NIN is undertuned.

random ideas:

remove ninki cost of bushin , mesui is a good idea but ugh , change it to next raiton adds +40 ninki ? or dunno , is good on opener tho

bring back Dripping blades or boost potency a little

All I know is that personal dps between drg and nin is too big. Which probably means drg will be taken for litany and dragon sight even though trick attack is amazing. Ninja is undertuned and drg is overtuned imo which worsen the problem. Some buffs and nerfs need to be handed out.

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

All I know is that personal dps between drg and nin is too big. Which probably means drg will be taken for litany and dragon sight even though trick attack is amazing. Ninja is undertuned and drg is overtuned imo which worsen the problem. Some buffs and nerfs need to be handed out.

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Dragoon no longer compares with Ninja. They've essentially become Monks now. Litany is on a three minute CD, thus you aren't seeing it much. Even in Stormblood, Trick absolutely destroyed Litany in terms of rDPS. Brotherhood, on the other hand, is much closer given it's on a 90s CD and only 5%. So while I agree Ninja needs some love right now. I think Dragoon is actually fine.

More often than not, Dragoon with piercing, Litany and tether brought more overall rDPS than Ninjas. Litany and tether is still no joke as in a decent group you're looking at around 800rDPS from them combined while Ninja's Trick Attack is estimated around 1.5k in good groups. That's not average groups, we're talking about good groups. Ninja needs quite some love indeed. It is way too weak and Dragoon is too strong as is has about the same DPS as Samurai and Monk but with more rDPS contribution.
Ninja on the other hand, according to the data is almost 2000 DPS behind in the 99th percentile bracket behind Dragoon. It is 3000 DPS behind Black Mage.

In other words, a selfish class like BLM would bring around 1.5k more DPS to a raid over a Ninja, and that is only under the condition that the rest of the party is good. I've had extreme practice runs on my Ninja where Trick contributed to only 750 DPS! Remember, in order for Ninja to be great, everyone has to be great. I wonder what the development team was actually thinking and how they tested these things. Considering most of the classes seem to have very high personal DPS on top of having some utility, it seems that Ninja is severly undertuned while also it being a difficult job to play. It's absolutely crazy to me that a class that you have to play to such perfection to get anywhere (Trick timings and ninki management), that it falls so far behind. There is no doubt in my mind they will buff Ninja though. I am just asking questions how they screwed it up like this in the first place. It's glaringly behind.

NIN either needs higher personal dps, or some more gimmicks/utility. as it stands dancers are barely below us while providing far more utility, AND the game play is easier. A NIN can perform well but under very arduous circumstances. One of the biggest problems with NIN stems from the fact that most of his oGCDs hurt his other abilities GCD or OCD. A TCJ during bunshin ruins it. Even kassatsu/raitons hurt bunshin and disallow building skill speed at all. Meisui is a gimp yourself now to boost yourself maybe button. works great in the current opener but outside of that its use feels hurtful and demands extreme micro management for a exceptionally minimal potency gain. Bunshin at the very least should interact with ninjutsu thus making it a non restrictive move. As it is it is restricted by both ninki management and what else we have available.

There are many ways NIN could be improved. Some more complicated than others. I love how complex the class is, and how high it's skill ceiling is. But as it stands it needs something somewhere to make it truly viable and enjoyable to play in line with other classes. whether that takes the form of potency buffs to just gcds, or buffs to bunshin, or a rework of some of the systems interplay with eachother and cooldowns I dont care. course hte best thing would be to find a way for us to avoid clipping somehow, but that is the most complex of the possibilities im sure.

Anyways, in short BRD, and DNC far out class us right now. DNC has low dps, but incredible utility, and general playability which means a mediocre dancer can actually outperform a mediocre NIN even in personal dps. this is a problem.

The problem I have is that dragoon has battle litany and dragon sight which gives far more then what a ninja can do. Ninja only has 1 thing and it's only Increases one target's damage taken by 10% on a 60s recast time. Just that doesn't mean the ninja should be at the rock bottom of *everyone* hell, even bards do more than a ninja. I have a feel there's gonna be huge combat balancing before savage like last time.

