Building for NIN: WAR or THF?

[Noremaku]

You can get this from my profile, but I obviously have a Mithra WAR. I had been lvling polearms for DRG once I do the quest later, but I just recently considered a NIN. Would a THF be a better sub for NIN? And would switching to THF be a good idea if I want to do NIN so I can lvl swords or knives? Speaking of which, are swords or knives better for NIN? Or would it be a good idea to just do WAR and lvl katanas as a NIN so I don't have to worry about it?

[Bamce Sylph]

dear god no!!!!!! /thief sucks, /war is good, and there are many posts that say it, if u don't like what u read in one, just read a diffrent one, /points to sig

[Funguwari]

How do you know THF sucks? Have you tried it? I can see by your sig you haven't been playing long.

In the eyes of Squenix, and according to all other FFs that had NINs in them, they were throwing specialists... and I think Square here wanted NIN to do the same thing, be throwing weapon specialists, with Utsusemi and throwing weapons, (with the ideas of other MMOs and the idea of pulling) I can see them being the ultimate puller.

But, from my experience, NIN tanks rock, I personally perfer WAR/NIN better, (that's why I decided to be a WAR/NIN instead of NIN/WAR) but, with Blink spells WAR is a great sub.

If I had to pick a sub though... I'd pick WAR because of the tanking but, for more damage, etc. you can easily pull THF off, THF sub dosen't ~suck~... but, I feel WAR sub is better.

[gomenasai]

there are some things that may change ninja fairly soon, which may affect your decision, but this is my standpoint as a (mostly) ninja/ thief.

If we don't have a thief in the party, i play ninja/ warrior, just to i can be a bit more useful. but if we have a thief sneak/tricking off of me i can hold aggro for a long~ time. and /thief gives a HUGE evasion bonus, making you much more effective in utsu-ing. (and most definitly pulling)

ninja/ warriors are fine as tanks, but may get cut down with the new update, and even still, its really hard to hold aggro as a ninja/ warrior without a thief (in my opinion). though some can do it really well, but i've always felt more safe with a paladin in the party as well.

and even still, i haven't had too much trouble finding parties as ninja/ thief, or being useful to the party. Don't let these people scare you away from it ^.~

[bunta]

No man sub DRG! You get jump at Lv. 20 Nin/drg and you know hwo fun jumping Mithra Ninjas are

[Bamce Sylph]

havn't been playing long eh? well i'll just let that one go. all sneak attack does from a sub is give ua crit u get no multiplier like theives do, thats how i know it sucks war gives u beserk, and provoke which are both better than a gimped sneak attack.

as for pulling rng/ninja outclasses ninja's in every way of pulling if for no other reason than widescan. yeah u could go nin/rng but your damage wouldn't efficentlly match rangers damage. anyone with 3/4's a brain can pull, so u don't need a class to specifically pull so take that mind and push it waaaay out of your head

[hocuspocus]

please disregard any of the nin/thf's who comment here.


they are useless.

anyways, if youre the main tank for ur PT, you should be using nin/war.

if your pt has a tank already, you can get away with a /thf sub.

I use a thief sub for solo'ing NM's and when i'm not playing the tank.

/thf sub has great benefits, but certainly not as a main tank for a PT.

Any ninja who is playing a tank with a /thf sub either is not the main tank or is completely lying about it. there is no way they could hold the hate without a warrior sub to back up their ninjitsu.

I constantly see that gomen dork on here sticking up for the loser XP pt /thf subs, and i just find it funny that she gets about a level a month. oh well, to each his own.

[Kiyosuki]

You guys arn't going to start mud slinging again are you? :sweat:

Ah well, anyways, Ninja/Thief is at somewhat of a disadvantage in most respects. Its not totally useless, but trying to transform Ninja's into one hit kill wonder's isn't the way to go I think with the job. There's a higher emphasis on just hitting more in general. Earlier on, like 1-30, maybe a little more into it Ninja/Thief is decent if your not a tank at all. Some Dex advantage, and throwing advantage. Just remember to use ALL your Ninjutsu and stack Sneak attack with Blade:Retsu or Fast Blade for the best you can get. However, using Ninja/Warrior at those levels can make you a very nice backup tank, or a duel tank team with another person who can take a hit (Warrior, another Ninja perferably. Samurai are pretty good at those levels too since the distinct differences between damage dealer and tank defense isn't as aparent as it becomes in the mid 30's)

Even if your a Damage dealer Ninja, doing everything you can provoke is very useful for other frontline to have, and your melee damage is better a bit. In general I'd say to level Warrior since its more widely useful. Thief is alright in the first 30 levels, but while the notion that using Throwing weapons is what makes a Ninja break into more real damaging numbers (I very much agree there), at about 50 Ninja/Warrior can play a damage dealer better too since you spam damage so well with double attack and berserk, and you can still throw for great damage. Most of the time you'll be considered a tank class, even though you can play DD pretty good if you've taken good care of your Ninja (Some parties do ask for it) But like I said Warrior generally gets you more options and flexibility as a fighter.

