Returning NINFollow

NIN is still pretty much unwanted for much of anything. Doesn't mean it can't work, or be useful, but there's basically nothing where people will look for a NIN first.

My NIN is not geared spectacular... But in my last Abyssea PT I was doing around 18-20% of melee damage by myself. That was with DRG's, SAM's, and DRK's in PT. I am in no way saying that NIN is uber DD, but like twofll said, a NIN with the right Atma, and a who actually pays attention, can out DD other DD's.

Disclaimer: the other DD's were horribly retarded.

I've tanked Chloris and Glavoid (second-to-last zone bosses of Tahrongi) without dying, and without Marches, while my counterpart Paladins fell (about 3 of them). It may be just because I had a better -PDT% set (-47%), but I was able to straight-tank through Hundred Fists on Chloris; Chloris ran to the mages a few times but I pulled him back before any serious damage was done. I maintained hate solidly much to my surprise; I'm very familiar with how CE/VE works and I was stumped. Everyone, including the paladins, thought I was going to die so I was last in line as backup. I still really don't know how my VE generation managed to keep me at the top of the hate list despite almost zero CE, but I did it, tanking the rest of the fight as soon as I was rotated in.

On the whole, though, NIN/DRK isn't as powerful as it once was, but if I could tank high level NMs without much trouble, maybe it's not totally dead. /BLU will be a strong contender soon; it doesn't have any high hate spikes spells or JAs like /DRK, but a lot of its spells generate CE and VE. It's still not up to par as a (good) paladin, but if your shell is short on tanks or if you feel you're more dedicated than your paladin counterparts, it could be able to work in a pinch.


To be honest, I felt the same way you did about Ninja. I told myself that if there wasn't going to be a flash-equivalent Ninjutsu soon, I wasn't going to level the job anymore and just retire. Then I tanked Chloris like a boss and well, that was that. I still realize my limitations (and I'm sure I won't be able to tank everything as well as my PLD counterparts), but the potential is still there.

If I had more funds available, I'd like to set up a Ninjutsu nuking set. Even though the damage increase wasn't as high as we were hoping, it may have potential (though I only have hearsay to go on). HQ Staves, INT/MAB equipment; a top-of-the-line nuking set wouldn't cost more than a couple million. Even doing 150 damage would be about 180CE~ against a level 90 target; with good gear, Atmas, and COR rolls, I think it may be possible to do that kind of damage against most targets.

With the change to weather trials, getting a pair of INT/MAB katanas should be stupidly easy now, and would knock a bit off the price tag of a nuking set since you wouldn't need HQ staves then.