NIN changes changed nothing, and that's why they shouldn't exist

Rotation is exactly the same, job was already in a really good spot damage wise after the unholy aberration that was 6.0 NIN and all the NIN players I know, minus minor grievances, were happy with the state of the job.

Why the hell did SE change anything? It was a pointless change that only removed part of the identity of the job and added next to nothing. Playing as other classes, it was fun to make an effort and align my burst every other minute so they benefit from TA even if my rotation didn't ask for it. In my humbe opinion, the change just made the game worse.

If you want things to change, make your voice heard, don't settle for mediocre changes that nobody asked for.

I too feel like if this were a situation where they asked everyone, except NINs, how would these changes benefit them

I feel like NINs identity/presence watered down

Hi - I don't play much NIN, but whenever I do play it, I end up thinking the same thing every time: I wish Forked/Fleeting Raiju were OGCD.

Do NIN mains feel this way too? imo it feels really awkward having a movement ability on the global cooldown and even more awkward having to wait an entire global before you can start attacking again after zapping yourself into melee range.

I'm personally OK with them being GCD and I think most of people who regularly play NIN do too, but it is true that there is a portion of NIN players that think that.

If I had to speak for the majority on vibes alone I think most people like raiju as it is, but as long as a poll isn't made we cannot be sure for certain.

If i had to take a guess, all the changes were made to accommodate DSW ultimate. a 1min raidwide would have made ninja's a bit too good in it with the amount of intermission phases.

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Originally Posted by dadong

If i had to take a guess, all the changes were made to accommodate DSW ultimate. a 1min raidwide would have made ninja's a bit too good in it with the amount of intermission phases.

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That seems to be the JP player base's take on the SAM changes, too.

If that's the case, it's rather worrying for SE. Having to rush out controversial and damaging job changes because the super-high-end content they just developed doesn't work well with the current job design. Their obsession with "balance" and "meta" is going to hurt the game if they feel the need to have all jobs perfectly balanced across all types and phases of content, whether that means a loss of job individuality or limitations on the content they can develop.

Goodbye, 60s burst windows. Goodbye, high burst damage and crit variance. You might be too good in one fight out of a hundred. Now every burst window is 120s and every GCD's potency looks the same just like RPR, MNK, or SMN. Balance is restored.

I highly doubt that they changed something that affects all levels of play just because Ultimate was about to hit.

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Originally Posted by YukiB

That seems to be the JP player base's take on the SAM changes, too.

If that's the case, it's rather worrying for SE. Having to rush out controversial and damaging job changes because the super-high-end content they just developed doesn't work well with the current job design. Their obsession with "balance" and "meta" is going to hurt the game if they feel the need to have all jobs perfectly balanced across all types and phases of content, whether that means a loss of job individuality or limitations on the content they can develop.

Goodbye, 60s burst windows. Goodbye, high burst damage and crit variance. You might be too good in one fight out of a hundred. Now every burst window is 120s and every GCD's potency looks the same just like RPR, MNK, or SMN. Balance is restored.

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Not to mention it’s ONE-SINGULAR FIGHT! It’s horribly and inorganic design to balance and hinder jobs for 1 fight that not even 50% of player will bother to do

Day.... when did endwalker come out?

As somebody who isnt in endwalker yet. The more and more i lurk through these forums. The more i am convinced that every change the devs bring was never meant for the playerbase. It was all done to make the devs work easier.

Saying it was for the players own good was just a scapegoat.

In a way, yeah, you're right. The technical impact to the buttons I press is minimally changed. I no longer get to drift Mug for extra potency within Trick, and the priorisation of certain GCDs in odd/even Tricks has been adjusted.

But the changes to Trick drastically affect how many other jobs play. I outlined in another thread what each job would feed into Trick (if trying to), and managed to come up with a decent chunk for each job -- even healers, who have been confined to a 2-button DPS rotation for about 3 years now.



It also changes the nature of Ninja as a job. It used to have a lot in common with Bard and Dancer, the 'support' jobs, being a big buffer itself with lower personal damage. Now it buffs exactly the same amount as Red Mage, and is so overbuffed at the moment that it's easily the strongest thing out there.

The question is...why? Ninja was already absurdly strong after the 6.08 buffs. It needed just a bit of a boost after the 6.05 changes, but it was otherwise perfectly fine. 6.08 overbuffed it, and then 6.1 overbuffed it again as compensation for taking away a huge amount of complexity from other classes, and fundamentally changing a core ability of Ninja.

I'm not sure if this is true or not, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember reading about an interview with Naoki Yoshida where he mused over how he thought the game might become boring if everything was moved to a two-minute window -- sometime in the SHB era? Endwalker still made the changes it did, though, and Ninja wasn't allowed to escape unscathed.

