Galka Style

I don't expect to be posting at all until the holidays are over.

Enjoy this until I am back.

Here is the third or second post in a series of dancer and dancer related posts.

Where does dancer fall as a subjob? As a subjob dancer can do the basic waltzes, first two steps and two flourishes. The usefulness of the low level waltzes are questionable. The sambas only work on low level or low damage mobs. The steps and animated flourish are what might make the job great for tanking.

My experience with dancer is still pretty limited. I have taken it into Salvage as monk/dancer and farming in Tu'lia as dark knight/dancer. We were zoning seemingly after every five mobs or so while in Tu'lia so I never really had a chance to put the subjob to use there. On top of not actually fighting much I still consider my dark knight's equipment to be subpar, so my TP gain was pretty slow.

Look at how high I can jump in Homam.

Salvage provided a much more positive experience for mnk/dnc. We did Bhaflau Remnants focusing on the second and third ramparts. I had received abilities and subjob first to make use of dancer. While the first floor of Bhaflau is normally pretty easy the red mage had almost nothing to do while I kept drain samba II on. I never had a real opportunity to use any steps. We didn't fight anything difficult. Dancer sub in Salvage is fun if I have a large number of melee. I can see it being put to better use as a subjob for thief seeing as how they do not normally make great use out of their sub.

A jig for a warp.

Is ninja/dancer a capable tank job? I am choosing ninja as the main job because of how reliant we all are on utsusemi for tanking. Traditionally, warrior was the subjob of choice since then the thirty second provoke has proven to be inferior to other jobs such as dark knight for holding hate on any difficult mobs. I do not believe dancer will turn out to be an alternate job for these situations. Animated flourish every twenty seconds does not compare to a barrage of stuns, sleeps, binds and whatever else nin/drks cast to hold hate. I see it as a possibility for merit parties or other events where healing is limited, but that applies to any job.

Acquiring one finishing move as /dnc can quickly become a problem when relying on animated flourish for hate. If the mob being fought has high evasion and the ninja using the step misses it just wasted ten TP and must wait another ten seconds before attempting again. A bad round of missed steps can make animated flourish to unreliable. Of course, a ninja should be using ninjitsu to help hold hate in situations like this. Would the occasional kurayami be enough to compensate losing an animated flourish?

I find the most important thing to have while using dancer as a subjob is to have a fast source of TP. If you cannot hit a mob or swing very slowly than you will never be able to use any of the dancing abilities. Because of the fast TP requirement I believe monk, thief, ninja, samurai are likely the best suited to use this subjob. Of course, other jobs can also sub dancer, but always look at the party structure and see where a specific job would be best placed.

Labels: Wings of the Goddess

Here is the first in a series of dancer and dancer related posts. This one is about a week old with a few small updates.

After about a week break I came back and dived into leveling Dancer as soon as I could. This turned out to be Friday night after finishing up in Tu'lia. Over the weekend most of my play time was dedicated to leveling dancer. I managed to hit level 30 before calling it quits for the weekend. The last two levels I managed to get into a party. There are so many low level dancers running around it is probably hard to find any other jobs to fill out a party. I know I saw at least one party of six dancers in Qufim.

I had mixed feelings with dancer in the beginning. With very low hand-to-hand and sword skill after a certain point dagger is the only option for TP. I stuck with dancer/monk until level 20 then upgraded for daggers as dancer/ninja. Even now as level 30 dancer hand-to-hand isn't a bad choice with the merits I have already put into it. Hand-to-hand is two levels or so behind daggers. I would prefer to avoid daggers, but with no natural martial arts I would be attacking too slow to bother.

Like all low level jobs I solo as much as I can. Using daggers and low hand-to-hand means that I solo poorly. Compared to the other melee jobs I have taken to 37 dancer cannot kill anything. Kills are painfully slow, so I have been recruiting someone with a closely leveled damage job to kill mobs for me. In exchange they get fast hassle free exp. Personally, I think this is a great deal for them. I am going to have to party more as I find it more difficult to find properly equipped melee to duo with, but for now it is smooth sailing. It is very possible I will be able to get out of Gustav before any serious exping with a reliable partener.

Where is dancer going to fall into in endgame? The job definately has potential as for support in limit parties, but where does it go from there? The things that stand out the most to me where dancer will not be welcomed include any mobs where TP gain on the mob is a concern. Anything from Salvage chariots to Tiamat or anything else where TP spam may quickly kill the tanks is a problem dancers will be useless. Samurai sub on dancer? What is that going to do? When curing waltz IV cost fifty TP the seventy from meditate will be used up before you know it. Even changing finishing moves to TP is unrealistic. You still need to melee and land those flourishes and if a flourish misses there is another couple swings from your weapon. With very limited access to haste armour dancers cannot even put their animated flourish and fast cures to use with ninja subjob against most difficult mobs.

A waltz!

Interestingly where dancer seems like it will work is in Dynamis, Limbus, non-chariot Salvage, and maybe more things I can't think of. While dancer may be limited to only healing their own party under normal circumstances they could easily heal a melee party brought into most of these areas. The problem would be why have a dancer when you could have another monk, bard, or red mage. Dancer definately does not replace any of these jobs when attempting to low man an event.

I intend to take dancer to seventy five and properly equip it, but if exp parties are not tolerable later on who knows if I will be able to last.

Labels: FFXI, Wings of the Goddess