SAM/NIN?

I've taken a lot of information from people about leveling SAM, for EXPing and all the way through Endgame.
I've had a few people say that I should go /NIN for some things...as I'm still rather new(not quite four months old, yet), I haven't really much experience to base it off of. Can someone please give me the pros and cons of subbing /NIN as a SAM, who already seems to have a half-way decent blink tanking ability?

SAM/NIN Pros:
-Uhh...
-Hm...

SAM/NIN Cons:
-Waste of a sub job.
-Hasso/Seigan 1.5x casting speed and recast time on Utsusemi.
-Seigan+Third Eye fully meritted will give you a 25-second recast on Third Eye, and it absorbs more attacks than Utsusemi did in the first place.

See, that's what I thought, but some people insist on recommending that to me, and I just...don't know why.

i will go /dnc before i ever go /nin as sam

Well for some events you do need /NIN where no amount of Third Eye is gonna block mobs AoE abilities. Omega and Nyzul/Salvage come to mind.

From what I heard, most AOEs will wipe Utsusemi and damage you anyway, or at least wipe most of your shadows...I was planning on going MNK for Salvage, because they've got an inherent H2H...skill.

It's the aoes basically, yeah. Also people love to be attached to /nin, perhaps not unreasonably in the face of pickup mages if we're talking meripo.

You do lose potential offensive power through using it, but not as much as DRK or DRG would lose for instance.

In short, it's a compromise, giving you one extra layer of defense. You'll often be asked to sub it in areas where it is utterly unnecessary but it is still a useful sub to have around, definitely.

Meritting Third Eye would be very good if Store TP and Meditate weren't around which is a shame because Third Eye merits would be sexy!

Sam/nin makes you a monster of a tank if you know how to balance shadows and SE/TE. But you cannot cast ni with seigan or hasso up or it will make the recast time twice as long.

It's very effective for minimizing damage. In Nyzul and Salvage you really want to take the least amount of damage possible so that your mages do not have to stop to rest. The reason it's recommended for these circumstances (especially nyzul) is because as a sam you pretty much will be tanking. Even with your dmg potential hindered by /nin, the mobs will be looking your way. Having one of your 6 members dedicated to tanking is silly when you need to split your group up often times anyway to speed up exploration and kill rate of EP-T mobs. Tonight my Nyzul group faced a floor 80 boss with a whm pathos and won with ease. sam/nin x3, mnk/nin, whm/smn, rdm/whm. Between utsusemi, third eye and fanatics drinks we managed to take down hydra in less than 3 min and won with no deaths despite the fact that the mages could not heal us.

Outside of the events listed above, you'll be hard pressed to ever find a need to /nin to anything. In parties the idea is to kill as fast as possible and the mobs are tough enough that you'll want the buffs other subjobs such as /war (Berserk, double attack, atk bonus) and /drg (haste w/earring, jumps, acc & atk bonuses) provide. Likewise, other end game events do not call upon the sams and other DD's to tank so it's also a waste of time to /nin when you're only occasionally getting hit. SETE does more than enough mitigation of damage in those situations anyway as you generally only need to last 10-25 seconds while a tank recaptures hate.

Don't hate on /nin, just realize its uses are limited. If you've only been playing for 4 months I'm sure you have higher priorities than leveling nin to 37 and buying an expensive scroll. But it is good at what it does, minimize damage in no tank situations.

So, it's a situational job at best, then? I AM planning on doing endgame stuff eventually, and since NIN seems to be one of the...ugh, difficult jobs to solo to 20+, I might as well start, now.

Although Seigan + Thirdeye can often be more affective than Utsusemi, it means you have to sacrifice the +str, acc, and weapon delay from Hasso. This will affect your tp gain, and WS dmg as the +10 str at 75 helps a lot. In a merit situation the mob shouldn't stay alive long enough for the + casting time from Hasso/Seigan to effect you negatively.

One thing that bothers me is seeing DRG/NIN. The whole purpose of high and super jump is to erase enmity gained from high damage attacks and even if you did take severe damage from AOE having a mage sub would provide far more support and benefits than /NIN ever would give.

/NIN is situational and works best in no tank situations such as merit parties and whatnot, however, unless you have good reason to need shadows (ie: pulling/tanking) or dual wield (thf, blu, rng, war, etc.) I would recommend capitalizing on supporting the purpose of your main job instead of wasting your sub on a thin layer of unnecessary (read: situational) security.

Alright, that's what I needed to know. I was probably going to level NIN anyway, but I was going to avoid subbing it unless it's really...needed.

some sams dont realise they can just put on a oh ***macro and it kinda makes nin sub irrelevant anyways when it comes down to it, cuz lets face it. if a mob wants u dead, regardless of ur subjob u will prolly be dead.
XXXX Starts Casting thundaga III, nin sub really gon help? (didnt think so!)

though seigan third eye can be better utsu can be more reliable... to many times ive been sam and with SE/TE up i only get on anticipate and my recast is screwed >.< lol

You WILL need /nin sub as a DD, for even if it is situational, it can just mean difference between success and failure, and this is especially true for a lot of missions.

While some AoEs do either ignore or wipe shadows, a lot of deadly AoEs ARE absorbed by utsusemi. Check these two mission BCs for a hint :

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/The_Celestial_Nexus

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/One_to_be_Feared

In these instances if you go sam/war you're just gonna die very fast, and be useless.

when i make my nyzul pt's i specially look for SAMs and make them sub NIN. its really good on mp if the SAM isnt a retard.

Stupid post.

Who the hell merits Third Eye? -_-

SAM/NIN can be a fairly potent combination, not putting up Seigan and Hasso is a key point in using it. Using Third Eye to help get Utsusemi: Ichi up is an unbelievabley useful.