I miss being able to call when my next Trick is up.

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Originally Posted by Jd0064

I too feel like if this were a situation where they asked everyone, except NINs, how would these changes benefit them

I feel like NINs identity/presence watered down

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Randomly Sampled Non-NIN Player: "Well, I really don't like having to pay attention to my major CDs or gauge-banking more than once every two minutes."

Though, for that reason, it wasn't just NIN's identity, in practice, getting watered down. Tanks, Monk, MCH, SMN, RDM, and SAM all took a bit of a gutting, too, at least relative to old NIN comps, due to losing their one-minute alignments.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I'm not sure if this is true or not, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember reading about an interview with Naoki Yoshida where he mused over how he thought the game might become boring if everything was moved to a two-minute window -- sometime in the SHB era? Endwalker still made the changes it did, though, and Ninja wasn't allowed to escape unscathed.

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Someone provided me with it on Reddit, I'd love to know what changed between the media tour and EW release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXkyq_yUMjI&t=607s

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Originally Posted by baklava151

Someone provided me with it on Reddit, I'd love to know what changed between the media tour and EW release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXkyq_yUMjI&t=607s

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Oh wow, that's much more recent than I expected. Given the poor reception to the Samurai changes & the Trick Attack changes, I wonder if they'll backpedal... the points Yoshi-P makes as told by Mrhappy here are exactly the sentiments being echoed by disgruntled players. I can only hope they'll listen to us, and give us a little bit more room to show some skill expression by reverting Trick. Ideally, reverting the Kaiten removal, too, and preferrably the auto-crit.

Maybe if I huff enough copium, they'll give healers some DPS buttons, too...

I kind of like the Mug/Trick change, solely in the sense that it gives Ninja a slightly different vibe now between Odd and Even windows, kind of like Monk has, except through target debuffs. But that would be true even if Trick was still a partywide effect, it just comes from having multiple debuffs to stack and alternate.

Anyway, I think that part of the discussion that gets missed here is that while it was cool and interesting to time Gauge dumps, etc. around Trick Attacks when a Ninja was present, those Jobs just rubber-banded back to "Okay, whatever" about it when a Ninja wasn't present.

I get that some people would argue that it's actually a positive feature if a player has to adjust their rotation from party-to-party, but the fact that rotations basically pivoted around one out of 19 Jobs was a little weird. And, honestly, had been weird since ARR and the introduction of Trick Attack, leading to the "Ninja or bust" mindset that dominated for a loooooong time.

Although, speaking of this, as a weird outlier, there's still Astrologian... and in fact, playing around "Surprise! A card for you! Parse well soon!" can be trickier than the very-predictable and "for everyone" Trick Attacks of yore.

This was actually something that I noticed when PF raiding as Machinist in Shadowbringers — loading into a party without Ninja or Astrologian was... noticeably blander, because my odd-minute Hypercharges felt arbitrary and "hollow". And even for Astrologian, it only mattered if I was randomly bestowed a card at the correct time around minute marks.

So trying to zoom out and be objective here, I think that removing partywide Trick Attack actually just shined a spotlight on the bigger issue, which is that most Jobs feel like they're doing nothing but a bland, treadmill, zombie-shuffle filler phase for something like 100 seconds at a time each cycle.

I'm exaggerating a bit, but it really feels like the classic raiding rotations were held together by Trick Attack as a lynchpin to give them focus and interest, even though there were enough Jobs in the game that Ninja was not guaranteed in any party or team — but like, the design seemed to assume a Ninja anyway. I think that the consequences of that design approach have had long-term fall-out.

So it's less about Trick Attack itself, and more about how dreary and... like... arbitrary? A lot of Job cycles feel during the odd-minute phases. And I think that, in turn, is affected by how FFXIV has — over a really long time — conditioned players to feel like they're not happy or satisfied, or even doing anything correctly or effectively, unless everything that they do on a timer is crashing into some kind of damage-multiplying buff effect.

So without 60s Tricks, there's this sense of existential anxiety where it's like, "But I can't dump Gauge now. I have no buffs to dump Gauge into. My life is a lie. All is vain." Like playing FFXIV when you know you're supposed to be writing a term paper. Or eating dessert before dinner. Everything just feels off, and not as satisfying.

But it's not really Trick Attack itself that's so important, it's that:

1. Players don't feel right dumping resources or cooldowns without knowing the damage is being amplified in some way, because many years of gameplay have taught us that is a correct philosophy to approach from when trying to improve performance.
2. Many Jobs don't have anything internal to time themselves around and to reward timely dumping.
3. Removing Trick very abruptly exposed all of this, bare and raw, even though it was actually there all along.

