NIN/MNK difficulty?

[Adam]

I hope you have time to review one more reply before you finalize your decision. I've played NIN since it came out, albeit i skipped HS but the remainder of ARR and now SB I've continued to main the job. I've always been under the impression that the only people who choose to play this class are the ones that were a bit of perfectionist. Perhaps it's only me I spend a lot of time in practice groups helping others clear content while learning to optimize my runs. Most other NINs I've run into seem to have the same thought process as well. I don't know if the general mechanics shy many players away, it is an aesthetically pleasing job so I don't know why people would stay away from it other then it's initial "difficulty level" people gave it from the start.

Now what the statistics do not show you, is the how landing or missing TA effects you and the group. Landing your TA increases the raids dps so there is no way to measure the highest dps - lowest dps for specifically ninjas in a fight. The only honest way to measure a classes' difficulty is perhaps fflogs cast per minute (CPM) measurement. You'll have to go through each fight and see the average CPM between NIN and other classes. I think you'll find the numbers you are looking for. I'll list one example I found:

One of the top end fights for Neo-Exdeath for one group shows:
SMN at 5k dps with 36.1 CPM
NIN at 4.5k dps with 44 CPM

Found similar numbers for NIN/MNK comparison.

So in conclusion that ninja is performing 8 more actions per minute then that summoner and is doing 500 less dps. The fact is our combos are more forgiving on direction because of all of the other things we do in fights typically. Our gap closer shukuchi itself is a skill shot, you can't just target a mob and teleport to it. Don't get me started on mudras, you fail it or accidentally press it twice you're done for the next 20 seconds, say bye bye to your dps. I play NIN and MNK both I find monk to be harder atm but that is because i'm still new to it and learning. They are both fun classes and I would recommend both. I hope this helps you to make an informed decision.

[Allyrion]

Tbh the best way would be to try it out for yourself since "difficulty" is subjective. My static MNK mate for example finds that MNK is the easiest meele job out of the 4. He plays all 4 melee jobs and usually pulls orange numbers at fflogs with his MNK.

I don't get though why nearly every thread at the boards here have to end in a Job X VS Job Y war... when it's more a personal thing...
Everyone has a different opinion and feel about "what's more difficult"...

I completely agree. Difficulty generally depends more on the player, playstyle and just how your brain works.

The differences in percentiles are mostly an example of how punishing the Jobs with mess ups or mechanics/movement. With MNK, there's less thinking involved than SAM or NIN, but if you miss positionals or lose GL3 then you're heavily punished. Even if you mess up on the 'easier' jobs, you still do well and thus the disparity is smaller with the top end despite there being more ways to optimize.

You should really try them out yourself to see how well it flows to you.

[Ilan]

Hi guys,

Some time ago I've had a topic discussing the faster/more engaging classes.

I'm asking your opinion whether NIN or MNK is more difficult to play?

The difficulty of a class depends mostly on yourself. For some people MNK is way harder and for some NIN is way harder.

Wow NIN is actually at the bottom. Thanks for taking the time.

NIN may be at the bottom of this list but what does it matter if you like to play it?

[SpeckledBurd]

That was a very shallow way to try to discredit perhaps the best way to answer the question. Statistically, once you have a large enough sample size, it doesn't need to get bigger for nothing to change.


So coordinate when you use TA with the rest of your team? I think you've been pretty hard owned by others here.


Qualitatively, do you understand the statistical evidence that was put forth? Why the variance between the median DPS versus top 95th percentile DPS performance is a great answer to for job difficulty?

It's pretty clear that either he doesn't understand it, or he does understand it but he dislikes the results enough that he just wants to discredit it without actually being able to address. It became evident that he couldn't actually refute it he said "You're basically using numbers you don't understand to explain things you don't know. I'll let someone much more patient than me explain you why you're wrong." That's not an argument. That's an ad hominem and a lack of an argument.

It's not worth engaging with him if he doesn't want to engage with other's arguments or even provide a modicum of evidence for arguments of his own.

[Shamox]

When the biggest dps disparity probably comes from people unable to use true north correctly and doing something as simple as "positionnals" (because that's what monk is about).

> Taking into account that on the actual tier there's a lot of situations where true north is godlike resulting in a bigger disadvantage for monk players not using it than any other melees.

I'm gonna repeat myself, your numbers are based on personal DPS so I explained you that you can't judge a class difficulty only by its personal DPS.
Again, NIN optimization is mostly about rDPS, TA requires you to use a ninjutsu beforehand which depending of the player "skill" could create a huge delay inbetween every TAs thus probably resulting in one to two TA loss over the whole fight yet you wont feel it that much on its personal DPS.
Like someone said before NIN is up to a type of optimization that has clearly nothing to do with only "I do move buff in my opener too", getting that type of answer just feelsbadman.

