The Last Dance: Gearing Paradigms For A New Age

:P

Sorry Byrth!

Saber Dance
Recast time reduced from five minutes to three.
Additional merit points no longer reduce casting time, but instead increase the effect duration of sambas.

Fan Dance
Recast time reduced from five minutes to three.
Additional merit points no longer reduce casting time, but instead reduce waltz recast times.

Yay we got our reduced waltz timers!!!

...oh...wait.... >_>

interesting............wth though lol. i'm not sure fan is worth the 5/5 and it kind of screws 5/5 saber in that if the fan reduction is good enough to fully merit, it kills the AF2+2 legs

edited for mass derp...its late lol sorry

Reduced waltz timers are a support-role kinda' deal. It's nothing short of negation to reduce your waltz timers at the cost of your sambas while supporting anything.

Yeah, if I'm playing a supporting role then I will certainly want to be providing Samba. Ugh though, it makes me want to cap all our Tier 2 merits much more because it really will be situationally useful.

I'm really not sad about increased samba duration at all, as long as its substantial. It'd be awesome to pump my Sambas up to like 4-5 minutes.

Hmm... so they basically combine it as a samba/waltz duration/recast merit?

Am I being too skeptical that they might nerf the samba/waltz duration/recast on saber/fan dance mode and a full merit of saber/fan dance will bring back the samba/waltz duration/recast timer to normal ?

EDIT: derped a bit on duration.

PvP Dancer just got a whole lot sweeter.

I love how they decrease waltz recast times on the ability that increases our enmity, lol.

At first I was a little disheartened with the increased Samba duration, but then I realized that even if it were 3 mins, that would be pretty awesome. Would have the same recast as Saber, so that would be pretty nice.

Fan Dance sounds cool I guess, but without 2hour TP cost negation or Haste Samba, recast can only go so far before you chew through your tp. On the flip side, if I am using Fan Dance, it is probably because I have reasons to cure.

Not changing merits because AF2+2 pants though.

We're Paladins in disguise!

Picked up a Thaumas hat last night, since it serves double duty on COR!

Except we can actually hold hate.

This is kind of a perfect update for SE at this point.

They decreased the potential of the average Dancer with this update, because the good Dancers get very slightly better and the bad Dancers (the kind that lean on Fan Dance and Waltzes because they don't know how to use Utsusemi) get much worse. Yet both groups are happy.

Bravo, SE. Bravo!

I know most of you will frown at this but... I am beginning to take my dancer in the direction of PvP so this is an amazing update for me. 3 minute Fan Dance will allow me the option of throwing some merits into CP which will make the Relic +2 feet a very nice PvP piece with the additional evasion and accuracy (though most of the time I will not be face to face, but when I am the bonus will be nice and the store TP will be nice too). Alternatively if I go the 5/5 Fan Dance route, lower recast on Healing Waltz in PvP will be AMAZING. Against most melee in PvP who don't know how to manage MP I won't even have to worry about Fan Dance getting dispelled, so add in Relic +2 hands for the evasion and +5% PDT and ... oh god brb I just creamed myself.

I would definitely just dispel fan dance :P

Yup, against *most* *good* players, this is what will happen. Against a lot of people I have fought though I can usually hold out on Fan Dance until they are lower on MP at which point I either Violent Flourish > Aspir them or just wipe their MP pool with energy drain and then pop away.

This will never, ever, ever, happen against Urteil though :(

Can you steal fan dance with Absorb-Attri?

I asked Urt and he said no, same for Saber. He listed off a few but I can't remember them all but I think it was most of the merit abilities.

:| Yet certain mobs can steal my Saber Dance and then kick my *** with it.

When mobs steal haste samba, they don't seem to be able to "use" it. Can mobs actually benefit from saber dance?

Not that I've ever observed. Mobs usually don't gain the effects of most stolen JAs.

Chickcharney definitely gained my Fan Dance a few times. :<

Few questions about Rudra Gear:

Here is my current set for Climactic Rudra:

Jupiter's = +6 Attack
Warwolf = +5 Attack

I know about the obvious upgrades like Athos Hands/Body, Neo-Nyzul Feet, etc. (My vw luck leaves much to be desired except for lolCoruscanti.) My questions are more related to upgrades that are less obvious.

I was playing around with a spreadsheet I made, and at least for /war purposes, Rajas + Jupiter's > other combo's involving Epona's due to the higher DA from /war or Saber.

But aside from that, the big questions I have are:
Toci's vs Loki's and Prosilio vs Cuch/Warwolf

From what I am seeing, against mobs with high vit, Toci's seems to win against Loki's due to the large amount of STR/atk in spite of the Crit damage increase. I am curious if Toci's would be worth using this over Loki (or maybe even Athos) if Pil were so generous enough as to drop it for me. (Lost count after around 300 or so.)

For Warwolf vs Cuch, they are basically the same, but it appears that Prosilio wins in all situations. I am just curious on other people's thoughts on this.

Anyways thanks in advance.

Nice Augments, mind if I have you pick my Bonanza numbers for me this year?

Hokay so. Insaniac reported that Fan Dance gives Waltz Recast -5% per merit level (past the first) and Saber Dance gives +5% Samba duration per merit level (past the first).

I am assuming both times are floored and applied after duration extending/recast reducing gear, so we're looking at:

5/5 Saber Dance w/ AF1 head: 144 second Samba

5/5 Fan Dance w/ Recast hat:
Waltz 3: 6 seconds
Waltz 4: 12 seconds
Waltz 5: 16 seconds
Healing: 10 seconds

Meh.

   _____  /   _____       _____     ___     ______     _____     ____    
  / ___//    / ___//     / ___//   / _ \\  |      \\  |  ___||  |  _ \\  
 /___ \\    /___ \\      \___ \\  / //\ \\ |  --  //  | ||__    | |_| || 
  /   //     /   //      /    // |  ___  |||  --  \\  | ||__    | .  //  
 /___//     /___//      /____//  |_||  |_|||______//  |_____||  |_|\_\\  
`----`     `----`      `-----`   `-`   `-` `------`   `-----`   `-` --`  
                                                                         
 _____       ___      _  _     _____     _____   
|  __ \\    / _ \\   | \| ||  / ____||  |  ___|| 
| |  \ ||  / //\ \\  |  ' || / //---`'  | ||__   
| |__/ || |  ___  || | .  || \ \\___    | ||__   
|_____//  |_||  |_|| |_|\_||  \_____||  |_____|| 
 -----`   `-`   `-`  `-` -`    `----`   `-----`  
                                                 
  ______     ___      ____      _____   __    __    _____     ____    
 /_____//   / _ \\   |  _ \\   |  ___|| \ \\ / //  |  ___||  |  _ \\  
 `____ `   | / \ ||  | |_| ||  | ||__    \ \/ //   | ||__    | |_| || 
 /___//    | \_/ ||  | .  //   | ||__     \  //    | ||__    | .  //  
 `__ `      \___//   |_|\_\\   |_____||    \//     |_____||  |_|\_\\  
 /_//       `---`    `-` --`   `-----`      `      `-----`   `-` --`  
 `-`                                                                  

^

Now if only I could convince the OF people of it.

Fan Dance augment is cool, but not worth taking merits out of useful stuff.

I desire 3 minute Haste Samba to match Saber Dance recast... SE, you disappoint me.