Random Ninja equip/merit q's

[Ehran]

I think Lamian Kaman+1 is the hot ticket Ranged item of late for tanks, and it would be pretty useful for NIN as well as PLD, I use it for both jobs (well the NQ anyways, dont' want to drop the gil buying a HQ and still working on getting one synthed). Especially if you're doing /DRK tanking, the +2 enmity from the Shuriken wouldn't be terribly noticeable, though the price on your server might be different from Asuras. I think here's it fairly expensive and not really worth the gil to me.

Depending on your budget and other gear, the Lamia Mantle +1 is a very cheap alternative to the Kaman. I normally use the Nokizaru Shuriken in my ammo slot, so the loss in emity over the High Breath Mantle isn't as big.

Not sure what your server prices are like, but the HQ bow sells for ~3 mil on Bahamut. I got a HQ mantle for 78k, which gives double the M. Def. Bonus.

[Hakamaru]

Depending on your budget and other gear, the Lamia Mantle +1 is a very cheap alternative to the Kaman. I normally use the Nokizaru Shuriken in my ammo slot, so the loss in emity over the High Breath Mantle isn't as big.

Not sure what your server prices are like, but the HQ bow sells for ~3 mil on Bahamut. I got a HQ mantle for 78k, which gives double the M. Def. Bonus.

...but you're giving up your back slot because you're cheap. There's no way people would want to give up their high breath mantle or gigant mantle for 4 MDB.

BTW, a silly WHM in my alliance cured someone else fighting fafnir the other night, which meant we got the fun of Hurricane Wing raining down upon us for the duration of the fight. I tested the effects of +1 MDB on Hurricane Wing. 273 damage with fenrir's stone vs. 270 with NQ Kaman. MDB for a NIN doesn't really seem like an attractive option since we really can't get enough of it to make a significant difference.

As for Cerberus Mantle... it's a big win when you're fighting Ouryu and need to swap in an earth resist set while he flies. Aside from that, it's hardcore for DD tanking in exp, farming trigger NMs and Limbus.

[RKenshin]

NIN can get more than enough of -magic damage taken, magic defense bonus, elemental resistance and INT/MND to make a difference. It just takes the right gear.

Why Cerberus Mantle for Ouryu though? Ouryu's aerial attacks are earth based.

[Avinor]

I think he meant as an enmity piece for ground, since a HB would lose its effect when swapping for the resist piece in air (Beak+1 I guess, think thats the best option for it). Though I'd probably go with Resentment cape on the ground for enmity anyway, taking the 1 less enmity in exchange for the -magic when he does occasionally use magic damage when grounded.

I need to pick up a bunch of resist pieces, like earrings and rings. Hopefully I can pick up some mal-xxx for cheaper than the lvl 72 NQs, and 1 kind of earring will at least do double duty for Tiamat and Jorm. Not sure if I have the patience to continue with Nussnacker though.

[Hakamaru]

NIN can get more than enough of -magic damage taken, magic defense bonus, elemental resistance and INT/MND to make a difference. It just takes the right gear.

Even if that's true, when would you ever build that way over a resist build? You'll have to give up a lot of enmity, HP and -phys damage in favor of Magic Def. I suppose if you know you're going to take a Searing Light. And what's MND gonna do? Outside of reducing banish / holy damage. >.>

Why Cerberus Mantle for Ouryu though? Ouryu's aerial attacks are earth based.

As Avinor stated, I meant you wear it while Ouryu's on the ground. We're using the nuke in the air, SC on landing, sleep on the ground strat, so I optimize enmity on the ground. You really can't give up a single slot of earth resist gear if you want to break 300 without breaking the bank. Leaving High Breath on in the air is out of the question.

Hopefully I can pick up some mal-xxx for cheaper than the lvl 72 NQs, and 1 kind of earring will at least do double duty for Tiamat and Jorm.

They're easy to camp... the NMs pop every night. But remember they're all rare. You're stuck buying 1 NQ 72 ring.

Not sure if I have the patience to continue with Nussnacker though.