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Originally Posted by Vendalwind

NIN either needs higher personal dps, or some more gimmicks/utility. as it stands dancers are barely below us while providing far more utility, AND the game play is easier. A NIN can perform well but under very arduous circumstances. One of the biggest problems with NIN stems from the fact that most of his oGCDs hurt his other abilities GCD or OCD. A TCJ during bunshin ruins it. Even kassatsu/raitons hurt bunshin and disallow building skill speed at all. Meisui is a gimp yourself now to boost yourself maybe button. works great in the current opener but outside of that its use feels hurtful and demands extreme micro management for a exceptionally minimal potency gain. Bunshin at the very least should interact with ninjutsu thus making it a non restrictive move. As it is it is restricted by both ninki management and what else we have available.

There are many ways NIN could be improved. Some more complicated than others. I love how complex the class is, and how high it's skill ceiling is. But as it stands it needs something somewhere to make it truly viable and enjoyable to play in line with other classes. whether that takes the form of potency buffs to just gcds, or buffs to bunshin, or a rework of some of the systems interplay with eachother and cooldowns I dont care. course hte best thing would be to find a way for us to avoid clipping somehow, but that is the most complex of the possibilities im sure.

Anyways, in short BRD, and DNC far out class us right now. DNC has low dps, but incredible utility, and general playability which means a mediocre dancer can actually outperform a mediocre NIN even in personal dps. this is a problem.

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Agree with everything here. So many of the added skills in shadowbringers hurt our openers, or gimp themselves indirectly. Triple ogcd casting during bushin feels terrible.

Meisui outside of the opener is meh.

Right now, it feels terrible to play ninja. The opener doesn't flow as well as in Stormblood, and we're taking more actions than other classes for less dps, with less raid utility. I definitely feel that dragoon or monk easily outshine ninja in this current moment.

Suggestion, remove first mudra of all ninjutsus.

This means the current 3 step mudras would become 2 step. Current 2 steps become 1 step. And fuma would cease to exist.

Why is this needed? Fuma no longer has a use, as raiton is the clear choice for damage. However, this makes the players ping critical for overall dps, as high pings will start to significantly clip GCDs. By lower the number of mudras needed to cast this can be almost completely alleviated.

The big downside is that Ninja would lose a bit of what makes it fun to play. I've always enjoyed the mudra casting element of the job; however, the GCD clipping is a significant issue that makes it hard to balance the job. SE can't hand out significant potency increase to accommodate for the clipping because those who have low ping will now be overpowered.

SE either needs to fix the clipping, or reduce the number of mudras required to cast ninjutsu.

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Originally Posted by Sigmakan

Suggestion, remove first mudra of all ninjutsus.

This means the current 3 step mudras would become 2 step. Current 2 steps become 1 step. And fuma would cease to exist.

Why is this needed? Fuma no longer has a use, as raiton is the clear choice for damage. However, this makes the players ping critical for overall dps, as high pings will start to significantly clip GCDs. By lower the number of mudras needed to cast this can be almost completely alleviated.

The big downside is that Ninja would lose a bit of what makes it fun to play. I've always enjoyed the mudra casting element of the job; however, the GCD clipping is a significant issue that makes it hard to balance the job. SE can't hand out significant potency increase to accommodate for the clipping because those who have low ping will now be overpowered.

SE either needs to fix the clipping, or reduce the number of mudras required to cast ninjutsu.

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They could just make the new ice shurikens work off fuma when kassatsu'd rather than hyoton. That would work too.

Give Ninjas Six Sided Star. :)

I completely agree with this thread, I'm a NIN main and the sheer amount of difference between our personal dps and every other class (let alone every other melee class) is way too big, despite us having trick attack. The reward for playing this relatively complex job in terms of personal dps is too low at the moment and is disheartening to play. Definitely needs some revision. Over to you SE :)

An additional note. No class suffers from high ping like the NIN does. A lot of aggegate data comes from japan, but please remember that japanese players pretty much always have solid ping.

Im not saying balance to the weakest ping, but do consider it in design choices.

What I don't get is why didn't they have Armor Crush follow Shadow Fang in the combo sequence. Just this change alone would be a huge boon for Ninja.

