Nin/Rdm Nuking setup, plus some random BST DD numbers

[Inunabe]

All right, so I'm Inunabe and I've been a resident lurker of BG and it's number crunching, theory crafting community for awhile. However, I obviously haven't done any posting, so this is my first go.

For starters though, I'll say what this is about. I've been working on a little side project of mine for the past few months. This idea came to me sometime after the level increase was first mentioned. I've had the experience of seeing a few nin/blms pull some decent numbers with their nukes, decent being, ya know, 100-170 or so with :Nis depending on gear and whatnot. This was a long time ago, but I felt like trying it myself. Since the lvl cap was being increased, I figured I'd try it as nin/rdm, seeing as /rdm will now give the same amount of MAB plus fast cast at 80+

So, I set about looking through gear and starting on my road of lvling ninja to 80+. I made up a list of gear that I figured would be best in varying situations for nuking as nin/rdm. Here's the gear list that I came up with, as well as what I currently have/am missing.

Head Pieces
Yasha Jinpachi +7 Int / Ninja Hatsuburi +5 Skill

Body
Kirin's Osode +10 Int

Hands
Dusk Gloves / Koga Tekko

Legs
Denali Legs +3 MAB +3 MACC / Sangomma Iappa Int +6

Feet
Koga Kyahan (feet ) +10 Jutsu / Denali Feet INT +3 Magic Accuracy +3

Belt
Koga Sarashi Haste +4% Macc +2

Back
Astute Cape Ninjutsu skill +5

Rings
Omega Ring + 3 Macc / Balhran’s Ring + 4 Macc
Int Rings +4/+4 -- +6/+6

Earrings
Stealth Earring (ear) +5 / Moldavite

Ammo
Sturm’s Report +2 Macc / Phantom Tathlum +2 int

Neck
Ninjutsu Torque +7 Ninjutsu

Weapons
Full set of HQ elemental staves and elemental grips

Ok, so there's a list of the various gear, pre-empyrean, that I made up. I have a lot of the gear, but I'm still missing a few pieces due to dynamis complications and not having done much nyzul isle lately, but aside from that this seems to be doing well.

Out of that list of gear I'm missing the macc rings, relic feet, denali feet/legs, astute cape, and relic hands.

As for merits, I have 8/8 Ninjutsu merits, 4 Tool Expertise Merits, 1 in each :san spell, 1 in Hyoton effect and 1 in subtle blow. As of now the plan is to max Hyoton effect and subtle blow.

Alright, so now let's get to the crunchier bits that this is mostly about. Last night I was in a pt up in Ulegeurand Range trying to farm Kindred Crests. This isn't about where's a good spot to farm crests or not, so let's ignore whether it's a good place or not. What this is about is the parse that we decided to do to see how well all my recent effort has gone.

We had a rdm, whm, bst, thf, war, mnk, drk, and I on nin/rdm. All the melee were /nin. We were fighting mobs ranging from EM-VT. Taurus, Eyes, Demons were our prey. Eye and the Demons are naturally high int/magic resistant as we all know which obviously lowered my dmg on them considerably. The Demons have aoe slow, our whm/blm wasn't really giving us haste, or removing the slow, and the rdm was /nin so didn't have erase. So, basically all of us were slowed a lot of the time. The bst was using Nursery Nazuna, and was extremely well geared, far from what most people see bsts wearing, I can get specifics later if asked. The war was also well geared, both were wearing perle and various other expected melee pieces. Here's some of the parse data. We ran two parses. The first one got reset after awhile. I have both of the parse files. Here's the first one. I'm only posting the categories that obviously matter.

