Ninja is weak, like very weak.

[Arrius]

Ninja is fine, but is not meta right now.Ninja DPS is in a good spot (Look for 90th+ percentile),

Interesting you pull the most favorable statistic for supporting your argument here.

But how about you take the whole set of eden savage here and have a look at the big picture?

Now this looks a bit different: A melee DPS clumped together with the performance of a ranged one.

Oh, and let's not forget EX trials, while we are at it.

And who's still on the very bottom, post-gust slash buff?

[Komarimono]

Interesting you pull the most favorable statistic for supporting your argument here.

But how about you take the whole set of eden savage here and have a look at the big picture?

Now this looks a bit different: A melee DPS clumped together with the performance of a ranged one.

Oh, and let's not forget EX trials, while we are at it.

And who's still on the very bottom, post-gust slash buff?

Ya, I was confused a bit as well until noticed they pulled a certain stat, showing the other DPS were doing poorly to make Ninja look good, though I was going nuts for a minute until you pointed it out.

Either way, if look at the overall, it shows Ninja and Dancer very low, this is why when you do stats you toss out the highest and lowest to get the average.

[Sylve]

Ya, I was confused a bit as well until noticed they pulled a certain stat, showing the other DPS were doing poorly to make Ninja look good, though I was going nuts for a minute until you pointed it out.

Either way, if look at the overall, it shows Ninja and Dancer very low, this is why when you do stats you toss out the highest and lowest to get the average.

The absolute highest is 14.3k and the absolute lowest is 12.3k.
A 2k or 14% variance.

And that's at the absolute max numbers posted for those jobs. The variance is smaller at the lowest end, coming at 11%.

The most interesting thing about that data set is that it shows a neat linear path from Dancer up to Monk in the severity of DPS loss when resetting their buffs/rotation. Keep in mind, I'm referring to core dps, not what these jobs manage in their burst phases.
DNC, RDM and BRD are all very easy to go from 0 - 100% dps.
NIN has some buildup to its burst, But generally speaking Huton into AE with SF up and you're back to normal. It's level with SMN and MCH, Both of whom can reset their rotations fairly easily, but not quite as easily as the aforementioned 3.
Then we have SAM as a middle ground between the complexity of the upper 3 and the relative ease of the ones below. Just 2 buffs, a DoT and you're good to go.
And finally, we come to DRG, MNK and BLM. All of whom suffer the most from a rotation reset. Monks with GL being a pain to bring back to max, followed by BLM who basically is forced into its 'down' phase in order to reset and finally DRG, which has a core rotation not unlike SAM but has stages to its rotation, and falling to start of that is a hefty GCD cost to get everything flowing again.

So out of 10 DPS jobs, NIN is tied for 5th place with SMN and MCH. And considering the aforementioned DPS variance of just 11-14%, Balance is in a surprisingly good spot right now. I wouldn't expect anything more than very minor tweaks going forward.

[Greywolfamakir]

The absolute highest is 14.3k and the absolute lowest is 12.3k.
A 2k or 14% variance.

And that's at the absolute max numbers posted for those jobs. The variance is smaller at the lowest end, coming at 11%.

The most interesting thing about that data set is that it shows a neat linear path from Dancer up to Monk in the severity of DPS loss when resetting their buffs/rotation. Keep in mind, I'm referring to core dps, not what these jobs manage in their burst phases.
DNC, RDM and BRD are all very easy to go from 0 - 100% dps.
NIN has some buildup to its burst, But generally speaking Huton into AE with SF up and you're back to normal. It's level with SMN and MCH, Both of whom can reset their rotations fairly easily, but not quite as easily as the aforementioned 3.
Then we have SAM as a middle ground between the complexity of the upper 3 and the relative ease of the ones below. Just 2 buffs, a DoT and you're good to go.
And finally, we come to DRG, MNK and BLM. All of whom suffer the most from a rotation reset. Monks with GL being a pain to bring back to max, followed by BLM who basically is forced into its 'down' phase in order to reset and finally DRG, which has a core rotation not unlike SAM but has stages to its rotation, and falling to start of that is a hefty GCD cost to get everything flowing again.

So out of 10 DPS jobs, NIN is tied for 5th place with SMN and MCH. And considering the aforementioned DPS variance of just 11-14%, Balance is in a surprisingly good spot right now. I wouldn't expect anything more than very minor tweaks going forward.

