Reason I limit the vanish to 1 or 2 turns, I have to either find a good time to ping my target and be able to run away, or change dances that may help me further with getting a target. Dances can only do so much damage. It does help doing the dance that reduces their defenses, but that gets time consuming. Hoping for Toad or Stop is usually the preferred method.
I suppose making a dancer/monk is also a good tactic to use, since they'd pulverize their target bare-fisted or use Chakra to heal up. Now that I recall, maybe I used that combo when I used the dancer; but it was her default class/build I assigned until endgame.
I mean, by endgame, I always had a master calculator (which was also a dark knight), a dancer and a bard. The remainder were getting better in their fields. Mostly close-combat or training to be lesser calculators (with at least 1 as an orator to rob random troops of their equipment, and then throwing them naked into the fields).
Interesting. I never tried a dancer or calculator, and only used a bard (and the various mages, to be honest) for the sake of mastering everything with Ramza (also some few useful secondary skills). I never got around to mastering all jobs with anyone but Ramza. My preferred team was always Orlandu + Agrias + some combination of monks, ninja, samurai, and other special characters (Beowulf and Mustadio are fun). Brute force ftw.
Some of the harder battles (mostly early on) would be easier with other classes, I'm sure, but once Ramza has his best abilities (first Yell, later Scream) the once-tough battles become "Ramza charges his lazer while everyone else runs around like a ninny. Then he destroys everything." The only consistently hard battle later on is against Elmdore's assassins, but only because that 100% kill ability has very few defenses, one of which is female-only (ribbon).
Favorite secondary ability combo: The one that soaks damage with MP plus the one that recovers MP when you walk. If your MP is nonzero you can soak one full attack.
My mooks were definitively badass. Never lost a soul (IE-No permadeath; though some have fallen sometimes). Kept the same team since the beginning, and seldom had to use any of the story characters. I mean, my mooks actually were on par with Orlandu once I got him. My Calculator/Dark Knight being the most powerful unit (physically and magically. A mook-crafted Orlandu); even stronger than Ramza, my dancers/bards were second in power, and my lesser troops were on par with Ramza. And yes, they all were balanced in their combat experience; and I even intentionally kept as low a level as possible so story missions were still fun and not one-sided. I just knew how to make a functional team.
A dancer/bard team is really nasty (and underrated) if you know how to use them correctly. Slow Dance + Speed Song = HOLYCRAPSPEED!!! Mix that with a team of ninjas, and you'll be going at hyper speeds. Tack on some mimes with the right units and abilities to mimic as well, and "what battle?".
Hell, the final boss didn't see what was coming after it. 5 turns tops, and the final boss was down.