utsusemi cast order

[Omni]

i wanted if any of you ninjas have a cast order. like a system to keep utsusemi up consistently and to avoid taking hits when recasting. currently i start off as:

before battle begins
-utsusemi ni
after thf fuidama's off me my ni timer will be almost gone.
-utsusemi ni
after my third shadow image disappears
-utsusemi ichi
then alternate ichi and ni.

i sometimes have instances where i have trouble recasting. ie: mob interrupts me, timer isnt up or i evade/parry an attack i was expecting to disappear on a shadow image. thus messing up my order and causing a 'no effect' when u cast utsusemi over one another when the versions are different.

what cycles, if any, do any of you have?

[Navia]

The only thing that could be considered 'different' would be when the battle is nearly over, and if I have both Ni and Ichi available to recast, I will cast ichi and manually cancel the blink currently on me if it hasn't been lost before the cast timer hits 50%.
The main reason I do this is because once the monster dies I will probably have lost 2 shadows, so I cancel the ichi and recast Ni while the puller gets the next monster.
I found that if i'm using Ni at the end of a fight, the next pull can come before the Ni timer resets so I have to leave the current Ni on that may be missing a couple shadows. I never say 'wait my blink isn't ready, i just deal with the fast pacing and make a decision based on the timers and everyones TP if I should cast a fresh blink.

Blink cast order is never strict, you are sometimes put in a position where all your shadows are down because the monster gets lucky with double attacks, you have ichi avilable (and can risk interruption casting ) or wait that extra 2 seconds for your Ni to become available which is much easier to successfully cast while being attacked - Part of it is just instinct.


As for the opening of a battle, I definitely go with Ni-Ni-Ichi order because I am enfeebling,blink tanking, starting a skillchain and magic bursting :p

Order of events goes something like this when I xp:
-cast Ni
-DRK pulls with absorb-AGI
-blind ninjitsu as pull comes in
-I provoke
-slow/para ninjtisu
-recast Ni if shadows down (if not, continue by casting Huton:Ni)
-announce skillchain start
-Berserk and start with Blade:Rin
-DRK/THF does SA+Slice to create distortion chain
-I magic burst with hyoton:Ni (130ish damage, go me! ^^)
-I provoke
-Cast ichi, if im caught with no shadows at this point I click off berserk to prevent taking some nasty criticals if I get hit.

Casting of Ni in between all these events can vary slightly, but I definitely cannot use Ichi at the start because there is alot to do.

[obsidian]

Wow that's a lot both in skill and money. A PLD provokes and flashes every 30 seconds and heals when he needs more hate or is low. And people wonder why most PLD tanks are better than most NIN tanks. A good NIN tank is a hell of a lot harder to do well. Great info BTW.

[Kirk]

Hehe

I never really realized how busy blink tanking looked when you write it all out. But yep, that why ninja tanking is so hard, fun and rewarding. Try keeping that up every fight in a 4 hour PT. :sweat:

[Omni]

hmm i wouldnt say pld is better tank than ninja. it goes both ways.

pld has to heal after each fight usually, cant participate in renkeis as often, and costing mages more mana in heals and refresh. not to mention the down time with all the mana used up. before i got utsusemi ni, pld tank would need to rest after 2-3 battles, rarely get to work himself in to renkei as well.

nin overall decreases downtime. less mana used to cure, no mana wasted on refresh, more mana used on nuking/enfeebles which inc. exp chaining and renkei every battle while magic bursting my own renkei with ninjutsu. keeping hate isnt that hard for me either, provoke, just having the mob hitting my shadow images generates a decent amount of hate and then i usually spam ninjutsu as a pld would spam cures. it is a little more work tryin to keep up with ur utsusemi count tho, and more taxing on your gil.

and its not a problem keeping it up for 4 hrs in a pt. i bring 3-4 stacks with me each time we go out. obviously if youre going to be a ninja, you need to be good about making gil as well, just like a rng. my last set pt session was 5 hrs, went from 41 to 44 with a gain of about 20k+ xp. went thru 4 stacks of shihei, not that hard to keep up ^^ edit: hehe didnt see u were a ninja too, you kno how it is then

so there really isnt an answer to who is a better tank, pld vs nin. just depends alot on your pt set up and how well each of them play their jobs.

[Kirk]

Hehe yeah, I am a ninja Guess its usually cause I play during hours when i should be sleeping :sweat: Work sucks what can I say

[Omni]

ahh yea. work does suck. well not really, i usually browse the forums all day i guess thats the perks of being in IT. but when it rains, it pours.

do you use katanas in both hands? i currently do. i think after 45 when dual wield 3 kicks in, im gonna get hein and bone knife. 2 short delay weapons, dmg will be lower but seems it might even out over all. what do you use or have used?

[Kirk]

My personal preference is to attack fast, build tp fast and beable to WS more often. Hence I still use dual Hien. I'm trying to upgrade to a Hototogisu and Hien +1. But on my server Hein +1's dont seem to exist ><. I tried higher damage katana's like the lvl 61 one, but it just seemed way too slow for the small increase in dmage. The lvl 66 one doesnt seem much better since the added effect is only poison. Maybe i've just been so spoiled by the speed of the hien that everything else just seems slow Anyway I think i'm gonna stick to the hien type weapons if I can, I think they look cooler anyway.

PS If you are going to use a knife, make sure ninja gets an A rating in it. I can't remember if it does ot not, maybe someone else can enlighten. As you get higher the gap in weapon level between grades get very far, so you dont want to be missing 1/2 the time.

[Omni]

yea, i like to attack fast too. thats why i was thinking about hien and bone knife. bone knife has a +3acc stat to it as well, which might even out since ninja is only rated at C+ for dagger. both delays are similar.

well, we'll see, i have another set pt session tonight, hopefully we can get to 2-3 lvls again in one sitting. i really want a new weapon skill -_-. blade: To is great and all, but been looking at that thing since katana100. blade: Chi plskthx! ^^