Dancer as a Tank - Amazing ResultsFollow

This is a very short introduction to dancer tanking based on a positive party experience I just had. Feel free to share your own! Much like with ninja, if the public accepts it we might actually see dancer as a third standard tank.


Lately on Sylph there has been a major tank shortage that’s prevented a lot of otherwise good parties form get going. Apparently some people are getting a bit desperate because this afternoon I was asked if dancer could tank. I said I would try, he said all right, and so a few minutes later I was in the Quicksand Caves provoking anticans and beetles.

For those who don’t want to read the whole thing, this should encourage you:

• I tanked in a normal exp party on DNC/WAR at level 50 and 51 in the Quicksand Caves. There was no backup tank, just me.
• I didn’t buy a single piece of additional equipment to tank. I tanked fully in my normal dancer setup, minus my second weapon due to lack of dual wield.
• With few exceptions, I held hate very well.
• All mobs were VT or IT.
• At no time did my party contain a WHM or RDM dedicated healer.
• I never died once in about 2 hours of constant fighting.
• Everyone in the party, myself included, was amazed at the fact dancer tanking was actually working.


The Basics

Paladin tanks by having large amounts of defense and the ability to cure themselves. Ninja tanks by evading attacks and holding hate mostly through damage. Dancer tanks by getting the absolute snot kicked out of them but staying alive by healing themselves and others in their party with the most effective frontline healing power in the game. They don’t mitigate nearly as much damage as a paladin through defense, nor evade nearly as many attacks as the ninja, but a dancer with enough TP can be pretty much impossible to take down.

Naturally, it’s totally unfair to expect you as a dancer to fully main heal yourself. Both Paladins and Ninjas require some party support and dancer is no different, especially as far as IT mobs are concerned. Keep in mind then when you’re tanking you’re not really a main healer since you’re using your abilities to keep hate, so it’s not as overkill to invite a WHM to your party as it may sound. Someone to watch out for status ailments and to augment your healing powers with their own makes dancer tanking a lot more stable.

It ain’t exactly pretty, and it feels like you’re riding the thin edge of a very sharp knife, but it gets the job done and it will probably impress your friends. If nothing else it saves you from needing to look for a tank.


Holding Hate and Staying Alive

Dancer tanks hold hate through their waltz moves. Curing and divine waltzes both build huge hate; bad if you’re just a healer in a party, but extremely effective if you’re actually trying to tank. As a dancer you should already have macros for quickly using these in combat; instead of healing the main tank, you’ll be healing yourself.

It can be terrifying throwing yourself in the line of fire as a tank. You’ll quickly learn why most melee jobs don’t tank as you rack up hundreds of points of damage quickly and drop into the orange after only a few hits. Don’t panic! You’re not some dark knight or a thief that needs to pray for someone to provoke off them; you’re one of the best healing jobs in the game! Trust the healing skills you’ve built as a dancer. Remember, waltzes are effectively instant and can’t be interrupted. Once you get comfortable with holding your own life in the balance, dancer tanking is a lot less stressful.

TP manipulation, already a big part of playing dancer, becomes even more critical as a tank; the life you save is definitely your own. When you get critically hit for 220 damage, non-essential moves seem a lot less useful. You’ll more than likely find yourself having to skip sambas and weaponskilling is the fastest way to end on the floor. Save TP for curing yourself or others.

NEVER get lax on TP manipulation. NEVER waste TP on things you don’t need to do. As a tank, you have the duty of being the first line of party defense. Other jobs are counting on you to do your best so they can do theirs. Vigilance! The last few mobs may have been easy, but you never know when a high level IT will rip you apart. You’ll regret using a Cyclone weaponskill when you meet one of those bad boys.

You can use steps to build flourishes for reverse flourish as well. I found 2 steps was the easiest way to do it; you trade 20 TP to gain 48, plus you debuff the mob in the process. Three steps with a violent flourish also works; use 30 TP to gain 60 from reverse +5 from violent for a total of 65 TP. That’s a little more complicated to keep track of, but you get a potential stun as a bonus.

