Thief & Ninja ideas!

Okay so I was having a conversation with a friend about how we'd design classes and jobs being brought into FFXIV when Thief and Ninja were brought up. I realize this probably will never be seen by a FFXIV dev but I felt like sharing anyway, so why not?

So first off, I'd make Thief the class. I'm sure a lot of people who played FFXI will probably scream and cry about that, but let me show you why first!

First off, the Thieves unique weapons would be the knife obviously, but not just one! TWO! They would come as a set, so there would be no need for dual-wielding or any cause for worry of having two weapons slowing your attack rate. Much like Monk, the Thief would attack twice with every strike and attack at a faster rate as well.
At higher levels, stuff like Katana would make an appearance.

Thief Abilities:

• LVL 1 - Debilitating Cut [250TP] [:02 CD]: Deliver a debilitating cut to your enemies face, causing severe bleeding damage. Further weapon skills increase bleeding damage up to a stack of 3.
• LVL 2 - Enhanced Physical Evasion [Passive Trait]: Increases Physical Evasion by +24.
• LVL 4 - Sneak Attack [1:00 CD]: Ensures your next weapon skill deals critical damage to your opponent. Damage is further enhanced if you do not currently hold the highest enmity. Unlike FFXI, I wouldn't require this to be done from behind.
• LVL 6 - Dangerous Edge [1000TP] [:10 CD]: Deliver a damaging strike to the rear of your opponent. Damage is enhanced the closer to death the target currently is. This would be a simple calculation like, 20% DMG increase if the mob is 25% or lower Max HP.
• LVL 8 - Enhanced Physical Critical Potency [Passive Trait]: Increases Physical Critical Potency by +16.
• LVL 10 - Artery Slice [1000TP] [:10 CD] [Combo - Debilitating Cut]: Deliver a painstaking slice through an artery belonging to your opponent. Combo Bonus: Doubles any bleeding damage they're currently taking.
• LVL 12 - Enhanced Physical Critical Rate [Passive Trait]: Increases Physical Critical Rate by +16.
• LVL 14 - Backfire [1:30 CD]: Deftly ensure the next weapon skill your opponent uses will backfire on them, disabling it and causing them damage instead. This would basically make their weapon skill hit him them instead of you, however, enemies generally have higher defense and HP so don't expect a Backfire on Darnus' Beam attack to be all that devastating.
• LVL 16 - Deft Footing [3:00 DR] [1:00 CD]: Ensure the steps of your party go unnoticed by monsters that detect by sound, granting a veil over their movements. This would basically allow you to run past sound aggro mobs so you wouldn't be forced to walk.
• LVL 18 -Time Bomb [1:00 CD]: Plant a bomb on your opponent, ensuring their death will cause them to explode violently, damaging their surviving allies and causing a burn effect. Think of Flare, but not as powerful.
• LVL 20 - Enhanced Sneak Attack [Passive Trait]: Reduces the cool down on Sneak Attack by 30 seconds and increases its critical attack potency.
• LVL 22 - Gambler's Dirge [1000TP] [:30 CD] [Combo - Dangerous Edge]: Deliver a blow to your opponent's rear with a greatly increased chance of critical. If the strike does not critical, you gain increased enmity. Combo Bonus: Increased critical damage.
• LVL 24 - Trick Attack [1:00 CD]: Target an ally for a transfer of enmity dealt by your next weapon skill.
• LVL 26 - Enhanced Trick Attack [Passive Trait]: Doubles the enmity transferred to ally and reduces cool down by 30 seconds.
• LVL 28 - Stalker's Cover [3:00 DR] [1:00 CD]: Cloud your allies appearance in shadow, making detection by sight impossible. Basically Invisible for the entire party.
• LVL 30 - Cutthroat [2000TP] [1:00 CD] [Combo - Artery Slice]: Deliver devastating damage to your opponent with an increased critical hit potency. Combo Bonus: Enhances the bleeding effect on the enemy to prevent any Regen or Curative effects.
• LVL 32 - Enhanced Physical Critical Rate II [Passive Trait]: Increases Physical Critical Rate by +24.
• LVL 34 - Serrated Blade [1:00 DR] [3:00 CD]: Your normal attacks cause a bleeding effect or renew an existing one on your target ensuring your opponent never stops bleeding.
• LVL 36 - Flat Fragrance [3:00 DR] [1:00 CD]: Deodorizes your allies, enabling them to bypass scent detecting monsters without raising suspicion. Before people call this pointless, there are scent detecting monsters. Boars, Wolves, and Hippogryphs, all detect by scent.
• LVL 38 - Falconer's Dive [2000 TP] [1:00 CD] [Combo - Gambler's Dirge]: Deal devastating damage to your opponent by leaping atop them before providing a killing blow. Combo Bonus: Doubles Critical Damage. It's important to note that you can only combo off Gambler's Dirge if it criticaled successfully.
• LVL 40 - Thousand Cuts [3000 TP] [5:00 CD] [Combo - Dangerous Edge]: Deliver One Thousand Cuts upon your opponents in a frontal attack with low accuracy. Combo Bonus: Attack a single target instead of multiple with slightly increased accuracy. Basically this would deal 1000 damage (1 per hit) to an opponent (or opponents) with incredibly terrible accuracy, so the individual hits would be filtered out and most would miss even with a combo bonus.
• LVL 42 - Enhanced Time Bomb [Passive Trait]: Enemies hit with Time Bomb are now also inflicted with the Time Bomb.
• LVL 44 - Rogue's Rancor [3:00 CD]: Pass your entire enmity to target ally.
• LVL 46 -Blood Booze [1000 TP] [:30 CD] Cut into your opponent sharply stealing your opponent's life essence and renewing your own. Basically a drain attack Thieves could spam every 30 secs.
• LVL 48 - Unseen [Passive Trait]: Enemies within 10 levels of the Thief can no longer aggro them.
• LVL 50 - Treasure Hunter [Passive Trait]: Causes Gil to drop from all enemies for all members of the party and ensures a greater chance at obtaining valuable items from chests and enemies.