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Originally Posted by Typhoria

What I don't get is why didn't they have Armor Crush follow Shadow Fang in the combo sequence. Just this change alone would be a huge boon for Ninja.

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First of ALL, why would this ever be in the works. Going down to 2 steps for Shadowfang upkeep was a blessing in itself. The point of ARMOR CRUSH and Aoelian Edge being seperated is because there's a decision to be made. The same reason you go for Shadowfang after Spinning Edge. This is not a design flaw.

I think most of you are relying on Bunshin too much , for the most part last level abilities rarely add much to the table . Now casting TA > TCJ/HR that's the money maker right there and I can convert TCJ's suiton to meisui after ... good times . I find bunshin more fun in my aoe rotation , double hits from death blossom and HM with Doton up and hellfrog raining down is a sight to behold haha

I haven't played Ninja, but all indicators point to Ninja and Dancer being a bit undertuned and blm maybe a bit overtuned.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

I haven't played Ninja, but all indicators point to Ninja and Dancer being a bit underfunded and blm maybe a bit overtuned.

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Yeah, I agree. I'm curious if they're going to tune down BLM, or just bring SAM up to its numbers and let them be wayyyy ahead of everyone.

Either way just want some NIN love.

Unfortunately, I do not foresee any significant Ninja buffs. The devs seem very apprehensive towards raid utility right now and unless Trick Attack gets nerfed, I just cannot see them doing more than a mild buff to Bunshin. If they brought Ninja up by 500-800 DPS, it instantly becomes the best melee again. At this point, the clear linchpin is Trick. And it's why I'm leaning more towards that being nerfed and Ninja compensated accordingly. Conversely, I would also rather they focus on reducing the clipping and somewhat awkward implementation of Ninja's rotation. Meisui is a huge trap given how it's only a gain in select situations; Mudras clipping is a serious problem and Bunshin, well... it's underwhelming to say nothing else.

It's hard to say what direction they'll go, really.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Unfortunately, I do not foresee any significant Ninja buffs. The devs seem very apprehensive towards raid utility right now and unless Trick Attack gets nerfed, I just cannot see them doing more than a mild buff to Bunshin. If they brought Ninja up by 500-800 DPS, it instantly becomes the best melee again. At this point, the clear linchpin is Trick. And it's why I'm leaning more towards that being nerfed and Ninja compensated accordingly. Conversely, I would also rather they focus on reducing the clipping and somewhat awkward implementation of Ninja's rotation. Meisui is a huge trap given how it's only a gain in select situations; Mudras clipping is a serious problem and Bunshin, well... it's underwhelming to say nothing else.

It's hard to say what direction they'll go, really.

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I've said it in other threads as well, but I'd be fine if they nerfed TA hard, we've been held back by this ability for far too long.

I think the most logical changes would be something like this:

-Slight buff to our 1-2-3 AE combo to compensate for dripping blade loss (AE was actually nerfed in overall potency from SB).
-Removing TA raid utility, but increasing the damage it does to NIN only, or alternatively, nerfing it to 5% for raid/15% for NIN.
-Changing Hyosho Ranryu to work off Fuma instead of Hyoton.
-Bunshin rework and/or buff.

This still doesn't entirely fix the problem with using Raiton > Fuma and the clipping it causes, but there isn't much they could do there other than buffing Raiton so hard it makes the clipping worth it, or returning dripping blades in some form so we go back to Fuma. Either way, I'm more frustrated with trying to fit x2 Kassatsu/x2 Hyosho in our TA windows, and Bunshin being the biggest let down of a lifetime.

I'd be fine with them reducing TA to 5% in 8 man content and leave it at 10% in anything else. The biggest offender for me is TCJ though. I don't feel good when using it, I dread having to use it because it is so restrictive, it actually feels as if I as a fast melee class am rooted longer than any BLM casting these days. Just make it a 10 seconds buff that will empower your next 3 step Mudra and make it that all steps get casted at the same time. So if we go for a Suiton the beefed up version of Fuma, Raiton and Suiton get executed at the same time. Would make for a great visual effect and make the whole thing a feelgood experience with all those big numbers popping up. That'd be such an insane QoL improvement in the same vein as PLD no longer having to cast their spells.

