NIN/RDM vs NIN/DRK

[Tsuko_Asura]

You make it sound like everything should be atonement burned which I do disagree with.

I'm gonna' have to request a source on this one. In this thread alone, I've used disclaimers in the neighborhood of, "..if Atonement is applicable.." at least two or three times.

[dantaro]

Woah, blanked out there for the majority of this page and some of the last. What was the discussion again? Because I'm pretty sure at this point you two are just trolling each other

[Milkster]

Woah, blanked out there for the majority of this page and some of the last. What was the discussion again? Because I'm pretty sure at this point you two are just trolling each other

Pretty much.

[Nishida]

After reading this thread I'm hesitant on leveling NIN up. It's currently at 47. I plan to use it for non-HNM endgame..and it seems PLD trumps it out a lot on these fights. Am I mistaken? Should I just get it to 75 and see how my LS's react to it? I don't want to waste the time/gil if it's going to be a useless job. =\

[Fridell]

You need to be really good at what you do as NIN and to have great stuff for others to notice it and want to let you use it, be it for lowman / big battles or DD-Tank combinations.

[Xavier]

You can probably get a sense of how your LS is going to react to it by just asking, no need to wait until it is 75.

There are a lot of linkshells that find a strategy that works, and refuse to ever deviate too far from it. Logically, that makes a lot of sense. Playing it safe is the easiest way to guarantee your time isn't wasted. But this is responsible for creating a lot of unfounded prejudices too.

There is absolutely no reason why your NIN (or a NIN, assuming they are respectably geared) cannot be used, and used well, for non-HNM endgame. NIN is still, regardless of their advantages and disadvantages to PLD and RDM on HNMs, an excellent job if you tend to do a lot of things by yourself, or with one or two other friends.

[richardd]

pretty much what xavier said. hes on the ball

for a while, a lot of other nins saw me as "that one nin with the most freedom". i got to tank absolutely every HNM in the game, popped or lottery. but i also did it good. its a job you're not a loud to half ass even once. you gotta give it your all.

it takes a while to build up trust, even for me, but luckily solo tanking cerb and taking minimal dmg can speed things up. you can do it too. youll usually get 1 shot to see what you're capable of. dont blow it. even if it starts on something easy, show them how serious you are. I used to show up as nin w/o them even telling me to, but i made my actions do all my talking lol. its like what tsuko said in another thread too, if you show up and give them no choice, and they see how good you are, your gonna rise fast.

being a main tank is fun and all, but after earning the trust, i wish i got to play sam once in a while.. or war. i had to beg to come on those jobs whenever we had an event or if something popped. our LS was like neo's. ground kings were meh and odin was every 1-2 weeks. dont really need to bother with it ;x but im glad i ended up where i was. i was the ONLY one in SA with nooooo mage jobs and never got 1 complaint about it. ninjas can do it. its just not gonna be easy.

and i know i say it alot, but man. if i can do it, you can too lol. there are some VERY talented players who post here. if you guys tried it once, not even for the effectiveness, but the FUN in general. youll be addicted lol

[ringthree]

Unless the Sparknotes version differs from, "I prefer co-tanking with a Ninja so I can cure him instead of having to put some effort into curing myself. Also, Atonement is only good for one or two fights, any other time its not worth the TP I feed. Besides, my trying to deal damage deters our Samurai's effort to cause 'flails, why would I want to make that more difficult?" then no, I read it loud and clear.

I agree with you on this point, but you do have to admit in this thread you have been bit of a Tom Glancy.

[Brutala]

To the OP:

1. /rdm

2. I gradually went from using /drk on everything to considering trying /rdm on things that can't reset hate and things you don't kite, and finally to simply subbing rdm for everything. I am amazed at how this thread managed to hit 8 pages and still noone even tried to help you. Anyway, here's by far the most useful thing anyone can possibly tell a learning nin: practice blinking visible gear to skip every casting animation (regardless of sub). This saves assloads of time letting you cast more spells between utsus. /rdm gets the most out of this. /drk made sense for kiting because stun casts fast letting you run a bit more? /rdm in fast cast gear skipping casting animations actually gets to cast more often and stops running for under 2s even for the longer casting spells. For hate reset mobs, fuck it, /drk IS better, but you better have the acc buffs and gear to land at least some souleater hits because stun, sleep and aspir and ni jutsus are on loong timers. I just used /rdm because I found it more fun and I don't solo tank mobs that reset hate anyway. Slap on hades sainti and be extra ready to switch back to Estaff.

3. When the fight starts or hate is reset? Hell no. You're only beating a PLD when you're at around capped CE so the one recapping both CE and VE more often wins (and that's the nin/rdm blink-skipping casts).

