PLDvsNIN

[Deedlit]

Originally posted by Kirk


Cause PLD is easy and takes minimal commitment to get by. Even if they are bad, the job is easy enough, i.e. most of the functions are automated enough to allow a bad player to do ok. So in fact you've answered your own question.

Comparitvely, you'll never find a server loaded with bad ninja's. You know why? Because the job demands so much more, just to function, a bad ninja will die and suck and get frustrated and not get invites and give up long before they can be even counted amongst the number of bad ninjas. The only ninjas past 50 are good ninjas. Because they have to be good to even progress that far. All the bad ones have long since died off and switch to PLD

[Loial]

I really don't know what is going on with all this animosity towards PLD.

I have heard some people say "Well, I played PLD to level 30..." Stop right there. You should know yourself that certain jobs only begin to shine past that. /dismiss argument

However, PLD need to control hate, not affix hate on themselves. When your PT wants to do one of those Sidewinder > Viper Bite chains, the PLD WANTS the mob to turn. So, the PLD needs to be watching everything that is going on... just like NIN.

He needs to be able to gauge prior to Sidewinder going off, if the mob will turn or not (this is to compensate for the sometimes slow-witted THF). NIN, just like PLD, both learn what it takes to keep hate. PLD don't need to senselessly burn MP or abilities to keep hate. MP is the PLDs weakness. If the PLD runs out of MP, your chance of extended the exp chain goes down.

NIN? Just bring your stacks of shihei... count your shadows, recast blink in between hits... exactly what Mitsu said! PLD sometimes cure between hits. Same idea. Except that NIN have a "bottomless" supply.

Cause PLD is easy and takes minimal commitment to get by. Even if they are bad, the job is easy enough, i.e. most of the functions are automated enough to allow a bad player to do ok. So in fact you've answered your own question.

Bad NIN = PT death. Bad PLD = PT death. Same thing. If the PLD can't control hate... people die. If the PLD is mediorce, exp stinks because of downtime. If the NIN is mediocre, exp stinks. I fail to see the argument here

I used to wonder why SE would more or less force PLD to sub PLD/WAR... but I no longer complain. NIN need THF attached them at the hip. :spin:

[neelon]

Originally posted by Kirk


Cause PLD is easy and takes minimal commitment to get by. Even if they are bad, the job is easy enough, i.e. most of the functions are automated enough to allow a bad player to do ok. So in fact you've answered your own question.

Comparitvely, you'll never find a server loaded with bad ninja's. You know why? Because the job demands so much more, just to function, a bad ninja will die and suck and get frustrated and not get invites and give up long before they can be even counted amongst the number of bad ninjas. The only ninjas past 50 are good ninjas. Because they have to be good to even progress that far. All the bad ones have long since died off and switch to PLD

Paladin takes minimal commitment? Don't know where that idea came from, because it isn't. When you don't commit yourself at the job, people start dropping, fast. True, our funcions are "automated", but so are those of a Ninja. We Cure, you Utsusemi, we Provoke, you Provoke. The functions are in basis the same (more or less), just different techniques.

And the reason why you don't find as many bad Ninjas on a server compared to bad Paladins, is because Ninja is a heck of a lot more expensive to play as a tank job. That, in my opinion, is the main reason for that.

Don't get me wrong, I am not slamming you Ninja tanks. I partied with a couple of them (hope to do it more in the future), and it was great partying.

I do have a little first hand experience with blink tanking (from levels 15 to 20), and it is very entertaining, and certainly not easy to pull off. But that's the same with Paladin. You always have to be on your toes, else people start getting killed.

And just a question on the side, out of curiosity (I want to take Ninja to at least 37 myself one day, maybe even higher), when you blink tank, but there is no Thief in the party, how do you hold hate against a massive Sidewinder or a White Mage Benecide for example? I would just like to know how and if that is possible.

Again, I am not slamming you (opinions differ, and that's normal), as I absolutely love every class in the game.

