Why is NIN considered OP or highly viable?

I am wondering why people do (and have in the past) hold NIN as such a highly useful and needed class in the game?

It seems everyone thinks there needs to be at least 1 nin in serious groups for hard content...why?

I play nin a bit and did a lot of it last xpac but I dont see why its held so highly.

Is it because of the vul debuff from trick attack? When I ask people why they think NIN is so strong they say its because of its high amount of utility for the raid...but trick attack is the only unique utility I see it having compared to others.

It doesnt have an AoE buff like embolden or battle litanyor brotherhood

It has a slashing debuff that is brought by sam and I think warrior still

It has threat manipulation but I would think at high levels of play threat is a non issue...and even in low levels of play I dont find it being a bother enough to use skills on

So is the vul debuff the sole and only reason NIN is held so highly?

Trick attack is essentially an AoE buff like Embolden, Battle Litany, and Brotherhood. In fact, it's better than all three. You could argue it's better than Litany and Brotherhood combined, especially because of it's incredibly low cooldown. In high levels of play threat manipulation and management is actually super important, a NIN being in the party during Heavensward basically guaranteed that tanks hardly had to generate any hate or make any effort to. As it stands right now, NIN also does incredibly well with personal DPS and while it is getting nerfed it probably won't negatively influence it too much.

Although yes, Trick Attack is the main reason.

Trick attack +10% to 7-8 players every 60sec.

So its all based around that one sole debuff?

yes. Also nin dps tie with mnk.

It can use ninjutsus, ninjutsus are cool

NIN managing agro for a tank means tank can dps harder in dps stance resulting in more dps.

Having the slashing debuff isnt what NIN is used for. (Though it can be)
If a WAR or SAM is using it, that means a NIN can gain the benefit from them using it too.
And you know every group has at least 2 slashing PT members (the tanks) so you're adding a 3rd, regardless who is using the slashign debuff. (4 in the case of SAM, the more, the better!)

And as said right above me, giving more threat to the tanks also means more DPS combos, and in the case of DRK, it can also mean more survival too. (TBN taking up MP, which is tied only to their DPS combo)
Only slightly for WAR as path heal is a nice bonus, but not that strong.
PLD wants their DPS combo for MP as well, for their nukes, but doesnt affect their survival. (that im aware of yet.)

Then while most bosses have enrages, the real trick is usually the smaller DPS checks that happen in the fight, which require timing your burst damage around, which is where things like trick attack shine.

They lost goad (sorta), so thats no longer a thing in their favor.

Obviously a BRD can do a lot more support, but a NIN was the best melee support u could have before, and still decent now.

Also trick attack cd is incredibly convenient since as long as you just use it on cd, you will manage to alligne it with most group buffs.

You really have to understand how powerful trick attack is. It's 10% dmg up for EVERYONE. For 10s, every 60, seconds.
Compare this to Brotherhood, 5%, doesn't effect you, only effects physical attacks, and recast of 90s

And Battle Litany, crit up on a very long CD.

It just doesn't compare, at all.

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Originally Posted by Timat

So its all based around that one sole debuff?

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In higher levels, their aggro management is also a huge bonus. When tanks get more threat from them and DPS can drop threat thanks to them, they don't have to worry about throttling their damage, so their threat management abilities lead (indirectly) to more group damage as well.

Its DPS is the least deterred by mechanics of any melee, and it offers the highest or equal to highest raid DPS contribution of any job.

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Originally Posted by Nezia

Also trick attack cd is incredibly convenient since as long as you just use it on cd, you will manage to alligne it with most group buffs.

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This 100%. If you start coordinating, every class with a 60s Cooldown like Berserk, Wildfire etc. can time their burst with TA. Fun times.

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Originally Posted by Oscura

Trick attack is essentially an AoE buff like Embolden, Battle Litany, and Brotherhood.

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Sry but how is TA in a fight like for example A2s better than the other buffs when they buff all dmg to all adds and not only one?
Buffs always have an advantage compared to a single target debuff when you have multiple piority targets that have to die at the same time. The Value of the Buffs increase in these situations.
The Add phase in A12s is another good example for this aswell as A9s.

