Ninja DPS!

So I have a couple of questions about some things that just make no sense...

I will start with the Venom's, they both have the same effect, only difference one changes the effect of jugulate to a stun, the other i forget what it changes but i think that change was more important.

Anyways, why do people add in the swap venoms at certain points in the rotation? Makes absolutely no sense and may be a waste of time. So hopefully someone can explain this and make it make more sense to me.

Ok, so down to the dirty. I'm only level 36, so I'm not worried about it for myself, but can someone give me a good rotation for a level 60 ninja?

short answer: you dont

long answer: the person who wrote that in another thread is a tank main and is unfortunately not well informed about the intricacies of ninja, while he is trying to help, most of that post is generally wrong information

for nin guides, shasta's and firana's are good if you want to look into it.

Generally viper is more beneficial in raids but there's some raids where you need a stun at certain points, so switching mid-fight isn't unheard of, it's just not part of a rotation.

One example is A7/M3 where you need to stun the big add, but staying in wasp after that isn't worthwhile.

Yeah the venoms are a missed opportunity with Ninja, in my opinion.

The added damage should have just been rolled into Ninja's base attack power while the venoms just added their special effect. There shouldn't be a need to have a venom active just to have normal damage output (and even then, its on the low end when compared to other melee). If you level sync or change jobs and forget your venom, you take a serious hit to damage output. That's just bad design, in my opinion.

As far as the damage increase is concerned, venoms are identical (once you're sufficently leveled), so there is no reason to change stances unless you specifically need the effect it provides. The "enhanced" trait slots could have been used for something better, or atleast have had more interesting effects. Mug's drain is barely noticeable and there aren't a lot of instances where a Ninja NEEDS to Stun - usually Silence is sufficient. Added traits or even more Kiss abilities could have helped to augment other abilities such as Dream Within a Dream.

Venoms were a good idea with a lot if potential, but I think they were implemented poorly with a very basic, uninteresting function.

Thanks for the answers lol, i was looking for something that said otherwise and just couldn't find anything... Anyways, I changed classes to machinist last night. The ninja was just too much for me lol, that and i just couldn't grasp the ninjitsu stuff, it's easy yes, but for some reason I've been missing cooldowns on it and all sorts of things, was a fun class, i may try to get back into it later when i can actually focus. But for the most part i was missing simple things and decided that the ninjitsu just added too much on top of the 500 other skills ninja's get. Gonna give machinist a shot now, although not sure how much i will enjoy ranged dps. But we will see, i am hopeful that i will find a dps class that fits my playstyle, if not ill just go back to healing lol.

I always find it better to have the ability to stun since other dps or tanks do not always do so, i do wish changes were made to both poisons though to be of a more beneficial difference other then stun or silence

Wasp = jugulate will stun
Viper = mug will return 50% of dmg as hp

While mug won't give you any substantial hp back, hp is hp. On fights that require stuns to prevent party wide dmg mechanics, you should stay away from using wasp else you may end up giving the enemy a stun resist when a stun is necessary. These are not something that occur all the time, but is extremely frustrating when DPS get tunnel vision for their DPS numbers and don't realize what they've done. Usually because ALL the DPS think "oh what's 1 stun" when there's 4 of them thinking the same thing.

Prior to lvl 40, the two poison's are NOT equal. Wasp does 5% extra dmg, viper does 10%. At 36, wasp does more due to trait at 20% and at 40, they even out as viper gets a trait as well. Both of these do not get their respective additional effect until they hit these traited levels.
So jugulate doesn't stun with wasp until 36 and mug doesn't give 50% dmg worth of hp back until 40.

