[Afija]

Red mages are very suitable to replace WHM. With WHM sub, they can cure most stats, use regular regen, heal faster and have more MP with refresh/convert.

BUt yeah, Nu describes how I feel. My ideal party is RDM, BRD, PLD, SAM, DRK or THF, MNK. They deal too much damage and renkei too much for a NIN it seems. If I were to get other classes in the party or maybe add a WHM, a NIN may be suitable, but otherwise the party of WHM, WHM, RDM, NIN, WAR and MNK combo looks horrible on paper. 3 healers is very unescessary and hurts your XP it seems.

[ilivo]

Afija :
Red mages are very suitable to replace WHM. With WHM sub, they can cure most stats, use regular regen, heal faster and have more MP with refresh/convert.

BUt yeah, Nu describes how I feel. My ideal party is RDM, BRD, PLD, SAM, DRK or THF, MNK. They deal too much damage and renkei too much for a NIN it seems. If I were to get other classes in the party or maybe add a WHM, a NIN may be suitable, but otherwise the party of WHM, WHM, RDM, NIN, WAR and MNK combo looks horrible on paper. 3 healers is very unescessary and hurts your XP it seems.

rdm with a whm sub can do great at healing, but at higher levels (50+) the mp and time rdm are waisting curing damage and status effects is better spent casting refresh on other casters and debuffing the mob.

and yes 3 healers in a pt is overkill as sited in my example i used for my ninja tank pt. i really don't understand what the whm/smn was doing in the pt, but we had no trouble chaining IT armet beetles (lvl 60 monsters) for 170+ xp up to chains of 4 and 5.

it goes to show that there is no 'set' pt configuration that is better than any other configuration, its how you play the character and interact with your PT members

[salty]

ilivo your comments have been very good. there is no true best party scheme since there ar emany variations. But it upsets me when someone comes to a Ninja forum and puts down the job. I stated that the best party I have been in was without a WHM. We got 1k+ exp every 10 minutes. Usually about 7k or so a hour. My common party of friends that I lvl with(I have a group of us that party together every night) is WHM/BLM/PLD/THF/NIN - fill in the blank(we like BRD - RDM - or SMN).

In my previous statement I did not say anything about HBCNM or some other things you mentioned, mainly because I have never fought those, have you? I was only talking about a party for exp. I am sure there are many types of groups that could be made in theory and practice that would be great. I spoke from my expierence, just don't be biased in a group to not get a NIN, they do have many great things they can do, it does take a dedicated player and some gil, but I'm sure one will turn your opinion over someday.

EDIT - second part was speaking to Nu ><

[motoh]

Question. Does the enfeeb jutsu stack with the BLM enfeeb of that element? Because that would add a bit to their usefulness... BRD Carols stack with the bar-elements, which means a BRD and a WHM can make elemental hunting a snap...

A ninja/Blm enfeeb team and the proper WS chain could, if it does stack, do horrific work.

[Afija]

Ninjas magic stacks with everything that's similar to it.

I still want to know how much better or worse a NIN feeb is compared to a RDM or BRD feeb.

[motoh]

I haven't partied with many ninjas (except that crazy JP one, who has levelled fighter to 75 and was having fun with ninja... ^^ and doing a hands-down great job of it.) so I couldn't tell you if their enfeeb is strong, but you did trigger the thought of BRD/BLM/NIN all enfeebing to the renkei element. Then the THF lines up the final hit with SA TA... And all the mages grin as the best magic burst in history is about to go off... I have to expirement, to see if this will work... GOD, I gotta unlock ninja.

(Yet another sidenote: My friend's suicide macro is pretty bad, too. It's from Excel Saga: 'Throw your life away for justice!' Nearly killed me because I was laughing so hard. I like yours, maybe even better, though.)

[b00sdr1v0rz]

Afija :
Info's been great, It still does sound like PLDs are better but at least I know what the hell NINs can do now, they just don't really fit into the parties I try and join though.

And bloodsilver - CHR is not some almighty godly stat, but PLD has more of it than NIN so it does make their provoke stronger. I know their CHR isn't 'godly', but compared to NIN it is >_>.

and it STILL doesnt fuggin matter because "weak provokes" is not why ninjas commonly dont hold hate as well as paladins. your charisma goes up automatically as you level and as a tank, even thinking about it is a waste of brain processes. end of story.