1/7 I hated that NM so much, but I made like 50 KS camping him.

[RKenshin]

NIN can get more than enough of -magic damage taken, magic defense bonus, elemental resistance and INT/MND to make a difference. It just takes the right gear.

Even if that's true, when would you ever build that way over a resist build? You'll have to give up a lot of enmity, HP and -phys damage in favor of Magic Def. I suppose if you know you're going to take a Searing Light. And what's MND gonna do? Outside of reducing banish / holy damage. >.>

Stuff like this? lol http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2783/agear5rt.jpg

Wearing all that magic defense gear doesn't mean I have to keep it on, I only macro it for when it's needed and otherwise use different gear. I use variations of that gear for stuff like Ultima's Citadel Buster (brings damage down to <1k), Kirin's Stonega back when we kited it a long time ago lol (brought Stonega <700), Ouryu/Jorgy since I don't have full earth/ice resist builds (Ouryu air attacks brought down to 110, Jorgy 160), AV's annoyance (Meteor, Tornado II, Aeroga, Aero V, all 600-900), unexpected GoH from Cerberus since shit happens (~300 damage? forgot) and so on.

Sure elemental resist builds are great, but it doesn't hurt to have a general set of magic defense gear. But, that's not even what my original point was, my original point was that NIN can get plenty of magic defense, which is what I was attempting to prove in this post.

Why Cerberus Mantle for Ouryu though? Ouryu's aerial attacks are earth based.

As Avinor stated, I meant you wear it while Ouryu's on the ground. We're using the nuke in the air, SC on landing, sleep on the ground strat, so I optimize enmity on the ground. You really can't give up a single slot of earth resist gear if you want to break 300 without breaking the bank. Leaving High Breath on in the air is out of the question.

I misunderstood that part, I figured you meant for the air.

[Hakamaru]

NIN can get more than enough of -magic damage taken, magic defense bonus, elemental resistance and INT/MND to make a difference. It just takes the right gear.

Even if that's true, when would you ever build that way over a resist build? You'll have to give up a lot of enmity, HP and -phys damage in favor of Magic Def. I suppose if you know you're going to take a Searing Light. And what's MND gonna do? Outside of reducing banish / holy damage. >.>

Stuff like this? lol http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2783/agear5rt.jpg

Wearing all that magic defense gear doesn't mean I have to keep it on, I only macro it for when it's needed and otherwise use different gear. I use variations of that gear for stuff like Ultima's Citadel Buster (brings damage down to <1k), Kirin's Stonega back when we kited it a long time ago lol (brought Stonega <700), Ouryu/Jorgy since I don't have full earth/ice resist builds (Ouryu air attacks brought down to 110, Jorgy 160), AV's annoyance (Meteor, Tornado II, Aeroga, Aero V, all 600-900), unexpected GoH from Cerberus since shit happens (~300 damage? forgot) and so on.

Sure elemental resist builds are great, but it doesn't hurt to have a general set of magic defense gear. But, that's not even what my original point was, my original point was that NIN can get plenty of magic defense, which is what I was attempting to prove in this post.

Yes, I understand that it's possible to reduce magic damage significantly. My comment was specifically in regards to MDB. You're wearing what? 2 pieces of MDB totalling a whoping +4? You're piling on -% damage and -% magic damage, that's fine. But where's all this MDB gear you're getting huffy about? And gee... you picked resentment cape over lamia mantle +1. I wonder why that is? Because you're stacking -% magic damage over MDB. They are different. Sorta like Dual Wield vs haste, you're better off optimizing for the one you have more of. Switch that Unfettering ring to a Merman's Ring BTW.

[Lhexh]

Why would he use a Merman's Ring when he has Defending Ring and Minerva's Ring equipped?

[RKenshin]

NIN can get more than enough of -magic damage taken, magic defense bonus, elemental resistance and INT/MND to make a difference. It just takes the right gear.