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Originally Posted by Sawamura

yes. Also nin dps tie with mnk.

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Nope they don't, if you are reffering to the SSS dummy tests there are some things that aren't accounted.
1. Nin is buffed by TA while the MNK isn't, 20 sec TA uptime is huge in such a short parse with a pot/opener burst.
2. MNK doesn't have his benefit from Brotherhood which increases his dps in a Party (chakra procs).

In a realistic fight MNK would also benefit from TA, his Brotherhood (chakra from partymembers) and his overall better sustain dps.
Immo it's the only job that comes atleast a bit close to SAM while bringing Mantra and Brotherhood for the grp.

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Originally Posted by Timat

So its all based around that one sole debuff?

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yes, NIN=TA which is sad in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Sam26

Sry but how is TA in a fight like for example A2s better than the other buffs when they buff all dmg to all adds and not only one?
Buffs always have an advantage compared to a single target debuff when you have multiple piority targets that have to die at the same time. The Value of the Buffs increase in these situations.
The Add phase in A12s is another good example for this aswell as A9s.

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Ah yes A2S. One fight of twelve. One out of twelve fights in the Alexander raid pool is the one time that Trick Attack is less valuable. That is already the massive problem with this reply. You are implying that just because TA is not useful in 1/12 fights in a raid tier, that it is not better than buffs. You are seriously telling me that because TA is useful in only 11/12 fights, it is not as good as a buff.

It is true that buffs will always contribute more when dealing with an add phase or multiple targets at once. The only problem is that the more demanding content in this game more or less comes down to hitting a single target. Add phases never last long enough to seriously deviate from the fact that Trick Attack is amazing. Even in the A12S example you listed, realistically the add phase is maybe 10% of the fight depending on your group speed. For the other 90% of the fight, TA is superior in every single way. For A9S, it's even worse. Adds die so quickly that TA can still be used on the boss basically almost always on cooldown. It is useful at every stage of that fight.

I'm sorry I didn't state that TA isn't better than buffs at certain periods, but the fact of the matter remains that if you are hitting a single target, which is the grand majority of endgame fights in this game, TA is superior. It has a lower cooldown than basically any buff in the other classes can offer. Litany (180s CD) by itself is a crit buff, which can't even compete with a flat damage buff. Embolden (120s CD) is a 10% physical only buff (which also damage bonus to caster) which decays every 4 seconds. Brotherhood (90s CD) is a 5% physical only buff which does not even apply to the caster, albeit it grants chakra stacks but let's not try to pretend that makes up for the fact it's weaker than Embolden or TA. Embolden is stronger than it in every way until 12 seconds, so for 3 seconds for its entire duration (15s) is Brotherhood better. Brotherhood's advantage is that it has a shorter CD than Embolden.

Meanwhile, Trick Attack (60s CD) buffs all types of damage, not specifically physical, and it has no decay. Please do not cherry-pick through my post.

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Originally Posted by Timat

It has threat manipulation but I would think at high levels of play threat is a non issue...and even in low levels of play I dont find it being a bother enough to use skills on

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Everyone has touched on trick attack, but I will say that shadewalker is also incredible utility-wise. At all levels, it allows the tank to drop/go without tank stance and use less of their enmity combo in favor of their damage combo. This increases the tank's damage output, so it is overall an increase in raid DPS.

I've been working on leveling my PLD/DRK to 70 and have yet to see a NIN use their enmity tools (as well as other DPS who won't use diversion/LD), forcing me to sit in tank stance and use my aggro combo far more than I need to. It can be frustrating, and I always give my comm to a DPS properly using these tools - they are part of your toolkit, so give them a try!

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Originally Posted by Oscura

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wow no reason to get agressive immediately I just stated that the value of buffs may vary depending on the fight. Where did I say that TA is not a good buff??? I didn't mention the value of TA in a word beside in A2s where the buffs most likely surpass it.
(My first line, the other lines where general speaking)
I said that a Buff is much more reliable as a Debuff in general because of certain situation not speaking about TA vs Litany/embolden/brotherhood beside the example with a2s. I also just said that the value of Litany/Embolden/Brotherhood increases in A12s at the Addphase and A9s so where did I mention that TA is worse in this fights?

dunno...

