Anyone like the Ninja changes? Let's look at what we saw so far.

Right out the gate you get a trait that either makes huton proc TCJ or TCJ itself is now an ogcd of some kind. Either way TCJ doesn't cost ninki anymore!

You have a long range version of mug that doesn't do damage, but in exchange it gives more ninki than mug would. Maybe they replaced mug and added the extra ninki to make up for it?

Might have missed this, but it looks like kassatsu has become one of those charge moves that they were talking about as well. Not only did it refresh the mudra, the ninja in the vid was able to use it IMMEDIATELY AFTER to load up another mudra.

Speaking of mudras, did you check out that fuma shuriken? You not only get to throw a whole lot of em now, but you teleport as well. Wonder what that means for shukuchi and if that got replaced?

After that teleport, they show off some aoe moves which aren't really special (WHEREISMYFROG). What is special is that move after. It's like duality, but it continues to apply that effect to more of your GCDs. Looks like at least 5 GCDs? Either way you build up wayyy more ninki because of it

Unless I missed it, trick attack was noticeably absent. It's a big move for nins and the party in general. I know that they were talking about lowering the effectiveness of job synergy so that it'll lead to more diverse comps, but did they remove trick attack because of that? We'll see in 5.0 lol

Ninja doesn't look like it plays wildly different in general, but all the new tools should still be pretty neat to mess around with. Anyone else dig the changes?

Hi Zizi.
Trick attack seems to be gone. Probably in line with removing specific jobs as a "must have" in parties. Both Ninjas and Warriors seemed to fall into that.

i like how in the job trailer the ninja is shown like rdm playstyle, half range half melee lol

I have mixed feelings. I like having the trick attack niche, but at the same time, without it, would ninjas be in the current meta?

I'd rather just have high damage or at least comparable damage to everyone else so it won't matter, but team utility is always a nice thing to have. MMO'S don't have much of it anymore.

Trick Attack is probably not gone. The leaks that came out, the pictures accurately depict the skills for DRK, Ninja and PLD. On that leak, Trick Attack was still present.

I feel like there's going to be mucho double weaving involved in their TA burst window now with enhanced Ninjutsu from Kassatsu and TCJ not using ninki.

I'm curious as to whether or not the skill that's used before the two Kassatsu is just a replacement for Mug or not, though, because it generated 40 Ninki. If it isn't, then it would be possible to trigger Bunshin before using TA assuming Mug still generates ninki.

Since enmity reduction tools are gone such as smokescreen and shadewalker. If Trick Attack is indeed gone, are they going to buff NIN dps. I hope trick attack is still there or if so they changed it to have a different effect.

If they try to remove dps synergy, trick attack would probably have another effect now if it's still here.

Kassatsu seems to work differently now too. Yoshida said NIN got high ninjutsu now and in the video when the nin use the first kassatsu he fire a katon with a different animation then the second one with the shuriken he use the mudras for hyoton.
So I'm guessing kassatsu is now a charged skill that allow you to use the higher version of some ninjutsu.

For the toad, I've heard rinne tensei now got a lower CD so if I had to guess I'd say when the clone is in CD you would use rinne tensei for single target and the toad for aoe.

Either way if they removed the debuff of trick attack the NIN will just have more dps, and if no other melee bring any utility to a party then it's just a matter of balancing numbers at maximum dps output.

EDIT: Just noticed too, when he use the skill that charge the ninki, there's an animation with water spheres getting absorbed by the nin, I'm starting to think it's not random if he's using that skill after suiton.
Also ninki seems to be generated with WS now instead of auto-attacks

People were saying MCH still has a hypercharge style effect so it wouldn't make any sense for TA to be gone.

Let alone taking TA away basically makes Hide useless past ninjutsu CD resetting. They seem to be removing things like Tether for RDM skills that are useless in most cases, so I doubt they would take that away an essential like TA.

I was hoping for shadow clones to be honest. But that skill was given to DRK instead.

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Originally Posted by ern815

I was hoping for shadow clones to be honest. But that skill was given to DRK instead.