[Mitsu]

Having a THF in PT is hust a bonus to a ninja. I personaly can hold hate fine without it, but it is less stressfull to have athf around. Also Hate is like a spike meter it goes up and down constantly. When in a pt as a rng or drk you know for a fact that you will create hate with your ws. Therefor you let the tank build hate, be it a PLD or NIN. Aslo if you DO NOT het hit hate values do not change. for example I could do 2 taunts and 3 stat ninjutsu and the rng could sidewinder. The mob MIGHT turn to rng but in that case a provoke will get the mob then do a quick cycle of ninjutsu. As you get hit that meter goes down and you lose hate, that may be the reason why alot of ninja have a hard time keeping it. Not getting hit at ALL is hard repeating it for a whole pt session is madness. No one should expect that, but then again no one expects you to get slammed. THE COST OF A NINJA...the job is damn cool and it is very rewarding. By the time most people get to rasie a ninja they know how to make gill on a constant basis. Those that dont....well they dont even get Utsusemi. But even though there should be no animosity beteween 2 perfectly good tanking jobs, ceartain conjecturers still can and should be made. Some people know that bad ninjas have no CHOICE but to die off because plain and simple trusting a ninja to tank is a big step. Once apon a time b4 the domestic release of this game, your reputation carried alot of weight. In essense 8-10 months ago you saw so LITTLE ninja , the ones that where left where the decent-good ones. On the PLD side, when a player puts his/her skill into playing a PLD its a bonus and not NEEDED. We all have had bad PLD in our pt history, but did it totally ruin your pt exp at the time, or did you find a way to adjust and make it work. Now think of an equally bad ninja skill wise. What Tank do you think last longer eh? Any job can be better or worse than any other job in the game, it all goes into what you put into it. But...and this is real big BUT..if you put mediocre effort/skill into your ninja you will not suceed, your ninja WILL stop in the 50~60 range unless you find desperate pt's. thats why I envy PLD, it has skill range. Poor-excellent PLD are still around. I was playing the game when PLD was broken, actually all advanced jobs had issues. Ive seen the tranformations they had and the patches they have aded. I have been through many jobs b4 i landed on ninja. Yes i may have only lvled them to 30-33 but AS i was lvling my ninja i knew from the start that i had to put alot into it, and i enjoyed it. Any NIN that plays and plan on keeping that job feel good that you intend on mastering ONE of the best jobs in the game. Remember its only good if the player makes it good. Go out and test or stretch your skills by soloing a tote or tsuyoi mob, see how long you can last. Do it constantly, rest assured NIN is one of 3 jobs that can do it effectively. As for our PLD cousins, I wonder if alot of PLD realize that all serious career nin start out wanting to be better that a PLD. Its called being an underdog. PLD had the tanking throne for 8 months before the expansion jobs came about. Just as DRG and SAM struggle to be better than most, nin do too. I feel real bad for DRG and SAM btw S-E just totally screwed up the melee balance in those 2 fighters.

[l)@RK-l)EVIL]

Originally posted by John Doe III
Yes you were right Mits, Yoko...was the bomb..

thanks god they nerf it
it was overpowered :p

perfect pt in the past
tank
thf
damage dealer
3 mages
and damage dealer spot 345345 job fighting for it
drg drk sam rng war mnk (thf also they can take the spot :mad: )

[Kirk]

Originally posted by Loial
However, PLD need to control hate, not affix hate on themselves. When your PT wants to do one of those Sidewinder > Viper Bite chains, the PLD WANTS the mob to turn. So, the PLD needs to be watching everything that is going on... just like NIN.

He needs to be able to gauge prior to Sidewinder going off, if the mob will turn or not (this is to compensate for the sometimes slow-witted THF). NIN, just like PLD, both learn what it takes to keep hate. PLD don't need to senselessly burn MP or abilities to keep hate. MP is the PLDs weakness. If the PLD runs out of MP, your chance of extended the exp chain goes down.

See this? The only think you're concerned with is controlling hate. Thats all the pld has to worry about. Keeping the mob hitting him. A ninja has to A) Contol hate B) Debuff C) keep himself alive every attack the mob makes. A ninja must do this all simultaneously.

NIN? Just bring your stacks of shihei... count your shadows, recast blink in between hits... exactly what Mitsu said! PLD sometimes cure between hits. Same idea. Except that NIN have a "bottomless" supply.

Its not as simple for a ninja. Only Ni can be cast in between hits. Ichi must be casts in two ways:-

If you still have ni on, you must start the cast on loss of third shadow. Then quickly get to your effects bar and time your cancel of your NI on or about 45% cast, but not after 50% else you will overwrite and lose both ichi and Ni. That takes some pretty quick finger skills and the consequences for scewring up can kill you.

Second way is the let all your Ni shadows drop and basically play chicken with the mob. Your goal is to start your cast so that the mob hits you when the cast is between 0-20%. This takes serious timing and skill!

