The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

I'll be honest with you and you'll probably say something like, those runs sucked etc or some what. But every RUN I've run into, I've maintained better enmity, shadow tanking and much much better damage dealing. Sure RUN can take less damage due to more parrying and elemental defenses. But I dunno about comparing a 3 shadow tank to a 6/7 shadow tank. You're looking at less shadows to eat up multi hits from tp moves.

The whole subject depends on setup and target I suppose. RUN can control hate from /ja spam while NIN maintains hate from dmg output without the use of such. Unless it"s something extremely deadly ofc like aoe mdmg RUN lives while high attack rate or endeath NIN lives. I hear ya. It's just not what he said. I thought maybe RUN got some update that made them a real "Shadow Tank" like SAM or something not just /NIN. Nvm...

Since this is tank job discussion, I think the ability to deal damage does not matter.

Also if you pt in low lv older content such high tier bc, with how enmity works there whoever parse top would have hate, that may be the reason why you "maintained better enmity and dealt more damage".....you get hate simply because you're hitting the mob harder.

But if you're doing something that you can't hit at all, such as Kirin, reisenjima T3 and T4, can you still generate enmity as reliability? You also admit "RUN takes less damage with parry and elemental defense", which is important aspect for a tank job. Some NM can be shadow tanked then Nuke you hard next second. In that case RUN as tank job has well rounded abilities to deal with these things.

Like the above poster said, it depends on what you're fighting and when someone mentioned RUN as king of shadow tank, he probably meant tank job as a whole package, not about have lots of shadows.

Ninja is theoretically awesome at shadowtanking against targets who use singletarget stuff (i.e. absorbed by a single shadow) with occasional TP move wiping your shadows or taking multiple ones.
And I guess we have to be talking against target who do not swing too fast.

The ability to deal damage isn't particularly relevant because you won't be hitting enough to rely on damage to mantain enmity.
Furthermore the damage>enmity conversion is particularly unfriendly against high level target (this conversion is dynamic and changes according to the level of the current target, being better with low level and worse the higher the level)

NIN has no built-in tools to mantain hate. The only built in tool we have is the use of Utsusemi: San with Yonin active. It never got tested but as far as patch notes go it's supposed to generate an enmity level similar to Flash/Foil when Yonin is up.
Thing is... it's a protective buff, you can't really spam those UtsuSan because you might need it, unless you have capped Magic Haste I guess.

Which means to mantain hate you have to rely on a different subjob from /WAR, like /RUN probably? (which should give access to Flash, and also gives a couple of points of inquartata which is nice)

But doing that hinders your ability to deal damage, so again we're back to square one and you start wondering why not use shadowtanking with RUN for instance, that with all the Fast Cast they get (more than NIN can ever get) can easily shadowtank with Ni and Ichi, keep better enmity, have more physical and of course magical defense than NIN will ever be able to get.


tl;dr NIN can be a good tank only against low/mid level targets in very specific situations and with specific buffs. And even in those situations, it's questionable wether or not NIN can do a better job than other jobs in those same situations.


I'd love to see NIN tanking come back in some forms, but it doesn't seem to me SE has a particular interest in letting that happen.
The job would need some serious tweaks to allow that to happen.
Given how NIN is a job that possibly more than any other job has two very distinct roles (DD and Tank) they should enforce this difference by reworking Yonin and Innin.
Make so Yonin isn't dispellable would be the first step (if you have to rely on it to tank, you have to make sure it's undispellable, like Arts for SCH for instance).
Then it would need a specific spell to use to generate enmity (no, Utsu: San is not enough). I don't care what this spell does as long as it gives a good amount of enmity with Yonin up. Even with a long recast it would be fine as a filler between provokes and UtsuSans.
Then make Issekigan no more than 3 minutes cooldown.
And... well I dunno, there could be countless other tweaks to be done (like AoE spells having a chance of being absorbed by multiple shadows when you have Yonin up!) but I think this would be a good starting point to make NIN viable if not for everything at least for a much wider list of content.