[Nu]

I should clear something up. I am not saying the Ninja class sucks, or that it shouldn't be played. I am saying that I, as a White Mage, hate having to cover for a bad ninja who is trying to be a "blink tank." I know very few ninjas who can actually pull this off, and it typically requires vast amounts of cash to help them deal enough damage (you know what kind of equipment I'm talking about--O-Kotes, +1 Katanas, etc) to mix in with the Provokes (not to mention tons of powders for extra misc Ninjitsu casts to make sure aggro stays on the Ninja) to hold hate effectively. It IS possible, it just doesn't happen very often in my experience.

On the other hand, I have no problem with the Ninja being an extra debuff/damage dealer in a party where a Bard is my support. A ninja who lowers elemental resistances to that of a melee skillchain will be my friend, and one who can load up on status effects on the mob in lieu of a Red Mage will be my best friend. Something like PLD/DRK/BLM/NIN/BRD/WHM can work, in my opinion. Switch around damage dealers if you like, sub a WAR for the PLD, whatever. Use Beserk or Sneak Attack, whatever it takes to deal some damage to mix in with your debuffs. Ninjas don't have to be blinktanks, and it seems that the job of being a blink tank is often vastly underestimated.

[switch-ollie]

finding a ninja who has the ability to blink tank good is very rare i have a friend who can do it very close to perfect taking only one or two hits in the fight and she doesn't have ochido's kote or +1 katana's but does use a lot of ninjitsu blind and paralyze spells to keep the hate and keeps it very good unless a blm does something like a freeze MB but even a pld has a hard time keeping hate after getting MB for 1000+ dmg^^

[Grale]

Y'know, I'm a Pld, and I'm proud of the job us pld's do. We take the hits, that's our job...
But I've been partying in Qufim with this ungodly Nin/War lately, and, partly due to my lack of MP, she's blinktanked me into second string tank almost every fight.
I haven't minded, either; I mean, I kinda make a game out of trying to get aggro back from her, just to stay even in case something goes wildly wrong and I HAVE to pull aggro... but over two nights in Qufim she's held aggro solidly, and I've only seen her go into the orange once.
The pace we'd keep with her as our tank was only reduced by having to periodically recharge our blm's MP, and we only did THAT because having a blm in there slugging away generally sped up the fights.
I kinda got the feeling that, if she had a Regen on her, she'd be able to just sit there and SOLO the monsters were fighting, which were all IT.
Her name's Meg. She rocks.
So as much as I, being a pld, would love to say that blinktanking doesn't work, I can say unequivocally that between lvl 20-25 it works very well indeed... and certainly allows a party to maintain a blistering pull speed.
Moreso than if I'd been main tank... and I'm a pretty damn fine tank, in all honesty.

[salty]

The PLD that I play with always complains about how much better a tank Ninja is than PLD. But, I have to admit, in many circumstances we can hold well, however if that mob has double attack, or we are out of shadows then OUCH! Evas + items are a must for Ninja.

[ilivo]

Nu :
I should clear something up. I am not saying the Ninja class sucks, or that it shouldn't be played. I am saying that I, as a White Mage, hate having to cover for a bad ninja who is trying to be a "blink tank." I know very few ninjas who can actually pull this off, and it typically requires vast amounts of cash to help them deal enough damage (you know what kind of equipment I'm talking about--O-Kotes, +1 Katanas, etc) to mix in with the Provokes (not to mention tons of powders for extra misc Ninjitsu casts to make sure aggro stays on the Ninja) to hold hate effectively. It IS possible, it just doesn't happen very often in my experience.

thanks for clearing that up Nu, i am in full agreement with you, the ninja tank has to be willing to drop 10k+ gil an hour at LV50+ to out tank a pld of similar level. in my case, my ninja tank (god i fell in love with this woman^^) Vine, was so decked out in +1 items and 'uber' gear she made me cry. she also had utsusemi: ni timed to a science which helps quite a bit.

so lets say ninja tanks can hold there own against warriors and pld, but not without a massive bank account.

[Jarigue]

BTW a stack of 99 Shiei last me about 3hours, when i Tank, and i got Utsusemi: Ni.



PS: Whats up Ili!

[darn4nr]

I think this thread proves that Ninja is not meant to be a tank.
Anybody who enlists a ninja to tank doesn't know how to build a good group. Sure it can be done as a patch since "real tanks" are not availabe but its a patch..

The mere fact the ninja CAN tank doesn't make it a tank..

As far as I can see its a low maintenance dmg dealer that allows mob chaining by speeding kills and having the mages not need to heal the Ninja..

Thats my opinion at the moment based on the above discussions..