Nin/ Rdm or Blm

[Sesshoumaru]

any one play around with this recently as all the info on it seems to be pretty old.

This is from alla from april of last year 8/

Some new stuff has come into the picture for Ninja nuking... gear sidegrades and upgrades and the meritable San Spells.

Seems like a Nin could make nuking effective at level 75 where most parties don't have a single tank. By then there are many MAB and INT and skill options. Subbing RDM would give MAB I trait as well as Fast Cast II. Dropping the recast timers and adding some San spells, a NIN/RDM could probably skip the elements his target is prone to resist the most and do a partial Ni wheel followed by a partial San wheel and perhaps have low enough recasts to just keep repeating.

FC II is 15% spell recast reduction. So is the Haste spell, and they stack.

Some MAB items I'm thinking of specifically are:

Magic Attack Bonus I trait +20
Moldavite Earring +5
Uggalipeh Pendant +8
Denali Keks (lvl 40 Nyzul Isle Assault drop) +3 also +3 M. Acc
Koga head +5
There's another earring that's +7 MAB but um good luck getting it.


Then HQ staves for nuke accuracy and +15% damage.

Then there's plenty of +skill and +INT items for NIN to fill the gaps in other slots. I'd think they'd be able to do close to 300 with Ni's and maybe like 400 with Sans. Ni still > San as far as DOT goes, but San would just be there to fill the gaps when Ni recasts are not up yet, so you would only have to stop nuking in order to cast shadows.

Also any other new info for the lvl 51-60 scene of this setup?

thanx in advance for any useful posts.

[Thorny]

You will never do 300 Nis or 400 Sans. That said, I used to use it for Faust and it's fun to play with 40-60 and in capped events. HQ staffs, moldavite/ninjutsu earring, AF head are the only hugely relevant items I can think of 51-60 but stacking INT in other slots will help. Typically 1 point of INT = 1 base damage on ni nukes. Speaking realistically though, it's just a really expensive way to not keep up with katana damage for merit parties or any other place NIN is meant to DD at 75.

[Weeks]

All I can say from experience is that a NIN/WAR using katanas instead of ele staves gets resisted enough that by level 50 it's time to stop worrying much about the elemental wheel. I'm quite sure that you can do a better job than /WAR in the low 50s by subbing RDM and swapping staves, but it's going to be a big expense, it'll be a hard sell to most of your parties, and it isn't going to get you through those levels that much quicker. The biggest development is that you're no longer stuck camping Robber Crabs for a dozen levels, and when you move on to colibri you'll actually be doing respectable damage with your katanas.

[Nazrious]

well tested it out and at 51 nuking for a constant 140-150 less on what beetles was strong to earth I believe. It sure as hell was way better then what I see from any other DD at that level. Thats as Elvaan btw and /blm still haven't tested out /rdm but with the MAB for moldy and also HQ staves should probably still be in those ranges. Cool thing is that for elvaan aside from the HQ staves and moldy earring, bitch was being greedy and I went 1/9 on him, RSE covers a lot of the slots and the rest isn't so costly, aside from tools that is.
I'll take it to 55 and see how things turn out but its doubtful I'll take it past 55. on a side note do coli's reflect elemental ninjutsu?

Edit: I definitely see a 5xnin/blm and Rdm party tearing it up pretty fierce for 51-60, but I doubt many have the staves and gear to pull it off. The downside of not leveling katanas is something that really turns me off to this whole thing.

[Raineer]

51-63ish NIN/RDM or /BLM is one of the greatest sights in the game if played right. I had the advantage of all HQ staves from my RDM when I levelled NIN through this phase.

Hate is *locked* to you, and things die....fast. My typical party (this is with good LS-mates, mind you) I would do roughly 40-45% dmg per mob quite easily.

Sure you don't skillup katana, but I just soloed that anyways in my own time.

[Dalmbraast]

This might work well in Conquest zones, but when you start hitting the magic resistant mobs in ToAU - Colibri and Imps most notably, which account for quite a few levels from 55-75 - (I don't have a nuking job, so I couldn't tell you how this equates on other mobs like puks and the Zhayolm crawlers, and then other mire mobs), even with capped ninjutsu skill and decent gear, I don't see nin nuking as a viable alternative to melee dd. If your nin has good melee gear (as good as their "nuking" gear), they should be doing decent dmg that doesn't cost them gads of money in tools every pt, at least post 55, and especially post 57/59 with SH and hauby respectively.

I'm not sure how nukes stack up on mamools or puks for 75 nuking, but really, with a haste build, and haste spell, there's no way in hell any nin worth his salt should be able to out nuke his melee dmg.

[Raineer]

It's a tight niche, 63+ it doesn't really keep up as well in damage done.