Even if that's true, when would you ever build that way over a resist build? You'll have to give up a lot of enmity, HP and -phys damage in favor of Magic Def. I suppose if you know you're going to take a Searing Light. And what's MND gonna do? Outside of reducing banish / holy damage. >.>

Stuff like this? lol http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2783/agear5rt.jpg

Wearing all that magic defense gear doesn't mean I have to keep it on, I only macro it for when it's needed and otherwise use different gear. I use variations of that gear for stuff like Ultima's Citadel Buster (brings damage down to <1k), Kirin's Stonega back when we kited it a long time ago lol (brought Stonega <700), Ouryu/Jorgy since I don't have full earth/ice resist builds (Ouryu air attacks brought down to 110, Jorgy 160), AV's annoyance (Meteor, Tornado II, Aeroga, Aero V, all 600-900), unexpected GoH from Cerberus since shit happens (~300 damage? forgot) and so on.

Sure elemental resist builds are great, but it doesn't hurt to have a general set of magic defense gear. But, that's not even what my original point was, my original point was that NIN can get plenty of magic defense, which is what I was attempting to prove in this post.

Yes, I understand that it's possible to reduce magic damage significantly. My comment was specifically in regards to MDB. You're wearing what? 2 pieces of MDB totalling a whoping +4? You're piling on -% damage and -% magic damage, that's fine. But where's all this MDB gear you're getting huffy about? And gee... you picked resentment cape over lamia mantle +1. I wonder why that is? Because you're stacking -% magic damage over MDB. They are different. Sorta like Dual Wield vs haste, you're better off optimizing for the one you have more of. Switch that Unfettering ring to a Merman's Ring BTW.

lol, you're still missing my point. D:

I'm talking in regards to reducing any types of magic damage at all. Whether you do that through MDB, -magic taken, or whatever... Doesn't matter. My point is just that stacking all the -magic and MDB and whatever else you can on NIN will reduce damage you take signifcantly. Because... MDB and -magic defense and all that junk all work together to reduce the damage you take! ::gasp:: Even if the amount of MDB I have is small my point is that it helps and it's not worthless, and that it all counts when you want to reduce magic damage to as small as possible.

It's like saying it's not worth it for a NIN to try to get high amounts of defense because nearly all their gear lacks defense, and then saying that you should just go purley -physical damage taken and not waste your time on defense gear in other places. Just because a NIN would use -physical damage taken over defense gear, doesn't mean that defense is useless. Your argument in your post sounded no different to me than someone saying that a NIN trying to get high defense/VIT in combination with -physical damage taken gear is wasting time, because there's not a lot of defense gear available to support their lower defense. I'm saying that defense gear still plays a good part in reducing physical damage, despite the small amounts you use it in.

Now, just replace the above with -magic damage taken and MDB. Just because MDB is only available in small amounts doesn't make it useless. Stacking MDB along with -magic taken is more effective than just brushing off MDB, in some ways it's similar to how stacking -physical taken with defense is considerably more effective than just brushing off defense. Whether or not getting 3 MDB is worth it shouldn't be any different than wondering whether an extra 2 -magic taken from HQ rings is worth it.

And, news flash but Resentment Cape doesn't work everywhere. In which case, using a Lamia Cape +1 would be more beneficial for most scenarios. I have one just for that purpose.

And yes... That's not an unfettering ring, it's a Minerva's. Believe me I know what gear to and not to use for magic defense and resistance, I've only been building my gear towards it for over a year.

[Hakamaru]

lol, you're still missing my point. D:

Right... cuz your point was fabricated because you didn't read mine properly. Would you ever choose to wear Lamia Mantle +1 over the active resentment cape? No, and that was my point. Sorry you weren't with me. You're saying to wear MDB when nothing else is available... no shit. You supplment a magic build with MDB, you don't base your build on it.

And yes... That's not an unfettering ring, it's a Minerva's. Believe me I know what gear to and not to use for magic defense and resistance, I've only been building my gear towards it for over a year.

Completely my mistake.

You still didn't answer my question about your earrings in that SS. 4% vs 20 resist that puts you above 300... I don't understand.

[hawkie]

Switch that Unfettering ring to a Merman's Ring BTW.

