Quote Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy View Post
It's so interesting, because my impression was roughly the opposite.

Once you get the muscle memory for ninjutsu, NIN is quite easy (not at all in a bad way). I had the impression that MNK was the bigger-brain class—MNK has 50 difference openers and 45 subtly difference rotations to optimize various things. NIN has the one opener and the one rotation.

NIN is not really punished at all in savage for bosses going invuln and whatnot. Your rotation is almost completely flexible outside of burst, and for any savage fight, there will be norms about when it makes sense to hold burst until after an invuln window or not (P2S before limit cut, P3S adds, etc.) The one buff you have to maintain on NIN lasts 60 seconds and can be reapplied in 1 GCD after an awkward invuln break.

Maybe I just need to actually try MNK, haha! I basically just play NIN most of the time I'm on.
It's not the mudras, and I say that as someone who always bounced back and forth between the two jobs. Those are pretty easy to learn, especially if you learn them naturally as you level. It's more things like how many other cooldowns you have to watch, and if you do it wrong, then you've messed up for the next two minutes. Things like watching the rolling timer on trick attack and ninjutsu to make sure you don't use the suiton too soon. You want to use it well before trick attack comes off cooldown so that you have two uses of raiton during trick attack, but not so soon as to lose the suiton buff before you can trick attack. Also there's the ninnki gauge and bunshin to make sure you hold onto the ninki if bunshin is coming off cooldown soon instead of burning it as soon as it's available on bhavacakra. As well as just how much you have to attempt to cram into the trick attack window, which for me was just a chaotic mess.

Monk, on the other hand, just has you hold onto perfect balance to use when you have riddle of fire up. It doesn't have any OCGD damage moves other than forbidden chakra, which you always use as soon as it's available. And you do the same with your damage buffs. So you end up with far fewer parts of your rotation to babysit. The only part to really learn and watch is what combination of moves you want to use in perfect balance to get the right nadi, which if you've played ninja will be really easy, and getting used to the idea that you're in formless fist once you execute a blitz, so you don't have to just pick up your rotation where you left off.