Also, the 2 step Mudras are awkward. This is not only a problem for people with higher latencies, reading through the JP NIN thread a lot of people are complaining about how the bites into the GCD are too severe.

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Originally Posted by Laur1x

I've said it in other threads as well, but I'd be fine if they nerfed TA hard, we've been held back by this ability for far too long.

I think the most logical changes would be something like this:

-Slight buff to our 1-2-3 AE combo to compensate for dripping blade loss (AE was actually nerfed in overall potency from SB).
-Removing TA raid utility, but increasing the damage it does to NIN only, or alternatively, nerfing it to 5% for raid/15% for NIN.
-Changing Hyosho Ranryu to work off Fuma instead of Hyoton.
-Bunshin rework and/or buff.

This still doesn't entirely fix the problem with using Raiton > Fuma and the clipping it causes, but there isn't much they could do there other than buffing Raiton so hard it makes the clipping worth it, or returning dripping blades in some form so we go back to Fuma. Either way, I'm more frustrated with trying to fit x2 Kassatsu/x2 Hyosho in our TA windows, and Bunshin being the biggest let down of a lifetime.

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I sincerely doubt they will remove Trick as that essentially turns Ninja into Samurai. If they were going to make such a drastic change, it would have happened with 5.0's release. Being brought down to 5% or having Trick's CD moved to 120s would suffice. That essentially makes it comparable to Monk and Dragoon. As for Mudras. I rather like the idea posted earlier of scaling each one back and removing Fuma outright. That solves the clipping issue of Raiton and lessens the loss for hard casting Suiton and Doton. I still think Meisu needs a look but at least this would amount to something. Alas, I think if they were going to do anything to Trick, they would have already.

I wouldn't mind losing trick attack if i could output more damage.
As for now, Ranged (except dancer) can deal more amount of damage, being in a safe spot, no positionals required, delivering some buff, dragoon can also deal massive amount of damage and give a buff to someone.
Ninja lack dps, either make his Trick Attack an AoE debuff and make it to last longer with higher bonus for ourself.

To be fair, I think a lot of people valued trick too highly in PF groups or low end statics. There are only specific environments where it was mandatory and a group could take full advantage of it's window.

So I don't know if SE is really just keeping NIN down in the dumps and probably JUST forgot to put something to replace dripping blades trait.

I don't even think it's really that much an issue that TA needs to keep NIN at the complete bottom for the CPM it requires nowdays. To be honest though I could care less as long as the dmg is okay, and it's fun to play.

Really I think the only things that need adjustments are probably bushin having it's ninki cost removed (I don't get why they feel like they need 3 abilities for ninki), and probably double in CD timer. I also think meisui and suiton interaction isn't good to overlap between TA, though this probably was a conscious decision on SE's part because they gave you a 30 second suiton buff.

What I could see SE doing is just give them a change or two to meisui and bushin, I think I wouldn't care that the dps was a bit of a dip from ranged dps. But let's be real, if ranged dps consistently outdoes melee without uptime requirements, and only 1 melee is needed because of buff and LB changes, some melee is gonna get the AXE.

I've never liked trick attack or the classes over reliance on it.
It's the shining poster child of over relied upon raid support skills that they went to so much trouble to nerf or remove, but it's the one thing they didn't touch.

If they want to keep the ninja class performing a three ring circus act then their damage needs to be much, much higher to show for it and not "made up" with trick attack (which it doesn't do in the first place) in a theoretical 24-man raid setting with unrealistic expectations in all but the top 1% of players.

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Originally Posted by Telefrag

First of ALL, why would this ever be in the works. Going down to 2 steps for Shadowfang upkeep was a blessing in itself. The point of ARMOR CRUSH and Aoelian Edge being seperated is because there's a decision to be made. The same reason you go for Shadowfang after Spinning Edge. This is not a design flaw.

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The decision you mention is the illusion of choice. There is no situation where you would willingly let Huton fall off. Likewise the only reason to not keep Shadow Fang up would be if the target is about to die.
Adding Armor Crush after Shadow Fang is both a convenience and an overall potency over time increase.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I wouldn't put too much faith in a chart that says WHM is doing more DPS than tanks.

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Thing is, look at flogs. Highest whm is actually doing more damage than highest tanks. Don't put faith in sss, but at least look stuff up.