The vemon's do not effect your cooldowns whatsoever. Clicking it will not cause any resets, so it can be done in less than a second and inbetween your rotation. Once you get used to it, it literally takes no effort whatsoever. When I say stance dance, you switch maybe once every 2 minutes or so. If you have full hp, no point. If you're in a raid and the boss is giving out party wide dmg, there's nothing that's going to hurt about switching to viper if you're on wasp. It'll take less than a second in between a rotation. Jugulate stun won't effect most bosses to begin with though, so you could easily switch to viper at start and stay in it. I prefer to switch in raids though as add's come up often and if they do NOT have a mechanic that needs to be stopped via stun, i can easily stun them for a few seconds.

Most players now-a-days simply burn bosses. This is fine to do, the gear we have now simply makes it possible. But I still prefer to utilize aspects given to me to the fullest. I find it helpful when everyone is so locked onto a boss in a raid that they don't pay attention to all the adds beating in a healer's face. Stun can help give them a small opening. Don't forget, your healers can be interrupted. I've played all 3 classes and as a healer, it's extremely annoying when people simply ignore add's beating in my face and then complain that I'm not upkeeping their health.

Please ignore all of Malice's advice re: venoms. Please do not waste time switching venoms in fights, ever.

Outside of end-game you can be in whichever one you want, since you can just face-roll the keyboard and win anyway.

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Originally Posted by DarkerOrange

Please ignore all of Malice's advice re: venoms. Please do not waste time switching venoms in fights, ever.

Outside of end-game you can be in whichever one you want, since you can just face-roll the keyboard and win anyway.

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Wow, being a jerk much? Please tell me how my information was wrong on that one? There is literally NO time wasted. Switching venoms cause ZERO interrupts. I did not say anything was necessary in my statement. It was asked and information was provided. Please show me my wrongs senpai!

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Originally Posted by Dubah

Thanks for the answers lol, i was looking for something that said otherwise and just couldn't find anything... Anyways, I changed classes to machinist last night. The ninja was just too much for me lol, that and i just couldn't grasp the ninjitsu stuff, it's easy yes, but for some reason I've been missing cooldowns on it and all sorts of things, was a fun class, i may try to get back into it later when i can actually focus. But for the most part i was missing simple things and decided that the ninjitsu just added too much on top of the 500 other skills ninja's get. Gonna give machinist a shot now, although not sure how much i will enjoy ranged dps. But we will see, i am hopeful that i will find a dps class that fits my playstyle, if not ill just go back to healing lol.

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As a NIN main, i find my hands quite full when I try to handle MCH skills. Though I never practiced mch much so there's that. If you want a simple dps class I suggest mnk, it has the least amount of meaningful timers you have to watch and a straight forward rotation, just have to hit positionals and you are golden.


Now malice, while it is correct that switching venom does not interrupt anything, there is also no reason to switch venom mid fight, hence it is one unnecessary action not worth spending atp on.
While orange's attitude may be unwarranted, there are various inaccuracies and misinformation back in your original threads, which I have taken the time to counter.

As for ninja's stun, it lasts 2 seconds. It serves as an interrupt as opposed to tanks' 5 second stuns that are crowd controls. A3S comes into mind, I stun to interrupt mucilage cast of add phase, tanks stun the liquid limb to stop it from dragging the healer to doom on last phase. Ninja's stun will not, most of the time, stop a trash mob for a meaningful amount of time before it mauls at the healer.

I play all 3 roles too. As a healer if I have an add on me, I will jump into cleric stance while moving towards the tank so I can kill it while hopefully the tank does something about it.
And as a healer, you don't need to top the team off all the time. As long as they have enough hp to survive the next unavoidable damage, they are fine. I personally won't heal ppl not dodging AoEs properly in dungeons (if they tried but still got hit it's a different story)

Venoms at low level are actually different, tho.

Kiss of the Wasp original effect was of a 5% power increase only
Whilst Kiss of the Viper was of 10% power increase.

There is however a Trait for both of them that boosts them up to a 20% increase and adds Stun effect or Life Vamp effect to Jugulate and Mug respectively. For Kiss of the Wasp, this happens at lvl 36, and for Viper at 40.

