Dancer was one of the jobs that intrigued me enough to come back to FFXI (along with other things). Awhile back I unlocked Dancer with the help of my static mate Ardra, and just recently I decided to level it a bit as Naal (Adra’s alt) decided to level Scholar during non-static days.

All dance move are job abilities, you get your first [non two hour] at level 5, and the next at level 15 (and so on).   It’s a bit like Warrior, Monk, or Thief — when you start out there’s not a lot to do.  I’m still undecided about the notion of receiving all my spells as a Job Ability.  Dancer is essentially a mage.  However, unlike other jobs with magical components like Ninja, Paladin, White Mage, Red Mage, Black Mage, Summoner, Scholar, Bard, and Corsair, Dancer just gets all their spells handed to them as they progress.  No dice, no scrolls, no tools — nothing.

I’ve seen Dancer at the later levels, partying with them when I’m Paladin, Warrior, or Ninja.  At later levels Dancer looks like it can be highly entertaining playing the role of back-up tank or initial SATA partner.  With Sambas, Waltzes, and Flourishes the utility of the job starts making an appearance.

The issue with Dancer appears to be hate control.  The various curing waltzes I’ve experience have drawn in hate and caused Dancer to dominate the enmity list.  The job of Dancer is reasonably robust early on, and they can tank as well as any other melee.  As the Dancer progresses in levels, their ability to tank long term seems to diminish — at least against the VT++ -to- IT+ monsters we old-skoolers are used to.   The downward spiral seems to be a Dancer using a curing move and drawing hate, only to have to continually use another Curing move to keep themselves alive.  Not a problem if you’re facing a single monster in your level range — not so good if you have a unsleepable link or your puller over-hunted a bit.  This hints at some tactical play later on that I can look forward to.

My first impressions is that Dancer is something of a bore in the very earliest levels — but as you progress the diversity in roles the Dancer can play widens.  I’m not sure how I feel about Dances getting provided to you simply for gaining levels — it feels a bit too much like playing on easy mode.  If nothing else, Dancer appears to be a very viable subjob solo’ing/farming/whatever.

So one of the things I really love as a Paladin is the whole notion of being a knight engaged in brutal combat, holding back the enemy from my softer (but more potent) counterparts.

I’ve also posted previously about my attempts at balancing my gear being full defensive (turtle) and damage dealing.

I thought I had a pretty decent set up.  I’ve focused on +attack gear, with decent defense, and eating food that primarily improves my accuracy.  Using this strategy I’ve been able keep hate with a minimal amount of healing (MP lasts longer), and continue building enmity through damage (better hate management).  The added bonus is that I’m actually contributing to making the fight go faster (moar XP!).

Then there was last night.  We decided to go to Kuftal Tunnel and attack Robber Crabs — which were checking at low IT.  I had enough defense to survive, but at times I was using my Cures as much for survival as I was for hate build up.  We weren’t doing enough damage, so TP build up was slow.  That in turn didn’t allow us to set up our Skillchain + Magic Burst very often, nor did it allow our Dancer to be able to heal much.  All this means fights lasted far too long, and XP was slow, and there was more downtime.

There wasn’t much to do about this camp — the simple fact was that our party wasn’t optimal.  Although we had PLD, SAM, and WAR on the frontline.  DNC and COR in the support positions.  This left our backline alittle anemic — the mighty Flick was covering the entire backline with his SCH.  It’s not a bad set up at all — but we shouldn’t have been in Kuftal Tunnel.

So we decided to move along and tackle Lizards in Kuftal Tunnel.  Suddenly we’re doing plenty of damage, but so are the Lizards — to the tune of 140-200 damage a strike.  TP attacks were in the 500 damage range.  In short I was getting torn through like wet paper bag and turned into a MP sponge.

So lessons (re-)learned.  I’ve really got to start carrying around a full turtle set up as well as my damage dealing gear.  If I had, the higher defense could have made the crabs slightly less edgy, but would have definitely made the lizards far more doable.

I am very fortunate to be acquainted with some skilled players that also happen to be lolCats.

I really enjoy the Promyvion boss fights, and I’ve volunteered to help with them a lot when I played Gentoo.  However they’ve always been skin-of-the teeth, adrenaline rush inducing victories.

Last night some lolCats made a run at another Promyvion; Holla to be exact.  Our Promyvion-Dem run seemed almost too smooth.  None-the-less, Promyvion-Holla was just as smooth and ended, in victory, even faster than Promyvion-Dem — and we even had 2 pick-up members

So what’s the difference?

Primarily coordination.

First and foremost, everyone knows Hripthe and Briseia are the leads on these events, and act accordingly.  Without them I’m sure these fights would be far more chaotic.  Hripthe has an understanding of Promyvion boss fights that really should be labeled as uncanny, and organizes our fights with swiss clock accuracy.  Briseia, a seasoned player and is able to fill us in on any gaps of knowledge.

