2020/2021 Ninja Job Adjustment and Feedback

Ninja is currently far behind the curve when it comes to physical damage, magical damage, enhancing support, enfeebling support, current-game tanking, and current-game survivability. Put simply: With the exception of Migawari: Ichi, for everything Ninja can do, there is another job that can do it better while providing additional support. This means that the only time a Ninja is even considered for a situation is when their use of Migawari: Ichi makes content easier. These Migawari situations only come by two or three times a year. In addition, many of the bonuses obtained from Ninja's abilities, spells, and Ultimate weapons are considerably out of date with current gear statistics and enemy mechanics. A few months ago we had an update that allowed us to cast all Elemental: San spells without merits invested into them, while simultaneously indirectly reducing our ninjutsu damage output considerably. It goes without saying that Ninja is severely in need of a real update to lessen the gap between Ninja and every other job.

Here I present a list of adjustments to the Ninja job that would increase its utility while keeping it at a reasonably low position in terms of job utility rankings. Some of these are ideas I've collected from other players over time while browsing Ninja forums online, while others are adjustments I've come up with while playing Ninja myself. My intention is that even if all of the following adjustments are made, Ninja will still be one of the least desirable jobs in most setups, but will no longer be significantly behind every other job in the game.

Ability: Innin

• Adjustment: Adjust ability effect requirements
• Before: Required to stand behind enemy to gain ability bonuses.
• After: Positional requirement removed.
• Reason: It is nearly impossible to remain behind an enemy in most content with other players, making Innin largely useless. Additionally, trusts are unable to hold an enemy's attention after the Ninja uses one or two weapon skills, making Innin entirely useless when solo.

Item: Mochizuki Hatsuburi

• Adjustment: Swap augment effect with Mochizuki Kyahan
• Before: Enhances Yonin and Innin Effect
• After: Increases Ninjutsu Magic Accuracy and Magic Attack Bonus
• Reason: These were the original augments on this piece of gear before the Ninja update. The developers made the same mistake with Red Mage augments and corrected it for Red Mage. But they have not yet corrected it for Ninja.

Item: Mochizuki Kyahan

• Adjustment: Swap augment effect with Mochizuki Hatsuburi
• Before: Increases Ninjutsu Magic Accuracy and Magic Attack Bonus
• After: Enhances Yonin and Innin Effect
• Reason: These were the original augments on this piece of gear before the Ninja update. The developers made the same mistake with Red Mage augments and corrected it for Red Mage. But they have not yet corrected it for Ninja.

Item: Mochizuki Hakama

• Adjustment: Adjust augment effect
• Before: Enhancing Mijin Gakure Effect: Damage +50%
• After: Augments Mijin Gakure: Applies Reraise
• Reasons:
  1. Mijin Gakure's damage is based on your current HP. This means, even at full HP, its damage is negligible when compared to the HP that relevant enemies have.
  2. Testing has shown that Mijin Gakure damage can be as high as 80% of your current HP, which is likely around 2650 damage with the 50% bonus if using Mijin at 100% HP. This is generally less damage than one or two attack rounds.
  3. Moving Nagi's 'Mijin Gakure: 'Reraise' effect here makes more sense and allows us to give Nagi a more fitting bonus considering the Gil and time investment required to obtain a Nagi.

