Originally Posted by
Mirage
I dunno man. Over the years, the optimal tank for various bosses hasn't really been static. For some periods, nin tanks were very good for a good amount of content, but a few updates later, there could be bosses that for a long time wouldn't be safe to tank with anything but a pld.
It's not like a ninja tank was suddenly unkillable either, especially not with enemies that triple attack every other attack round with extreme accuracy, and bosses that spam aoe/multihit TP moves.
Ninja as a subjob is however extremely good for lowman now (or at least half a year ago when I quit), especially for dnc and thf and with high haste. At the peak of the abyssea era, a very high percentage of NMs could be tanked with just utsu ichi with a moderately good eva set and haste/fastcast gearswaps for recast, letting you save utsu ni for an instant recast after an aoe attack.