Second, we take the time to prepare.  My previous linkshell, TheBanished, elevated the art of winning Promyvion fights without the use of medicines (poison, holywaters, animas, etc) into an art form — however, the balance of the fight was ever so precarious.   So while it is completely doable, we take a different path.  We make sure every member gathers up medicines (Hi Potions/Ethers, etc), Food (Au’Laits, Yagudo Drink, MP/Accuracy food), and chemicals (Animas).  The preparation allows us to enter the fights so that it’s harder for it to get out of hand.

Third, and finally communication.  On each level enroute to the Spire, we talk about what’s going to happen, and what to do if something unexpected happen (e.g. Aggro).  Before entering the Spire, we talk about the role that everyone will peform, what order we will use our animas (and when) and what.   Finally, inside the spire, Hripthe times our use of animas, and we report back that we what we are using, and when used it.

In short, leadership, preparation, and communication allow us to function like a well oiled machine.

I have a quote I use on FFXI forums from Karinya of Carbuncle server:

WHM are overspecialized in defense. Like PLD, they do better in a place where mobs actually fight back.

When The Treasures of Aht Urghan started getting heavily utilized, the fortunes of Paladins and White Mages went down.  Aht Urghan areas (land of Utsusemispam) changed XP/Merit parties by introducing areas where dedicated tanks and healers are more of a detriment than an asset.   In these areas, the wimpy monsters are killed faster and do less damage than their counterparts outside of ToAU zones; so the likes of Summoners, Red Mages, Scholars, and even Corsairs and Bards subbing White Mage are able to handle all the healing duties as well as their own traditional role.

This, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing.  Both Paladins and White Mages can change their play style in order fit into the new dynamic.  The bad side to this is that I’ve seen many a player come to the conclusion that Red Mages, Scholars, and Corsairs/Bards subbing White Mage are the best healers — period.  I’ve seen it expressed in many linkshells (including lolCats).

This is fucking moronic.

When you need to move a medium cardboard box of stuff across town, you don’t need a diesel-electric locomotive.  If you really wanna go overboard, you can use a diesel tractor-trailer.  A car or pick-up will do just fine, and are probably the better tools for the job.  However, if someone wanted to make the argument that a car [or pick-up] is the best cargo transporter, period, they’d be labeled a ‘tard.

White Mages’s are to healers what the locomotive is to cargo transport.

Through job-specific equipment and access to Cure V, Curaga IV, and Regen III, a White Mage is unequivocally the most MP efficient healer in the game, with the best enmity control of any other healing capable job.  That means, in a nutshell, White Mages continue to be the top dog.

The other night my static (which now includes the awesome personalities of Kooki (RDM) and Flick (SCH)) were making the push to 50 the other night.  Our sixth member was a Thief**, so of course we wanted to allow for Sneak Attack + Trick Attack (SATA).

Setting up SATA proved to be a tricky situation.  With Ardra as Samurai/Thief, we had no secondary provoke.  Ardra, being a very well geared Elvaan, has no problem stealing hate from me.  Initially we tried having the Thief pull monsters back to our camp and allowing Ardra to take the monster attention through sheer damage (I would avoid provoking).

That strategy proved far too dicey and we quickly abandoned it.  If Ardra didn’t connect on the very first swing, the Thief was left taking a beating.  This leads to Darrian needing to toss out a medium to large Cure to the Thief and thus stealing Enmity.  With this scenario, fights got to be far too chancy in the beginning.

What ended up working fairly well is having Ardra pull.  This technique needs some fine tuning, but it works well because of the enmity bonus the player with the first action gets.  The person who does the first action gets an extra 200 Cumulative Enmity (CE - only decreases by taking damage) and 900 Volatile Enmity (VE - decreases at a rate of 60 units per sec.)

(for reference, please see this thread on the Dreams in Vana’diel forums.)

This allows Ardra to maintain hate even if her first swing misses and I happen to connect.  It also allows some room for a small Cure if needed.  Likewise, by the time the SATA is performed, Ardra’s CE has most likely evaporated, and my Provoke (1800 units of VE) plus the SATA should easily over come any enmity that Ardra has built up.

This particular technique really only works because Ardra is Elvaan and Samurai.  Without that nice racial VIT bonus and Third Eye this really wouldn’t work very well.

(**)  Actually we had two players come as Thief that evening.  The first Thief wanted to SATA, but couldn’t set it up quickly (requiring me to take enmity before the SATA).  His solution was to SATA off Ardra.  Despite numerous requests to stop that, he wouldn’t.  Eventually we kicked him.