Damage Summary
Player               Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg  WSkill Dmg Spell Dmg 

Inunabe                  23603    22.00 %           0        0      23603 
Bst                       13457    12.54 %       7588       5869         0
War                      20388     19.01 %        11657     8569        0
Mnk                        7785     7.26 %        6066    1679           0
Drk                       15080      14.06 %       6649    8206        225
Thf                         7913      7.38 %      4501     3175         0 
Nursery Nazuna              14790    13.79 %     12858     1932  

Melee Damage        Melee Dmg   Melee %   Hit/Miss  M.Acc %  
Thf                     4501   56.88 %     131/11   92.25 %
Drk                      6649   44.09 %      52/14   78.79 % 
Mnk                    6066   77.92 %      98/20   83.05 %
Bst                      7588   56.39 %      111/9   92.50 %      
War                    11657   57.18 %       72/4   94.74 %
Nazuna                 12858   86.94 %     118/11   91.47 %

Posting the rest in the next post

[Inunabe]

Spell Damage             Spell Dmg   Spell %  #Spells  #Fail  S.Low/Hi
Inunabe                        23603  100.00 %      101      0    81/463    

- Doton: Ni                      420    1.78 %          3      0   114/179    

- Doton: San                    1830    7.75 %          9      0    87/258 

- Huton: Ni                       127    0.54 %          1      0   127/127

- Huton: San                    4192   17.76 %         18      0    81/400

- Hyoton: Ni                      138    0.58 %           1      0   138/138      

- Hyoton: San                   5092   21.57 %        18      0   167/463  

- Katon: Ni                        125    0.53 %           1      0   125/125    

- Katon: San                     4277   18.12 %       18      0   116/398

- Raiton: Ni                       290    1.23 %           2      0   111/179    

- Raiton: San                    3301   13.99 %       13      0   163/434    

- Suiton: Ni                      308    1.30 %           2      0   129/179    

- Suiton: San                   3503   14.84 %       15      0   133/434

Ok, and here's the results of the second parse, which went on longer.

Player               Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg   Range Dmg   Abil. Dmg  WSkill Dmg   Spell Dmg  Other Dmg

Thf              18746     5.58 %       11396          16           0            6682           0        652

Drk                    36327    10.82 %       19634           0          21          16528         106         38

Inunabe                       66729    19.87 %           0               0           0                  0       66729          0

Rdm                     8541     2.54 %        7223              0           0               288         369        661

Mnk                          43503    12.95 %       32022           0           0           11373           0        108

War                       58629    17.46 %       34273           0           0            24270           0         86

Bst                     53054    15.80 %       33408          0           0           19646           0          0

NurseryNazuna            48148    14.34 %       42620          0        5528               0           0          0

Spell Damage
Player                  Spell Dmg   Spell %  #Spells  #Fail  S.Low/Hi     S.Avg  #MBurst  MB.Low/Hi   MB.Avg
Drk                      106    0.29 %        1      0   106/106    106.00        0        0/0     0.00
 
- Drain II                   106  100.00 %        1      0   106/106    106.00        0        0/0     0.00

Inunabe                     66729  100.00 %      318      0    44/682    209.69        1    257/257   257.00

 - Doton: Ni                 1492    2.24 %        13      0    82/183    114.77        0        0/0     0.00

 - Doton: San                6167    9.24 %       28      0    93/350    220.25        0        0/0     0.00

 - Huton: Ni                 2034    3.05 %        18      0    64/163    113.00        0        0/0     0.00
 
- Huton: San               10018   15.01 %      46      0   107/592    217.78        0        0/0     0.00
 
- Hyoton: Ni                2126    3.19 %        15      0    93/206    141.73        0        0/0     0.00

 - Hyoton: San              14654   21.96 %     47      0   178/682    311.79        0        0/0     0.00

 - Katon: Ni                 1814    2.72 %         14      0    87/183    129.57        0        0/0     0.00
 
- Katon: San               10104   15.14 %       43      0   128/384    234.45        1    257/257   257.00

 - Raiton: Ni                1574    2.36 %         14      0    44/214    112.43        0        0/0     0.00

 - Raiton: San               6749   10.11 %       31      0   101/354    217.71        0        0/0     0.00