This would mean that from lvl 6 to 29 you should use Kiss of the Wasp.
From 30 to 35 Kiss of the Viper.
From 36 to 39 Kiss of the Wasp
And from 40 and on whatever you preffer, but I would recommend defaulting to Viper on groups, since stun tends to be on the way.

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Originally Posted by DarkerOrange

Please ignore all of Malice's advice re: venoms. Please do not waste time switching venoms in fights, ever.

Outside of end-game you can be in whichever one you want, since you can just face-roll the keyboard and win anyway.

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What Malice said, and also the fact you're wrong, as in the example I gave, and also A3S as another example. Even there there's plenty of time before adds pop to switch to wasp and lol @ thinking it's "wasted time" in any situation. If switching stances in the few cases where you should makes you lose time as NIN, it may not be the job for you.

but in A3S you can just sit in Wasp for the whole fight. You don't need to change.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

What Malice said, and also the fact you're wrong, as in the example I gave, and also A3S as another example. Even there theres plenty of time before adds pop to switch to wasp and lol @ thinking it's "wasted time" in any situation. If switching stances in the few cases where you should makes you lose time as NIN, it may not be the job for you.

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I don't think anyone is arguing that there aren't situations where you may want to make sure you have a particular venom applied for its effect. However, the argument is more that there is no reason to stance dance throughout combat. For most content, if you need stuns, you can simply stay in Wasp and otherwise it makes little difference which venom is applied. The healing provided by Mug is so minimal that if it is consistently saving your life, then there are greater issues to look at. Once you have the last trait, the damage bonus is identical on either so there's really no need to incorporate swaps into your rotation. If they added damage to their respective ability it would be a different story, but they don't. You really only need one or the other in any given situation. Sure you CAN stance dance without any loss if you choose to, there's just no real need for it.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

I don't think anyone is arguing that there aren't situations where you may want to make sure you have a particular venom applied for its effect. However, the argument is more that there is no reason to stance dance throughout combat. For most content, if you need stuns, you can simply stay in Wasp and otherwise it makes little difference which venom is applied. The healing provided by Mug is so minimal that if it is consistently saving your life, then there are greater issues to look at. Once you have the last trait, the damage bonus is identical on either so there's really no need to incorporate swaps into your rotation. If they added damage to their respective ability it would be a different story, but they don't. You really only need one or the other in any given situation. Sure you CAN stance dance without any loss if you choose to, there's just no real need for it.

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I fully agree with this. I never ever stated you HAVE to stance dance (which is where the argument originated from another thread). But it's truly not that hard to do so. I do find it quite amusing though that so many "I want to maximize my class" players are saying "don't bother maximizing that small heal" but will just as quickly say "You'll get 100 more dmg on that enemy by doing this!". Truly not ragging on anyone specific. But i always find the comparison amusing. Players will jump immediately to defend the smallest increase in DPS, but when it comes to mitigation or healing, maximizing means nothing to them. My original statement was to maximize, you can stance dance. My exact quote that everyone has been jumping on for reference

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

Try to make sure you take advantage of all your perks! Many don't. Use wasp when your jugulate is available (unless you WANT to silence). Use viper when mug is available. By no means is the hp back from mug going to be life saving, but it's still helpful.

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

I notice most NIN's don't stance dance much, but you can if you truly want to maximize. Otherwise, just stay in one or the other based on need/preference.

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

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ok, here is my argument

The healing from mug is s negligible to the point that switching venoms for it is an unnecessary action, rather than maximising potential.

Normally my mug does 1600-1700 damage, which equates to 800 hp heal, i have a total of 16.5k hp.

