User:Zatias/Ninja

Overview
When I first leveled Ninja to 37, I thought to myself that there was no way in hell that it would become one of my high level jobs. Casting spells that cost money, not to mention the very expensive gear and counting of shadows required to play the job did not appeal to me. Against my better judgement, I fell in love with Ninja. Out of my three high jobs, Ninja is probably my best geared, but it's still not "OMG I'm so hax." I played Ninja how ffxi players made it out to be; as a tank. There are few differing playstyles on this job, but as always I have vied to be different from the average player.

1337 Like Ninja: How I play the job
Ninja was designed to be the ultimate survivor of a DD (a sort of Ranger or Black Mage that doubled as a melee with an effective damage mitigation technique in the form of Utsuemi) and skillfull puller. However for me and hundreds of others, Ninja has always been a tank. Early on I threw Shuriken, but soon abandoned the idea for leveling due to its heavy expenses. I forsook the Elemental Wheel as well due to money problems, but I never truly had problems holding hate. For a long time, I also experienced 0 deaths on Ninja (high 20's to low 60's, lost this streak of longevity to Incinerate) and still don't know if it was my dedication to reading shadows or just pure dumb luck. I would start all fights buffed with Utsusemi:Ni, then during the fight cast Ni again and on the 3rd shadow consumed start to cast Ichi, and hopefully by the time Ichi was wiped Ni would be back up or the mob would be dead. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed minimal downtime and consistent experience chains throughout my career. For one reason or another, I often became the puller of the party, finding that Ninja radar is extremely useful for detecting mobs and predicting their link/aggro range. This of course costed me some shadows on the way back to camp, but it was not too big of a problem. I guess I took this job to retain some of Ninja's original intentions. At 75 I began to cap my Ninjutsu by spamming the Elemental Wheel, and get my throwing high as well. I plan to merit Sange and use Shuriken to DD, though it may cost me my left arm (already sold my right to get to 75) to fund. I also invested in haste like a madman, as the speed of attack and DoT of Ninja is one of my favorite parts of the job. The job can be an incredible soloer and useful tank for low-maning certain NMs, Charybdis being the most famous. Its high evasion and Utsusemi recasts with the proper gear can ensure a victory where other jobs would fail. Enfeebles are long-lived compared to mages' as well. Ninja, on the whole, is fun to play, especially with max haste gear. Its good reputation and high invite levels will have you in many enjoyable parties compared to other jobs, though you will have to literally pay for it.