Ninja vs Monk or ...

Hi Folks,
I have played a monk for quite some time but was kind of disappointed that heavensward didnt bring something new to the core rotation of monks. So I thought I would ne better off to play something new because it started to her kind of dull.
I like fast gameplay so I thought ninja would ne a save bet.
I only played Ninja to about level 48 pre hw so i dont have that much experiance.
What so you think, is it netter to stay with monk or switch to Ninja? It so you think I should try something entirely different? I am looking for something that playes kind of fast, can move while dps and isnt a no brainer when it comes to gameplay.

Hope you can help me

I went from a monk to a ninja and I love the ninja. But also, I miss being a monk. But in heavensward, from what I've seen. The monk has some interesting abilities as compared to what the ninja has. I personally love looking at the monk abilities more. So I think it could be better to stay a monk. But that is just my opinion.

Nothing stops you from trying both... that's what FFXIV is about. Whichever you'll enjoy more is the one you'll probably be better at.


Ninja is more about cooldown/debuff management, Monk is about positionals and maximizing downtime (which is unique to monk) with chakra/form shift.

I'm pretty much the same as you. I played a lot of monk pre expansion and decided to give ninja a try this time instead. I got it to level 60 and I'm pretty happy with it. Its certainly a fast class and the rotation is fairly complex (mudra's + rotation + huton maintenance)—I like it.

I was a monk pre. 2.4 and am a ninja main and I love ninja especially at level 60. It's a complex class with the mudra and even though we get two super situational skills(smoke screen and shade walker) the other three skills make it even more fun. Cool animations and hide mechanics are fun too. You can actually hide and walk through low level dungeons if you're soloing... I just learned this today. Anyway Ninja sounds like the class you're looking for

The best thing about the MNK is that the core rotation DIDN'T change in HW.

For NIN, they added a new skill that allows them to refresh Huton without actually casting it through Ninjutsu, letting them use Ninjustu for more attacks, one of them being a new 3 Mudra attack. Great and dandy, but if you have bad latency, this is actually going to be a DPS decrease because you won't be able to fit those new attacks in between normal rotation skills.

And the DRG, oh my. Ok, Imagine a MNK, right? Now imagine if all your positionals were COMPLETELY RANDOMIZED. They literately added two new mechanics to the DRG, one is a randomized positional, and the other is a resource management. Awesome.

for the ninja the add of AC is nice.... on paper. in reality, it did create a situation where the cycle is all overt he place. more important the dps of the ninja can change drastically depending of the presence of a warrior.

soo far at 60 monk cycle is still the smoothest one of the three... ninja is extremely tiring to master and use, since you can't maintain your debuff.... they will drop at some point it's like this. not because of boss mechanic, but because the add of AC wasn't done while thinking at the big picture. and the mudra lag is still something that can make the jobs extremely frustrating. (and TA too since it's still the most punishing positional mechanic of the game) soo far ninja is the most frustrating jobs around.

ps: and the best, it's not even the top dps of the game, it's the harder to play and the most frustrating and it's not even rewarding.

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Originally Posted by Krocodile

The best thing about the MNK is that the core rotation DIDN'T change in HW.

For NIN, they added a new skill that allows them to refresh Huton without actually casting it through Ninjutsu, letting them use Ninjustu for more attacks, one of them being a new 3 Mudra attack. Great and dandy, but if you have bad latency, this is actually going to be a DPS decrease because you won't be able to fit those new attacks in between normal rotation skills.

And the DRG, oh my. Ok, Imagine a MNK, right? Now imagine if all your positionals were COMPLETELY RANDOMIZED. They literately added two new mechanics to the DRG, one is a randomized positional, and the other is a resource management. Awesome.

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We actually didn't get any new ninjutsu. The new skills we got are a dps increase regardless of what kind of latency you have. :O

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

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AC is an amazing addition to Ninja by making it a very flexible job.

AC did not all of sudden make it impossible to maintain debuffs/dots. The mudra lag you may be experiencing as an EU player (assuming because of your server) may be making it seem like it isn't possible.

EDIT: The warrior thing. If there is no warrior in the party, the slashing debuff granted by the ninja boosts the dps of the other two tanks (PLD and DRK) which is more than enough to make up the difference of the lack there of.

@OP. Ninja and Monk both share fast pace game play and have their own level of difficulty/complexity.

With 3.0, Ninja has become more flexible, more burst, and best friends with tanks. Monk's shortcomings were touched upon and given more burst capabilities.

Ninja has offensive utility such as Trick Attack and Goad. Monk has defensive utility such as Dragon Kick and Enhanced Mantra.

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Originally Posted by Krocodile

And the DRG, oh my. Ok, Imagine a MNK, right? Now imagine if all your positionals were COMPLETELY RANDOMIZED. They literately added two new mechanics to the DRG, one is a randomized positional, and the other is a resource management. Awesome.

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I've yet to hear a competent DRG complain about the positionals after they got used to it. It's one random positional every 5 GCDs (12s) and you can just stand on the edge between rear/flank. It's nothing complicated.