 - Suiton: Ni                1361    2.04 %         11      0    57/216    123.73        0        0/0     0.00

 - Suiton: San               8636   12.94 %       38      0   110/353    227.26        0        0/0     0.00

So, in the end I was parsing about 20%, well above the bst and his pet individually, and above the war. Of course the bst and nazuna together were a little frightening. I'm interested in questions/suggestions, etc. I'm not done testing this of course. I wanna give this a good parsing in an abyssea pt. I'm sure it'll do even better. I've run this before, but not parsed it, just a few screenshots, but my average :san dmg is between 330-400 and this was before the most recent dmg update ninjutsu got. I have screenies I can post, including one of an 711 dmg hyoton: san.

*Edit Sorry about the number compression, dunno what happened, and not sure how to fix it.

**Edit Semi fix, thanks for the pro-tip. I'll fix the rest when I get back

[Cyprias]

inb4 lolparses.

[Max™]

Use [code], [ /code] with no space before the backslash.

Code tags  will   let  you   set   spacing.

[Onorgul]

Inunabe readies Gil Toss.

[Inunabe]

Ya ya, I get that whole tossing gil at the mob thing. I've got some spare gil, but that's all beside the point.

I'm doing a lot of this testing, so ya I'll burn through a ton more tools, but in any other situation this might be useable, someone might not burn through as many tools. Not to mention that with the relic gloves and the 4 points into tool expertise, you'll use 50% less tools with Innin up, and 80% less tools with yonin up. On abyssea mobs with yonin I still do around 270 per :san spell. With Innin that went up to 330. And this was all pre ninjutsu update, although I do hear word that the dmg hasn't actually been increased.

As it is out of the 400 casts in that parse I think I only opened 1 extra bag per tool set. I think I got lucky, but still.

[Aurara]

Parses against bsts, excellent

[Inunabe]

That was actually the second reason I added this in. This nin/rdm has been my little pet project, and I'm sure my LS is tired of hearing and helping me with it, but I also have bst at 80 and so that part was of extreme interest to me as well

[Karbuncle]

That must have been one really shitty THF is all i saw =(.


Still, Massive gil waste aside, was pretty interesting.

[Inunabe]

Actually, the thf was pulling, and we were killing the mobs so fast he didn't have much melee time. Honestly, the costs isn't as high as most people think. The elemental tools aren't that expensive on our server, and you can do a ton of dmg per stack. I wanna test this out in some NM situations where a constant, high dmg DoT would be useful, specially magic dmg.

[Damen]

All I really got from this was that you out parsed a DRK/NIN with 78% accuracy (lol), a MNK/NIN who couldn't out weaponskill a beastmaster. and a WAR/NIN who was more than likely provoking and doing the majority of the tanking (until weaponskills at least)

On top of all that, you mentioned everyone was slowed the majority of the time and with no haste (which isn't an issue for nin/rdm since you can rotate through the San/Ni spells until the recast of the first one wears off).

So basically you had the optimal subjob for nin/rdm nuking, none of your melees had any attack or march/haste (just the opposite with slow effect on them), and a WAR and DRK subbing NIN with 2 handed weapons.

Just sounds like it was way, WAY too stacked in your favor, and you still barely out did the WAR, and still outdone by the BST + Pet (the pet counts as total damage to me).

I'm not going to say this isn't viable, especially when COR/BRDs are not available, but I'd imagine that NIN/RDM has the same problem as Blue Mage. That is, it gets decimated by other jobs when they're buffed by CORs/BRDs and is only a high end DD when mobs start to get below good exp level. (ie: EM > VT level range instead of VT>IT )

Nevertheless, I do enjoy the raw numbers of the San/Ni spells in full ninjitsu/staff gear. I'd like to see it done on something higher level though where you kite a mob and see how resist rates are. For instance, a solo Genbu would be interesting if you could throw out mp-less 400dmg san spells~ but alas I'd imagine you'd still get low damage/resisted more than it's worthwhile.

