Dancer DPS Guide — Endwalker 6.1
Welcome to our Dancer DPS guide for Final Fantasy FFXIV: Endwalker (Patch 6.1). This guide will cover everything you need to know to play as a Dancer in PvE, from the absolute basics of the job, to high-end optimisation.
Dancer Overview
Dancer is a highly mobile physical ranged DPS that functions as a highly potent
raid buffer whilst providing a high amount of healing utility to their team through
intelligent usage of Improvisation and
Curing Waltz.
Dancer combines throwing Chakrams alongside powerful dance steps to deliver high potency
attacks unto its enemies while providing both single-target and raid-wide buffs.
While the base of Dancer's rotation is structurally rigid, it does have
access to flexible resources in the form of Fourfold Feathers and its Esprit Gauge.
These resources allow the usage of Fan Dance II,
Fan Dance III,
and
Saber Dance.
Leveling Dancer
Dancer starts at level 60 and comes with a very bare-bones kit that's easily understood, but it quickly builds up as you progress through the leveling process. Our Dancer beginner's guide will walk you through the leveling process starting from level 60. Meanwhile, our Dancer leveling guide will provide a detailed breakdown of how the rotation and priorities evolve as you level up.
Basics of Dancer Gameplay
Dancer's rotation is based around several actions: Standard Step,
Flourish, and
Technical Step. These actions aren't affected
by Skill Speed, thus becoming immovable in the rotation. It's important to use these
actions on cooldown to keep your rotation intact and maintain alignment with the
rest of your group while also ensuring you deal as much damage as you can.
Between these rigid cooldowns, you'll be using a proc-based combo system based
mostly on RNG as your filler. Cascade procs
Reverse Cascade,
and
Fountain procs
Fountainfall, both at a 50% rate.
While doing everything listed above, you'll be generating resources to spend on flexible burst actions. These come in the form of Esprit and Fourfold Feathers.
Gearing Up Your Dancer
The most important thing to remember while gearing up is ilvl. With higher ilvl comes higher Dexterity, which should be your main focus during the leveling process. You can find the generalized stat priority and gearing principles for Dancer in the guide linked below.
The link below will lead you to the current best-in-slot gearing solutions for Dancer.
Dancer Endgame
Linked below is where we house our high-level encounter documents. These consist of Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate guides for Dancer.
Changelog
- 20 Apr. 2022: Updated for Patch 6.1
- 10 Feb. 2022: Guide added.
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been co-written by Hinoka and Dook.
Hinoka is a long time FFXIV player who has been playing since the beginning of Stormblood. She quickly jumped into high-end content, and started raiding shortly after in Deltascape. Since then, she has cleared every raid tier the game has to offer, as well as all of the Ultimate fights. She is skilled at many jobs in the game, and is proficient at most DPS or tank jobs. She is currently a mentor for Red Mage on the Balance Discord.
Dook Prime is a theorycrafter of Machinist and long time player of FFXIV. He began playing in Heavensward with his first raid tier being Deltascape. Dook began playing Physical Ranged in Patch 4.55 and has been hooked ever since. He is a Machinist Mentor and guide writer in The Balance, and can be seen streaming FFXIV and other unrelated content on his Twitch account. Any direct communication can either go through DMs over Discord (Dook#0001), or through the Machinist channels in The Balance Discord.