Item: Nagi

• Adjustment: Adjust ability bonus
• Before: Augments Mijin Gakure: Applies Reraise
• After: Augments Enhancing Ninjutsu: Enhancing Ninjutsu is applied to all party members within 5 yalms. Does not apply to alliance members.
• Reasons:
  1. With a price tag 250 to 300 million Gil, the "Reraise" effect of Nagi is insulting. At most the player saves 1500 gil or 7 Conquest Points on a Reraise item in game.
  2. Enhancing Ninjutsu is incredibly weak and Ninja currently has zero support capability outside of Elemental Ninjutsu.
  3. Providing an area of effect bonus to Nagi allows Ninja to gain a minor support role by passing their weak Ninjutsu effects to nearby party members.
  4. This also applies to Utsusemi with a cap of 3 shadows to nearby party members.
• Examples:
  1. A Ninja using Nagi casts Kakka: Ichi. All party members within 5 yalms gain Store TP +10.
  2. A Ninja using Nagi casts Yain: Ichi. All party members within 5 yalms gain Enmity -10
  3. A Ninja using Nagi casts Utsusemi: San. The Ninja gains 5 shadows. All party members within 5 yalms gain 3 shadows.
  4. A Ninja using Nagi, Andartia's Mantle, and Hattori Kyahan casts Utsusemi: San. The Ninja gains 7 shadows. All party members within 5 yalms gain 3 shadows.

Item: Kikoku Rank 15

• Adjustment: Adjust Augment Effect
• Before: Ninjutsu spellcasting time -20%
• After: Ninjutsu recast time -20%
• Reasons:
  1. A Master Ninja with no gear equipped already has -20% Ninjutsu casting time from the Job Point category. This leaves 60% fast cast to hit the limit of 80% for Ninjutsu spells.
  2. A Ninja that has invested 220 million Gil in a single weapon and who has geared themselves enough to completely clear Dynamis Windurst (D) to begin augmenting their Kikoku will already have the remaining 60% Fast Cast to cap Ninjutsu Casting time from their gear, without the Kikoku augment.
  3. The current Kikoku Rank 15 augment is the worst augment of all Relic weapon augments as it currently has zero effect in any situation. Additionally, because the current augment is "casting time reduction" it does not affect recast time at all, making the current augment worse than "Fast Cast +20"
  4. Replacing it with 'Ninjutsu recast time -20%' provides a semi-unique effect to the weapon that is on par with the weapon's cost.
  5. This exact same augment is currently available on the Rank 20 SU4 katana 'Mochizuki shinobi-gatana' which has a price tag of about 10 million Gil; only 5% of the price of a Rank 15 Kikoku.
  6. A more potent version of this augment is currently available on the Rank 25 SU5 katana 'Fudo Masamune' which provides -25% recast time and has a price tag of about 100 million Gil; only 45% of the price of a Rank 15 Kikoku.

Item : Kikoku

• Adjustment: Adjust weapon aftermath effect
• Before: Attack+10%, Subtle Blow +10
• After: Attack+10%, Subtle Blow II +10
• Reasons:
  1. The current effect only gives Subtle Blow, which is limited to a cap of +50 across all sources. At level 91, Ninja gains +27 Subtle Blow from their job trait. This leaves only 23 Subtle Blow to be obtained from gear.
  2. A Ninja wearing a full set of armor will almost certainly have their Subtle Blow effect capped without even trying before gaining this aftermath. This makes the Subtle Blow aftermath effect useless.
  3. This effect may have been useful a decade ago, but in the current state of the game, it has no effect.

Spell: Myoshu: Ichi

• Adjustment: Adjust spell effect
• Before: Provides Subtle Blow +10
• After: Provides Subtle Blow II +10
• Reasons:
  1. The current effect only gives Subtle Blow, which is limited to a cap of +50 across all sources. At level 91, Ninja gains +27 Subtle Blow from their job trait. This leaves only 23 Subtle Blow to be obtained from gear.
  2. A Ninja wearing a full set of armor will almost certainly have their Subtle Blow effect capped without even trying before using Myoshu: Ichi. This makes Myoshu: Ichi spell completely useless.
  3. This spell may have been useful a decade ago, but in the current state of the game, it has no effect.