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Yoshida called the skill that gives you an after image for 10 seconds shadow clone

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Originally Posted by NDubbaYa

Unless I missed it, trick attack was noticeably absent. It's a big move for nins and the party in general. I know that they were talking about lowering the effectiveness of job synergy so that it'll lead to more diverse comps, but did they remove trick attack because of that? We'll see in 5.0 lol

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It's one of two things: they deleted raid utility skills from every job (in which case certain jobs will need MASSIVE buffs) or they just didn't show those skills in the trailer. Dragoon also didn't use tether or battle litany, and monk didn't use brotherhood or mantra. They also already confirmed that the critical buff from bard songs is gone.

From what I take, NIN got some interesting stuff going, but the video only got to show the new and almost nothing of the old.
For starters, they casted Huton, but didn't hide afterwards for Ninjutsu reset, for sure they didn't deem it necessary for the showcase.
What they showed instead was TCJ having no Ninki cost.
Right after they use a skill that gives +40 Ninki, but the water animation and the fact that it was used after TCJ Suiton gives me the impresion of being an alternative for Suiton usage aside from TA.
Kassatsu got confirmed in the Live Letter to be one of the Charged Skills, and seems that now it enables enhanced Ninjutsus, as showcased with 2 of them.
They do a very seemless Shukushi to gap-close in, so its hard to notice, the Shuriken Ninjutsu is not a gap closer at least.
Ninki is still coming from Auto-Attacks, you can see this by going frame by frame, but instead of giving you 6 per hit, they are 8 now.
Once on melee they used a flashy AoE looking skill, that after hitting the target gave them +10 seconds on Huton, since Ninki was already maxed, its not clear if it also gives Ninki.
Right after that comes in the most eye-catching skill (as if there wasn't enough), the after image creation. It lasts for 5 GCDs, so its fairly possible it lasts for 10 seconds. They didn't use any oGCD while it was out, so its unclear if it can replicate the oGCDs or if it goes away on any oGCD usage. Either way, if TA is still in the game, having those 2 align will be quite the gameplay.

Overall, if we have the normal Ninjutsus, Hide still resets the Ninjutsu CD, TCJ is now a free oGCD, kassatsu is a charged skill with at least 2 charges. I see that in the opener itself we can fire away about 7 Ninjutsus (and they will not all be Shurikens).

NIN looks pretty damn amazing IMO.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Hi Zizi.
Trick attack seems to be gone. Probably in line with removing specific jobs as a "must have" in parties. Both Ninjas and Warriors seemed to fall into that.

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hi king \o/

Yeah! It seems totally gone D:

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Hi Zizi.
Trick attack seems to be gone. Probably in line with removing specific jobs as a "must have" in parties. Both Ninjas and Warriors seemed to fall into that.

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so glad if they do but without trick attack what will be the point of the water jutsu? I was thinking the ice or water could silence the enemy like shown in the live letter but they said thats for range and tanks so idk

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Originally Posted by guardin

so glad if they do but without trick attack what will be the point of the water jutsu? I was thinking the ice or water could silence the enemy like shown in the live letter but they said thats for range and tanks so idk

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In the job actions video, after using suiton the nin use the new skill that generate 40 ninki and the animation is water based, so suiton could be needed to activate it.

Unless they're severely toning down the animation locks in 5.0, I don't think it would actually be possible to Shukuchi immediately after a ninjutsu like they seemingly did after that Hyoton.

Turning a move that normally snares targets into a gap closer also seems like a logical effect for an enhanced version.

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Originally Posted by Arkenne

Right after they use a skill that gives +40 Ninki, but the water animation and the fact that it was used after TCJ Suiton gives me the impresion of being an alternative for Suiton usage aside from TA.
Kassatsu got confirmed in the Live Letter to be one of the Charged Skills, and seems that now it enables enhanced Ninjutsus, as showcased with 2 of them.

