Ninja confuses me

[Malkria]

Not in a way that I don't understand it, at least not at Lvl 50. But I 9/10 main a support or healing class, which is why I tend to gravitate towards ranged DPS/healers in almost every mmo. I usually HATE melee due to feeling like I'm stuck with no range and yet....I freaking love the ninja.

But now I'm kinda worried about trying to tune it once I get to 70. You get stones so slow that I feel I have to cost effectivly gear my healers first since it's a one for three deal in that case, and then I can maybe start gearing anything else. So I have to ask are ninjas not strong in end-game or something? Because honestly either i'm blind or I hardly see rogues in dungeons or raids. Not nearly as bad as monks, but they seem about as rare as machinists.

So is there some major reason you don't see many in the ques? Or am I just worried for nothing?

[HiroKirito]

Im a ninja main at endgame (every relevant savage tier down since I started playing) ninjas utility is insanely strong and is one of the most desirable melees (Drg desirable also due to utility plus piercing) if not the most desirable melee at endgame. If you can play ninja well any group will want you.

Personally as I raid on ninja I tend to queue dngs on other jobs just to mix it up a bit and quite a few players do this when it comes to thier main job.

[Maero]

Ninjas are very much needed end game and while i main and have always mained casters for raiding i am playing Ninja.
Is it top dps? No but the support it offers makes up for it i would think. Myself i cannot seem to fine-tune it to be all it could be but am managing.

[HiroKirito]

Is it top dps? No but the support it offers makes up for it i would think. Myself i cannot seem to fine-tune it to be all it could be but am managing.

Overal yes ninjas personal dps is not as high as other job and utility can make up for this but that's down to how well any job is played. In my static for example where everyone is fairly equal in terms of competence I wouldn't expect to be top on a clean run. In a party of randoms I usually would be regardless of people's jobs.

Talking about job potential/not reaching it I could provide you some feedback if you want it? I'm not perfect and always improving myself.

[Lynde]

As someone who usually prefers support-based classes (regardless of role) I can see your concerns. Most of my more favored classes (especially in more faster paced environments) are usually a range type class. Being a melee is usually always more dangerous as usually you have more things to worry about. Having to reposition for mechanics being a major one. Thankfully Ninja has a few tools to help them, like the passive movement speed increase and having a few ranged attacks.

One great thing I like about Ninja in general is that the flow of it's combat feels much more active, especially after you get your 3rd mudra and can start giving your attacks more speed with one of the Ninjutsu.

As for endgame, yeah it's used quite a bit for it's utility. But it's not the best damage wise out of all of them.

[Malkria]

As someone who usually prefers support-based classes (regardless of role) I can see your concerns. Most of my more favored classes (especially in more faster paced environments) are usually a range type class. Being a melee is usually always more dangerous as usually you have more things to worry about. Having to reposition for mechanics being a major one. Thankfully Ninja has a few tools to help them, like the passive movement speed increase and having a few ranged attacks.One great thing I like about Ninja in general is that the flow of it's combat feels much more active, especially after you get your 3rd mudra and can start giving your attacks more speed with one of the Ninjutsu.

As for endgame, yeah it's used quite a bit for it's utility. But it's not the best damage wise out of all of them.

I'm not to terribly worried about being top DPS, most of the time I only have time to do roulettes and maybe work on leveling a class for a while. I mostly only have a few hours on the weekend for now to play as it is.

But I think both your reasons are why I can stand the ninja. Yes it is melee but it has enough ranged often enough that I don't feel like I can't do anything until I'm in the mook's face. Unlike say with the PLD or WAR which I'm trying to level to have a tank option. Plus with the attack speed and running boost as you said, I don't feel like I have as many noticeable breaks in the flow of combat. Plus combat itself feels more dynamic since I can't just hit a sigle button and must judge which ninjitsu is the best option. I guess in short I like Ninja for the same reasons I like AST, I feel much more involved in playing it vs just hitting buttons when they go off CD in a set rotation. I actually have to think about how to best use the class' mechanic based on the situation rather then trying to fit everything in a set rotation.

[Makeda]

As someone who usually prefers support-based classes (regardless of role) I can see your concerns. Most of my more favored classes (especially in more faster paced environments) are usually a range type class. Being a melee is usually always more dangerous as usually you have more things to worry about.

