PLD Vs NIN...Who Is The Best Tank?

NIN/DRK > PLD/NIN for hate. PLD's only advantage is mitigating attacks that do get through Utsusemi.

Only advantage? Trust me having both jobs leveled i will say thats a big *** advantage. Not to mention about the extra 300Hp paladins have thus to take smacks to the face better with. Having both tanks i will flat out say it. PLD/NIN is better in 99.9% of fights especially any fight that you are garunteed to lose shadows...which is 99.9% of fights. I take nin/drk to all of Omega fights...that it.

NIN/DRK will cap their VE a lot faster with LR/SE/Stun and sleeps, but PLD will cap their CE faster, which reflects Atonement damage which = more hate. NIN/DRKs tend to almost always use a staff for -Phys since anything that would even require a NIN/DRK would likely hit too hard otherwise. Which means they don't have a constant flow of damage going like PLD does.

PLD can tank pretty much everything a NIN can, Blink just as well and recover from nasty situations where shadows are wiped with minimum damage, a NIN cannot. Then that NIN would take further damage resulting in a loss of CE losing hate and have to rely on their big enmity JAs or spells to be up whereas a PLD could just cure himself.

Having both tank at once is a pretty sick combination, but a PLD can solo tank pretty much everything, a NIN would have a much harder time doing so if it's even possible.

As a Ninja tank for many years, I've observed a few misconceptions about how a Ninja cannot hold hate due to MP restrictions, too many Black Mages, etc. Ninjas are not the best tank for every monster. Monsters that can be evasion tanked > Paladin. Ninjas are fortunate enough that many NMs in this game are evadable.


People tend to forget that there is a hate cap. Whoever has a fast repeatable enmity action will keep solid hate. For example, against Tiamat, if your linkshell uses Black Mages as the main source of damage, they will all be at the hate cap if they are nuking hard.

How does a Ninja hold hate over a Paladin in this situation? All three jobs, Black Mage, Ninja, and Paladin are at the hate cap. Tiamat will turn to the person that recaps their hate last. A tool that NIN/DRKs often do not abuse enough is Poison. Low MP cost, good hate, extremely fast cast AND recast, allows a Ninja to hit the enmity ceiling over and over, faster than a Black Mage or Paladin thus holding solid hate over both.

What about the downtime in casting shadows in between? Not much of an issue there when Tiamat is blind enough to allow the Ninja to cast Ni > Ni with many seconds to spare (this is without mambo, eva rolls, etc). If you evade, you do not lose CE from shadow losses. This leads to a nice side effect of keeping enmity high.

Not enough MP? First of all, fighting an HNM without a RDM and/or BRD is a waste of time for most groups. One Refresh or a Ballad 2 is enough for a Ninja to continuously spam Poison.


Remember this is after a Ninja caps hate using other means, (ie Knowing how to use maximize Enmity gears, Yonin, going into PDT/MDT set when needed, optimal shadow macros, etc. Poison is not the fastest way to the cap but has enough hate to continuously keep one at the ceiling.


Second I would like to comment on damage mitigation. Ninjas take some of the lowest non-shield blocked damage in the game. Given two players that do not swap to a PDT/MDT set fast enough, a Paladin will win out. If both players swap gears in reaction to a monster's ability then the gap is not as wide as many suspect. A Ninja can hold their own when they need to blood tank a few hits before recovering if they are properly geared and constantly on top of their game.


Lately, I have been disappointed at the lack of Ninjas playing end game. It is really great job for low personing HNMs and is versatile enough to do light DD when needed. People need to step up and play the Ninja job to break the common stereotypes of lolNIN.

You have some very valid point Johanna, and I agree with alot of what you have to say. On the other hand, I am going to counter with my own opinions supporting the PLD viewpoint.

First of all NIN/DRK is a pretty complex job, where that does give it some advantages, (your example of lower recast timers and more varity of spells) it requires a little more ammount of skill. Not being the main point or my strong point but I believe it is valid to say that PLD is vast more popular of a job due to simplicity. It's easy to get a PLD at any event/camp anything, even if it's a PLD who tanks in full AF and W.legs who never blinks. Then it is to find a NIN/DRK who has alot of experience. (not saying they are not our there). To keep on the topic of simplistic, the job was built to be a tank, everything from mp for healing spells, divine magic, high enmity job abilitys, shield skill, high def. equip, high HP ect. Ninjas have a few random skill sets that do not provide advantages to tanking (unles maybe kiting?). Like throwing skill and movement speed.

That is what makes the two jobs equal of the statement "Both jobs can tank well enough for almost any situation" BUT I see PLD as a far superior job because of it's ability now with the release of atonment. This gives PLD the advantage of not only doing his "job" (tanking) but also alows a PLD to provide a significant ammount of damage, thus helping the group in the long run. Atonment also is based off of enmity, and provides you with alot of hate, I'm trying to say, after a few steady atonments a PLD usually doesn't lose hate.

Everyone knows a PLD and a NIN can both tank just fine, granted you have the skill, but PLD has passed NIN in the tanking end game world on the one fact that they provide damage. You said yourself, many nin's tank with a staff. I've never seen a REALLY good DD nin, so idk if they can build TP and provide DMG like a PLD, but I doubt it.

On the subject of DD NIN, yes, most NIN tanks for endgame fulltime PDT- gear even when they have full shadows up and no risk of losing them. If you have the sense to macro in DD gear while shadows are up and PDT- gear while they're down, NIN can be a suitable DD and tank at the same time.

That being said, NIN can't be both a very good tank and a very good DD at the same time. A NIN geared for DD will far surpass a PLD geared for DD. But in said situation, a NIN would have almost no PDT- gear, whereas PLD is still a really good tank with DD gear on.

