This is a thread designed to provide information on all things Shinobi tanking related. There are good resources out there which every one should avail themselves of. @Stormwolf has provided a very good thread about shinobi. @Cathexis has provided, well a lot, really read his thread and enjoy his hard work and knowledge. This is a work in progress but it will help lay down some foundation to build up future Shinobi Knights.
Before we begin, if you are looking for a dps build, please understand this is not the goal of a Shinobi Knight. When Tanking the damage you do is to draw the emnity of your enemies. Those damage numbers will not be awfully high, but don’t worry sword has a built in attribute that multiplies the hate production of that damage.
What you need as a Shinobi Knight:
A plan. What is your Goal, PvE or PvP? Full tank or off?
Decision on Peltasta, if you will Full tank, then take it. This one circle provides the only active taunt and an evasion buff of 18% when you activate guardian via attribute.
Level appropriate gear and leveled attributes. Whether quested or market, get your proper tiers gear. Trying to tank in lower level gear is a mistake. Not only does this cut into the minimal dps you will do it provides durability headaches and defensive problems.
An understanding of skill synergy WITH Shinobi and value. One example is Thrust, clones can use it so it synergizes, but it does not add much value as a tanking tool as there are better options for your rotation and those points can go elsewhere, like more points into pain barrier/ gunho/ concentrate.
An understanding of other classes skills, most important being clerics, but also the mechanics of archers and wiz as well as other sword builds.
Positional Awareness. Movement is one of the key aspects of damage mitigation, however you must always keep your position relative to your party in mind. Turning a boss towards your healer as it executes a devastating frontal attack could be deadly.
Multiple weapons and a shield, Again gear is very important and having the right tool at the righf time separates mediocre from elite.
Comfort with weapon swap. Tanking is not standing and holding C. Tanking is one of the most active and dynamic roles in the game. Swap is going to be used and timed.
Pots, they can save you keep lower ones but some bigger ones in the event of emergency.
WHY SHINOBI? A KNIGHTS TALE.
Why pick what seems to be an oxymoron of bad mashup comedy?
Synergy of course. The archetyple stealth assasin is just the shallow top layer of the onion that is Shinobi, the Onion Knight that is. Alone Shinobi has some viable tanking abilities.
Moktun avoid and bind/damage aoe, kunai for an aoe range ability with overheat and short cd. Mijin and Katon for aoe and invis, one giving an active skill invis (Katon). All good dps skills in their own right, but the hidden layers reveal that they are even better for hate genration, or in the case of katon hate shedding when needed.
Bunshin and Mijin AOE damage and you:
These two skills allow for high con and dex builds to put out better damage numbers independant of str investment for mijin and considerably less dependant on str for Bunshin. That is not to say a 0 str build will be best but a full str build is not needed to put out respectable numbers for a tank.
The function is simple for Mijin, it does aoe damage and you take damage, so basically a Nuke class skill that uses HP instead of MP, the cost is high and at 6khp for a lvl 2 you will not be doing much with this skill, unless you have a Ton of HP… Well Shinobi Knight has tons of HP so using this to open or close should not be an issue, note that since your screen will warn you based off %of HP if your screen is flashing red and you have the health icon over your head it might be a bad idea to use, or a really great idea if you can end the fight with a sliver of HP left so basically make sure you watch your HP when you use it. With provoke this basically cements hate on its own useful to keep those Wiz and Archers who open with burst from stripping the mobs off you.
Now we Look at Bunshin. This has a dual function, DPS and Hate generation. This skill allows Shinobi Knight to step out of tank mode and dish out damage, if you care to you can carry equipment to augment your play role, a DPS set and a Tank set, costly but #endgamegoals. If for what ever reason you are called upon to lay down your shield and pick up your weapon then you will not be constanly hitting like a wet noodle.
You will have the stamina and HP to use bunshin and stay alive all the while dishing out damage, This can be in burst mode, more on this later, or consistently (DPS) via active dodging of damage via movement while keeping the full effect of bunshin to dps without worry that one shot will bury you 6 feet under. Even taking increased damage compared to no/lowcon DPS focused sword you will still have survivabilty because you will have almost double or more the HP they do.
Now for burst mode you can safe zone and not worry about it overly much. Burst mode works either to open, throughout the fight, or close, but is harder to during the fight because you need some setup and a bit of communication with healer. Like Mijin you Open with a full bunshin skill rotation of skills then utilize stamina depletion methods to get rid of your clones (such as sprint or Double Weapon Assault). You can even enter the fight with however much stamina you feel you will need to complete your burst rotation, take into account that bunshin depletes stamina slower than sprint.
There is also the PvP side of Shinobi, which I will leave to others to go in depth on, however I will mention that with the right build you will have a very useful PvP kit.
more ot come
