The changes to Trick Attack impacts every class, and not in a good way.

I've been thinking on this ever since the changes were announced. It's very easy to think about how disappointing this change is as a Ninja player -- our job goes from being the rDPS job it has always been to being a selfish job with a bog-standard two-minute buff that's somehow better and worse than most other two minute buffs in the game.

However, Ninja is far from the only class that's impacted by Trick Attack. Removing the last remaining 1-minute buff has dire implications for skill expression across the board. Do you have excess gauge to spend between two-minute buffs? Doesn't matter where you spend it. Have extra stacks of a skill to use up before you overcap? It doesn't matter anymore if you use it now or in twenty second's time. You can turn your brain off outside of those crucial two-minute windows.



To me, this is heart-breaking, as I was really hoping the game would move in favour of more buffs on odd -- or at least 1-minute -- timers. Two minute timers mean you only really get three -- maybe four in early weeks -- burst windows per fight. That's not a lot.

The reason for the changes to Trick Attack were to 'increase synergy with other classes'. I fully believe that the changes do not serve the stated purpose, and in fact decrease the synergy Ninja has with other classes.

The first point of note is that Ninja already synergised well with two-minute buff windows, by virtue of Trick Attack being on a one-minute timer. Changing the party buff to Mug on a two-minute timer does not increase synergy with other classes, as this synergy already existed!

I'm not an expert on other classes, and I invite other players with more experience to come and offer their thoughts on what each class's 'synergy' is with the one-minute party buff that used to be Trick Attack. That said, I'd like to briefly outline what each class could potentially bring to a Trick Attack window, to the best of my understanding. I will update this post if other players correct me or suggest other abilities.


Melee DPS
Samurai
Samurai is able to pool Kenki and unleash several Shintens within the one-minute buff window, as opposed to mindlessly spending them at any point between two-minute windows. Higanbana, the SAM DOT, also lasts sixty-seconds, meaning that a Samurai would be able to maintain full buff uptime on their DOT, by alternating refreshing it during one and two minute windows.

Monk
Monk already has a personal buff, Riddle of Fire, which aligns perfectly with Trick Attack. I'm unsure if anything in particular would change in the Monk rotation, but given that it naturally aligns, I can't imagine much would change. Monk would also benefit from refreshing its DOT under Trick.

Dragoon
Dragoon also has a personal buff - Lance Charge - on a 60s cooldown, and additionally has Spineshatter Dive, Geirskogul, Stardiver, High Jump, Mirage Dive -- an absolute swathe of abilities to pour into Trick Attack. Like the other melees, Dragoon also benefits from refreshing its DOT under Trick.

Reaper
While I have the weakest understanding of this job of the melees, I understand it is able to pour an Enshroud window into Trick, which is a substantial amount of burst, as it generates ~3 Enshroud windows every two minutes. Two Enshrouds will go into 2-minute buffs, and one is left over. Reaper, unlike the melees, however, does not have a DOT, but similar to Samurai loses out the most by no longer having a meaningful place to expend the extra Enshroud window.


Caster DPS
Summoner
Summoner should naturally align with Trick Attack, with the Demi-phases of their rotation coming in every sixty seconds. As I understand it, Summoners would prioritise going into Titan-phase immediately after their Demi with a Ninja in the party, to maximise the value of Trick Attack. Additionally, getting Enkindle under Trick Attack is a small optimisation that can benefit the party.


Red Mage
As I understand it, Red Mage is almost always able to dump a melee combo into Trick Attack, as they naturally overcap enough for a single melee combo, much like with Reaper's Enshroud. Without Trick Attack, it doesn't matter where Red Mage dumps this additional combo.

Black Mage
As I understand it, Black Mage generally ignores raid buffs to prioritise maximising its sustained damage, but depending on the fight Black Mage might be able to pour Xenoglossies into Trick Attack, allowing for a small optimisation of optimisation.


Ranged Physical DPS
Bard
Bard, being a heavily proc-based class, does not have a large number of abilities to play into Trick, but should be able to fit an Empyrean Arrow and Apex Arrow -> Blast Arrow into every Trick Window.


Machinist
Machinist would always have the Automaton Queen available, as well as Reassemble charge, Chain Saw, and a Hypercharge window available to pour into Trick Attack.

Dancer
Dancer should be able to fit a Standard Step and Flourish under Trick Attack, as well as pooling any excess feathers gained from GCDs, which is a substantial amount of burst.

Tanks
Paladin
Paladins have a personal damage buff -- Fight or Flight -- which naturally aligns with Trick Attack's party buff. They'd also be able to reapply the DOT from Goring Blade under Trick. As I understand it, however, Paladin doesn't align naturally with Trick, and often uses its most potent abilities outside of one-minute windows for rotational reasons.