Seriously, trying to tell RKenshin what NIN gear he should be wearing is like trying to teach a chicken to lay eggs. Just leave it or you'll just embarrass yourself further.

[Hakamaru]

Switch that Unfettering ring to a Merman's Ring BTW.

Seriously, trying to tell RKenshin what NIN gear he should be wearing is like trying to teach a chicken to lay eggs. Just leave it or you'll just embarrass yourself further.

lol... i hope his epeen tastes like strawberries.

I'm a failure because I didn't realize he had one of the only Minerva's in existence. I'll try not to lose any sleep.

[Sonomaa]

Switch that Unfettering ring to a Merman's Ring BTW.

Seriously, trying to tell RKenshin what NIN gear he should be wearing is like trying to teach a chicken to lay eggs. Just leave it or you'll just embarrass yourself further.

lol... i hope his epeen tastes like strawberries.

I'm a failure because I didn't realize he had one of the only Minerva's in existence. I'll try not to lose any sleep.

When you look up awesome in the dictionary, it says see ninja tanking, under ninja tanking it says see rkenshins livejournal and has a link to it

[Scythiroth]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...f/lolninja.jpg

It's not really there, I was just bored.

[LinktheDeme]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...f/lolninja.jpg

It's not really there, I was just bored.

They should add it and make it the top one though

[Krandor]

You still didn't answer my question about your earrings in that SS. 4% vs 20 resist that puts you above 300... I don't understand.

Because resists are random and he would rather have raw damage reduction? At 283 Resist he's stated that he resists Gigaflares around 40% of the time, so being generous and saying that 20 more resist gives 10% more chance of resisting, he's still taking 4% more damage 50% of the time. In a fight like that consistency in your damage is vastly more important then trying to squeak in one more resist into your fight.

[RKenshin]

lol, you're still missing my point. D:

Right... cuz your point was fabricated because you didn't read mine properly. Would you ever choose to wear Lamia Mantle +1 over the active resentment cape? No, and that was my point. Sorry you weren't with me. You're saying to wear MDB when nothing else is available... no shit. You supplment a magic build with MDB, you don't base your build on it.

Read this again, I think you misunderstood my original tone.

NIN can get more than enough of -magic damage taken, magic defense bonus, elemental resistance and INT/MND to make a difference. It just takes the right gear.

Even if that's true, when would you ever build that way over a resist build? You'll have to give up a lot of enmity, HP and -phys damage in favor of Magic Def. I suppose if you know you're going to take a Searing Light. And what's MND gonna do? Outside of reducing banish / holy damage. >.>

My quote in there was not directed at you. I was making a general statement to the OP in regards to equipment, as that was in fact my first post in the thread. It may have been unclear, but I was not directing it at you. I didn't plan to elaborate much more than that because other people had already covered most of what I'd say, and in addition I'd just be repeating myself from all the times I've already said it. Then, you debated against my statement to the OP (agian, not directed at you) saying "when would you ever build that way over a resist build?"

So, I gave you examples of when you would use it. Then, you critiqued the semantics of MDB's role for whatever reason in the sets of gear I use... And I justified my reason for using them and why I felt it was important as well. I never directed anything at your first post, I was defending what I thought, not attacking (which is where I think you're confused).

I'm pretty sure you way misunderstood my original intention with that statement I quoted. Everything after that was just in response to what you critiqued in regards to my choices/views.

You still didn't answer my question about your earrings in that SS. 4% vs 20 resist that puts you above 300... I don't understand.

In regards to fire resist sets on Baha V2 I'm pretty certain I'm the first (if not one of the first) that tried that, and was also the first to say it isn't worth it. There's a good deal of other people that agree, and in fact the most recent posts on the Wyrmking Post in the advanced forum even agree with that.

With that in mind, I built my gear around -magic damage taken and magic defense bonus with the highest priority over everything else, and then in extra spaces I put on Barfira. Relying on barfira for that BC isn't safe or efficient in many ways I won't get into here, but you can take my word for it, or at least the words of every other great tank I know of on this forum.

