When should I Sub Nin?

[zarcoft]

I want to be a War/Nin for a long time and I finally got my nin to 37 I was wondering at lvl 30 should I go war/nin or should I stay war/thf till 48 for Viking Axes?

[Caspian]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Its rather funny. I've been in parties pre-30 that wanted me to sub nin. Even though /mnk is the superior sub until 48 at the earliest. (Some say 50 for DWII or even 55 for Rampage.) I'd say stick it out with /mnk until 48, then do it up with dual vikings.

[Lmnop]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I take it you don't like tanking? yea totally stay War/thf. War/nin is still nice for parties with bad hate control, but it's easy to play War/thf Conservatively and still be obscene every 100% tp. I'd also suggest having decent defense gear for the combo (it's not that hard to buy some cheap high defense equipment to macro in when you get hate, and then have another macro for when you're not damage-tanking).

[Mav]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

as soon as i hit 24 i started subbing ninja. i honestly don't believe War/Monks parse better damage. I build tp very quickly with my 2 axes, and my raging axe hits IT mobs in the jungle for up to 160 with berserk on.

i also have shadows, which means against goblins, i can absorb 6 hits at the start of a pull before i start getting clobbered. that gives the main healer extra regen time, or it gives the mainhealer/debuffer time to cast debuffs without falling behind in the healing.

[Celeal]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

pre-48, /nin is decent if you need shadow for almost every fight (SATA partner, share tank with other nin or /nin, etc). For closing skillchain, /THF is a nice option.

[Skoal]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

My war is 34 and the last few parties I have been in every melee was /nin. I noticed the whm was casting Banish alot. I guess they were bored from not healing. I would suggest trying it out just to get a feeling for it.

[Zamphire]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

as soon as i hit 24 i started subbing ninja. i honestly don't believe War/Monks parse better damage. I build tp very quickly with my 2 axes, and my raging axe hits IT mobs in the jungle for up to 160 with berserk on.

i also have shadows, which means against goblins, i can absorb 6 hits at the start of a pull before i start getting clobbered. that gives the main healer extra regen time, or it gives the mainhealer/debuffer time to cast debuffs without falling behind in the healing.

I actually swtiched to /nin after about 30 so I'm not trying to bash it or anything. A war/mnk may not parse "better" damage, but I can promise a war/mnk with a G.axe can do just as much damage. Before Dual Wield II, the delay for both weapons are added together and that makes your total delay. At 32 your best axes are Warrior's Axe with 260 delay, add two of those together, that's a wopping 520 delay. Both of those axes have a 25 attack with a DPS of 543. At 31 the best great axe is the Twicer with added Double Attack, which means more double attacking for you, yay! But lets say you can't get the best, lets go with Voulge. Delay of 504, right then I'm attacking quicker then you, with an attakc of 50, meaning I'm hitting twice as hard as one of your hits, yes, you hit twice, i know, that's why I said it's about even. The thing that really starts to add up if you ask me is crit hits. With a crit hit on a Gaxe I was hitting 104+, yes, over 100. On Axe I barely hit for 60 on a crit in the 30s. And dont say "I can crit with both swings!" Yes... you can, but it's rare. TP Return for one swing on Gaxe is 16, tp return for one swing on axe is 6 I think, not sure though. Even with two swings we gain more tp faster. Not to mention boost, which doesn't help much but it does. Sturmwind is our best friend. We get it around 30ish and it hits HARD, I've had it do 240 on mandys in the first jungle.

Shadows are nice, and really good for tanking. I static with my wife, we both go WAR/NIN and dual tank almost perfectly together. So WAR/NIN has it's merrits, but WAR/MNK does too.

[ValisOfValefor]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

that's a wopping 520 delay

Actually theres a 10% delay reduction from DWI, and with that added in it comes out the dealy is basically the same as a great axe, but not enough to notice.

[Tokitoki]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

You arent hitting twice as hard either most of the time... DMG ratings on weapons dont mean you're always doing that much damage, or have that much attack. Theres a whole damage calculation...

Anyway... yea...