I believe NIN is in a better position than it was before with -just- Shadow tanking, but it seems RUN would still be preferable because it needs minimal support and has far more to fall back on. I think the difference between the two in terms of absorbing damage has lessened over time, though content has become more and more trivial at the same time. For example, the places where NIN would shine over RUN (Glazemane, Selkit, AAs, most old-style mobs) are generally content that a NIN could solo anyway. A lot of other fights, where shadows wipes are more common, RUN tends to edge out with its other tools like Foil, Battuta, Pflug, etc, while still being able to put up shadows just as fast as a NIN would. That's not to say that NIN/RUN isn't also a viable force to be reckoned with, it's just that the higher you go, the less the "bulk" of shadows matter. It's more about being able to reapply them quickly to absorb physical hits that could potentially 1HKO, and RUN just happens to have an ability that gives them capped FC with practically no support.

Of course, that's just situations where blink tanking still works. A RUN is more likely to sub /BLU, and I've even seen /WHM, to tank the mobs they're preferred for nowadays. Shadows will always have their place as a tanking tool, but I think NINs strength is that it utilizes it better as zerg tactic to mitigate damage while maintaining full offense, while RUN is just more defensively built and only needs it to mitigate specific threats. Hence, it's seen as the better "Blink tank", despite how easy it is to construe the true meaning of the term.

NIN does have such as is already. They gave Ninjitsu +/- emnity spells same time they gave it to PLD.

What is all this nonsense - did I step into a time warp back to 2005? Why are we talking about NIN like it's even close to being a viable tank on a significant amount of current content?

Shadow tanking is NOT A THING in 2016 FFXI on almost anything that matters. Utsusemi: San could give 150 shadows and it doesn't change the fact that AoE is gonna wipe them all and get you killed tanking anything that matters. NIN just doesn't have additional damage mitigation tools that are sufficient to make for a realistic tank.

Of course, it's similarly silly to talk about RUN as the "king of shadow tanks", again because nobody gives a damn about shadow tanks. RUN is simply a TANK job, and primarily for other reasons: runes, valiance/vallation (including ability to enhance party member elemental defense the majority of the time), fantastic Meva and status resist rates (enhanced by runes & Pflug), parry that actually matters thanks to Inquartata and Battuta, Foil (which stomps all over Migawari for frequent use in a single tank fight), very strong enmity generation, excellent tanking weapons and armor, etc. Yes, RUN does happen to be able to take pretty good advantage of /NIN shadows on some fights to provide yet more defensive tools - but that's not the reason RUN is a good tank, it's one of a multitude of tanking tools that add up to a job that's suitable to tank most content.

2016 NIN is a DD, period. Anybody thinking of NIN as a tank is just being influenced by the distant past, your 2016 endgame LS is simply not going to rely on NINs to tank a wide variety of stuff. That doesn't mean there's nothing it can tank, and occasionally there might be a specific mob that shadows are great on - but these are extremely rare situations in today's game. And remember, plenty of other jobs that aren't "tank jobs" can tank certain mobs: BLU DNC BLM (manawall!) RDM MNK WAR SAM...

You got me wrong, or I deployed a bad choice of words I guess.
I didn't mean a crusade equivalent of course.
That spell purpose isn't to generate enmity itself, it's simply a (dispellable) buffs that gives +enmity to all your actions.

I was talking about spells to GENERATE high amounts of enmity. RUN has Flash and Foil as pripary tools for instance, PLD has Flash etc (not accounting Sentinel and other tools).

SE already gave NIN something similar. If you remember, and I already mentioned it, they made so Utsusemi: San, if used with Yonin up, generates a large amount of enmity. Nobody tested how good/bad it is or if it even works, but the thing is that it's not optimal for several reasons.
In content where we can't rely on damage>enmity conversion (which is what in theory would set NIN apart from RUN and especially PLD) you're gonna need something else to generate a good enough amount of enmity.
Sure, you could sub something other than /WAR but if you ask me I'd like for another enmity-generation tool to be built-in NIN main.

Also having to rely on something that can be dispelled and that you can only put every 3 minutes (yonin) is lame. PLD and RUN don't need to rely on stuff like that to be able to tank.
They should make Yonin undispellable if they mean it to be the "key" to separate between NIN as a DD and NIN as a Tank.

I think this is a bitter, sad but honest sum of the current state of things.