Regardless of that, it takes more than 300 barfira to consistantly resist often on the tougher mobs. Ouryu may be different since it's difficultly is lower than that of something like Tiamat, but in my tests with Tiamat it takes about 320 barfira to come close to the cap (90-95%) as far as how often you can resist. If you fall short at 300 then you're not going to resist as often (60-80%), and when taking heavy damage from flares I'd prefer the guaranteed reduction over the chance.

I'm a failure because I didn't realize he had one of the only Minerva's in existence. I'll try not to lose any sleep.

Actually just as a correction there's at least 8-10 that I've heard of (probably in reality is at least 15), two of which are in my LS. I was actually just borrowing it, that one in particular belongs to the LS. The Lamian Bow+1 was also borrowed from Blackice, I haven't had any luck finding one on AH that isn't horribly overpriced.

[Hakamaru]

I'm pretty sure you way misunderstood my original intention with that statement I quoted. Everything after that was just in response to what you critiqued in regards to my choices/views.

Ok, I see where I went wrong. My apologies.

You still didn't answer my question about your earrings in that SS. 4% vs 20 resist that puts you above 300... I don't understand.

In regards to fire resist sets on Baha V2 I'm pretty certain I'm the first (if not one of the first) that tried that, and was also the first to say it isn't worth it. There's a good deal of other people that agree, and in fact the most recent posts on the Wyrmking Post in the advanced forum even agree with that.

With that in mind, I built my gear around -magic damage taken and magic defense bonus with the highest priority over everything else, and then in extra spaces I put on Barfira. Relying on barfira for that BC isn't safe or efficient in many ways I won't get into here, but you can take my word for it, or at least the words of every other great tank I know of on this forum.

Regardless of that, it takes more than 300 barfira to consistantly resist often on the tougher mobs. Ouryu may be different since it's difficultly is lower than that of something like Tiamat, but in my tests with Tiamat it takes about 320 barfira to come close to the cap (90-95%) as far as how often you can resist. If you fall short at 300 then you're not going to resist as often (60-80%), and when taking heavy damage from flares I'd prefer the guaranteed reduction over the chance.

Thanks for the clarification / justification. I wasn't being sarcastic here, and this will definitely help us as we're gearing up tanks for Baha 2.

I'm a failure because I didn't realize he had one of the only Minerva's in existence. I'll try not to lose any sleep.

Actually just as a correction there's at least 8-10 that I've heard of (probably in reality is at least 15), two of which are in my LS. I was actually just borrowing it, that one in particular belongs to the LS. The Lamian Bow+1 was also borrowed from Blackice, I haven't had any luck finding one on AH that isn't horribly overpriced.

Did I miss somewhere that AV is killable again? Or did all these rings just come from when people were locking him last year? At any rate, I don't even track people's gear from my server... let alone another one. I'm more interested in my performance in the context of my LS. And even if there are 15... I would still refer to any of them as "one of the only" minervas.

[RKenshin]

Ok, I see where I went wrong. My apologies.

No problem lol.. I misunderstood a part of your post too originally, it was my fault for being unclear.

Thanks for the clarification / justification. I wasn't being sarcastic here, and this will definitely help us as we're gearing up tanks for Baha 2.

The Wyrmking Descends thread has a lot of good info on it there too.

I also posted a bunch of little tidbits of info on my LJ from experiences my LS has had at these links (might have to scroll around to find info, links aren't accurate):
http://rukenshin.livejournal.com/13893.html#cutid4
http://rukenshin.livejournal.com/14309.html#cutid3
http://rukenshin.livejournal.com/14661.html#cutid8

Did I miss somewhere that AV is killable again? Or did all these rings just come from when people were locking him last year? At any rate, I don't even track people's gear from my server... let alone another one. I'm more interested in my performance in the context of my LS. And even if there are 15... I would still refer to any of them as "one of the only" minervas.

It's unkillable still, but there was a period of I think 2-3 months or so where a good deal of linkshells were pushing sea runs and making constant AV attempts. There would be something like 2-3 AV attempts from 2-3 different linkshells posted on BG every week, and while there were many more failures there were quite a few wins as well.