How to play a ninja tank?

[mortalcoil]

Hi there, I'm a lvl 34 thf 10 war and decided to lvl my ninja a bit. My main goal is to be a thf/nin tho.

How do you play a blink tank effectively? Cast blink while someone is pulling....provoke then what?

The problem is the 4 seconds cast time. It could mean life or death at times for the mages. Plus there's always chance of the cast be interuppted and you prov anyway and take the hit with your fragile body.

Another question is, is it bad form to use your 2 hours in tough situation?? So far I never use it in a battle, IMHO, i find this is a very irresponsible thing to do, especially when the damage is so low.

Thanks in advance!!!

[Vivid]

A good ninja tank really doesn't exist until you get blink 2.

However, the common method to using the low level blink 1 ninja tank is to cast blink 1 before the battle starts. you then taunt the monster when it is pulled to the party and count 3-4 hits that your shadow absorbs. After that, start re-casting blink 1 and be ready to manually delete the blink effect from your "status" bar. (press + + left or right to get to blink and then press enter to delete it). You must delete blink by the time you are half finished casting blink 1 in order to have the effect works. After you re-cast blink, taunt, rinse, repeat.

[Navia]

Based on my experience so far, trying to blink tank before 16 isnt even possible (solo to 15 or so with a whm sub is crazy fast,cheaper too).
Most efficient method starting out when in a PT is to blink and be the puller and co-tank. Essentially you work with another provoke capable member in the PT and have them provoke off you once your blink drops, recast and steal aggro back onto yourself. This method still enables you to chain IT monsters like crazy, you just aren't the only one taking a few hits occasionally.
Best PT member to do this with i've found is SAM/WAR since they have third-eye ability (ghetto blink lol)

Trying to cast reblink while getting hit is near impossible until ninjitsu skill is maxxed. I can take hits and continue casting blink more now, but sometimes you just get a bad run of luck and get smacked once or twice pretty hard even with up to date gear and lots of +evasion stuff.
If a mage gets aggro and I am mid-cast of blink I will finish it, usually reblinking can cause a good amount of hate and turn the monster back onto me.

Stopping your reblink to provoke or hope your melee turns it towards you seems like the worst choice to me since you will then need healing much sooner, putting the mages in danger yet again due to hate gained from healing more.

As far as using the 2hr, i've only used it to save the party. Basically tell everyone to run, provoke and hold the monster in place until blink wears off, maybe attempt to recast it, then use 2hr.
I had a party logging for the night in valkurm when the emperor spawned on one of the remaining PT members so I told then to run, provoked it, took 135damage in a single hit then just let the 2hr fire while she ran like hell for selbina. Best use of my 2hr so far - wish I could have killed that NM.