4. /drk you're golden with 1 march, 1 ballad, refresh and haste. The cool thing about /rdm is if you're doing utsus in an FC mirke, loq. and warlock's you get very close to capped timers with no haste buffs other than haste, allowing double ballad. However, /rdm played to full potential can get MP heavy and if possible you might want a cor or even cor+smn in tank pt as well. I'm not saying it's needed, but after a hate reset (or if your DDs are in a rush to get started right away) you will want to spend mp faster than refresh+2ballads can give it. Just play it smart. Don't waste 6 mp more on dispel if sleep timer is up. Don't waste enmity slots on haste in dispel; its timer is low enough as it is. Cast it too often and you're out of mp in no time anyway.


NINs need to realize that the thing keeping them from getting chances to tank HNMs isn't some BS epeen "best job" mentality, it's objective efficiency. There's 2 types of LSs that will insist on PLD:

1 LSs that don't suck and that prefer killing speed to trying out different things for fun. If an ls is functional they can low man anything whether a RDM, PLD or NIN is solo tanking; and if they sacrifice 6 slots to make a tanking PT they can just use DDs instead of "tank jobs". They can deal with the extra tp fed. Every member has magic damage reduction gear, capped stoneskin etc. Their main WHM or something who may have never tanked anything for the ls yet is probably perfectly capable of doing a great job if he jumps on NIN. They don't do this because they want to maximize killing speed. Atonement helps this, so PLD is what they'll use. Accept that ppl want to just kill the damn thing asap and go do something more fun sooner. A solo tanking PLD does dmg And only needs 3 ppl (or even just 2, depending on mob) to make a good tanking PT, opening slots for more DDs.

2 Be perfectly honest. If your main tank is an idiot, would you rather have him be PLD, NIN or RDM? I'm leaning towards PLD. The 100% interruption down on shield blocks and all the oh-shit JAs make any total noob who doesn't even macro gear hard to kill. Before ppl attack me saying what a dumb argument this is, I've actually been in an HNMLS where all members were ok with the ls funding aegis' for 2 plds to make them suck less instead of replacing them. I think that lss that don't pick their members carefully want to make themselves look like they fit the description under 1, so they'll use the same arguments for PLD-onry as lss under 1, when in truth they just can't make it unless they use PLDs.

So, is PLD better? Of course. There's not even a need for all the angry PLDs who feel threatened by topics like this one to find arguments for PLD>NIN. Going with NIN or RDM, or any other non-PLD job as a tank just proves that the tank and the support are less likely to be morons than they could be in the case of an ls using PLDs. It's a god damned game. Tank as what you find more fun. If you care about the extra atonement dmg, use it. If you can't make it with a non-PLD tank, your ls sucks.

Oh, and to all the ppl saying nin needs more damage reduction or spell interruption or w/e else was mentioned: sub rdm, learn to blink cast, get better gear. All NIN lacks is players who aren't too lazy to be casting non stop. You'll never get interrupted if elegy is on and you have all that fast cast. 40% PDR is a lazy NIN. Get denali hands and darksteel shit. You can have 47% PDR which is so close to a Dring NIN the difference isn't even noticable. You can have 16% MDR even where resentment cape doesn't work and still have some slots for MDB while keeping most of your PDR gear on. At capped CE +enmity gear won't even matter and you can just cast while keeping the MDR set on and switch to PDR+HP when shadows are down and no utsu timer is ready yet. Take a few hits for mid 100s to low 200s, one sleep or dispel or w/e and you're at or very close to capped CE again.

When FF14 is out, FF11 gets "buy gil" as an in game menu option, a pup update makes all other DDs look like shit and SE tells us how to lock AV's 2hs, tanking AV with nins won't be hard for any good ls.

My 2 cents. Now let all the Hades players I just insulted flame the shit out of me.

[Max™]

as far as nin DD goes, that's lyra's and sath's alley.. OH! and the guy who posted here earlier, stellar. i was just an average full usu nin who made a 100 fist video when i was gimp and got 75 lol. my DD's were on a different lvl than my tanking, but thats another story.

GL with PW neo



hell yeah
even the plds in SA said it. fuck pld vs nin or nin vs pld. imo they co-tank so fucking great with eachother on ANY mob. i prefer it over nin and nin, and numerous pld's told me they rather tank with me than another pld. forget all this competitiveness, lets all work together and hold hands~

KUMBAYA MY LORD!

KUMBAYA!

[isladar]

NIN + PLD is my favourite combo, hands down. Best of both worlds, warm fuzzy feelings, added sexiness from the occasional Cover.