Now that I've got that out of the way, all the previous moves fit with the Ninja motif perfectly! (unless you're still stuck on FFXI and think they're a tank for some reason)

Here are some abilities I think Ninja could get to enhance Thief, especially if they're solo'ing.

• LVL 30 - Utsusemi [:30 CD]: Slightly reduces enmity and grants 2 shadows capable of absorbing 2 attacks directed at you, or a single AOE.
• LVL 35 - Kurayami [:10 CD]: Blinds an enemy.
• LVL 40 - Hojo [:10 CD]: Slows an enemy, reducing their attack speed.
• LVL 45 - Jubaku [:10 CD]: Paralyzes an enemy.
• LVL 50 - Enmaku (Smokescreen) [1:00 DR] [15:00 CD]: Reduces the enmity of all your allies to zero and disables enemies caught in the smokescreen's ability to aggro temporarily. Cooldown is reduced by 1 minute per enemy caught in the smokescreen.

Honestly, I'm not too sure about the abilities from NIN, but they would help a THF solo'ing for sure.

What do you guys think? Anything you'd do differently? Sorry for the wall of text.

I like your build. I think some of the ability names over do it a bit and look the final fantasy feel though.


Swift Stab
Preemptive Strike
Poison
Steal
Red Lotus
Disorient
Deep Stab
Vanish
Spinstroke
Blink
Blind
Vortex
Paralyze
Rain of Daggers
Killing Stroke

(I would put descriptions but I'm to lazy right now :/ If you wanna see my entire build my speculations are in my signature.)

These are the abilities I chose when making my build. I included debuffs like poison and paralyze to give the class that debilitating feel. The jobs I chose to branch off were Red Mage, Theif, and Ninja. Enfeebles are covered in the class for Red Mage and Ninja so I don't have to worry about using precious job abilities for those.

No you are wrong.

The only way to make ninja, is to add the ability throw, which lets you chuck any weapon you want at any mob you want.

Chuck all the Ifrit weapons at lvl 1 mobs. 9999 dmg.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I like your build. I think some of the ability names over do it a bit and look the final fantasy feel though.

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Ya, that's part of the problem, FF names are so generic and boring. I guess I couldn't go that route lol

You didn't follow the skill/trait system of the game - that is every 2 levels you get a skill, then a trait, then a skill and so on.

Also ugh, no more Utsusemi. D:

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Originally Posted by Maldalewyn

LVL 50 - Treasure Hunter [Passive Trait]: Causes Gil to drop from all enemies for all members of the party and ensures a greater chance at obtaining valuable items from chests and enemies.

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You mean well with this, and I'm sure Yoshi-P has people on his class balance team that would never cave to the temptation of using treasure hunter as a means to justify a THF/NIN's spot in the party, but could we use something other than TH?