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Originally Posted by Sam26

wow no reason to get agressive immediately I just stated that the value of buffs may vary depending on the fight. Where did I say that TA is not a good buff??? I didn't mention the value of TA in a word beside in A2s where the buffs most likely surpass it.
(My first line, the other lines where general speaking)
I said that a Buff is much more reliable as a Debuff in general because of certain situation not speaking about TA vs Litany/embolden/brotherhood beside the example with a2s. I also just said that the value of Litany/Embolden/Brotherhood increases in A12s at the Addphase and A9s so where did I mention that TA is worse in this fights?

dunno...

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Of course buffs have advantageous situations. I thought that was obvious. Albeit it has absolutely nothing to do with my post. My post was specifically indicating that trick attack exceeds buffs in performance in a grand majority of situations. That much is true.

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Originally Posted by Sam26

In a realistic fight MNK would also benefit from TA, his Brotherhood (chakra from partymembers) and his overall better sustain dps.
Immo it's the only job that comes atleast a bit close to SAM while bringing Mantra and Brotherhood for the grp.

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This is bad reasoning. They were talking about solo dps. The TA damage that the MNK receives during a raid is actually counted towards NINs indirect damage not MNKs damage in a raid setting to decide balance (you can't double dip and count the TA damage twice). Also, you are making the assumption that there is always a NIN present. If there is a NIN always present due to guaranteed position for NIN to always be present than that by definition shows there is am imbalance with the NIN class.

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Originally Posted by Sam26

Sry but how is TA in a fight like for example A2s better than the other buffs when they buff all dmg to all adds and not only one?

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A2s is the only fight in the entire raid tier that you could say that about, and so far nothing in Omega, Lakshmi or Susano had so many adds that Trick Attack wasn't useful.

So basically, Ninja is good in 9/10 scenarios, minus that one fight full of adds. Gotcha.

Well Ninja has pretty much all pros and no downsides right now. Its single target is good, it's AOE is good, Huton is incredibly resilient to Mechanics, aggro shenanigans and Trick Attack,a 400 potency attack that inflicts a 10 second 10% damage up Debuff every 60 seconds. The comparable buffs, Brotherhood and Battle Litany are weaker in effect (5% Physical only or just increasing crit rate), have longer recasts (90 seconds and 180 seconds) and require all party members to be within range.

There's basically no downside to the Job, at all. If anything absolutely needs a nerf it's Ninja.

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Originally Posted by Oscura

Of course buffs have advantageous situations. I thought that was obvious.

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I wouldn't be too sure about that, I have read several posts in boards/reddit and most people didn't seem to know that there is even a difference, sad but true ._. I even saw people believing that TA is a flat 10% raiddps boost.
TA is huge no question but it's also not entirety true that it's up on CD every 60 sec. in a realistic fight because you have to actually perform a Suiton Ninjutsu to be able to cast it and also be able to hit the target from rear.
It happens that your mudra CD doesn't line up to TA CD which can result in a delay which can vary. If you wait and delay your Ninjutsu for too long it may work but result in a personal dps loss.
Then there are also mechanics that force you to delay it (like the side switching in susano when a player gets the purple mark+lightning tether)
True North helps with such situation but more then often it will be on CD due to 150s... and if you don't hit it from rear it's rip TA so you have to delay it again in terms of safety which may result in loosing one TA for the whole fight in relation to the
encounter length.
(Don't know though why they kept TA as the only skill that work that way, they changed it for DRG/MNK in the past, that you keep the buff/debuff even when you miss positional and only lose the potency)

For example, the best SAM log Susanoo:
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/k94fg...bility=1000638

The Encounter length is 7:16 , people would expect that TA was 7 times up that fight but it was 6 times due to mechanics/delays

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Originally Posted by MomoOG

This is bad reasoning. They were talking about solo dps.

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Wasn't that though what jobs in the game were balanced arround? According to what you are saying Bards for example should be complaining that their "solo" low dps and ignore the fact how they perform in a raid setting?
I'm talking about brotherhood here, since it's designed that way, that you need other player for it to make it work even if you leave Nin out. Also how meaningful is a ~2:30 parse when realistic fights take 7+min.... Take BLM for example, they are getting buffed soon, regarding that logic they should be nerfed since they do higher dmg on the SSS?....

