[sadbot]

After seeing no talk of it for a while and being reminded in epic fashion of dancer's insane damage numbers last night in a pvp match, I figured that I would make a fresh thread on the subject. There are a few main points to cover here, so I will try to separate them into their own sections to make what will likely end up as a big wall of text slightly more coherent.

1) First and foremost, dancer's damage numbers are incredibly broken. Like really, they're not even close to ok. I'll give my example from last night, then go into a little more detail:

I was hit with a pair of thunder step hits for 112 damage each, if memory serves. Considering that this was through about 57% total magic dr and 7 magic armor, that means that the total damage for that thunder step was around 555. As far as I can tell, there were no damage modifiers at play here besides dancer's own kit, namely dance crits and max/close to max tempo. If you work backwards from there, that means that the baseline total damage for this skill before dr was about 342, give or take 5-10 either way for the somewhat rough calculations.

In my experience, 250 total damage before dr would be considered quite high damage for the average 3m attack on most builds except those going down the big number rabbit hole at major expense of other parts of their build. This is more than double that amount when set up, and nearly 140% of that amount at pure baseline with no tempo or crits at all, when that 250 number is usually after all the damage multipliers said builds can muster. This is not even close to okay. As an additional note, this kind of thunder step damage comes from about 72 lightning attack, not even that high by the standards of a class that only needs to build elemental attack for damage and gets a passive boost to all elemental attack that scales up to +12. Taking that into consideration when this thunder step was at or close to max tempo, this build had about 60 lightning attack, pretty mediocre by all standards. My numbers could end up being way off here, but I'm pretty sure it was Appo's dancer and I invite them to correct me if so. Regardless, these numbers are so insanely high that even if I am quite a bit off on something, the point stands.

This absolutely absurd damage comes down to two things. Firstly, the pure elemental scaling of dance skills is way too high, especially when you consider that most of them are movement skills with good range as well. Secondly, dancer has more passive damage multipliers built into the class than any other by a large margin, between crits and tempo. Lets look at some of the more common dance skills using the previously mentioned 60 elemental attack, incredibly low by dancer standards, just to make a point:

• Ice step - 70% ice attack, hits up to 5 times. That's 42 x 5 = 210. Add 25% for crits = 262. Add another 30% for max tempo = 340.
  
• Thunder step - 200% lightning attack, hits up to 2 times. That's 120 x 2 = 240. Add 25% for crits = 300. Add another 30% for max tempo = 390.
  
• Idol step. Let's see how that nerf measured up, and assume that it's all on one target so every hit beyond the first does half damage. 150% light attack, hits 5 times. 4 Half damage hits essentially makes it the same damage as hitting 3 times total. That's 90 x 3 = 270. Add 25% for crits = 337. Add another 30% for max tempo = 438. And this one does a big heal too!
  

Without even trying, these damage numbers go from matching the best of them at the low end without any crits or tempo, to absolutely insane with them. I can confidently say that most well built dancers can hit base elemental attacks 10-20 higher than this, before their passive tempo buff is even taken into account. Considering that the crit only numbers require no setup at all, you could cut dance skill scaling by a third across the board and the numbers would still go from average-high to nutty as you stack tempo. I don't wanna sound complacent or encourage toxicity here, but I'm honestly just left scratching my head at how people can defend this, or how it has remained this way without a nerf (or a much more substantial nerf in the case of a couple of things). This stuff makes freshly release rune mage look balanced.

2) Dancer's have too much in their toolkit. Lets take a look at some of the most relevant stuff here:

Bard

• A passive +6 stat buff in their base class, the only one of its kind.
  
• A solid heal in their base class that's baseline is 125 and higher with song buffs, no scaling stat required. Aid eat your heart out.
  
• 10% sound resistance and 15% silence inflict resistance, for 1 skill point each.
  
• a 10% fp reduction to the cost of their base class skills, taking the edge off of one of their biggest weaknesses in rising fp costs as they gain tempo.
  

Dancer

• Massive damage across the board and movement options while they dish out said massive damage, as stated in the previous section.
  
• 2 more heals, each scaling up past 150. One is a dance with massive damage alongside, the other offering an equally substantial fp heal. Though they are more situational and don't rival them in healing numbers, Dancer has more skills that provide substantial instant heals than priest at this point.
  
• 2 negative status cures. 1 for immobilizing effects, the other for up to 3 of any other kind. Though both carry hefty cooldowns, There are fairly irrelevant with the breakneck speed of dancer's fights thanks to its damage. Hopefully this will be fine if that's fixed.
  