I say this because if you compare Jobs like Dragoon and Monk, that have internal cycles of their own buffs to bank around and funnel into, having or not having Trick Attack doesn't feel as stark — they still get that juicy, reassuring "I'm putting everything into a buff!" gameplay, regardless of what's going on externally.

Conversely, Jobs like Dark Knight, Red Mage, and Machinist feel comparatively more gross without Trick Attack around, because they have a lot of "hangnail" Potency that they're forced to dump in odd minutes to avoid overflowing. And while that's technically "fine", because it's just how they're designed, it doesn't feel fine.

ie, dumping everything into Blood For Blood every 60s just feels better than doing a naked Hypercharge at random. Trick Attack was the "donor 60s buff" for Jobs that weren't blessed with their own, but still had big potency to drop on a 60s accumulating cycle, like Dark Knight.

So I think that the actual issue is that the 2-minute buff system is too spaced-out, and leaves long gaps that feel bland and unsatisfying for a lot of Jobs.

One perspective is that players just need time to get used to this new "buff-naked-buff" rhythm, after so many years of being conditioned to try to cram everything into clockwork damage amplifiers.

A different perspective is that players just like cramming everything into clockwork damage amplifiers, and so what should actually happen is to take the current 2-minute cycle, and crunch it down into a 1-minute cycle. Now, everyone can dump their gauges into buffs every 60s, and can breathe a sigh of relief.

A third perspective is that players really just like having something to time their resource expenditures around, and so actually, it doesn't matter if it's party-wide or not. Party buffs could remain at 2-minutes, but every Job gets some kind of personal buff to activate every 60s — "You get a No Mercy, and you get a No Mercy, and you get a No Mercy...".

Now players get the satisfaction of "Ahhh, I spent my gauge inside a damage amplifier", but SE's design for 2-minute burst phases can remain unchanged. And, in fact, it would make hitting your personal 60s cycle like clockwork even more important, to keep your No Mercy Clone aligned with the 120s mega-burst cycle (in an ideal situation).

Anyway, and then Trick Attack wouldn't feel weird being a personal buff, because now everyone has a 60s personal buff, and you've got Mug to contribute to the 120s "big burst".

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

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I think you've hit on something really crucial about the other classes. The changes in Endwalker to move every other class to strict two-minute cycles have, as Yoshi-P anticipated, made the game boring in the absence of variance. Of which there currently is none. It's all two minutes, and nothing inbetween. Unless, as you said, you happen to have a personal buff, or the odd button on the rare and elusive 90-second timer.



I'd like to offer a fourth perspective, however - that having a variety of buffs on somewhat different timers is both good for the game, and interesting to play around. Shadowbringers, if I recall correctly, with the exception of the ranged physical classes, was rather well balanced in terms of pure numbers, with all classes dealing within 2-3% of each other's average damage. I can't speak to how it felt to optimise during that period of time, but I believe many more party buffs were on strange timers. Dragoon's Battle Litany was on a 180s cooldown; Trick on the 1-minute cooldown, Brotherhood on the 90s cooldown, Devotion on the 180s cooldown, etc etc etc.

In my opinion, it's good when the strength of your burst, when you pot, when you pool gauge and when you spend it varies from party to party. It's exciting! I'm playing a team guide because I want to play a team game, so who my teammates are and what they're playing should have an impact on how I choose to play my class.

This does, of course, come with the caveat that some compositions are going to be inherently stronger than other due to the way buffs stack, or whatever. I'm... willing to take this on, frankly. Unless I'm mistaken, and Shadowbringers balance was actually a huge mess, it seemed rather feasible to do.

I hate the idea of personal buffs, though I get that this is likely just a me thing. I just don't get any endorphins from boosting... my own damage. It's not fun, in my opinion, to hit a button that makes me and me alone stronger every minute. I think it's good that classes like this exist for the types of people who enjoy this style of gameplay, but I'd hate to see every class go this way -- and for Ninja to stay this way.


Let buffing classes stay buffing classes, and please give me my one-minute party buff back.

As for shifting everything to a one-minute cycle, I'd much prefer that to the two-minute cycle, honestly, if I had to choose. At least things would be a little busier! That said, I'd still much prefer overall having buffs on a mix of timers. 90s, 180s, 60s, 120s... it sounds good to me.


I think Trick will always feel strange being a personal buff, however. It's always been a party buff, so anyone who played Ninja pre-6.1 will feel it. That, and the naming just... doesn't sound like a personal buff. Because it isn't, it's a debuff on the enemy which somehow only affects you. I've thrown sand at the enemy's eyes and now he's taking more damage from me... but not from my party?

