NIN/RDM|BLM 101: FAQ and StrategyFollow

Bumpdate!

I'll do you the favor of making your thread a bit more visible (via Dia Flames) Margy. Now that NIN has meritable SAN spells, can we se a more viable end game NIN/RDM|BLM Ninjutsu DD?

I mean the combo has already been set with gear in endgame long ago (LVL 72 JSE, Torques, etc.). I think people should be open to the possibility that NIN/RDM|BLM is going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Seeing as the San recasts are so high, here is something to think about…
You could try creating a double wheel of sorts. Alternating Ni and San spells in such a way that they assist each other…

Doton: Ni > Huton: San > Hyoton: Ni > Katon: San > Suiton: Ni > Raiton: San > Doton: San > Huton: Ni > Hyoton: San > Katon: Ni > Suiton: San > Raiton: Ni > Doton: Ni…

Anyone have any opinions?

Edited, Jul 24th 2006 at 11:37pm EDT by DianaraVP

Oh, I totally see stave wielding NINs getting mad love with the San spells.

My suggestion about the San > Ni thing is totally dependant on how long the recast times are. The thing I don't like about the idea though is that the Ni spells won't do too much damage and so its like 1 nuke for the price of 2. That's yucky. Nevertheless, if the cast times are long enough then it could show promise.

I imagine with enough Haste and Fast Cast (through /RDM or gear) they would be able to be chained effectively. I can't wait to hear some numbers on damage and cast/recast times.

Bump! :)



Is this correct? I tried soloing this weekend as 22NIN/11BLM and had MAB as a trait.

I decided to try this combination soley to raise my ninjutsu skill. Since the first ninja spell isn't until level 10, and it's rarely cast at that (Tonko), I was sad to find that my skill didn't increase quickly by just using Utsusemi and eventually Kurayami. Coming into level 22, my skill was only around 29, equivalent to roughly a lvl 9 ninja, so Utsusemi was getting interrupted any time I got hit in xp parties.

To remedy this situation, I'm soloing to cap my ninjutsu (caps at 69 at lvl 22). BLM sub has proven great not just for MAB, but mainly for Bind. I Bind a DC/EM mob (Jugner Forest at 22) and then just spin the wheel. Ninjutsu skill ups have been fast and after only a couple of hours I'm already at a skill of 62.

The stickie request? Yeah that was me.

It's still a very nice guide for ninja's that don't think about the possiblities of mage subs.

Such stickies as the /Rdm guide in the Paladin forums are just as usefull.

A LS friend is leveling PLD right now, and I'd mostly stopped NIN for a bit 800 EXP into 51 to get better gear. When he got to 50 though we agreed to start a party together. So I went NIN/RDM and we got a party of 50-51 together and went to Kuftal Tunnel (which is a bit too early lol).

I've got HQ staves from BLM and SMN, Moldy Earring, and some lower level INT+ gear, so this is something I wanted to try for a while.

Setup was NIN/RDM (me), PLD/WAR, BST/NIN, RDM/BLM (refreshed and healed), BLM/WHM, and MNK/WAR. It later ended up being NIN, PLD, BLU, WAR, RDM, WHM.

The party lasted quite a while and I went from 800 into 51 to 3k into 53.

At 51 resists were kind of bad, but my overall damage was still decent. By 52 the whole wheel went off unresisted occassionally. At 53 m.acc was significantly improved and ~70% of the time spells went off unresisted, and the crabs were getting torn up pretty bad. The spells hit for 125-135 +/- the usual random day/weather bonuses.

The WAR in the party said he'd never seen a ninja do so much damage at this level which I thought was pretty cool.

I think I went through about 1.5 stacks of all the tools, but I didn't keep close track of it. My katana skill fell behind too, but that's not too hard to catch up.

The biggest drawback, besides price (PLD said I was shovelling gil at the mobs hehe), was inventory space. I was at 58/60, and didn't even take my AF out of storage. So, if I wanted to do this once the AF head was available at 56 I'd probably have to leave a bunch of stuff in MH that I'd rather bring with me just in case. (Echo drops, oils, tonko, etc.)

Overall, it was pretty fun.