• an 80-85% chance to dodge all skill projectiles with no off switch or counter play of any kind, as long as they're an evade dancer.
  
• A 25% and 30% damage multiplier, the first only requiring some crit building and the second stacking passively as they attack. The only downside is high fp costs along with the rest of the class, which are largely mitigated by dancer not having to build weapon scaling and often dumping will and/or faith/san to their heart's content.
  
• The ability to inflict a variety of status effects with signature step, often at very high likelihoods. Multiple infliction checks at lower but passable chances due to dance skills' multihits and dancer's often will dumped base infliction rates make them essentially guaranteed against those without high status res.
  
• A free +15 evade for the next attack every time they dance.
  
• The ability to ignore momentum loss from hitting elemental resist, absorb and immunity.
  

It's hard for me to outline any prospective changes in this section, due to the main point being that Dancer just has too much going for it. The only thing that I can easily suggest is that some of these things be reduced or removed in favor of something that helps with their hit problems, making them less powerful overall but more accessible without min maxed building.

3) Dancer's answers to its counters are too powerful and plentiful. The big three are these:

• Immobilize and similar effects. This isn't as much of a glaring issue as it used to be, now that one of them counts as a movement skill and can't be used to cure immobilizing effects. However, the one that does also tacks on a 3 round immunity. In combination with dancer's current damage ending fights at breakneck speed, that's enough to make them essentially immune to immobilizing effects. I would hope that this one won't really be an issue if that's gotten under control.
  
• High fp costs. As mentioned above, this legitimate weakness can be focused down to the point of not mattering due to dancer's not needing to concern themselves with weapon scaling. They're encouraged to dump will for widespread elemental attack bonuses anyway, and often have points left for faith and san besides. Rest beat, some fp regen stacking or support from a second class makes this weakness a non issue in many cases.
  
• lack of hit buffs/evade debuffs. The only thing in the entire game that Dancer actually doesn't have an answer to. It's gr2, them and a third of the other classes in the game. Welcome to the club. I'd like to note that this unanswered weakness is the usual point of defense for the asinine damage numbers that dancer throws around, but lackluster hit chances hardly excuse doing double the damage of every other build without even trying. This should be addressed nonetheless, as it should for every other class with little to no hit buffs/evade debuffs of some variety.
  

I think that about covers it. Feel free to tell me how right or wrong I am or add your own points. I just felt the need to get it out there as it seems like it received a couple of nerfs that did little to tackle the main issue of damage and now it's just being accepted as is and balance focus is elsewhere, when it still seems like one of the most overpowered things I've ever seen in Sl2 as of right now.

[Autumn]

As I brought up before in my previous post (https://neus-projects.net/forums/showthr...p?tid=9042), you don't need Impure Element to skyrocket the damage potential of this class, all you need are mage stats generally. The elemental scaling potentiality versus a single target is extremely high, and needs to be toned down, perhaps introducing an element where an opponent will take 50% less damage from subsequent hits may be for the best.

But as of currently, this class still has the potential to be able to completely roll you over in a 1v1 scenario on merit of having more damage than any other class. I don't generally agree with balancing around only 1v1 scenarios but this class has it all, also that you can apply the same logic when Dancer manages to catch an isolated target in a teamfight.

[renowner]

First of all I think this was a well written and thought out post. And I do agree that dancers are pushed over the edge due to just everything they get. If it was just a short ranged attack, MAYBE thunder steps could get away with it. But the fact that its also high range, also movement, has no cooldown, and can crit. . . It just gets crazy.

The damage needs to be toned down, I think no matter what. (And I also think that impure element has been ruining the game for years and just needs to go, but that's another topic)

But other options on top of that could be to give the skills some cooldowns. Or to make it so using the same dance over and over weakens it. After all, a performer who's just dancing the same two steps over and over again is going to be pretty boring to watch!

[Snake]

Or maybe reduce those absurd scalings and make it require SAN too, as intended for a Sound-based class like we'd expect from Bard. They're, as is, a bunch of Skill Mages with those scalings, without the drag limitation of having to use a Tome or SWA in general.

SAN is not a bad stat, but SAN also prevents them from bass boosting into specific stats and adding more icing on top, such as Luminary Element or Impure Element.

Don't forget that basic hitters get counter-acted by LUC and GUI, so Bard and its promotions should need another form of stat tax, and lo, there you have it, SAN, the juicy boy that'll fix all of Bard's problems.