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Originally Posted by Telefrag

What I could see SE doing is just give them a change or two to meisui and bushin, I think I wouldn't care that the dps was a bit of a dip from ranged dps. But let's be real, if ranged dps consistently outdoes melee without uptime requirements, and only 1 melee is needed because of buff and LB changes, some melee is gonna get the AXE.

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This can be a bit worrisome just look at the ex trials now, BRDs, BLMs, SMNs and MCHs are doing just as much or even more then some melee...without having to worry about anything at all (Besides the occasional mechanic) lol meanwhile innocence is forever spinning out of my positional lol..

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

This can be a bit worrisome just look at the ex trials now, BRDs, BLMs, SMNs and MCHs are doing just as much or even more then some melee...without having to worry about anything at all (Besides the occasional mechanic) lol meanwhile innocence is forever spinning out of my positional lol..

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True north? I agree, nin needs a buff but for the love of god man, true north.

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Originally Posted by Carstien

True north? I agree, nin needs a buff but for the love of god man, true north.

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Obviously lol why say that like I don’t know it exist. It was more on the joking side of things positional arnt an issue it’s really in the demand of uptime.

I came here to complain about how bad Ten-Chi-Jin still feels. There seem to be a lot more enemies that use huge area attacks in this expansion, and being unable to move during TCJ is more of a detriment than ever. Then I see this thread. Ugh.

I think Ninja is in a rough spot right now. Removing the hate management skills was necessary for simplifying tanks' changes, but that was a big part of Ninja's utility. The lack of Dripping Blades and other issues with clipping are problematic and I hope that SE does decide to buff the job. I just hope it doesn't take them as long as it took to proceed with their Machinist adjustments...

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

Obviously lol why say that like I don’t know it exist. It was more on the joking side of things positional arnt an issue it’s really in the demand of uptime.

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Said it like that because positional is what you complained about. I get it though, uptime is tough and that's why bard and machinist have it easier to get that damage. Still, machinist doesn't have any damage buffs and bard only has the one which is worse than trick now so buffing ninja isn't going to be easy. It is something they have to do.

I personally think bunshin not hitting combo bonuses is an error. A bug, fixing that will help, and maybe a 5% damage buff to huton. See how that flies then go from there.

I'm just gonna include a couple issues with ninja that really make the job conflict with itself in a way that just feels bad.

• -fastest gcd speed, longest ogcd casts.
  > clocking in at probably 2 seconds +/- .1 seconds for their gcds. mudras are locked to about 1 second per mudra for up to close to 4 seconds for a single ninjutsu cast.
• -most buttons pressed for an ogcd, least amount of damage per ogcd button press.
  > even fuma shuriken is a 2 ogcd process (Ten + Ninjustu), for a grand total of 280 potency, while dragoons are sitting on jump, with the exact same cooldown, for a 310 potency, 400 potency with the lvl 74 trait for 1 button
  > TCJ comes in at a whopping 7 buttons, and even with the potency increase to the skills, it really doesn't feel worth it, especially since all of the 3 mudra skills are all utility skills rather than damage skills.
• -a 1 mudra cast (fuma) is a better choice to use than a 2 mudra cast (raiton)
  > basically using fuma shuriken cut down on the amount you would clip into your gcd combo and the amount of extra damage you got from raiton (+150 potency) simply did not make up for it.
  > this depends on ping. once upon a time mudra cast rate used to be tied to fps, so people were actually able to use 3 mudra skills within that 2 second gcd window. but that was unfair, so they made it so nobody can now.
• -increased mobility, TCJ has you stand still for like 8 seconds?
  > we have a passive run speed upgrade, its great! even though it never reeeeaaaally matters, but it really felt like it encapsulated what ninja was all about. move fast, hit a lot. but our level 70 job quest skill just makes us stand still.
  > in fact, between using assassinate and TCJ, ninja actually has issues with animation lock now. new floor tank meta.
• -mug steals extra item drops from monsters when used as last or second to last skill, procs like once every 20 kills.
  > I think this is super cool and unique, but it almost never procs, and mug is on a 2 minute cooldown. I actually would like a buff to the drop rate just because its neat.

