AF Or SH?

Well, bard isn't well suited to be main puller till 74 really, :ichi sucks really bad if you get lullaby resists, which happens fairly often to an unmerited bard on IT mobs. In mid ranges its just an average puller, by no means is it the best.

I can say that having lvld brd through those lvl ranges i prefered brd/whm then, hell and i still do now cuz i can rock out a 700mp build throw on dalmy and we hardly need a rdm^^ I dont like to pull and sing 4 songs, it really is annoying, you can talk down on a bard all you want but you need to realize that singing 4 songs, 2 ballad, madrigal and minuet or w/e wihch is what every bard should be doing (if they arent meeting that minimum then kick them lol) it's the duration of an entire fight, and the higher lvl you get the less time you have to do those 4 songs in, in merits sometimes i cant even get one *** song off before i have to pull again... i'd rather be a backup healer or a puller if there's a 2nd bard to sing some of the songs lol

In fact im rather picky and wont exp w/o a 2nd bard anymore, theres no reason for me to.. 20k exp/hr easy as hell vs 10k-ish and work my *** off, I could sit in town and craft while i wait for a good party or i could endure a headache? hmm.

My favprite merits though were the ones where people think its ok to grab 1 rdm and 5 DD's and you just happen to be that unlucky rdm. Thus, i lvld bard LOL

:P sorry i wasnt talk'n down on BRD's im slowly leveling mine, i love it. pulling & singing & pulling more :3 keeps me bussy, *this thread is way off topic XD <-- blame mist *

If you're xping on colibri, why would you NOT use hauby? They don't even double attack, and with elegy (even just the slow spell) the only thing that should be hitting you is pecking flurry. That is if you can count.

As stated before, while leveling, hauby > all. The better your ninja is geared towards DD, the faster your party kills and the more hate you can share. Evasion build ninja's xping is just lol.

Now there's certainly nothing wrong about having an evasion build for those "oh ***" moments, though.

Lol...The ninjas you party with must have synced their way to mire.

I do agree that AF / SH is situational, however, Ninja has a very high katana rating, and natrually high accuracy. If you need hunters roll, Sniper +1 and squid sushi+1 to hit an imp, then you need to quit ninja.

Really, I'd say dont even worry about AF body until 72+, because until then, you're not going to have enough dualwield/haste to make the "stack" worth it. Best of luck leveling, hope this has helped.

I personally pulled almost every pt as brd from 25-75 :o I never really had too many resists, and when I did there was usually another person to help sleep it. Only time I really had a problem sticking sleep was when I started doing merit parties at like lvl 73, I had capped skills from visiting sea to do just that but still birds are a pain to stick it on at that lvl. I personally hate being /whm in exp as brd though, I'm not a healer and I'm not going to pretend I am.

And back to the SH/AF/Hauby debate.. I'm going to just say try them all and see what you like best, everyone has their own play style. So just find what works best for you to keep hate while staying alive w/o making the mages run out of mp.

I would have to say Artifact body all though, I never used it until I reached Lv 75 and I didn't own a Scorpian Harness. I used my Hauby to Lv in.. ^^ Good times good good sweet sexy NIN times.

I followed this when I leveled my NIN, and only ever had an issue wearing a hauby in a party once.
It was with a former ls mate of mine - he was leveling BRD, and we asked him to join us. Man - I've never seen to this day someone *** and complain as much as that one guy did.

People tried to explain that - but the guy was just stuck on NIN = EVA and if you say different, then you didn't know what the hell was going on.

My advice after doing NIN, its situational. I never touched the AF even though I have it. It was down to the SH or the Hauby. Just depending on the type of party it was it and how it was set up.

Give up on Nin.

Unfortunately this piece of advice came almost a year late.

I used to TP in SH +1 and then WS in Haub +1. Completely situational tho.

IF you have enough accuracy, AF body is ok. Also, SH can help in situations where you're getting that last second shadow up.

One thing I also learned, Leveling NIN is fun, but, only fun. If you're expecting to play it in EG events, think again. The only time I get to play NIN is when going to random Limbus. Not Limbus boss.

Oh well. Have fun leveling. ^^

I solo my NIN most of the time. I use the Campaign Fourth Division Gear set and change out Optical Hat from time to time.
The complete gear set, in my opinion , is great for NIN. With the EVA,STR and Subtle blow, this armor seems made for NIN.
I do enjoy the STR and EVA.
Tanking seems to be much easier than building AGI with low STR. Easier to hold hate.

Both! Like most 'good' pieces of gear, everything's situational.

I just used the AF legs, I find it good for getting use to being versatile in most any given situation training with the day to night difference changes because of the Evasion +10 at Night time factor. Since Ninja excells in evasion, it's also satisfactory with agility status for parrying since you're tanking. GK that NIN can use like Ashura, Kanesada & Namikirimaru are also good to skill or SC with using Haubergeon or Kirin's Osode as well to bind the general statuses used together by Ninja & Samurai.