A more basic example of what I mean could be put as simple as:

Thunder Steps
60% Lightning ATK, 60% Sound ATK.
70% Lightning ATK, 70% Sound ATK.
80% Lightning ATK, 80% Sound ATK.
90% Lightning ATK, 90% Sound ATK.
100% Lightning ATK, 100% Sound ATK.

[WaifuApple]

Alright, since I've been named here, I'd like to express the numbers provided for my lightning ATK are definitely off the mark. Around 60 at max tempo is absolutely false, and I've brought the numbers I'm running, just to make that much clear.

With no Redgull, no Tempo:


No Redgull, Max Tempo:


Redgull, no Tempo:


Redgull, max Tempo:


I was always closer to 70 and 80 than I was to 60, even at my lowest point of lightning attack in the battle. That's at least a full 20 more damage per hit considering the way Thunder Steps scales. And that's on the lower end of how much higher than 60 the numbers get.

Factoring in the bard passives and healing that REQUIRE an instrument, something Dancer innately does not need whatsoever, and is unlikely to be bringing with them, is a bit odd to me regarding their merits, as while yes, the technical possibility is there, it is not exactly likely - the weapon a dancer carries is more than likely to be tied to whatever other class they're running, rather than just an instrument.

Dancer having a way around the counterplay of immobilise is fine, honestly. Curate has a counterplay for silence shutdowns, and so, to an extent, does mage. This is just how I believe it should be, rather than giving them no options to deal with things that literally render the class unplayable.

Scalings may be a little high, but to be honest I don't even think that in all cases. Regarding thunder steps specifically, the attack falls properly in line damage wise with other stuff if you consider it hitting two people. The problem is that the attack can be used to double-tap one person. One tap and retreat, or one tap on two people... is fine, damage wise, honestly, if you were to consider the damage potential of other things if you look at them as an AoE.

Idol Step is a bit of a monster, to be honest. The healing's still quite alright without even building faith, and spiriting it means you get a whole extra tap of damage. Even now with damage being cut on further hits, it's really good - a must have even if you're not even built for it. And if you are... well, oh boy.

Some things could definitely stand for making dancer fall in line, but nothing along the lines of a complete scaling change into San - that seems silly as an idea. Removing stuff from the class, too, doesn't sound fun or interesting for it.

[The Alpha Bat]

Hard pass on the SAN scaling. There's a reason why only a few things scale off it on bard.

SAN is a good attribute but it doesn't benefit everyone equally. Humans only get the stats from it and for corrupted it actively hurts their racials. Having it be required on a class would create an anti-synergy with those races. For a game focused on race/class freedom, do you really want that? I'm not prepared to say that humans and corrupted simply aren't as good at being bards as others. Corrupted already can't get Lovely Face and I don't want any more of that blood on my hands.


Obviously, some races have worked better with certain classes than others in the past (looking at you, Gain Air) but these classes were never dependent on certain races or, in this potential case, excluding them.

I think a more 'outside-of-the-box' approach is necessary here. Maybe something along the lines of giving bard an alternative way to gain Sound ATK.

[Trexmaster]

Dancer is feast or famine similar to how old Quickdraw setups used to be.

It gets extremely high damage with the caveat of being susceptible to several easily accessible hard counters. It's worth emphasizing that these disable Dancer almost entirely as a class.

Frozen completely shuts down a Dancer's entire kit with no counter play since Rest Beat got nerfed to be a movement skill and thus locked out with the rest of their kit. While Dance Hour can keep them safe from Immobilize/Clumsy for 3 rounds, its lengthy cooldown means if the fight goes beyond that they're helpless if they're inflicted afterwards. Grapple is similar to Frozen but offers the Dancer the ability to use a movement spell or some kind of knockback if their opponent is susceptible to it to free themselves--but unless they use a weapon with a knockback effect escaping a Grapple status will cost them all their Tempo.

Not to mention locking other players out of movement is generally powerful in and of itself, against Dancer it has the added bonus of effectively removing their class.

Dancer gibbing people as fast as old Quickdraws could is absolutely a problem, but so is how easily they can be Frozen + Clumsy/Immobilize spammed into being unplayable. Their lack of access to +hit is also an issue but that's more of a widespread problem with many classes, though Dancer doesn't have anything that ignores Evasion so they're SoL if their opponent already has or can attain an Evade number of 220-230~ or higher.

Nudging down the scalings for Thunder Steps and Ice Slide would be the easiest fixes for the damage Dancer can do, Idol Step is a weird case since it has a long cooldown and is only getting all that damage on one person reliably if there's only one person to hit. A compromise I could see for Idol Dance would be to actually increase its base scaling by 25% Light ATK but increase the same-hit penalty to 75% so hitting multiple targets is more valuable whilst wailing on one person does significantly less.

