Dancer PvP Guide for FFXIV

The Dancer is one of Three Physical Ranged DPS. What makes it so unique is their mobility and the ability to Dance Partner another player, allowing them to apply powerful buffs to one team member. Equipped with decent burst damage and strong AoE, Dancer shines in the close-to-mid-range combat.

Dancer is a highly valued meta role in both Frontline and Crystalline Conflict. Dancers have the most powerful Limit Break around, forcing enemies to drop Guard and lose control while your team runs them down.

Note: This guide is focused on PVP as a whole; Frontline, Crystalline Conflict and Rival wings all play differently to one another, however the fundamentals and understanding of a role translate across all game modes.

Strengths

• High mobility with the ability to hold 4 charges of En Avant.
• Dance Partner allows you to buff one member of your party.
• The strongest PvP Limit Break of any job with no counter play if the Limit Break lands.
• AoE healing around self and Dancer Partner which can be life saving for the team.
• Powerful AoE damage that builds in strength the longer it is active.
• Able to gradually fill Limit Break charge of yourself and your Dance Partner through Dance of the Dawn.

Weaknesses

• Forced psueodo-melee with half your actions only having a 15 yalm range.
• Weakest and slowest burst rotations of the three Physical Ranged DPS.
• Dancer can be very tough to play in teams without coordination or as a solo player.
• You are the only role to have a ability locked behind requiring a team member to get a kill.
• Overuse of En Avant movement leaves you vulnerable without a means to escape.
• The Limit Break leaves you open for the first 2 seconds during activation until Seduction takes effect.

4.

Skill Selection

Every job has access to a few common actions, but their utility differs between jobs.

Recuperate Standard-issue Elixir Guard Purify Sprint

3.1.

Recuperate

Recuperate – This is your most important healing ability. MP in PVP is only used for this ability. With a max of 10,000 MP, recup will consume 2,500 and heals you for 15,000 HP. The amount of healing received can be increased and reduced by healing up or down status effects, such as Summon Seraph to increase or Biolysis to decrease. You gain 500 MP per 3 seconds passively, something to keep in mind!

3.2.

Standard-issue Elixir

Standard-issue Elixir – This is your second-most important healing ability. Elixir allows you to gain back all your HP and MP, resetting yourself for the next fight! The listed cast time is 4.5 seconds, which means the cast is actually snapshotted as complete after 4 seconds, after which you can move and opponents can no longer cancel your Elixir. You'll see moments where you get hit, and the position will still finish.

When not under pressure, make sure to top up your resources for the next fight. As with the animations counted in the death timer, you will be out for 20~ seconds instead vs a 4 second Elixir!

3.3.

Guard

Guard – Grants 90% damage reduction and immunity to most crowd-control debuffs for up to 4 seconds. Using another action cancels this guard early. Damage over Time effects that have been applied before Guard will always tick for the full amount and wont be negated with Guard!

Per Patch 7.1, there have been multiple abilities added that work against Guarded targets. Where Shield Smite and Chain Stratagem half the defensive bonus of Guard (90% → 45%), there are also abilities that simply ignore guard when dealing damage; Drill, Assassinate, Enchanted Riposte, Disesteem, Wreath of Fire, Serpent's Tail and Chaotic Spring

Damage per ability is now tight to animations, compared to pre-7.1 where the damage would register when pressed. This means Guard is more reactive than it has been before, but it's also possible now to start ability animations that will hit the moment your Guard ends. Beware of your surroundings and what the enemy is doing!

3.4.

Purify

Purify – Cleanses all common crowd-control debuffs and provides a 2-second immunity to further crowd control, draw in and knockback effects. Use this to prevent yourself from getting CC-chained to death. As of patch 7.35 Purify is now a cost of 2500 MP with every use and can be recast every 4s.

With the amount of crowd-control abilities, try not to be trigger-happy when using Purify. Taking a stun with no follow up from the enemy team, doesn't bring you in danger! If you have no defensives ready against a crowd-control heavy enemy team, it's recommended to play defensively before making another engage.

3.5.

Sprint

Sprint – Toggle for increased movement speed. This is a GCD and using any other action cancels the buff, so be smart in using it. Sage is a fragile job, as it has the lowest HP out of any job. If you are using off-global abilities repeatedly while running away or chasing, you should try to late-weave them if you can afford to, to avoid canceling too much of the Sprint duration.

Cascade and Fountain are Dancer's basic actions, dealing 5000 and 6000 damage respectfully, and sharing the same 15 yalm radius. These are your down-time abilities to poke at the enemy team that also upgrade into your stronger versions — Reverse Cascade and Fountainfall.

