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The Dancer is one of Final Fantasy 14's most eloquent, fun, and rewarding jobs, with many flashy, high-damaging ranged attacks and potent healing options. Furthermore, the Dancer's PvP kit has been completely overhauled with Patch 6.1's release, allowing you to carry a lot of what makes it unique and strong over to the many PvP modes present in the game.

RELATED: Final Fantasy 14: Guide To Playing Reaper In PvP

While it can be a bit complex learning the Dancer's rhythm, its fluidity once everything finally clicks is almost unmatchable and is one of the key aspects that makes the job special in the first place. And, with the new PvP changes, the Dancer can maintain their momentum and go on graceful rampages with the correct strategy and combo structure.

Overview

The Dancer is one of the most fascinating jobs in Final Fantasy 14's PvE, and that also rings true for its PvP counterpart. Since the Dancer's role fills the Physical Ranged DPS slot, you will be expected to unleash loads of damage from a safe distance while mixing in several potent buffs and heals to help yourself, your Dance Partner, and your party stay in the battle.

Being a ranged fighter comes with lots of responsibility, especially the Dancer. Not only do you have to worry about applying crucial heals to yourself and your Dance Partner, but you also have to be mindful of your flank at all times due to it being your most prominent weak spot. Picking a Dance Partner is also essential to your success and your team's, as sticking with one who is not pulling their weight can cause severe issues for everyone.

We will cover how to overcome these obstacles and use the strengths of your kit to your advantage below while also highlighting the importance of your most crucial actions and abilities to give you a better understanding of when, where, and why you should use them.

Job Action Breakdown

A Dancer in Final Fantasy 14

The Dancer thrives at dealing significant damage from a safe distance while simultaneously being allowed to heal their teammates and give them beneficial buffs. While Patch 6.1 did change their PvP kit up quite drastically, they still retain everything that makes them a unique and eloquent threat on the battlefield. Below is everything Dancers have at their disposal that makes them a fabulous killing machine.

Action Recast Time Attack Type Information
Cascade 2.2s Weaponskill Attack with a potency of 3,000 from a distance.
Cascade becomes Reverse Cascade when under the effects of En Avant.
Fountain 2.2s Weaponskill Attack with a potency of 5,000 from a distance.
  • Combo action after Cascade or Reverse Cascade

Fountain becomes Fountainfall when under the effects of En Avant.
Starfall Dance 20s Weaponskill Attack with a potency of 10,000 to all enemies in a straight line.
Cast times and recast times of Weaponskills and spell cast times and recast times are reduced by ten percent for you and your selected Dance Partner for 10s.
Honing Dance 20s Weaponskill Launch into a barrage of chakram strikes on nearby enemies, dealing 3,000 damage over a period of time. Incoming damage will also be reduced by twenty percent for 3s. Honing Ovation will be executed whenever the 3s timer expires.
Gain a stack of Acclaim (up to four total). Acclaim increases Honing Ovation's damage and effect potency for 5s.
Fan Dance 20s Ability Attack all enemies in a cone in front of you with a potency of 5,000.
Incoming damage is reduced by ten percent for 10s for you and your Dance Partner.
Curing Waltz 20s Ability Heal yourself and nearby party members with a Cure potency of 8,000.
Your Dance Partner will also heal themself and nearby party members.
En Avant 10s Ability You swiftly dash ten yalms forward and gain the effects of En Avant for 10s. En Avant has four charges.
Closed Position 1s Ability Selects targetted party member as your Dance Partner, granting the effects of Close Position.
Closed Position allows you and your Dance Partner to share the effects of Saber Dance, Starfall Dance, Fan Dance, and Curing Waltz.
Reverse Cascade
Only when under the effect of En Avant.
2.2s Weaponskill Attack with a potency of 5,000 from a distance.
Grants the effects of Bladecatcher for 15s. - If you are already under the effects of Bladecatcher, the effect becomes Flourishing Saber Dance for 15s.
Fountainfall
Only when under the effect of En Avant.
2.2s Weaponskill Attack with a potency of 7,000 from a distance.
  • Combo action after Cascade or Reverse Cascade

