San Ninjutsu

[Yutuyu]

Did a little testing after all of the complaining on the Cat2 thread about NIN merits.

I noticed some erratic behavior during the testing, of course it's also possible that it's not linear. This was done with war subjob on earthsday and varying amounts of int on the level 1 worms in Gustaberg right near the Mines exit. Damage is 2 higher than it should be because I have 1 hyoton damage merit.

total int - damage
65 189
66 190
67 192
68 193
69 195
70 196
71 198
72 199
73 201
74 202
75 205
76 206
77 208
78 209
79 211

Interestingly if I take the first two and the last 2 data points, assume mob int=0 (not correct) and M=1.5, I get V=8.95 and V=90.5. I think V=90 is a fairly good guess.

You'll notice from 74 to 75 the damage jumped 3 points instead of 2. Very consistent pattern of 1 then 2 jump other than that. I redid those datapoints several times to see if I made an error (hit the wrong mob, etc) and no, I didn't.

Turns out that because of the low base damage, INT is actually better than MAB at first. MAB merely gives a 1% damage bonus, and +1.5 is more than 1% when the base damage is only 90.

It's very easy to get a high INT & MAB build for a 75 NIN. With pieces like Kirin's Osode (10 int) and Uggalepih Pendant (due to the MP activation it can be active all the time) you can easily pump up the damage quite a bit. A nice MP-less nuke every 60 seconds with the right gear swapped in could probably do 300 damage without a ton of effort.

EDIT: ^ Speculation turned out to be incorrect. 300 damage is easily done on lower level mobs, but when you start fighting things with high INT things change drastically.

[Karbuncle]

Hmmm, i was having some fun with :Ni spells, and with no Effort or INT+ Gear (did have Moldivite) i managed to do 120DMG unresisted on worms in N.Gusta{S}, i have SMN leveled so i do plan on getting all HQ Staves, could be interesting to see how much DMG one could do with the right set up...

I also have 1 MP merit, so having 0MP would keep Ugga active for me lol. fun.

Nice testing, With the HQ Yasha gear (some pieces) and some nice INT+ Rings and (for some races) The RSE belts... might be something interesting to mess around with

[rog]

tested a few dmgs with some gear i had laying around. used /blm.

gear used:
aquilo/water staff
relic head
moldy
ice obi (ice day)
61+16 int (21 for hyoton)


wild rabbits:

hyoton2: 259
with burn: 268

hyoton1: 69
with burn: 69
int was capped.

suiton2: 218

suiton3: 310
with burn: 321


tunnel worms:

hyoton2: 251
suiton2: 211
suiton3: 300

not enough worms around, and didn't feel like waiting for them to test dmg with burn, though it should be the same difference in dmg as it was on the rabbits.

i wonder when int caps for tier2 and 3 nukes, it wasn't capped at 80 int, and the rabbits outside sandy should have i believe 4 int? so they don't cap until after +76 ?int

[Yutuyu]

Finally got off my ass to punch some numbers, here's what I've got without equipping anything ridiculously hard to get.

Damage
Merits: Full Hyoton Merits = +10 damage

MAB
Merits: Full Hyoton Merits = 20 MAB
L.Ear: Moldavite Earring = 5 MAB
Uggalepih Pendant = 8 MAB

Intelligence
R.Ear: Cunning Earring = 1 INT (easier to replace with a Ninjutsu skill earring or an earring for higher INT but I wanted to use easy to get items that a NIN will mostly already have access to)
NIN/WAR hume base int = 65
Ammo: Phantom Tathlum = 2 int
Body: Kirin's Osode = 10 int
Head: Yasha Jinpachi+1 = 8 int
Legs: Yasha Hakama+1 = 3 int
Feet: Ninja Kyahan+1 = 6 int
Rings: Diamond Rings x2 = 8 int
Hands: Hume JSE Hands = 4 int (most races have 4 int hands)
Waist: JSE Belts = 4 int (most races have 4 int belt)

Ninjutsu Skill
Back: Ninjutsu Sea Cape = 5 Ninjutsu
Merits: +16 Ninjutsu Skill

Summation: 111 int - 33 MAB - 21 Ninjutsu skill.
Assume the mob has ~75 int.

Damage with just this stuff: (90+10+(111-75)*1.5)*1.33 = (154)*1.33 = ~205

Not too bad on a merit mob not taking every possible advantage into account and only swapping things you can to not lose TP. If you merit all of these and spam the full wheel and don't focus too much on one particular spell with this setup (i.e. removing hyoton merits in both cat1 & 2 other than the unlocker): 192~ on each san nuke. Full wheel is gonna do 192*6 or 1152 damage unresisted.

[Yutuyu]

Now for what would happen if you went on all on buffing your Ninjutsu damage.

Damage
Merits: Full Hyoton Merits = +10 damage
Merits: Full Katon Merits = +10 damage
HQ Staves: 1.15 Bonus

MAB
Merits: 2 Hyoton cat2 Merits = 10 MAB
Merits: 2 Katon cat2 Merits = 10 MAB
L.Ear: Moldavite Earring = 5 MAB
Uggalepih Pendant = 8 MAB
Novio Earring = 7 MAB
Red Mage sub = 20 MAB (you want fastcast)

Intelligence
NIN/WAR base 5x int merits = 70
Ammo: Phantom Tathlum = 2 int
Body: Kirin's Osode = 10 int
Head: Yasha Jinpachi+1 = 8 int
Legs: Yasha Hakama+1 = 3 int
Feet: Ninja Kyahan+1 = 6 int
Rings: Diamond Rings+1 x2 = 10 int
Hands: Hume JSE Hands = 4 int
Waist: JSE Belts = 4 int

Ninjutsu Skill
Back: Ninjutsu Sea Cape = 5 Ninjutsu
Merits: +16 Ninjutsu Skill

Summation
Hyoton/Katon: MAB 50, Damage +10 / Others MAB 40
INT: 115
Staff Bonus 1.15
+Ninjutsu = 25
Mob = 75 INT

Katon/Hyoton Damage = (160)*1.15*1.5=240*1.15=276
Others damage = (150)*1.15*1.4=210*1.15=241

So a full wheel unresisted would do 241*4 + 276*2 = 964 + 552 = 1516. You can cast Ni's inbetween which would probably (eyeballing here) do about ~150 each *6 = 900 damage.