[Coffeeandapples]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Your damage per second with 2 axes doesn't get better than G.Axe until level 43 with Dual Combat Caster +2's. Then, you don't have sturmwind so you'll probably still be doing less until viking axes. However, if you find yourself taking hate too much, or have to duo tank, /nin is much better in decreasing downtime overall. I'd give this a situational and level all 3, and make the sub call before the party... but thats just me. /mnk for solo tank, /thf for pure damage post 30, /nin for duo tank and if you are going to be taking too much hate(and post 50 with dual axes for damage). Should still use G.Axe till 43 at least reguardless of sub, in my opinion.

[Zamphire]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

You arent hitting twice as hard either most of the time... DMG ratings on weapons dont mean you're always doing that much damage, or have that much attack. Theres a whole damage calculation...

Anyway... yea...

Yea, there's a whole damage calculation. But in general, I'm hitting 25-30 with one axe, where as I'm hitting 50-60 with a great axe. More or less, double.

[seq]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Actually theres a 10% delay reduction from DWI, and with that added in it comes out the dealy is basically the same as a great axe, but not enough to notice.

some say 5% others say 10%, stop spreading rumors. DW1 does nothing noticable.
WAR/NIN can use great axe too Zamphire ^^, Sturmwind is way better than Raging axe 'till DW2 is availabe.
as for your question, when to start /NIN. you can start it at 24 if you want to dual tank with another NIN or /NIN but if you'll solo tank /MNK is better i think.
/NIN is used for:
1) Dual weild II (WAR50/NIN25 gets it)
2) Utsusimi (Not much, but good to first voke for the THF to SATA or to voke when the NIN is slowed and the WHM doesn't have Erase >.>)
3) Dual tanking (2 WAR/NIN)
4) benefitial weapons, weapons with added stats (like Warrior's axe , STR & DEX +1 or Viking axe )

other than that, i don't think you should /NIN.
something to note though, when DW1 Axes misses there is a chance only one hit misses and half the TP & DMG is calcualted, but when a great axe misses it's 0DMg and 0TP.

[supersimian]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

It kinda depends I think. I would not sub thf unless there was a pally tank in the party. If a Ninja was the main tank I would step away from putting down the big damage with /thf and opt for /nin as ninjas are terrible hate keepers imo. My advice is to have both ready.

[Armando]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

some say 5% others say 10%, stop spreading rumors. DW1 does nothing noticable.
WAR/NIN can use great axe too Zamphire ^^, Sturmwind is way better than Raging axe 'till DW2 is availabe.
as for your question, when to start /NIN. you can start it at 24 if you want to dual tank with another NIN or /NIN but if you'll solo tank /MNK is better i think.

DWI is a 10% reduction in Delay, this is a hard fact. DWI has a bigger impact on your base Delay than DWII has on your post-DWI Delay.

Anyways, my condensed opinion:
Break WS > All
Break WS > Sturmwind > Raging Axe
Great Axe > Axe 99% of the time until 48

/NIN tip #1: You can use a Great Axe while going /NIN. Do so.
/NIN tip #2: You have shadows. Use them. Shadows not used is MP wasted. If you aren't pulling hate from the tank, then do so. Periodically.
/NIN tip #3: If you're not using your shadows, sub something else. If you have a really good tank, sub something else. If you get to the point that your EXP is limited only by your killing speed, sub something else. If your party has no downtime with the tank taking hits full time, sub something else. If you're solo tanking with just Utsusemi: Ichi, sub something else.

[ValisOfValefor]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

some say 5% others say 10%, stop spreading rumors

.... sigh, how come everyone always resorts to this, I know this from listening from Armando. He's a lot better than me, with the formulas and math, and also tests out much of his information if it's possible. And I trust what he says.

Where as at 30, there is a weapon that outparses most Gaxes, the Military Pick if i remember right, though its mega expensive most the time, becuase its a really good weapon. Still I myself am a huge supporter of Gaxe whenever possible, though now I do see the benifits of /nin, I still believe that other subjobs can be just as benificial.

I really learned alot in this thread, and changed my views on the way Warrior worked.

Warrior is a flexible job, and was made to be that way

(lol and I just noticed Armando posted, and agree entirely with what he says about the Break WS being most benificial,)

Though the one weapon skill I still want to see in action is full break, espcially on an enemy or element it's weak against.