[Carbon]

If you play NIN/THF, you'd better be ready to spam shurikens. Good luck affording those by the way.

I've seen a high level JP ninja who was not main tanking dealing very respectable damage by spamming shurikens. He had a /WAR sub btw.

[Bamce Sylph]

personally i'd have been all the happier had this thread never came up. and by about the 6th post it usually degrades a little further than just mud ^*^ /cry why can't people just search or read a little before making beat topics

[gomenasai]

and then there are those of us that don't have time to play too often (makes for slow leveling)

and ninja/ thief is not a main tanker job combination, never said that. i'm ninja/ thief when we have a paladin and a thief, which is most of the time.

[Kiyosuki]

From what I've seen of both though, Nin/War can be Tank/Damage Dealer, not one or the other but it can play both at the same time a little later. If you take into consideration the fact with Nin/War you strike a lot more by 50, and each hit is a bit more powerful that means you get more tp in the long run and you can use Blade: Chi or whatever else you need to use more often, and you can still use Shuriken pretty well. The agility bonus from Thief doesn't effect it all that much. I'm not one of those guy's that tries to shoot anyone who uses Ninja/Thief though. You get a more powerful Blade: Retsu, Blade: Chi (and the other multi hits later on), and possibly more powerful Sword and Dagger Weapon skills. I imagine that as Nin/Thf you'd have to use the other weapons a lot more too to get the most you can out of your increased WS ability. But in the end other than that and a few stat alterations there's not much else that it really gives you in terms of flexibility which is why its usually not looked at in a particularly better light.

Its off topic though. Regardless of which one is a better sub in an experience party, I'd level Warrior not just for this job, but because it can be an effective sub to so many melee jobs if you don't have the better alternative at hand (Like most consider Ranger/Ninja the best, but Ranger/Warrior works still if you don't have Ninja leveled. Same with Thief, and all the other melee's use /War too) Its just a nice job to have leveled to at least 30, it saves you a lot of trouble. So I recommend it first.

But I would level Thief eventually too though for its gil and treasure hunter bonuses, which will probably help such a gil heavy job out pretty tremendously.

[Pushbutton]

Kinda sad when 1 job is split so fiercly into 2 camps of thought. As many of you know, SE never intended Nin to blink tank and will be making changes to the Nin class to affect this. But please, common, Nin cant tank THAT well to make a /War ONLY fight outta it..... get a pally and everything is MUCH easyer. I cant tell you how many pt's i have been in with my pld that our nin insists on tanking and i end up having to tank for 75%+ of the fight anyway b/c nin/anything cant hold hate, they arent ment to. Only good in a nin tank is that it gives those lonly thf's something to do b/c there Trick Attack is utterly unneeded when a pld is tanking.

[hocuspocus]

Originally posted by Pushbutton
Kinda sad when 1 job is split so fiercly into 2 camps of thought. As many of you know, SE never intended Nin to blink tank and will be making changes to the Nin class to affect this. But please, common, Nin cant tank THAT well to make a /War ONLY fight outta it..... get a pally and everything is MUCH easyer. I cant tell you how many pt's i have been in with my pld that our nin insists on tanking and i end up having to tank for 75%+ of the fight anyway b/c nin/anything cant hold hate, they arent ment to. Only good in a nin tank is that it gives those lonly thf's something to do b/c there Trick Attack is utterly unneeded when a pld is tanking.

first problem here is youre a paladin.

the second problem is you never have 2 tanks in an XP party like this, ninja and pld will constantly fight for hate.

having 2 people who cannot do dmg in a PT is a dumb idea.

if youre PT is set up for 2 tanks than so be it, but dont waddle your WHM MP sucking ass into our forums and talk about how ninjas suck.

your paladin is nothing more than a broke ass ninja.

get some skills wannabe.

[Noremaku]

Sorry it took a while for me to post, I've been kinda busy lately. But you all (well, most of you anyways) have provided some great insight, and I think I've decided to go NIN/WAR. Now I think I asked this (or something similar) when I started the thread, but should I stick with polearms, which I've already lvled, and just use katanas as a NIN? Or should I switch to swords to create some "common ground" between the two to make lvling each job a bit easier?