No one should be claiming it works until 75 though, that's unpossible!

[Sesshoumaru]

I really don't see this as a 75 thing, perhaps 51-63 but that I'm not even sure of. As far as magic def. goes for coli and imps I really wouldn't know, however a point where this might shine is Moun Z. Iruka. But again I'm not sure about the whole MDB that TOAU mobs have. This combo is kick ass fun though, and much easier imo, then trying to tank /war.

Lvl 50-51 @ Garliage citadel
@50-DW crimson swords +10 int, you get more resist then with staves but still do some decent damage, greater then a well geared DD.
@51- HQ Staves, or even normal*, Very few partial resist and even decent damage with elementaly weak ninjutsu, that is using the wheel to debuff for that ninjutsu's element.
* I personally have not tested NQ staves so take this into account, also expect to see more resists when using NQ staves.

While this isn't a "Tank" setup It was perfectly fine tanking with a war as backup for those oh shit moments. However the only oh shit moment was when the rdm aggroed the elemental near our camp, we were at the weapon tunnel closer to the pots due to not wanting to push in on two parties already there and the super long pulls from the tunnel which leads to bombs.
basically what I did was pull with hojo, which allows 1) slow to conserve shadows 2) nice -% damage from tera's. Once at camp I hit jubaku when I got to camp then spun the wheel once toss out kura and doku then spin the wheel a second time. By the second spin or 1-2 spells into the third spin the mob was dead. also it works to put some distance between your self and the main healer, this way you can slack for a sec if you lose all your shadows and still have enough time to get shadows up and grab hate back before your healer gets hit once if even that. Another thing to note is that even when the war tanked about 25% of the elemental and was the only one on it after using voke and warcry I had hate on me once I engaged the elemental within 2 casts.

on a side note I brought along my Pluto's staff and was able to land Kurayami on bats with very few if any resist. Hojo also landed well on beetles, but I did notice slighty more resists than I got from kurayami on bats. Of course Jubaku totally raped and if it got resisted I didn't notice it.

once friday comes along I'll be able to do some more testing and try out a new camp.

[Raineer]

Can't speak to ToAU mobs and any MDB affecting the setup, but on old-world mobs (beetles/bats/crabs) there's no "perhaps" or "backup", it's the greatest tank possible. Part of the reason is the fascination with levelling on beetles/crabs and their melee resistance. When your tank is nuking instead of swinging the differences are robust.

Same here though, I levelled with HQ staves but I can't see NQ making the setup not work. As you stated, the effect on debuffs is very nice as well.

[Sesshoumaru]

This setup literally carries the pt on it's shoulders it tanks and dishes out loads of damage about 800 damage in 45 secs, with haste its faster. Also with /rdm it can heal a bit but I'd have to test the damage on this setup. I can say with almost certainty, if damage remains stable, that if you managed to get 2 Nin/BlmorRdm doing 51-60 in the conquest zones would be really viable over doing ToAU especially since those areas are usually dead compared to coli or iruka camps. Should you find 5 nin/blm I'd venture to say you could easily blow away any kind of exp you would get in ToAU areas. That is to say if colis really do outright resist ninjutsu so much rather then simply reflect.

Any one have any info regarding just how much resist if any Colis have to magic? the lower level ones that is.

[Sesshoumaru]

Decided to work my way through my exp ring and get further into lvl 51. However since it was late not too many people were seeking at that level so ended up putting a lvl 51-54 pt and goign to Kuftal.

Basically theres a few things that I learned from this.

The level range of those crabs is enough to make Nin/mage either do well or do sub par.
The crabs on the lower end of the spectrum were very similar to the beetles in garl, except for their annoying Shell which they tend to spam instead of scissor guard, I guess since I was in pt they did it just for me.

Also Its important too have good communication with the Rdm, the one in my PT was JP so it took a little work with the translator but he seemed to understand the whole nin/mage thing and caught on after the third fight.

You have to have some kind of dispel for Nin/mage to work on crabs, with out it your spells are at half power if your lucky.
Also to note, probably due to level difference, crabs seemd to resist hojo and jubaku a lot. Jubaku surprised me as it is ice based and crabs are weak to ice. But again it was on the same crabs which I was nuking low on so it was probably just an overall over-hunting thing on my part.

this was the pt setup, which we were doing fine with non stop chain 5.

Pld Nin/blm(me) mnk thf sch rdm.

Surprisingly I was pulling hate off of the pld pretty easily, I dunno if this was due to the nature of Nin/mage or lack of skill on the pld's part.

so to sum up. Kuftal tunnel @51 Nin/mage is something you do only as a last resort.

I'll try and get a 50-51 pt together and finish off the 2k I have left for 51 in QSC. which will prolly be an even more costly affair with having to use echo drops.

