Making Dancers interesting

[gasm]

Dancers have always been my favourite class, since I am a dancer myself. But their moveset disappointed me so much in how lame it was. She dances in place and it magically hits every enemy on the map? LAME.

So I want to redo the dancer to make her interesting, and actually add the flare she was previously missing to make her an actual dancer.

First thing is first, her class evasion must be higher. When I imagine a dancer on the battle field, I imagine the dancer dodging moves while pulling off awesome dance moves. I want to give innate weapon guard, but I don't know if it will trigger while the dancer is dancing. The dances are going to be in your face, so I don't want the dancer to be fragile AND easy to hit.

Onto the abilities. I wanted to make these like real dances, so there will be two types of abilities. The ballroom dances, which are 1 on 1 dances. They each have 1 range/0 radius. The point is that the dancer is dancing with the target. The second are group dances. With 0 range/2 radius. These make all surrounding units join in on the dance.

All of the abilities will have low CT, and weak damage, but will focus on inflicting status as a means of harming or helping the target. It's hard to explain, so without further ado, the actual abilities. (disclaimer: all numbers are experimental now, balancing will come)

Salsa - This fiery dance is sure to get your heart pumping, but don't get too caught up or you will feel the burn - 1 range - CT 2 - MP 2 - dmg MA*1 - chance to inflict oil - fire element - fire animation

Quick Step - The speedy dance is as quick as lightning, the only way to escape is to be faster - 1 range - CT 1 - MP 1 - dmg MA*1 - chance to inflict haste - lightning element - bolt animation

Blue Danube - Get caught up in this chilling waltz, and you will lose more than just track of time - 1 range -CT 3 - MP 1 - dmg MA*1 - chance to inflict slow - ice element - ice animation

Wind Waltz - Round and round you go, where you stop, nobody knows - This one hasn't been working. I am trying to go for a knockback affect in order to escape the barrage, but I can't get a knockback affect to happen. Need help on this one.

Tribal - A tribal dance used to cause participants to levitate using earth shattering stomps. What doesn't go up, is going down. - 0 range 2 radius - CT 3 - MP 1 - dmg MA*1 - chance to inflict float - earth element - local quake animation

Rain Dance - Flavor pending, this one doesn't make much sense thematically, lol. 0 range 2 radius - CT 3 - MP 1 - dmg MA*1 - chance to inflict reflect - water element - water ball animation

Pasa Doble - The dance of the bullfighter, challenges the foe to a duel they can't afford to lose - 1 range - CT 8 - MP 0 - weapon dmg - chance to inflict berserk/don't move


I think these abilities are so awesome and have so much potential. I have given them 30 minutes of testing and Tribal and Rain dance seem to be working perfectly. The first three have too low of a chance to inflict their statuses. Which formula is best for this? Wind Waltz seems like a dud, since I doubt I will be able to get knockback to work. Pasa Doble doesn't hit things, I'll probably be able to figure it out with a little bit of effort.

So what does everyone think of these skills, and can anyone help me with the skills I am having trouble getting to work?

[LastingDawn]

Great to see you back Gasm! As for the skills, they are quite unique, but keep in mind the most you can have a chance to hit without using one of the overly special formulas is 25% chance to inflict the status.  Also your Earth dance will only hit once, if Float is applied, since Float cancels the Earth Element.

[The Damned]

These are rather interesting ideas. I say that even though I'm almost the complete opposite of you: I hate dancing and think it's mostly stupid (and I would think so even if I weren't incredibly clumsy at times) and that Dancers are kind of similarly kind of stupid between Slow Dance (at least Speed Break is single-targeting) and Nameless Dance (being capable of Frogging people).

That said, I find it great that you're trying to nerf them while giving them realistic dances. You're right in that Rain Dance--do a Splash Attack, Magikarp!--doesn't really fit thematically; I would say that's more because it's a Native American dance rather than not a real one.

(On that note, Tribal also doesn't fit and not just because it's as self-defeating as LastingDawn noted. The other should be fine, but I'm not sure where Waltzes originated from--they are probably European, though.)

It would probably be better for you to stick to European dances, which you should have a good idea about since you say you're a dancer, if you want there to be theme outside of all of them being dances.

Besides that, I noticed on a second look through that these all kind of do pathetic damage. They are only slightly better than Wiznaibus, except that Wiznaibus would always do better damage since it hit every enemy on the battlefield and couldn't be dodged. While understand the principle of this and the fact that it probably is meant to stack with your idea of keeping EV possible while Performing, that currently doesn't work right now. (Although I would agree that it could be a great idea if we could implement it.)

Speaking of Performing, I'm curious, what slots are you using? I ask because when I briefly tested out a new Song and a new Dance, I tried to use the Song and Dance slots so that the character would still be appropriately Performing rather than merely Charging. However, I noticed the formula used doesn't take status and yet all of your attacks attempt to add status, so I'm just curious what you're using slot-wise?

Finally, with regards to evasion, I have to disagree with you that they need more C-EV. They already have Cloths.

