Ninja in 4.0

Ninja is my favorite DPS job. It's both powerful and fun to play. My main problem with Ninja is stealth..

Stealth, I feel, isn't useful enough for ninja. You move slow, most monsters you can't get close enough to use your stealth attacks, and you don't even need stealth to use your stealth attacks.

Other mmos that have stealth based classes hardly give those classes a need to get out of it, because there's no downside.

So, I was thinking that the 4.0 skillset (or whatever their plans are) should be more based around ninja's stealth. Giving people more reason to use it, like less risk of detection, bonuses on openers, faster movement speed, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I love what they added for Ninja in 3.0, but I think it's a shame to have certain skills be utterly useless and collect dust.

I'd like to see stealth improvements, sneak attack / trick attack no longer sharing the same timer, some sort of "skill tree" or binary spec option that allowed for some playstyle variety (like one being more melee focused and the other being more focused on casting ninjutsu sort of like a NIN/BLM in XI geared for it in certain level ranges rotating through its elemental wheel), etc. As much as armor crush is nice, I really feel that huton should be removed altogether; it's just a boring buff you keep up 100% of the time, and the worst part of it is it's not even really a "buff" for the traditional ninja class as they've always had speed (or dual wield traits in XI) be an innate part of the job. Having to maintain a buff for a ninja to be speedy like would be as crazy / against how the job has always played as a black mage casting fire on Ifrit for damage!

If huton is remove what could replace it ? All dps jobs have a buff (except smn because it has tons of dots instead) to keep up (strait shot, hot shot, heavy thrust, twin snake, AF/UI)

It'd be certainly be fun if stealth was a meaningful aspect of gameplay. There are quite a few things they could do with it. Have it provide some sort of bonus while you're not attacking, such as passive movement speed up unless damage is taken, or 10% damage reduction. This would make it worth toggling during movement phases. Then do something like your first hit out of stealth is an auto crit or provides a short damage buff for when you get back on the boss. They could even just give it a simple aggro dump. Anything would be better than it is now. It's not even on my bars and I can't remember the last time I used it, which is a shame.

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such as passive movement speed up

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NIN already has:

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Fleet of Foot Level 20 Rogue Increases movement speed.

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Stealth is wird because how would it work in Raids? Maybe in FFXI where Sneak/Invis/Hide were a thing.

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Then do something like your first hit out of stealth is an auto crit or provides a short damage buff

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Isn't this what SA/TA are used for? Suiton makes you 'invisible' if you read the description

I would like to see stealth enhance too the only use i have for it now is have a skill between mudras and the abilities to not fuck the mudra use come on SE make stealth useful

I would have Hide and Suiton offer different effects.

First, allow Hide during combat, it's not as though it is even all that beneficial, it slows you down tremendously.

I would have Trick Attack and Sneak Attack still function as attacks with rear/front positionals. However, I would have Hide cause TA/SA to be a guaranteed hit, while Suiton provides TA/SA with the vulnerability debuff.

This way you have Trick Attack as your party/raid attack, while Sneak Attack functions more as your solo ability. The debuff is dependant on using either one under Suiton, while if you need a burst of heavy personal damage you can use them under the effect of Hide for an auto-crit.

I'm still trying to figure out a use for Shukuchi... the range on it is so small, by the time you cast it you could have already run to where you'd land.

I use stealth occasionally on mobs in dungeons for an easy SA or TA, but outside of that, it doesn't have much use.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

I'm still trying to figure out a use for Shukuchi... the range on it is so small, by the time you cast it you could have already run to where you'd land.

I use stealth occasionally on mobs in dungeons for an easy SA or TA, but outside of that, it doesn't have much use.

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I love Shukuchi! I have it macro'd to my right analog stick (Macro #99).

/ac Shukuchi
/ac Shukuchi <t>

This way I can instantly teleport to a target if needed, or with no target selected, I can click R3 and easily aim the landing zone.

I use it all the time for easy movement, or for instances where AoE requires you to spread out because you can use it as a gap closer to get back to the target quickly.

Yeah Shukuchi is very useful in raids :)

http://www.cute-factor.com/images/sm...on/th_099_.gif

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

I love Shukuchi! I have it macro'd to my right analog stick (Macro #99).

/ac Shukuchi
/ac Shukuchi <t>

This way I can instantly teleport to a target if needed, or with no target selected, I can click R3 and easily aim the landing zone.

I use it all the time for easy movement, or for instances where AoE requires you to spread out because you can use it as a gap closer to get back to the target quickly.

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I like shukuchi. I only wish it was more a teleport style move like aethereal manipulation and jumps.

The difference is a black mage can effectively manipulate straight through a poison puddle for example and not get poisoned or debuffed. It's also instant in regards to getting out of ages.

But if a ninja shukuchis through it they will usually pick up the poison status or other debuff. And there's a slight delay which sometimes means you can still get caught in an aoe

Shukuchi is a lot like Aetherial Manipulation is for BLMs and Elusive Jump for DRGs - you don't have to use it, but if you figure out how it makes your day better, it's fantastic.

For 4.0, I'd want NINs to focus a bit less on support and a bit more on slicing things hard and fast. Think Akatsuki from Log Horizon. I don't really have any specific things to add to that, though, and my stance on 4.0 in general is still that they need to rethink the skillsets in general and focus more on merging skills and adding more traits to combat ability bloat. As a controller player, I have no problem actually binding ~40 skills in an easy-to-access way, but at some point it just becomes un-fun to have that many abilities to track.

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Originally Posted by seekified

For 4.0, I'd want NINs to focus a bit less on support and a bit more on slicing things hard and fast.

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I blame the class system for this weird situation NIN is in. Heavensward had the right idea with just skipping classes and making jobs. NIN is in that weird place where they created rogue but slapped NIN on top of it, so you only feel like half of a ninja but with half of the tools of a traditional rogue class (with HW adding onto it FFXI's thief enmity management to an extent). It feels like they could do a much, much better job overall if they had just made ninja and thief separate jobs.

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Originally Posted by NovaLevossida

It feels like they could do a much, much better job overall if they had just made ninja and thief separate jobs.

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Agreed, and NIN probably sticks out more than most in that regard since the mindsets of ROG and NIN are so different - they both work in the shadows, but one is a pirate streetbrawler and one is a hardened discipline of martial mastery. They don't really mix from a lore point of view even if the base fighting techniques are somewhat similar.

ACN/SMN/SCH obviously also suffer a bit from this - they would've made a lot more sense as their own jobs, which Yoshi himself has said as well.

I do hope ninja goes more dmg based in 4.0. While I was happy to get Shadewalker in HW due to high burst aggro during the opener, I always felt Smokescreen is a bit iffy. I don't think it would be that bad if it worked like Shroud or Elusive jump with aggro. I have to say I didn't expect Ninja to head in the direction it did in HW.

I would like to see more use from Hide and Sneak attack like many have said here. Maybe a little more to each of the Kisses.