Spells: Utsusemi: Ichi, Utsusemi: Ni, Utsusemi: San

• Adjustment: Adjust spell effect priority
• Before: Utsusemi fails to take effect when casting a lower tier version of the one already up, no matter how many shadows are currently up.
• After: Utsusemi will overwrite itself if gaining more shadows than are currently up.
• Reasons:
  1. The only difference between Utsusemi tiers is the number of shadows being applied. The shadows status effect gained is the exact same across the Utsusemi spells.
  2. A failed spell effect puts the failed spell on the full duration recast and consumes a tool.
  3. There is no reason why a Ninja with 1 Utsusemi: San shadow up should fail to gain shadows from a fresh Utsusemi: Ichi cast giving 5 shadows.

Spells: Utsusemi: Ichi, Utsusemi: Ni, Utsusemi: San

• Adjustment: Adjust spell effect for Ninja main job.
• Before: Area of effect spells and abilities remove all shadows and deal full damage to the Ninja.
• After:
  • Area of effect spells and abilities remove all shadows and deal reduced damage to the Ninja based on the number of shadows removed.
  • Apply 'Damage taken II' -2% per shadow absorbed with a cap at -10%. This damage taken II does not apply to the 50% cap from gear.
  • If the area of effect spell or ability applies a status ailment, then that status ailment has a chance to be resisted based on the number of shadows consumed.
  • Apply 'Resistance to all status ailments' +2 per shadow absorbed with a cap at +10.
• Examples:
  1. The Ninja has 3 shadows up and is hit by an area of effect spell or ability that would normally do 1000 damage and apply Virus. The Ninja loses their shadows, takes 940 damage, and has a +6% chance to resist Virus (+3% chance if a notorious monster used the ability).
  2. The Ninja just casted a fresh Utsusemi: San and has 7 shadows up. They are immediately hit by an area of effect spell or ability that would normally do 1000 damage. The Ninja loses their shadows and takes 900 damage.
  3. The Ninja has 6 shadows up and is hit by a Paralyga. The Ninja loses their shadows and has a +10% chance to resist the effects of the spell (+5% chance if a notorious monster casted the spell).
• Reasons:
  1. Current content uses area of effect spells and abilities incredibly frequently.
  2. Ninja's identity is using shadow images to absorb incoming attacks. However, this identity is completely lost to area of effect spells which have become the norm in the current state of the game.
  3. While this proposed effect is weak, it allows main job Ninja to gain a small benefit for losing all of their shadows.

Ability: Futae

• Adjustment: Adjust ability effect
• Before: Increases elemental Ninjutsu damage by 50%, while consuming two tools.
• After: Increases the potency of your next Enhancing or Elemental Ninjutsu spell by 50% and Enfeebling Ninjutsu spell by 25%, while consuming two tools.
• Examples:
  1. Kakka: Ichi usually provides Store TP +10. Using Futae will boost this to Store TP +15 and consume two tools.
  2. Jubaku: Ichi usually inflicts a paralyze at a rate of 20% (200/1024) to the enemy. Using Futae will boost this to a rate of 25% (250/1024) and consume two tools. This is still less potent than a Red Mage using Paralyze II without potency gear equipped (35.1%)
  3. A Ninja using Nagi uses Futae and casts Kakka: Ichi. All party members within 5 yalms gain Store TP +15 and the Ninja consumes two tools.
• Reason: Because Ninja's nuking potential is very low in most situations, the Futae ability is rarely used. This adjustment allows Futae to see more use as well as apply potency increases to our weak enhancing and enfeebling ninjutsu.

Since Ninja is my main job, I have extensive experience with Ninja's capability in all content in this game. I have participated in all current end-game content as a Ninja and completed relatively difficult content as a Ninja solo with five trusts. These proposed adjustments are not designed to make Ninja one of the best jobs in the game, but instead designed to catch Ninja up to the current state of the game in the areas that have fallen behind due to adjustments in gear statistics and relevant enemy mechanics over the years.The above adjustments will make Ninja more desirable and fun to play, and decrease the gap between Ninja and all other other jobs while simultaneously keeping Ninja near the bottom in terms of damage and utility. While I do believe Ninja also needs a significant damage increase for Katana attacks and abilities, I'm not sure how potent of an increase we should receive so I have excluded this from the above discussion and leave that for a future discussion.