Thematically, I think it needs some work...

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I'd like to offer a fourth perspective, however - that having a variety of buffs on somewhat different timers is both good for the game, and interesting to play around. Shadowbringers, if I recall correctly, with the exception of the ranged physical classes, was rather well balanced in terms of pure numbers, with all classes dealing within 2-3% of each other's average damage. I can't speak to how it felt to optimise during that period of time, but I believe many more party buffs were on strange timers. Dragoon's Battle Litany was on a 180s cooldown; Trick on the 1-minute cooldown, Brotherhood on the 90s cooldown, Devotion on the 180s cooldown, etc etc etc.

In my opinion, it's good when the strength of your burst, when you pot, when you pool gauge and when you spend it varies from party to party. It's exciting! I'm playing a team guide because I want to play a team game, so who my teammates are and what they're playing should have an impact on how I choose to play my class.

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Regardless of composition, everything aligned at the 6 minute mark back in Shadowbringers, so pot timing was worse then that it is now, IMO.

A posible solution to TA being the outlier could be just making more 60s raid buffs. I personally would be happy with that.

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Originally Posted by Roquepo

Regardless of composition, everything aligned at the 6 minute mark back in Shadowbringers, so pot timing was worse then that it is now, IMO.

A posible solution to TA being the outlier could be just making more 60s raid buffs. I personally would be happy with that.

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That's a fair assessment! I didn't get to play much in terms of high-end content in Shadowbringers -- I was pretty much just learning the ropes, so my experience is very limited.

Part of me is toying with the idea of "would reducing the pot cooldown to 4:00 be overall better for pot variety between groups", but I'm not sure if this would even change anything. It'd mean an extra pot in some fights, most likely, which would force strict pot timings in favour of triple-potting. Maybe's that's worse...? I'm not sure.

Personally, I'd be fine with more 60s raid buffs, so long as they're not identical to Trick. Trick's power should be unique to Ninja -- but there's no reason we couldn't have, say, a Direct Hit buff, or a Crit buff on a similar timer.

I like that Mug now does something, but true that it's weird what they did to Trick Attack..

personally I would welcome the change that Mug does the personal damage buff and Trick Attack stays Trick Attack as it always Trick Attack

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Originally Posted by RyuuZero

I like that Mug now does something, but true that it's weird what they did to Trick Attack..

personally I would welcome the change that Mug does the personal damage buff and Trick Attack stays Trick Attack as it always Trick Attack

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The problem with this is that Trick not being on a one-minute cooldown introduces a weird inconsistency in the mudra system where in odd windows you have a mudra to expend that isn't going to line up with any buffs whatsoever (where you'd usually cast Suiton).





Unless you're suggesting they keep the cooldowns the same (Mug 2min personal, Trick 1min party), which case, uh, sure? Doesn't fix the problem of Mug trying to do two things, but I get Trick back, so I'm happy.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

Unless you're suggesting they keep the cooldowns the same (Mug 2min personal, Trick 1min party), which case, uh, sure? Doesn't fix the problem of Mug trying to do two things, but I get Trick back, so I'm happy.

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Tbh I would much rather Mug be a 2 minute personal buff than a Ninki button. I really like the idea of the double debuff, but not at the cost of Trick no longer being raid-wide.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

Tbh I would much rather Mug be a 2 minute personal buff than a Ninki button. I really like the idea of the double debuff, but not at the cost of Trick no longer being raid-wide.

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This still means we run into the issue of not being able to drift our Ninki gainer inside of Trick... because it also has a personal buff on it.

If SE is so dead set on the idea of Ninja having a personal buff for some reason, it should at the least be on its own button.


That said, I'd prefer we just didn't have a personal buff at all. We already have enough keypresses to activate Trick; having to put up a personal buff as well feels a bit odd, frankly. That, and it conflicts with the idea of Ninja being an rDPS job.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

This still means we run into the issue of not being able to drift our Ninki gainer inside of Trick... because it also has a personal buff on it.

If SE is so dead set on the idea of Ninja having a personal buff for some reason, it should at the least be on its own button.


That said, I'd prefer we just didn't have a personal buff at all. We already have enough keypresses to activate Trick; having to put up a personal buff as well feels a bit odd, frankly. That, and it conflicts with the idea of Ninja being an rDPS job.

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We already have a personal buff. Huton. To me that’s more than fine. If SE took a look at that and went “Well Huton doesn’t affect most of Trick Attack, so we can add a little damage boost to make up for moving the raid buff to where we want it”. SE wanted to add a damage buff I’d rather they put it on Huton than anything else. And an easy one that accomplished the same goal is to have it boost elemental damage potency. That way it applies to Mudras, Phantom, and Raijus, but Bunshin and the filler is unaffected.