Grants the effects of Bladecatcher for 15s. - If you are already under the effects of Bladecatcher, the effect becomes Flourishing Saber Dance for 15s.
Saber Dance
Only when under the effect of Flourishing Saber Dance.
2.2s Weaponskill Attack with a potency of 10,000 to your target and all surrounding enemies. When attacking a single target, your potency is increased by half.
Damage dealt by yourself and your Dance Partner increases by five percent for 10s.
Honing Ovation 2.2s Weaponskill Attack nearby enemies and erect a protective magicked barrier around nearby party members. Attack and barrier potency scale based on your stacks of Acclaim and lasts for 10s. Your attack and barrier potency doubles if your targets are within five yalms.
  • No Stacks: 1,000 Attack and Barrier Potency
  • One Stack: 2,000 Attack and Barrier Potency
  • Two Stacks: 3,000 Attack and Barrier Potency
  • Three Stacks: 4,000 Attack and Barrier Potency
  • Four Stacks: 5,000 Attack and Barrier Potency

Default Rotation

Like most jobs in the newly overhauled PvP, the Dancer's default rotation is used primarily for filling in time while waiting for your cooldowns to expire. Typically after performing your full combo. While it's not useless by any stretch, you will primarily use it to poke enemies from a distance or as a means to finish the job.

  • Cascade > Fountain

Full Combo

The Dancer has many ways to be a nuisance to their opponent in PvP, and the full combo provided below is a perfect example of how to do just that. This combo highlights the Dancer's ability to deal immense amounts of damage from a distance while also providing their Dance Partner and party with helpful buffs and heals to keep them in the fight longer.

  • (En Avant) Reverse Cascade > (En Avant) Fountainfall > Saber Dance > Fan Dance > Starfall Dance (Curing Waltz*) > Honing Dance > Fountain Combo**
    • *Curing Waltz can be moved to the front of the combo if you or your Dance Partner are low on health and can be negated entirely if no one needs to be healed.
    • **Fountain Combo is an excellent way to finish off opponents who survived your full combo, but it may not always be wise to continue pursuing them. Use this wisely, and don't overstay your welcome. If you need to retreat or regroup, do that instead!

Don't forget to choose a Dance Partner at the start of the match with your Closed Position ability. Typically, you will want to place it on your Melee DPS or Tank, but it can also be placed on someone you see popping off or playing the objective. As long as you feel your damage, defensive, and healing buffs won't be wasted, you can use it as you see fit.

Full Combo Step-By-Step Breakdown

Since you are starting the combo with En Avant, make sure you are positioned far enough away so that your dash doesn't put you in the middle of the enemy team. Ideally, you will want to cast it to land around 10 to 15 yalms away from your target since most of your attacks will be from a distance. You are only starting with this ability to ready Reverse Cascade, which you will cast immediately after using En Avant.

You will then follow Reverse Cascade up with another En Avant, but be extra careful using it to prevent yourself from launching into the enemy team. This En Avant will set up your next attack, Fountainfall, another ranged attack that deals excessive damage and allows you to flow into your following action, Saber Dance. Saber Dance will give you and your Dance Partner a five percent damage buff for ten seconds, making the rest of your combo pack a solid punch.

With your newly applied damage buff, it's time to also get some defensive buffs thrown into the mix, which is where Fan Dance comes into play. Fan Dance will reduce incoming damage by ten percent for ten seconds for you and your Dance Partner and is excellent to throw in at this stage of the combo as it will help keep you in the fight a bit longer.

Next up is an excellent mix of offensive and defensive actions, which has you following Fan Dance with Starfall Dance to deal 10,000 damage to all enemies in a straight line. This will also simultaneously grant you and your Dance Partner a ten percent decrease in cast and recast times of your Weaponskills and your spell cast and recast times. Immediately after using Fan Dance, you should follow it up with your Curing Waltz to get some much-needed heals for you and your party. Remember, if you are near your Dance Partner when using Curing Waltz, they will also passively use the action, allowing you to heal everyone in the area for 16,000 total HP.

While Curing Waltz fits best here in most situations, you can use it whenever you see fit. If you see yourself, your Dance Partner, or your team with low health during the start of your combo, you can weave it in there or can hold onto it if everyone is topped off. We only included it here to show you the ideal time to use it, as you and your team tend to be damaged when this deep into an engagement.

After using Curing Waltz (or Starfall Dance, if you used Curing Waltz earlier in the rotation or didn't need to use it), you can finish strong with Honing Dance. Honing Dance will automatically launch into Honing Ovation after the three-second window that reduces incoming damage by twenty percent expires. Depending on how many stacks of Acclaim you have accumulated, you can deal a ridiculous amount of damage here as you will still have your damage buffs from earlier applied.