Warrior
Warrior's Inner Release window now aligns perfectly with Trick Attack's timer, allowing them to get a huge amount of burst out during one-minute intervals.

Dark Knight
Blood Weapon and Delirium are each on a sixty-second cooldown, allowing DRK to build massive amounts of MP and expend a large number of Flood of Shadows each minute. In addition, Carve and Spit can be poured into Trick, too.

Gunbreaker
GNB has a personal buff, similar to Paladin -- No Mercy -- on a 60s cooldown, which aligns naturally with Trick. It can pour a lot of abilities into Trick, too -- Danger Zone, Sonic Break (which also applies a DOT), Rough Divide (x2), the Gnashing Fang combo, Bow Shock, Blasting Zone, Double Down -- the list goes on. It's no surprise to say that Gunbreaker synergises particularly strongly with Trick Attack's one-minute raid buff.

Healers
(yes, even healers)
White Mage
With Lillies now being on a 20s charge instead of a 30s charge, WHM is able to generate one Afflatus Misery per minute. Pouring this into Trick would be a huge gain. In addition, Assize will align with every third Trick Attack, for a small gain in potency. Naturally, Dia can also be refreshed in Trick for a gain in potency.


Scholar
Aetherflow is a 60s cooldown, which while normally used to fuel Lustrate and Sacred Soil, can being used to dump damage with Energy Drain. These dumps can be poured into Trick for a small potency gain. Similar to WHM, SCH can also refresh Biolysis in Trick for a gain in potency.


Astrologian
Astrologian, similar to other healers, enjoys the boost to Combust II from refreshing it during Trick Attack. Earthly Star also lines up perfectly with Trick, on a 60s cooldown.


Sage
Phlegma III stacks can be pooled and dumped during Trick Windows. Similar to the other healers, it can also refresh Eukrasian Dosis II under Trick for a small gain in potency.


Once again, I do not believe all (or even any) of these are entirely correct statements. I could be completely wrong about a job's ability to play into Trick, and I encourage you to correct me or offer your own contributions where I've failed to.

However, I hope this post demonstrates just how much synergy between each job and Trick Attack already existed. All of this is lost to us as of 6.1.

I would ask the developers to elaborate on where, exactly, the synergy from Mug exists where it did not with Trick Attack, and why they believe it has increased. As it stands, I do not believe that their stated reasoning for the changes to Trick Attack lines up with the actions taken.

100%. The ninja changes are worse than the samurai changes in my eyes. At least the SAM change didn’t dumb down literally every other job. I hope they undo them soon.

The samurai changes are pretty horrific, but limited to more or less just Samurai and by proxy Dancer. The Ninja changes, however, are far more wide-reaching, which is why I feel this change is such a step backwards. Samurai loses out twice -- the changes to their job, and then losing out being able to dump Kenki into Trick.

Not only did Sam's kenki guage get ruined, shintens are literally just a spammable oGCD unless it's the two minute window. The only optimization possible is if an AST is with you

On the usage of Trick Attack by certain jobs, SGE wouldn't burn Toxikon II as it has equal potency to their filler, it's Phlegma III that they would burn under Trick Attack, and they should have at least one for every application. For AST, Earthly Star happens to also have a cooldown of 60s, which lines up well. For BRD, they generate enough gauge for an Apex/Blast Arrow for every Trick Attack application.

Small corrections aside, I agree with OP, Trick Attack was a valuable resource for every job, not just the ninja, removing it made no sense and also made gameplay more boring to optimise.

The Trick Attack change might not feel like a huge difference in practice, but it's definitely a bit weird that they went from "you only get to have fun with your rotation once per minute! : D" to "you only get to have fun with your rotation once every two minutes! : D"

I suspect it was for balancing purposes more than anything, because I guess jobs that had the ability to dump a disproportionate amount of potency on command ended up having aDPS a good deal higher than they intended -namely DRK and SAM, who can pool up resources and unload potency faster than any other jobs in their class by a decent margin-, but it still sucks that it comes at the cost of gameplay.

Confirming the loss of optimizatoon for MCH as well. I'd always have an 80 gauge queen + Reass Chain Saw + HC window exactly at the odd minute mark for the extra aDPS. Sadly it's gone now.

I still have a suspicion that such a change was necessary to allow them to make another Scouting job without it turning out to be clearly inferior to NIN.

I feel that the trick attack change was to make a reason for them to buff NIN without giving them more rDPS. And agreed with poster above, it's clear that one of 7.0's jobs will be scouting since they added a maiming one in EW.

We won't be getting another melee DPS next expansion. Whatever job they introduce will have to compete with the casters or the physical ranged, not Ninja. That argument makes no sense at all.