[Nightfyre]

Genbu is level 90. That's lower level if anything, not higher; his high INT and lack of cruor buffs would certainly drag those numbers down considerably though.

[Buffy]

Well, at least it's a somewhat new topic. There were a few back in the heyday of 2005/2006 that tried to level Nin without using /war. Most of them used NIN/BLM. Some people say 'lolthrowinggilatmonster' but that's what RNG is and no one cares as long as slug shot does 2k.

I have two thoughts about your parse.

1. As the community seems to be re-learning with Abyssea alliances, bst is actually a pretty freaking strong job (shit is situational). BST and PUP were both pretty shunned, it's nice to see them getting a little more respect/use. Oh well, that's just a personal comment and maybe I didn't party with enough bst before.

2. You had a HUGE range in damage on your san spells. Assuming ninjitsu follows the same rules as elemental skill (with regards to acc), given the merits and gear you described you should have been at the 95% tier fairly easily, even vs. demons and eyes. Your highest damage using Hyoton: San was 463 according to the parse you posted. Were you regularly hitting this 463? Or was the damage very inconsistent? The recast on the :san tier is like 60 seconds (although you would have fast cast from /rdm), so assuming you didn't have haste or slow, you could in theory run through the entire :san tier and :ni tier before your recast timer was up. In fact, you could run through them all before (for comparison's sake) the recast on one thunder IV was finished. If you are regularly able to exceed 400 damage per :san spell, you could probably outdamage a blm over time in non-abyssea situations (I say non-abyssea situations because 2 refresh atmas and refresh 2 stacked with either light arts from /sch or convert from /rdm is simply an infinite MP machine - and that doesn't include cor, brd, devotion or chest restore items). And since you have utsusemi, you could survive getting the monster's attention better then most blms.

Random thoughts: After 90, you may want to go back to nin/blm (shit is situational) due to blm getting that magic burst job trait @ 45 (If I'm wrong about the level, ignore this).

Damen's suggestion of a Genbu solo is a good one imo. Genbu is known to be easily solo'd by any job with dots and the ability to pay attention.

Also, protip: to prevent slow, ask the whm to use barstonra since slow is an earth based spell. However, I'm unsure off hand it demon slow is a /ja or somehow immune to this rule. I know it works for spider's slow.

[Sirhc]

Would be interested in seeing how this turns out, with Dual atma in abyssea (Beyond and Baying Moon would be best likely since you wont need mp) damage should go up considerably. If your macc is ok maybe even consider moving to an INT or MAB neck. Hope to see more info soon, know a few ninjas who were interested in a nuking build also but have not tried it out yet.

[Caliburn]

Random thoughts: After 90, you may want to go back to nin/blm (shit is situational) due to blm getting that magic burst job trait @ 45 (If I'm wrong about the level, ignore this).

Ninja got Magic Burst Bonus at 80, no need for /blm for that

[Tsuko_Asura]

1. As the community seems to be re-learning with Abyssea alliances, bst is actually a pretty freaking strong job (shit is situational). BST and PUP were both pretty shunned, it's nice to see them getting a little more respect/use. Oh well, that's just a personal comment and maybe I didn't party with enough bst before.

You mean that we have continued awareness that most players are atrocious? Beastmaster didn't get better, they simply got a few new pets with a higher level cap. While the relative strength of pet may have gone up, the shortcomings of the playerbase haven't gone anywhere, which is why you'll often find a sheep and its incompetent master wiping the floor with other terrible people. Rest assured, the job as a whole poses no greater than to real players than it ever did. Pet jobs are for sending thirty people at wyrms, not for winning parses.

