Ninja. The most expensive job and I'm only level 10...Follow

Holy Christ this job is a pain in the ***.

Wintskitty got it unlocked and leveled rather quickly to 10 (Love my Empress Band). Then I thought, well I should go get my scrolls, but first I'll need fame! So I went and farmed up 28 yag necklaces and ran over to Migho. Traded those and thought, well that took forever. I'll just buy another 2 loads and call it good. Price of 56 yag necklaces: 56,000g. Wonderful.

After turning those in I headed to Jueno to check my rice ball prices, 162g. ****. Off to Bastok for the zinc ore quest. I might also mention that after having played a WHM for all these years, I was definately spoiled. Paying for teleports is rough. At Bastok I bought a TON of zinc ores. More than I'd like to imagine. I believe I purchased somewhere in the neighborhood of 50, at 2000g each, so there's 100,000g gone.

(I should stop to say, if you know me at all you know I'm always broke. My small stash of 300k that I was saving up for an Empy pin is dwindling rapidly).

Head back to Jeuno, rice balls are 155g. Sweet! Off to Norg. Hop the airship, ride the choco, sneak through SSG. Awsome, got the first two quests that involve rusty armor. Go to check Rusty Leggings, 1k each. I bought 10, so 10,000g gone. Got my first scroll! Next, check the Rusty Subs, 8k each . Ouch, buy 10, 80,000g gone. Second scroll obtained. I'm on a ROLL!. Off to check with the Hojo lady (the one that wants the opopo brew). Crap, she won't give me the quest. Oh well, I'll do the Jubaku one. Check the price of a damp scroll...one in stock, 50,000g. /sigh.

Off to sandy and I have my scroll. Back to Norg, STILL CAN'T GET THE GODDAMN QUEST FOR UTSU OR HOJO. Fawk. (Most of you are saying, why don't you do Tonko now? That is a great question, one I ask my self repeatedly now). Instead of doing anything intelligent, I run back to Bastok, buy 24 (48,000g) more zinc's and head back to Jueno. Rice balls are now 152g, this had better freaking work.

Off to Norg, and success! Both quests flagged. Got Utsu with no trouble, however I checked every damn point in the jungle and couldn't find the ??? anywhere. Hoping to find it sometime soon but for now I'm going back to level NIN.

Some thoughts about all this mess:

I firmly believe if you do the yag quest and the zinc quest, maybe 10 turn ins for both, it should raise your fame enough to start lowest level scroll quests and that by completing these, you will raise your fame enough to get the highest level quests. Rice ball price can be as high as 160g and you can still get the lowest scroll quests. Example: do Dokumori and Kurayami first (the rusty quests). Then do Tonko and Jubaku. Finally do Hojo and Utsu. I think the scroll quests are worth more "fame points" than the zinc or yag necklace quests. I also think that the zinc quest is worth more "fame points" than the yag necklace quest.

So as a final recap, if you want to go from zero fame to having all NIN scrolls in one afternoon, be prepared to spend around 350,000 for it. My poor *** will be in Gustaberg, hunting that wiley lizard that owes me a pair of shoes.

wint if you need a little spending money just lemme know.

Wint, best thing to do is take a stack of pickaxes and go mining in Zerhun. Zinc ore drops like mad in there. And yes, that quest is worth more then the Yag quest. If ya need any help with the Emperor, lemme know.

Heh. Well, I'm sure you and I could duo the Emperor. Lemme know if ya want help.

Yeah the more I think about it I remember doing that on Wintaru. I haven't done any gobbie bags for Wintskitty yet, and she's on the magicite missions so no airship access yet. Hopefully I can get the magicite done this weekend.

Some cost info from a post I made back when I was nin-66. These are just recuring costs. Gear and spell-scroll costs are pretty much the same for any job.

I've been mostly successful avoiding thinking about it, but curiousity got the better of me tonight. Ninja costs for most recent 17k xp:

2k tsurara (hq2, 10k AH)
5k sairu-ran (hq2, 10k AH)
40k food
20k shihei (hq2, 60k AH)
100k kaginawa (hq2, 160k AH)

So, that's 167k for 17k xp at 65: or roughly 10k gil per 1k xp if you can make all your own tools (2nd tier HQ -- less if you can HQ3, a lot more if you can't HQ at all). Or, if you're buying from AH, that's ~16k per 1k xp. I've got some of 66 and all of [67,75] remaining:

20k 66 + 325.5k [67,75] = 345.5k xp to go
@10k gil per 1k xp on average
~=3.5m gil to level ninja from 66->75 (~6m gil for AH tools)

-=-=-=-=-

BTW, I revised my playstyle wrt. cost after doing this little analysis and got my average cost down from 10:1 gil:XP to around 5:1. This still assumes you can HQ2 all your own tools. Your costs will double if you buy from AH.

Oh, uh, some more info for you on ninjutsu: until you have the :ni spells, you probably won't use much of anything other than utsusemi. The :ichi spells all take far too long to cast to be used during a fight. They're mostly just for fun, not for use. I did all my :ichi quests long before I raised up NIN because I thought I'd need them or at least try them when leveling NIN. Turns out utusemi:ichi, tonko:ichi, and hyoton:ichi are the only :ichi I ever needed.

Before 37, you won't be solo-tank and you won't be using any ninjutsu other than utsusemi in a fight. You won't experience any high cost issues until you start using Hojo or Jubaku, and there's really no good reason to ever use Jubaku unless you're solo. It's damn rare to find a party where at least one mage doesn't automatically open with paralyze.

If NIN costs pre-40 scare you, I'd advise you to play war instead of nin. You get the same fun "dual-wielding DD job" part of it without the cost. You won't be able to blink tank until 74, though.

Hey Wint I need to do magicite too so if you want someone to tag along with ya just send me a /tell ^.^

Szandor let him borrow his =P.

Heheheh. Well, crap. Thanks for letting the cat out of the bag, folks. Now I can expect tons of /tells saying "Hey! Can I borrow it when what's-his-name is done?"

Reason why I let what's-his-name borrow it is cause:
#1 I trust him enough to not "misplace" it,
#2 he could use it for nin (see our bcnm 30 thread), and
#3 he knows I'd have no reservations turning him into a bookend should he misplace it. ;-P

Edit: Wintaru's his name. D'oh. XD

Edited, Aug 19th 2006 at 11:50pm EDT by szandorr

It's ok, half the world is already after me.

hmmm will... the cost of lvling nin bugs me so i lvled war to 75 instead >.>

but anyway i think you could have saved alot of gils if you farmed these quest items for a day or 2 , for me i bought both scrolls long time ago , gat lucky with AH and gat them both for 20k total :3 ( tanko was 100k , utsi was +200k ) but anyway guess both would cost you less if you just bought them .... i guess.
and btw the tonberry hate quest helps ALOT if you are @ ZM4 or you just killed a tonberry or 2 ( or 7234687203508423508423054 like me......) you can raise your fame ALOT ( gat both utsi and tonko quest by doing it + 30 neck + 30 Zinc )

lvling to 37 wasnt that bad... utsi most of the the time and stats ninjetsu depend on the pt:
normal pt: para
good pt: para+ blind
when i'm high!!!: para+blind+poison.

need to get my 37-40ish soon.

and you can make money of nin... pcc BC is good ( want my pcc!!! ) if you are lucky anyway >.>;

GL and hope to pt with "your nin 75" when that time come :D
/cheer