Healing ninja woes.....GO!

[Jamillion]

The main issue with most ninja's survivability is overestimating our dodge ability (we get a permanent movement speed buff) and pulling too much aggro too fast (we don't have any aggro management skills, that coupled with high skill speed is bad news). As others have stated the animation lock from assassinate is also a killer for our kind, it's easy to get locked into a thought process and use it at a bad time resulting in you being locked in an AOE.

[EricCartmenez]

As others have stated the animation lock from assassinate is also a killer for our kind, it's easy to get locked into a thought process and use it at a bad time resulting in you being locked in an AOE.

Other than my own stupidity, that's the only time that I felt like there was a weakness in the class. Unlike most Ninjas, you won't see me standing at the beginning of a fight charging a mudra. I'm not even sure why most of them do that, because by the time most fight start, the timing of its use is gone and the cd period has begun. There's no right way to start every fight. If its a trash mob, I'll give the tank a second to round things up and hit it with Katon then drop DOT's and then focus on one target. I do this as a bard too. It works and I rarely pull aggro. Most of the time, by the time I get back to target one, it's near dead or I can drop another Katon and do a few basic attacks to finish things up. If it's a focus target event where a certain target is the healer or something can't be hurt until it's dead, I give everything I have to it, no differently than anyone else in the party/raid. More often than not, I see BLM's take aggro (if they are in the party) before I do.

I think the biggest thing is that many NIN players aren't used to being in a melee position. They were healers or ranged DPS, and they haven't really dropped themselves onto the nose of a boss. Take your trials for instance. If they hadn't really paid attention to what they should dodge before, they might not be ready to get out of the way when the time comes. Aside from Assassinate, there's really no reason for a NIN not to be quick on his or her toes. I know that my first time in ST as a NIN was an eye opener when attacking Schylla. I couldn't believe the amount of AOE in the center of that room! After a couple of OW moments, I got my crap together, and I've been commended several times as a result. I actually had someone type "You're an excellent Ninja, you know exactly when to stun" when taking out Tailspin in Sastasha hard. Like many of you might say, "Yeah, that's what anyone with stun is supposed to do", but I'm guessing they had seen too many misses or lacks of attempts in the past. The idea there is to wait for one or two attempts so that the scorpion is not resistant when things get tough on the healer toward the end.

Let's face it, I've seen many melee DPS go down as a result of not getting out of the way. That's why most people start as a tank if they want melee or go ranged.

[erkhardt]

I'm leveling my nin currently, but been also helping my fiancee catch up a tank to it(stopped at 30) so been running healer. I've seen what your talking about OP, and as I ran MogHM and watched two nin drop like flies the first attempt (at least 60% of party had never done it before) it was a moment of ><


As leveling a nin, I can say there is a point for many who've never ran a melee class through content before, I'm one of them. I just commented yesterday about being afraid of Titan HM for my relic (as that thing murders me as sch/smn) I've noticed several easy mechanics/pulls etc that were more difficult because I wasn't ranged. Having just gotten my ninjutsu though, I can already tell there will be moments of attention pause at higher levels until the combos have been memorized for the murdas wanted.

Hey hey hey,

Finally a Levi player! Add me to your friends list, I would be glad to lend a hand, WHM or MNK!

[erkhardt]

I actually had someone type "You're an excellent Ninja, you know exactly when to stun" when taking out Tailspin in Sastasha hard. Like many of you might say, "Yeah, that's what anyone with stun is supposed to do", but I'm guessing they had seen too many misses or lacks of attempts in the past.
Let's face it, I've seen many melee DPS go down as a result of not getting out of the way. That's why most people start as a tank if they want melee or go ranged.

Haha, I hear you. I am very quick to commend a NIN that never dies in runs that I heal, I understand that everyone will PROBABLY get hit with something, but if you don't drop before I need to scramble to keep one alive, I am impressed! The class is new and people are playing them that are not used to melee type classes. This is probably the closest statement that I feel is most true! When the ninja hype dies down a bit, I'll give it a go myself. Mained a MNK so I think I'll be good to go.

[Asheilin]

Hey hey hey,

Finally a Levi player! Add me to your friends list, I would be glad to lend a hand, WHM or MNK!

Will do when I get home from work! I was gonna wait for nin hype to die down but was just starting a new class to level and as I keep battle classes to 15 instead of 1 burned ROG up and didn't want to stop >< there goes getting brd up next lol

[Leigaon]

I have had a few very good ninjas but most I've had to put some cure bombs on, I wonder why they take so much more damage than other melees when they don't have to be in position for a lot of things..maybe I'll learn that as I finish off my ninja.

[Airget]

Mudra lag can be a killer for NIN's when you are trying to aim for the right jutsu, you know you pressed it but it doesn't go off, it can throw off the flow and make them more prone to get hit.

Then also assassinate causing them to stay in place for a bit so if you use it just before an AOE odds are you are getting hit.

Other things are the eagerness to get the most out of the 10 seconds trick attack vulnerability or even being unaware as to what works and doesn't work with Perfect Dodge.

Overall it's a learning experience still, the job is new and of course players are going to die because mudras do throw in a dynamic that has not been seen in other jobs. No other job has a combo where if you don't do anything for 5 seconds you not only lose it but have to wait out the timer of 20 seconds before you can combo again, so wanting to get the jutsu done as quick as possible it crucial. The other reason is because as you perform a jutsu you can't be anything else other than mudras so during those 5 second windows all you can do is a mudra, when you're trying to run from an AOE and maximize dmg you try to cast mudra on the run and potential slip ups can happen cause you aren't use to the movement yet.

Also the way each person performs a mudra, if one uses an ctr+1 2 3, or alt+1 2 3 then it's harder for them to move their hands into being able to move their character away from combat plus they have the added disability of being unable to perform mudras on the move unless they switch to mouse to finish it or just use the mouse to perform mudras.

Personally I use mouse clicks to perform the mudras so I can move in case I need to while using a custom key ` to fire off the jutsu with ease. The only issue comes when a click doesn't register causing the flow of the jutsu to be off, sometimes casting the wrong thing and other times ruining the jutsu completely because I get to eager to go back to the attack rotation.

[Vorpal_Spork]

I really don't see the problem with the class. The players who happen to play the ninja class, however, seems to be a much bigger issue.

So are they the FFXIV version of WoW's huntards?

[Lemage]

I honestly hated ninja's, and how squishy they were.... until today when healing Turn 7... we had 4 ninjas, 2 warriors, me (sch) and my friend (whm) 4 melee on that fight is fast as hell, and with fireball only hitting us and me kiting and healing it was easier to mitigate damage and did i mention the speed with ninjas? fastest one shot of my life.

[Urtear]

I really don't see the problem with the class. The players who happen to play the ninja class, however, seems to be a much bigger issue.

This. So much this. Class might be new, but the principles remain the same. Stuff pops up on ground and Healer didn't put it there, MOVE! Everyone else taking cover behind crystal...nahhh. Cut chu with my knife, mang!