Now using seph ex as example
I as a dps only takes unavoidable raid wide damage.
Phase 1
Tifferet does about 7k, fiendish rage about 7k, green ratzon 7-8k, purple ratzon 10k
Phase 2
Genesis explosions for 2k and 10k
phase 3
life force/spirit splitscreen for 10-12k, blue knockback for 3-4k each (3 hits total), da'at for 5-7k, earthshaker for 8-10k

The point here is for everyone of these attacks, with the exception of earthshaker, are all raid wide damage
Healers have to use AOE heals to top everyone off or the entire raid will die from the next raid wide hit, which comes pretty fast
It is very likely that, every time you use mug, you will either be at full HP or will be healed to full by whatever healers are throwing out in a couple of seconds, meaning the heal from mug is rather pointless

Meanwhile, we have other skills dedicated to mitigation
Say if in seph ex i got clipped by a double ratzon due to poor raid coordination, i will probably be left with 1-2k HP
From experience, one round of AOE heal after ratzon is usually around 4-5k, which brings me up to around 7k HP
Almost immediately, seph will use tiffere which hits for 7k, i may or may not survive that if the healers did not throw me an extra cure, the main tank is still taking damage as we speak
In this situation I will second wind myself and it brings me up to 9k hp, with which i can comfortably survive the next tifferet until healer notices me

To add to that, we also have shadeshift, which can mitigate fiendish rage, earthshaker, and life force(orange splitscreen)
We can also crossclass mantra, useful instances include pre-double tifferet, cochma explosions, and basically anytime in phase 3 when big aoe hits are about to come

Using those skills are maximising with regards to damage mitigation, swapping venom for mug and jugulate mid fight is not.

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Originally Posted by Xenon_S

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The only thing I will say is that this is not only referring to end game content. Yes, in Seph Ex, it's most likely not going to be the difference of a save or not as you usually only enter those things with trusted statics anyways. But there are plenty of instances where healers feel they can let the DPS go to half hp in older Ex content and just DPS with the party. While, in a sense, this is true, they can easily do so, it also leads to mistakes more often. The example of Seph Ex is up there with savage. Everyone has to be on their game in the first place as anyone messing up could easily wipe the party. So yes, in those cases, it's not maximizing much. But I've also been in scenarios where my tank dies and I'm the tank now with my NIN in a dungeon. Sometimes that few hundred is exactly what you need for your healer to get off that next cure. Not saying it's a common thing and it's situational in itself. If you can manage it, it's easy enough. There is no need to do it, but it's there and for me it's a single button to switch between the two stances (i macro'd it so 1 button switches from wasp to viper each click).

If it's pulling too much of your focus, then don't do it. As everyone has mentioned, you can usually just stay in 1 stance and switch during instances where you have to pull and a mechanic is necessary. I do find it interesting though that it is even such a big argument... considering how many things a NIN already has to pay attention to in their rotation and CDs, this shouldn't really even be a blimp on the radar... but to each their own! No one is forcing anyone to swap venoms here. It's an option though. As I said, it ends up being a switch MAYBE once every 90 seconds IF you need to be in wasp for some reason and can't simply stay in venom. Most bosses don't get stunned as many have already stated.

And in your example of Seph Ex, say you do get knocked to just below 1k hp. Healer does AoE heal and you get 4k back. You're at a little under 5k now. You pop second wind and find your hp sitting there around 6.8k. Boy, wouldn't that suck? That extra 800 could of came in handy here. Now, I don't believe there even is any reason to be in wasp stance in that fight, so I'd assume you'd be in viper regardless and probably benefitting from the mug hp anyways. Not saying by any means to save mug. That'd be silly waste of DPS. But if the timing happened to be there, it'd be the difference.

I have not gone into Seph Ex yet however. I should probably go into that sometime soon xD Keep getting distracted doing other things xD

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

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well, the described situation where i might fall under 1k if raid coordination wasnt good, happens before the 90s mark, even if i want that mug heal its not back on CD
and im actually in wasp stance 90% of the time, since the difference is minimal and i like the icon of it better than viper, but thats not really an argument i digress

its not really big of an argument, people are just jumping on the idea of stance dancing on ninja
which at first glance, myself included, consider it to be a really silly idea that serves no purpose.