Dragoon, under the shadow of Ninja

[dday3six]

You have youtube, search for ninja dps... it's not hard to find.

Ninja has access to high potency attacks and low tp requirements. The fact their may be a small difference between the exact values doesn't change the fact that they use high potency hits like dragoon does. You're arguing that Ninja and Dragoon attacks aren't the same, you're arguing semantics.

I'm saying the flat numbers are not the whole picture. I used the potency difference between Ninja and Dragoon to help demostrate that.

You seem to be trying to redirect with talk of semantics.

Just to add onto this, ninjitsu and mudras are off GCD. No decent ninja would ever stack skill speed and Fuuton would reduce their skill cooldown to around 2.10 seconds. This 2 second spent performing Ninjitsu becomes negligible when done inbetween GCDs, especially with the ninjitsu itself is also off GCD.

To clarify I'm saying someone who is unnaturally fast could theoretically execute Ninjutsu in 2 seconds. Most people are going to do it in about 3, however. The key point was that using Huton does not directly deal damage. So, while Ninjutsu is off GCD, it cannot be woven into a rotation as other off GCD's can and it takes about a GCD to preform Ninjutsu. That all boils down to spending roughly the time of a GCD for an action which does not deal damage. This is actually part of the reason Monk out damages Ninja using the standard 3 minute window.

[Zophar]

While that is a fair point about Huton, you're not taking into consideration the other two ninjitsu spells you'll be using in between Huton casts. Suiton which granted, is only 180 by itself, also allows for the use of the much more powerful Sneak Attack or Trick Attack (500 and 400 potency respectively) which can be woven between gcd, and Raiton at 360 potency, plus your free Raiton with guaranteed crit every 2 mins, which on my undergeared nin, hits for around 1200-1300. All this, plus the added haste on your combos, more than makes up for the 1 lost gcd spent on Huton.

[RiceisNice]

...

It's not even being a matter of unnaturally fast; the game has buffer time to allow you to "queue" skills just as the cooldown is about to expire. Press any mudra key in succession and unless you're buttoning mashing the hell out of it, you won't get the "ability isn't ready yet" error. The only thing to account for in this scenario is latency (and I'm assuming 0 latency for these sorts of talk, otherwise we might as well apply that to getting positional.). Even with slight latency, it definitely does not take as long as 3 seconds to cast a 3-mudra ninjitsu, and especially not in the case of raiton (which is 2-mudras).

And while you have a point on fuuton not dealing damage, Suiton still hits for 180 potency (which also allows access to a 400 potency +10% damage taken debuff) and raiton hits for 360, the latter usually being double tapped with 100% crit from Kassatsu.

Not necessarily saying ninja is stronger, but it's pretty damn close and more flexible since they both do not gobble TP as fast as a monk (allowing them to dps longer without requiring paeon to lower the bard's dps) and aren't restrained by losing GL3 stacks to phase changes or fireball happy bosses ruining your positional.

[Cynric]

T8 parser is negligible unless both the monk and Ninja had the same duties or no duties. Monk at equal skill and gear will always out damage Ninja especially when in the same party as a ninja. (Monk gets the Trick attack buff as well so..) Ninja is however much closer to Monk than dragoon is , Dragoon is still close in terms of DPS being barely under monk when played perfectly and doing better in some encounters due to GL3 loss.

The thing that makes dragoon have such an issue in terms of viability is pretty obviously utility and survivability... On paper without taking the whole group into account.

Nin Utility - Low Mantra, low Second Wind, 10% DMG up 10s every 60s raid wide, Warrior Synergy with slashing, Goad, Stun + Silence, High ST damage Under Monk
Mnk Utility - High Mantra, High Second wind, Int Down debuff, Highest ST damage, Stun + Silence
Drg Utility - low mantra, low second wind, Bard synergy with piercing, High ST damage under Monk and Nin, Stun

So it comes down to Dragoon dying to magic raid wide damage easier, Being the lowest DPS of the 3 Melee even if it's only by a tiny amount, and bringing slightly less utility than Ninja.

