Wiping Utsusemi

[Zerowin]

I would like to see Utsusemi go back to how it was before. With it not getting wiped with ever AOE in the game. What's the point of having shadows if they get ripped off of you faster then you can put them up?

[Damane]

I would like to see Utsusemi go back to how it was before. With it not getting wiped with ever AOE in the game. What's the point of having shadows if they get ripped off of you faster then you can put them up?

it was SE's answer to not haveing any answer on nin tanking. But who cares since there are no real "tanks" left!

[Zerowin]

Doesn't stop me from trying. Well I wonder what will they do with the tank Jobs?

[Draylo]

PLD is still one of the best for holding adds, so they have a use there. NIN is smelly though, should do something with it.

[Zerowin]

Well I'm sure there are a lot of people that have some ideas for the job, but I don't think SE will want to hear it.

[Damane]

PLD is still one of the best for holding adds, so they have a use there. NIN is smelly though, should do something with it.

at this point I still dont understand why SE doesnt give NIN utsusemi: san, some cheap high dmg ilvl 119 shurikens to throw and a potent throwing WS. hell just something to make the job "matter" a bit, but since we live in Final Monk Fantasy 11 atm every other melee is sitting in the same boat!

[Trumpy]

Theres a few things i tank on my ninja (usually abyssea stuff) but when i do i almost never even bother with shadows. but that is mostly due to having my whm mule with near infinite mps. I mostly dont bother with them because mobs tend to have at least one aoe move these days and even if they dont spam it they always decide to use it the second i get shadows up (and dont bother with using it when i dont bother using the shadows except here and there; it is almost like it detects utsusemi and has AI to cast aoe instantly).

I have foggy memory though, when they first changed it before wasnt it only aoe spells like stonega that would wipe and maybe a couple select aoe tp moves from monsters? now it is like any and everything that is aoe.

[Zerowin]

That's what we should get them to change to or back to. Maybe I'm being selfish but I would like to have more Magic Eva, or maybe only spells that do damage and spells like sleep don't do anything, but yea being selfish here.

[Zeargi]

Might be a dumb idea, but what about JPs? Perhaps like a 2% chance of AoEs not being wiped with an AoE effect. With the 20% cap, that wouldn't be too bad, and even maybe add items augment this effect.

[FrankReynolds]

They could at least make it so that when you are nin main, ws, aoe, spells etc. only remove one shadow instead of wiping them all. Then everyone wouldn't just /nin all the things.

[Rubicant82]

There needs to be some BALANCE in shadows.
If the WKR/Delve Bee can have shadows that are not wiped by AOE so should at least Ninja!

Utsi: San - Grants 6 (8 with Empy booties) None "whipible" shadows. Recast 5 min.

[Kensagaku]

Whipable, eh? I certainly wouldn't want my shadows whipped.

That aside, the bee doesn't have unwipeable shadows; its aura is literally a blink aura. When you cast a -ga spells the shadows do indeed get wiped; they simply come back due to the aura that's still in effect. Remove it with ice magic (ice-based AoEs work best) and boom, shadows will stop coming back. Besides, these are also blink shadows (albeit with an annoyingly high proc rate...) and can be bypassed with physical attacks and such, versus Utsusemi that absorbs said hits.

On topic with the OP's thoughts, I agree that NIN shadows could use a bit of a boost. I do believe not every AoE should wipe them, such as large physical attacks; I'm fine with magic, as it's pretty much the shotgun approach to hitting an area, and even with multiple illusions of yourself you're bound to get hit by that big AoE blast. Physical ones though should tie together a NIN's lore-based evasion (because that does so much on things that matter now...) and their shadows to mitigate how many get wiped, almost like your shadows (as well as you) "dodged" the attack. Compare, say, a Tojil tail swipe to a Firaga IV spell. One would be able to be avoided; dodge the tail swing, keep going. The other is an enormous explosion of fire that unless you have instant reflexes, you're looking crispy.

Forgive me if said tail swipe or even all physical attacks do indeed only take X shadows, I haven't played NIN in a while nor seen it used in just about as long. I was under the impression that there was a good deal of TP moves that still wipe shadows regardless of the fact that the attack should be absorbed. The section above was more about trying to illustrate my concept of how I think a ninja's shadows should endure against physical-type attacks, with magic being their weakness.

[FrankReynolds]

They could make San give a separate set of shadows that only block magic / aoe /ws damage and allow regular attacks to pass through. It would only have to be like 2 or 3 shadows.

[Zerowin]

I think I'd be fine with that as long as it stopped your normal shadows from being wiped, but single target magic would still hit Ni shadows.

[Dragomair]

Maybe Job points that lower Utsusemi cast/recast time? (With a separate cap from haste/fast cast)

[FrankReynolds]

Maybe Job points that lower Utsusemi cast/recast time? (With a separate cap from haste/fast cast)

They just added 10% cast time to job points.

[Einalem]

At least you don't have the real Blink.

Now for a statement with no bearing on game mechanics:
The reason AoEs are justifiable as a way of bypassing blink mechanics goes back to D&D.
the sources of 'shadows' made the probability of missing a target increase because you may not be targeting the right one.
AoEs don't care about hitting a specific target, they hit all in equal opportunity.

Back to Game statements:
While I like the flavor of AoEs not caring about the above, I wouldn't mind seeing AoEs bypass shadows without consuming them.

[Zerowin]

To me this doesn't make any since, Ninja's shadows are the PLD's shield and yet AOE's effect ninja the most out of the two. Even with physical aoe's taking two shadows it still take to many shadows, and there is multi hit moves that do a number on them as well. Lets not over look that some mobs attacks ignore shadows all together which is fine when its a very few number of them. We have this giant hole in our defense that every mob seems to know about as they spam everything they have. While I have no idea outside of some that where thought up already, maybe the shadows recast timer can be deceased.

