NIN/DRK Trouble

[Leroy]

Ok, so my LS has always went with PLD/NIN tanks for everything, but lately we've been having issues with one complaining about being a blink tank as PLD, and he'd rather be WAR than a blink tank.

So to fill his spot at times we need a new tank. We have 2 well geared NINs in the ls, and one wants to tank Godfs/Jailers/HNMs as NIN/DRK.


The problem is, the hate isn't really so good, and he's using the Stun > Bind > Sleep cycle, but it's just not enough to keep shit off our standard melee and BLMs with their usual songs. We've tried Dual Marches and just Refresh, and March/Ballad plus Refresh, but there's really no huge difference in the hate control.

Should I have him spam some other spell cycle? Is there any particular songs he should get? Should we have him focus on Haste or Emnity gear more? Currently he tanks in a gear set with 20% haste, sticking emnity where he can't get more.


It just sucks because I want all my ls members to get their shot at at nms and shit, but I'm just wary of the whole NIN/DRK thing since we've been heavily focused on PLD/NINs, and I have no ideas what songs to give him or what gear to advise him to invest time/money in.


He wants to tank, and he's a good member, so he'll get a shot, but is there any advice I could get to pass on to him?

[Belkin]

belkinator.livejournal.com

There is a NIN/DRK post somewhere on there...Should tell you what you need to know.

Edit: It's toward the bottom, gotta scroll down past all that RDM/NIN solo crap.

[idunno]

are they doing ni debuffs as well? that should be in the cycle. i do nin/drk alot and other than the odd times i don't have much trouble holding hate just spamming stun, bind, sleep & ni debuffs. i usually have about 18-23 enm total.

i never use souleater or last resort unless it's necessary. other than the spells above the stat drain spells also give a good amount of enm, but not used as often b/c of its mp cost.

[Secksi]

Gear setup would be nice to see, but otherwise I can only tell you what I do.

Our normal tank party is Tank x2, Whm x2, Brd, Rdm. Songs are 2x march almost always, you should be able to live off of refresh and the occasional devotion, if you're doing it right your whms shouldn't need to devotion each other.

I usually tank in +27 enmity(4 from merits), with 11/12% haste(depending on time of day) and Loquacious Earrings fast cast. Double march and haste your timers should be close enough to cap so that you can always keep shadows up unless you get hit with something shitty that takes them down. I also have another full enmity macro I'll hit when I'm using a hate spike ability.

I go through hojo > kurayami > stun > bind > sleep > lower elemental resistance(Suiton for example, depending on what were fighting) > start over, for my spell rotation, if I ever find a timer is down or I can't use one of the spells because of a resistance I'll throw in Jubaku, Aspir, Absorb MND, and Hojo/Kurayami Ichi.

Some mobs really suck to tank on nin/drk, Khim is one of them because you can't stun, and obviously you don't want to spam sleep on wyrms. Byakko is also a huge bitch most of the time(well always).

That's about it really, I consider myself a good tank. Nin/Drk keeps hate in 2 ways really. One of them is CONSTANTLY spamming spells, the other is relying on that extra shadow to not get hit. It will still happen, but less often than on Pld.

[Naver]

Dumb question but had to ask anyways since I didn't see it mentioned in the OP.

Souleater being used as a hate tool as well? >_>

[eva00r]

pop soul eater and cancel it right away, you'll get like 70% of provoke hate.

[Churchill]

If you're using NIN/DRK in any fight that takes less than 10-15m you've got the wrong tank.

[Ashky]

I don't even have /DRK leveled and have tanked just about everything outside of JoL /WAR. I have even faced off and co-tanked against NIN/DRKs and have had times where the NIN/DRK couldn't get the mob off me as NIN/WAR (this was against Omega). So this tells me that it does take some amount of time to get hate built up. You might want to let your NIN/DRK get 3 cycles of stun, hojo, kurayami, sleep, bind, etc in before you have your melee engage. Also, another thing to remember it that it isn't always the tanks fault if someone else pulls hate... Just because you can pull hate doesn't always means you should.