NIN/RDM Results
You're going to get some resists however, 2416 damage is how much it'd do if you weren't resisted at all. I can't possibly provide an estimate how much resistance is likely. It varies heavily based on what mob you're fight. Some seem to have no elemental resistances at all, others have a ton.

San nukes take 2.5 seconds, so 2.5*6 = 15 seconds to cast a wheel. Ni's take 1.5*6 = 9 seconds. About 25 seconds + probably a second or two inbetween each cast. You can probably get it off all of the spells in ~40 seconds (I didn't even take into account fast-cast).

It's unlikely you'll have 33% haste along with the rest of the gear I outlined, so you couldn't start nuking again right away. San's have a 60 second recast timer, with a haste spell and your 2.5 from RDM subjob that's only 17.5, which is essentially 50 seconds to do that much damage without any support other than the Haste spell. Not too bad for 2.4k damage.

BLM vs. NIN
Assuming that a well geared BLM can do around 1.2k damage with a tier IV nuke and does 2 Tier IV nukes every time their recast timers are up that's about as much damage per round as NIN's. Not considering fastcast or haste (which will be the same for BLM/RDM as NIN/RDM) cast/recast on SAN which will be the limiting factor is 62.5 seconds. BLM Tier IV's is 37.5*8.5 or 46 seconds. BLM can pop off 2 Tier IV's in pretty much exactly 75% of the time it takes NIN to use a full elemental wheel (and with considerably less resists too, they get to pick 2 elements, have higher skill, etc.). There's also the problem of TP feed with spamming 12 spells, even with subtle blow, that's almost a TP move per nuke round.

Essentially there's no contest between BLM & NIN in terms of performance. The only time NIN might be better is if the BLM has no support whateversoever.

So what's the point?
Interesting solo viability (especially with Ninja AF boots). If you put a build together you could probably take down puddings on mount Z quite easily.

Shells that're low-manning things might see some use, as anyone can carry the nuking gear and swap into it even while subbing war, and you'll only lose about 20/140% damage or 14%. Sadly these numbers are even cherry picked so to speak, on mobs with higher intelligence the 2400 on a full cycle is going to plummet.

But all in all, San nukes aren't anything revolutionary for the job. Takes a hell of a lot of effort to be any good at them and even then you're vastly inferior to BLMs.

[FailureMidgard]

If you care, you missed 1 int on strap, and Hyoton gets an extra 5 int from it's HQ staff being badass! ^^

There may be more, but those 2 stood out.

[evilpaul]

Try testing on a serious mob. Like a Sea Puk.

Don't use Huton, obviously.

[Khajit]

why merit the full wheel when you have have a san rotation with 2~3 nins?

[BerenTebogo]

Try testing on a serious mob. Like a Sea Puk.

Don't use Huton, obviously.

This is the only correct answer so far, you're comparing against BLM damage on mobs that matter, but seriously, use a San spell on Fafnir, if you do 10 damage I'll be impressed.

I use San spells every Ouryu BC because we manaburn, I have full ninjutsu, effect, and san merits, and I've never done more than 12 damage, ever.

[Yutuyu]

Try testing on a serious mob. Like a Sea Puk.

Don't use Huton, obviously.

This is the only correct answer so far, you're comparing against BLM damage on mobs that matter, but seriously, use a San spell on Fafnir, if you do 10 damage I'll be impressed.

I use San spells every Ouryu BC because we manaburn, I have full ninjutsu, effect, and san merits, and I've never done more than 12 damage, ever.

I'm wondering if you guys read the last post. I addressed all of that in math already.

[BerenTebogo]

Try testing on a serious mob. Like a Sea Puk.

Don't use Huton, obviously.

This is the only correct answer so far, you're comparing against BLM damage on mobs that matter, but seriously, use a San spell on Fafnir, if you do 10 damage I'll be impressed.

I use San spells every Ouryu BC because we manaburn, I have full ninjutsu, effect, and san merits, and I've never done more than 12 damage, ever.

I'm wondering if you guys read the last post. I addressed all of that in math already.

There's no math, go nuke puddings and take screenshots, it's incredibly different than what you're making it out to be.

[chapstick]

What about Denali kecks over Yasha+1? MAB+3 vs INT+3.

[Suiram]

The math is kinda weird lol. Anyone have one upgrade in cat 2, and no corresponding cat 1 upgrades that can do a formal test?

[Rasantath]

i've got some spare merit points, and no ninjutsu merited at all. i can merit a san spell or two and run some tests.
tell me exactly what tests to run though.

[Suiram]

Well, I wouldn't ask someone to merit it just for testing, since it could be done anyway by someone with various merits, just with a little more effort, and you'll probably want any spare merit points you have in a week for your other jobs when they upgrade Cat 2s. But the main idea would be to see what the base damage is with no cat 1 merits and only one upgrade in cat 5, since the wording on merit upgrades can't be trusted. (For instance, they are worded similarly to Convergence for BLU, both of which suggest that it's an increase in MAB, but convergence is actually a multiplier on a component of base damage).