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LVL 30 - Utsusemi [:30 CD]: Slightly reduces enmity and grants 2 shadows capable of absorbing 2 attacks directed at you, or a single AOE.

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I like the cooldown, though I would add the caveat of the shadows lasting at the most 10 seconds, and each shadow lost causes further enmity loss for the NIN. It would make it an aggro drop ability but split into 3 pieces.

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LVL 50 - Enmaku (Smokescreen) [1:00 DR] [15:00 CD]: Reduces the enmity of all your allies to zero and disables enemies caught in the smokescreen's ability to aggro temporarily. Cooldown is reduced by 1 minute per enemy caught in the smokescreen.

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This is interesting, though the cooldown reduction would have to be calculated on hit rather than how many enemies run into the smoke screen.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

You mean well with this, and I'm sure Yoshi-P has people on his class balance team that would never cave to the temptation of using treasure hunter as a means to justify a THF/NIN's spot in the party, but could we use something other than TH?

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Ya, I know what you mean, but it seemed like a stable of the THF job so I included it. It might be better to only include the gil drop part. Would also help a ton with that impossible to get achievement lol

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I like the cooldown, though I would add the caveat of the shadows lasting at the most 10 seconds, and each shadow lost causes further enmity loss for the NIN. It would make it an aggro drop ability but split into 3 pieces.

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The idea was to make it a survival tool so they could join the fray against bosses. THF would have virtually no access to abilities to help them keep enmity for themselves, and with the cooldown, only 2 shadows, and loss of enmity, I don't think we have to fear that abilities abuse. Also, I didn't include this, but it would cost MP instead of ninja tools, so they'd be limited there as well.

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This is interesting, though the cooldown reduction would have to be calculated on hit rather than how many enemies run into the smoke screen.

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Ya, that was the idea, monsters that enter the smokescreen after it's deployment would remain unaffected and could attack players inside.

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Originally Posted by Gokulo

You didn't follow the skill/trait system of the game - that is every 2 levels you get a skill, then a trait, then a skill and so on.

Also ugh, no more Utsusemi. D:

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Archer doesn't follow that system either, nor do any of them if I remember correctly. They are fairly more sorted than the order I set up on THF for sure, but keeping a proper order isn't necessary except to keep the number of actions equal across all jobs.

Looking it through, I'm only 2 traits off.

I am not a fan of implementing thief or ninja into XIV. Neither class/job will add anything significant to XIV. Most of the criticism/wants of proponents stems from the treasure hunter trait of XI.

Instead, treasure hunter and many other thief abilities can be added to musketeer, corsair, gambler, or another class/job.

Just because they were in XI does not indicate or mandate they need to be in XIV.

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Originally Posted by Tibian

I am not a fan of implementing thief or ninja into XIV. Neither class/job will add anything significant to XIV. Most of the criticism/wants of proponents stems from the treasure hunter trait of XI.

Instead, treasure hunter and many other thief abilities can be added to musketeer, corsair, gambler, or another class/job.

Just because they were in XI does not indicate or mandate they need to be in XIV.

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Thief and Ninja are staples dating back to the first FF. XI isn't the only other game in the series.

It's all about how they implement it, not what it's called.

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Originally Posted by Tibian

I am not a fan of implementing thief or ninja into XIV. Neither class/job will add anything significant to XIV. Most of the criticism/wants of proponents stems from the treasure hunter trait of XI.

Instead, treasure hunter and many other thief abilities can be added to musketeer, corsair, gambler, or another class/job.

Just because they were in XI does not indicate or mandate they need to be in XIV.

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That could be said of any job in any FF. Just hand over what makes them unique to some other job.

I tried to make my version of Thief different by making them big on a few things.

I gave them great enmity control abilities, abilities to disable weaponskills on bosses and normal enemies, and even a time bomb that would make clearing stuff like the ants on the Princess fight easier.

Speaking of the Princess fight, the 3rd combo on the bleeding weaponskills, Cutthroat, would be invaluable against a boss of that nature. It'd be useful even against Darnus assuming the THF is good enough to apply the effect at the right time.


It's unique abilities like those that need to exist, and give purpose to jobs. If all thief had was Treasure Hunter, you'd be completely right, but if you read some of the abilities I wrote, if the job THF\NIN played anything like that, it'd be far from just another DD.

