NIN Opener / Rotation

[Ephier]

I haven't looked into it much myself yet and am not taking sides, but your math doesn't apply B4B/IR/TA to the potencies. The argument so far is if unbuffed DoTs first is better, or putting up Dancing first in favor of giving enough time to make your first DoTs ~25% (10% from B4B, 10% from TA, ~5% from IR) stronger a few GCDs later than initially.

At a glance it seems buffing up before DoTs yields more potency but as I said I haven't looked into it enough to even have a valid opinion.

I did math a couple days ago, but it was still in favor of dots with the gap getting larger. Even with TA, the boost did not help DE first.

[Alistaire]

Remember that DoT ticks are not affected by resistance down and vulnerability debuffs on mobs.
So only the initial 60 potency of Mutilate, and the 200 Potency of Shadow Fang will be affected.
So it is probably worth getting Dancing Edge up before Shadow Fang, but only a 6 potency increase for Mutilate.

If by vulnerability debuffs you mean trick attack, yes dot ticks are affected, the dot amount is also set at the first of it so if you shadow fang/mutilate while trick attack is up, it's 10% more for every tick even after TA wears. Dummy-tested.

isnt that the same as say Shadow Flare have no use in single target battle (assume boss fight)?

Doton : Potency 30, 24s
Shadow Flare: Potency 25, 30s

it is as good as Shadow Flare, I don't know why you say it is not worth it

Because shadow flare isn't on any shared timers (except preventing sch from using sacred soil which you wouldn't do on a single target anyway)

Every 20 seconds you get 1 option: to Doton for 240 potency which may not even all get applied, or raiton for 360 potency (when you don't need to use it for suiton/huton). Clear case. Even with 2 mobs they both have to live 18 seconds just to equal a raiton.

Edit: and with any # of mobs they have to live an average of 6 ticks to equal katon. 7 to beat it, and it's only 8 ticks. It's really only when you know for sure 3+ mobs will last full duration.

[MrCookTM]

If you are not that far from full IL110 then it doesn't really matter if your secondary stats (determination in particular) makes up for it and you have a party buff (which is 15DEX onwards).

For me I have been practicing a rotation that maintains at 480 without any buffs but requires a skill speed of 488 (I've checked your profile, you have a lower working skill speed) so that my GCD with Huton is 2.0s in order not to drop my Dancing Ede debuff. I'll probably give your rotation a test run to see if there is any improvements. I think theoretically there should be.

But I am trying to avoid the Huton pre-pull thing because it is a risk - you have to ensure that the tank pulls exactly at the time you want, a little troublesome. I may take into account your buff calculations and modify my version.

(Edit: I noticed that you intentionally opened with DoT and you clipped it with half time left with the buffed version).

Do you have the gear to make a parse with less sks and more det/crit with a comparable ilvl? I get that 2.0s gcd makes the rotation better for dancing edge uptime, yet I'm still not sure if this makes up for the loss of det/crit you have for stacking sks that high, especially regarding sks not having impact on auto attacks and those being such a huge part of melee dps damage.

[Levis]

Do you have the gear to make a parse with less sks and more det/crit with a comparable ilvl? I get that 2.0s gcd makes the rotation better for dancing edge uptime, yet I'm still not sure if this makes up for the loss of det/crit you have for stacking sks that high, especially regarding sks not having impact on auto attacks and those being such a huge part of melee dps damage.

I to am interested in this, as a melee I have always ignored skill speed and favored det/crit for the auto attack reason you state above.

[Ehayte]

RE: Skill Speed - it seems like people are really considering it for NIN since TP isn't really being a huge issue for anybody.

RE: Applying DoTs etc - The argument is not "DoTs or DE first?" Its "unbuffed dots first or buffs first?"

My logic was that doing anything that delays me being able to use BFB/IR for 9 seconds into a fight is probably going to be a DPS loss, especially if that extends to 10-15 seconds, as that prevents me from using them again quicker. Same goes for Suiton, ninjitsu, etc, the more you can use those skills the better. Unbuffed dots ticking away is probably never a dps increase when you have other skills that buff your damage available to use unless you aren't in melee range.

And the theorycrafting for the first 20s of the fight is total garbage because it doesn't take into consideration the next 2-3 minutes of contact that you get with the boss without having a reasonable reset of cool-downs (T9 phase changes come to mind). The opener should be something that sets you up to sustain your DPS in raid fights, not get out the most damage in the least amount of time, that would be a burst rotation.

NIN's should be really easy because they have literally NO ramp up, whereas with MNK you want to wait for GL3 to start doling out BFB/IR/SP/HF etc because you get that huge dmg + that you can only get from GCD skills.