A ninja must repeat this every 30~40 seconds of every battle. They must do this while contolling hate and debuffing. And make a snap decision on which method will be most successful based on the situation.

This is why nin tanking is more difficuly than PLD tanking. Its not all automated. Playing a NIN is more like playing a fighting game than a RPG. but then... thats why people like it too.

[/QUOTE]

[Deedlit]

Mitsu, paragraphs and spellcheck are your friends. I still can't decipher "Aslo if you DO NOT het hit hate values do not change."

Kirk, you said

A ninja must repeat this every 30~40 seconds of every battle. They must do this while contolling hate and debuffing. And make a snap decision on which method will be most successful based on the situation.

Explain to me how PLDs don't have to worry about hate, if not more frequently than that. Yes, NINs have to worry about keeping blink up - but on that same token, PLDs have to accurately gauge hate and be aware of what is going on in the PT at all times in order to figure out which hate-gaining ability they have to use (I believe people here call it spike hate and otherwise). I feel that PLDs have more CONTROL over hate than NINs, which is a real advantage in the situation that Loial pointed out. Especially for a Galka PLD, who has to worry about how to effectively use his mp (I assume taru PLDs might have similar concerns, but hp-wise). You're really just taking all of those PLD tools and pushing them to the side in your argument.

Personally, I prefer PLDs over NINs any day. Why? Cause PLDs tank well regardless of the mobs they fight - you don't need to avoid monk-type mobs because you can't tank them as well. I do know that NIN tanking CAN be great, assuming you avoid certain mob types, AND your NIN is rich - but, rich != skill IMHO. As someone mentioned before, you see more crappy PLDs than crappy NINs because, well, people just can't afford NIN and play it effectively as a tank. Same reason why you don't see many RNGs - though I see more RNG, because some people try to get away with crappy arrows, whereas with NINs you are expected to tank.

[Lan'Urk]

Blink tanking is different from PLD tanking as far as keeping aggro... its hard to compare.

Since Ninjas' hate doest deteriorate as fast as a PLD does, they end up having to worry about it less than PLDs... PLDs are fighiting hate deterioration constantly... as Ninjas must concern in not get hit in order to maintain their preservation of hate.

Neither one is "automatic", cuz If a PLD just sits there and heal every once in a whlie he wont hold aggro. PLD battles to be pissing the monster off constantly, to make up for the fast deterioration rate, as Ninjas have to just make sure they dont get hit, so the hate doesnt deteriorate and stack more hate on top of that, by debuffing, so its a trade off.

Both are just as busy while tanking, now what makes PLDs "safer" is that we are relying on our natural defense to tank not some extraordinary modifier which is what Utsusemi is. If Utsusemi goes wrong the Ninja is in trouble, not nessessarily fatal but trouble never the less.

I find very offensive telling that I can go AFK and still hold aggro, because I work my ass of to make sure I have the aggro 100% of the time in my PT( I never PT with THFs), so the only time im not doing anything is when im resting... cuz otherwise I'm Curing flashing, provoking and etc... And also like it has been said, we have to worry about MP efficiency, which is something you have to think about before you cast EVERY cure, specialy if you are Elvaan or Galkan.

I think a lot of information here is Misleading, due to ignorance on eachother's role. I dont know exactly how busy ninjas are but I know its pretty rough, but I think is a major disrepect saying that Paladins on the other hard, can be played by a retarded monkey, because thats a very uneducated statement.

Have fun in game ^_~

~Lanurk

[Stanislav]

I know a good way to finish an argument...

Most PT Leader (Assuming they are not a tank themselves) will invite a NIN over a PLD (37+). There is a chance an NA PT rather invite a PLD becuase they think PLD is better but from my experience every PT I have been in which I was not on my NIN the leader invited a NIN if there was one avaliable.

While I stood in town with Yellow Tag on my name on I still was asked by JPN to join.. How often do JPN ask more then 1 time for someone to join if they arn't JP (Usualy if you reveal that you are NA they will just stop responding even..)?

With a NIN you do not have to worry about having a mage who likes to go MP waste crazy.. Some mages just heal for no reason with Cure 3 when the person is only 40 HP down. Mages can rest more often with a NIN instead of always making sure that the PLD is OK.

[Loial]

Thats all the pld has to worry about. Keeping the mob hitting him.

And the NIN doesn't want the mob attacking them?