[maddadon]

there is absolutely no reason why a nin/drk shouldn't be able to hold hate at least as well, if not better, than pld/nin.

he's not casting blind btw. he can use souleater to generate some nice spike hate. your melee's can sa/ta onto him.

I have NO problem holding hate as nin/drk when my co-tank is pld/nin- and I work w/ some very compitent pld/nin's- so I don't understand why ur guy is having that much trouble w/ hate.

You say he is well equiped-- his equipment for nin/drk SHOULD be haste in all available spots- followed by + emnity in all available spots.

Someone already mentioned Ruke's LJ-- its the nin/drk bible.

[Seditedi]

Dumb question but had to ask anyways since I didn't see it mentioned in the OP.

Souleater being used as a hate tool as well? >_>

JAs are your backup in case something wrong happens >_> and you lose hate for some reason whether it be horrid roar or another type of hate reset.

[Weeks]

Typically, the NIN/DRK will do better with Ballad and March. PLD/NIN seems to do better with double March. We handle this by switching to Ballad when I get low on MP and then back to double March. It's not perfect, but it's workable.

Anyway, full Haste and then enmity, as was said. I typically do burn Souleater and Last Resort at the start of the fight, but then save them for a burst of hate when needed. Stun, Bind, Kurayami, Hojo, and then Sleep as MP allows. If he can't hold hate, Hades Sainti for weapon, but that really should be utterly unnecessary. I use an Earth Staff for basically everything except Ultima and have zero issues holding hate in any non-zerg situation.

[Churchill]

I usually do it with a Ghorn now so MP is never an issue, just run 2 BRD's for mar/ballad and you won't ever lose your MP pool.

I cycle Stun>Aspir>Sleep>Bind and if I'm really lagging in hate I'll use Ninjitsu...shouldn't be an issue though. If you want to do the math you can, but you'll come to the same conclusion I did, in that no matter what having more haste on for Stun will generate more emnity than using emnity in those haste slots. Changing back to emnity for your /DRK spells however, is a good idea.

Omega is a bad sample, Omega is a zerg fight. Ultima is a better one of the two for NIN/DRK because your melee are gonna pull off eventually or your alliance will get raped. Using magic def gear you can eat CB's as well, and having a THF SA/TA is easily accomplished. Very easy to tank Ultima with two NIN/DRK's or a mixture.

LR/SE/Weapon Bash are good for Wyrms where either you can lose your hate, or have a co-tank be Terror'd with shadows down. PLD's have Cover, you have those 3 JA's.

[Airenn]

Omega is a bad sample, Omega is a zerg fight.

Offtopic, but please don't tell me you zerg it in like 4 mins.

I can't stand LS that do this. You can get 5 pods from a well organized Omega run. Hell, last Omega I did, we got an *entire* Omega set from the pods. A couple of times 3/4, and many many 2/4.

I feel it's such a waste to kill it asap. It's only a 30minute fight, why not stick it out and possibly not have to waste more time later on the actual zones. >_<

That being said, I was MT with a PLD for a while in our Limbus runs as a NIN/DRK. I did well, but I had SATA backing me. (Low on enmity gear.) Under the Airenn+Judai/Trienish reign of tanks, we never died, even through citadel busters.

I definitely had to use Souleater/Last Resort for hate, but it was worth it. Came in handy if the PLD was getting a bit too much hate. My cycle was Stun > Sleep > Bind > Hojo > Repeat

For the record, I used KTN's, too. Hehe.

[Churchill]

If I say yes will u kill urself.

I generally do Omega with 8-12 and sometimes get a full Alliance, if your alliance doesn't have 6+ BLM's it's a zerg fight, regardless of whether it takes 4 minutes or 30 minutes. The fact that you can beat Omega with melee in 4 minutes without using DRK's is another signifier that maybe it's a zerg fight. Those types of battles are hard to control hate in because a melee without even trying, if decently geared, will be spamming his Utsusemi.