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Originally Posted by Maldalewyn

Archer doesn't follow that system either, nor do any of them if I remember correctly. They are fairly more sorted than the order I set up on THF for sure, but keeping a proper order isn't necessary except to keep the number of actions equal across all jobs.

Looking it through, I'm only 2 traits off.

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All classes do after lv12 actually, because that's when you start getting traits, before that they want you get more abilities to use I guess.

You have a three chain weaponskill combo that has descriptions of "painstaking" and "devastating" but the opening weaponskill is only 250 tp, not to mention the cooldowns. Seems pretty broken to me.

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Originally Posted by Tibian

I am not a fan of implementing thief or ninja into XIV. Neither class/job will add anything significant to XIV. Most of the criticism/wants of proponents stems from the treasure hunter trait of XI.

Instead, treasure hunter and many other thief abilities can be added to musketeer, corsair, gambler, or another class/job.

Just because they were in XI does not indicate or mandate they need to be in XIV.

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This is just stupid. What would musketeer, corsair, or gambler add to XIV that is significantly more important than anything a thief would add? We need a close range, small weapon DD class just as much as we need a gun totting ranged DD. Be objective, don't try to destroy a possible class just because you don't want to play it.

A thief without steal? =/ i know its not the most useful ability but its a big staple of the job. If SE found steal lacking they could just make steal more like aura steal in xi or the multiple steal abilities that thief had in tactics advance, Steal an effect/stats from the enemy rather than stealing an item which is in most cases nothing battle winning. Personally i just dont agree with the idea of making a job a class.

I doubt we'd ever get THF -> NIN. THF is way too much of a classic FF class.

While I don't doubt we'll see THF eventually make his way into ARR, I wish it was already in. It needs to have treasure hunter. We need mobs out there with real low drop rates, and honestly I wish mages had to buy their spells once again.

There just needs to be completely casual stuff for people to do. Casual and redeeming stuff. Farming low drop rate trinkets gave XI so much vibrancy, having to go to far ends of the earth and hunt for that one item, the initiation of a whm getting their tele scrolls, bah!

I thought thief would have been in the game since 1.0 launch. I was pretty dissapointed when it wasn't.

I think they should go assassin class route later unlocking thief and/or ninja for jobs.

They could also try something different if they want like making assassin and thief main hand a crossbow~ of course that would not work for ninja.

You have some good ideas, especially the whole "bleeding" focus of the class.

Like some have mentionned, I'd make the class Assassin (dot / debuff / criticals) though, and the jobs Thief (hate management / Steak / TH) and Ninja (more DD).

You've made a thief class in a Final Fantasy game... And haven't included steal. That's their signature ability!

Other than that, there's some really cool and unique stuff here. Boosting damage under certain conditions (like low enemy health or being based off enmity) is something I'd really like to see. Trick Attack which is essentially a reverse Collusion is also pretty sweet.

Some of these skills are way too OP though. In particular, Enchanced Time Bomb sounds like it would devestate large groups and Rogue's Rancor is just ridiculous, being able to pass all your enmity is too much.

@ OP: I completely agree with your direction. In fact I have been toying with a similar design myself for the past few weeks. I will post it when I get a chance. But here are the major points:

Doh, double post due to android.

1. Maintain the classic thief/ninja feel. Including things like steal and flee.
2. Make the class/job useful, and not a repeat or OP version of an existing class.
3. Provide the class/job with 3 uniquely defining functions:
a. Hybrid dps
b. Have weak AA and WS damage with main focus being on Huge DoT effects from WSs that stack.
c. Enmity control.

Hybrid Dps for both melee and ranged attacks so they can be useful in situations where melee is not ideal. DoTs would provide a unique primary damage source, as well as being very usefull for bosses like ifrit that teleport or move around alot. So that even when bosses do this Thief/Ninjas huge DoTs would still be doing damage. Enmity control forhelping stick or reastablish enmity on tank, reducing self or party enmity, or even for kiting and sac pulling.

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Originally Posted by Ryans

You have a three chain weaponskill combo that has descriptions of "painstaking" and "devastating" but the opening weaponskill is only 250 tp, not to mention the cooldowns. Seems pretty broken to me.

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Agreed, but I didn't know exactly what would be more appropriate since the damage can't really be shown. I figured the bleeding weaponskill combo would be fairly low damage, the text in the description is just flavor, so it should be available quickly. The 3rd part of the combo, disabling regen and cure effects, might need a longer cooldown, especially if the effect remains as long as the bleeding effect can last, that could be pretty OP with the Serrated Blade ability. Still, without actually seeing it in game, I have no idea what's OP since the combo itself, in my head, would have been fairly weak and mostly reliant on the bleeding effect for damage throughout the fight. It's usefulness is in fights against large targets, rather than small targets or in EXP.