TL;DR Ninja is a poorly designed job that is fun to play, but not worth playing at the moment. They could use some tuning, but that's just to act as a band-aid. It needs an overhaul rather than 'tuning' but I have to admit most of the problems they have aren't easily fixed and probably won't be fixed anytime soon since most of the listed issues have been around forever. There's just no payout while playing ninja. No triplecast foul, no barrage refulgent, no inner release fell cleave. It wears down enemies, and it does it slowly, and poorly. Ninja is basically a bad DoT that spans the entire fight.

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Originally Posted by Honoraint

I\\

TL;DR Ninja is a poorly designed job that is fun to play, but not worth playing at the moment. They could use some tuning, but that\\'s just to act as a band-aid. It needs an overhaul rather than \\'tuning\\' but I have to admit most of the problems they have aren\\'t easily fixed and probably won\\'t be fixed anytime soon since most of the listed issues have been around forever. There\\'s just no payout while playing ninja. No triplecast foul, no barrage refulgent, no inner release fell cleave. It wears down enemies, and it does it slowly, and poorly. Ninja is basically a bad DoT that spans the entire fight.

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In my honest opinon, ninja isn’t badly designed, the problem is it’s a very difficult job to master yet fulfills a support job so the dps does not feel rewarding when u make such comparisons to other jobs.

That isn’t a poor design choice, that’s a players mentality, they feel they are doing something more complex then the player next to them therefore feels their entitled to being higher dps. But this is not how a mmorpg works, you aren’t balanced based on the difficulty of your job, this is why MMORPGs split things like parses against their own job and not all jobs.

Imho what they should do is, remove trick attack. Implement a few types of smaller support into the job and then raise it to be summoner level dps.

Ofcourse it will need some unique utility. But Im sure there are things it could take on,

Ofcourse you could argue not everyone can manage ninja due to ping problems. And that’s where sadly the issue isn’t fixable, without stripping double weaving, lower GCD capabilities and more from the game they can’t make every job in the game applicable to every player. They can merely condense these options into a minority of the jobs to ensure the majority are able to.

Machinist and ninja are really the only two jobs which ping problems come, and given the only promise made as simply u could play the game uptoo 200MS indicates these sorts of things will be tolerated. As he has already made it clear high pings will cause a limitation in this game.

MMORPGs have to fit all, which means something’s are rewarded less then players feel. It comes with the territory, so I think ninjas need some adjustments? Yes, I feel trick attack is a weight on the job, and on the meta itself and removing it would allow for more flexibility not only in ninja but also the compositions in the meta.

I don’t agree any buff should have such a impact on every player in the raid and it’s unheathy for the job because balancing the job around its existence simply causes so many problems.

They need to drop it realistically.

They need to get rid of TA or rework it, its a balancing headache

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Originally Posted by Drayos

That isn’t a poor design choice, that’s a players mentality, they feel they are doing something more complex then the player next to them therefore feels their entitled to being higher dps. But this is not how a mmorpg works, you aren’t balanced based on the difficulty of your job.

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I agree with everything you said except this little comment.

Classes with high skill ceilings and/or high skill cap almost always do, and should be rewarded with bigger numbers.

Otherwise, you have the issue of "you must play this absolutely perfectly just to be viable, and the middle-to-lower tier players become utterly worthless", which is 100% the case with the current NIN iteration. Players who just aren't competent to do the galaxy brain opener, micro the ninki gauge perfectly, and preemptively not waste mesui/mug to line up everything perfectly are in for a rough time. I'm not one of those players by any means, but what are they supposed to do if they love the job, just re-roll to something more mindless with bigger numbers like SAM?

There needs to be a happy medium somewhere, and I'd love for them to completely obliterate TA and for the actual "assassin class" to shine and be rewarded for mastering the complexity by being able to outshine other mediocre players. The only exception would probably be BLM/SAM since those deservedly should be top 2 since they bring absolutely nothing to the party. NIN would be great in that MNK/DRG/MCH/RDM/SMN tier. Below the two "gods", but somewhere in the middle. And who knows, if you play phenomenally with perfect execution and everyone else is just the average run of the mill player, then yeah, you will be top DPS.

