NINJA - How to maximise my DPS?

Hi there,

I need some advice on NIN. I had ilvl 340 and with melded materias onto all gears but it seems that I was still constantly outperform by other players of lower gear.

I have exactly no idea why so might need some advice from Nin experts to tell me how they maximise their DPS or what's their rotation is like.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

https://www.mooglemedia.com/nin-guide/

So looking at an alte roite kill from 2 weeks ago (it's the most recent I could find of you)...

1) Mug was used 1 time in an 8 minute fight. Pretty much you wanna use Mug any time it's up and not going to waste a bunch of Ninki.
2) You did Spinning Edge -> Gust Slash 52 times, but aeolian edge, shadow fang, and armor crush had a combined 36 casts. That's 16 times you didn't finish your combo for some reason, almost a third of the time!
3) Armor Crush was used 6 times, and Huton once. Even if you pre-buffed with Huton, you'd have, at most, 70 + 70 + 240 = 380 seconds of Huton active, so for over 23% of the fight Huton wasn't up. That 15% haste is *huge* for Ninjas.
4) Jugulate was only cast 9 times instead of the ~15 it should have been. Just hit that baby on cooldown.
5) Your Ten-Chi-Jin order is kinda wrong. You want to use Jin-Ten-Chi to produce Fuma-Katon-Doton. Yes those are your AoE skills, but their combined potency is higher than T-C-J (your single target ones), assuming the enemy will stand in most of Doton (which they will.)
6) You just seem to not be pushing buttons very fast. For comparison, one of my (imperfect, yes) Alte runs had 358 actions compared to your 253 -- and my fight was shorter. Yeah I used a bunch of utility stuff but even removing those I did 346 -- about 37% more actions. I noticed in particular your on-GCD skills aren't seeing much use, you need to try to be on the boss at all times whenever it's not going to get you killed. The sheer uptime would help drastically.

Mostly it seems to be number 6 -- you don't seem to just be pushing enough buttons. If you are using macros for your on-GCD skills, stop -- macros don't queue up weapon skills or spells, meaning you lose, at the very tiny least, your latency on every GCD you use with a macro. Over the course of a fight, this can result in a huge drop in total skill use.

The most important thing is to press your buttons more. In this o1s run with you and another ninja, the other guy pressed 327 buttons and you did 250. That's a lot of potency lost from all the skills you could have pressed. You need to remember to reapply your Shadow Fang, on that same run it was up for less than half the fight.

Practice your rotation on a striking dummy so much that it pretty much becomes muscle memory. That way you wouldn't have to pause so much during content. Of course, read a guide so you know you're practicing the right thing.

I don't really Ninja, but I can give you some advice. Avoid STDs, period. Single Targed Dotons, or STDs should be avoided at all cost, hence the abreviation STD. Remember 3 and 4 is the sweet spot. If the enemy count is 4 or more use AoEs, with 3, single target or AoEs will work, since the DPS comes out about even. Also keep in mind Doton has to reach 6 ticks to be a DPS boost over Katon. In shorter fights, Katon is better and in single target fights Raiton is better, since it delivers the full 360 up front and not overtime.

Thanks all for these tips. Surprisingly that you guys managed to dig out information of the fights I had with you guys.

I will press more buttons as it seems to be my weakest point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eloah

I don't really Ninja, but I can give you some advice. Avoid STDs, period. Single Targed Dotons, or STDs should be avoided at all cost, hence the abreviation STD.

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Doton is used in the single target rotation during Ten-Chi-Jin, since:

Fuma-Katon-Doton is (316.8 [240 * 1.1 * 1.2] + 250 + 360) * 2 = 1853.6 effective potency.
Fuma-Raiton-Suiton is (316.8 [240 * 1.1 * 1.2] + 360 + 180) * 2 = 1713.6 effective potency.

This means using the AoE abilities during TCJ will result in your super-powerful moment being about 8% stronger.

Now if the boss misses 2 ticks of Doton, which happens on none of the current endgame bosses (unless you grossly misuse TCJ) then yes, FRS will be better than FKD. And outside of TCJ, Doton shouldn't be used on single target because while it does do the same potency as Raiton, it does also require an extra mudra, which will delay your GCD a fair bit.