[dasva]

It's been a long time but iirc the change wasn't completely negative. Might be hard to find update notes on it but wasn't it basically just like blink at the time?

[dasva]

To me this doesn't make any since, Ninja's shadows are the PLD's shield and yet AOE's effect ninja the most out of the two. Even with physical aoe's taking two shadows it still take to many shadows, and there is multi hit moves that do a number on them as well. Lets not over look that some mobs attacks ignore shadows all together which is fine when its a very few number of them. We have this giant hole in our defense that every mob seems to know about as they spam everything they have. While I have no idea outside of some that where thought up already, maybe the shadows recast timer can be deceased.

Isn't it only magical ws that actually ignore ws?

[Rpro]

It's been a long time but iirc the change wasn't completely negative. Might be hard to find update notes on it but wasn't it basically just like blink at the time?

Nah there was nothing positive about the change way back when. Strictly a nerf.

[Zerowin]

I think its about time that nerf was lifted.

[dasva]

Nah there was nothing positive about the change way back when. Strictly a nerf.

Could've sworn there was a slight upside. Like it used to be just like blink and all AoEs wiped and dealt dmg and had the same icon. But at the cost of losing multiple shadows especially on multihit attacks while blink still only loses one. But it has been 10 years so maybe I'm not remembering right. Found update notes but they didn't really describe what it was like before

[Selindrile]

IIRC, the "upside" was that casting utsusemi now raised enmity, something most ninjas were struggling with at the time, though shadows being hit removed enmity, it was less than was generated through the spells. But, that was it.

Defensively speaking, though, nerf all around.

[Grekumah]

There are no plans at the moment to make adjustments to Utsusemi.

By increasing ninjutsu skill, you can reduce the amount of shadows consumed by physical AoE attacks, so when you are ninja as your main job you can potentially evade a large amount of attacks.

Since there are quite a few enemies in Adoulin areas with magical AoE attacks, it’s hard to use Utsusemi, but this is a problem related to content balancing. With a lot of the current content such as Incursion, there are plenty of places where Utsusemi is advantageous.

We’ll be looking into NMs where Utsusemi can be useful.

[Jile]

There are no plans at the moment to make adjustments to Utsusemi.

By increasing ninjutsu skill, you can reduce the amount of shadows consumed by physical AoE attacks, so when you are ninja as your main job you can potentially evade a large amount of attacks.

Since there are quite a few enemies in Adoulin areas with magical AoE attacks, it’s hard to use Utsusemi, but this is a problem related to content balancing. With a lot of the current content such as Incursion, there are plenty of places where Utsusemi is advantageous.

We’ll be looking into NMs where Utsusemi can be useful.

Okay, no 'adjustment'..... how about just giving the NIN's access to the SAN spell that has been around forever or is it the plan to retain that as NM-Exclusive forever?

[Zerowin]

Even with max ninjustu skill mobs that use physical AoEs will most likely use it more then one so there goes that advantage that you speak of, and lets talk about mobs that have multi hit moves like the Craklaws, I've had them wipe my shadows in just two rounds. Tell me where is the balance when one of your tank jobs can't tank a good portion of NMs because they spam AoE magic, physical move btw is this the same balancing that's stopping the dev team from adding the Ni version of our spells? So what is it that would break ninja if we where given sneak 2
"Since there are quite a few enemies in Adoulin areas with magical AoE attacks, it’s hard to use Utsusemi, but this is a problem related to content balancing." I'm not just talking about Adoulin but all over the world, you have level10 mobs that use sleepga and there they go. I can understand you want to keep jobs balanced so they all can be played but when you can't Tank a mobs just because it uses AoE magic and you don't have any other way to defend yourself just seems crazy, but that's just me.

[Selindrile]

I'm still reeling over Utsusemi being useful in Incursion, all this time.... 130 Incursion so far, and I never knew!

>.>

[Zerowin]

If your planning on making Utsusemi useful against some Nm are you planning on something to give Ninja something else to defend ourselves with on all the other NMs?

[dasva]

Should also mention that on high level stuff there is almost no difference in shadows lost as a nin vs sub nin. This has always been the case except on easier stuff that could actually evasion tank. This is why back in the day you saw things like rdm/nin and drk/nin getting used as tanks

[Kuroganashi]

Should give us "LOCK STYLE" that won't go away with Daken

Many times us ninja die because nobody can heal us (Due to our Blinking ability) in other words.......... we got a SET for everything and we change armor every 3~6 seconds.................. depending on our STP and Utsesumi Set

Making it harder to get Heal'd by Mages (since their Targets come off us)

all I gotta say is Fix it Please >< so we can Stop dying from not getting heal'd

[dasva]

If it's such a problem that you are dying why not stop swapping ammo for ws for now?

[Jile]

Many times us ninja die because nobody can heal us (Due to our Blinking ability)

Respectfully, perhaps it's time to find a better WHM?

[Zerowin]

why would you change that slot? doesn't it wipe your tp to 0?

[dasva]

why would you change that slot? doesn't it wipe your tp to 0?

No it's ammo slot. It's changing the ranged slot that does it

[Ophannus]

Beig able to lockstyle for weapons ranged and ammo would help mages take advantage of lock style too. It would also let melee use weapons for vanity to cover their actual weapons(too bad it doesn't carry over when zoning)

[Kimble]

I've grown to simply macro in/out accessories. I take a hit to damage out, but then again, I never was dd-savvy anyway.