I appreciate any comments and feedback from players that have experience with playing Ninja at the mid-game and end-game level both in parties and solo.

Wow, you put a lot of thought and effort into this. I agree with your recommendations, but I also really appreciate the fact that you posted your ideas in an organized and readable format. Let's hope your diligence is rewarded with a reply from the dev team.

A bump for visibility

Bump good ideas

Great ideas to help my favorite job!

Alekzander, I love this. All of it. I sincerely hope SE can embrace and implement some of these amazing ideas.

About Innin, I COMPLETELY agree. Is it both the best and the worst job ability NIN has simply because of the positional requirement; I'm sure there are many THF lamenting about Sneak Attack and Trick Attack in the same way. However, I wonder if they would do this without also removing the positional requirement of Yonin as well..? I would also like to see Innin add a bonus to Magic Accuracy as well.

Not that you mentioned it, but I would like to see Yonin offer a bonus to Magic Evasion in addition to the effects it already has.

I agree with all of your suggestions about the Reforged Relic Armor +3... as long as they remember to remove the positional requirements on the augments, Mochizuki Kyahan +3 could become an excellent WSD% piece.

Your thoughts about Nagi are honestly pretty awesome. Being able to AoE any enhancing Ninjutsu would be just be... wow. Super cool. I'm not sure I'd even go so far as to cap out the effect of Utsusemi on other players, though. Three, four or five... with the amount of AoE attacks and magic in this game, it wouldn't really matter; they're still in the same boat as a NIN main. The only thing I think they shouldn't be able to pass on is the enhanced effect to any Ninjutsu from any equipment like the pieces you've mentioned... that should still be a unique effect granted to the NIN main, for sure.

For Kikoku R15, I would even go so far as to say it needs to be Ninjutsu Recast Time -50%. It NEEDS to be better than Fudo Masamune, not equal, in my opinion.

For Blade: Metsu aftermath, I agree, again. Subtle Blow II or bust. The current aftermath effect is half-useless, as you've pointed out. Likewise with your opinion of Myoshu; you're exactly right about it.

I want Utsusemi to work the way you've stated. I'm afraid they would never will allow it, though. Something, something, something about being invincible as long as you have capped sources of Fast Cast and Haste. As far as the interesting new effects you've described, I like them, but I feel like it's treading a fine line upon RUN territory and it doesn't necessarily feel very... ninja-esque to me, at any rate.

About Futae... I would just suggest to make it a +50% bonus across the board. No RDM is going to care or complain because any competent, well-geared RDM is still going to have easy access to far more potent Blind II, Paralyze II, Slow II, etc. and they still have access to Saboteur all day, every day. Sometimes, you/your party won't have access to a RDM and I'm sure you/your party will appreciate another job being to deliver a debilitating enfeebling spell in a pinch. Go all the way with this one, it's a good idea. It would make Hattori Tekko worth the space in your Mog Wardrobe for once..!

Question, though: How would Futae interact with Utsusemi?

I will add, since you didn't mention it:

JUST ADD SCROLLS FOR JUBAKU: NI AND DOKUMORI: NI, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND RIGHT IN THIS WORLD. I just want to see a full spell list at this point. >_<

I don't PLAY Ninja too much; but I may DABBLE it in enough to understand all this, and absolutely heartily agree with you, and also with this...

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Originally Posted by Gwydion

Wow, you put a lot of thought and effort into this. I agree with your recommendations, but I also really appreciate the fact that you posted your ideas in an organized and readable format. Let's hope your diligence is rewarded with a reply from the dev team.

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Your statement Gwydion goes beyond affirmation. Finally a poster that has done due diligence and work to express ideas easily, concisely, organized, and logically. Bon temps!

