Ambuscade Volume 1 - December 2018

NIN is beastly because it gets native Subtle Blow and doesn't need to go /NIN for shadows. If both DD's are maxed on Subtle Blow then the MB use's less TP moves, meaning less casting of shadows and more DPS. I've done this as a variety of jobs and it's doable with almost any DW melee setup, just some jobs have a benefit over others. MNK is another solid choice this month for similar reasons, native Subtle Blow and removal of MNK's central weakness, shitty WS damage.

im not talking about cor at all, why are you even mentioning it? for the 100th time forum people automatically associate with cor when I talk about other jobs just because I post on cor forums often.

this is what I said:


where did cor even came from?

im talking about mnk, empyrean drk, blu, dnc, war, thf......these jobs are perfectly fine as Ive done VD with them all and they parse better than generic nin without empyreans.

Monk is the other acceptable "fool-proof" choice of DD, as you can just sit in Counterstance/Spharai set and cast shadows every few rounds. 10-14k dmg/swing is pretty nice. I just don't see a whole lot of MNKs floating around that can handle the 3 shadows things, NIN just easier to find. Not that they are good or anything.

I thought counter check comes after shadow check fail no?

You dont even cast shadows when on mnk unless under 60%

Sure it does (unless you're wait for it.... NINJA MAIN USING ISSEKIGAN), but Spharai +30% Counter Damage, the recent accuracy buff to h2h (which makes h2h insanely good for counter accuracy), Impetus stacked buffs and a few pieces of relic+3 and monk is godly even without shadows. There's one move that *might* kill a 3400 HP monk (mantra) and that's the Leaping/Spinal Cleave or the 5-hit move. I did VD as MNK/nin, didn't take one hit with counterstance on. It's a risk/reward but well worth it, even if you lose shadows.

but you dont need to be nin main to cap subtle blow, I said it pages ago /.\

There isn't a foolproof comparison to:
7 shadows
Capped SB (without even adjusting gear)
~30%+ TA on a DW job
Mijin Gakure free unweak in the rare event you die (Get out of "i suck" free card)

Sorry Afaina :(

I just rewatched a VD winning video with war sam cor brd with war tanking vast majority of fight. I think the key to stay alive is to cast shadow when drain tp move animation start, so by the time animation is over and wiped shadows, new shadows will be up again. so they dont die after drain move shadowless.

really /nin is fine. there are people that I know of rarely ever die on dd/nin.

Yes, we know.

I think you just say that because you want to play NIN :p

opinions are opinions.

I don't care either way. I have had months standing on the outside looking in. None of yall can name a month where NIN was ever really shouted for. Every month sees SMN GEO BRD COR or any Heavy DPS. You cannot convince ANY pug to invite a monk or nin any other month. Now NIN gets the majority of the shine and it's HEY GUYS DONT FORGET US DPS TOO! If yall dont gtfoh with that and form your own groups. 7>3!

You know what's great? Not losing buffs when it does that dispel TP move!

This is the biggest benefit of Ninja. 3 Utsusemi timers that can eat 5 hits from Gen'ei Ryodan and avoid stun and dispel.

I'm sure /nin is fine but it's gonna take some coordination to save stunned people and potentially rebuffs.

They can't avoid losing buffs because the move is 5 hits and they can only do 3 max. The generally you can pull hate right off a DD who gets hit with stun so they don't suffer endeath but this is exactly why ninja is foolproof. More shadows, less time recasting, less buff loss, higher DPS. So while other jobs may deal more damage outright, they have to spend more time reapplying defensive shadows and buffs, so the damage they deal is negated by that time lost. I've done it with several different DD. Other DD can out perform average ninja but you can't compete with 7 shadows and less time casting. It's one of the reasons why I prefer ninja over Monk. The peace of mind in having 7 infallible shadows and never getting hit outweigh higher* DPS. It's not opinion.

*Higher until you die, lose buffs, have to spend twice as long recasting shadows

It wouldn't surprise me if you can keep it mostly stun locked from 60-30% with Sudden Lunge on BLU or Leg sweep on WAR, DRG or SAM. I haven't tried it though.

Red mage slow 2, elegy, two monks roasting penance and the bigwig will hardly TP. Is another useful alternative

From what I saw, Slow II blocks its Animated Wail, true statement or was I just seeing things? Otherwise, it's annoying to get rid of with dispel and reapply slow.

MNK-wise does Plague from Shijin Spiral land on it? Would further reduce TP moves if so.

