[Zoltar]

Just some basic questions, thanks for putting up with 'em

1.) Dex vs. Agi? Both?
2.) Dual wield options for melee, axe vs sword vs katana vs dagger? {Which?}

Thanks!

[Gyotsha]

Ninja doesn't really need dex or agi. Agi will help with evading, but +evasion on gear or +evasion skill will help more. At the lower levels when you only have Utsusemi: ichi, I'd go with evasion gear, then once you get Ni, you can focus a little more on attack and str. That's just how I did it though.

In the lower levels, it may be better to main hand a sword to help keep hate because they do more damage than katana at that level. Eventually you'll wanna switch to using katana in both hands though.

[Lmnop]

You can't use axe, sword is only good through Royal Archer's Sword (level 10). Replace with katana x2 at 13 (I think) if you use swords at all. I don't remember much of the pre-10 levels but i don't think it actually matters. Once you grab your one handed katanas, never touch another weapon type again.

(Note, it may be possible for other things to be viable at certain points -- for instance, main handing a dagger in the 50s while soloing nin/whm for energy drain or something -- but this is a very basic answer to very basic questions. No need to make this more complex than it needs to be: Ninjas use katana.)

dex and agi? Sure get whatever you want. You honestly won't notice the difference with the tiny amounts available at the early levels. As you get into the 30s and such, you want +acc probably more than anything else. O-kote are always worth it even with the -5 eva. +evasion is better than +Agi, and Emp pin is nice. But even though 5% higher evasion is a great improvement, you still won't be able to eyeball the difference. Just know it helps.

[Armando]

Accuracy and Attack. Evasion where you have room left.

Stick to Katanas. A sword is fine too sometimes but if you need to ask you don't know enough to pick out which ones are good and which ones suck hard yet, besides the obvious Centurion's Sword. Not trying to be an ass, that's just how I see it. Can't really go wrong with Katanas.

[Malacite]

A lot of NIN gear up largely for evasion and eschew any kind of offense.

I think it's time this started to change. As Armando said, gear for attack and accuracy and then evasion where you can, since most attack gear lowers it.

It was still somewhat recently discovered by Kanican that you gain far more enmity by dealing damage than you do curing. Now, NIN can't cure but it can sure as hell deal a crapload of damage if you're willing to cough up the money for shuriken.

Even the basic Shuriken from the tenshodo shop (45 gil lowest price) @ lv 18 has a DPS rating of 9.06, which most jobs will not touch until much later into the game. Even DW won't match that until very late into the game when you start getting the better katanas.


Katana damage will suck compared to other weapons, there's no getting around it (gearing offensively will offset this but still) so if you can, cap your throwing with a boomerang or something and let those death stars fly! :3

[Armando]

Katana damage will suck compared to other weapons, there's no getting around it

Not quite true. Katana DPS isn't much lower than competing swords. Combined with Dual Wield/II they're quite suitable for doing damage. Most people don't know this because they're eva whores.

Consider that while dual wielding, Blade: Rin is a two-hit crit WS (a single crit will double the damage of that hit, making it comparable to a 3-hit WS.) Blade: Retsu doesn't crit but it's 3 hits while dual wielding, making it comparable to Combo.

With a COR I was letting loose 100 damage Retsus in the 32-34 range in East Altepa.

It's not just that damage makes a lot of enmity. People forget that Accuracy increases your damage by more than whatever % your hit rate increased. Boosting your hit rate by 10% means you land 10% more normal hits and 10% more WS hits, but you also get to WS ~10% more often. The overall boost is higher than just 10%. Conversely, when you sacrifice Accuracy (and Attack) for Evasion, you would lose more than 10%.

This is the reason Accuracy is the most important DD stat barring Haste, the reason sushi is better than meat before 75 and the reason eating sushi on PLD boosts damage/hate-holding abilities so much.

Another factor is that Evasion is only useful when the mob is on you. There's two problems with that: you won't hold hate for shit with an Evasion setup, and even if you could, pre-37 you want to duo tank with someone else. Damage gear is useful 100% of the time. Having more damage also kills the mob faster which gets the same job done (staying alive and holding hate) with better EXP gain.

[Lunaryn]

I have heard a few people talk about the notion of using a Great Katana on NIN post-2H-update. Ninja doesn't get a lot of them, though, and you're going to be want to be really sure of the tradeoffs in 2H C-rank vs. DW 1H A-rank. I've heard of a few people getting some useful results from this at sub levels but I can't vouch for it. The higher level you are, though, the less viable a non-A-rank weapon becomes.

The general rule is to stick with only A-rank weapons for a job. There are exceptions *coughthiefdancercough*, but they are specific and generally only for a limited level range.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Originally Posted by Malacite

A lot of NIN gear up largely for evasion and eschew any kind of offense.

I think it's time this started to change.

I think this change has already started, at least a year ago.

[Gyotsha]

Ya, I don't see many evasion nins these days. At some levels though there isn't much damage gear for ninja, compared to the available evasion gear anyways. Back in the day I had quite a bit of evasion gear as nin, but I also bought whatever useful attack gear there was as it became available, which wasn't much until later on.

[Malacite]

Originally Posted by Armando

This is the reason Accuracy is the most important DD stat barring Haste, the reason sushi is better than meat before 75 and the reason eating sushi on PLD boosts damage/hate-holding abilities so much.

Sushi is good from the 50's and up, mid 40's at the earliest I'd say. Before then you will get a much bigger boost out of meat since the stat up %'s are far, far higher for lower level food compared to the pithy gains you will see from sushi. I've always used HQ meats (love being a 95 cook) from 1-40/45 for the greatly increased damage.

Originally Posted by LyonheartLakshmi

I think this change has already started, at least a year ago.

Not on Seraph

[Celeal]

It is situational.

For example, at low levels fighting goblins, you may want to keep your HP up, with whatever methods/tools/gear/food that are available to you. If the party is in the shorthand of MP or MP recovery, an option is to prolong the shadows as expense on other things (trade offs).....

Hey, gear for damage output works too in a lot of cases, and at low~mid levels you have more options besides using Katana (range attack, Elemental: Ni). There are cases that evasion cannot do much (or broken). And there are situation when you definitely want to macro gear for survival, like aggro/links, crowd control failure, healer drop dead, someone connection lost, etc.

Besides of looking for maximizing NIN's damage output/hate-control and minimizing his damage taken, also look for the party as a whole.