Now looking at this on paper if you went for real group synergy then Monk would be excluded instead of Dragoon, because something like War/Pld/Whm/Sch/Brd/Drg/Smn/Nin would be ideal from a synergy + utility standpoint. You get double piercing benefit(Brd/Drg) , quadruple foe benefit(Nin/Smn/Sch/Whm), Triple Slash Benefit (Pld/Nin/War), Ballad, 3 Instant raises, high burst, high sustain, Paeon, Goad, 10% Raid wide damage.

I guess for some reason it's just easier to have a Monk somehow. I just don't see it.

[Viridiana]

Monk at equal skill and gear will always out damage Ninja especially when in the same party as a ninja. (Monk gets the Trick attack buff as well so..)

Unless, of course, you properly attribute that bonus damage to the Ninja, where it belongs. >_>

[Itseotle]

I guess for some reason it's just easier to have a Monk somehow. I just don't see it.

Its really only for now because of the DPS difference. People are not over gearing Final Coil yet, so every bit of dps really counts towards getting those kills, or wiping. DPS and mana management, as a DRG that takes more dmg than a MNK uses more mana to heal, because everyone knows every DRG uses Life Surge to heal themselves right? (lol) Other than life surge, MNK and DRG have the same healing abilities, while MNK takes less dmg and heals for more.

Your ideal party setup does look really nice once the minor dps difference can be over come, and personally my group managed to just barely squeek by T10 so far with neither MNK nor NIN, but just barely. And before anyone attacks me, I main DRG and love the class and will not surrender to the NIN overlords so easily.

[Cynric]

Unless, of course, you properly attribute that bonus damage to the Ninja, where it belongs. >_>

Except the bonus applies to the whole raid. Yes if you count the extra raid damage to the Ninja it outdpses Monk. But numbers wise to the individual classes Monk out dpses Ninja in single target.

If you wanna talk ideal situation , Foes+ Storm + Raid Damage of course Ninja will outdps Monk. But like I said in my earlier post, to me the ideal party is War/Pld/Whm/Sch/Brd/Smn/Nin/Drg. Pretty sure keeping everything unique without stacking classes this is the highest DPS/Utility raid comp atm.

I'm not saying Ninja doesn't contribute more total DPS in the long run than Monk. I'm saying a Monk is going to have more individual DPS than a Ninja when they're played equally and geared equally.

[Leonus]

Except the bonus applies to the whole raid. Yes if you count the extra raid damage to the Ninja it outdpses Monk. But numbers wise to the individual classes Monk out dpses Ninja in single target.

If you wanna talk ideal situation , Foes+ Storm + Raid Damage of course Ninja will outdps Monk. But like I said in my earlier post, to me the ideal party is War/Pld/Whm/Sch/Brd/Smn/Nin/Drg. Pretty sure keeping everything unique without stacking classes this is the highest DPS/Utility raid comp atm.

I'm not saying Ninja doesn't contribute more total DPS in the long run than Monk. I'm saying a Monk is going to have more individual DPS than a Ninja when they're played equally and geared equally.

Nah bro, if war is putting up storms/brd putting up foes, that damage is theirs, not the nin.

Nin only gets the damage for 10 seconds, or only if he/she puts up their own slashing debuff.

People want to play that game, then play it.

[Cynric]

Nah bro, if war is putting up storms/brd putting up foes, that damage is theirs, not the nin.

Nin only gets the damage for 10 seconds, or only if he/she puts up their own slashing debuff.

People want to play that game, then play it.

True facts lol.

[Empressia]

All these theorycrafting and u peeps forgot how lazy SE buff jobs (BLM buff wink2) , send word to SE HQ that all DRG buff can be very simple enough implemented by boosting heavy thrust dmg buff into 50%!