There's only a small amount of mid/low level content where NIN can be deployed as an efficient tank, and even in those situation you could argue that other jobs would perform just as good (if not even better).

Which brings us back to the initial statement: NIN as a tank has a potential and many of us would love to see it come back, but it would need some serious tweak to JAs, traits and stuff for it to be realistically functional.
(imho: just a series of tweaks to Yonin)

I agree and understand alot of what you said but it's all still subjective to the situation. This point and that point are all variables depending on the situation. Sounds like everything is the same as it has been since I last played.

Best vs Physical and Magic = PLD
Best for situational use vs mostly Magic = RUN
Best for Shadow Tanking still = NIN

RUN might be better than others /NIN casting utsusemi but it's still not > NIN main unless aoe mdmg is an issue. If aoe high dmg phys then possibly PLD/NIN but those are still all variables.

I dont know. I dont even play any longer....
Last time I solo tanked anything was Escha Sky. Highest tier? No. Escha highest tier Rabbit? Yes. Could RUN do it? Doubtful. Maybe?

It's actually all Utsusemi spells:


Minor thing, but people might think it's only San that has increased enmity.

Related to the discussion at hand, NIN is IMHO the absolute best tank for CP parties. A welled geared NIN can tank, self SC AND Magic Burst in a party. The only other job that can do that frequently is DRK, and their nukes are ***.

I'd rate PLD as a better magic tank than RUN due to Aegis. I feel the best reason to take RUN isn't for magic damage reduction, it's for Rayke. It helps damage output immensely. In regards to where NIN falls into the hierarchy - there are a few fights were it's clearly the superior choice (Selkit, Fenrir HTBF, etc.) They aren't many of them but I suppose it's at least something.

I did! Thanks for correcting me.
Anybody tested how good/bad this works?
The few times I tried to tank on NIN, granted it wasn't the ideal test environment and I haven't really tested it thoroughfully, it diddn't seem to me as particularly effective.
I mean: Not as good as Flash/Foil.

Having tanked a lot of stuff on RUN you immediately see the huge difference (and big amount of enmity) that stuff like Flash and Foil generate, and I'm not even considering /BLU now.

The few times I've been on NIN it didn't feel like Utsu during Yonin was making such a huge difference honestly, which led me to think that the enmity increase is probably nowhere as good as the mentioned spells?
But again, no deep tests on my side.


I agree, in theory.
But the few times I tried I wasn't with very good PT members (let me just say that once I was first in damage on Scoreboard, tells a lot about the quality of the other members ;P) but I was having issues in doing all those things.
My role was to:
1) Pull
2) Tank
3) Open SC
4) Keep hate so mob didn't go to mages which for some reasons kept on staying away instead of stayin close to us
5) Keep shadows up to reduce damage because more often than not we had no healer or the healer sucked.
6) Magic bursting

Doing all those things was a bit stressing and was conflicting with cooldowns.
Also I think /WAR isn't very optimal for such a party setup, provoke's 30 seconds cooldown is too big to be ready at every pull (and if it's ready then it means you're killing too slowly so there probably other problems in that party :P)

I don't need CP anymore on NIN but which subjob did you guys use for this setup? I was thinking about going /RUN but then I never had a chance to test because I'm already capped on CP now.

I normally did /RUN on DD jobs for CPing.

It's sad of me to say it because I wish things were different but I think you're underestimating the power of RUN/NIN for those situations.
When you can't rely on damage to generate solid amounts of enmity (that is: pretty much anything that matters?) RUN/NIN is sadly gonna be a much better shadowtank than NIN main is =/

Granted when I went NIN on Rabbit Escha Sky and Reisenjima weren't out yet and my Job Points were low, I had serious troubles in keeping hate on the rabbit.
I probably was the wrong subjob (/WAR! lol) but despite my shadows absorbing the AoE claw TP move from Rabbit, enmity was a real pain to keep on me.
Tried that again on RUN/NIN, that job too low on JPs, and I hardly ever lost hate and when I did it was back on me a nanosecond after.
Soooo... yeah =/

Not sure how the situation would be different now that I have capped JPs on both jobs but still, just saying.


@Snaps
Aegis is a boss of course, but don't underestimate RUN's MDB and Magic Evasion. They're both much higher than what a PLD can get, with same quality of gear, and you don't even need a completed Relic Weapon to achieve that.

