The Ninja Superthread

[Dervy]

I think Pandabearcat is working on a simulator. I don't know exactly what Jobs he's working on, but I'm sure he'll get around to making one for all jobs.

[ShaolinMike]

Good lord that new AF gear looks badass.

[Allyrion]

Is this guide accurate on AoE? I've been playing it by ear for the most part but are there good numbers on AoE conditionals.

Such as, how many mobs does Death Blossom become worth spamming?
Katon seems to pass Raiton as filler at 3+ mobs.
Doton needs the mobs to be alive for 18s to match Katon.

I read that Kassatsu is better on Doton in the scenarios where Doton is actually worth using.
That every tick is a crit. Seems like Katon > Kassatsu > Doton would be better then, unless that's wrong.

Sorry, just trying to catch up on the theory crafting but back reading this thread is mostly about mudra lag, so I thought I'd just ask.

[SunnyHirose]

Death Blossom: 100 potency per mob per GCD.

GCD rotation (with Dancing Edge) potency and complete payoff on DoT ticks (5x Dancing Edge, 5x Aeolian Edge, 5x Shadow Fang, 3x Mutilate): ~262 potency per GCD after wind-up. Double-DoTting is harder to model but it's not significantly better than this if Mutilate isn't going to pay off.

So, if you have the TP to spare, Death Blossom is the practical choice at 3 or more targets. This is before Kisses are applied.

Ninjutsu: Huton is good if things aren't really close to dead (it'll pay off after 4 Death Blossoms, I believe?). Doton is better than Raiton on 2+ targets with >18s uptime, Katon is a toss-up with Raiton at 2 targets and better than Raiton at 3+ targets.

The science doesn't have much more to say than that. I find it is not so easy to decide on Doton sometimes, since your ninjutsu doesn't often align well with pulls. Add in positioning concerns, overall party DPS and the other players' cooldowns, Kassatsu quantum mechanics, and so forth, and AoE ends up being more of an art overall. It is on most jobs, really.

(goad the dragoon -> Full Thrust spammer -> okay, the WHM gets the next one ಠ_ಠ)

[Allyrion]

Thanks for the information.
Death Blossom at 3 targets seems a bit excessive since it costs so much TP. I guess at 4+ it's a solid choice.

Do you ever multi dot? I find myself doing it at 3 targets with Mutilate, but it's inefficient to try to get the Dancing Edge debuff.
I would get the debuff up on the main target, put my dots on and Mutilate the other two.
Though I'm not sure Mutilate is worth putting up when those targets don't have the slashing debuff, and I could've spent those 2 GCDs on the main target which does.

Shadow Fang takes much longer to put on multiple targets and if you try to keep it up, you won't get time to keep the slashing debuff on any.
So yea, I don't bother with Shadow other than the main target.

Thanks again for the answer SunnyHirose.

[DSaint]

Hey guys!!

Just got my second mudra and I have some doubts about mudras.

1) How many seconds (or gcd) is acceptable to perform a 2-way and 3-way mudra? I feel like I'm losing a bit more than 1 gcd to perform 2-way mudra.

2) It looks like there is a lack of synergy between mutilate and Aelion related to first mudra usage. I need to wait some few moments before using my first mudra. This doesn't happens with Gust and Spinning. Anyone has noticed this?

3) THAT mudra lag. Ugh. Pro players are able to hit 100% of mudras without doing a single lag based mistake? Seems impossible to me :/ (130 ping here btw. Not that good, but...). Anyone care to share some tips to this issue?

[Allyrion]

Well, no one's responded to the questions yet but I want to ask another one anyway.

I've read it's more damage to put up the slashing debuff before dots. So debuffs affect dots.
Now I know that dots snapshot buffs. Is the same true for debuffs?

Now this isn't really important for the slashing debuff since you try to always keep up.
It is relevant for Trick Attack's Vulnerability Up debuff though. Can I snapshot that debuff on a dot?
If not, it seems like a waste to refresh dots within that window.
If it snapshots, it'd be a increase if they happen to line up. If it doesn't, it might be better to Trick Attack after you just refreshed your dots so that you get more direct attacks in.

So does anyone know if dots snapshot Vulnerability Up particularly?

[Dervy]

Debuffs like -% Slashing/Piercing DO NOT affect DoTs. You put them before hand however, as they buff the initial attack of said DoT, plus a myriad of other reasons.

Vulnerability does affect DoTs afaik as it just increases their damage taken. It doesn't reduce their stats.

[Kholdy]

How do I play Ninja with trash? I know my rotation well and can put up good numbers on bosses, but I'm still getting beat every time there's a trash pull.

Doton seems to be hit or miss, depending on if the trash will die fast or slow. Should I be using Shadow Fang + Mutilate on all enemies of that pull, or should I be focusing my main rotation on a single enemy? Should I be using Death Blossom?

[Kanemano]

If you're with another strong aoe dps (blm), and the trash pulls are massive:
Pre-Huton during the pull (time so ninjutsu is up before the trash is completely gathered), then Internal Release + Blood for Blood while running up to the trash pile > Katon > Kassatsu > Katon > Death Blossom spam (weave in off GCD attacks when up between Death Blossom, invigorate at <600 tp) is what I do. This is easily sustainable when trash pulls are super pulls that are no more than 2 encounters before a boss. If the other dps is good, you sometimes don't even need invigorate.

If you're running with a weaker aoe dps (depends on other player skill/gear), you may want to replace the Kassatsu Katon with Kassatsu Doton, as the ticks are affected by Kassatsu force crit afaik. The longer trash encounter better utilizes Doton uptime, but typically I find that if this is the case, you're likely to be more tp starved during the next pull (if 2-pull before boss), since you expend more tp because of the longer trash encounter.

If you're bottoming out on tp and the trash mobs are not yet dead, you're probably better off not doing big pulls, and likely more efficient single targeting smaller groups. It's pointless to grab big groups if you can't aoe them down quickly, which is a mistake I see a lot of people do.