I'll be a bit cynical here... So which of those classes (bar healers since at that point we'll probably take anything if it means we have something to do other than the barebone DPS rotation) is willing to take a dip in their aDPS to boost others? Genuinely asking here because most often I see Ninja Changes viewed by this prism and not the class itself (other than having more stiff Ninki management once that becomes a thing)

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

We won't be getting another melee DPS next expansion. Whatever job they introduce will have to compete with the casters or the physical ranged, not Ninja. That argument makes no sense at all.

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3 rangers + 3 casters : 2 strikers + 2 slayers + 2 scouts

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Originally Posted by Someone's going to try to argue

But the roles are phys ranged, magic ranged, and melee so right now we're 3:3:5 and should get more casters or rangers.

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And yet most raids are built with mechanics for two ranged DDs and two melee DDs, and 1:1:2 ≡ 3:3:6, so another scouting job would not be unreasonable.

For sure getting another scout job at some point, it does not need to be tied to rogue or nin at all, the job just needs to be able to use the gear. Current guesses are gambler, corsair, swashbuckler, but a vast majority of folks just want an advanced version of rogue as nin just doesnt appeal to them in terms of asthetics.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

I'll be a bit cynical here... So which of those classes (bar healers since at that point we'll probably take anything if it means we have something to do other than the barebone DPS rotation) is willing to take a dip in their aDPS to boost others? Genuinely asking here because most often I see Ninja Changes viewed by this prism and not the class itself (other than having more stiff Ninki management once that becomes a thing)

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At the end of the day you're talking about numbers that you'll only see with a third party website and tool. Like that's great if it ultimately got a buff in 6.1 but who really cares, NIN was performing just fine in savage content beforehand so it didn't really need it. I play NIN pretty casually but I enjoyed playing the one class who could throw up a one minute buff for other classes to take advantage of, and of course while playing other classes being able to dump resources into that buff when it was up. That's something much more tangible during gameplay than colored numbers that I'll never bother looking at anyways.

Revert 6.1 changes to Samurai and Ninja!

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Originally Posted by baklava151

At the end of the day you're talking about numbers that you'll only see with a third party website and tool. Like that's great if it ultimately got a buff in 6.1 but who really cares, NIN was performing just fine in savage content beforehand so it didn't really need it. I play NIN pretty casually but I enjoyed playing the one class who could throw up a one minute buff for other classes to take advantage of, and of course while playing other classes being able to dump resources into that buff when it was up. That's something much more tangible during gameplay than colored numbers that I'll never bother looking at anyways.

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In the end we all are talking about numbers. The whole topic is about those numbers and how badly other classes suffer because they lost their odd minutes damage buffer. Personally I like those changes. Primarily at level 50-60 I like having that additional button that actually does something all while being stronger if a bit more selfish about it.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

In the end we all are talking about numbers. The whole topic is about those numbers and how badly other classes suffer because they lost their odd minutes damage buffer. Personally I like those changes. Primarily at level 50-60 I like having that additional button that actually does something all while being stronger if a bit more selfish about it.

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OP's originally point was about gameplay and describing how TA existed as a way for classes to break up the time between two minutes and give them a spot to dump excess resources as well as lining up with certain one-minute abilities to give them more oomph. Which yeah affects numbers but not in any significant way as opposed to the gameplay impact.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

On the usage of Trick Attack by certain jobs, SGE wouldn't burn Toxikon II as it has equal potency to their filler, it's Phlegma III that they would burn under Trick Attack, and they should have at least one for every application. For AST, Earthly Star happens to also have a cooldown of 60s, which lines up well. For BRD, they generate enough gauge for an Apex/Blast Arrow for every Trick Attack application.

Small corrections aside, I agree with OP, Trick Attack was a valuable resource for every job, not just the ninja, removing it made no sense and also made gameplay more boring to optimise.

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Originally Posted by Lilyth

Confirming the loss of optimizatoon for MCH as well. I'd always have an 80 gauge queen + Reass Chain Saw + HC window exactly at the odd minute mark for the extra aDPS. Sadly it's gone now.

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Thank you for your corrections! I've updated my leading post accordingly.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

I'll be a bit cynical here... So which of those classes (bar healers since at that point we'll probably take anything if it means we have something to do other than the barebone DPS rotation) is willing to take a dip in their aDPS to boost others? Genuinely asking here because most often I see Ninja Changes viewed by this prism and not the class itself (other than having more stiff Ninki management once that becomes a thing)

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aDPS rewards you for playing into raid buffs, so absolutely 0 jobs would suffer an aDPS loss for playing into Trick Attack. In fact, removing Trick Attack is an indirect nerf to many classes in terms of aDPS.

Numbers, however, are really not my concern. I made this thread to express my concern about the changes to Trick in a more holistic way. Centering concerns around Ninja didn't capture the full changes, and led to arguing over "these changes are good because Ninja is stronger now!!" which is, in my opinion, both shortsighted and rather irrelevant to the quality of any particular job. Numbers are the easiest thing to adjust when it comes to job changes.

