Ninja DPS Rotation, Openers, and Abilities — Endwalker 6.4
On this page, you will learn how to optimise your opener and rotation in both single-target and multi-target situations. We also cover the use of your cooldowns, to ensure you can achieve the best use of them every time as a Ninja DPS in Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (Patch 6.4).
Rotation Overview
Ninjas rotation only has two parts to it, the burst phase and the builder phase. This job is heavily focused on getting as much damage as possible inside our burst phase, and then just setting up to get the most into our next burst phase.
The burst phase consists of everything inside of our Trick Attack window.
In a full-uptime scenario, we want to aim to have 2 uses of
Raiton, 2 or 3
uses of
Bhavacakra, one use of
Dream Within a Dream, and one use of
Hyosho Ranryu. When we have
Ten Chi Jin available to use, we want
to put it into the soonest possible Trick Attack. This will happen every two minutes, and will
replace weaponskills in the relevant Trick Attacks. On these 2-minute windows, we will also aim
to have all of this happening inside the raid buff of
Mug.
Opener
Ninja's opener is all based around getting Mug up at the best time for the
entire party, thereby maximizing the gain of the buff, and pushing all our damage into that window,
which is naturally aligned with the rest of the party's buffs as well. This gives us the highest
damage opener in the entire game, and sets us up to ride that damage window throughout the rest of
the fight.
- At 11 seconds before pull, cast
Huton
- Use
Hide
- At 6 seconds before pull, start the mudras for
Suiton but do not cast this until 1 second before the pull
- At 1 second on the countdown, use
Suiton then immediately use
Kassatsu
Spinning Edge ->
Grade 6 Tincture of Dexterity
Gust Slash ->
Mug ->
Bunshin
Phantom Kamaitachi -> late weave
Trick Attack
Aeolian Edge ->
Dream Within a Dream
Hyosho Ranryu
Raiton ->
Ten Chi Jin
Fuma Shuriken ->
Raiton ->
Suiton ->
Meisui
Fleeting Raiju ->
Bhavacakra
Fleeting Raiju ->
Bhavacakra
Raiton
Fleeting Raiju
Single-Target Priority
For single target fights, we will have all our
Trick Attack windows be roughly the same as the one above,
with slight variation based on which part of your combo you are in at the
time, and whether its the 1 minute or 2 minute Trick Attack. Outside of this
Trick Attack window however, there is a very basic priority to follow to make
sure you are set up for success going into the next Trick Attack window.
Weaponskill Combo Finisher Usage
- If your
Huton buff is under 30 seconds, refresh it by using
Armor Crush.
- Use your
Fleeting Raiju or
Forked Raiju so you do not lose them.
- If you have more than 30 seconds left on your
Huton buff, use
Aeolian Edge as your combo ender instead.
Ninki Management
For Ninki, the big thing is that you will never want to
overcap it, and you want to always make sure you have the
possibility to use Bunshin on cooldown, even if
this ends up meaning less uses of
Bhavacakra in
your
Trick Attack window. This means your priority
for Ninki management will the following:
- Use
Bunshin as soon as it is off cooldown.
- If you are about to overcap Ninki and
Trick Attack is not up, use
Bhavacakra once.
- If
Trick Attack is up, use all your Ninki on
Bhavacakra.
Ninjutsu Usage
Because Ninjutsu has two charges, we are able to go into every
burst window with one full charge ready, and another one that will
become ready to use during the burst window. This is achieved by only
ever using 1 Suiton outside of
Trick Attack
and holding the other charges for Trick Attack. This means that you will use
one ninjutsu charge on Suiton outside of Trick Attack, and two charges inside of
Trick Attack.
- Use
Suiton to set up
Trick Attack when there is less than 20 seconds left on Trick Attack's cooldown.
- If
Trick Attack is up, use both your charges on
Raiton and your extra
Kassatsu on
Hyosho Ranryu.
Multi-Target Priority
Ninja no longer has a two-target rotation, and instead will start a full AoE rotation at three targets.
At this point we forego Trick Attack
and instead use more
Katon and
Doton.
This is also the point where we start to use our AoE weaponskills
instead of our single target ones.
Weaponskill Usage
At three targets or more, our AoE weaponskills start outdamaging our single target ones. Unless there is a single target that needs to die before the rest, we will use our AoE weaponskills instead of our single target ones from here on out.
Ninki Management
Our ninki will now be used for AoE as well.
This means using Hellfrog Medium instead of
Bhavacakra, but still using
Bunshin
as our top priority.
- Use
Bunshin as soon as it is off cooldown.
- Use ninki on
Hellfrog Medium.
Ninjutsu Usage
At this point, we start to forego Trick Attack
in favor of more
Doton and
Katon.
We may still sometimes use Trick Attack because a certain mob needs
to be prioritized, but this is rare and we would revert to our 2-target
priority in this case.
- Keep
Doton up as much as possible, assuming the enemies will stay in it for at least 12 seconds of the duration.
- Use
Goka Mekkyaku with
Kassatsu.
- Use
Katon if enemies die before full usage of another
Doton.
Changelog
- 27 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 6.4.
- 11 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 6.3
- 29 Aug. 2022: Updated for Patch 6.2
- 20 Apr. 2022: Updated for Patch 6.1
- 17 Nov. 2021: Guide added.
- 08 Apr. 2022: Updated Rotation for Endwalker
Guides from Other Classes
This guide was written by Sheenda Naweh, a long-term theorycrafter for Ninja. He has gotten multiple different rank 1 speed kills over the years, and consistently gets week 1 clear times for new releases of fights. You can watch him play all melees on his Twitch.
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