I messed with the suggested rotation of Mutilate>shadow fang>buffs>Ninjitsu and while I saw myself pop up above the solo-healing WHM in enmity at the start of the fight, I noticed that I was able to get up there at the #2 spot longer if I popped CDs first.

Ooshima I'm interested in what you have to say about not pre-casting Huton - I can't imagine that not hurting your overall DPS, as you can start the fight with a Suiton and get a TA 20 seconds quicker on a cycle. I mean in T8 I could see this not mattering, but in a fight like T9, Levi X (to call out an old one, lol), etc where you can breaking from combat once every 1-3 minutes I have to believe it would substantial.

I would love input from someone who is using NIN in FCoB or something (my group is still on T9 >.<) and has just a ludicrous amount of experience in different situations and also someone who is taking trick attack buffs to party members into consideration.

Lastly, as a quick aside, I went into T9 as NIN last night for the first time instead of my MNK, and even though I went from doing something like 375 in P1 on MNK (i107) to 340 as NIN (also i107) because of some newb mistakes, etc, our group was pushing P1 faster that we ever have. We saw a really nice increase to dps across the board with TA. I'd say that if you can put out at least 90-95% of the dps on NIN that you were on MNK, its going to be a substantial gain for your raid group for you to go NIN.

[Butcherboy]

Ok so no Doton then good. So pretty much just use Hutton suiton and raiton and may b koton on big pulls

[MrCookTM]

RE: Skill Speed - it seems like people are really considering it for NIN since TP isn't really being a huge issue for anybody.

TP is still an issue, even for Nin. In T8 you will still run dry if you fuck up invigorate timing and goad is not usable on yourself.

Besides that, this was never the reason why sks is not good for melee dps, just the reason why most monks will stack crit over sks, because while they are similarly low in terms of stat weights, stacking crit doesn't have a real downside like running dry in high uptime fights. The only reasons why crit is weighted so low on mnk are a) traited inner release and b) bootshine autocrit every second rotation. Nin doesn't have either of them so crit is weithed higher for nin than mnk by default. The question now is, is sks also weighted higher? If so, why should it?

Like I already pointed out, sks is a bad attribute because SE designed it in a bad way. The fact that it only affects gcd and not auto attacks (and of course not ogcd skills and not dots) puts it at a pretty big disadvantage versus crit and det, both of which increase the damage of everything you do, no matter if it's a regular gcd skill, dot, auto attack (which is roughly 30% of a melee dps' damage) or ogcd skills.

I am all up for trying and theory crafting different builds, even for trying to make stuff like sks on a melee/tank/bard or spellspeed on a summoner work. I just don't think that this will end in a dps increase for the above stated reasons.

[Ehayte]

TP is still an issue, even for Nin. In T8 you will still run dry if you fuck up invigorate timing and goad is not usable on yourself.

I'm going to off-topic town.

OK, cool. Back to opening rotations.

[Aiurily]

with moderate SS (i have 458) and low ping (or a low ping/low delay environment) you can fit 2 shadowfangs in b4b duration. tbh it's starting to feel dumb to practice opener/rotations on something like an estate dummy because of how much more reactive everything is in general compared to open world/instances

im still sort of keen on putting DE up first instead of both dots to get them clipped during TA. i don't have any mathematical reasoning; but it feels like the early extra potency on autos (roughly around 90-100 per hit) and on skills from your pld/war would make it better. this is what i've been doing; not gonna claim it's optimal or anything, much less practical

huton on pull+shukuchi in>mutilate>spin>gust>de>spin>ir+bfb*>fang>jugulate+mug**>spin>gust>dex pot>ae>spin>suiton>gust>kassatsu+ta**>de>raiton>spin>fang>mutilate

first mutilate has no buffs, but sf gets applied with ir+bfb the first time, then the 2nd time it's applied with b4b, dex pot and ta, along with mutilate right as they both are about to drop off. IR wears off right after de, which means it's also before the guaranteed crit raiton as well

*using 2 buffs oGCD as a class with 15% aspd is only really reliable with low ping in a non-laggy environment, otherwise it cuts into your GCD. read - probably not practical if you have more than 50ms
**same as above with jugulate+mug
***same with kassatsu+TA as above.

also, can anyone enlighten me on how huton>10s wait allows you an extra raiton? doesn't seem any different; still the same as usual. huton>suiton>kassatsu+raiton if available>raiton>huton
doing huton>suiton>raiton>raiton would leave you without huton for more than 10s.

[Ehayte]

also, can anyone enlighten me on how huton>10s wait allows you an extra raiton? doesn't seem any different; still the same as usual. huton>suiton>kassatsu+raiton if available>raiton>huton
doing huton>suiton>raiton>raiton would leave you without huton for more than 10s.

Its not extra its just quicker and puts kassatsu on CD faster so its up faster.