Hehe, yeah my PLD buddy said the crabs were hitting him way harder than he was used to. But he's a Taru and was getting 5mp/tick MP (Refresh+Parade neck+something else?) back so he spammed Cure III and perservered. I had about 170MP (5MP merits, Hume RSE feet, etc), so I tossed out Cures as needed, after battles, and while waiting on Suiton's timer to come up again, and the RDM would Refresh me when I was low on MP.

I went back last night from 53->54 as /WAR. Using Katanas fulltime really made me miss the m.acc from staves. With capped Ninjutsu at 54 I was getting resisted more than two levels earlier as /RDM.

Bubble shower is the STR-10 and AoE water damage move, but I'd stop casting and switch to katanas until that evil 50% Shell move was dispelled. The RDM was on the ball with Dispels 90% of the time though.

One problem I meant to ask about was switching back and forth between Elemental Staves and Katanas.

While hitting for 0 with 29 added effect, or getting a crit for 32 (always 32 oddly enough) with my 4 Staff skill was amusing (to me anyway) the 1% of the time I didn't miss, I'd macro swap back to Yoto +1s while waiting on the wheel to be ready again. Which was usually only one or two attack rounds, but I didn't see a point to whiffing with a staff.

I made a "Katanas" macro:
/equip Main "Yoto +1"
/equip Sub "Yoto +1"

Which always failed to equip the second Katana with the "You need a mainhand weapon first" message. So I added a "/wait 1" line, and it worked, but if I went into a menu it would fail, and I would often attack with only one katana before the other blinked in. And single wielding katanas is of course pretty bad damage:delay.

Is there a way to work around that? It's only a minor annoyance, and I was still doing a nice damage before poking the crabs, but I wouldn't mind any improvements. ^.^

Great guide, btw! It's a fun and viable alternative to /WAR and tanking all the time.

Just wanted to chime into this thread as I tried this combo 2 nights ago 48-50 in Crawler's Nest then later Garliage Citadel. I chose to sub rdm and since this is pre-staff level I engaged + enspelled for a little extra damage between casts/and when wheel timer was down. At first my party and even some of my friends gave me funny looks... but after the first two mobs everyone including myself looked like this : =Q_______

I wasn't sure how well it would work pre-staff level, so I didn't really bring any INT gear or food, so all I had on me was my Moldavite Earring. I was averaging about 107 per nuke, which I guess is pretty nice. Even if that’s low for mage Nin I think the overall DoT is still higher than what anyone else in the party was putting out. My Paladin friend had difficulties pulling hate off me quite often, and there was no need for her to cover me since I could just cover myself with Ni and Ichi. We killed so fast we ended up driving the competing party out and cleared the pull zone of mobs completely.

For the most part, I wanted to try this as soon as I saw this guide at least once, since I'm generally poor and really can't afford to do this as a regular thing. My wallet is crying now but I think the experience was more than worth it. I definitely want to try this whenever I can if I happen to come by a lucky break with a NM or something and come up with some money to play with, especially with staves, food, and INT gear. Anyways thanks Margavine for making this guide. You got me into a VERY expensive but addicting hobby lol >.<

Some new stuff has come into the picture for Ninja nuking... gear sidegrades and upgrades and the meritable San Spells.

Seems like a Nin could make nuking effective at level 75 where most parties don't have a single tank. By then there are many MAB and INT and skill options. Subbing RDM would give MAB I trait as well as Fast Cast II. Dropping the recast timers and adding some San spells, a NIN/RDM could probably skip the elements his target is prone to resist the most and do a partial Ni wheel followed by a partial San wheel and perhaps have low enough recasts to just keep repeating.

FC II is 15% spell recast reduction. So is the Haste spell, and they stack.

Some MAB items I'm thinking of specifically are:

Magic Attack Bonus I trait +20
Moldavite Earring +5
Uggalipeh Pendant +8
Denali Keks (lvl 40 Nyzul Isle Assault drop) +3 also +3 M. Acc
Koga head +5
There's another earring that's +7 MAB but um good luck getting it.


Then HQ staves for nuke accuracy and +15% damage.

Then there's plenty of +skill and +INT items for NIN to fill the gaps in other slots. I'd think they'd be able to do close to 300 with Ni's and maybe like 400 with Sans. Ni still > San as far as DOT goes, but San would just be there to fill the gaps when Ni recasts are not up yet, so you would only have to stop nuking in order to cast shadows.


IDK, the topic interests me. Probably take my NIN sub up and test some things out.