Starfall Dance is one of your main buffing abilities that deals 12,000 damage in a straight line with a 25 yalm reach. Both you and the player designated as your Dancer Partner ( Closed Position) will receive a 25% movement speed boost for the next 5 seconds.

This makes Starfall Dance a very powerful engagement tool for you and the selected team member and doubles as an effective tool for chasing down a weakened target.

Fan Dance is similar to your Starfall Dancer. Rather then being a straight line attack, Fan Dance is a cone-shaped AoE that deals 4,000 damage to all targets within 15 yalms. The secondary effects reduces damage taken by 20% for both you and your Dancer Partner for the next 5 seconds.

Fan Dance can be a life saver for your Dancer Partner and combos well with your Starfall Dance, applying both a speed and defensive buff that is amazing with heavy hitters such as tanks and melee. In a mode such a Crystalline Conflict, this buff is perfect to save squishier backline team mates such as a Scholar. For example, as you can trigger the effect on your Dancer Partner without being near them so long as you are in combat.

Honing Dance is a two-part action that upon activation will cause your character to spin while unleashing a flurry of strikes on nearby enemies within 6 yalms and deals 4,000 damage with every hit. Your movement speed will increase by 50% and will also receive a damage reduction of 25% for the next 3 seconds. Each strike applies a stack of Acclaim up to a maximum of 4.

Once the timer is up or if you reactive manually you will trigger the effect of Honing Ovation, dealing damage and granting yourself a shield based on the Acclaim stack count. The damage increases 1,000 per stack, starting at 2,000 with no Acclaim stacks, up to 6,000 damage for all four stacks.

Honing Dance works amazingly well into crowds with the right timing. Use Fan Dance beforehand, granting a 45% damage taken reduction, then throw Bravery into that mix for a further 25% damage and damage taken reduction and this will enable you to both take and deal some serious damage. Honing Dance is also your main follow up after your Limit Break ( Contradance).

Reverse Cascade is your upgraded Cascade, unlocked by activating En Avant while your Cascade is ready, dealing 7,000 damage to your target. Reverse Cascade also triggers Bladecatcher. If you already have the effect of Bladecatcher active from Fountainfall, the action will upgrade to Saber Dance.

Fountainfall is very much the same as Cascade, only this time it is unlocked by dashing with En Avant while your Fountain ready. Both share the same 15 yalm range with the key difference bring damage dealt; 7,000 for ReverseCascade and 8,000 for Fountainfall.

Fountainfall also applies the Bladecatcher buff, and if already active changes to Saber Dance. What this means is so long as you use either Reverse Cascade or Fountainfall in any order, the second one will always upgrade into Saber Dance.

Saber Dance is your AoE follow up following the previous two actions, with a 15 yalm range dealing 12,000 to all targets within 5 yalms of the first target. For the next 10 seconds you and your Dance Partner will receive a 10% damage buff. This combos very nicely with your Starfall Dance and Fan Dance, stacking buffs upon buffs.

Within both Crystalline Conflict and Frontline you need to carefully decide when to utilize this bonus damage, since accessing this action requires two of your four dashes from your movement ability En Avant. Losing access to a movement skill as a ranged class could result in death if you're unable to break away from opposing melee players.

Dance of the Dawn is one of the most unique actions. This skill has a 25 yalm range with a 5 yalm radius dealing 16,000 damage to all enemies struck by it. Both you and your Dance Partner receive a 10% damage boost as well. The best part about Dance of the Dawn is both yourself and your Dancer Partner receive bonus Limit Break charge.

The hard part is gaining access to Dance of the Dawn in the first place. To obtain it, you first need to prime Saber Dance – to put this simply, using the order of En Avant → attack → En Avant → attack, followed by your Dance Partner obtaining a KO, this will grant you the effect of Solo Step. Only under these conditions will Dance of the Dawn unlock. This means if you want the most procs with Dance of the Dawn you want to Dance Partner jobs such as Bard, Reaper, Ninja, Warrior Viper and Machinist; the better your partner is at securing kills, the more Dance of the Dawns you will have access to.

Closed Position is how to setup the Dancer Partner bonus with any party member. This can be cast from 30 yalms with a recast time of 1 second, meaning you are not locked into the same Dance Partner and you're able to switch if you feel another could benefit from the bonus effects more.

In a mode such as Frontline you will be typically placing this on powerful classes to gain access to Dance of the Dawn more often, or as a small group you would use this to setup stronger coordinated plays. Within Crystalline Conflict, switching Dance Partner is more common. For example, you might want to throw it on your tank who engages the opening fight before switching Dance Partner to a squishy such as a White Mage that is getting jumped in your backline.

