DNC Decent Tank?

Yeah, I didn't mention that though because RR is kind of an assumed when it comes to solo'ing.

The only thing I use dread for is rdm/thf soloing.

If facing a mob you don't have to worry about defense at all I'd do RR, GH and omnipotent on dnc and take out some of your gear haste for DW.

My friend on Unicorn (Beaumont) and I duo almost everything this way when no one is online.

We've duoed +2 NMs, seals, etc.

I sub whm to help cure however and get rid of status effects like para, silence, etc.

Depending on the NM he uses RR + GH + ???

Sometimes he uses a resist atma for mobs that are spammy with magic. Otherwise if the NM is almost no threat I'm pretty sure he uses another DD atma.

OH yeah brewing as well since I'm just going to 1 shot the mob anyways

Neither is a weapon, but it certainly helps. I'm not going to recommend someone try and solo an NM that has en-death on a TP move without the DPS to kill it in a timely manner.

I've seen DNC tanks out hold their own against MNKs and THFs, considering they have healing waltz, unless the mob is amnesia happy, I doubt you'd ever need anything other than a BLM/WHM for healing support.

Dread = insurance on blue and yellow procs unless I'm missing something. I'm sure you'll let me know Spicy....


EDIT: oh wait I fed the troll.... <damnit>

@Spicy: Don't be painfully specific if you don't want the same in return.

TH+1 rarely outweights the benefits of another atma. Weather it be for survivibity or just how much faster it kills the mob

I second this, aside from the "loldnc go level mnk" part. :P

I actually do quite a bit of DDing/tanking on my DNC with my small Abyssea farming group. I almost always play THF when we use our grellow!! setup for +2/empyrean item NMs (NIN or MNK, THF, BLU, BRD, WHM, BLM. We burn anywhere from 6-12+ popsets at a time). When we farm KIs though, I'm generally on DNC. It's geared decently and I have a wide array of atmas, gear, and weapons at my disposal.

DNC cannot expect good results waltzing into a small-party DD/tanking role sporting full Aurore and shitty daggers. A few widely-chosen magian daggers are highly recommended (start with 2 AGI/Evasion Kilas +2 and work from there on more DD-oriented options). Finish A Moogle Kupo d'Etat, choose the Anwig Salade as your reward, and make sure that Waltz Delay -2 is one of two chosen augments. This job needs a wide array of well-macro'd gear to perform well.

Here's a few gearsets you'll want to build:

- TP
And not just a single TP build. You'll need several builds with varying degrees of haste/accuracy/evasion/subtle blow.

- WS
Dancing Edge, Evisceration, Pyrrhic Kleos, and Aeolian Edge at the minimum.

- Evasion
A full evasion build and hybrid haste/evasion builds.

- MDT/Magic Damage Taken
You'll want to reach -25% MDT in gear. Yes, this is needed. Yes, MDT sets do save lives in Abyssea.

- Waltz
I have two builds for Waltz (both use Anwig Salade...it's just that important). My default build focuses on Waltz Potency/CHR/Enmity Down. My second build uses as little Enmity- as possible and as much Waltz Potency/CHR/Enmity+ gear as possible. It's a swing of about 50 enmity.

- Steps
*** that accuracy. Use more accuracy than you'd ever use in a normal TP/WS gearset. Couple the accuracy gear with any gear than enhances step accuracy (for example, AF1 hands and AF2 feet).

- Violent Flourish
Again, *** that accuracy. AF2 body is vital. Be aware that Violent Flourish (as well as Feather Step) does have a Magic Accuracy component, so use Magic Accuracy gear in slots were you cannot get substantial physical accuracy.

This is the best I can do off the top of my head. I'm sure I forgot something.

I strongly urge you to check out Niniann's DNC guide. It was written in October 2010, so bear it mind it was written before Heroes of Abyssea and with a level 85 cap in mind. Some of the gear is outdated, but it's still a tremendously useful guide that will set you on the right track. Niniann is awesome!

i personally find dnc to be the 2nd best tank (next to mnk in abyssea) most of the time and some of the time the best tank possible. granted nin has extra shadows (which is hardly a problem since majority of the time i can NI>NI on dnc) and migwari which you cant have up full time, unfortunately many people dont look aat dnc in this way and dont even look at it at all due to the fact that with a thf in your party, dnc bring no additional proc weaponskills for red or blue, which is one major reason why nin has been favored greatly. case and point: hedjedjet has a tp move that reduces your hp to 1 coupled with his poison aura effect is pretty much a 1 hit ko on anything save nin (when he has migwari up) and dnc with fan dance up. there are many 1 hit ko moves that NMs have that fan dance reduces. one of the few cases that dnc has some difficulties tanking is ironclads, which there are better ways to tank anyways besides straight tanking. I have found that the only real threat to a dnc is magical attacks such as thundaga 4, in which case if you are interested in doing more trials you can try and pick up a magic def. kila (most of the time i find myself using 1 eva kila and 1 magic def kila to tank) to supliment any extra dmg taken- gear, such as augmented dark rings which you can farm in abyssea knschatt.

Well thankfully I was in a shell that let me tank on DNC. But I also refuse to wear pink gear. Not that I don't like pink... but I don't like shopping at walmart and abyssea gear is the equivalent of shopping at walmart... same with the the dominion daggers... ugh.

You should also look into getting an auric dagger for tanking. Angr Harpe is a decent main hand dagger for DDing.

I personally use my own NIN spells to trigger grellow and make the NIN come THF. The only booger sometimes is kurayami. But a full nebula set with lvl 5 weakened daze should fix that right up with merited ninjutsu.

BWAHAHAHA

You can reduce migwari's recast timer to that of it's duration... and nins extra shadows definitely help if you don't have the extra haste/fastcast support from others or accurate mobs or ones that constantly double/triple attack aga spam moves that eat multiple shadows etc.

I prefer thf tank anyways. More evasion and TH accomplice hi-jinx dispeling "undispelable" stuff. Plus every dnc I've ever played with kinda sucked at DDing and/or keeping hate

you make me sad :(........

you just shat on this and said use angr harpe (which i thought was cool for maybe a week) which is far to heavy to even bother using with no real good stats added aside from dmg

It's decent if you don't have twilight and triplus

I've had the same experience. In the early days of Scars, I found my THF and DNC dying to nukes more than anything else. It's what convinced me to finally finish my MDT set and carry it with me at all times.

If I know beforehand that I'll be DDing/tanking an NM uses a lot of nukes or magical-based TP moves, I'll use RR/GH/Future Fabulous instead of RR/GH/Apoc. With Shell4/5, -25% MDT in gear, and +50 MDB from FF, nukes like Thundaga4 become mere annoyances rather than fatal spells.

without subbing thf or dnc and stabbing at your gear for more evasion, you spend more time casting shadows then actually doing anything in comparison to a dnc/nin for example

that's crit rate

The Critical Hit Damage bonus does work in the offhand. At level 75, it's what made X's Knife a powerful offhand to Mandau.

Critical Hit Rate, like on lolHeartsnatcher, only works on that specific hand. The other dagger will not benefit from additional critical hits.

auric had it's use when it came out, but the only real thing it offers is a 5% increase in DW, which is nice for the casual Epeen "i hit delay cap without brd) but it kinda screws a 20 hit build, and the dps on it is easily replaced by even an Eva kila.