Ninja isn't dark aspected, unless you want to say that Yugiri has something to do with the dark crystals?
Ninjas use the vital energies of the land, air, and living beings...so it has more in common with MNK, and CNJ, than dark crystals...
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One day groups would only accept RNG's are DPS for events, next day no one wanted them for anything. FFXI development team had such horrid balance that Puppetmaster was considered unplayable for people at end game till years after it's release. Samurai was meant to parry tank and Ninja be a DPS, but got it switched around and SE didn't even attempt to address it till a half-ass attempt later.
FFXIV has a much better backbone system in place in terms of balance. Yes it is still difficult to balance, but it uses much more simplistic systems to balance out jobs. FFXI's system was everywhere and same with 1.xx. One content BLM's were never wanted, then one where everyone who joined a party needed to be one. ARR has done well enough that people look at gear/experience more than just the job itself.
Thanks to Duty Finder, even if people feel a certain type of way about a job they can't prevent that job from joining the party. I'm pretty sure if people could they would only allow the Duty Finder to invite range DPS. Thankfully they will have to use party finder if they want to exclude people. So it doesn't matter what others dislike, it wont stop people from progressing on the job they want to play.
Indeed, but let's look at the current DPS jobs
DRG, high physical damage, low speed
MNK, low physical damage, high speed
BRD, low physical damage, constant speed because you can attack while dodging
BLM, high magical damage, fluctuating speed because of interruption
SMN, low magical damage, great stacking
Although there's not big of a difference between "high" and "low" damage, the mix of raw damage and speed gives them all slight the same damage ouput in the long run.
Adding two more DPS jobs (Ninja and Thief) means two new mix of raw damage and speed, so that they don't overlap with an existing concept while still retaining the same output.
DRG is more high damage, burst DPS. Slow animation.
MNK is Moderate damage, steady DPS, fast animation and needs to be at a certain position for max damage for the majority of there skills.
BRD is low damage, Crit galore, AOE and no moving penalties
BLM is high DPS, burst DPS, AOE king, penalize for moving to much.
SMN is Moderate DPS, burst DPS, pet management and steady damage
not sure about Ninja because it seems like they covered all
That's the way I see it though.