I take Omega to 1~3% and farm pods from there. But what do I know.

[Airenn]

Nah, I'll stay here to keep buggin' ya, now that I know I do.

We took 4BLM, SMN, RNG, SAM, THF, BLU to last Omega and got it to 5% in about 12 minutes, and we hold there and kite remainder of time. We try to push down quick, yes to avoid 4 legs form. The SAM, THF and BLU all generally have SATA to keep it on the tanks. It's a smooth fight, I love the way they work it. But, too many lately, I have seen just blow it up, and it's such a colossal waste.

[ringthree]

For NIN/DRK, I use (in this order) Stun, Blind, Sleep, Kuriyama and Hojo. I actually did this before Kaeko's enmity testing (which is incredibly helpful for this) and was very pleased to see that it was achieving the goals that I hoped for. Stun is the hate equivalent of Flash, and probably should be used whenever it is up. Blind and Bind are nice for building up hate quickly, but it is all VE hate which is why I keep Ni spells in the order as CE hate will help you in the long run. If you have no worries about MP then you can also add Bind to the order, but I generally do not add it because it is more VE without any CE and because with a three spell, two ninjutsu cycle you are usually back around to Stun right as its ready. But you need to mix and max to make it work for you.

Blind and Bind are the same hate and it is all VE. Both are low MP, decently fast cast while Blind has a much lower recast. Sleep has decent CE and VE. Kuriyama and Hojo both give lower hate but cost no MP and have lower cast times. In general I would suggest against using Absorb spells, they are the same hate as Blind and Bind, but cost substantially more MP. Essentially if you need to cast Absorb spells, its better to wait the two seconds for Blind to be up again.

[Leroy]

Byakko is also a huge bitch most of the time(well always).

Shit ~_~;


Well, now our main PLD/NIN has been AFK a few days now in Rolanberry with a strange ls on, selling our triggers, and now we're just sitting on out 15ish Byakko triggers waiting to find someone capable of tanking it.

[Hulk]

I've tanked most everything in the game on nin/drk and it's pretty simple... Haste everywhere you can get it, enmity everywhere else, and need about a 100-120mp pool... My preference is to have 2x brd and rdm in tank party, but have done it many other ways too... Spam Stun > Bind > Sleep > Kurayami > Hojo, rinse and repeat... Save Souleater/LR for when you need a hate boost, and cancel em right after you fire em off...

Situationally on mobs, the spell cycle will vary... i.e. I use a variety of other spells on Tiamat when swapping to fire resist gear due to the lack of haste... Aspir/Drain/Abs spells can be swapped in as needed when timers dictate that your other spells aren't up... The key to hate on nin/drk is to keep casting... watch your timers and use one of the extra spells when you need to fill a gap... there is no way that a nin/war will be able to keep up with a well geared nin/drk... sorry to the ppl that have posted otherwise in this thread... you are mistaken, wrong, and probably have trouble reciting your alphabet and/or rock the shortbus wherever you go...

[Furionstormrage]

Byakko is also a huge bitch most of the time(well always).

Shit ~_~;


Well, now our main PLD/NIN has been AFK a few days now in Rolanberry with a strange ls on, selling our triggers, and now we're just sitting on out 15ish Byakko triggers waiting to find someone capable of tanking it.

What server?

I'll tank 15 times, its fun.

[Saraphym]

Byakko is also a huge bitch most of the time(well always).

Shit ~_~;


Well, now our main PLD/NIN has been AFK a few days now in Rolanberry with a strange ls on, selling our triggers, and now we're just sitting on out 15ish Byakko triggers waiting to find someone capable of tanking it.

lol

on topic:
Belkin's LJ was a good read. i think it touched on most of the important bases.