I suppose I could test those things. I imagine most of my enmity gear for PUP I can use on NIN. After I post I'll hope on and see what I can find. NIN/PUP so I know exactly how much enmity my puppet is generating(SE boosted the enmity of most tank trusts iirc, so that'd be something else I'd have to test first.)

It's worth mentioning this, but what are the chances you are using an enmity+ set for Utsusemi spells? I'd imagine you are using fastcast(for recast) and Utsu+ stuff, so you are probably getting base values. Base values on Flash(1280VE/180CE) and Foil(VE880/320CE) aren't impressive either, it's just that RUN has Crusade and enmity gear to help it along, and you can essentially spam them as much as you want, which I believe you pointed out already.


I don't actually play NIN :/ I just really love the mechanics of the game and spend time looking at how they interact. But for the NIN's I know, I believe they mostly all did /WAR. I think the key would be to pull with a nuke that increases damage for whatever you are bursting, utsusemi for some hate, SC, and provoke as able. Like I said though, I don't play NIN :/

If enmity were a concern, there isn't any reason NIN can't sub BLU for it's enmity spells. On PUP I was able to get like a 3 second recast on Blank Gaze, I imagine NIN can do just as well.

Honestly, your view is kind of outdated... Understandably so, considering you haven't played for a while, but current tanking options are more like:

PUP is generally the king of "blood tanking" in today's game. Massive HP, massive regen, incredible DT from traits and attachments, and doesn't need any additional party slots for healer/support. Basically, if it doesn't require hate control for tanking multiple enemies at once, doesn't have lots of hate resets (timer-based flash/voke attachments aren't too flexible for timing enmity spikes), and it doesn't use doom: automaton is a brick wall.

RUN is not really limited to magic oriented mobs, though it is very strong against magic. Plenty of tools to handle physical damage too (including /NIN helping out to absorb hits), though from a pure "how well does it take a physical hit" perspective it's no automaton or PLD. Like Snaps said though, one of RUN's biggest selling points is that it can tank AND can really enhance damage from a mage backline thanks to Rayke and Gambit. I like RUN tanks if using a nuke-heavy strategy mainly for that reason.

PLD is fine as an all around tank. It's also popular mainly due to people being comfortable with it and a good number of people with the job and good gear, though outside of supertanking (where PLD is absolutely the best) I'd honestly rather have a good PUP or RUN for most situations.

NIN is... irrelevant? Again, why are we bothering talking about shadow tanking? If there's something where the ONLY concern is shadow maintenance I guess NIN is good, but that really doesn't happen much. If there are other considerations, the other tanks are better because NIN gets killed too easily upon a shadow wipe.

Other tanks can work on a situational basis. For instance a BLM abusing manawall.

Really the most viable spot for NIN is on lower end stuff with no true tank, acting as a DD with some enhanced damage mitigation ability. Sort of like a return to TP burn style. It's useful to not waste a tank slot on stuff where mob HP scales based on party size. However, even here NIN is probably worse than BLU since BLU requires far less support (self Haste II, Mighty Guard), and has plenty of defensive tools in its own right with spells like Mighty Guard, Cocoon, Occultation, Barrier Tusk, Saline Coat, etc. Not to mention a well geared BLU generally does better damage (my NIN is better geared than my BLU, my BLU generally does more damage)...


1) If you're playing NIN and tanking/SCing, you're honestly wasting time using ninjutsu to MB. Could be getting faster TP for that next SC and killing mobs faster overall. MB on NIN is really more for showing off, or maaaaybe if you're tring to supplement magic damage for a group with very little in the way of nukes (I'm talking less than even a single good BLM or SCH).

2) Really, tanking is barely necessary too. I've been NIN doing tank/SC in CP party and sometimes didn't even bother to put shadows back up right away and just ate hits in my DD gear (with little risk of death using a trust healer). Any somewhat sturdy DD/WAR could fill the same role.

That being said, I do have to say I've been in few CP parties more fun than NIN with offhand OAT weapon (Kujaku +1), voking and "tanking" while going nuts with SCs for my mage friends to nearly nonstop MB.