I've always preferred melee support and melee healers.

As the now removed fistweaver monk of WoW showed - I'm not alone. It was amazingly popular, but ranged support players demanded and succeeded in getting it removed from the game on the insistence that despite them already having 4 other ranged healers, they wanted our ONLY choice to be theirs also... The monks there can now still melee - but it does nothing for them but kill time when nobody needs your real abilities, which are now all ranged.

We usually don't get any offerings from MMOs. And even here - we melee support/healer players have at best, WHM if you play it highly offensively (Holy and Assize being melee ranged abilities).

Ninja gives me melee support... and I only recently figured this out (I've mostly tanked in this game on my Mi'qote character, my Hyur has had Ninja for ages but I'd not played it past unlocking until recently).

I can't stand being at range. It just drives me nuts... so I'm glad for Ninja - it feeds the 'buzz' I've not had a good class for since playing the now long dead City of Villains / Heroes... You can sorta get melee support out of Guild Wars 2, but it's not the same in a game where nobody really needs support...

I just hope ranged support players here don't ever start a campaign to have Ninja removed like they did to us in WoW... Not likely, different community and such... but I'm still sour over that and it's been years... I DO SEE the occasional other WoW convert in here campaigning to have support removed from Ninja on the ground that it's not a "real rogue"... as if Blizzard somehow was the source of the dictionary definition of rogue... Thus far I'm glad to see they usually get ignored.


The fact that on Ninja I have to stay mobile, I have to position in and out of things, and I have to constantly shift around to get to the rear of targets - this is a LARGE PART of the appeal. I get bored on stationary platform classes. I also have a Bard, and I set my Bard aside for the entire lifespan of Heavensward... I was contemplating deleting the alt that I leveled Bard on when the Stormblood changes were announced... Again I don't like ranged - but at least I don't have to platform with Bard. I move around constantly even if it's pointless to be doing so... doing so keeps me mentally engaged and situationally aware.

[Maero]

Overal yes ninjas personal dps is not as high as other job and utility can make up for this but that's down to how well any job is played. In my static for example where everyone is fairly equal in terms of competence I wouldn't expect to be top on a clean run. In a party of randoms I usually would be regardless of people's jobs.

Talking about job potential/not reaching it I could provide you some feedback if you want it? I'm not perfect and always improving myself.

Well when i first started Savage i did not understand Ten Chi Jen, but thankfully now i at least am more familiar with it, lol.
I am on PS4 so have no parser but i think i have improved.
The only thing if TA is not available but TCJ is, i do not know if i should wait or just use Hellfrog as example.
Another things i have noticed as of late is i must cast mudras slower as they will not register and messes up, sigh

As for not seeing them in PF, it could also be like myself in that outside of raiding i do not really want to play Nin so go as other jobs

[wereotter]

Well when i first started Savage i did not understand Ten Chi Jen, but thankfully now i at least am more familiar with it, lol.
I am on PS4 so have no parser but i think i have improved.
The only thing if TA is not available but TCJ is, i do not know if i should wait or just use Hellfrog as example.
Another things i have noticed as of late is i must cast mudras slower as they will not register and messes up, sigh

As for not seeing them in PF, it could also be like myself in that outside of raiding i do not really want to play Nin so go as other jobs

I could be wrong here, but I don't think using TCJ is the best way to execute a trick attack. Bhavacakra has a cooldown that roughly aligns with trick attack (it's 10 seconds shorter, but works when it comes to building ninki) so I will always use that as my ninki dump under trick attack and use TCJ to execute Fuma>Katon>Doton and fire frog when I have ninki to spend and neither of the other two are off cooldown.

[Shamox]

I could be wrong here, but I don't think using TCJ is the best way to execute a trick attack. Bhavacakra has a cooldown that roughly aligns with trick attack (it's 10 seconds shorter, but works when it comes to building ninki) so I will always use that as my ninki dump under trick attack and use TCJ to execute Fuma>Katon>Doton and fire frog when I have ninki to spend and neither of the other two are off cooldown.

You're supposed to setup as many tricks as possible using TCJ suiton.
You don't want to delay trick attack though.