Lol, I often form my own groups, until people ask me to kick top tier DD out of party for their joe avg NIN because shadowsssssss and forum said so.

Ruau just posted 5 min VDs without one single nin in pt, and out of all my VD winning pt only 2 pt had NIN in it, rest had 0 nin and they worked fine. so it gets annoying that people insist their way is the best way because in reality everything works fine.

from my expeience tripple is No.1 reason why a pt wipe, drain move + people didnt cast on animation is next. stun + nobody pull hate away happens less often than the other 2.


it is not according to parses. I havent seen one single aeonic NIN broke 20k dps in vd without geo yet. they probably need empyrean katana to compete.

my lsmate used nin cor brd when it came out, it was 9 min runs. I changed to empyrean dds and its 5-7 min run since then.

play nin if you want, nobody said you cant. but I think people push it to far by exaggerating things.

Don't compare an organized group to a pick up group. It's not a surprise pugs will opt for ease of difficulty. Every month Rua posts a setup and EVERYONE copies it to the exclusion of everything else. And everyone complains about variety. Every. Dog. Has. His. Day.

Im aware jobs in ffxi are different. as stated before, I have no problem kicking skilled empyrean DD in pt for a nin, if nin also has empyreans.

if your 7 > 3 is build on the basis of losing 5k dps and make entire fight 2 min longer thus more risk to wipe, then it just offsets the advantage of 7 shadows imo.

imo if people prefer lesser geared DD with monthly advantage over better geared dd that overcome their innate disadvantage with gears and skills, then its entirely wrong. But anyways.

That's why there's 31 flavors of ice cream.

That's a good way of putting it. So people need to find a good solution to each of them in that order.

1.) Triple Reversal
a.) Kill adds - slow, can lead to danger especially on second pop.
b.) Super tank - requires 2-3 characters devoted to it for holding.
c.) Kiting - very risky, not worth trying the longer the fight runs.

2.) Endeath
a.) Irrelevant if killing adds.
b.) /NIN or NIN shadows and proper timing
c.) Puppet tanking boss - immune to endeath

3.) Stun
a.) Irrelevant if killing adds
b.) 5 shadows to avoid
c.) Pet tanking boss won't matter.

Clearly the solution is to delete all jobs except PUP. And COR gets a pass for its buffs, I guess.

he meant 2 pup DD.

See this is where you're showing that you're out of touch with what PUGs in general really want and care about, which is kind of funny actually. Your bubble is all about min-maxing for a 2 minute advantage with a niche group of known skilled players. Which is great and all, but you're ignoring how makeshift most shout groups are. PUGs don't have that luxury normally, and aren't about to shout for some hypothetical insane player who might have all of the above boxes checked. Would be nice if they did, but they don't think like you do. Your average PUG just wants to win, with as little variance from the "easiest method" as possible. You're joining complete strangers, the main thing you care about is winning first. It might not be "5MIN OMG BEST DD SETUP" wins, but they DO NOT CARE. You care. Because 1-2 consistent losses = party will disband. You're just speaking from a different perspective and thinking people will change their mind based on your logic. It's still "how can i get this done with 5 other complete randoms and not lose". Not "Hey, how can we clear this as fast and effectively as possible, eliminating twenty seconds here and there, while playing the most funnest jobs we've all worked hard to build up". Two different mindsets here.

You actually think your normal PUG cares about a 2 minute. You think they care about 5k less dps. They.Don't.

That's exactly why the videos are nothing but an irritation and a hindrance.

Kiting is (mostly) agreed upon as the worst possible method. And people are still doing it. and failing. because the stupid *** video said to do it.

Rua enjoys making videos. You can't convince people of basic game mechanics. The casual player enjoys seeing an easy, workable strategy (not always best strategy) because it removes his own responsibility to think of a working strategy.

The truth is, A-N-Y combination of jobs will work. This month is not an exception. Last month you had people shouting for COR and BRD and THF to do Aeolian Edge. It's seriously not complicated. But people will do what they feel is "easiest", and others will do what they feel is "best". Neither group should give a damn what the other desires.

It's not even a "Rua" problem. People SMN burn now because its braindead easy and they don't have to think about game mechanics. Whether the video was posted or not, someone would pop in the thread and say HEY GUYS HERE'S THE BEST STRATEGY I FOUND and everyone would follow it

For the masses, there is a big difference between;

Hey guys, this strat worked

and

Derp here's the video

You could literally post right now that if you walk into ambuscade VD with 6 dragoons and automatically win, you would still get people going the video says kite.