Dancers Guide to Excellence by Urat

Category:Guides
==Forward by the Author==
First and foremost, this guide is not meant for fledgling Dancers who are merely dabbling in the job, those who are using it just for a sub. If you are the kind of person who does not feel they want to dish out notable amounts of gil from their wallet to fund this job, or you are not the type for math and calculations on maximizing the job's potential, this is probably not the guide for you. There are several other Dancer guides on the dancer's main page here on wiki, which you most likely navigated here from, that I would recommend for you instead. Those guides cover the more basic principles of dancer, maximizing curing, soloing spots, etcetera.
This guide, is not one of those. This guide introduces concepts like TP/M, sub job situations, finish management, maximizing your weaponskills, and pulling off various "dance combos" in order to create a series of potent chain effects that cripple your opponent before you in ways you never suspected you were capable of.
I would also like to request that you ask for permission on the discussion page before making any edits (excluding mods of course) otherwise I will more than likely simply undo your edit. Thank you, and enjoy the reading.
==Sub Job Analyse==
There are a handful of key sub jobs for dancer, each one with its own strengths and weaknesses. 
===Monk===
The first one any Dancer will use is Monk. Since Ninja does not get dual wield as a sub trait until your main is 20+, it is most TP effective to sub monk until level 20, in which you will want to swap to using Ninja for dual wields.
===Ninja===
The most common of sub jobs, from level 20 to 60 Ninja maintains the highest TP returning sub job of all potential subs through dual wield
After level 60, Ninja becomes only useful as a subjob for surviving group battles against opponents with shadow absorbing AoE attacks, a good example would by Dynamis, in which Utsusemi becomes a life saver.
===Samurai===
However, after level 60, TP wise Ninja quite abruptly falls to Samurai's vast array of TP building moves, primarily Meditate which enables a dancer to perform a solo skillchain twice as often. See the combos sections to learn how to perform a No Foot Rise/Meditate Skillchain rotation. Combined with Zanshin and Samurai's powerful latent Store TP, it is far more potent in TP than subbing Ninja.
===Ranger===
An uncommon sub job for dancer, Ranger is actually a potent sub job for fighting Imps and being able to avoid their Amnesia attacks. In normal circumstances the average dancer is rather useless against Imps, however with a strong ranged accuracy build and capped throwing skill, Dancer quickly becomes a notable puller in Imp parties, being able to pull back the Imp with shadows and high evasion, maintain TP and aid the party's healer with occasional heals, and most importantly, perform Healing Waltz to remove silence from members when in need, turning this useless job into the character that holds the party together and draws the line between a decent party and an exceptional party.
==Armor: Gearing Your Dancer==
First and foremost, there is no one specific set of armor for Dancer, due to its pliable nature. Square Enix built Dancer to be a flexible job capable of a wide variety of roles within a party, from Healing, to debuffing, to Damage, and even with proper gear and merits, Tanking.
So how do you know what to get, and what not to get? Well that takes us to:
===Armor: The Basics===
First off, rule of thumb for dancer. The more TP, the better. You want a potent and solid TP building set before you even think of any other builds. Thus, here is the simple rule of thumb for TP
1% haste = 2 accuracy = 4 dex
Confused? Lets work out the math here. Lets say amazingly you are capable of 100 hits in a minute (which of course is almost impossible, but for theories sake to prove the math go with me here) And lets say you get 10 tp a hit exactly.
Now lets according to other pages, 2 Dexterity increases your accuracy equivalent to 1 accuracy on armor, and 2 accuracy in armor increases your actual accuracy as a % by 1%. Thus if you are currently at 79% accuracy, putting on two more accuracy will increase you to 80%
Now lets say your dancer is currently sitting at a half decent 90% accuracy, and you have the choice between putting on a piece of armor with 5% haste or 10 accuracy. Which do you choose?
Well according to the rule of thumb, if 1% haste = 2 accuracy then 5% should be just as good as 10 accuracy. How is this possible? Recall that Dancer, tp wise, should not focus on damage output but instead gaining as much tp in as short time as possible.
Lets start with our base TP, in the form of TP/M, TP per minute. This is an excellent unit to use to gauge how fast you are building TP and compare. At 100 attacks per minute, with 90% accuracy you should theoretically hit 90/100 of the attacks, for 10 TP = 900 TP/M
Now lets find the value for 5% haste. Your delay has gone down 5%, so you should now attack 105.263... times in one minute. 90% of 105 is 94.7368 hits per minute, times 10 tp per hit gives you 947.368... tpm.
Now for accuracy, lets say your accuracy is now 95%, that means 95/100 of your attacks hit, times 10 tp/hit = 950 tp/m, meaning the 10 accuracy actually beats 5% haste by a little less than 3 tp/m. 
Though the rule of thumb is generally a good comparison for large shifts, it is best to do minute comparisons on situational biases to determine what piece is better where.
===Dancer as a Damage Dealer===
Many people scoff at the idea of a Dancer being capable of any kind of damage, and though even our strongest of attacks only barely compare to the real damage dealers, one must then take into account the fact we are also debuffing the monster, healing the party and buffing them at the same time as damage dealing, so in a roundabout way the reason their attacks are as strong as they are is partially due to the Dancer itself that they are "competing" with.
For Dancer, our three hardest hitting weaponskills for now are Dancing Edge, Evisceration, and Pyrrhic Kleos
These three weaponskills have strong modifiers in the Dexterity category, a stat Dancer certainly is not lacking in. Therefore the top stat any Dancer should focus on for a damage dealing build, to macro in for weaponskills, is Dexterity. This stat, especially for Evisceration, is excellent in its dual and tri nature, it not only modifies the weaponskill, but increases your accuracy by .25% each. As for Eviscration, a critical hitting weaponskill, Dexterity further increases your Critical Hit rate, further boosting this weaponskill's damage
The second stat is Accuracy, you can't hit a weaponskill hard if you miss half your hits! Try to stack in enough accuracy to get your characters accuracy up into the high 80s and low 90s at least!