It can be tempting to save flourishes for animated flourish for hate control, but ultimately it will hurt your TP gain at the expensive of a job ability weaker than provoke. Focus more on reverse flourishing and holding hate with waltzes.

Even if you lose hate, it’s no big deal. It’s not like your dancer defense was that amazing anyway. If a melee pulls hate on a weaponskill, don’t panic. Instead of healing yourself, just heal them as they take damage. Eventually you’ll be able to regain hate. If the melee is taking too much damage for comfort or if you don’t have the TP, fire off a provoke.


Recommended level range

40+. Reverse Flourish is the ace in the hole that makes TP gain so much easier and things just get easier from then on up. Below 40 you could probably do it against the right mobs with a strong enough back line, but the emphasis would be less about you and more about your party members.


Gear

Accuracy – if you can’t hit, you can’t get TP. If you don’t have TP, you can’t cure yourself. If you aren’t curing yourself, it won’t take very many hits for the mob to rip through your soft, undefended flesh. Accuracy above all.

Evasion – Dancer evasion is up there with ninja; even on IT mobs you can evade attacks at a decent rate. Adding evasion gear will only make things easier on you.

Attack and STR – your damage output is a lost cause as a DD, but there’s no reason not to hurt the mobs if you can. After all, you have to hit them to get TP anyway.

VIT and Defense – VIT helps your curing moves that target yourself and more DEF will lower damage taken, but your defense is going to be a lost cause regardless. Generally speaking it’s probably better to find other pieces of gear unless something is too tempting to pass up.

Unless your gear setup is very odd, your standard dancer TP gain gear will probably be sufficiently for tanking, though you may want to take a closer look if you plan to try to sell yourself as a tank to parties frequently.


Subjob

Warrior. Note that heading says “subjob”, not “subjobs”. You’re still playing dancer with all the healing, debuffing, and TP manipulation the job requires. Counting shadows will only be distracting. Plus, trying to shadow tank with only utsusemi: ichi is an exercise in spell interruption anyway. Warrior gives you the useful Provoke for spike hate and Defender when your TP is running a bit low, plus some good job traits like defense bonus and double attack.

Because the hate it generates bleeds away, Provoke can be a crutch if you rely too much on it. I generally found myself trying to hold hate through cures and saved provoke for when my party members weaponskilled in order to buy time to build more cure hate.

Defender gets a lot of flak as one of the worst JAs in the game, but it cut the damage I was tanking from 110-130 to 80-90, a trade I was willing to make since my dagger hits were so weak anyway.


Food

Something I haven’t thought too much about, but probably sushi is still the way to go. Accuracy is your lifeline.


Problems

Accuracy – even with your gear and accuracy food, some mobs are naturally highly evasive, and others have TP moves that send their evasion soaring. If you aren’t hitting to generate TP you’re dead meat within moments. Make sure you have a dispeller to get rid of the TP moves as fast as you can, and it might be a good idea to avoid highly evasive mobs entirely as a DNC tank.

Holding Hate: Waltzes build good hate, but at times the party won’t require too much healing. Once again, warrior subjob shines. Provoke can build you some quick hate while you wait for people to get damaged. If you have TP to burn and only need to worry about keeping hate, toss berserk up as well.

Status Ailments: Healing Waltz can remove a status effect from anyone in the party, but it costs 20 TP and has a pretty long delay timer. As such, you generally want to avoid using it as much as you can in order to keep TP for keeping yourself alive. If your backline isn’t watching status effects it’s easy to get bogged down in multiple status effects. Blind in particular is troublesome; it’s not too detrimental to most jobs and so rarely gets removed, but to a dancer where missed hits leads to less TP and lots of pain very quickly, you have to watch out.