To me the identity of TA is worth preserving more than adding something like that, but it is an easier and less punishing way to go about it.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

This still means we run into the issue of not being able to drift our Ninki gainer inside of Trick... because it also has a personal buff on it.

If SE is so dead set on the idea of Ninja having a personal buff for some reason, it should at the least be on its own button.

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...Having a gauge does not necessitate having a further button whose sole job is to generate gauge. Samurai functioned just fine before Ikishoten.

If you're worried about taking a bit longer to reach Bunshin, then it makes more sense to simply take Bunshin off the gauge; given that it now costs only 50 Ninki, down from 80, such that you can pretty easily bank for it, its gauge management requirement is minimal and very infrequent.

If you're worried about losing Baha casts per minute, despite Shukiho III more than compensating for it, then that's perhaps even a reason to have Bunshin outright duplicate your next 5 attacks at a given % damage, rather than existing as a flat potency bonus, at which point it could double Ninki generation over its 5 attacks.


On the whole, I'd prefer to simply have the changes reverted so that those playing alongside a NIN can actually have back their one-minute windows, so the point is irrelevant to me, but the existence of a Ninki gauge does not necessitate the need for a discrete Ninki generator, especially when every weaponskill already generates Ninki and spenders cost a small enough portion to allow for banking.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

This still means we run into the issue of not being able to drift our Ninki gainer inside of Trick... because it also has a personal buff on it.

If SE is so dead set on the idea of Ninja having a personal buff for some reason, it should at the least be on its own button.

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This is why I said I'd rather it be a personal debuff button than the Ninki button, I find it far more interesting that way.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

We already have a personal buff. Huton. To me that’s more than fine. If SE took a look at that and went “Well Huton doesn’t affect most of Trick Attack, so we can add a little damage boost to make up for moving the raid buff to where we want it”. SE wanted to add a damage buff I’d rather they put it on Huton than anything else. And an easy one that accomplished the same goal is to have it boost elemental damage potency. That way it applies to Mudras, Phantom, and Raijus, but Bunshin and the filler is unaffected.

To me the identity of TA is worth preserving more than adding something like that, but it is an easier and less punishing way to go about it.

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Honestly, I'm actually kind of interested in a personal buff that only boosts elemental potency. I think Ninja's magic damage is currently just coded as unaspected magic, but it would be cool if we could boost our damage like that! Keeping it on Huton is fine, as that doesn't affect the rest of our rotation -- just makes dropping Huton that much more punishing, which I'm honestly fine with. Another alternative is sticking it on Trick Attack, similar to old Red Mage Embolden -- how it buffed magic DPS for the RDM, and physical for the party. It could be a further boost to elemental damage from the Ninja, or something.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...Having a gauge does not necessitate having a further button whose sole job is to generate gauge. Samurai functioned just fine before Ikishoten.

If you're worried about taking a bit longer to reach Bunshin, then it makes more sense to simply take Bunshin off the gauge; given that it now costs only 50 Ninki, down from 80, such that you can pretty easily bank for it, its gauge management requirement is minimal and very infrequent.

If you're worried about losing Baha casts per minute, despite Shukiho III more than compensating for it, then that's perhaps even a reason to have Bunshin outright duplicate your next 5 attacks at a given % damage, rather than existing as a flat potency bonus, at which point it could double Ninki generation over its 5 attacks.


On the whole, I'd prefer to simply have the changes reverted so that those playing alongside a NIN can actually have back their one-minute windows, so the point is irrelevant to me, but the existence of a Ninki gauge does not necessitate the need for a discrete Ninki generator, especially when every weaponskill already generates Ninki and spenders cost a small enough portion to allow for banking.

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No, having a gauge does not. The existence of Bunshin, however, kind of does, because without it, we wouldn't be able to pop Bunshin until well after raid buffs had vanished. For a CD as powerful as Bunshin, that feels pretty bad. Removing the Ninki cost from Bunshin would also mean that our Ninki gauge becomes the Bhavacakra gauge, at which point you might as well just make Bhava and Hellfrog an ability that shares a cooldown and can stack two charges, or something. Or, put TCJ back on the Ninki gauge -- but then you'd run into the same problem of needing a Ninki gainer to activate TCJ in your opener, or being forced to use it out of raid buffs forever unless you drift it a full minute and a half. While fairly easy to do, stocking Ninki for Bunshin is something of a minor skill check, and removing it entirely would make the job even easier than it already is.