Also for some reason I had forgotten that following weapon skills in a combo are free after the first, so ya, that cost would need to go up to 1000TP with a standard 5 sec cooldown.


As for Steal complaints, I'd probably replace Blood Booze with Steal and make it something like...

Steal [1:00 DR] [3:00 CD]: Steal an opponents advantage in combat, disabling them and leaving them more open for critical attacks from your allies. May also steal some Gil from their pockets.

So it'd basically be an enfeeb that lasts for a 1 minute that can be done every 3 minutes.

The "disabling them" part is just flavor text, don't read into it. lol

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Originally Posted by UmJammerSully

You've made a thief class in a Final Fantasy game... And haven't included steal. That's their signature ability!

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A thief that doesn't steal isn't a thief. :P

You could call the class Rogue instead, but that would probably set off all sorts of hate.

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Originally Posted by Amsai

1. Maintain the classic thief/ninja feel. Including things like steal and flee.

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Oops, I forgot all about Flee, but I think it's pretty useless in FFXIV considering you can call your birds out anytime. I think I'd attach it with another ability, maybe Enmaku or the Steal I posted above.

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Provide the class/job with 3 uniquely defining functions:

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I tried to do that here with the DOT Weapon skill combo. It provides 2 unique functions, Damage over time being the most obvious, and the ability to disable an enemies ability to heal itself or receive heals for the duration of the DOT.

Backfire would be another unique ability that would damage the enemy slightly, but disable their weaponskill for one use. While it's not amazing, it could definitely help keep melee in range for a fight if the THF is fast, and lucky enough, to disable stuff like massive AOE damage.

And providing Sneak/Invis/Deo for the entire party is pretty nice too, though not all that useful in the game currently, it could provide invaluable in the future, who's the say?

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c. Enmity control.

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That's mostly Trick Attack right there, but I included another one called Rogue's Rancor that would allow them to pass your entire enmity to another party member. I know someone complained it'd be OP but with a 3 minute cooldown, maybe raising it to 5 to be in sync with raise, I don't see it being a problem. The idea behind the ability was to give the THF a chance to restore order if a tank fell in combat, either giving enmity to another tank, or the primary tank after a presence of mind + raise.

Yea OP, I completely understand your direction with all of it. I think you did a great job. And ill post mine later on. You will be amazed just how similar our direction is. Im just happy to find a kindred spirit.

Ok Maldalewyn, here is the idea for a thief/ninja combo that Ive been toying with for the last few weeks.

OK, so how about a quick overview on some basic information about the class. Keep in mind some of the following is general information. I would leave specific numbers and balancing up to the Devs. The major idea is low damage weapons with low delay, but also with very low Weapon skill damage. I know what you are all thinking, "This sounds horrible", but stay with me for a bit. The pay off would be multiple, very high, stack-able DoTs. This is where a Thief's primary damage would come from. Now this means a lot of low TP and low cool down timers on the weapon skills, but I think that fair for doing the worst melee damage (think Gla before class reforms). They would of course dual wield small bladed weapons (pick a type, I don’t care), and they'd be paired like monk weapons so no need for dual wield. And they would also have the highest damage output on throwing weapons, thanks to class exclusive Shurikens. Ninjas would use tools for bomb magic. Subclasses would be Pug and Arc, Pug being the required one for Ninja. Stat modifiers for damage are Pie and Int, and Pie will also help with m. eva and getting debuffs/DoTs to stick. They would naturally have high eva, m. eva, int, and pie. And I was thinking armor types that drgs and mnks can wear with HP like a drg.


Traits:

Enhanced Acc I (+8)
Enhanced Eva I (+8)
Enhanced M. Eva I (+8)
Treasure Hunter (increases gil drops from enemies and chests by 15%)
Enhanced Steal (increases chance to steal by 15%)
Enhanced Trick Attack (Increased enmity to target by x 1.5)
Enhanced Acc II (+10)
Enhanced Eva II (+10)
Enhanced M. Eva II (+10)
Enhanced M. Attack (+15)
Enhanced Bleeding (increases potency and duration of DoTs by 25%)


Thief Skills

Weapon Skills:

Combo Chain 1:

Dancing Edge (single target damage, 10 sec recast, 500 TP) combos
with Throat Stab, must start from side.