SAM are lucky in the sense that as /NIN, they get 3 forms of damage mitigation. Utsusemi: Ichi / Ni and Third Eye, and assuming they aren't completely stupid, it works very well.

As a few people have said, /NIN is highly recommendable for any DD, in Nyzul Isle, Zilart and COP missions it can prove insanely helpful. For EXP PT's, I doubt you'll ever /NIN (in fact, I'd hate you for it >.>).

In EXP PT's you should be looking at what works best for your healers, while still keeping up your damage. Seigan + Third Eye will (normally) cover your healers MP and /WAR or whatever your favourite SJ is will typically keep your damage up.

From experiences as RDM in single mage merit parties, I greatly dislike SAM on anything but /NIN unless there's a second healer in party. Heck, the same goes for all DDs. Most SAMs and /SAMs people tend to proclaim the goodness of Seigan and Third Eye, but end up eating Pecking Furry or Firespit right after WS--and still don't put up Third Eye half of the time (much less Seigan), then get beat up into deep orange HP.

Cure IV + III is 134MP. If I have to toss out that more than two fights in a row when fights are 30 seconds or less, either the puller better slow down or people will start to die. Usually, the puller choose to risk death. -_- If I have to drop two Cure IV's (176 MP) on the same person per fight vs. meripo target more than a few times, I start thinking how it would be cheaper to R1 (150 MP) the fool instead.

Nothing slows down exp/hour like a K.O. or six. (No MP should also be a legitimate excuse to stop and rest, but good luck convincing party one needs time to rest for MP on RDM. Much easier to claim you spilled a drink or have bathroom emergency.)

Give me a second healer (esp. a DNC who cures), or bring that /NIN, unless you actually use that Seigan and Third Eye effectively. ~_~

As far as thread topic goes, I agree with many of the above. /NIN is a must for certain situational things, the Shadows are just too useful. But i'll never go /NIN to a meripo. My Nyzul group did fine with me /WAR, but that depends on your group composition still.

Slightly off topic:I never use SAM to merit, as in my particular case my WAR is just far superior. But I HAVE tossed a few merits into Third Eye. Don't say it's stupid, because outside of a TP Burn/Meripo situation the chances are your main priority isn't always knocking out WSs as quickly as possible. It's not fully meritted yet, but i've noticed the difference those few seconds make already; so i'll pass on Meditate merits and go for Third Eye.

So true. Imo /nin is for SAMs who are considerate of healer's MP while in exp PT or something. However, if you have more than adequate healing magic or a tank that can actually hold hate, obviously other subjobs like /war will do more damage..

As a small addition to my last post <,<. I Say i'd never go Sam/Nin to a meripo, but I believe i'm swift enough with SETE to not give my healer a hard time ^^;

Like most people said /Nin is very situational to a few events. IE: Pickup Nyzul, Ein, missions w/e.

Other than that /war or /thf onry.

Also third eye merits are dumb.

In a nutshell, it's basically for endgame and meripo reasons.
If you never plan on doing either, then don't worry about it.
Besides that, almost every DD (and rare cases, mages) will need to have Ninja as a subjob.

My advice: Just get it over with. v.v

Buggeroff >:O lol. I told you why it can be useful. Refute my claim with relevant responses rather than just "lolThird Eye" ¬¬;

In normal parties, /nin will not be useful
In meripo's it can be useful because WHM does not have to heal and you can kill the mobs faster.

But in Nyzul Isle, Assault, CoP, Zilart, .... not only the shadows are useful, but also Sneak (Monomo) en Invisible (Tonko) because you don't have rely on your WHM or silent oils/prism powders (which are more expensive than ninja tools)

There are situations where Seigan + Third Eye will be better, and vice versa, but it's too useful not have it.
I go all the time as SAM/NIN in Nyzul Isle

Just go for it :)

Because for all intents and purposes 5/5 Med is going to serve you much better in the long run, and as someone stated earlier even a half-assed Ohshi setup is going to cover the few extra seconds that 3rd eye is down. Having a 4/5 or 5/5 Blade Bash really comes in handy in those situations also.

I got buggered ; ;

Oxymoron?

Yeah /nin is really good for nyzul.

Because store tp + mediate > 3rd eye merits?

Just depends on what you do with the job. If you solo or lowman a lot, especially if you are tanking, the Third Eye merits are probably better for you.

I have 5/5 STP, 3/5 Third Eye, and 2/5 Meditate on Darkmoose, and I often question whether I should be changing it to 5/5 Third Eye.

If all you do is merit on SAM, then go for 5/5 Meditate, but if you do a lot of stuff where you rely on Third Eye to save your bottom, that's probably the better investment.

Just like specialized gear, merits are your investment in yourself to help you do the things that you do better.

Back to the OP, SAM/NIN isn't bad at all, but it's situational, as is everything else. I typically prefer to /DNC for almost anything where you might see /NIN, including Nyzul. I have a very solid Evasion gear set, and my parry skill is getting up there, too. However, I will use SAM/NIN when it's a clear better option. However, for soloing or healerless lowmanning, /DNC kicks the ever-loving crap out of /NIN. Since that's what I do a lot of, that's how I roll.

You give me a (non-HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE, and know how to skillchain) SAM trio of SAM/DNC, SAM/NIN, and SAM/THF, and we can farm the crap out of just about anything that's not ridiculously hard. I was throwing down hard in Sea with just SAM/DNC and SAM/NIN farming HQ Chips, but we really could have used the extra SAM/THF for both damage/skillchains and hate movement.

It sure beats the boredom that normally consists of farming when you're running buck wild in there farming at a good clip running chain 5 everywhere.