It's not about losing Bhava casts overall; it's about being able to control when you use those Bhavas. Right now, we can only stock two for Trick windows, maybe three if we're lucky. In 6.0-6.08, we could stock three for every window. In SHB, we were sometimes able to stock four. We're getting much more Ninki overall, but somehow losing the ability to force those Bhavas into Trick. I do think our general Ninki gain needs some adjustments, however, as played perfectly you end up overcapping on Ninki just before you enter burst windows. Slowing it down just a tad would be hugely beneficial for being able to fit more inside your burst windows.

I agree that the simplest solution would just be to revert the changes, though!

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

This is why I said I'd rather it be a personal debuff button than the Ninki button, I find it far more interesting that way.

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I'm glad we agree that the current situation -- Mug being a personal debuff and Ninki gainer -- is not great. However, for the reasons I mentioned above, Ninja needs a Ninki gainer. Its rotation does not, however, depend on a personal buff, so if one had to go (and in my opinion, one of them does), removing the personal buff would do the least damage to Ninja.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

No, having a gauge does not. The existence of Bunshin, however, kind of does, because without it, we wouldn't be able to pop Bunshin until well after raid buffs had vanished.

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Again, though, what you're describing is that no one wants to have a skill that feels like it needs to fall into raid buffs but is nonetheless too slow to become available and/or too slow to complete for that to actually happen.

That can be fixed in any of three ways:

1. You spend an extra, instant gauge-generating button just to deal with this requirement. (Though, you then generally don't want to give this double-purpose, e.g., as a personal damage buff that then necessarily takes up time at the start of your burst window.)
2. You remove or reduce the cost of that damage tool. (Though, this costs you that --very minor/infrequent, relative to Kaiten or, say, ShB Ikishoten and Senei-- gauge margining element.)
3. You provide the instant gauge generation on something else that'd be more attractive in its own right (say, Dream Within a Dream). (Though, this would doubly need to be used under raid buffs. It'd just save you a button.)

It's not quite so "A requires B" such that Bunshin, as a general concept, is dead in the water without a Mug/Ikishoten/Barrel Stabilizer skill.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I agree that the simplest solution would just be to revert the changes, though!

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But yes, this! Haha.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I'm glad we agree that the current situation -- Mug being a personal debuff and Ninki gainer -- is not great. However, for the reasons I mentioned above, Ninja needs a Ninki gainer. Its rotation does not, however, depend on a personal buff, so if one had to go (and in my opinion, one of them does), removing the personal buff would do the least damage to Ninja.

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I completely understand where you're coming from, and I did also enjoy drifting Mug to maximize Bhavas in Trick. Ninja is the only job I ever optimised to its almost maximum, and personally I enjoy something slightly new in terms of having double stacking debuffs. If they were to fully revert I'd be fine with that too, but since I've played the job so much I would like to have some new stuff (though I'm not willing to compromise on Trick being raid-wide) and Raijus just didn't really add that much to Ninja.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

I completely understand where you're coming from, and I did also enjoy drifting Mug to maximize Bhavas in Trick. Ninja is the only job I ever optimised to its almost maximum, and personally I enjoy something slightly new in terms of having double stacking debuffs. If they were to fully revert I'd be fine with that too, but since I've played the job so much I would like to have some new stuff (though I'm not willing to compromise on Trick being raid-wide) and Raijus just didn't really add that much to Ninja.

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I definitely agree on Raijus not adding a whole lot to Ninja. If anything, they ruined our two-target rotation - rip Katon/Doton - but provide a bit of extra mobility. Which, as we all know, Ninja historically has lacked. /s


I'd be more happy to lose a Ninki gainer if the entire way Ninki worked was overhauled in some way to add a bit more nuance. Right now it's just 'spend on Bunshin if it's up, otherwise Bhava/Frog'. Without bigger changes, though... mm

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I definitely agree on Raijus not adding a whole lot to Ninja. If anything, they ruined our two-target rotation - rip Katon/Doton - but provide a bit of extra mobility. Which, as we all know, Ninja historically has lacked. /s


I'd be more happy to lose a Ninki gainer if the entire way Ninki worked was overhauled in some way to add a bit more nuance. Right now it's just 'spend on Bunshin if it's up, otherwise Bhava/Frog'. Without bigger changes, though... mm

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This entire tier + ultimate up to 2nd Thordan I've barely ever found a use for the gapcloser Raiju over just sprinting or using the buffed Shukuchi which is the best gapclose tool in the game by a longshot. Its animation over the non gapcloser one is also pretty lackluster, overall pretty disappointed with Raijus.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

This entire tier + ultimate up to 2nd Thordan I've barely ever found a use for the gapcloser Raiju over just sprinting or using the buffed Shukuchi which is the best gapclose tool in the game by a longshot. Its animation over the non gapcloser one is also pretty lackluster, overall pretty disappointed with Raijus.