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This is my thought seeing that same sequence.... 40 ninki hardly seems worth passing up a trick attack, so I have to wonder if absorbing the suiton from the enemy put a buff on that ninja, and that, not kassatsu, is what powered up the following mudras. Like perhaps it's a buff that lasts for 10 seconds so that it's designed to work in tandem with kassatsu.

I think we'll probably be using Mesui (What the new skill is called according to leaks) on cooldown if TA isn't off cooldown. It would be possible to get Bunshin ready before the opener TA , since I'm thinking Mug is going to retain its current Ninki generation effect due to the former requiring a Suiton to trigger.

It's going make the NIN rotation a fair bit more complicated in any case.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Unless they're severely toning down the animation locks in 5.0, I don't think it would actually be possible to Shukuchi immediately after a ninjutsu like they seemingly did after that Hyoton.

Turning a move that normally snares targets into a gap closer also seems like a logical effect for an enhanced version.

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Tho I would sort of love the idea of having a Gap Closer like that, I don't think this is the case with this skill.
It also appears a couple times in the Benchmark and there is no Shukuchi follow up. If it was like that, I don't see the point of the NIN even doing the "GO!" animation for the Hyoton Shurikens.

All I can say is: A no LAG NIN life must be amazing...

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Originally Posted by Starflake

Trick Attack is probably not gone. The leaks that came out, the pictures accurately depict the skills for DRK, Ninja and PLD. On that leak, Trick Attack was still present.

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This.
I think that some people are misinterpreting what they said.
It was specifically about these '' mandatory '' buffs/debuffs between very particular classes, hence why they used stuff like piercing debuffs as an example because it's only between some classes and makes it so that they basically '' have to '' play together.
And they want to get away from that in particular.

Trick Attack is just an overall increase, it's not something that is specifically making them play better with very specific classes like these defense debuffs did.

The way Hyton looked with Kassatsu, it's either a new gap closer or animations are just that seemless now. But it just personally looked like the animation was for one ability, hopefully NIN does get 2 in and out abilities, since Shukuichi is nice to have but it would also be nice to have a jutsu that allows us to deal dmg while heading back to the mob. I wonder if they are removing Armor Crush, they showcase one ability that appears to refresh your Huton Buff but it wasn't attached to a weaponskill combo.

If I had to break it down in the order they were shown we saw Huton, TenChiJin, Shuriken, Raiton, Suioton, Ninki gained ability, Kassatsu(Katon Empowered potential DMG + DOT), Kassatsu(Hyoton Empowered Single Target+ Charge at mob), Death Blossom, Huton Extender, Utsusemi(Shadow Clones), Spinning Edge+Shadow Fang(Back to a 2 step combo) and then Spinning Edge+GustSlash+Aeolian Edge, Bhavacakra.

What we didn't see was Hellfrog Medium(Though I don't see them removing this) and Armor Crush(Which is potentially removed) along with the enmity abilities being removed. The only other thing we didn't see was Doton, so either that has no augmented version or they are potenially hiding some mechanics that NIN may has now.

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Originally Posted by Airget

The way Hyton looked with Kassatsu, it's either a new gap closer or animations are just that seemless now. But it just personally looked like the animation was for one ability, hopefully NIN does get 2 in and out abilities, since Shukuichi is nice to have but it would also be nice to have a jutsu that allows us to deal dmg while heading back to the mob. I wonder if they are removing Armor Crush, they showcase one ability that appears to refresh your Huton Buff but it wasn't attached to a weaponskill combo.

If I had to break it down in the order they were shown we saw Huton, TenChiJin, Shuriken, Raiton, Suioton, Ninki gained ability, Kassatsu(Katon Empowered potential DMG + DOT), Kassatsu(Hyoton Empowered Single Target+ Charge at mob), Death Blossom, Huton Extender, Utsusemi(Shadow Clones), Spinning Edge+Shadow Fang(Back to a 2 step combo) and then Spinning Edge+GustSlash+Aeolian Edge, Bhavacakra.

What we didn't see was Hellfrog Medium(Though I don't see them removing this) and Armor Crush(Which is potentially removed) along with the enmity abilities being removed. The only other thing we didn't see was Doton, so either that has no augmented version or they are potenially hiding some mechanics that NIN may has now.