Overwhelming Damage: The biggest risk to a dancer tank is taking more damage than you have the TP to waltz away. This is the big fear that stops people from being dancer tanks, but honestly it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. Even when fighting IT mobs, the only time I felt overwhelmed was when the rest of my party wasn’t supporting me very well with curing and debuffing spells of their own. Even so, this happens every now and then. As a tank, you need to be able to get yourself out of tight spots to protect the rest of the party. Having a decent amount of TP built up as a buffer can keep you afloat for a while. If all else fails, there’s your 2-hour Trance to fall back on. Just be sure to pop it before you’re in the red.


Final Thoughts:

This isn’t theory; this is results. Dancers ARE tanking IT mobs in normal exp parties. You don’t need to go with your friends or to some special camp. You don’t need to buy amazingly expensive gear. All you need is a warrior subjob and a healthy amount of courage. Dancers have already proven themselves an extremely powerful healer. It’s time to take the job to the next level as a reliable tank as well. Good luck!

Edited, Feb 17th 2008 6:29pm by Erecia

I wouldn't add thf there personally, but sounds as if you had fun which is important. Congrats and good job.



Edited, Feb 17th 2008 11:42pm by Dreyalove

I wouldn't add drk there personally, bust sounds as if you had fun which is important. Congrats and good job.



;)


OP, thanks for sharing. I've done this a few times now, with good results. Glad to see some more people stepping out of the "DNC is only a support job" roll.

3 main components of tanking:
1. Survivability
2. Hate holding
3. Damage mitigation

They must exist in the same time

I wouldn't call hate bouncing is a real tanking.

PLD and NIN easily pass those 3 requirement
When (3) becomes obsolete for PLD/WAR, they will sub NIN
When (2) becomes obsolete for NIN, they will sub DRK

THF can do (1) and (3) at the same time but not (2), hence you can't make THF as a primary tank.

Edited, Feb 17th 2008 10:08pm by VZX

i wish people like you were around when tanking as a sam was porposed. but no and because no said anything rmt's were able to dig there claws further in to our gil as we buy shihi.
(fyi it was rmt who made the majority belive that tanking as a sam was stupid)


very informative.i will me trying this out
thank you

Edited, Feb 18th 2008 3:12am by equlix

used animated flourish and divine waltz to keep hate

I wouldn't trust them to be able to keep hate without a thf, but with onw it might be viable.

I love the idea, and among friends it is viable, but i doubt i would do a pickup party as the main tank with no dedicated healer, and unreliable companions. I have been backup tank, first voke, heck i make THFs happy b/c my ability to cure people for so much (gg taru chr and macro'd cheap chr gear) and grab hate in time for him to close a sexy skillchain onto the tank (<3 thf), so i see the temptatation, but the party's livelihood lies in your hands when you are solo tanking, and i see too much situational dependence with my dancer doing it.

As the solo tank i would think there would be a major limitation on what kind of mobs you can go after in xp. Crabs or Crawlers or either color would be fine but i could see a spider, lizard, or mamool utterly and completely destroying us without someone to pull hate away or throw us a few bigger cures. I have solo'd quite a bit up to VTs, but with only 666 hitpoints at 49 including 4 hp merits, i still have to be deathly careful what mobs i pick fights with, regardless of who is around.

I love the theory, and again if you have a static or good group of friends it would work, especially if one had a voke just in case things got intense, but you tell an xp party "oh, we can't go there, the mobs are too evasive, hit too hard, etc" and you will probably get booted ; ; ; Maybe my observations are based on my limited skill, or since i am nin main maybe i am spoiled by not having to blood tank, either way I love the idea, think this should be stickied and am rating you up, but if you are on odin and doing a pickup party, please do not invite me to be the solo tank :-p I am pretty and fragile...like a china doll!

Unless someone else called it first...

DNC AF will have SOME Enmity+ on it ^ ^

Im almost 45, (duunno if that's a good place to start subbing WAR...) but DNC tank sounds like fun, and it doesn't require as much gil as NIN with their tools or as much DEF gear and DEF food which gets costly little by little as a PLD.

But seriously... if DNC becomes the next tank... above jobs like a "Stoic Killing Machine" that is a SAM... or a "BIG BRAWLY TOUGH AS NAILS" WAR... then I wont even know what to think anymore...