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I do really like the Raijus in concept -- like, hell yeah, a big electric dash ala Chidori. The implementation, however... I mean, yeah, it does feel kinda superfluous. There's no fight out there which has me using Shukuchi on cooldown, because not every class is as mobile as Ninja. This is fine, but adding additional mobility just feels like a waste.

I wonder if the Raiju concept couldn't be reworked into something a bit more useful. As of now, we have two Raiju skills, only one of which ever really gets used. While I do like having a different GCD to press, Shadowfang used to fill that role.

Thinking about it, I wonder if spicing up our GCDs could fix the Ninki generation issue? A dot applicator combo finisher ala old Shadowfang which maybe generates only 10 Ninki instead of 15. Who knows.

The fact that they're attached to your Raitons, too, feels a tad painful. I suppose we have Phantom for disconnects now, but it hurts knowing you're losing out so much more than in Shadowbringers if you need to Raiton out of Trick to keep uptime. Not just because of Raijus, either. The increased personal damage is a bit more punishing in that regard.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

The fact that they're attached to your Raitons, too, feels a tad painful. I suppose we have Phantom for disconnects now, but it hurts knowing you're losing out so much more than in Shadowbringers if you need to Raiton out of Trick to keep uptime. Not just because of Raijus, either. The increased personal damage is a bit more punishing in that regard.

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Honestly call me a boomer but I really don't think Ninja needs any more ranged options than it currently has. I really enjoyed working for uptime in Shadowbringers, it was a core part of raiding that made it enjoyable past the initial prog. 6.2 is gonna make or break the game for me. If neither Ninja nor Samurai get changes for the better and on top of that we get another tier where there's no downtime (or very little forced RNG downtime that you can't get around by just playing better) I'll stop playing the game.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

Honestly call me a boomer but I really don't think Ninja needs any more ranged options than it currently has. I really enjoyed working for uptime in Shadowbringers, it was a core part of raiding that made it enjoyable past the initial prog. 6.2 is gonna make or break the game for me. If neither Ninja nor Samurai get changes for the better and on top of that we get another tier where there's no downtime (or very little forced RNG downtime that you can't get around by just playing better) I'll stop playing the game.

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Ninja definitely has more than enough ranged options at the moment. I distinctly recall clearing a while back -- people couldn't agree on the strat to use for P4SP2 Act IV -- full melee uptime (harder) or melee downtime (much easier). I ended up suggesting we go with the downtime strat, after realising it was actually full uptime for me. Phantom + Suiton, and I could easily greed a max-melee Aeolian while moving. It's part of why I love Ninja, but if they're going to give us even more ranged options, they might as well change us to be physical ranged.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

Ninja definitely has more than enough ranged options at the moment. I distinctly recall clearing a while back -- people couldn't agree on the strat to use for P4SP2 Act IV -- full melee uptime (harder) or melee downtime (much easier). I ended up suggesting we go with the downtime strat, after realising it was actually full uptime for me. Phantom + Suiton, and I could easily greed a max-melee Aeolian while moving. It's part of why I love Ninja, but if they're going to give us even more ranged options, they might as well change us to be physical ranged.

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I liked situationally having more ranged options by lining up Suiton for it, but PK is a bit much. I won't crusade against PK, though I personally would prefer if it were a melee GCD instead.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

I liked situationally having more ranged options by lining up Suiton for it, but PK is a bit much. I won't crusade against PK, though I personally would prefer if it were a melee GCD instead.

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I actually prefer PK, on the grounds of it being much more punishing to use Raiton outside of Trick nowadays. Using PK outside of Trick is a very tiny loss (for odd tricks -- you wouldn't use it in even tricks anyway), but sacrificing a Raiton + Raiju outside of Trick/Mug windows is up to a 190~ potency loss. That's almost a whole Spinning Edge!

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I actually prefer PK, on the grounds of it being much more punishing to use Raiton outside of Trick nowadays. Using PK outside of Trick is a very tiny loss (for odd tricks -- you wouldn't use it in even tricks anyway), but sacrificing a Raiton + Raiju outside of Trick/Mug windows is up to a 190~ potency loss. That's almost a whole Spinning Edge!

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I just personally like higher risk. Feels more rewarding to me.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

I just personally like higher risk. Feels more rewarding to me.

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I also like risk, but I don't quite see the risk inherent here. It's a pretty straightforward choice -- use nothing, and lose a ton of damage; use Throwing Dagger, and lose a lot of damage; use Raiton + Raiju, and lose a fair bit of damage, or use Phantom Kamaitachi, and lose a miniscule amount of damage.

