Ninja is not engaging outside of Trick Attack windows

Current iteration of NIN is definitely lacking something to do that is different from pressing 1-2-3 for 45 seconds when Trick Attack window is gone.

SAMs have to build their Sen for Midare, MNKs have to both keep up their Disciplined Fist and Demolish, DRGs have to build up Dragon Gauge to enter Life of the Dragon and keep up their Chaos Thrust.

NINs should be keeping track of their Huton but the buff is so long and refreshing it adds so many seconds that you can literally drop it really low, do two Armor Crush in a row, bring it back to 60 and forget about it for another ~50 seconds potentially. I started getting more in depth with NIN after mid Eden's Promise and the only others instances that I can remember having to keep track of something meaningful is Doton in UCOB during add phase and in TEA during P1 and P2.
This brings to my first point which is Huton is not engaging.

This opens two possible scenarios:

• Removing Huton as a buff and transforming it into a passive
• Reducing the duration of Huton to 15~20 seconds.

The first implies the removal, or rework, of Armor Crush and Huraijin with the possiblity of adding something new or even adding back a dot.

The second brings NIN to keep track of a short-ish buff. This would also require Armor Crush potency to be lowered in order to make it valuable to hit your Aeolian Edge since in the current state you only lose 20 potency by using an Armor Crush over an Aeolian Edge. This would also require a change of some sort for Huraijin.

Talking about Huraijin, we get to the second point which is questionable buttons.
Considering Savage and Ultimate content, NIN has several buttons that find poor to no usage or don't feel meaningful to press to me:

Mudra combination

• Fuma Shuriken: poor usage, it's only there to start your TCJ.
• Hyoton: no usage.

GCD

• Huraijin: no usage, if you're playing properly you never use this GCD.
• Forked Raiju: poor usage, the only case I've found it can keep your GCD going is in case you get an explosion tether during P4S P2 Act4, beside that you never use this GCD.

oGCD

• Hide: poor usage, it's only there to refresh your Mudra before engaging then you never use this again.
• Mug: not meaningful, it's a 120s CD that doesn't really feel like being one.
• Dream Within a Dream: not meaningful, does barely more damage than a Bhavacakra.

I think most of these buttons could be reworked to give the class more depth and engagement, especially Mudra combination since it's pretty much the identity of the class but you always end up using the same three: Suiton, Raiton, Hyosho.
Has anyone else had the same or different feeling to the current NIN situation? I'd like to hear what the NIN playerbase has to say.

Personally I'd rly like for Hide to turn into something like Shadow Dance from Sub Rogue in WoW when you're in combat and allow us to use Sneak Attack ( remember that? @0:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBVGmzUcK30 ).
You could balance the numbers to keep Trick Attack to be like it is now, and then make this something else to do outside of Trick Attack windows.

Imo I just want to see stealth be incorporated somehow, not necessarily stealth literally but I mean the theme.
Basically Trick Attack = magic/ Mudra themed, outside of Trick Attack the 123 + sneaky/ stealth themed.

I was really hoping for an overhaul to the whole mudra system when I learned they were adding Hurajin. It baffles me that they extended all the mudra to 20 yalms but Fuma Shuriken and Hyoton are only 25 yalms as the "long distance" options. They need to be at least 30 yalms or more to really fill the "long distance" niche if they are going to compete for uptime with the other stronger mudra. I always thought Hyoton in particular would upgrade to a gap closer since it would be cool to freeze an enemy in place from a distance and then dash forward to break the ice. If the damage from breaking the ice was brought up to par with Raiton we would have a gap closer mudra to chose from in single target and both skills could trigger Forked and Fleeting Raiju. Huton should have replaced the DoT we lost in Shadowfang but as a buff to the Ninja that increased auto attack potency for 60 seconds and did AoE Wind damage around the Ninja upon execution. This new Huton auto attack potency buff could be extended by Shadowfang the same way as the current version. That way it's a buff we reapply to ourselves outside of trick attack and Hurajin becomes a part of the rotation as the only way to gain our original skill speed speed buff. I would drop Hurajin to 30 seconds so we can use it twice to build up to 60 seconds of speed buff in that scenario and make it a more common part of the basic rotation. Mug just needs a shorter Cooldown to at least 90 seconds while Hide and Trick attack should really just be the same button. You can only use Trick attack when Hidden. Under the effect of Suiton we should press Hide for Trick. It seems like common sense after morphing skills were introduced. Dream Within a Dream is fine to me but I wouldn't be mad if it was lowered to 30 seconds to see more usage outside of Trick attack.

Something I thought about since Hyoton being '' useless '' was brought up in another thread.

I've used Hyoton before to save the day in dungeons or simply stay alive after everyone else has died until they get there but yeah it's obviously not part of your rotation.
I'd actually like to see an ice themed Ninjutsu as part of our rotation tho.

I'd like to see a combo of the elements be part of our rotation, like water/ ice ( ice = water anyways lol ) + lightning = big combo damage.
Hyosho Ranyu could also be turned into an element skill instead of uh, whatever it is.

Ice + fire could work too, quick and extreme temperature changes.
So basically water + lightning and ice + fire.

Suiton = lightning debuff, Raiton and Raiju = ice debuff, Hyosho Ranyu ( ice element ) = fire debuff.
And fire could be the big ender of the cycle.

Maybe they could tie this into your combos too by making your melee combos have elements tied to them.
Could even tie Huraijin into that and change the element, make Hyuton a passive and change Armor Crush around this theme.

Ice is a bit of a let down in FFXIV, game doesn't love it as much as fire.

That combo nin version sounds very fun and interesting to play.

Related, I found this log the other day. If you look at the timeline the player just does their one minute burst and then the absolute bare minimum like the occasional Huraijin or building up Ninki for Bunshin until the next TA window. Obviously they got a fat 0 on the site that can't be named but I found it funny they could get away with this and still be able to do their burst window no problem.

https://xivanalysis.com/fflogs/fxjVTLdr2G6N7BAq/49/39

I’m personally happy with how NIN plays. The stark discrepancy between its raid burst and its filler is part of the appeal to me. It has elements that are frustrating (TCJ not playing well with forced movement, TA getting overcrowded due to the Raiju padding we got in Endwalker), but they’re also part of the appeal in some sense.

I think we are at that point where Trick should just work without needing Hide/Suiton so the latter can get reworked to do something more interesting. I’m not after removing mudras, mind you, and Hide by itself is fine. I just don’t see much reason for TA to be so conditional and Suiton to remain as is if we’re running out of ways to evolve the job to begin with. Mudras are the core of Ninja, and when I think of ways to ‘fix’ Ninja, they mostly boil down to button bloat from Meisui and other Ninki generation actions (which I’d like to consolidate down to Rogue with Mug upgrading to Bhava and DWD/Assassinate taking over generation duty for both Mug and Meisui, which solves a lot of problems). And people kinda want a better water ability than current Meisui.

As for what to make Suiton ‘do’? Boosting the potency of your next 1-2 Raitons and/or Raijus comes to mind. Particularly if you can hold onto that bonus indefinitely. That way it can serve as an alternative to Raiton that actually functions as a way to maintain your primary burst under TA, while Raiton’s combo serves as an extension that works better when gap closing with Forked Raiju is valuable. The biggest problem with this is it makes Suiton indirectly better than Raiton so I’m fairly sure it breaks the current flow a lot without careful adjustments. But it’s only one of many options.