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Originally Posted by Sam26

snip

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I order to make this fair, you should subtract the downtime due to cutscenes and stuff.
Sure, NIN won't TA during transitions, but no one will do anything during transitions (other than lose buffs and get pissed off), so it's irrelevant.
Downtime is like what, 30s for Susie with all the sword nonsense and then the explosion?
So the length of the fight where you're actually fighting is like 6 minutes something.
For that duration, you'd expect 6 TAs, and that log has 6 TAs.

i wonder who will be the next target of who is too strong *eat pop corn*

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

i wonder who will be the next target of who is too strong *eat pop corn*

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White Mages, obviously. With their leet DPS, no one else stands a chance. It's so good, people are constantly complaining about it already!

That is how the meta game works. You being flippant and sarcastic because you don't agree just shows that it has nothing to do with you, and you should be happy with what you get. There will always be a strongest and weakest, easiest and hardest etc. Sometimes the difference is too large which warrants balancing measures such as nerfs n buffs. Right now NIN is too strong and SAM and RDM are close behind (MNK also). BRD is ahead of RDM when a DRG is involved, but right now DRG is dog shite so this isn't a common scenario. These classes (not DRG) are also the easiest and most lenient classes in a fight. NIN can also manage agro that helps tank DPS quite a bit and RDM can raise and cure. People who play good classes will hate the meta changing and those who play bad will love it. Perhaps after this patch MCH indeed becomes too strong, and then after savage people will be calling a nerf. There is nothing wrong with this and its the nature of pretty much any online game that is aiming for balance.


The issue is, people need to stop being children when they hear something they don't like and understand that things like these forums exist specifically to discuss this stuff.

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Originally Posted by HoLoFoNo

That is how the meta game works. You being flippant and sarcastic because you don't agree just shows that it has nothing to do with you, and you should be happy with what you get. There will always be a strongest and weakest, easiest and hardest etc. Sometimes the difference is too large which warrants balancing measures such as nerfs n buffs. Right now NIN is too strong and SAM and RDM are close behind (MNK also). BRD is ahead of RDM when a DRG is involved, but right now DRG is dog shite so this isn't a common scenario. These classes (not DRG) are also the easiest and most lenient classes in a fight. NIN can also manage agro that helps tank DPS quite a bit and RDM can raise and cure. People who play good classes will hate the meta changing and those who play bad will love it. Perhaps after this patch MCH indeed becomes too strong, and then after savage people will be calling a nerf. There is nothing wrong with this and its the nature of pretty much any online game that is aiming for balance.


The issue is, people need to stop being children when they hear something they don't like and understand that things like these forums exist specifically to discuss this stuff.

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Well said. I always find it funny how much people stress out fighting the inevitable.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

White Mages, obviously. With their leet DPS, no one else stands a chance. It's so good, people are constantly complaining about it already!

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*offer popcorn*

*munch munch* who care of balance in a pve game since the goal in the end is to beat the challenge together, not to be the best alone, no?

I'm not a NIN player myself, but this topic sure taught me about Trick Attack being such a powerful debuff, and the usefulness of Shadewalker. As a tank, I just need to get used to trusting NINs and execute more DPS rotations. NINs won't be a "must-have" for my party, but always a welcome addition that will fit right in.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

who care of balance in a pve game since the goal in the end is to beat the challenge together, not to be the best alone, no?

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I wholeheartedly agree. No matter how powerful nor weak you are as a class, don't let it deter you from playing what you love most. After all, we only need to beat the challenge together, right?

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

*offer popcorn*

*munch munch* who care of balance in a pve game since the goal in the end is to beat the challenge together, not to be the best alone, no?

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Ok. We're all working together, it's a PvE game. Time to completely axe all utility, get rid of healing, get rid of tanking, make every class a DPS and have them only do pure damage like Samurai. Every class will have the exact same amount of buttons, there will be no difference between them aside from class appearance.