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With TP gone, my guess is that they want to make AoE more involved for physical jobs. DRG already has a combo ability that extends Blood of the Dragon and seems to be getting a third stage to that combo, MNK seems to be getting a proper AoE combo, PLD is getting an AoE combo off of Total Eclipse and AoE spells during Requiescat, so it would make sense for NIN to get something that combos off of Death Blossom that also works as a Huton extender.

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Originally Posted by Airget

snippet.

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I've been noticing on DRG as well they seemed to be using skills faster than I was used to. Perhaps they did something with the skillspeed of animations. Some skills indeed seemed to flow really quick into eachother elsewise.

It seems like the new skills are indeed just Meisui (Converts Suiton into ninki), the enhanced Katon/Hyoton, the new AoE combo, and Bunshin.

I don't feel like the NIN opener is going to be high ping friendly anymore as you'd need to double weave multiple times to get every single OGCD ability on cooldown within a single TA. The hardest part would be landing an enhanced ninjutsu and still having time to get off two TCJ boosted ones on top of that.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

get off two TCJ boosted ones on top of that.

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I gotta agree that it is indeed not going to be ping friendly, either high or low, really.
Not gonna be weird if later on the main DPS comes out of Ninjutsus instead of GCDs even.

I don't really understand where the 2 TCJ boost comes from tho?
TCJ is also a charged skill?

As they confirmed Kassatsu is one of them charged skills, and at least has 2 charges, I believe that with what we know so far the opener will roughly involve something like...
Huton > Hide > Suiton > Meisui + Mug (maybe) > TCJ Suiton > TA + Bunshin > Kassatsu Hyoton x2 > whatever other skills

In the opener alone firing away 7 Ninjutsus

As TCJ no longer consumes Ninki, most likely the Auto Attacks going off while rooted with it now actually gives you Ninki too. (Which would be sweet)

The hexagonal thingy that happens after Death Blossom is definitely an AoE melee combo that charges up Huton, hopefully also gives Ninki but I wouldn't bet on it...

Everything but TCJ was good

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Originally Posted by ern815

I was hoping for shadow clones to be honest. But that skill was given to DRK instead.

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honestly at choose, the kage bushin of the ninja is far more interesting since it allows every attack to double.... now the question is do it have a reduction of damage? plus it seems to only work on weapon skill.... who know...

I was thoroughly impressed with the NIN segment of the skills trailer. The mudra execution was smooth, but they could also have the best internet ever as well. But if they've made adjustments for better flow of mudra input that would be really sweet.

Standard Huton opener into TCJ (Fuma, Raiton, Suiton) that doesn't consume any of the Ninki gauge. NIN doesn't hide to refresh ninjitsu but also does not need to since TCJ still does this as well. Currently unsure if Suiton grants the same or different effect, and TA is not used. TCJ is likely ogcd now, but will the current CD timer remain the same?

NIN then uses a new ability, which seems to be a long range Mug to add 40 Ninki to the gauge then follows up with a Kassatsu. The ensured critical damage with Kassatsu might be reflected through the new animations for Katon and Hyoton. However, what I am thinking is Kassatsu gives us access to tier 2 ninjitsu, but different combinations of mudra input could accomplish this as well. As an example Hyoton is either Ten->Chi, or Jin->Chi; but they could make it so Ten->Chi is tier 1 Hyoton, and Jin->Chi is tier 2. Though I highly doubt this. Whatever the case, I want to see tier 2 Raiton as well!

Also, I slowed the video down quite a bit, and the animation for Shukuchi can be seen right after the Hyoton shurikens are thrown. This isn't much different than when I use it after TCJ to come in for TA. That's one of the things I like about NIN though; they are so freakin fast. A question I have though is I wonder of Shukuchi will also have charges, and if using x2 mudra Jutsu will add to it? In any case, NIN continues to shift the scales of ninjitsu and melee skills in combat towards the former.

