain TP. By all means, take advantage of Level Sync but remeber to have parties your own level every 3 levels or so that you can keep up on skillups.

On another note. Level Sync could possibly screw up your setup entirely. The way it gimps your gear is flat out insane. no realism in it. Be very carefull at higher levels syncing down to 55-. At the very least you should be able to wear your af hands ungimped.

Campaign
This incredible way of getting EXP solo is like a godsend for Dancer. Its like Dancer was made for it. Plain and simple. Not only should you strive to get AN for your Cobra gear, you will also get great exp from this.

In the early levels, i'd say about lvl 60-70, spam invite all the damage dealers and tanks you see. The more you can cure them, the more exp you will get. After 65 you should also start soloing imps wherever you can find them. This only applies to offensive operations. Imps will not show up if you defend your area. Doing the above mentioned will give you amazing amounts of EXP and Allied Notes.

After level 70 you can start soloing Yagudo. Simply cast Utsusemi as often you can in the beginning, then wen you start to get close to 75 dont cast it at all. The damage you take will also give you exp. Just solo, take the damage and spam heal yourself and have Drain Samba III up... It's amazing.

But ofcourse, along with Level Sync, you wont gain any skillups in campaign. This is the draw back. So you cant rely on Campaigns alone. You need to get those skillups. How you do it dont matter, just get them.