The job that everyone regarded as a pansy, (especially when they see males, especially Galka) dancing and taking up the role of the "third tank" above other jobs that seemed to fit the bill better than a DNC... becomes a tank...

Glad i didn't toss all my low lvl evasion gear when i lvl'd THF... it's SO becoming more usefull as I lvl up, plus the 75 evasion set I have will soon go to my DNC = pwn

Gosh no. Dances get you tons of enmity. I've ended up tanking or back up tanking several times without intending to -- usually I'm riding somewhere around second or third on the hate list, and that's if I'm not main healer.

This is actually funny that Dnc tanking is being brought back up now but when Dnc first came out I and maybe a handful of other Dnc's were telling everyone on KI that Dnc was a tank. I actually tanked mine from 15-62. As far as colibri, there are other mobs to exp on during that level range. I tanked and I never had hate problems. And as I got higher in level I wore more +enmity gear. My food of choice was Tav Tacos. The only reason I stopped tanking with Dnc was because my War is only 31 and I didnt want to be gimped in my party. I have been away from the game for about a month now but I personally dont see a point in regular exp parties where Dnc can not tank effectively.

We can't tank as well in the traditional capacity on birds, but then again it's difficult for even established tank jobs to handle colibri properly. We can still dual tank them, but we're especially good at backup tanking.

At those levels is viable to have your melee /nin and go crazy on the birds. You dont need a tank job this way, and DNC is more than capable of keeping them all alive with drain samba and waltzes.

That being said, I have tanked Colibri before with little difficulty (did it yesterday), you just need some patience and a good handle on utsusemi timing.(Evasion merits help too) I suspect tanking most things will only become easier as access is gained to more eva skill+ gear(level 65 right now) and joyeuse(so excited).

Ill share a little of my experience but first I just want to add that I gave up on trying to show people that Dnc can tank because of the sheep mentality and the trolls that flame for no reason. With that said, I was able to hold hate with no problem through out most of the levels until I was the tank for a party in KRT. We were fighting Bats and the Drk and the meritted War were stealing hate from time to time. I was always able to get hate back but it was the first time ever that I had hate leave me. For the Colibri levels, I went to the Mire right outside Nashmua. The marsh mure there were good exp till 60. Another alternative were Puks.

The way I would be able to gauge if I could tank an IT would be if I could get it to hit me for 60-90 after using food and defender. 100+ a hit would be a bit much and it is harder to keep TP up if I was gettin hit that hard.

My gear was mainly Acc and Eva gear. +Enmity gear was macroed in on Waltz. I had a set playing style on how to grab and keep hate on me at all times. I even had a Pld come to one of my parties because the Brd in the party at the time was telling her LS how well I was doing so he came to see if he would keep hate from me. We tried on Two mobs. The Pld was able to keep the first and the second went back and fourth at the start but then he was able to keep hate towards the end but he exhausted all of his MP in doing so. The third mob and every mob after that I was able to keep from him because he could not maintain enough MP to keep up. He later left the party because he wanted to play "golf".

Anyways Dnc tanking was the only way I played Dnc from 15-62. Im 69 now but I have been away from the game for about 2 months now. From my experience Dnc is a tank. Sure we support heal very well also but for me tanking just made more sense because we can generate soo much enmity. For those of you that want to try tanking, go right ahead. For the others that do not like it, go ahead and play it the way you like. Im not saying that anyone SHOULD tank. This is just my experience with the job and I felt like sharing.

no offense, but i'd prefer dnc not to be a tank when it comes to af armor and future weapon design. 1-70ish tanking is a small part of the game, and endgame there are no shortage of tanks that can sub dnc to do what we can better. I have tanked although more in a crisis sense, but the job will just become a paladin mark 2 if tanking becomes its focus, and instead it needs to be developed to thrive in the new world pass midgame exp.

Just wanted to add my testimony to Dancer tanking.