Auto attacks definitely generate 8 Ninki pts now, and NIN follows up with Death Blossom. Next new ability extends Huton by 10, very likely causes damage and is ogcd. With only 10 seconds added, I'm assuming Armor Crush is still around, and this ability is just another resource to extend Huton timer to increase overall DPS for the NIN.

Last up is Bunshin no Jutsu into Bhavacakra. While I love the effect, it isn't exactly what I was hoping for with shadow clones. DRK pretty much got that. I was actually hoping it would be related to the lv70 quest and be mudra activated and summon two clones. What this effect will do is what I though Duality would do when I was progressing my NIN, then it turns out I had to reserve it for AE. Oh well, it doesn't change how amazing the job looks in this video.

So I was seeing it right, ninki is now generated on weaponskills. I'm surprised to see the debuff from the trick attack still being there since it'll most likely mean ninja will keep is guaranteed spot in most raid parties.
The optimal opening will be something insane I feel like, with the numbers of oGCD we can unleash with the 2 kassatsu, the TCJ, the clone, dream in a dream and assassinate.

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Originally Posted by Sigiria

So I was seeing it right, ninki is now generated on weaponskills.

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I've never been happier to be wrong.
When they introduced Ninki in SB I was hoping the proc to be from Weaponskills, but disappointingly was from autoattacks, then I was wishing Duality to be a Weapon Skill repeater that crashed my dreams within dreams once I got it.

Now we got the Ninki Proc dependant on Weaponskills, Bunshing replacing the never-to-expectation Duality, and almost all the Ninjutsus we could hope for.
Even Bhava now only has a 1s CD, so you don't have to frog for single target like... ever.

What makes me curious (altho I may already know the answers) are the other ogcds:
- DwaD may still be quite the boring skill it has always been, but now gives a buff to cast Assassinate within the next 10 seconds, Assassinate now is a lvl 60 skill that no longer requires the target to be below 20% HP but can only be casted with this buff, however Assassinate has a 1s CD, does that mean its spammable? That would be OP so I believe is a 1 cast per min, which is fine by me honestly.

- Mug is not being talked about either in the trailer, nor in the reports from the media tour, so does it still give 30 ninki? ...NVM I just saw the Larryzur video and it not only is still there and gives you Ninki... it is now 40. Still on a 90s CD tho.

- Shukushi has 2 charges with a charging time of 60s, but does it still reset uppon using 2 mudra ninjutsus?

- Jugulate is gone, huh? you'll be missed buddy.

- Seems the venom trait is also gone? So NIN no longer has a passive power increase for GCDs?

And yes, the opener alone will be nothing short of insane, with NIN retaining its CPM king title over all the jobs definitely.

Edit: On the min-maxer side tho... for better or for worse Meisui requires Suiton, this means that there are 2 reasons to cast Suiton in a 1 minute window.

Suiton, however, as this tooltip list suggests, has been nerfed to 100 potency while the alternatives of the non-GCD-clipper Shuriken got boosted to 280 and the minor-GCD-clipper Raiton onto 400.
Suiton still being the Huge-GCD-clipper that it is, Ninki coming off of weaponskills and Bhavacakra also having a nerf to 500 potency sounds sort of like a negative on the long run thing?

Is +40 Ninki every 60 seconds worth the about 1s GCD delay (~4 Ninki) and the 180~300 Ninjustu potency trade of?
What are your thoughts on that??

Not a min-maxer here, but I feel like using Meisui right after using a TCJ ending with Suiton would be the best worth of regaining that 40 ninki, cause that means you can fill that ninki bar quicker for a Bunshin and Bhava in between TA's.

NIN is a very situational job, so I can't really rule out the possibility of using TCJ Suiton for Meisui for Ninki's sake.

As for the opener......... makes me think......

Is just that with TCJ we could have a 560 Pot Shuriken and a 800 pot Raiton, also getting Bunshin for an 880 Pot Aeolian and maybe 1 Hyosho which is also 550 Pot...