For a Dancing Edge build, Dancer has access to a handful of pieces with notable amounts of Charisma, for soloing in Cape Teriggan, Panther Mask works beautifully for a combination of Haste for TP, a large amount of Charisma for Dancing Edge, and an added Lizard killer which procs quite often on the Lizards you will fight whilst soling in Cape Teriggan!
For Evisceration, try to put some strength and attack into a few slots where accuracy nor dexterity fit well. Or, for a beautiful few pieces, the Enkidu's armor set fits nicely into any weaponskill build for Dagger.
==The Do Nots==
There are a few huge issues countless dancers have that are actually quite commonly held as good ideas, when they are in fact severally crippling their effectiveness. Below is a list of common "what not to dos" for Dancer
===Joyeuse===
Believe it or not, the vast majority of the time this sword is NOT a good weapon for you. First and foremost if you are main handing this weapon, you lose access to all you hard hitting dagger weaponskills. Don't do that ever. Secondly, if you are offhanding this weapon that means you are subbing ninja instead of samurai, dramatically lowering your tp gain rate.
Finally, because the ability Saber Dance does not add to or compound with a double attacking weapon's effect, but instead subtract from it, if you are offhanding Joyeuse and using Saber Dance, the double attack increase from Joyeuse is lowered from 50% to a measly 12.5%, which in no way at all makes up for Dancer's low sword skill.
However, in the event that you are fighting a monster with such low evasion you are till at the accuracy cap even using a sword, the Joyeuse is in fact an excellent weapon. I would definitely suggest it if you do not have the Athame as a good farming weapon. The Joyeuse also really shines in Campaign against the low evasion monsters!
===Improper Gearing===
This really goes for all jobs, but I find Dancer and Bard are the prime two that get the short end of the stick when it comes to armor. Believe it or not, there is a vast array of very good armor for Dancer that you can get absolutely for free! Here's a simple set up that even the cheapest of player's shouldn't have too much trouble putting together.
*Weapon: Azoth (Very cheap nowadays with the introduction of Magian trials
*Offhand: Sleight Kukri
*Ranged: War Hoop
*Head: Walahra Turban
*Neck: Chivalrous Chain
*Body: Rapparee Harness
*Hands: Aurore Gloves
*Waist: Swift Belt
*Legs: Aurore Brais
*Feet: Aurore Gaiters
The Aurore Doublet Set is very easy to obtain. Using three stones and a full alliance one can easily farm 8~9K crour in an hour and a half. In a week you could obtain the full set!
==Advanced Guide to Dancer: Party==
First and foremost, when you are in a party you generally have on of three primary roles; Healing, Pulling, or general Support/Damage. Many people try and state dancer is not a damage dealer. That's personal opinion, but as long as I am capable of chaining together 4 success weaponskills, each performing up to one thousand damage on top of a cumulative two thousand damage in skillchains in one fell swoop without the use of any special items or a 2 hour, I personally will refer to Dancer as a potential damage dealer.
===Healing===
Main healing wise, Dancer has some notable perks over other cookie cutter healers like White Mage or Red Mage. First and foremost, Waltzes cannot be interrupted, unlike Magic. Second, dances consume TP, not MP, therefor a Dancer does not rest to regain their healing capabilities, they fight more! Third, unlike other healers dancer must fight to maintain its healing ability. Because of this you have the added damage of Dancer's melee attacks to speed up the kills. Finally, unlike your average healer, any half decent dancer should have shadows, Fan Dance, and its evasive abilities in its repertoire of assets. Thus, when you pull hate through healing, as you often will, you have a much higher survivability compared to your average mage.
Nonetheless, Dancer is not the best healer. Nor is it the worst. This is entirely is based on the player's skill, not the job. Just like every other part of FFXI
===Pulling===
Pulling on Dancer requires a slightly higher level of skill if you wish to be more than a guy with a hoop who grabs things. First and foremost, you need to be able to land your steps on the monster as you haul it into the group. Engage the monster as you pull out your chakram but unlocked, then as you ranged attack turn and return to the group, still engaged. As soon as the monster is in the camp hit it with a step. If you are 77+ its best to have presto activated before the pull to enhance the initial step of the fight.
===Damage Dealing===
The most complicated and intricate of the three roles, a true damage dealing Dancer requires expensive and harder to obtain gear, expensive weaponry (Azoth, Twashtar, Athame, etc etc) and many merits.
First and foremost, you will need a secondary armor build for weaponskilling. Primarily you will want to focus on Dexterity and Accuracy, with some Strength added in as well.
Learn to optimize your finishes. Always have at least 4 finishes, preferably 5, ready right before your weaponskill so you can Reverse Flourish right after the weaponskill and gain your tp back quickly.
Another advanced technique is to manage your TP right before the weaponskill. Generally you'll have some extra TP on top of your 100. Toss out a quick Curing Waltz or pop Haste Samba with that extra TP before weaponskilling!
===Other Advanced Party Techniques===
Desperate Flourish has a semi accurate gravity effect. Some people don't know this, but gravity lowers evasion! Learn to use this ability often on evasive monsters, giving your party an extra bit of accuracy they didn't even know they could get!
Violent Flourish only consumes on finish, and returns 5 or so tp while stunning the monster, giving the person with hate some breathing room. Use this flourish if you have a finish to spare, for example you're currently sitting at 4/5 finishes, steps ready along with both finishes. Use Violent flourish, dropping you to 3/5 finishes but gaining 5 tp and stunning the monster, then follow up with a step, capping your finishes at 5/5!