Totally agree

You can't expect the same rDPS with lower effort/punishment.

[Akava]

The absolute highest is 14.3k and the absolute lowest is 12.3k.
A 2k or 14% variance.

And that's at the absolute max numbers posted for those jobs. The variance is smaller at the lowest end, coming at 11%.

The most interesting thing about that data set is that it shows a neat linear path from Dancer up to Monk in the severity of DPS loss when resetting their buffs/rotation. Keep in mind, I'm referring to core dps, not what these jobs manage in their burst phases.
DNC, RDM and BRD are all very easy to go from 0 - 100% dps.
NIN has some buildup to its burst, But generally speaking Huton into AE with SF up and you're back to normal. It's level with SMN and MCH, Both of whom can reset their rotations fairly easily, but not quite as easily as the aforementioned 3.
Then we have SAM as a middle ground between the complexity of the upper 3 and the relative ease of the ones below. Just 2 buffs, a DoT and you're good to go.
And finally, we come to DRG, MNK and BLM. All of whom suffer the most from a rotation reset. Monks with GL being a pain to bring back to max, followed by BLM who basically is forced into its 'down' phase in order to reset and finally DRG, which has a core rotation not unlike SAM but has stages to its rotation, and falling to start of that is a hefty GCD cost to get everything flowing again.

So out of 10 DPS jobs, NIN is tied for 5th place with SMN and MCH. And considering the aforementioned DPS variance of just 11-14%, Balance is in a surprisingly good spot right now. I wouldn't expect anything more than very minor tweaks going forward.

I couldn't disagree more with this. I've raided as a SCH, AST, NIN, SAM, DRG, BRD and now DNC. The only hard thing about being a melee is that you have to resist the greed factor when you see that AoE that's going to make you leave the boss for half a GCD. Ranged might have more up time, but because of that they usually are responsible for handling more mechanics.

A 10% disparity between rDPS, with the utility dps being on the bottom, is incredibly imbalanced. Why bother bringing a utility job and coordinating buffs to align with burst windows when you can just bring a bunch low utility jobs that can do more damage in any situation?

[Deceptus]

Interesting you pull the most favorable statistic for supporting your argument here.

But how about you take the whole set of eden savage here and have a look at the big picture?

Now this looks a bit different: A melee DPS clumped together with the performance of a ranged one.

Oh, and let's not forget EX trials, while we are at it.

And who's still on the very bottom, post-gust slash buff?

Someone has to be at the bottom. Would you prefer the dancer mains have to be there? The Bards / Machinists? The question is always what is the spread. Anything more than about 10% DPS potential should probably be looked at.

But simply: Any job that relies on raid utility is going to have less dps because they make the raid better due to their lack of dps. Total raid dps due to trick attack is basically added to NIN DPS total. That's what many aren't doing here and it's not arguing from an honest stand point.

If you want NIN DPS to be higher, Trick Attack needs to be lowered.

[Arrius]

Someone has to be at the bottom. Would you prefer the dancer mains have to be there? The Bards / Machinists?

Not a melee DPS, for sure. They never should be par or worse than the majority of ranged DPS in any situation.

[Nariel]

Someone has to be at the bottom.

Sure, but there is quite a difference between being at the bottom for a 200-300 DpS margin and being a burden at equivalent skillplay level.

[Kaethra]

Someone has to be at the bottom.

If the bottom of DPS was like the bottom of Tanks or Healers, there wouldn't be an issue. If they were 1-2% behind BLM and not 20-30% they'd be better off. Trick Attack I'll agree needs to be moved to another class. A melee DPS is melee DPS. It needs to be doing heavy damage.

Again I'll say it. Ninjas have been the heaviest damage in previous FF games. Rogue, the class behind the Ninja job has likewise always been heavy hitting across MMORPGs for 20 years. Nothing about rogue screams I'm gonna buff peoples damage.

[HWalsh]

Again I'll say it. Ninjas have been the heaviest damage in previous FF games. Rogue, the class behind the Ninja job has likewise always been heavy hitting across MMORPGs for 20 years. Nothing about rogue screams I'm gonna buff peoples damage.

Incorrect.

Rogue and Ninja were outclassed in every way by Fighter and Monk in Final Fantasy 1.