I don't mind the lower damage, if anything I expect it at this point. I don't poo-poo black mage for having great dps, because playing black mage in raid is work. I've watched some black mages do some crazy positioning so they can squeeze in those casts with minimal movement. Black mages don't get special telegraphs before everybody else; they need to learn those fights, they need to do mechanics differently than other people (even if those different mechanics is just shouting "healers adjust"). They do the work, and they do the damage.

Ninja is work.
Best case scenario. Ninja does the work, it makes the fight harder for other people (timing with trick), but other people do the damage for you. I'm okay with that.
Worst case scenario. Ninja does the work, it makes the fight harder for other people, and they don't get enough extra damage out of their extra work to justify their extra work.
We're pretty close to the worst case scenario right now.

As it is now, bringing a ninja is extra work for everybody if you want to even come close to having trick attack pay for itself. Its discouraging and its not fun, and it makes me sad because I love the job. I consider myself a ninja main and I'm currently leveling up dragoon for use in the upcoming raid tier because even though ninja might be a viable job to 'bring along', I think its going to overall be easier to just not have a ninja (as much as it pains me to admit). I would love to play ninja in the next raid tier but I actually cannot justify it because I value the time of my static members over my want to play ninja.

Honestly at this point we've pruned enough skills they should just give us the ability to put the ninjutsu skills on our hotbar already.

Well, this is a wagon I'll have to hop on...

I've done my absolute best at Titania EX and even when I manage to perfectly sync in everything from beginning to end, I get a non-note-worthy damage contribution.
Pretty much I feel like Im handicapping the group just by being there.

Yes, TA is a thing... and I actually would like for it to be removed if the job is meant to stay as complex as it is.

I mean, I feel the intention of the NIN mechanics is for its DPS to revolve around oGCDs, specially the Mudra System. But right now, TA is overshadowing the value of the whole NIN gameplay.

It should be a very competent DPS that sometimes debuffs the enemy.
But right now is a TA bot with everything else being a filler...

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Unfortunately, I do not foresee any significant Ninja buffs. The devs seem very apprehensive towards raid utility right now and unless Trick Attack gets nerfed, I just cannot see them doing more than a mild buff to Bunshin. If they brought Ninja up by 500-800 DPS, it instantly becomes the best melee again. At this point, the clear linchpin is Trick. And it's why I'm leaning more towards that being nerfed and Ninja compensated accordingly. Conversely, I would also rather they focus on reducing the clipping and somewhat awkward implementation of Ninja's rotation. Meisui is a huge trap given how it's only a gain in select situations; Mudras clipping is a serious problem and Bunshin, well... it's underwhelming to say nothing else.

It's hard to say what direction they'll go, really.

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I didn't see much consideration outside of this post, but the thought occurred to me over the weekend after talking with the boys.

It seems like maybe NIN is weak to help avoid NIN+DNC comps? Here was my thought experiment (maybe math could prove otherwise but idk how to math):

DNC boosts (can boost) your highest damage contributor (ie, BLM, SAM, MNK, DRG, MCH), and slightly boosts the group overall.

IF you have NIN/DNC/(1 strong DPS)/(something else) half your dps already is several K lower

But what if you had a group of say, BLM/DRG/MCH/NIN. Then you have 3 of the highest DPS jobs all benefiting from Trick, compared to just one being boosted by DNC.

I don't know, but it seems somewhat plausible that it could be the case where they just wanted to discourage DNC/NIN meta. If NIN wants to roll with the big melee boys they're probably going to have to change Trick.

coming from a gold parser....ninja needs a 1.2k increase in dps period. Trick is only a 1.6% increase to raid dps. Literally nothing to write home about. And can only be taken full advantage of when the team aligns to it. I can post the trick formula at the end of pug logs and get a consistent 1.3% or lower contribution to their dps. Ninja is by faaaar the hardest class. Leaps and bounds beyond next in difficulty. You need to look ahead 90-120secs to use your toolkit appropriately and if you don’t then you’re better off playing any other dps class. All that said it’s still my favorite class. It’s very fulfilling. BUT all that work needs to be rewarded accordingly. Not god tier but 99th on logs should be worth more than 10k lmao. 99th needs to be around 11.2k(Titania since Inno is a striking dummy)