Even those rare examples though aren't particularly compelling reasons to say NIN is a significant tank.

Selkit, a dedicated tank really isn't even necessary. It's at least as effective - and probably faster to spam kills for gear farming - to just bounce hate among whatever DDs you have. NIN does fill that sort of DD role quite well though.

Fenrir? Um, I guess NIN is fine? Though far from necessary, when the fight was new I tanked it on RUN a good bit (as I did with most avatars, single element magic damage is kinda right up RUN's alley). And really, PLD works pretty great there too.

I am using both, it kinda depends on the slot and on the current options available. For example on Neck slot I use Enmity+10 neck vs my FC+4% neck.

It's the same on RUN. Different sets of course but same logic.
Another difference is that RUN only has "Crusade" static enmity buff, whereas NIN has more (Yonin + Gekka)


But despite all of this I'm not sure this is the right perspective to be looking at things.
On RUN I could be completely naked or even disabling my Gearswap and I'd still immediately notice the huge difference of enmity generated by stuff like Flash and Foil.
It's just not the same on NIN with Yonin up and using Utsu spell, it's nowhere close.
I'm not saying it's broken (well, as far as we know it could be lol!) but there has to be some noticeable difference in numbers somewhere.
This goes beyond difference of +enmity Midcast gearsets.


This is a good point. I feel the same way. Your time would be better used casting a spell to pull the next mob and/or starting to TP on it instead than using single/double MB.

If your group needs you to MB to kill a mob in a single SC, then clearly something else is wrong in your setup. I think we can all agree on that.


Thing is though, it's not "realistic" to expect to always have an ideal setup for CP.
Especially these days where the majority of good BLMs/SCHs/GEOs/RDMs are JP capped, it's really hard to get an ideal setup and you need to compensate somehow.
That's the situation on Asura at least but I assume it's likely the situation on many other servers as well.

You have a healer? Oh how sweet that must be. If I am lucky I will have a Geo or Smn with a cure set, otherwise I'm almost always on my own. I legit assumed everyone else did the same thing.

Correct, nowhere close to Flash/Foil. Absoultely agreed that it's an immediately noticeable difference when comparing to RUN (hell, even PUP for me with automaton Flashbulb and Strobe is more solid for hate than NIN).

NIN just doesn't have the native enmity tools like PLD RUN PUP from main job. It's almost all relying on subjob, and that basically means /WAR for Provoke and that's it.

And doing damage, while once upon a time (back when NIN was a tank!) was a staple of NIN's ability to hold hate, is pretty much irrelevant ever since the enmity system changes of last year.


I guess it's possible... but kinda weird. Then again, I always thought your PUP/BLU Ventriloquy tanking was a bit weird ;). Main downsides would be minimal MP pool for NIN and losing /WAR double attack (relevant for such a melee focused tank like NIN).

I guess we could go back to NIN/DRK tanking like 75cap days? Hahahaha...

Anyway, I don't think the enmity issue is really the problem with NIN tanking though. Again, it's that most NMs can wipe multi-shadows in one move and kill you, even if you keep hate just fine with nothing but Yonin/Utsusemi casting and /WAR vokes.


Hehe. I'd rather go with 3-4 real players and a couple trusts. Apururu is part of most of my CP parties.

On Low level targets it still matters, but you don't really need a NIN (or a tank!) to tank those.
On high level targets the Damage>Enmity conversion makes so damage is practically irrelevant.
And even if it weren't, good luck reaching a good enough hit rate on those targets (and Yonin doesn't help with that!)

Which is exactely back to my point: NIN imho needs better enmity generation tools, and I'm talking about built-in stuff, not subjob stuff.
The Utsusemi enmity bonus is nice, but it seems like it's either broken or too small and honestly unpractical. You should be casting utsusemi when you need to cast utsusemi, not wasting those cooldowns on purpose just to generate more enmity.
If you ask me, at least.


I agree with you enmity is not the ONLY issue with NIN tanking, but it surely is one of the main issues for sure.

Since the enmity update, Automatons generate more single target enmity over time than most any other job. Triple Fire provoke is right around 5000VE. And for some reason I could swear that SE said something about maximum HP affecting the rate of VE decay. Maybe it was in a dream, or more likely on a JP forum, but I swear I recall something about that.