I think Kirk fails to realize that the deterioration of hate from damage is enemy #1 for the PLD. NIN naturally capitalize on this by using blink.

Take this example: PLD has SMN Blink and Stoneskin up. Provokes the mob...
Mob attack1: Shadow 1 gone
Mob attack2: Stoneskin absorbs
Mob attack3: Shield Block
Mob attack4: Shadow 2 gone
Mob attack5: Stoneskin absorbs
Mob attack6: Fractional dmg received as stoneskin wears off
PLD Flashes
PLD Provokes
MOb attack7: miss
Mob attack8: miss
Mob attack9: miss

Guess what... without hate deterioration from damage, PLD's job gets a whole lot easier.

If someone wanted to argue that NIN > PLD on the grounds that is more expensive, then RNG > ALL. But, we all know that is comparing apples and oranges. So, we can drop that comment.

Without taking damage, hate does not fluctuate NEARLY as much. Some NIN are "just staring at their chat logs counting shadows" as has been mentioned earlier... NIN get to remove the worry of damage they are taking... and as long as they bring enough components, they have no need to ration out their tools.

In no way am I saying that it is "easy" to keep hate as a NIN. However, generalizing the PLD population as automatically lesser skilled than a NIN is simply asinine.

I think many players get this weird idea that PLD's job is easy because we like to make it out like its "no sweat." When in actuality, we need to focus on the situations in-battle just as much as NIN do.

[FFXI-FREAK96]

in Vulkrum im always Pray For A Nin Or Sam. they take alot of Slack of other Ppl! once i had a party With Rng,Sam,Nin,Whm(me),Drk,Nin ( everyone saw are pt and wanted to join badly they helped me get my whm for 15-26)

[Kirk]

Originally posted by Stanislav
I know a good way to finish an argument...

Most PT Leader (Assuming they are not a tank themselves) will invite a NIN over a PLD (37+). There is a chance an NA PT rather invite a PLD becuase they think PLD is better but from my experience every PT I have been in which I was not on my NIN the leader invited a NIN if there was one avaliable.

While I stood in town with Yellow Tag on my name on I still was asked by JPN to join.. How often do JPN ask more then 1 time for someone to join if they arn't JP (Usualy if you reveal that you are NA they will just stop responding even..)?

With a NIN you do not have to worry about having a mage who likes to go MP waste crazy.. Some mages just heal for no reason with Cure 3 when the person is only 40 HP down. Mages can rest more often with a NIN instead of always making sure that the PLD is OK.

Aye, all you PLD's just need to realize that you are ole school, inefficient, obsolete. You are station wagons and we are corvettes. We are the future. You need to pack your tools and get crackin! :mad: Hahahaha

~Ok seriously now...

I respect PLD. They do have to do much to be a good tank, heck they were tanking before NIN even existed right? My only argument was that ninja players have to do alot to be considered competent and a heck of a lot to be considered good. The farming alone is a challenge that deters alot of people.

I can respect that PLD players do have to work at it to be a good tank. But please dont say that you work just as hard as a good ninja tank. That is then taking away from us. To say that PLD tanking and NIN tanking is the same only different is offensive to us.

[Stanislav]

I forgot to add Ninja deals a lot of damage 2x hit 30-50 every 2-3 seconds? While a PLD does what 20-30 (Assuming they are using Defender) dmg every 3 seconds?

[Loial]

forgot to add Ninja deals a lot of damage 2x hit 30-50 every 2-3 seconds? While a PLD does what 20-30 (Assuming they are using Defender) dmg every 3 seconds?

That REALLY doesn't help the argument that NIN have to do more to hold hate, you know

I can respect that PLD players do have to work at it to be a good tank. But please dont say that you work just as hard as a good ninja tank.

You "say" you respect PLD, but you just "disrespected" PLD with such a comment. NIN can't say they work harder than PLD. PLD can't say they work harder than NIN.

Why? PLD aren't NIN, NIN aren't PLD. If there were enough people out there who were both 75 PLD and 75 NIN... then they could compare. But still, you'd need a rather large sample of people who fit that criteria to put this to rest.

[Stanislav]

NIN doing that damage and then having a RNG unload Slug Shot for 1000 folloing by Asuran Fists for 1000 is hardly enough to hold aggro without using Provoke, Ninjitsu and Warcry and then still nuking till it finally turns back. All PLD has to do is Provoke and Heal a little and boom its back and thats only in the case the PLD does loose the aggro.