Today I tanked the 40-cap mammet fight for CoP as DNC/WAR. Our group had 3 tanks and 3 mages, one mage to support each tank. We pulled the mammets far afield to avoid aoes and went to town.

By the end of the fight, the Ninja and the Paladin were both deep into the red and had gone through many hi-pots and refresh drinks, while I was cruising along well above 3/4 hps and keeping hate off my blm backup like a champ. :)

Okay, yes I'm bragging.

Still, I was only using average evasion gear, a tavnazian taco, and an icarus wing during the whole thing. It was ridiculously easy. As long as you can build tp faster than they can hurt you, Dancer is incredibly difficult to kill. With provoke + animated flourish, I had some form of spike hate every 15 seconds, plus cure bombing myself--I don't think my mammet ever glanced at the black mage, who was free to nuke pretty hard without having to worry about curing me.

Felt good to know DNC can contribute to CoP ^^

edited because i can't spell

Edited, Mar 7th 2008 3:18am by Vallija

Edited, Mar 7th 2008 3:20am by Vallija

Success!

I started dnc a few days ago, level 20 now. I want to -TANK-. When dnc first came out I'd invite them as tanks and they'd get pissed off, so I figured I'd find out why. They seem perfect for the job to me... constantly healing yourself gathers so much hate. I haven't gotten to do it yet though, but I hope it works out.

I haven't seen anything interesting from DNC/BLU. Cocoon only lasts a minute and few of the other spells are worthwhile. Plus you'd have a very shallow MP poor and no real MP gear to boost it that wouldn't hinder your performance as a DNC.

BLU/DNC, on the other hand, is good times.

Just wanted to let yall know that I really Like this thread just because it is a true discussion about one aspect of dancer that quickly died out after their lack of tanking and more along the lines of healing came about!

Adding in a CoP experience, I tanked Promy-Vazhl as Dnc/nin with another nin/war, We bounced hate between us often and during the boss fight, When the second(or third) would join the brawl, I took control of it while still healing the pt with the blm. Dnc is extremely flexible and capable of doing both (Tanking and healing.) Its just sad that people insist on keeping dncs as support, dnc is getting the same thing rdms got when they were shoved into the backlines to play whm, completely ignoring its other capabilities.

Since 15 I have been main tanking on my DNC, holding hate has never been an issue and my tp gain is fast enough to maintain constant cures and still not blow through my tp. Only time I came close to dying was when I ended up tanking 3 IT mobs(horrible linkage)I popped my 2hr and spammed the hell out of my cures only to die when it wore. we managed to kill all of the mobs but I died in thr process being the hero.

I plan on taking DNC to 75 and I was told that DNC does alot of tanking due to emense hate built by the cures so I look foward to more DNC tankage.

Some things I would like to add to this. I have not attempted to tank traditional parties, but duo/trio is perfect...throw a rdm in for Dispel and I'm fine to cure myself and PT members that MAY pull hate. I'm level 50 btw, and I can throw out a CW3 for 350HP... I'm Galka as well, so at level 50 (with squid/sole sushi) I rack in 990ish HP. Now, for 50 TP, which i can generate in no time, i can cure nearly half my HP in one shot...not too much to worry about.

I could see DNC being a tank more often, but your HP might be something to watch. Taru's might want to wear some RSE for added HP.

My biggest problem wiht the job so far...level 49. Deleveled solo... Well, after the experience of using CW3 and only getting CW2 for that little length of time, I can see that level being a nuisance if you know what your getting in 7k exp.

Get yourself a great backline healer that you trust, and does not pull hate, and you can go nonstop on just about anything in your path...just grab a T if you have to, and towards the end, tell others to back out so you can build the TP and finishing moves. Keep track of every ability of your job...their your lifeline when either in party or solo.

Thanks for reading my ramblings about DNC. It's a great job...lets just hope SE doesn't mess it up for those of us who truly love the job.

Theode - Galka Dancer - Ragnarok

Edited, May 10th 2008 3:31pm by JamesLand