Throat Stab (single target damage, 20 sec recast, 1500 TP) combos
with Viper Bite. Combo Effect: Chance to Silence.

Viper Bite (single target damage, 30 sec recast, 2000 TP)
Combo Effect: Inflicts Poison (Large DoT).

Combo Chain 2:

Gut Slash (single target damage, 10 sec recast, 500TP) combos with
Evisceration, must start from front.

Evisceration (single target damage, 20 sec recast, 1500 TP) combos
with Shark Bite. Combo Effect: Chance to Pacify.

Shark Bite (single target damage, 30 sec recast, 2000 TP)
Combo Effect: Inflicts Double Wound (Large DoT).

Combo Chain 3:

Back Stab (single target damage, 10 sec recast, 500 TP) combos with
Skull Strike, must start from back.

Skull Strike (single target damage, 20 sec recast, 1500 TP) combos
with Rat Bite. Combo Effect: Chance to Amnesia.

Rat Bite (single target damage, 30 sec recast, 2000 TP)
Combo Effect: Inflicts Plague (Large DoT).

Lone WS:

Cyclone (AoE damage, 30 sec recast, 250 TP) Chance to Stun.
Can only be performed after a dodge.


(I hate directional combos, but threw them in anyways).


Actions:

Steal - Chance to steal. (180 sec recast) Only common items and
materials, possible exception for class/job quests.

Flee - Increases Movement speed for 45 secs. (300 sec recast) Aggro
does not cancel it. As fast as Chocobo. Generates massive enmity from
enemies you have aggro on.

Trick Attack - Next attack's enmity is increased 5 fold and redirected to
targeted ally. (60 sec recast) Works with any damaging action, but not
auto attack. Direction and position don’t effect it.

Mystic Shift – Dodges next Magic attack directed at you. Works like
Featherfoot. Piety and M. Eva Increase effect. (60 sec recast).

Acceleration - Rapidly throw 6 shuriken at once. (90 sec recast) Works
like Barrage.


Ninja Skills

Actions:

Recoil – Steals 25% of enmity of all party members with within range
and redirects it to targeted ally. Self target AoE. (900 sec recast.)



Spells:

Flare Bomb (60 sec recast, uses 1 bomb tool) Fire Magic Damage on
targeted enemy.(int, m. attk effects potency).

Burst Bomb (60 sec recast, uses 1 bomb tool) Thunder Magic Damage
on targeted enemy.(int, m. attk effects potency).

Tornado Bomb (60 sec recast, uses 1 bomb tool) Wind Magic Damage
on targeted enemy.(int, m. attk effects potency).

Quake Bomb (60 sec recast, uses 1 bomb tool) Earth Magic Damage on
targeted enemy. (int, m. attk effects potency).

Note: the magic attack damage is decent but not on par with BLM or
WHM magic damage. However each magic bomb increases the targeted
enemies resistance and m. evasion to its particular element by 5%
upon each use, effect stacks up to 3 times.

I like seeing creative threads like this, but I think that utsusemi would break tanking in this game and cause a lot of unnecessary balance issues. This is assuming there'll be balance come 2.0...

I love the idea of having a dual wielding job with lots of melee debuffing skills. I would like to see stealth to have its place in this game. I like playing the role of a treasure hunting assassin.

Our builds are pretty similar Amsai, but yours seems more varied with the debuffs... okay A LOT more varied. lol

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Originally Posted by TomCarroll

I like seeing creative threads like this, but I think that utsusemi would break tanking in this game and cause a lot of unnecessary balance issues. This is assuming there'll be balance come 2.0...

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Utsusemi was on NIN though... it's a job... no one else can use it.

Beside that, I also added it REDUCES enmity and only gave 2 shadows with 30 sec cool down. I don't think that's going to happen, you're just having flashbacks to FFXI.

Like I said earlier, as a job ability, keeping it exclusive, its only possible purpose is to serve the THF/NIN in survival either alone, or against bosses. There would be NO TIERS of Utsusemi at all, this isn't FFXI, it's FFXIV, and I'm pretty sure the game is already intend on keeping spell tiers a thing of the past. That means no Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni, just 2 shadows with reduced enmity every 30 seconds. It could help the thief tank while solo, but there is no way a tank could keep enmity up if he was dependent on shadows that cost him MP on an already limited MP pool.