With the advent of Yonin/Innin, NIN is forced even further to do either role separately. Yonin (Tanking JA) lowers your DD output, and Innin (DD JA) lowers your tanking ability. Basically, NIN can't DD and tank at the same time, though it can do both very well separately.

This topic needs to die.

Maybe....... But I would like you to explaine your statement. What gear can a NIN out DD a PLD with, and how so? I'm assuming for this situation you would need to /WAR for some more offensive fire power. Meaning you would lose all the advantages of /DRK and the oter way around. I see your point there, but I am just curious to know the specs of the equips or a specific type of play type or whatever it is, please explaine the full situation, if you need songs, what buffs ect

It's just a fact that NIN is actually a very potent DD. No one can argue with that. My gear for NIN is...Really bad, but I can still pull off 1.3k+ Jins on certain NMs and merit mobs. That's compared to a cap of 750 Atonement, and NIN can get TP a lot faster.

Do you need me to make an item set for what I use on NIN? I'll do that right now.

Why is RDM not in this title?

Not that I don't understand your point, but that's like saying, if the topic title is "Best gear for Bow RNG", you respond with "Gun".

What I'm saying is RDM isn't in the title because the OP isn't interested in RDM, lol.

On hnms nin dot > pld dot, but pld ws > nin ws. Nin has no useful ws for hnms. Blade: Ten could be noted as being single hit with big mods, but just like most of the single hits ws, its only useful if you /thf.

The melee DoT component is incredibly insignificant though :p what you say is true but it doesn't change the hierarchy of the jobs at all.

A lot of people still don't believe RDM can tank for some reason. I remember one time I posted that RDM tanks well here and I was crucified for it :p

/crucify

On merit mobs sure, or things around that area of level, but Cerb, Khim, Tia etc PLD >. Most NINs would use staff anyway.

I can't imagine why myself. Every time I've seen a good RDM tanking an HNM he's blown the PLD into the ground lol. I've been that RDM a few times and have had PLD's telling me to stop casting so they can pull level on hate. That's without really even trying to maintain hate.

As for PLD Vs NIN, it's entirely a situational argument. There are some times when NIN will beat PLD and vice versa.

If you take the time to scroll up, I just made a mention that NIN can't tank and DD at the same time, because of the Staff thing.

lol

i dont want to come back to this but lol all these 3 jobs are very dependant on player skill. Some recent events on my ls showed that we got better nin/drks than plds and i think we'll see them tanking much more. Our best pld is also our best rdm, so he will being rdm onry lol. As any tank is just as good as its support.

Yes and no. RDM/NIN is far more self sufficient than PLD or NIN could ever be on any opposition. Whilst a tank is not invincible without their support, some rely on that support more or less than the others.

^ this is true. Give the RDM a BRD and on the vast majority of mobs they need no further support.

Can make do without a Bard too since Slow2 etc. 99% of HNM mobs are very easy to tank compared to solo stuff, so if your RDM is experienced that way, HNM will look like a joke.

yeah rdm is great, and of course he teorically doesnt need another rdm to help out (which is mostlikely false). For real, the rdm will be so busy spamming hate stuff (because rdm has no spike hate tool) that he wont find time and mp to debuff mobs (although he can still keep himself buffed, especially with composure)

Agreeing with both these statements. Once Atonement was added it became really hard to argue the point for NIN if you had to choose one over the other, but as a team I like them together more than any other combination personally. That isn't to say NINs should stop trying, though, because being "less great" doesn't mean not great in an HNM tank setting because they do offer up a lot of versatility overall, especially for low-man situations. NIN/DRK is still the job I have the most fun on, and I think what draws a lot of people to push for NIN staying in end-game tanking is that it's actually a lot of fun; the overall point! (for some?) lol

I'm surprised this has gone on for 11 pages, usually this topic is pretty cut and dry. D;

As much credibility as a hamburger, litterally. Especially the part about Atonement damage, incredible lol.

POSTED SAME TIME, YUFFY, BUY ME SELBINA MILK.

I didn't understand one part of your statement. Either hamburgers are...Really credible for some reason, or you must have misread something.

Well, has a hamburger ever lied to you?

Where to begin. Oh yeah, the 1.3k jin, you mean the lucky full DAed with BRD and/or COR to back it up? Because i'm sorry to shatter your dream but as a NIN with somewhat "ok" gear, and even parsing other NINs with similar gear, i dont remember 1.3k being an average, ever.

Where Atonement offers a 100% 728-750dmg on anything that doesnt have magic reduction, Jin offers nothing but randomness even to the best geared of us. Add to this a Joyeuse or an Exca depending on the PLD's tastes and you have something serious in front of you on the WS side.

As for the total damage including DoT, NIN would most likely destroy PLD but PLD has an advantage: his leadership on overall DD doesnt stop on VT mobs.

No more, no less.

I think both PLD/NIN and NIN/RDM(Or DRK) can work well on many fights, a lot of ninjas don't put in the kind of effort to really shine though. DR sets, MDB sets, Fast Cast Utsu setups etc. Although ninja will most likley put out less DD on something serious(Wind/Earth Staff) they can hold hate very well, a lot of people really bash ninjas because of the standard one gear set dual wield ninjas who can't hold hate.

Either job can tank, but the quality of the tanking depends on the person and the amount of work they put into being a tank.

If you want to be an *** about it, keep it to yourself, or tell it to someone that actually cares.

I was giving my experience, it may not be average for NINs, but it's average for me. If that's troubling you, you're welcome to prove to me that I'm not able to do the damage that I've been parsing myself for.

np, QQ moar, but back your affirmations a little, it would help having credibility.