If your target is still kicking at this point, you can go into your Fountain Combo, but we suggest not chasing after anyone fleeing unless your team is with you, as Dancers do not do all that well against multiple targets or in close-range encounters.

Limit Break Breakdown

The Dancer's hypnotic and smooth actions give them many unique, with their Limit Break being a prime example. Contradance charms all nearby enemies for two seconds, making them move towards you against their will. Dealing damage to charmed enemies will increase the duration of the effect by another two seconds.

Action Recast Time Information
Contradance 10s Charms nearby enemies for 2s.
Damaging charmed enemies will extend the duration of the effect by an additional 2s (the effect can only get extended once).

Contradance may not seem like that big of a deal on paper, but forcing your enemy to move toward you involuntarily for four seconds is an enormous power play. It can allow you to capitalize on the entire enemy team (especially in Crystalline Conflict). To get the most out of this Limit Break, we suggest using it in coordination with your party or including it at the start or middle of your full combo. Contradance, when used strategically, can be one of the best Limit Breaks in the game. However, it can easily be wasted and isn't a sure thing, so be patient when learning when to use it in situations.

A crucial thing to remember with Contradance is that Common Actions like Purify and Guard do not prevent you from being charmed, meaning your opponent will seldom have an answer for it. So, in moments where you need to get enemies away from an objective or want to gather them in a tight grouping for your team to use their Limit Breaks, you can more than likely use Contradance and deal damage with an AoE action to keep the effect going even longer.

Common Actions Breakdown

Every job after Patch 6.1 has access to Common Actions, which allow you to use mana to rapidly restore health, shield yourself from incoming damage, rid yourself of hazardous status effects, and more. You can find each of them and what they do below!

Action Recast Time Information
Standard-issue Elixir 5s Restores your HP and MP to their maximum values.
Cast time for the Standard-issue Elixir takes 4.5 seconds, so we recommend using it when behind cover and somewhere safe.
Recuperate 1s Instantly heal with the Cure potency of 15,000.
Recuperate is the only ability in PvP that requires MP (2,500). If you have enough MP, you can rapidly use this action to heal due to its 1s recast time.
Purify 30s Deterges the effects of Bind, Deep Freeze, Half-asleep, Heavy, Sleep, and Stun.
Successfully removing an ailment with Purify will grant you Resilience. Resilience nullifies all aforementioned effects for 5s.
Guard 30s Deploy a protective barrier around yourself for 5s that reduces all incoming damage by 90 percent. You are also immune to Bind, Deep Freeze, Half-asleep, Heavy, Sleep, Stun, Knockback, and Draw-in effects.
Guard will be interrupted whenever you use other actions and will reduce your movement speed by half.
Sprint 1.5s Your movement speed is increased drastically until casting Sprint again or performing other actions.

General Strategy

As your party's Physical Ranged DPS, your primary goal is to provide damage to the enemy team from a distance while periodically granting you, your Dance Partner, and the rest of your party excellent buffs throughout each encounter. The full combo provided above showcases the Dancer's ability to deal devastating amounts of damage while also keeping their Dance Partner and party supplied with buffs and heals weaved in.

Speaking of your Dance Partner, you absolutely need to do this step in any PvP lobby. You can do it before the match begins and switch to a new partner if the one you chose seems to be slacking or consistently ignoring the objective or your buffs. It's common to pick the Melee DPS or Tank as your Dance Partner, but you can choose anyone you see putting in the effort to make them an even more significant threat. Not only will they receive damage and defensive buffs, but they will also use Curing Waltz whenever you do, which will double its healing potency, making everyone in the area recover 16,000 HP. Your buffs are crucial to the match's outcome, so try not to waste them on a teammate that isn't cooperating.

Furthermore, even though you are a Ranged DPS job, your top priorities are to deal damage and provide your Dance Partner and party with helpful buffs and heals. Kills are obviously important in some modes, but not only is this a team effort but having a beefy kill count is not the Dancer's overall goal. Don't sweat it if someone gets away or your kill gets lifted by a teammate, and focus on accumulating a high damage count and keeping yourself, your Dance Partner, and your party from dying. There's no such thing as getting your kill stolen in Final Fantasy 14. If anything, you did what was asked of you and got the enemy's health down low enough that someone could eliminate them, and that's ultimately all that matters.

