The Ifrit server will be pleased and relieved to know that Frohike will no longer be leveling Ninja.
I sold quite a bit of random 'extra' Ninja gear I'd picked up a long time ago, odd stuff that added Attack rather than Evasion or Agility (see irony below), and dusted off my old standard set that was sitting in Bastok since my last leveling session to 36... back in March. In hindsight, I wish I had just gone all the way and finished it then. I was rusty. Actually 'rusty' would imply a point in time where my Ninja skills were decent. There never was such a time, so I'll have to settle for 'crappier than usual.'
My gear wasn't bad, but I wasn't sure what food to use. I glanced at an Alla guide, which recommended meat, so I grabbed a stack of Meat Mithkabobs and put up my flag. What I didn't know was that the guide assumed all slots were completely up to snuff and the player wouldn't be overcamping IT+... yeah, I should have brought some sushi.
I got 2 invites within seconds of putting up my flag and immediately hated all of you Ninjas (not with a true hatred, but an envious one). Turns out we had another Ninja in the party, so I was being brought along as... insurance? Not sure. I certainly wasn't told I was being invited as a damage dealer.
I was slow as hell. Had to mule in a stack of tools I'd forgotten. When I ran to Signet I realized I'd forgotten my Empress Band. By the time I got out to the fields, the party had zoned to CN, and I felt like a dumb old codger. Fortunately for me, someone disconnected, so they had to wait anyway.
I was fortunate this other Ninja was in the party. This is how bad I was: the other Ninja had -Enmity merits... and still ended up tanking every fight. Part of the problem was damage. The other NIN had decided to compensate for the -Enmity by wearing some very nice +Atk gear. The other problem was that the mages were debuffing the mob before I had a chance to land any of my hate-inducing Ninjutsu (Paralyze, Slow, Blind, Poison). The other NIN would land Blind and that would be the end of Ninjustsu for the fight basically. So all I had was my crappy damage and Provoke.
I felt utterly worthless to that party, and that's just such an aweful feeling, even if you don't like the job.
Crawler's Nest was much too crowded. After a few Worker Crawler kills and lots of down time between pulls, we headed out to Gustav tunnel where I think we were a tad out-leveled by the mobs. Lots of misses reduced my hate-management to Provoke. Yeah, I hit rock bottom at that point. What good was all this expensive EVA gear when the mob never turned my way? And meat? Equally useless.
But the party went smoothly for the most part, aside from the puller's death which was basically his own damn fault. Note to pullers: there's time between chain 2 and 3 to find another mob and pull it. You don't have to bring one to camp as soon as we've killed chain 2... especially when such haste usually makes you link a mob for extra fun. Oh and there are /recast timers on Provoke. If you do something dumb and no one's Provoke timer is up, you'll be adding to your dirt collection. Don't whine.
We were getting up to chain 4 which wasn't bad considering there was no skillchain, so we steadily made progress and disbanded after about 3 hours of partying, with me pretty deeply into level 37. I ate my Utsusemi:Ni scroll as soon as I leveled and had fun with that, although it was unnecessary due to the aforementioned problems.
Overall, I wasn't proud of my performance, especially since I've seen good Ninjas in action. My last comment to the party was "I'm sorry I sucked," to which the other Ninja graciously replied: "You did great! Shush."
I'll be selling all of my Ninja equipment to more deserving players tonight, and thinking about what next steps to take for my Warrior equipment.
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6 comments:
Congratulations on wrapping up NIN!
If theres one thing you should never do, it's stop leveling a sub ONE level before you have it where you need it :P You've just experienced first-hand why not to do that, ahaha.
Personally, I'd have grabbed some Dorado Sushi. That adds a bit of Enmity, and some accuracy, which really helps for your hate keeping, though, not much you can do now you're 37 and done with it.
Consider yourself lucky to be able to sell your Emp. Pin. I have one, but it's off the Empress variety, and I do plan to do stuff with my NIN, so I couldn't sell it even if it wasn't rare/ex.
Hehe. I am in the process of leveling my stupid NIN to 37 for a sub for COR and WHM. Then off to level RNG for a sub for COR. Luckily I'm in a 5 person static made of a SAM/WAR, WAR/MNK, NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, and WHM/BLM. So we just pick up a 6th. I don't see how NIN can solo tank before 37. DUo tanking seems to do well, since as a single NIN, my shadows are down very fast.
Thank goodness you're finished with it though. And don't worry, at least you play a melee job. Imagine me, the WHM, who tries to avoid getting hit at all costs and REDUCING my hate, trying to be the tank. There must be a reason my PLD is level 6.
Congrats! I would have recommended taking it to 40, just because of how useful it is in a bunch of BCNM40s, not to mention a couple of the CoP Missions, but I'm not one to talk, since I'm leveling my NIN on exp scrolls. :-)
I just don't see myself BCNMing with much regularity and, like you said, if I want to level NIN further I can do the EXP scroll thing.
Besides, even if I had taken it to 40, I still would have needed to sell the gear... essentially making it useless until I camped up a pin and bought the additional Ni scrolls. Whichever way I look at it, the job is just a gil sink for me at this point, so I'm killing it for now.
Oh and BTW, the likelihood of me doing CoP is next to nil considering my time windows and lack of a static.
Aw, never say never! It took me a year from when I completed CoP 2-3 to actually do CoP 2-5, and even with a static, it's really been slow going since we did 2-5 (7 months, and we're still on 5-3). I know people who move through a lot faster with pickup parties, but I suppose that only works for the more desirable jobs.
Ninja does really seem to be a gil sink, which is part of the reason why I refuse to level it with parties. I soloed to 20, with some help in through the teens, and I've taken it from 20 to 24 just on scrolls. If I really get serious about getting it to 37 as a sub for my PLD, I'll probably do it with my NPC, since the levels are getting a little long for scrolls.
I guess I shouldn't completely discount the possibility; it's just a ways off.
My plan for the coming months is to reach level 75, get Sky access in case higher-level parties want to EXP there, bring another craft up to 60 to boost my gil-making options, and continue with fishing.
Once the 75, Sky, and craft are established, I'll probably look into the CoP for the sake of completeness.
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