Why is Ninja always the weakest melee?

[Dianoia]

I dont know why some players equate trick to utility. In the end, its a different form of added rDPS. The difference being that Ninja is more reliant on party buff alignment for their own rDPs parses than other melees.
What I fail to follow is the conclusion that therefore Nin should be balanced lower than the other melee dps in the charts.

The current optimal play for NIN sacrifices personal DPS to align TA windows to party buffs to make other players more powerful. Holding TA for a couple of seconds would increase the NIN's personal DPS, but hurt the raid. So not only are they more reliant on party buff alignment, but they are currently sacrificing their own DPS to buff the party.

[NobleWinter]

The only thing bothering me about Ninja is that Summoner can use Radiant Aegis which is exactly the same as Shade Shift but on 60 Second Cooldown with 2 Charges and 30 Second Duration. They both give a 20% hp shield but the class stuck in melee range has an all around worse version. Shade Shift needs an upgrade that includes charges at the very least. Reaper got a heal so strong it had to be nerfed.

[rewd]

The only thing bothering me about Ninja is that Summoner can use Radiant Aegis which is exactly the same as Shade Shift but on 60 Second Cooldown with 2 Charges and 30 Second Duration. They both give a 20% hp shield but the class stuck in melee range has an all around worse version. Shade Shift needs an upgrade that includes charges at the very least. Reaper got a heal so strong it had to be nerfed.

As a NIN you also have Second Wind and especially Bloodbath. Shade Shift is also available at all times unlike Radiant Aegis. SMN has Phoenix but 1) it's only available from level 80 b) it's on a 120s cooldown c) it's not something you can use on demand.

[MajisTek]

Shade shift needs a visual buff where we get a little shadow version of us just hanging out until they get smacked out of combat.

[Blutiful]

This topic almost gave me an aneurysm.

Ninja was a borderline essential or extremely-desireable party member in a raid comp for the vast majority of the existence of this MMO. Aside from that, as recently as the end of Shadowbringers last raid tier(you know, literally only a few months ago,) Ninja was the top RDPS at every percentile below 80, and the 2nd highest from eighty to max, behind only Black Mage.

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/38#dataset=80

Ninja is historically in this game a pretty strong job. They're also likely to get buffed soon, given the statement made recently about job balance, and bringing other things up to par with Reaper rather than nerfing it.

Should it be buffed? For sure. All the melees should be very close to the same RDPS, and Ninja and Dragoon lag too far behind at the moment, imo. But "Always the weakest melee" is complete nonsense.

[Shurrikhan]

pretty sure Ninja did more than DRG in ShB
but Ninja has support (trick) Tax so generally on lower side but EW ninja is a mess at the moment.

The support is already part of NIN's numbers. People haven't ranked jobs by anything but rDPS in a LONG time.

NIN hasn't had any support outside of said numbers since Stormblood, when last enmity was an actual mechanic (albeit a shallow one).

[Kyofu]

This topic almost gave me an aneurysm.

Ayeeeee. My ninja finally dealt some damage. haha

[Fourbestintoner]

This topic almost gave me an aneurysm.

Ninja was a borderline essential or extremely-desireable party member in a raid comp for the vast majority of the existence of this MMO. Aside from that, as recently as the end of Shadowbringers last raid tier(you know, literally only a few months ago,) Ninja was the top RDPS at every percentile below 80, and the 2nd highest from eighty to max, behind only Black Mage.

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/38#dataset=80

Ninja is historically in this game a pretty strong job. They're also likely to get buffed soon, given the statement made recently about job balance, and bringing other things up to par with Reaper rather than nerfing it.

Should it be buffed? For sure. All the melees should be very close to the same RDPS, and Ninja and Dragoon lag too far behind at the moment, imo. But "Always the weakest melee" is complete nonsense.

Yeah it was great and how it should be, lowest personal dps, highest rdps. Nin and drg should be the 2 strongest or else there is no reason to bring them over monk and reaper, and sam only exist to pad dancer rdps.
And the problem with old nin(and drg) is that they had both the utility and the damage, now they don't have either, they should at least have the highest rdps(with decent groups).

[Hanayumi]

Yeah... Nin is just one of those jobs that is very very busy but just doesnt feel as rewarding as other jobs that require less effort, there are some folks just love the busy work though.

[Vatom]

I kinda chuckled at this realizing HW ninja was just a utility belt.

Nin really isn’t bad and where we are in strength isn’t either, poor drg wish to be relevant now

Granted yes I would love more dmg that’s everyone but to say nin is the weakest nah

It’s still rewarding but I can understand people wish for more when in ShB nin could keep up with the best of your good at uptime

But I will acknowledge that in the form of trick attacks you do give dps for buffs this been true since HW but that is nin and it’s hard to give them high dmg without over shadowing other jobs that don’t have buffs… though reaper wtf