Starting NinjaFollow

Hello all

I have recently came back to ffxi after a long break, with a new account, i am gonna be tank for my party of 3/4 friends, my question is, that is ninja a viable option for my first advanced class? will i be able to afford the upkeep without having a high lvl to farm with? What would you guys do in a similar situation?

Thanks in advance for replies

Nio

It would be best to work on subs for NIN before actually taking NIN to 90. Doing so should help you pay for consumables that NIN needs in order to tank.

If I were to start a NIN from a new account, I'd do it this way:
1. WAR 1=>18 (for access to sub job)
2. MNK 1=>18 (as a sub to WAR)
3. WAR 18=>30 (for access to adv job)
4. DNC 1=>49 (excellent sub for all melee classes that solo)
5. NIN 1=>Cap

My costs for NIN is about 1 stack of Shihei toolbags every other week (100k on my server), a couple stacks of various other tools per week (lets say 30k or so) and food. I can pay for all of it with the many NPCable items I get from Abyssea and still have tons of gil left over for other stuff.

I just created an account to respond in detail to your question because I'm waiting on the servers to come back up. I have played since PC release with Ninja being my first love, I quit for a few years during college (coming back for short stints) and am back and play on a daily basis almost entirely on ninja.

Drawbacks:
- It is expensive. If you play almost any other job you will be limited to shihei and food. Ninja burns through shihei like a mofo (10 hours a day, I go through maybe 2 stacks of toolbags a week). Since we have a rather low attack/str - getting premium food like red curry buns and squid sushi +1 (or sole for jin) is highly recommended. Then you have the all-purpose tools which I'd say I go through maybe 100-150k/week.
- It's not monk (in terms of Abyssea). If you don't either laugh or understand what I'm saying then just ignore the comment.
- There are a few jobs in FFXI that you can halfass and get away with it like Whm, Blm, Brd, War&Thf (kinda). Ninja is not one of those jobs. In order to be taken seriously as a Ninja you need several sets of gear and (arguably) a Kannagi.

Advantages:
- Soloable. You said you will have several friends, but the amount of sh*t you can randomly do is fricken amazing. As a Nin/dnc you can, technically, solo almost any seal you want. Maybe not in the most efficient way but it's there.
- Damage and survivability. Long story short, your damage output in abyssea is really difficult to be outdone.
- Always useful. Ninja has gone through its ups and down no doubt. It was really fricken amazing for awhile there until Paladin got a boost, but there were always things you wanted a Ninja for. Regardless of what SE decides to do, there will always be a reason to have a Ninja.
- I'd say 90% of my current gear is either rare/ex or very cheap. The only expensive pieces I use are situational and probably add very little to my total damage output.

tl;dr summation: I'd recommend you do one of the halfass jobs first that you can make cash on (Thf, Blm). From here you can fund Nin through 90 (or just PL it to 90 and have it fund itself). The game is a lot more forgiving than it was even a year ago, there really shouldn't be a problem with you taking it up immediately - even if doing a halfass job first might be a smarter move.

We're going to have to disagree there. Admittedly the yellow triggers are pretty expensive - the amount of work it requires (again) comparing it to some of these other jobs is quite limited. Although it might be more expensive than war/thf to do the bare minimum and still be useful, I'd still put it with them. I just looked it up on my new server (shiva) and to get all the necessary spells that you can't quest you're looking at 1.2-1.4. I consider gil a different entity than in-game work - for some people making 1.5 might be a problem but for others it's only a couple of days. In fact, you could probably level blm to 90 with only a few nuking spells in abyssea then use the cruor for your spells. (This isn't entirely recommended since you'll want cruor for brews later on, but it is a backup plan).