Ninja Melding, Stat Priority, and Consumables — Endwalker 6.55

Ninja follows a common stat priority throughout general play:

1. Weapon Damage;
2. Dexterity;
3. Critical Hit;
4. Determination;
5. Direct Hit;
6. Skill Speed.

Weapon Damage is our highest priority stat. This is only found on weapons and is entirely based on the item level of the weapon. In turn, this means that we will use the highest item level weapon available to us.

Dexterity is our next highest priority stat. This stat is found on every single piece of Scouting and Aiming gear, including our weapons. Just like Weapon Damage, this scales entirely with item level, so this pushes us to use the highest item level gear possible in almost every scenario.

Critical Hit is our next highest priority stat. This is due to it both increasing our Critical Hit Chance, in addition to our Critical Hit Bonus Damage percentage. The fact that it increases both of these with one stat means it will be our highest priority substat on every piece, only below Weapon Damage and Dexterity.

Determination is our next stat. All this does is give us a percentage increase to all damage and healing. This scales linearly and is going to be our second in priority because of the stat tiering being more favorable than Direct Hit.

Direct Hit will be the next stat in our priority. This stat does not increase the bonus from a Direct Hit. Instead, it increases the chance of it being a Direct Hit, which is why it is below Critical Hit and Determination in priority.

Skill Speed is our last stat, and it is by far the lowest priority. This stat lowers our global cooldown as we get more of it, in addition to giving a slight increase to DoTs. The biggest reason for this being our lowest priority is that it does not affect our Ninjutsus because they have a set cooldown time to them, which is not modified by this stat. On top of that, a lot of our damage is also in our abilities not on the global cooldown, which Skill Speed does not affect. Sometimes, we will have some Skill Speed to get us extra skills inside fight phases, but that is entirely dependent on the fight itself.

The best food available for Ninja is Pumpkin Potage. This food provides a flat increase to Critical Hit and Determination stats for a minimum of 30 minutes per food used.

The best potions for Ninjas are Grade 6 Tincture of Dexterity. These potions provide a flat increase to our Dexterity for 30 seconds, with the high-quality versions having a cooldown of 270 seconds, or 4.5 minutes. These will be prioritized to get the most uses in an encounter during our biggest burst windows.