So yeah, STDs are good in some cases!

Do note that if you time TCJ to make use of Suiton, then yeah you can do the single target one and get stuff out of it.

I've updated this thread as it seems that I do improve a tiny bit but gotta memorize the moves of my opener...

I got a question, what happens after the opener? Should I just repeat the steps all over again?

How do you sustain high dps output during the fight?

The biggest thing is always press more buttons. However outside of your opener your priority should be Armor Crush combo if Huton is less than 30s, Shadow Fang combo when Shadow Fang is 1-4 seconds, then just Aeolian Edge. You should be pressing your oGCDs whenever they are up. This should mean that Kassatsu and Dream within a dream always fall within trick.

However as the first thing stated... press buttons as fast as possible. Don't stop attacking/leave the boss. Melee uptime and attacking as frequently/often as possible leads to the highest DPS over optimizing your rotation.

Ty for posting up a guide Lala,
in the past i was told rudely by some random that doton was not to be used on ST (bosses as example)

This is correct though. There are just some small exceptions for that, like TCJ (only because the TOTAL potency of fuma+katon+doton is higher, not doton alone) or the A12S fight when the boss stops the time and the ticks continue running (more dmg ticks), and even then only if the boss stands in the aoe and doesn't move around. But on a normal boss fight you should not be using a single Doton on a single target.

Well that was back in HW and i have since then not used it on ST. I was moreso referring to the guide posted in the link on the first page as it mentions doton for Single target.

Sometimes your issue can be CMP (cast per minute). High Latency/ping does affect this. Try to keep up-time on target as much as possible.
Another thing, NIN personal dps is actually on the lower end compared to other dps. Because you bring good party utility, your own personal dps is low (This is not a bad thing).

A very good guide to watch for all melees. Hope this helps :)

Thanks all for the tips! How do u tell if you have high latency?

I am suspecting it could be my frequent of clicking the mouse rather than pressing buttons.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rexcaldur

Windows Key + R
Type "resmon"
Tab "Network"
Click "FFXIV"
Look under "TCP Connections" and you will see two FFXIV entries showing you the ping.

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I'm playing on 100~120 latency with no issues. If your latency is lower than 100 then it is considered low.

Pressing your skills/abilities with mouse is fine, you're what we call a "clicker". Generally people talk negatively about it, but I've seen many PoVs of clickers who have cleared end game content. It shouldn't be a big issue :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maero

Ty for posting up a guide Lala,
in the past i was told rudely by some random that doton was not to be used on ST (bosses as example)

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On it's own, it's not worth using for ST, though it's your strongest AoE if you get all 8 ticks on every enemy (none die earlier), surpassed by Katon only if at least 30% of the damage would be wasted (through early deaths or movement). In ST, Raiton will deal the same damage, but will do so instantly (so that it can all be affected by TA if used in its window) and won't be reduced if the boss should be moved out of the zone of effect.

The reason it sees use, and in TCJ alone, is because you're forced into a choice between Futon (0 potency ~140 if you include skipping Armor Crush), Suiton (180), and Doton (360). If Suiton can give you TA, it effectively becomes, at bare minimum, 620, and is therefore better, but otherwise Fuma, Raiton, Suiton gives only 240-360-180 (780), while Fuma, Katon, Doton (if boss stays in Doton the full time) gives 240-250-360 (850). If you lose even just two ticks of Doton, Raiton-Suiton is stronger again.

Well, technically you'd double both of those, but that's your basis for comparison.

Thank you very much for that info ^ much appreciated
It is going to feel odd for me to raid as a mellee when i have always been a caster

After a few months of improving, i seemed to have more confident in my DPS. (with gear improvement too)

A question though, when do you guys use Goad and Shadewalker?

Shadewalker on tank right after he pulls or before it. Thankfully in our group i am the only mellee and the 2 tanks seem fine with tp management so i never need to use Goad.
Smokescreen i tend to apply to our blm on add phases, this is in Savage mind you.

As for doton i now change my stance on it and see why it does get used on single target. My dps has increased now with this. Dotton (before initial pull and tank pulls in place) Hide> Sutton and so on

Well, thanks guys for the tips so far. But I decided to try keybinding (I am a mouse clicker) after being advised that it improves output. Does anyone have tips on this?