Building the DD Ninja

[TenchiHawkwing]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

One thing you CAN try... would be guns. That'd be similar to shuriken spamming though... NINs do well with guns at low level.(Apparently they do well in meripo as well, I remember seeing some parses about a NIN/RNG "Gun Ninja")

[Aeni]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

Concerning Elemental Ichi wheel:

Okay, the main reason this doesn't work is a timing issue. in the time you take to cast the whole wheel, you could have swung or thrown so many times you're losing alot in damage. At their best, they're a very low amount of damage taking into consideration the 7+ sec cast time. Trust me when I say this changes DRASTICALLY in the Ni levels. Once you get the Ni wheel, it's a whole new ball game. I tanked after 40 and had issues keeping my katana's leveled because I'd essentially just constantly spam jutsu spells. It will straight blow your mind being a Ninja from 40-55. I think that's where most higher level ninja's develop ther god complex of thinking they can solo anything because from 40-55, you can.

Oh trust me, it's not wheeling straight, but using gaps in between for blowing a couple of shurikens and meleeing once. Let's be honest, dual wield isn't fast w/o haste and at level 32. There's a noticeable delay or otherwise I would not have suggested what I suggested I should try doing.

I will let you all know what happens.

As for guns, I did it at level 20. The problem is range. However, if I stand away from the mob anyway to use jutsu wheeling, then I guess it's not an issue. Up close, however, guns accuracy is lol. Even on main RNG it's not easy.

[Armando]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

Oh trust me, it's not wheeling straight, but using gaps in between for blowing a couple of shurikens and meleeing once. Let's be honest, dual wield isn't fast w/o haste and at level 32. There's a noticeable delay or otherwise I would not have suggested what I suggested I should try doing.

It's still a 15% reduction in Delay...either way, it's not the total Delay that matters, but the DMG/sec relationship. Also, I don't mean to be overnegative or anything, but even if you spread out your casting you still take a hit...every cast is 4 seconds of meleeing you lose. Every wheel you go through "costs" you 24 seconds of meleeing. Thus, for it to be effective you'd need to stack enough INT so that one elemental wheel would've done more damage than 24 seconds of meleeing. I'm looking forward to the results; as long as you're not grossly overhunting, resists shouldn't be an issue, since the mob will have -30 resistance to the next spell. So it's really a matter of getting the INT to pull it off, and what the spells cap at (I can't imagine they have a very high cap.)

[Celeal]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

At that levels for NIN DD, IMHO, I would just get all the possible STR+ gear and ATK+ gear, eat Rice Drumpling, equip a pair of highest dmg katana, and DoT the mob to death. Nothing fancy, nothing exotic. Keep it simple and direct.

[Intensity]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

I still say blow of the ele wheel til Ni, I was always disappointed by the very low damage + very high casting time. Something I did do on a regular basis is drop one to weaken the mob to ice before using retsu and some others to weaken for enfeebles, not sure if it really helped with the though.

And I tried guns too, they were crap for the same reasons. HUGE delay, and only semi-good damage, and that's when I could land a shot 1 in 5 times.

[Aaramis]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

I'd have to agree with Celeal.
Pre-37, most NIN seem to pile on the +eva or +agi gear ... at which point their damage output suffers, especially compared to the DD classes who will be going all out +str/+atk/+acc.

Honestly, I think all you"d have to do is to swap out your +eva/+agi gear for +atk/str, eat meat jerky/mithkabobs or rice dumplings (if you want some +acc), and use berserk if you have it.

[tdh]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

I was going to suggest subing BLM, and Dual Wielding Yew Wands +1 and then I saw that NIN can't actually equip any of the good INT wands for the INT bonus. My plan was to load up on a ton of INT, and then put that Mithran INT (Was I correct in remembering both of your characters are Mithran Aeni?) to good use by flinging the Elemental Wheel from the back row. Of course this might not help with the trio tanking, but I would expect you could do some decent damage in the long haul.

Now that the Wand idea has fallen through, my only other suggestion was to go with some Swords. A couple of NINs in my LS told me going with Sword would probably help me hold more hate due to more damage, and Fast Blade being much more damaging than Blade: Rin & Retsu up to about Lv.30~ish. But serveral people have already mentioned the Sword option, and just go with the usual low level Atk gear. Lv.16 earrings, STR rings, and so on. You've leveled DRK, so I'm sure you know what's available for that range.

[Aeni]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

(Was I correct in remembering both of your characters are Mithran Aeni?)

Nuh-uh. Aliza is a hume. Aeni is mithra (But I don't play with her anymore) Akemie is mithra. I had a Tarutaru thermonuclear device, but due to the smallness, lost her someplace in the ethernet. ; ;

Plus, I forget to tell you that I have to be the one who's subbing WHM. LOL ... 3 man party (3 NIN) in case you're wondering about this setup. No, it's for fun and I know we're not going to get amazing exp. Just trying to fool around with combinations. So, knowing that I won't be subbing WAR for that uber melee bonus, this is why I was thinking of other alternatives to melee.