If we could bank Raijus, I'd be fine with Phantom being melee, personally. It's just about the amount of damage you're moving out of Trick. Raiton + Raiju is 1110 potency, or somewhere thereabouts, which is almost as much as Hyosho. At that point, it just feels awful that you lose that much potency in Trick. 650 across one GCD isn't too bad; you can replace it with a Bunshin-boosted Aeolian and minimise your damage loss. With Raiton + Raiju, you've got to replace two GCDs, which increases your damage loss by a lot. Gust + Aeolian has nothing on Raiton + Raiju.

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Originally Posted by aloneatsea

I also like risk, but I don't quite see the risk inherent here. It's a pretty straightforward choice -- use nothing, and lose a ton of damage; use Throwing Dagger, and lose a lot of damage; use Raiton + Raiju, and lose a fair bit of damage, or use Phantom Kamaitachi, and lose a miniscule amount of damage.

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No, not exactly. Having the ranged options disincentivizes proper greeding and creating unique uptime strategies. Diamond Frost and Vacuum Slice come in mind where you'd see the huge majority of Ninjas even in the top ends of logs forgoing uptime to Raiton out of trick or in Diamond Frost's case just using Suiton. It was possible with correct play for Ninja to keep full uptime much like tanks and the Samurai that was PLD covered for the speedruns to not even clip, let alone lose a GCD during Vacuum Slice. Stuff like this highly contributes to the replayability to the Savage tier, something I felt incredibly lacking after the initial prog of this tier.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

No, not exactly. Having the ranged options disincentivizes proper greeding and creating unique uptime strategies. Diamond Frost and Vacuum Slice come in mind where you'd see the huge majority of Ninjas even in the top ends of logs forgoing uptime to Raiton out of trick or in Diamond Frost's case just using Suiton. It was possible with correct play for Ninja to keep full uptime much like tanks and the Samurai that was PLD covered for the speedruns to not even clip, let alone lose a GCD during Vacuum Slice. Stuff like this highly contributes to the replayability to the Savage tier, something I felt incredibly lacking after the initial prog of this tier.

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Mm, I kinda see your point, but I think that what contributes to replayability much more is the fight itself being fun, and 'keeping full uptime' to not be an impossible task. Curtain Call in p4sp2 is a great example of this. Breaking your tether requires you to be at the very edge of the arena, and through some combination of server ticks or whatever, you do need to be at the edge for roughly a GCD or so in order for the tether break to register. I've (embarassingly) tried to greed this, failed, wiped my party and have since concluded that unless you have some insane luck, you just have to suck it up and use Phantom, Raiton, or god forbid, Throwing Dagger at the edge such that the game recognises you've broken your tether. I don't believe the boss can be moved from the center during Curtain Call (and even if he could be, the RNG nature of the order you need to break your tethers would make tanks pulling for uptime a bit of a Herculean task). Of course, maybe your experience is different -- maybe I'm missing something, or I'm just bad. I'm playing on high ping, so maybe that's it too.


You can and should make the argument that this is due to the game itself being unresponsive and janky, which it is, but unfortunately I don't forsee SE going around fixing these issues anytime soon. Obviously, this is just one case, but it is one case where I've greatly appreciated having Phantom, because it allows me to make the choice to conserve it as opposed to spending it earlier in the fight so that I can maintain uptime. It's not particularly deep choice, but it's there.

I'm also just... not particularly attached to the idea of Ninja having to fight for uptime like any other melee. Part of the appeal, at least for me, is that Ninja does have all of these ranged options. It's a feature! You still gain a ton of damage by properly greeding; losing a Raiton + Raiju out of Trick is much more punishing than just losing a Raiton out of Trick like in Shadowbringers. If anything, you gain more damage now by properly greeding than you used to.

I think another issue is that this tier's fights, were, for 99% of their runtime, full uptime fights. There are so few situations where you're forced away from the boss, and in the few situations you are, it's a proper "you need to be at the edge of the arena, and the boss isn't moving". There's no better place to stand like there is in Act 2, where you can properly greed if you know the fight well. You just have to eat it. If there were more situations where downtime was an option as opposed to a necessity or nonexistent, maybe that would feel better?

Even then, I'm kind of okay with Ninja just having some ranged options. Bad Ninjas deal a little bit more damage, and good Ninjas still deal a lot more. It's not taking anything away from the ceiling, so I think I'm pretty okay with it. Using Raiton outside of Trick is always going to be a loss. Using Phantom outside of your odd Tricks is also always going to be a loss.