Last and certainly not least is your positioning. Due to the vast majority of your attacks being executable from a distance, you do not need to be on the frontlines or in the enemy's face. Instead, stay behind the Tank and Melee DPS at all times and periodically move up when you need to. Furthermore, constantly keep an eye out for anyone flanking, as that will be your most vulnerable position. Every map and mode will have several ways to flank and close in on enemies, so please be wary of where the enemy can come from and try your best to communicate their position to your team and fend them off.

Crystalline Conflict Strategy

While Crystalline Conflict is primarily an intense and competitive PvP mode with two teams of five, your strategy won't differ too much from what we covered above. For the most part, you will deal damage from a distance while weaving in buffs and heals to help yourself, your Dance Partner, and your party members out throughout the game. Remember, your role is crucial, especially as a Dancer, as you have access to several potent abilities that can give your team a significant advantage.

Before "The Pit" opens, you should already have casted Closed Position onto the Dance Partner of your choice, which will typically be your Melee DPS or Tank. This will keep you bound to them throughout the entire match unless you recast Closed Position and choose someone else. Furthermore, after The Pit opens, there will be another thirty-second window where either team cannot move the Crystal, giving you ample time to get the rundown of your teammates and opponent. You can use this time to pick another Dance Partner if your original choice proved to be overly aggressive and can mark targets on the enemy team you feel should be prioritized. Remember to stay back and watch for sneaky enemies on your flank, especially those pesky Ninjas.

After the thirty seconds expire, it's game time, and you can put that full combo covered above to good use! Once more, be sure to stay back behind your Tank and Melee DPS and constantly check your flank. This is essential to you and your team's survival. Furthermore, you should always cast Curing Waltz when you or your Dance Partner have low health or if your party seems to be struggling to find time to heal. If your Tank or several party members get eliminated, retreat immediately and wait for them to respawn, then regroup and try again. The Dancer can be surprisingly strong, but you will not live when facing several enemies at once, especially at close ranges. Also, stay near the back of the Crystal (and your team) at all times. You should never be away from the objective or your party unless you need to regroup or retreat.

Finally, let's go over your unique Limit Break and its uses in Crystalline Conflict. Contradance is a very useful and deceiving Limit Break in this mode, as you can use it to pull enemies off the Crystal or gather the entire opposing team into an area for your Melee DPS to wipe them out in a blink of an eye. Use it whenever the right opportunity presents itself, and preferably whenever other teammates have their Limit Break available. Don't forget to use the chat commands to notify your team when you have it!

Frontline Strategy

With Frontline being the only PvP attraction in the Duty Roulette, it's a rather popular mode filled with players of all skill types at all times, making it less competitive and serious than Crystalline Conflict. It's also worth noting that Frontline also has the fresh Patch 6.1 PvP changes in it, making each game an exciting time. However, with that said, you should still try helping your team secure the win at all costs and perform to the best of your ability!

Similar to Crystalline Conflict, your strategies and focuses won't be drastically different in Frontline. You will just have a bit more freedom to do what you want without causing your team too much heartache. Though, first and foremost, you will still want to select a Dance Partner before the match begins, deal lots of ranged damage, and keep applying buffs and heals to yourself, your Dance Partner, and your party. This is essentially the flow of this job and will always be your primary goal.

As mentioned before, Frontline is much more welcoming than Crystalline Conflict, making it one of the best PvP activities for newcomers or casual players. While you can play things more loosely here, you shouldn't neglect your party or the objectives under any circumstances, as that will still negatively impact your team's odds of winning. However, it's also crucial to know that making errors in this mode is not even remotely as detrimental to your team in Frontline, so don't worry about making a few mistakes here and there. Also, since you are a Physical Ranged DPS, your general match priority will be to create distance, attack with your team, retreat if needed and regroup, capture objectives and defend them, then repeat the cycle until the match is finished!

All in all, Frontline is an excellent way to earn PvP rewards casually and allows you to focus on honing your skills without any pressure. Remember to stay behind your Tank and Melee DPS, use your full combo to deal lots of damage from a distance, supply everyone in your party with much-needed buffs and healing, play the objective, and watch your flank. If you can get this general strategy down, you will be unstoppable with the right team around you.

NEXT: Final Fantasy 14: Complete Guide