On another note some classes are more punishing from something as simple as dying, yet it doesnt make them "harder".


So yeah, if you really want FFlogs to start getting relevant please at least start at the 70 - 75%, if you take the lowest % where players still can't do positionnals properly you're gonna end up with a bigger gap between classes with a lot of positionnals and classes with almost none. And you mostly want to look at people that understand how their class works to get an idea of their difficulty, knowing that while doing everything wrong you get more dps out of a class than another one doesn't mean anything in terms of overall difficulty.

[SpeckledBurd]

When the biggest dps disparity probably comes from people unable to use true north correctly and doing something as simple as "positionnals" (because that's what monk is about).

> Taking into account that on the actual tier there's a lot of situations where true north is godlike resulting in a bigger disadvantage for monk players not using it than any other melees.

I'm gonna repeat myself, your numbers are based on personal DPS so I explained you that you can't judge a class difficulty only by its personal DPS.
Again, NIN optimization is mostly about rDPS, TA requires you to use a ninjutsu beforehand which depending of the player "skill" could create a huge delay inbetween every TAs thus probably resulting in one to two TA loss over the whole fight yet you wont feel it that much on its personal DPS.
Like someone said before NIN is up to a type of optimization that has clearly nothing to do with only "I do move buff in my opener too", getting that type of answer just feelsbadman.

On another note some classes are more punishing from something as simple as dying, yet it doesnt make them "harder".

So yeah, if you really want FFlogs to start getting relevant please at least start at the 70 - 75%, if you take the lowest % where players still can't do positionnals properly you're gonna end up with a bigger gap between classes with a lot of positionnals and classes with almost none. And you mostly want to look at people that understand how their class works to get an idea of the difficulty, knowing that while doing everything wrong you get more dps out of a class than another one doesn't mean anything.

Monk is literally 3.X Wildfire+Positionals+GL3 Upkeep now with the way Riddle of Fire is structured, so no it isn't entirely accurate to say that Monk is "Positionals the job".

You imply that Ninja's DPS isn't actually impacted by Raid DPS either, but a Ninja who flubs their Trick Attack is having their damage impacted just like everyone else's. Ninja's DPS isn't magically going to be independent of its ability to apply party buffs and align them with everyone else's. You can insist that Ninja has to optimize fight to fight more than everyone else does, but frankly until you actually provide evidence it doesn't make a difference. Every job has to plan its skill useage out over a fight for maximum effectiveness, ninja isn't an exception.

And if I actually do as you suggest and compare the Max/Upper Quartile (95th/75th percentile) ratio, Ninja is still subject to less variability (Monk 1.092> Ninja 1.082) which suggests that yes, it is easier.

[Shamox]

[Jkei]

Here are the results -
SMN = 5,209.6 - 4288.1 = 921.5
BLM = 5,214.7 - 4,336.8 = 877.9
MNK = 5,220.2 - 4,417.7 = 802.5
DRG = 5,067.2 - 4,300.5 = 766.7
SAM = 5,412.5 - 4,647.2 = 765.3
MCH = 5,164.2 - 4,399.0 = 765.2
BRD = 4,924.9 - 4183.1 = 741.8
RDM = 4,882.2 - 4,186.0 = 696.2
NIN = 5,040.8 - 4,351.0 = 689.8

This is incorrect. Calculating the difference between 95th and 60th% leaves the confounding factor that not all jobs have equal dps potential; this calculation is biased, making jobs with high personal dps appear more difficult when this is not necessarily true. You'll want to use ratios instead (95th% / 60th%) to remove the difference in dps potential from the equation, giving a relative difference rather than an absolute one.

Now what the statistics do not show you, is the how landing or missing TA effects you and the group. Landing your TA increases the raids dps so there is no way to measure the highest dps - lowest dps for specifically ninjas in a fight. The only honest way to measure a classes' difficulty is perhaps fflogs cast per minute (CPM) measurement. You'll have to go through each fight and see the average CPM between NIN and other classes.

One of the top end fights for Neo-Exdeath for one group shows:
SMN at 5k dps with 36.1 CPM
NIN at 4.5k dps with 44 CPM

Found similar numbers for NIN/MNK comparison.

CPM is a terrible measure of job difficulty. It should be glaringly obvious that jobs with inherent haste buffs (GL, Huton, Shifu, etc) will always end up with greater CPM values than ones that do not, or even have extra-long GCDs in the case of BLM -- which, by the way, has the highest 95th - 50th difference ratio across all fights, suggesting it is the most difficult job to optimize, rather than the least difficult one as this CPM ranking would show it to be. Furthermore, an analysis with a sample size of 1 is never statistically significant.