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Originally Posted by Alekzander

Ninja is currently far behind the curve when it comes to physical damage, magical damage, enhancing support, enfeebling support, current-game tanking, and current-game survivability. Put simply: With the exception of Migawari: Ichi, for everything Ninja can do, there is another job that can do it better while providing additional support.

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I couldn't agree more and like the suggestions. I would love for Ninja to have more party utility.

In addition to at least make Ninja worth a spot in a party in terms of party utility, it would be great to see something like:
-Enfeebling Shurikens: something like defense down, magic defense down, or other potential debuffs
-Make Elemental Ninjutsu work similar to Gambit in terms of increasing an element's damage.

edit: meant Gambit (not rayke)

Great suggestions. Definitely fixing stuff is a higher priority. I echo I'd like to see more utility on NIN as well. Magic defense down and magic attack down are debuffs that don't have a lot of sources.

Thanks for all of the support and additional suggestions so far. I like the idea of new shuriken with debuffing effects on them. They don't have to be very potent either. Just having a consistent source of passive debuffs would help. Something like Kikoku's EnParalyze effect level of potency and proc-rate.

In other news:
The February 2021 Nomad Mog Bonanza introduces the Yagyu Darkblade: a katana that extends the effects of Utsusemi to nearby party members. This may be a coincidence, but this new katana suggests that the developers are still actively reading and considering suggestions posted by players to the official forums. I hope this means that the other suggestions in this thread are being considered for a future Ninja update.

I am disappointed that they chose to release the Yagyu Darkblade as a limited reward from a lottery system that only seems to occur twice per year with alternating rewards. I've purchased my Bonanza Pearl, but the chance of winning is only 1/1000.

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Originally Posted by Alekzander

I am disappointed that they chose to release the Yagyu Darkblade as a limited reward from a lottery system that only seems to occur twice per year with alternating rewards. I've purchased my Bonanza Pearl, but the chance of winning is only 1/1000.

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I'd be surprised if they put the effort into developing the mechanics to make shadows AoE and created this weapon only for it to be available to a few players. I would expect that we'll see this available some other way later down the line...at least one can hope.

Hi SE,
The OP here took a lot of time to present his ideas for NIN in a well-organized and readable format...about a year ago. Could you please take a moment to offer some feedback or ideas for what you can do to improve Ninja? Does OP's ideas overlap with some of your future all-jobs adjustments that are coming up? Thanks!

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Item: Mochizuki Hakama

• Adjustment: Adjust augment effect
• Before: Enhancing Mijin Gakure Effect: Damage +50%
• After: Augments Mijin Gakure: Applies Reraise
• Reasons:
  1. Mijin Gakure's damage is based on your current HP. This means, even at full HP, its damage is negligible when compared to the HP that relevant enemies have.
  2. Testing has shown that Mijin Gakure damage can be as high as 80% of your current HP, which is likely around 2650 damage with the 50% bonus if using Mijin at 100% HP. This is generally less damage than one or two attack rounds.
  3. Moving Nagi's 'Mijin Gakure: 'Reraise' effect here makes more sense and allows us to give Nagi a more fitting bonus considering the Gil and time investment required to obtain a Nagi.

Item: Nagi

• Adjustment: Adjust ability bonus
• Before: Augments Mijin Gakure: Applies Reraise
• After: Augments Enhancing Ninjutsu: Enhancing Ninjutsu is applied to all party members within 5 yalms. Does not apply to alliance members.
• Reasons:
  1. With a price tag 250 to 300 million Gil, the "Reraise" effect of Nagi is insulting. At most the player saves 1500 gil or 7 Conquest Points on a Reraise item in game.
  2. Enhancing Ninjutsu is incredibly weak and Ninja currently has zero support capability outside of Elemental Ninjutsu.
  3. Providing an area of effect bonus to Nagi allows Ninja to gain a minor support role by passing their weak Ninjutsu effects to nearby party members.
  4. This also applies to Utsusemi with a cap of 3 shadows to nearby party members.

