[Susurrus]

Just a thought, but since evading doesn't decrease hate, but having a shadow absorbed does.......wouldn't evasion gear be ideal? (At least if you're trying to be the only one holding hate)

[Armando]

The hate you lose from an absorbed shadow is insignificant. Doing damage will always be the best way against anything you can damage, especially for NIN who doesn't have much in the way of additional hate tools.

[Karinya]

True, but if you lose 3 shadows and get hit before recast, that's a lot different than losing a shadow, evading/parrying, and then losing 2 more shadows before recast (both for the healer's MP and its potential impact on your exp chain, and for your hate holding).

The important thing is how many attacks you *don't* evade compared to how fast you can put up new shadows - if you're still in the area of taking hits on HP fairly often, improving either of those factors is huge, but after you get to the point of taking almost no regular damage, there's not that much further gain to be had.

I'd say try a variety of gear setups and see how they work; damage, +enmity and evasion all have their uses in theory, but theory doesn't earn you any experience points.

If you're losing hate *to the healer*, then doing more damage isn't going to help you (enough); you're taking too much damage, losing hate yourself while adding to the healer's when he/she heals you. If you're losing hate to DDs, more damage might help, more +enmity might help, but more evasion probably won't (especially if you're losing hate to DDs without taking a hit on your HP first - this means you just aren't generating enough raw hate).

In the 60s, a THF or /THF can help quite a lot with hate management. If you have solid hate, reducing your damage taken is probably the most useful thing you can do for the party's overall kill speed (unless you're already never having to rest, which is rare until the 70s in my experience).

I think it's much easier for a NIN to overemphasize damage than to underemphasize it (although the reverse may be true for PLDs).

[Armando]

Well, once you have Ni, there's only so many times you can get hit before one of the two is back up again, though.