Blink (spell) - Please remove the randomness.

[Monkeynutz]

Aquaveil cannot fail. It used to add a significant amount of -spell interruption, but now it makes it impossible for spells to be interrupted (except by stun, sleep, petrify, knock back, paralyze, terror, or death -- seems like a lot of exceptions written out ) X number of times (I forget but I think it's 5). That actually works a lot like utsusemi in that if you weren't going to be interrupted anyway it doesn't affect your aquaveil effect. I too forget to toss this up a lot of the time, but it really does make a huge difference and will usually last the entire fight unless you're fighting something that attacks very very fast.

As to Khajit's points, mages usually take very heavy damage so stoneskin's 350 cap (+whatever you may have from gear, most of which really is easy to obtain) is rather low. If you're fighting anything serious stoneskin basically just makes the first hit you take do less damage. Everyone should have -DT / -PDT / -MDT sets or a combined set or something, but I'm rarely hit while wearing it because I'm usually casting sleep or something and if I want sleep to stick (I do) I can't be wearing all my -DT gear. Spamming blink wouldn't be possible because 50% fast cast would be needed to make it cast for 1 second longer than utsusemi: ichi already takes. You probably could spam it to some degree, but it would require sitting in your fast cast / -DT set and cycling through aquaveil, stoneskin, and blink. If you're soloing this simply wouldn't end or perhaps you'd have time to get a single nuke off every now and then if you got lucky and evaded/ parried an attack. Lastly, the fact that RDM could cap -spell interruption was the reason for the change to aquaveil. Now that aquaveil doesn't contribute to -spell interruption it cannot be capped and to even get close requires wearing mostly awful gear.

In any case, I think they should just change the wording. Blink would be more useful if it were 100%, but I and many others use it in conjunction with other buffs and expect nothing more than damage / spell interruption mitigation over time.

[Mirage]

If you can't handle the randomness of blink, change to /nin.

[Malamasala]

Lets make an analogy.

Melee attacks 50% accuracy, ranged attacks 100% accuracy. This is fair and balanced because ranged attacks cost gil. It is also fair because all melee can go do ranged attacks with boomerangs etc. if they want 100% accuracy. Besides melee can eat accuracy food and wear accuracy gear to get closer to 80% or something, so it is still incredibly fair and balanced.

See my point?

We don't need a huge gap between jobs. 2 shadows vs 7+ shadows seems fine. BLU could possibly become good at tanking, but is that an issue? What tanking rights does NIN have over BLU? Except for "first come".

[Bulrogg]

make sub /nin like blink and NIN as main to uses the old utsusemi where it would block -agas.

[Khajit]

Aquaveil cannot fail. It used to add a significant amount of -spell interruption, but now it makes it impossible for spells to be interrupted (except by stun, sleep, petrify, knock back, paralyze, terror, or death -- seems like a lot of exceptions written out ) X number of times (I forget but I think it's 5). That actually works a lot like utsusemi in that if you weren't going to be interrupted anyway it doesn't affect your aquaveil effect. I too forget to toss this up a lot of the time, but it really does make a huge difference and will usually last the entire fight unless you're fighting something that attacks very very fast.

As to Khajit's points, mages usually take very heavy damage so stoneskin's 350 cap (+whatever you may have from gear, most of which really is easy to obtain) is rather low.

This would be a valid point if mages actually took heavy damage but considering the fact that they have 20% more pdt gear than DD and GOOD DD either have zerk and/or counterstance up it's the melee who are actually the ones taking heavy damage. Tarutaru mages also have over 2k hp now in abyssea. That 350 "tiny" bit of damage being mitigated is closer to 700 pre SS gear. People with an effective hp of 3k that can almost constantly wear pdt/mdt gear to no detriment should be the last people to complain about squishyness.

If you're fighting anything serious stoneskin basically just makes the first hit you take do less damage. Everyone should have -DT / -PDT / -MDT sets or a combined set or something, but I'm rarely hit while wearing it because I'm usually casting sleep or something and if I want sleep to stick (I do) I can't be wearing all my -DT gear. Spamming blink wouldn't be possible because 50% fast cast would be needed to make it cast for 1 second longer than utsusemi: ichi already takes.

I'd suggest you get better gear considering that most mobs dont attack fast enough to get a second or third hit off. In addition your statement implies that mobs regularly hit for 700+ when I don't even take that when zerked up vs zone bosses critical hits.
You're speaking as if 50% fast cast is difficult to obtain. RDM+ af hat is already at 40%. Sch Sj gives 10% fast cast. There are multiple fast cast atma available in addition to a quick cast atma. Not only that but that statement makes no sense unless you're implying that utsusemi is impossible to utilize on ninja to the point where having it on a 3 second recast wouldnt work which is CLEARLY not the case. You also sound like you need to learn about macro swapping.

You probably could spam it to some degree, but it would require sitting in your fast cast / -DT set and cycling through aquaveil, stoneskin, and blink. If you're soloing this simply wouldn't end or perhaps you'd have time to get a single nuke off every now and then if you got lucky and evaded/ parried an attack. Lastly, the fact that RDM could cap -spell interruption was the reason for the change to aquaveil. Now that aquaveil doesn't contribute to -spell interruption it cannot be capped and to even get close requires wearing mostly awful gear.

In any case, I think they should just change the wording. Blink would be more useful if it were 100%, but I and many others use it in conjunction with other buffs and expect nothing more than damage / spell interruption mitigation over time.

Yes aqua veil was changed however even more spell interuption gear came out since then and the merit caps are being increased this update.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

On another note. It a ranged attack would miss you, it should miss a shadow instead of taking a shadow 100% of the time.

[bungiefan]

Ninja always block with shadows because they have the martial arts skill to always keep their shadow in the line of fire, and predict what their opponent is going to aim for. White Mages don't have that skill, so it's chance on if the enemy aims for the actual player or the shadow.

[Gnoir]

Ninja always block with shadows because they have the martial arts skill to always keep their shadow in the line of fire, and predict what their opponent is going to aim for. White Mages don't have that skill, so it's chance on if the enemy aims for the actual player or the shadow.

This sounds correct, be nice if the devs responded to this but, it's valid reasoning imho. Also, technically the wording is correct, it does absorb an attack directed at you, it just doesn't say when. And to op, I agree the wording should be changed.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Still doesn't explain the ranged attacks.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Definitely shouldn't change how blink works, though they could make more use our of Enhancing Magic Skill for it, by say doing it if you're a capped RDM or SCH with B+ sill it creates four blink images.