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Why did you propose to add Reraise to some other item, while justifying removing it from another item on the basis that it saves you nothing because reraise items exist?

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Why did you propose to add Reraise to some other item, while justifying removing it from another item on the basis that it saves you nothing because reraise items exist?

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He's trying to justify that Nagi deserves a better augment than just giving Mijin Gakure Reraise, and it instead should be apart of Relic armor. By the way, I think both of these suggestions are great. I would have just suggeted removing Reraise from Nagi's Mijin Gakure augment by itself, but giving it to Relic AF Mijin Augment is a great way to balance out the changes to benefit Ninja, without gimping their mediocre one-hour.

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Originally Posted by Gwydion

He's trying to justify that Nagi deserves a better augment than just giving Mijin Gakure Reraise, and it instead should be apart of Relic armor.

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Does SE have a habit of changing existing items unless something is totally out of balance? It seems unlikely we'll see revised augments/stats to relic armor or Nagi unless more reforged phases are added.

Personally, I find the Nagi augment somewhat useful to NIN as a job, but not with the current game meta. The ability to die, re-raise, blow up, then re-raise with full HP and no weakness has a lot of good use to it as both a tank and DD. There would be considerable benefit to this in the context of todays time limited, instanced content, having a job that can not be limited by weakness due to a single death could pop back up at full power without waiting 2-4m to get back at full strength and not have support required. Without it, you have to get raised twice (or once + RR) to erase weakness.

The problem is that, without considerable effort (eg full Nyame augments) and alignment of the stars (e.g. mobs weak to NIN WS), the job just isn't desired by the player base compared to other DDs or tank jobs. The fact AoE wipes shadows or fast hitting mobs (eg this months Ambuscade) tears through them makes NIN less desired as a tank. As a DD, the potential is there, but it requires more effort/gear than other jobs and is more situational. If either of these weren't the case, I could see Nagi being more desired. I would go through the effort to get it, especially right now with time limited content.

The issue is that SE is keeping NIN in 2008. The enmity bonuses give it hate tools, but little content can actually be tanked by a NIN. As a DD, the potential is there, but it is difficult to get the most out of it without very difficult to obtain gear and even then, it is situational. IMO they should focus on revising Blade: Ten or Blade: Shun to be more in line with Savage Blade and/or revise how shadows work to bring NIN back into a desired position. If that happens, the Nagi augments would have their use especially in this era.

It has been 4 years since this thread and we are still waiting on baited breath for you guys to breathe some life back into NIN. Please make the adjustments to make NIN relevant again with current content so that we can play the job a lot of us love. Also please adjust Kannagi so that the DPS matches the other REMA weapons.

Since it's been four years with no posts it doesn't seem to me like most people think there's that much of a problem.

Bad logic. Not a lot of players use this forum and the ones that do have given up hope that well thought out posts will help change the situation. Everyone knows there is a huge problem with NIN having become obsolete and underpowered. That is why you rarely see it endgame. A LOT of people are still waiting and hoping that they fix NIN. Do me a favor and ask around to any players that used to be NIN main and ask if they think there are no problems with how NIN currently functions and get back to us.

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Originally Posted by Proserphina

Bad logic. Not a lot of players use this forum and the ones that do have given up hope that well thought out posts will help change the situation. Everyone knows there is a huge problem with NIN having become obsolete and underpowered. That is why you rarely see it endgame. A LOT of people are still waiting and hoping that they fix NIN. Do me a favor and ask around to any players that used to be NIN main and ask if they think there are no problems with how NIN currently functions and get back to us.

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Sorry, but this is entirely reasonable logic, not bad logic. If it was a big problem more than one person would complain.

That's aside from the fact that the proposed solution to this supposed problem doesn't make sense.

NIN needs adjustments to be relevant again.

Well yeah, adjustments like not making every boss wipe shadows with everything they do, rendering one of the best utility aspects of the job completely useless. That would be a start.