[Buffy]

You mean that we have continued awareness that most players are atrocious? Beastmaster didn't get better, they simply got a few new pets with a higher level cap. While the relative strength of pet may have gone up, the shortcomings of the playerbase haven't gone anywhere, which is why you'll often find a sheep and its incompetent master wiping the floor with other terrible people. Rest assured, the job as a whole poses no greater than to real players than it ever did. Pet jobs are for sending thirty people at wyrms, not for winning parses.

In case I was unclear, my statement wasn't that BST as a job got better, simply that people were more forgiving/accepting of using BST in situations where it previously would have been told to gtfo. As an example, BST is accepted in Abyssea parties, but rarely receive invites to merit @ colibri.

[Taruking]

Beastmaster didn't get better, they simply got a few new pets with a higher level cap.

BST did get better after SE raise the level cap. New jugpets have received a huge boost in innate accuracy which can't be explained by level cap adjustment alone and raises masteret DD ratio from approximately 3:1 to 1:1. That's roughly 50% increase in total damage output. Other factors which contribute to better jugpet performance including introduction of job ability which allows BSTs to select jugpet's TP moves and adjustment to DNC, as steps are one of the only few possible ways to boost jugpet's melee performance and BSTs are now able to sub DNC and still retain ability to dualwield.

The job is not designed to top parses. Jugpets are getting stronger in term of both melee performance and survivability. There are more pet -PDT% gears (magian axes, stout servant etc) than the game has ever seen in the past 7 years. Pet food adjustment increases the cap of HP healed by petfood zeta from 400+ to 1700+ and we already know there are at least two more higher level petfood in dat files which will probably be released in future update. Having a disposable pet that hits almost as hard as its master, can be healed 1.7k+ every 3mins (hate generated by reward goes to jugpet not the beastmaster) and resummoned every 5 mins without any hate issue can be highly advantageous. BST is now officially the best SATA partner and a potential backup tank job. Throw in a RDM for saboteur Slow II and Addle, grab 3-4 BLU/THF to spam SATA (+/- efflux/CE) cannonball (? final sting) on BST, jugpets can soak up large amount of damage and give plenty of breathing space to the main tank.

[Cutriss]

Weapons
Full set of HQ elemental staves and elemental grips

This won't last forever. My guess is that the INT/MAB katanas will eventually be good enough (if they aren't already now) that you can get rid of the staves, which will add to your output since you won't have to stop meleeing. It also boosts your flexibility since you can melee when needed and cast when needed without having to switch weapons around. I believe the INT/MAB Sekka+1 is INT 8/MAB 9.

The HQ staves will not ever get better, but the katanas will. Those slots are better "wasted" on obis. It still remains to be seen what will happen to Iga body/hands, since none of the other pieces are appropriate to nuking (or shooting, for that matter).

I think a gun NIN still beats a nuking NIN rather handily though. But at least you're flexible enough to do whatever the situation calls for. Clearly this is why SE designed the NIN 2hr the way they did - it's so that NIN can wipe food in a hurry!

[Karbuncle]

You mean that we have continued awareness that most players are atrocious? Beastmaster didn't get better, they simply got a few new pets with a higher level cap. While the relative strength of pet may have gone up, the shortcomings of the playerbase haven't gone anywhere, which is why you'll often find a sheep and its incompetent master wiping the floor with other terrible people. Rest assured, the job as a whole poses no greater than to real players than it ever did. Pet jobs are for sending thirty people at wyrms, not for winning parses.

Yah, I don't know about that. Maybe you play with shitty BSTs or are just grossly ignorant as to how powerful BST Can be if played correctly? Axe is still a powerful tool and Rampage is still as good as is was back when Dual Wield was hot.

The combined DMG of a BST and his pet will beat or at least match that of any other good DD short of a relic.

Also, totally not arguing that most BST's aren't retarded. the shear amount of terrible stupid-shit BSTs i see daily is astonishing due to stupid Bandwagonning, but thats not to say it can't be good if played right, same as every other job in this game, and BST has a lot of potential.