[Fridell]

Brutala <3

NIN + PLD is my favourite combo, hands down. Best of both worlds, warm fuzzy feelings, added sexiness from the occasional Cover.

I totally agree with this, it's my fav combo also.

[Tsuko_Asura]

NIN + PLD is my favourite combo, hands down. Best of both worlds, warm fuzzy feelings, added sexiness from the occasional Cover.

Would you or Fridell care to elaborate upon this? I'd like to hear a justification that veers away from, "I don't like making macros."

Most people seem to be (inaccurately) in agreement that Paladin is more durable in every sense of the word. Between that and Atonement, I can't see why people are suddenly in favor of having their idea of an inferior tank along side their crown jewel.

[Fridell]

I don't like making macros

[Tsuko_Asura]

I hate you

[Kipling]

The only NIN tank we really use is super competent and gives me a good run for my money on most things (Although it is easier on me when I can bust out my haste set and spam atonement.) People like him and Rich make me want to level nin again, but I just love PLD so much and all the things they've done to it. Atonement is just the bone they needed to throw PLD after having pretty much useless ws's on HNM's... forever.

[Fridell]

You're not alone :D But you left it there for me to use haha, I couldn't resist.
I'll get back into this when I'm not busy with event, but the main reason I like the PLD + NIN setup is more on a personal level and bond to the people I tank with, the people I've known for years and know in and out how they play etc.
I'm damn sure I would feel the same and complete the tanking front line as PLD as well with the tools PLD have however. I'm, not sure if I will touch PLD though, even if I love tanking, but I should never say never, my LV 10 PLD have Ares and Full Homam and much else goodies ugh.

[bigrougabagel]

I prefer the pld/nin nin/drk combo myself. Mostly because thats what i worked with for a long time tanking big shit. Nin is good for the high spike hate, and pld is generally a cure machine until hate gets balanced, but when its there, hell, you could make biscuits and gravy while tanking(did it). Can coordinate bathroom breaks, which is good when youre fighting cerb at 3am after comin home from the bar. It got to the point where we could predict eachothers moves and knew when/how/why to do whatever needed to be done without having to say anything to eachother.

For the OP:

Each have their uses. I prefer nin/drk for anything pre-toau and some stuff post-toau. Nin/rdm imo could take the place of a pld/nin in the mentioned pld and nin tank team. Having an exrta cure or so can make a big difference. Nin/rdm has more tools than a nin/drk, but nin/drk has stronger tools. Each one has its own ways to shine, but its all about player preference.

More rambling:

I have both pld and nin at 75, they were my 1st and 2nd jobs respectively. I prefer nin, on about 99% of fights. It is just what im more comfortable tanking with as i dont have a ton of experience as pld in the world beyond sky. Ive tanked most things on each job, I just find it easier on nin. Picking between a pld and nin is like picking between a democratic and republican presidential nominee. Pick blindly for one party(job) and youre flipping a coin. Pick the better player, regardless of what theyre better at. Id take a good anything over a bad anything.

[Sady]

We could make arguments about which tank (and/or sub) is better in general or for specific situations until were blue in the face but I think the main issue a lot of people are forgeting is that each tank has its own style and it really has more to do with the individual/group mentality and trust.

I will agree that a bad PLD will, in general, out tank a bad NIN or RDM, it's considered by most to be the "easiest" tank to use (and thus often considered the "best" and as such it's by far the most common). However, at the limit of top performance (with appropriate gear/support providing capped recast, optimal damage reduction and enmity generation, etc) I believe the separation becomes much smaller.

However, finding someone with the required combination of skill, equipment and motivation is rare; less so for NINs but definitely for RDMs. It goes without saying that NIN or RDM are much more finesse tanks when compared to PLDs, this implies that the skills required to be effective take a bit more time and practice to develop. Combine the relatively smaller margin for error with the fact that few people are willing to give such oportunities to try new things or practice unorthodox methods and it's easy to understand why PLDs dominate the tanking scene. "If it ain't broken don't fix it" right?

In my opinion it really comes down to trust. If you trust your tanks it shouldn't matter what job they're on. You trust their judgment and experience to pick the best option, they understand the risks and tradeoffs better than most. It might take some time to build that trust but ultimately actions speak lowder than words and if you can show your peers and superiors that you can step up to the plate and make shit happen then they will ask you to keep doing it. Find your style, what works for you, then try and make improvements from there. Like Richardd said, you might only get one shot so try not to blow it...

[richardd]

NIN + PLD is my favourite combo, hands down. Best of both worlds, warm fuzzy feelings, added sexiness from the occasional Cover.

how do i get a hold of this brovura?