[Archael]

They have Cloths, but no innate Weapon Guard

:\

if they had innate Weapon Guard then they would have huge evasion

but they don't

[Vanya]

Those are some interesting ideas.

[gasm]

Great to see you back Gasm! As for the skills, they are quite unique, but keep in mind the most you can have a chance to hit without using one of the overly special formulas is 25% chance to inflict the status.  Also your Earth dance will only hit once, if Float is applied, since Float cancels the Earth Element.

Yeah, I know, that's the point. With the CT of each spell as low as it is, there will be like 3-5 shots of the spell firing off before some people can get a shot to move. The float status is added so the victim can escape the damage of the dance. Its like how all the other dances work. Some add effects to increase their damage (salsa adding oil, which adds a weakness to fire (or did I just imagine that up?), and blue danube slowing the enemy to make them take more hits) while others give give the target an out (immuning them with float/reflect, speeding them up so they can move with haste) in exchange for exceptionally low CT (quick step) or drawout range tribal/rain dance.

And the reason I said rain dance didn't fit the theme was because water adding reflect doesn't make as much sense as the others. I think it fits very well theme wise that ballroom dances function very similar, while native dances  both function differently from the ballroom ones.

Re: the damage being pathetic, remember, with its low CT it is gonna be hitting many times before the target can escape the dance. MA*1 may not be threatening, but MA*1*6 could be. Anyway, the damage can easily be increased.

I guess I was going a bit overboard with the C-EV, I was mainly focusing on getting the dancer to survive while being right in the enemy's face, but since evading can't be done while performing, I'll have to do something else to make them less fragile.

And for the slots, I just put the new dance moves over the old dance slots and it seems to be working fine.

[The Damned]

And for the slots, I just put the new dance moves over the old dance slots and it seems to be working fine.

They actually are capable of inflicting status?

Hmm...I might need to go back and test Dancer (and Bard) a lot more extensively, then. Anyway, you are correct about the CT and damage thing. I somehow forgot about Persevere.

Hmmm....

[gasm]

And for the slots, I just put the new dance moves over the old dance slots and it seems to be working fine.

They actually are capable of inflicting status?

Haste, Float, and Reflect all worked. I'll have to test the others more, I only gave them like 5 or 6 shots without them inflicting status. I'll get back to you if they all inflict a status.

EDIT: Yeah, all of them ended up inflicting their status.

[Vanya]

About the knock-back thing. I believe that knock back is tied to the Rush and Stone slots rather than any formula. I don't think anyone has found where the knock back (or stat specific) data is defined yet. ^_^

[The Damned]

EDIT: Yeah, all of them ended up inflicting their status.

Hunh. That's interesting....

Then that means that all slots of the Dancer (and probably Bard) abilities ignore the NS abilities on the end of the formulas. That's odd since only Nameless Song needs it, but I'm certainly not going to complain (for once).

Great job, then. This is somewhat what I wanted to turn my Dancer into as well, outside of the realistic dances since I know nothing about dancing--do you mind if I call on you later?

[Archael]

Making Dancers interesting

Assassins

I win

[The Damned]

Assassins are rather boring considering they are 100% effective or completely blocked. There's no risk with anything.

You lose.

Fission mailed.

[DarthPaul]

He might have been referring to the FFTA assassins.

[The Damned]

God, those were even worse.

Seriously, letting generics have control of high chances to instantly cause Petrify or Death to anything alongside Sleep, Slow and Silence?

"Advance" my ass.

[DarthPaul]

Hehe I get your point and it was advanced as in on the GBA not advanced game play cause god know the judges ruined the fun of the game.

[The Damned]

Hehe I get your point and it was advanced as in on the GBA not advanced game play cause god know the judges ruined the fun of the game.

That too.

It was also advanced in terms of system mechanics, since FFT doesn't really use the usual system mechanics (like defense, dexterity, etc.) while FFTA does. Yet they squandered it so god-damned badly.

[DarthPaul]

At least they gave the game a good story to offset the sub par gameplay it still rates a 6/10 in my books.

[The Damned]

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. I was never a fan of Neverending Story as a kid--okay, that's probably not true, but it's been so long that I certainly don't remember being a fan--and I certainly wasn't happy to learn that's what I was getting with a long-awaited sequel to one of my favorites game, a game that ironically made realize said favorite game wasn't going to actually get its own sequel.

(Damn you, X-2, for not only bringing about hopeless dreams but also needlessly tieing in with FFVII...apparently.)


Anyway, in an effort to actually be on point, I like to say that I'm retarded for not realizing why the NS wasn't getting in the way of these dances: the formula had to have been changed.

Geez, I am brainless.

[HatterMadigan]

Oh, um I agree with you.. Rain Dance is soo native american... you could put rain dance on another, more earthly and/or spiritual job, like War Chief or something.... and if you want to still have water, which is actually my favorite element, then you could change the name to Tidal Tango. Or Tsunami Tango. And a cool effect that could be added for that is Slow, because is water you move slower than on land. OOOO I might steal this idea... is that ok?

[Dormin Jake]

Water Rondo.  A la FF6.