We don't need to care about balance or the fact that classes usually change or get nerfed or buffed in their lifetime in a game, we'll just keep everything as monotonous and stagnant as possible.

i will ask a stupid question, do the difference of dps is that big? not really... that the whole point. do the dps of the tank change a lot the team survivability i'm not sure, yes the nin transfert of hate help, but the tank dps is far to be the most important (about 1 k less than the lowest dps)
generally outside the sam, the dps is comprise between 3500-3100 in average... what bother people that now a new meta did appear and them favorite is not inclued into it *shrugs*

*eat popcorn*

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

generally outside the sam, the dps is comprise between 3500-3100 in average... what bother people that now a new meta did appear and them favorite is not inclued into it *shrugs*

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400 in 3100 is a lot. That's 13%. I don't know what the figures you posted are (if it's just personal dps, if it's personal+raid dps, what percentile or fight we're discussing), but 10% is a lot in any metric.
It's a lot for progression, it's a lot for speed killing, it's just a lot.
I've struggled with clearing content at sub 10% (god damned Brute Justice)- it's surely not an amount that you can ignore.

(Weren't you also pretty upset when I was rallying for SMN buffs before? If a "small difference" doesn't bother you here, why would it bother you if SMN were to outdps most jobs by 10%?)

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Originally Posted by MomoOG

Also, you are making the assumption that there is always a NIN present. If there is a NIN always present due to guaranteed position for NIN to always be present than that by definition shows there is am imbalance with the NIN class.

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At endgame, NIN can be pretty much be guaranteed in every raid comp while SAM/MNK fight over the remaining raid melee spot.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

generally outside the sam, the dps is comprise between 3500-3100 in average... what bother people that now a new meta did appear and them favorite is not inclued into it *shrugs*

*eat popcorn*

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I play Red Mage. My favorite is included. Most SAMs are thankful I exist just because of Embolden alone and I'm glad I can help their damage. I am getting sick of people having this stupid pigheaded argument that "your favorite class/your class isn't included therefore you are just jelly." "You're not as good as <other class> therefore you are just jelly."

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Originally Posted by Sam26

TA is huge no question but it's also not entirety true that it's up on CD every 60 sec. in a realistic fight because you have to actually perform a Suiton Ninjutsu to be able to cast it and also be able to hit the target from rear.
It happens that your mudra CD doesn't line up to TA CD which can result in a delay which can vary. If you wait and delay your Ninjutsu for too long it may work but result in a personal dps loss.

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The only reason to not have trick up on cd is due to a phase shift or mech where the boss leaves or becomes invulnerable. Suiton should be used 9 sec or less before trick comes off cd since it has a 10 sec "hidden" buff. Even if you screw up and use a ninjutsu a little too late beforehand you still have Kassatsu and Ten Chi Jin to fall back on. If all 3 of these are on cd then you may need to give some thought as to better manage your ogcd's. As far as hitting the rear that shouldn't be an issue for any leveled ninja, however if ppl find it difficult use true north. Ninja has 2 "optional" slots since we don't need diversion and can go without bloodbath

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

At endgame, NIN can be pretty much be guaranteed in every raid comp while SAM/MNK fight over the remaining raid melee spot.

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Yes this is well known. Hence why they are op.

They are valuable because they are Naruto, and every party needs a Naruto in their midst.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

iwhat bother people that now a new meta did appear and them favorite is not inclued into it *shrugs*

*eat popcorn*

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What bothers me personaly is that people considering everythinh that is not part of this meta being a hot garbage. Its positively impossible to find any solid savage static playing blm no matter how good you are or how ready you are to learn and play optimaly. No one cares, not part of the meta, get out. Honestly it just completely ridiculous and unfair.

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Originally Posted by Gwaeron89

What bothers me personaly is that people considering everythinh that is not part of this meta being a hot garbage. Its positively impossible to find any solid savage static playing blm no matter how good you are or how ready you are to learn and play optimaly. No one cares, not part of the meta, get out. Honestly it just completely ridiculous and unfair.

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People who ONLY go by the meta are usually idiots because ANYONE should be able to clear content with any combo of classes. You can simulate numbers and look at charts all you want, in the end it always comes down to player skill. A good BLM or MNK is always going to be better than a mediocre RDM, NIN or SAM.