Can ninja tank in Final Fantasy XI?

I need to know if ninja can tank in Final Fantasy XI. That is very important information for me, because I want to play this game. My main choice would be ninja character. I cannot find anything related to that character and tanking. I would not choose any other character, because I really love ninjas. What do you think about this small problem? Have I made the right choice?

I think that you made the right choice. Ninja is very good character in Final Fantasy XI. I think that you will have many happy moments while you play with him. Tanking can be very hard for some classes and races, if you do not know what are you doing. It is my opinion that you will have hard times tanking with ninja in Final Fantasy XI. It is much better if you are going to tank a lot to select another character. However, if your mind is set, that stick to it. Have fun with him.

Tanking is the actual job role of a Ninja, that's all they really do. Just like a Paladin.

Ninja is byfar the best tank in this game. They absorb damage with utsusumi: ichi/ni and with good haste/evasion gear can almost always keep there blinks up. they also get alot of enmity gear and can make some crazy hate. the other nice thing about them is they do alot of damage unlike paladins.

This post is missing due to a database problem. Database recovery is on the way. Please do not edit this entry!

This post is missing due to a database problem. Database recovery is on the way. Please do not edit this entry!

ya ninja is one of the best tanks in the game pld is a tank too but ninja with shadows just owns so many things. its harder to tank as ninja cause u need focus and as u lvl the tools can be expensive.

Ninjas tank but they don't really...ok well they're a tank job but can't take direct hits as well as a paladin.

Yes, better than PLD in some cases.

ninja = best tank in game, especially if its name is turtle

Ninja tanks are very viable in a multitude of situations. Depening on what you're fighting and a couple other variable, ninjas are the best tank for the job sometimes. If you're fighting monsters with slow attack speed, ninja tank is the way to go. Anything that uses AoE or fast attack speeds are bad to have a ninja tank for, though.

Yea man, in my mind i think ninjas are one of the vest clsses

Yeah thats basically what ninjas do unless u have have supreme dps gear (but you still be out dmg by dark knights but whatever) at 37+ ninjas are the best tanks in the game

I'll give a brief outline of Ninja tanks, aswell as Paladin tanks since both are used in end-game activites, and both fulfill certain rolls, some being alot better at tanking one encounter over the other.

Ninjas tank using their two main spells - Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni. These create shadows which absorb a certain amount of hits, however they will not absorb AoE and you will take the damage. Ninja's are mainly good at tanking slow but strong hitting bosses which do not have any AoE or other ability which can destroy all the shadows in one go.

You must remember Ninjas are not only used for tanking, they are incredibly viable DDs(Damage Dealers), at low levels they are generally the best DD through there elemental wheel of ninja spells. This happens when you use one ninja spell, then follow it up with another which is the counterpart to the previous one, and continuously doing this. Once you get to the higher levels the majority of your damage comes from damage over time from your fast katanas.


Paladins now are incredibly good tanks in that they have alot of threat generation abilities, and also alot of cooldowns to spare which reduce the damage they take. Generally Paladins can tank everything, but in some fights they will have a much harder time than a Ninja, a fight which comes to mind is the CoP airship fight, where Ninja tanks are a godsend. Paladins generally are good and used for tanking mobs which rip apart shadows, but also very fast hitting mobs, since they will rip shadows quickly off a Ninja. Again Paladins don't just tank with threat generation abilities, but also by healing themself, and debuffing the monster with Flash, an ability which pretty much causes the monster to chain miss for a few seconds.