Centering the changes to Trick Attack around how it affects how every class plays, I hope, will encourage more thinking about rotations, gameplay feel, and synergy between classes -- the very reason cited for this change in the first place.

Revert SAM and NIN changes and make raiton combo for flexible. This is the fix they need to do. I know my RDM static member was happy about the NIN changes because he doesn't have to change the rotation to adjust to TA windows but yea....

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

Thank you for your corrections! I've updated my leading post accordingly.



aDPS rewards you for playing into raid buffs, so absolutely 0 jobs would suffer an aDPS loss for playing into Trick Attack. In fact, removing Trick Attack is an indirect nerf to many classes in terms of aDPS.

Numbers, however, are really not my concern. I made this thread to express my concern about the changes to Trick in a more holistic way. Centering concerns around Ninja didn't capture the full changes, and led to arguing over "these changes are good because Ninja is stronger now!!" which is, in my opinion, both shortsighted and rather irrelevant to the quality of any particular job. Numbers are the easiest thing to adjust when it comes to job changes.

Centering the changes to Trick Attack around how it affects how every class plays, I hope, will encourage more thinking about rotations, gameplay feel, and synergy between classes -- the very reason cited for this change in the first place.

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You're not wrong. Except from my noobish perspective it's concern for relatively small side - end game raiders. Statics that actively work together. In those groups? Sure Old Trick Attack would do wonders ensuring that Ninja's personal DPS loss (and whether we like it or not Suiton -> Trick attack was a personal damage loss for Ninja). In other groups? Random parties that clear other content like older Raids, Extremes etc? You're gambling. You hope your party will notice your damage buff and adjust accordingly and it's not always going to happen. In general for the part I'm mostly concerned with as new player? The change is a plus. Partially because it patches the glaring hole in Ninja's skill progression. Like seriously you get Mug at level 15 and it remains a dead skill for 2 enitre expansions and a majority of base MSQ of the third. I get that you at max level don't care as you view the class as a whole but from progression point of view? It's a big plus

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

snip for character limit

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I agree that for the vast majority of the levelling process, Mug feels and is essentially worthless (aside from on the free trial, if you're a crafter, and you're trying to level LTW/WVR... ask me how I know...). I'm not sure that making a change that impacts the entire collective of classes is the solution for a problem that only affects Ninja for a limited period of time. In my opinion, Mug should upgrade into a more Ninja-like ability, and have some kind of interaction with the kit -- whether it be keeping the Ninki gain, or something else -- or just be deleted.

You're also wrong in that Suiton -> 5% Trick is a DPS loss for the Ninja. Suiton and Trick (when the rear positional) is hit are both 500 potency each, for 1000 potency together. Assuming we're in single target, the only other combination you'd be expending mudras on is Raiton + Raiju. Calculating how much of a gain a Raiju is is somewhat complicated (it depends on what GCD you finish on), so for the purposes of explaining lets assume Raiju is just a flat gain in potency. So, Raiton + Raiju is 650 + 560 = 1210 potency. This means Trick Attack's 15s duration only needs to gain you 210 potency to break even. Consider that Hyosho will be ((1300 * 1.3 = 1690) * 0.05 = 84.5) an 84 potency gain by itself, I'm sure can you start to see that Suiton + Trick is a huge potency gain, even if all of your teammates decide to stop attacking during Trick.

Assuming you're getting in a Hyosho + two Raiton + two Raiju in every Trick window, 5% Trick will give you 205.5 extra potency from those attacks - +1000 potency from Suiton -> Trick = 1205.5 potency. That's only 4.5 potency away from Raiju, you still have ~6 seconds in Trick Attack left, so even alone Suiton -> Trick is still a gain.

You're correct in that when pugging, relying on people to feed into your buffs to maximise your value is a risk. However, this is true of every class that buffs significantly. Bard and Dancer also struggle with this. The great part about Ninja is that Ninja is very good at taking advantage of buff windows, as it bursts so much in Trick, which lessens the impact. Of course, this relies on your teammates putting up their own buffs on cooldown, but I personally like to assume the best of my teammates, and have a little faith in them. I've cleared all of the "hardcore" content I've done in PUGs, and had a pretty good experience while doing it. You're always going to get teammates you don't mesh with, but that's just the luck of the draw. Sometimes, you'll get a bunch of really great players.


I'm also not convinced it helps progression very much at all, given that Mug is a single-target party buff on a long cooldown. When levelling, you're spending much of your time in dungeons, and very little time in 8+ man content outside of daily roulettes. I suppose you could argue it makes pre-45 dungeon bosses a bit easier? Mug loses a lot of value relative to Arcane Circle, Embolden, Brotherhood etc in multi-target situations like dungeon packs, because you can only slap the one enemy with it. Because most of the levelling content is multi-target, I'm not sure I quite see where the benefit comes in.