My LS has like 60 something people in it. Everyone needs CP, so I usually just invite whoever asks before I go. Admittedly, sometimes the group kinda blows, but it's always interesting at least.

I get what you're saying, and yeah I agree that main job enmity tools are lacking for NIN. Maybe they could make it so elemental ninjutsu under Yonin generated significant hate on the target. Could see "spinning the elemental wheel" as the enmity generation strategy. What's old is new!

But I'm sort of past the point of thinking NIN will ever be much of a serious tank again. I'm pretty comfortable with that, and I still like playing NIN. I just play it as a DD with some defensive perks from Utsusemi/Migawari.

I actually think the continual increase in shadow numbers from Utsusemi+ gear and San is part of what makes it difficult and unlikely for SE to fix blink tanking issues. What would REALLY help is if NIN main only had a way to absorb AoE with shadows more effectively. What if Utsusemi: San had been a change in HOW shadows work rather than just a number increase? As in, San shadows have higher effectiveness at absorbing dangerous AoE that are likely/guaranteed to wipe multiple or all shadows now. I doubt such a change would happen now, they aren't getting the 7-shadow Utsu:San horse back into the barn. So SE now has their hands tied and can't make those 7 shadows TOO strong.

Anyway, I'm going to sleep now... but fun little conversation.

I dont agree to enmity generation being a problem. While I agree that main job abilities like flash/voke are missing, being Nin/Run to tank (and you should be /Run for tanking anyways) gives you Flash which is, boosted with Yonin, Gekka and Enmity+ gear usually more than enough to hold hate.

While it does have down sides like the requirement of refresh to keep MP up, the main problem of a Nin tank remains:

just everything today wipes shadows.

So except for rare cases, shadow tanking doesnt even work on low/mid iLvl stuff. Take delve bosses or things like that. Even the auto-attacks are often wiping shadows or at least consuming multiple. Nin cn tank them! Yea sure, stack DT- gear like on any other job and prevent one hit or the other with shadows but its not the shadows making the difference.

Think the roll of Nin is rather a DD atm. And a good one it is! Often over looked but I think well geared it can be a durable and efficient DD with nice enmity reduction tools as well (often not even mentioned when talking about advantages of a Nin DD).
Of course other jobs do the same but always play the same job if there are other viable possibilities...

If RUN never existed or wasn't viable maybe things would be different, but with two solid and viable tanks and PUP joining the group, I don't think SE really cares to balance things so NIN tanking becomes realistically viable again.
Their behaviour over the past years kinda shows this has been their intention at least so far.
They probably have their hands full thinking on other things before they can even remotely come to be bothered about fixing that.

Sooo.... yeah. Not what I wish for, but I agree I don't see anything major happening about it in the near future, if ever.


It used to be that way in 2003! lol
Making so nothing (or almost nothing) can strip a NIN main of all its shadows but instead it consumes a certain amount of shadows would be a nice feature, a good change for tanking and frankly it's been requested for a lot of time.
Of course it would be potentially too good, would need a lot of attention to make it so it doesn't get exploited.
1) They need to find a way to make so it's not possible when NIN wants to do Damage (binding it to Yonin might be a good way to do that)
2) They need to make so it's effective, but not too effective because otherwise NIN tank becomes virtually invincible lol


That's another cool idea but you need to bind it behind Yonin or it would get exploited by NIN using Innin (or nothing), making NIN the only DD job who can DD and stay alive, creating other balance issues.
If it's meant to be a survivability tool to be used while tanking, then you need to make sure it's possible/viable to use it only when tanking and not in any other situation.
This is important, or it could be dangerous, and it's probably part of the reason why SE is scared to do something of that scale to Shadows.

Nagi > All

Since no one ever chimed in I went and tested myself. Yes, it's Migawari, and it acts the same way as Empyrean body in that it doesn't matter if it's on during cast, but it must be worn upon getting hit by an attack.

Tnx for testing it Llewelyn

Heya there !

Just a few quick questions !

NIN has been my 1st Lv 75 job on my main and i wanted to know where does it stand now ? Solo content ? In a group ? DPS wise ? Gear wise ?

Thx a lot ! ^^