The Ninja Superthread

[Archadius]

A Note on Cross-Class Skills

I've done some experimenting and thought I'd lay out the details/usefulness of each cross-class skill, and a conclusion as to which ones I feel are most beneficial to include in the rotation:

Lv.4 Featherfoot, Pugilist
(Good for solo perhaps, but in most (party-based) situations, a waste of a slot. Evasion bonuses don't help you much in a party, you're a DPS, not a tank)

*Lv.8 Second Wind, Pugilist
(Good for solo purposes as well as helping out your healer when those pesky "unavoidable" attacks strike, or if you mess up and get hit by something you shouldn't have)

Lv.10 Haymaker, Pugilist
(Good for solo perhaps, but in most (party-based) situations, a waste of a slot. The fact you need to evade an attack to proc this ability makes it rarely used since you're a DPS, not a tank)

*Lv.12 Internal Release, Pugilist
(Self-buff to DPS, an absolute must-have)

Lv.42 Mantra, Pugilist
(Decent for party play, but in most situations you may find it unecessary. The buff duration is low, and at best it's offering a rather small bonus to healing aptitude. Chances are your healer is more than capable of managing your party's HP without the help of this buff. I'd recommend it for a party of 8 that are melee DPS heavy, but not one with several ranged DPS or for a party of 4)

*Lv.2 Feint, Lancer
(Good for solo and party based situations. It's basically Haymaker without the need to evade for a proc. It can be highly useful since slowing the mob help keeps you and/or your party alive, and it shares the GCD so it's always ready)

Lv.6 Keen Flurry, Lancer
(Good for solo perhaps, but in most (party-based) situations, a waste of a slot. Parry bonuses don't help you much in a party, you're a DPS, not a tank)

*Lv.22 Invigorate, Lancer
(Good for solo and party based situations. With Huton up you may notice that you really start to fly through your rotation, and may fall short of TP on occasion. This also helps when you're spamming Death Blossom to burn down several trash mobs)

*Lv.34 Blood for Blood, Lancer
(Self-buff to DPS, an absolute must-have)

*These are the 5 I've chosen, with swapping Second Wind for Mantra in those situations where it would benefit my melee-heavy party.

[treuhavik]

A Note on Cross-Class Skills

I've done some experimenting and thought I'd lay out the details/usefulness of each cross-class skill, and a conclusion as to which ones I feel are most beneficial to include in the rotation:

These are the 5 I've chosen, with swapping Second Wind for Mantra in those situations where it would benefit my melee-heavy party.

Thanks! I agree with 4/5 of these, as Feint generally doesn't have an effect on high-level enemies and uses the GCD. Otherwise great list! I've noted the 4 must-haves in the OP.

[Dervy]

And dervy hit a home run ty for the stat weight as I have been looking for this specific just for ninja. Ty

Aaaand now time to add the finishing touches to the NIN sim entirely (little bits and bobs I don't like)... Then off to rework Bard.... Then make a Summoner Sim. T0rins sim for the summoner is really outdated and sim.ffxivguild.com doesn't work as well as I'd like it to. I want everything ready for the Expansion as there's going to be A LOT of confusing and debates... Something needs to sort that mess out :P

I'm skipping BLM and leaving that one to PuroStrider. His work for that Job is beyond anything I'd ever be able to do.

[Leonus]

So any kind of disconnect from the boss, you should prioritize F > M > D or is that just for adds, and when you get back to the boss, you go back to D > F > M (when D has already fallen off.)

This is something that should be specified so that people know what to do for disconnects like these. Though it might be mostly judgement based.

[Arkenne]

Another Tip:
As an alternative opener specially good for Hunts I would recomend taking into account Hide and Kassatsu reset utility for the sake of Trick Attack:

- [Huton -> Be a Ninja and get close unnoticed -> Hide -> Trick Attack]<- All this within the first 10s of Huton.
- Do your Ninja magic while pushing your Huton until Trick Attack is within 10 seconds of reset
- [Huton -> Kassatsu -> Suiton -> Trick Attack]
- Continue with your Ninja magic

This will allow Trick Attack to be windowed at the 0~20 and 60~80 seconds in battle instead of the normal 20~30 and 80~90, and specially the first one will catch more of your whole party CDs and bursts (and all the other ppl doing the same Hunt Mark).

«All for One, United We Stand»

[treuhavik]

Well, the theory behind this is that you want to leave the boss with your highest potency attack to soften the blow to your DPS while you're away. For most jobs, including NIN, these are DoTs. Aside from Sneak Attack, which I both doubt you'd be willing to use or have ready, that is Shadow Fang @ 440 potency. If you have time for 3 GCDs before break, SF + Mutilate = 950 potency alone. If you can manage DE or any buffs before those, do-it to-it, but for sudden breaks it'd be Fang > Mutilate.

And this is when you're leaving your main target, as in bosses, to deal with adds/mechanics.

For adds themselves, it's a case-by-case basis. This is where you'd need experience with the particular enemy to know it's life expectancy. From there you can judge whether it would be worth using DoTs (will the mob receive enough tics to counter use of another skill?), but it's almost always worth using your debuff before anything else on whatever it is you're fighting, even most trash mobs.

I'll add some of this to the OP soon.

[Leonus]

Dots dont tick during invulnerability though, so if you know the boss is going into invulnerability status, you're better off getting in buffed AEs. Again this depends on how soon the boss is going to go into invulnerability.

[PROBOUND]

Hey can you guys take a look at this BiS i made in comparison to the one in OP? Just spitballin but would +20 det be worth it here in terms of stat weights? ACC is probably the main issue im assuming?

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/OWPR

Compared to set in OP:
ACC: -6
CRIT: -4
DET: +20
SPEED: -18

[treuhavik]

Hey can you guys take a look at this BiS i made in comparison to the one in OP? Just spitballin but would +20 det be worth it here in terms of stat weights? ACC is probably the main issue im assuming?

+1.726 points worth of DEX. If you can still hit 100% with this then why not, but I'm guessing the accuracy caps pretty accurate by now.

[Valkyrie_Faleva]

wondering what people's thoughts are in this situation to clip or not to clip:

Fresh DE just applied, SF and M both have 9 seconds left.

a. AE combo, then put up SF then M?
b. clip SF then M?

I ran into this situation a couple of times, just wondering what people would do if you were in that situation, clipping too early will result in dps loss...