Ninja (Final Fantasy XI)



Ninjas appear in Final Fantasy XI as an advanced job available to players who have reached level 30 and completed the ninja flag quest. The quest itself is mostly just sneaking around, which suits well the class unlike a few other advanced job quests that do not seem to follow with the spirit of the job in question.

In Final Fantasy XI, ninjas are one of the two tank classes in the game. A tank is the person in a party that is supposed to make the enemy hate him the most so that the enemy attacks the tank at the exclusion of all others. Ninjas do this with low Vitality and Defense because they have good evasion, agility, and a few spells that allow them to create shadows. This is the most popular Ninja spell, called Utsusemi. It comes in Ichi and Ni formats, which is Japanese for one and two. The ichi form creates 3 shadows, and the ni version creates four. Originally intended as a damage-dealing class, the ninja job was hijacked into tanking by the players, due to their utsusemi-blinking and the ability to provoke enemy attacks by using Warrior as a subjob.

Ninjas also get other spells that allow them to blind, paralyze, and slow the enemy, as well as elemental attack spells and spells to make themselves invisible. All of these spells use powders or tools. They do not have an MP cost. Ninjas themselves have no MP at all, but they do benefit from Subjobs that give them MP, like Black Mage because of the raise in Intelligence.

Like in other titles, Ninjas have the ability to Dual Wield exclusively, making them a highly popular sub job in addition to their many other spells and ability.

Ninja Abilities
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Job Abilities

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Job Traits

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Ninjutsu List
The resistance down on an elemental ninjutsu is -30 despite the level of the ninjutsu. The resistance down lasts for 8/10/12 seconds (ichi/ni/san) {| border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center" width="100%"
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Combat Skill Ratings

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Magic Skill Ratings

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Ninjas in Final Fantasy XI
Though originally designed to be an enfeebling and direct damage job, Ninja has developed into one of the two major tanking jobs in Final Fantasy XI. Where a Paladin relies on damage reduction based on high vitality and defense, a Ninja's ability to tank relies almost entirely upon never getting hit. This form of tanking is often called Blink Tanking because it relies on Utsusemi, a ninjitsu form of the spell blink.

Strengths

 * Sought after for parties because they require little healing.
 * Capable of fulfilling multiple rolls as tank or direct damage.

Weaknesses

 * Very poor enmity creation, oftentimes making Ninjas reliant upon thieves at lower levels.
 * Low physical characteristics for tank making them prone to taking heavy damage, in many cases they are even capable of being one-hit killed by enemy weapon skills if they are hit at just the wrong moment.

Warrior
Warrior is used for most Ninjas in experience parties because of provoke more than any other reason. This is the most simple form of enmity management and is the primary ability of any tank in keeping hate. At later levels, Warrior is a good subjob for double attack, increasing the number of attacks the ninja gets as well as Berserk and war cry which add to the attack rating.

Black Mage
Black Mage is often used as a subjob for ninjas who are fulfilling another roll other than tank or high level damage dealing. Ninjitsu's strength is determined by intelligence so Black Mage is used as a subjob as the job that generates the highest total intelligence for the Ninja. Ninjitsu elemental spells are capable of doing significant damage in this setup.

Dark Knight
Dark Knight is used for tanking NMs such as Gods or Limbus kings. The ability to use stun and many other spells, including the job abilities Soul Eater and Last Resort makes it much easier for the ninja to hold hate.