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Originally Posted by Houston009

AC is an amazing addition to Ninja by making it a very flexible job.

AC did not all of sudden make it impossible to maintain debuffs/dots. The mudra lag you may be experiencing as an EU player (assuming because of your server) may be making it seem like it isn't possible.

EDIT: The warrior thing. If there is no warrior in the party, the slashing debuff granted by the ninja boosts the dps of the other two tanks (PLD and DRK) which is more than enough to make up the difference of the lack there of.

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did i have said that AC was bad by itself, like i have said on paper it's amazing, in the utility that not the case. the skill by itself simply did show how wreck the ninja weaponskill combo is!
the fact that warrior allows ninja to gain a huge boost of dps is not little, we are talking of 660+66 potency for 180 second (go check the ninja superthread Arkenne did find the number) it's huge!

the point it's ninja get far stronger if a warrior in the group, if not it's a close fight for the second place with the monk behind the dragoon.

ohhh the mudra lag don't make it's impossible to maintain debuff, it's simply impossible from the start. the duration of DE and SF are responsible for this. even if you place DE > SF, since SF take 4 second for be placed and have a duration of 18 (DE is 20 sec) you will always fall behind at some point. the ninja combo system was complicate, because we was lacking positional and had the mudra system.... but now we do have positional and the mudra lag is still a fact!!... AC did simply make the use of AE quite hard and make it show how a mess our weaponskill system was that all.

i will be clear, actually i don't advice anyone to play ninja, exept if they are ready to face frustration and overcomplicate system that need work on it.

if you have the habit of the monk of the smooth combo system you gonna face something that totally opposed...
but if you are ok with this trouble, go for it, you will have a blast!

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

ohhh the mudra lag don't make it's impossible to maintain debuff, it's simply impossible from the start. the duration of DE and SF are responsible for this. even if you place DE > SF, since SF take 4 second for be placed and have a duration of 18 (DE is 20 sec) you will always fall behind at some point. the ninja combo system was complicate, because we was lacking positional and had the mudra system.... but now we do have positional and the mudra lag is still a fact!!... AC did simply make the use of AE quite hard and make it show how a mess our weaponskill system was that all.

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On paper, DE and SF seem impossible to maintain, in reality, they are easily maintained.

Not gonna touch on the other stuff, answered them for you already.

Overall, Ninja is an amazing job, much like the others, requires understanding and hard work to play at its maximum potential.

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Originally Posted by Humorless

I've yet to hear a competent DRG complain about the positionals after they got used to it. It's one random positional every 5 GCDs (12s) and you can just stand on the edge between rear/flank. It's nothing complicated.

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For me, it's not that it's hard, but I'd say that random positionals and maintaining the buff isn't exactly fun, and I actually enjoyed it more pre-Heavensward unfortunately.

Granted, mudra lag on NIN has its own headaches at times too, but I have nothing but good things to say about its expansion changes.

As someone who has raided and maimed a ninja since it's release, AC is a godsend. If you have trouble keeping all of the debuffs up then ninja is just not for you. The counters line up absolutely fine if you know how to play it. AC just need to be used as needed in place of aeolian to replenish Huton when under 40 seconds. Everything else is literally the same a a before.

The annoying part about ninja is that your rotation changes widely depending on having a warrior in your party or not.

Other than that it's just (de)buff management with 20% (avg) less time to make decisions due to our 2 second (avg) GCD.

Shadewalker is decently interesting because you can go all out right off the bat without anyone ever pulling of the tank while they are positioning.

To the OP:

Honestly, level both jobs to 60 and just play whatever you like more. There is also nothing wrong with playing both if you end up enjoying both jobs, that's what I am doing since back when NIN was released. For example I did play NIN during my groups fcob progression up until T12, and played MNK in T13 because of dragon kick and traited mantra. I will do the same in 3.0 if my group needs me to (NIN at 60, currently leveling MNK).

To make out some core differences in terms of job utility, based on my opinion:

- Both jobs are currently pretty even in terms of dummy dps, so the group setup is the more important factor (highest dummy parses I've found on youtube are 1157 for MNK vs 1155,6 for NIN)

- NIN will give overall higher raid dps because of trick attack. If you have a WAR, NIN dps will also generally be higher than mnk because we get additional aeolian edges. If theres no WAR, NIN will boost the PLD/DRK's dps through dancing edge.

- NIN has recieved a serious buff to burst damage. On the early Bismarck EX attempts when I was something around i160, I saved my cooldowns for the first round on his back and bursted for someting like 1500 dps. With current BiS, opening burst is close to 2k. So yeah, if something needs to melt quickly, NIN is pretty fucking awesome for that.

- MNK will boost raid survivability through dragon kick and traited mantra is also very good for situations with high damaging raid wide aoe's.

- MNK probably has better sustain in drawn out dummy fights (we will have to see, since there's no such content in 3.0 yet), because he got another ability to restore TP.

- Elixier field made MNK pretty good for aoe situations, while NIN still lacks in that department.


These are just my 2 cents and I hope it helps. :)