But not sure if we would have time to weave in the 600 Pot DwaD and the 260 Pot Assassinate... as TCJ is already 4~5 seconds off of TA and Hyosho being a 2 mudra Ninjutsu will already make it difficult to weave in twice... definitely no Bhava would fit in and Mug's CD would be delayed considerably...


Will need to see >_>;;

I'm not a main NIN but it has always been a job i like to play and my second job to level. The changes seemed appealing to me. I liked that they conserved most of its skills and upped them with kassatsu not simply being a second charge but adding something to the mudras. Ninja still seem as fun to play and i'm waiting to try this and the other changes.

Its not only that, really, they fixed some animation problems!!

With Dream within a Dream being the biggest offender of the bunch as the animation was always being chopped off by the next skill. Now you will do the DwaD animation and if you do another skill, a shadow of yourself will carry on the DwaD animation while you do the next input.
Same applies for Assassinate, as a shadow of yourself is the actual one to do the animation.

Its so amazing~♪

I saw the commentary on Ninja's media tour and I would say IT'S AWESOME! from the looks of it.

I think I'd probably use Meisui after the TCJ finisher during the opener just for the sake of making the rotation flow more smoothly.

You could open with Suiton, Meisui, then do another Suiton using Kassatsu after Shadow Fang so you can Mug and get a Bhavacakra off within the TA window, but I'm not sure if that's worth it or not since finding a spot to squeeze in the Bhavacakra would be rather difficult.

Assuming tooltips stay true on release, you will have 80 NINKI off a basic opener due to 8 NIN per weaponskill (5 GCDs) and Mug giving 40 NIN (IIRC it got increased on 5.0) by the time you do your first TA. You don't want to spend it on Bhava since you definitely want to Bunshin during TA for 16 NIN per weaponskill which should fit in a Bhava near the end of TA window. The only issue here is you might not hit the NIN requirement for that Bhava due to having to cast enhanced mudras in-between GCDs if you have poor latency (you should only use Hyosho during this time as the enhanced mudra).

Now the question is, where do you want to utilize TCJ and Meisui? Using TCJ currently is roughly equivalent to 3 GCDs which means you won't have time to use it directly as an opener (unless they introduced significant reductions in input delay) since Mug, Kassastsu, and Pots need to fit in before a TA. With Suiton being 20secs, you have more leeway for landing TA, but I assume people still want it on time after 5 GCDs. If numbers are the same on release, a Bunshin during TA with a Bhava ender will deal more damage than a Bhava -> TCJ -> Suiton -> Meisui especially considering you still need to utilize your Kassatsu mudras during that time.

These are all assumptions, but I believe people will still stick with the normal opener except Bunshin instead of Bhava and use TCJ into Meisui after TA has already expired for Bhava spamming. TCJ is more meant for filler damage once you use up your Ninjutsu cooldowns from Kassatsu. I don't think anyone will use TCJ into Doton anymore due to Meisui existing.

Hrm, on the term of the opener, I have yet to see...

Im also kinda worried by what happens 60 seconds past the start of the fight...

So far the opener Im liking the most is:

Huton > Hide > Suiton > SE(Meisui) > SF(Pot) > SE(TCJ Suiton) > GS (Kassatsu) > AE (Mug) > SE(Bunshin + TA) > GS(Hyosho) > AE(Kassatsu + Bhava) > SE(Hyosho) > GS(DwaD + Assassinate) > AE > SE > GS(Bhava) > AE > SE > SF > carry on

In Bold whats covered by TA, in Underline whats covered by Bunshin.

Im also delaying SF during Bunshin there because I don't know if the clone will leave its own DoT, if not then the potency from SF in Bunshin would be something like 260*2 + 50*6 = 820, which is simply lower than going for another 440 * 2 AE. If the clone however leaves its own DoT, by all means gimme more damage :v

I also tried out an opener with Suiton > TA and TCJ inside TA, but the 4~5 whole seconds sacrifice for TA is too great to my liking and also delays Bunshin in quite a bit, without mentioning that TCJ CD is of 100 which makes it a bit awkward...