When the biggest dps disparity probably comes from people unable to use true north correctly and doing something as simple as "positionnals" (because that's what monk is about).

> Taking into account that on the actual tier there's a lot of situations where true north is godlike resulting in a bigger disadvantage for monk players not using it than any other melees.

So, carefully planning cooldown usage results in great gains for monk? And that takes skill? It almost seems like good cooldown mapping is a universal part of all dps jobs' optimization.

[...] your numbers are based on personal DPS so I explained you that you can't judge a class difficulty only by its personal DPS.
Again, NIN optimization is mostly about rDPS, [...] you wont feel it [lower TA uptime] that much on its personal DPS.

First off, we're judging the difficulty not by personal dps, but the ratio of personal dps at different percentiles. As for TA and raid dps:
The dps gained from TA is 10% * uptime%. This is equally true for every party member's dps, including the NIN, as for the raid as a whole. Greater TA uptime is an equal relative gain for the NIN and the raid. You insist that NIN's ability to buff raid dps somehow does not correlate with increased personal dps. This is factually false. Learn to math.

So yeah, if you really want FFlogs to start getting relevant please at least start at the 70 - 75%, if you take the lowest % where players still can't do positionnals properly you're gonna end up with a bigger gap between classes with a lot of positionnals and classes with almost none. And you mostly want to look at people that understand how their class works to get an idea of their difficulty, knowing that while doing everything wrong you get more dps out of a class than another one doesn't mean anything in terms of overall difficulty.

I'm assuming you're referring to 50th % with "the lowest % where players still can't do positionnals properly". Whether or not this is true, or where the threshold lies where a player's % of succesful positionals is proper or not, is not something I'm going to address here because that is a subjective matter. What is a fact, however, is that the 50th % is the median player. 50th % performance is what a person with median knowledge and skill of a job can accomplish, good or bad. Their ability to get positionals right is the median, whether they're good or not. Comparing the average joe to the expert is a very valid method to quantify skill ceilings.

Of course, this post shouldn't be necessary at all. The burden of proof for your claim that NIN is more difficult than MNK lies with you.
Great job on the no-comment sassy .gif, though.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This was a NIN - MNK comparison.
While most melee rotations are rigid (DRG being the best exemple), NIN (and kinda SAM) offers you to switch combos order at will. Ninki mapping is also a very different thing than just "switching buffs" around.
Comparing TAs mapping to maintaining GL and BotD during phase skips/disengaging situations > ?I only rejected the fact that monk would be harder than NIN, every melees are pretty easy to pick up and once you can play one decently you probably can play all 4 of them.

And? I added what I openly acknowledged were my own subjective opinion on the melee job at the end of the post, following my answer to the OP.

You're making a false equivalent. Ninki betters compares with Greased Lightning or BotD management whereas moving your raid utilities to better compliment the group aligns with Trick Attack usage. Overall, none is particularly difficult nor is it more difficult on Ninja. Now you are, of course, welcome to believe otherwise but if you're going to insist Ninjas is harder objectively, you need something to back up that assertion. Posting silly gifs isn't an argument.

[Allyrion]

This is incorrect. Calculating the difference between 95th and 60th% leaves the confounding factor that not all jobs have equal dps potential; this calculation is biased, making jobs with high personal dps appear more difficult when this is not necessarily true. You'll want to use ratios instead (95th% / 60th%) to remove the difference in dps potential from the equation, giving a relative difference rather than an absolute one.

I don't agree, but maybe I wasn't clear. I said that this showed how punishing the Jobs are rather than difficult. Difficulty is fairly subjective in my opinion and the differences could easily just be gear level and the people who naturally better at X type of gameplay vs those who aren't.

But comparing the numbers themselves shows how much is at stake. A BLM making a mistake may cost the raid 300 dps while a NIN making one will be a fair amount less. For the most part, raid buffs naturally align and adjusting to boss mechanics to re-align some isn't a huge deal. So those Jobs with more focus on buffs have less at stake with doing their rotation perfectly (once they buff properly), compared to the higher personal dps Jobs.

The raid pays for every mistake you make as one of those Jobs a lot more and that's an important factor in my opinion. I'll call buffing easy cause it's fairly rudimentary (except i guess on Bard) with few wrenches/nuances to really debate on. But add a few more and you'll easily find people who will argue which are the wrenchiest.

I think how much dps you are prone to lose for messing up is a factor in considering the challenge of a Job. The rest I'd leave to the player cause something might objectively have more to manage but also flow better or make more sense than a different Job with less. That will usually be a bigger factor if how much you succeed with it than a relative variance.