:p

(as long as you're civil, contributive and constructive, you'll get a thanks from me in this thread)

[Clever Ninja]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

There's no problem with NIN using sword, as long as your sword skill is relatively high. They're good to mainhand for different Skillchains early on, and my 25 NIN is currently carrying one.

Anyway, on the issue with the Ichi Wheel; unless you sub BLM, get a load of INT(I think INT affects their damage), and actually go through the whole wheel, its not worth it. Unlike Ni levels where you could take breaks and do stuff in between the wheels due to their cast time, if your gonna be casting the elemental ichi wheel AT ALL, sub BLM get the designated equipment and basically dedicate yourself to being either a Melee/Shuriken NIN or a Ichi Elemental Wheel NIN.

I honestly don't even know how the damage would look like, as the only time I've seen a NIN/BLM is from the 40-55 range, and hardly any NIN before that equips themselves to fully utilize the elemental wheel, so I don't think ANYONE really knows the damage potential in that. If you actually go through with this and use a Parser I'd be interested in seeing how it performed.

And as mentioned, stick with dual wielding. As someone as said, the fact that NIN can't use the really good Great Katana is the main reason why its frowned upon to use. And its a blessing to dual wield, take advantage of it >_>.

[TenchiHawkwing]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

Oh! Did I forget to mention that if you're going pure melee, /DRG might be something you want to look into?!

You'd get Attack Bonus and Jump together both at Lv20, and at 30 the Wyvern Earring and Mantle come into play.

[Lmnop]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

I had a NIN main tank in altep levels who was nin/war, as usual... taru, macro'd on lots of INT gear. Spammed the spells non-stop. He didn't voke every 30 seconds which made hate shakey, but damage-wise, he wasn't too far behind me. I believe I was on Samurai. Unfortunately, I never save parses and I don't remember the details, so don't make too much out of this sample.

He had a 75 Rdm (his bro's char dual-boxed) standing around hasting him, and generally saving our asses from links/what-have-you. That -definately- gives an advantage, but more in the ways of being able to keep up Utsusemi than DD.

[Aeni]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

NIN/WHM is amazing. Even without curing, I still kept up with DD. I pulled hate more than once off the other 2 NINs that only voked and voked and voked. omgz

Maybe I'm just too l337

Anyway...

So, I decided to dual wield katanas on recommendations and didn't bother with shurikens. I didn't wheel because of inventory issues with having to make juices (Again, subbed WHM) and had a couple of slots for +MP.

I still produced 130-150 Blade: Tos though :p We were able, just 3 of us, to take down VTs and low ITs. Heh. Oh, and chain to 3s and 4s. And no serious downtime (gotta love the juice)

But it was an off day and I wasn't being serious about it. One of the other NINs wasn't feeling well and we didn't really stay around long. I will ask someone else to sub WHM so that I can experiment >.>

[Meepster]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

well here's my input on this as a ninja who has done this. Nin/Blm = sex
i'm a 75 blm tho and have all the gear to benefit this job combo. I replace my Str rings with INT rings, and sub in a few other INT items where i can afford to, never sacrificing evasion of course. i have my elemental wheel macroed in order so the next spell is always stronger (earth > wind > ice > fire > water > thunder) and macro an HQ staff to each spell. And of course the Moldavite Earring :3

i'm sure you could do the same thing without blm sub, but you'd lose out on alot of magic attack bonus. I see anywhere from a 20-50 pt dmg increase per nuke with blm sub


also, if you plan to just be a nin dd with attack and str gear and such, keep in mind that most of your weapon skills are elemental and therefore more INT based than str/dex/acc/attk. I'm not saying that those stats dont help, because they do (its still 'some' physical dmg) but comming from someone who's tested it, INT helps.
i used to macro in INT +4 rings on my drk for freezebite and instead of the usual 50 crap dmg that ws does, i was doing more like 250-350 with it.

[Lmnop]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

only problem with your example is that you're looking @ elemental: Ni's instead of Ichis. If you were using that combo pre-40, pre HQ staves, etc... please tell us what you remember of your :Ichi experiences.

[Aeni]

Re: Building the DD Ninja

IN case anyone was wondering what my gear looks like now...

2x Kodachi
Wingedge
Silver Hairpin (Emp Hairpin is for chumps)
Savage Separates
Federation Tekko
Republic Subligar
Federation Kyahan
Holy Phial (omgz wewt)
2x Beetle Earrings +1
2x Courage Ring
Warrior's Belt +1
Nomad's Mantle

Think I might put in my +3STR rse feet, but other than that, NINs don't get very much to work with.