Ninja is one of XIV’s more nuanced jobs, and can feel a bit like the odd one out. Unlike the other starting classes, you have to pick up its prerequisite as a quest. And it requires quite a lot of finesse to play at higher levels. If you’re already playing Ninja and you want to know where Assassinate Ready fits into your rotation, keep reading!
How Can I Become A Ninja?
Ninja is the job the Rogue class turns into at level thirty. If you’re currently thinking you didn’t see the option to become a Rogue at the character creation screen, that’s because you didn’t! It was added in later on. If you want to walk this particular path you’ll have to head to Limsa Lominsa’s Lower Decks and pick up the quest from Lonwoerd, as long as you’ve reached at least level ten on another combat job. Rogue wasn’t present in XIV until the release of patch 2.4, which is why you have to jump through a few extra hoops to get it.
Should I Play Ninja?
Ninja received a significant rework with the release of patch 5.1. Long story short, it made the job a bit easier to play, so it’s not as convoluted as it was originally. It’s a very technical role to play, requiring a deep understanding of the rotation and its timing to succeed. In inexperienced hands, Ninja doesn’t shine at all. It hasn’t seen much in the way of changes since then. But in all honesty, XIV is quite well balanced. So if this is the job you want to play at endgame then you can pull it off. Bear in mind that this is a Final Fantasy game. And as such, we’re definitely dealing with more fantastical Ninjas than the initial Rogue storyline might suggest. You’ll be using mystical abilities just as much as stealth and subterfuge. You might need to get in some extra practice to excel as a Ninja, but that’s no big deal. Once you get it right, it’s extremely satisfying. It’s all worth it to live out your Naruto: Shippuden fantasy.
Is Assassinate/Assassinate Ready Important?
Yes, you’ll use Dream Within A Dream (which applies the Assassinate Ready buff) and consume the following buff to perform Assassinate as part of your standard rotation. Both Dream Within A Dream and Assassinate are oGCD skills, which means they don’t share a cooldown with the bulk of your abilities. These skills can be “weaved”, or cast in between your standard rotation. At level 18, you’ll learn the ability “Trick Attack”. Trick Attack is quite a vital part of your rotation, although it might not seem totally clear why that is at first. It deals an attack with 350 potency (or 500 potency if executed at the enemy’s rear). It also applies a debuff to the target, which increases their damage taken by 5% for fifteen seconds. This fifteen second window is where a massive chunk of your DPS will come from. The idea is to cram as many of your heavy hitting attacks into this Trick Attack debuff as possible. Despite the changes, Ninja is still quite an involved job to learn. And you absolutely won’t get the most out of it without doing some reading beforehand. I’d recommend checking out this guide(Google Doc link) for a more comprehensive look at the Ninja skill set.
