SUPERUNKNOWN

Alive! surviving the edge of the abyss, and its amazing!

level cap increases have hit, and everything is getting amazing. most of the old gear goals have gone out the window. along with that upset, many casualties have occured. due to the new requirement of focus, many of my jobs have been cut, and now exist in an indefinate retirement. and more may join them, or come out of it.

samurai and red mage were the first to go to the timeless garden. next came blue mage, and finally summoner. my old stand by, dragoon is likely next to join them. blue mage may end up taking dragoons place in the roster. returning a job to action is a serious time commitment, therefor the usage of each is weighed before the job is stripped and put away.

blue mage requires extra time on top of re gearing and partying concidering new spells must be farmed, weapons must be quested, nms must be killed etc. that said, it has become an extremely powerful profession recently. New spells are amazing even without the extra attention to gear builds they required before.

As Blue overall looks promising, Dragoon is losing steam, due to its requirement of brand new high power equipment, which is seperate from my other currently active jobs. while its power and usefulness has increased linearly with other similar jobs (sam/war/drk) the resulting path and potential seem out of my reach. my dragoon is like a classic car that is requiring just too much work to stay competitive. it probably wont see levels beyond 85.

these were the same conditions that claimed most of my jobs. i spread myself too thin, the result of which left me without the resources to play any at their max potential. while blu may or maynot be played again, and dragoon is looking at retirement options, i have one job still on trial.

Ninja i started early this year out of curiosity (and excuse to improve sam gear) quickly maxed out, recieving top end gear and full sets extremely quickly. top end katanas came naturally. all high end samurai gear carried over (merits unfortunately are still blank due to prioritizing) somehow i procured a very well geared ninja short of some +1's. my ninjutsu skill is rather low but other than that, its a solid job.
Ive level'd it well past its hayday and in fact, its concidered low tier overall now days. it has lost mostly any definition of a role to specialise in. as far of JoAT jobs, it fares worse than the multitude of other ones. overall i cant find a use for it yet. outside soloing.. breaking ninja down to each of its elements is even worse.
Dancer has taken over any previous damage role nin had. better natural survivability, higher damage output given they have near identical attack rate due too natural dual wield, coupled with better weapon skills and lower delay weapons , better solo performance, desired spot in an alliance, and more natural evasion. (nin doesnt recieve evasion bonus JT)
So.. melee nin is dead. what other options do we have? ninja was given the tools to attack extremely quickly, have high evasion, deal critical hits at an enhanced rate, debuff with fast tools, deal elemental magic damage with no mp, and effectively use ranged attacks. truely a well rounded job, but it has no native hate gaining abilities, that is left to your support job. which severely limits tanking ability, and as i covered. dancer has all those tools, so we are left with magic and ranged damage. neither are optimal for nin and its close ranged style.
throwing chakram have no worthwhile base damage, shuriken are too expensive/dont stack/too rare - basically not worth the effort. the other option, guns are better saved for rangers and corsairs who aren't so limited. which leaves magic damage.
Ninja has recently received many updates to try and fix the job overall, and many new debuff spells. which as a newcomer, look mostly useless. while they offer a unique source of ailments that no other job can CAST on an enemy, that does not give them a role in an alliance worthy of replacing a traditional damage/healer/support job, leaving the ninja to go solo or low man something.
With elemental ninjutsu there is potential to throw out small spells rapidly, for numbers similar to decent melee crits on the low end, all the way up to tier 3 magic spells (a 200-500 damage range). this sounds great on paper, the overall damage is solid and reliably quick. seems like a no brainer direction. the issue here is these high damage spells either haven't been tested, or results haven't been reported on high level enemies. there is a shortage of mage gear ninja can wear, that which is available isnt very cheap to obtain, and without proper support, those high damage 200+'s can quickly become mid 100's or less for the ni line of spells. i have no experience with san level but the increase isnt very high.
now, i haven't touched on this yet, but corsair has this style all covered. quick draw is slower, but higher damage, the shots are reliable dmg wise, not as subject to resists, also available to ranger through support jobs.
i like to take jobs in different than the normal direction, but i'm at a loss here because ninja has no direction what so ever.

anyway, this tirade has gone on too long, so i will just make this a 3 part post.