I'll keep you guys posted.

[SeraphusRagnarok]

A NIN in my LS who has the most ideal NIN/BLM gear actually does 300+ San's but only TW mobs...it's actually freaking amazing to watch I think his gear was:

HQ Staff
Bugard Strap+1
Phantom Tathlum
Koga Hatsuburi/Ninja Hatsuburi
Ugg Pendant/Ninjutsu Torque
Novio/Ninjutsu Earring
Moldavite/Stealth Earring
Kirin's Osode
Engineer's Gloves
Snow Ring
Snow Ring
Federal Army Cape/Astute Cape
R.K Belt
Yasha Hakama+1
Yasha Sunate+1/Koga Kyahan
Capped Ninjutsu skill I assume if you're on Ragnarok ask Mookikeoki

[Weeks]

Kuftal crabs always resisted the hell out of my debuffs, and I could never figure out why. When I moved on to Boyahda crabs, a few levels higher, I had nowhere near as much trouble landing hojo and kurayami.

[Sesshoumaru]

meh just another one of those it is what it is sorta thing. but it wasn't a huge deal just meant i had to recast hojo and jubaku a few times.

[Tomiko]

It's pretty nice when pulled off, but it's also one of those things you can't half-ass and get by with.

First time seeing this was ~63 party in Sky on Flamingos when I was leveling Nin. There was another Nin in the party who was /Rdm and was a well known crafter on the server, so he was pretty pimped out. He was using Crimson Jelly and pulled hate from me quite a few times due to the damage he was putting out.

The first time I personally tried it with a serious attempt at gear was at Fafnir after the San spells were released. It did rather good damage on the Darters, but on Fafnir I think the high was around 120 or so with most being resisted for around 50ish.

[Sesshoumaru]

It's pretty nice when pulled off, but it's also one of those things you can't half-ass and get by with.

First time seeing this was ~63 party in Sky on Flamingos when I was leveling Nin. There was another Nin in the party who was /Rdm and was a well known crafter on the server, so he was pretty pimped out. He was using Crimson Jelly and pulled hate from me quite a few times due to the damage he was putting out.

The first time I personally tried it with a serious attempt at gear was at Fafnir after the San spells were released. It did rather good damage on the Darters, but on Fafnir I think the high was around 120 or so with most being resisted for around 50ish.

The only timed I'd break out this combo for HNMs/endgame would be in the event that nin is a useless tank, or there already are several nin tanks, and no melee can be done on the mob. Though I'd probably just break out a different job then nin in that situation.

on a side note: again I'll ask; has any one tested this setup against colibri?

[Tomiko]

The only timed I'd break out this combo for HNMs/endgame would be in the event that nin is a useless tank, or there already are several nin tanks, and no melee can be done on the mob. Though I'd probably just break out a different job then nin in that situation.

That's pretty much what it was. We had plenty of useful jobs there, so I just went Nin/Rdm for fun. Plus it was Day 1 Faf if I remember right.

[SephYuyX]

Needs more Kittycat, he did a shit ton of nin/blm tests, said it worked fairly well. This was well over 3 years ago though, so I imagine it would work even better now.

[Sesshoumaru]

All I could find was some old stuff on alla and didn't even bother with KI because I didn't have all day. hopefully I can get some test done on colis this weekend and post on how things go.

[Sesshoumaru]

ok parting @kuftal Tunnel:

Lvl 52 @ Kuftal tunnel:

One of the most important things to note for this place is that with out a good dispeller your going to being goign grrr through many a cast.
Secondly Crabs here have an unatural inate resist to magic for some reason. My non conflicting ninjutsu was doing the best unresisted for 166 damage. however My ice ninjutsu( Hyoton) seemd to get resisted a lot worst only were suiton and katon, which are expected. I never hit 166 with hyoton even when the crab didn't have their shell buff. So unless I'm mistaken and crabs are not weak to ice then that was just really odd.

One nice thing to note is, even with an inept rdm who seemed not to have dispell even after frequent request for him to dispell, was that crabs are all around shitty for both melee and mages alike in kuftal so Nin/mage has no problem being king of the mountain when it comes to DD.

Also while I was hitting for 0 with the staves, I doubt I even have higher then like 40 staff skill, the proc effects from the staves were hitting for a nice 30+ and with the smn in the party buffing and debuffing I was actually landing hits here and there, would prolly be even better with a brd in the party.

So all in all Kuftal is annoying but very manageable if you have a decent dispeller. If you don't at least you can expect to be the top DD in your party. I leveled and only did about 2k into 52 then just got tired of tossing money away with the sucky rdm so hopefulyl I can get a decent rdm and test out kuftal or spiders in tree sometime this weekend.