As for Dancer's Immobilize/Clumsy vulnerability, Dance Hour could afford to have its cooldown reduced by the amount of Tempo burned when its cast, as it isn't a Dance skill so it will remove all Tempo regardless at the moment. This means at max (6) Tempo, Dance Hour would go from 10 rounds cooldown to 4. If the status is applied before the Dancer can hit max Tempo the downtime will be higher as a result, so I don't think it'd be unfair.

tl;dr

Dancer does egregious damage with Ice Slide/Thunder Steps/Idol Step still but doesn't have much else going for it, being easily walled out of their class if prepared for.

[Kameron8]

Dancer is feast or famine similar to how old Quickdraw setups used to be.

It gets extremely high damage with the caveat of being susceptible to several easily accessible hard counters. It's worth emphasizing that these disable Dancer almost entirely as a class.

Frozen completely shuts down a Dancer's entire kit with no counter play since Rest Beat got nerfed to be a movement skill and thus locked out with the rest of their kit. While Dance Hour can keep them safe from Immobilize/Clumsy for 3 rounds, its lengthy cooldown means if the fight goes beyond that they're helpless if they're inflicted afterwards. Grapple is similar to Frozen but offers the Dancer the ability to use a movement spell or some kind of knockback if their opponent is susceptible to it to free themselves--but unless they use a weapon with a knockback effect escaping a Grapple status will cost them all their Tempo.

Not to mention locking other players out of movement is generally powerful in and of itself, against Dancer it has the added bonus of effectively removing their class.

Dancer gibbing people as fast as old Quickdraws could is absolutely a problem, but so is how easily they can be Frozen + Clumsy/Immobilize spammed into being unplayable. Their lack of access to +hit is also an issue but that's more of a widespread problem with many classes, though Dancer doesn't have anything that ignores Evasion so they're SoL if their opponent already has or can attain an Evade number of 220-230~ or higher.

Nudging down the scalings for Thunder Steps and Ice Slide would be the easiest fixes for the damage Dancer can do, Idol Step is a weird case since it has a long cooldown and is only getting all that damage on one person reliably if there's only one person to hit. A compromise I could see for Idol Dance would be to actually increase its base scaling by 25% Light ATK but increase the same-hit penalty to 75% so hitting multiple targets is more valuable whilst wailing on one person does significantly less.

As for Dancer's Immobilize/Clumsy vulnerability, Dance Hour could afford to have its cooldown reduced by the amount of Tempo burned when its cast, as it isn't a Dance skill so it will remove all Tempo regardless at the moment. This means at max (6) Tempo, Dance Hour would go from 10 rounds cooldown to 4. If the status is applied before the Dancer can hit max Tempo the downtime will be higher as a result, so I don't think it'd be unfair.

tl;dr

Dancer does egregious damage with Ice Slide/Thunder Steps/Idol Step still but doesn't have much else going for it, being easily walled out of their class if prepared for.

I second all of this.

[Shujin]

Idolstep feels to me still more like a finisher more, akin to Curtain call, instead of a build up move.

I think its worth considering to have it actually consume your Tempo instead, and maybe balance it around such. I do like to point out a BIG weakness of Idolstep however that flew over my radar aswell, untill I actually made my team lose because of it:
It applies Battle rush level 15 (18 with spirit). You'd think that is a buff but the moment that runs out, EVERY skill costs 15-18 more for your teammates. If your team mates do not have tons of Fp and are your average 200~ Fp guys? This actually SCREWS them over. Hard. And I think battlerush is also only for basic attacks? So it might not even benefit them. So I acutally find myself DODGING my teammates more often than not, so I won't destroy them with some heals from Idoldance(which are not even good in teamfight situtions and unreliable, only saving grace being that it also attacks). This is something that you only really realize when it happens, just how BAD that is.


Two minor things I like to point out:
"A passive +6 stat buff in their base class, the only one of its kind."
->Not true, we have a +6 Ski skill too, in Arbalest. But +6 San is almost useless on Dancer too it's just kinda there and only maybe a little useful depending on race.

"a 10% fp reduction to the cost of their base class skills, taking the edge off of one of their biggest weaknesses in rising fp costs as they gain tempo."
Only if you have one weapon and that weapon being an instrument, is sort of a strong requirement, and FP costs are still crazy high even with it, but fair.


Else I pretty much agree with Trex. I am personally bored of dancers 3 boutton rotation and an occasional rest beat.

[Snake]

snip

I second all of this.

I trecond all of this.