En Avant is the Dancer's movement ability which can hold up to four charges. This skill acts as a dash reaching 10 yalms in the direction you are facing. En Avant is the Trigger to upgrading both Cascade and Fountain to the Reverse Cascade and Fountainfall variants.

En Avant is the main action you need to learn how to manage. When used too aggressively for combat, you could be left vulnerable with no means of escape from being burst down by melee jobs, while on the other hand holding onto them too much could leave your team without the damage follow up that could mean the difference between a KO and the player escaping.

Curing Waltz is the Dancer's unique healing ability which works in tandem with your Closed Position and can be used no matter how far you are from your Dance Partner. Upon use, both yourself and your Dancer Partner will cast an AoE heal with a 5 yalm radius from your locations healing everyone within range for 8,000.

This means positioning matters. When using Curing Waltz you could stick with your ranged members while your Dance Partner goes into melee=range, allowing you to provide a fast heal during a team fight. This also means since the effect actives twice both from yourself and your Dancer Partner. When stacked up, you can double the healing effect to 16,000 which could be life saving in moments such as when a Dark Knight pulls players together with Salted Earth.

Contradance is considered one of the, if not the, most powerful Limit Break in all of PvP with a 15 yalm radius cast around yourself all enemies fall under the effect of Seduction, rendering all stuck and unable to control their character. This includes the use off any actions for the next 2 seconds. This Seduced effect can be extended by a further 2 seconds by dealing damage to charmed targets making your Honing Dance the perfect follow up to extend the Seduction.

The ability to control an entire alliance makes you a high priority target which is why Dancers often partner up with Dark Knights for the perfect synergy. Playing Dancer for the Limit Break solo is its own challenge; should your team not engage, you will find landing the Limit Break to be a real struggle.

No matter the situation, you can increase your odds of a successful Limit Break by increasing your defensive by using Fan Dance first. Within Frontline, you can also include the Bravery. Some time and practice is required to master this Limit Break as it also lengthy animation with you being vulnerable during those first 2 seconds.

Your Role Action selection consists of Dervish, Bravery and the Eagle Eye Shot. Dervish can be a interesting pick with a coordinated team as you could provide a 33% movement speed increase which can stack with your Dance Partner when using Starfall Dance for a combined 58% movement speed boost that would be very effective when running the Dancer/Dark Knight duo.

Secondly, Eagle Eye Shot, while amazing with Bard and Machinist, lacks the same burst potential with Dancer. The 40 yalm range is not as beneficial since Dancers on average are with 15 yalms off the enemy team which often times means you only use Eagle Eye Shot to finish off a already weakened target.

The best pick for Dancer's by far is the Bravery for the 25% increase to damage dealt and 25% reduction in damage taken. This not only makes your Burst stronger but makes landing your Limit Break a lot easier, with the added bonus you can cast Bravery onto a party member used on your Dance Partner and you setup from seriously good buffed combo's.

Dancer is a Supportive DPS role designed to work alongside at least one other player with a few easy to remember rotations.

The rotation below is a boosting combo with Bravery being optional that can be applied you either yourself or your Dancer Partner, powering them up further.

1. Bravery - Only within Frontlines
2. Starfall Dance
3. Fan Dance

This second combo is the typical rotation used when mixing in your movement abilities that doubles as access to your Dance of the Dawn action.

1. En Avant
2. Reverse Cascade
3. En Avant
4. Fountainfall
5. Saber Dance - this will be the option 90% of the time
6. Dance of the Dawn - this will override SaberDance if active

This skill combo maximises both damage and survivability to fully utilise the AoE damage from your Honing Dance.

1. Bravery - only within Frontlines
2. Starfall Dance
3. Fan Dance
4. Honing Dance

This final combo is the best way to use your Limit Break with the highest chance off success without being KO'd during use.

1. Bravery
2. Starfall Dance
3. Fan Dance
4. Contradance
5. Honing Dance

This first Macro allows you to cast Bravery upon your focus target being a nice additional to have access to.

/micon "Bravery" pvpaction
/pvpaction "PVP Role Action" <f> <f>

This next macro is a Target-of-Target macro that will switch Dance Partner to the player your target is attacking.

/merror off
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <tt>
/quickchat "Dance Partner"
/micon "Closed Position" pvpaction <f>

This third macro follows the theme off the second only difference is this will attempt to apply Closed Position on whoever your mouse is currently on be it the player themselves or there name in the party list.

/merror off
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/pvpac "Closed Position" <mo>
/micon "Closed Position" pvpaction <f>