Seeking NIN secondary stat advice

Hi everyone! I know this question has been asked to hell and back but I was wondering if anyone could straighten out which secondary stats I should be going for as a NIN. Some people tell me that melding for crit is only worth it if you can get over 2k after melds while others have told me to go full on Crit/DH regardless of either value and meld det whenever I can't do either. It's the same with food, some people have told me to get shakshouka while others tell me to instead always get salmon muffins, it's left me feeling rather confused.

I used to not really care much for this stuff but I had the chance to try my hand at current endgame raiding last night (first time I've done so in this or any MMO ever) and got my first Suzaku EX clear, though the logs the group uploaded afterwards made me realize I still have a lot of work to do. Straightening this out is the first step of many I want to take to hopefully improve my ability as both a NIN main and as a DPS is general, so any advice is greatly appreciated!

Crit is always a priority, though it had less of an impact when Stormblood first released. Due to how rapidly it scales, Crit has pretty much become the dominate stat for every job except DRK and PLD. As for Direct Hit and Determination, it's generally more evenly separate on Ninja. While Direct Hit is technically better, you want to meet thresholds. Current Ninja BiS actually had Determination pull ahead because of that.

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/17GNY

That is what you should be shooting for. If you can't afford to pentameld an i380 ring, get another tome ring. You pretty much want to avoid Skill Speed as much as possible since it can cause really bad clipping on Ninja.

Since you're on Cactuar, feel free to send a tell or DM me on discord if you have anymore questions. :)

Thank you for the reply! I was under the impression that crit was what I needed to prioritize, but det being as important as direct hit was a surprise. I don't know if I'll get into actual savage raiding anytime soon but I'll start working towards that BiS with tomestone gear and spend a few thousand getting that pentamelded ring. I got a long road ahead of me, but this feels like an okay place to start!