I definitely hope they give Thief SATA again. Hopefully give them some other hate control moves and make stealing more worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Maldalewyn

Our builds are pretty similar Amsai, but yours seems more varied with the debuffs... okay A LOT more varied. lol

Yea, now you see what I mean. Its not like we copied eachother, but the direction we took it is ridiculously similar ^.^



Utsusemi was on NIN though... it's a job... no one else can use it.

Beside that, I also added it REDUCES enmity and only gave 2 shadows with 30 sec cool down. I don't think that's going to happen, you're just having flashbacks to FFXI.

Like I said earlier, as a job ability, keeping it exclusive, its only possible purpose is to serve the THF/NIN in survival either alone, or against bosses. There would be NO TIERS of Utsusemi at all, this isn't FFXI, it's FFXIV, and I'm pretty sure the game is already intend on keeping spell tiers a thing of the past. That means no Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni, just 2 shadows with reduced enmity every 30 seconds. It could help the thief tank while solo, but there is no way a tank could keep enmity up if he was dependent on shadows that cost him MP on an already limited MP pool.

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I think Utsusemi could work for ninja too. The only reason I didnt include it in my build is because I knew people would have issues with it. So I decided not to make it an issue by avoiding it lol. Too many people see it and instantly think "oh nooooes, everyone will have to /nin for shadows arrggghh, and Ninja will tank when its a rogue class, ahhhhhh the sky is falling".

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Originally Posted by TomCarroll

I like seeing creative threads like this, but I think that utsusemi would break tanking in this game and cause a lot of unnecessary balance issues. This is assuming there'll be balance come 2.0...

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I'm not sure how it would do that considering enemies attack in groups rather than being able to single pull. Your shadows would go down really fast. You also need to consider what appropriate recast and casting times would be.

I honestly don't see anything wrong with evasion tanking but I don't want that to be ninja's primary objective.

WOW that' a lot of action ideas. I've been told that a high gathering/perception is good for getting more items. Maybe if they make THF, they could give it a really good gathering stat. Of course, that could just be a rumor since I never looked into it.

I'd love to see dual-wielding as well, but not in the way PGL does dual-fists. Should be 1 sword in main hand and 1 sword in off hand.

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Originally Posted by Yrusama

WOW that' a lot of action ideas. I've been told that a high gathering/perception is good for getting more items. Maybe if they make THF, they could give it a really good gathering stat. Of course, that could just be a rumor since I never looked into it.

I'd love to see dual-wielding as well, but not in the way PGL does dual-fists. Should be 1 sword in main hand and 1 sword in off hand.

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That would be too imbalanced since both weapons could potentially be melded.
Better to avoid the imbalance and just make the daggers come as a set.

I love your setup Maldalewyn. I think some of the abilities could use some longer CDs though to avoid "OPness." I think all of NIN's abilities could use at least :30s cd, with Utsusemi being 1min. Rogue's Rancor > 5min, Time Bomb > maybe 1:30 or 2min? I love Time Bomb but I think it should deal massive(?) damage not death to target. It would be THF/NINs only heavily damaging ability, a way to get massive amounts of spike hate to dump onto someone else as well as be a useful crowd control tool.

It's my understanding that the other WS don't do great damage but that their damage comes from DOT, correct? My only concern with this is that DOTs don't generate a lot of hate, and to transfer/control hate, you have to have some of it. All of your abilities dump hate amazingly, but you don't have any abilities that really grab hate to be dumped (except maybe Sneak Attack?). Maybe change Enhanced Sneak Attack Trait to increase enmity generated by successful sneak attack crits.

My only other suggestion would be to swap TP values of Debilitating Cut and Blood Booze. DC-1k. BB-250

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Originally Posted by Sounsyy

I love your setup Maldalewyn. I think some of the abilities could use some longer CDs though to avoid "OPness." I think all of NIN's abilities could use at least :30s cd, with Utsusemi being 1min. Rogue's Rancor > 5min, Time Bomb > maybe 1:30 or 2min? I love Time Bomb but I think it should deal massive(?) damage not death to target. It would be THF/NINs only heavily damaging ability, a way to get massive amounts of spike hate to dump onto someone else as well as be a useful crowd control tool.

It's my understanding that the other WS don't do great damage but that their damage comes from DOT, correct? My only concern with this is that DOTs don't generate a lot of hate, and to transfer/control hate, you have to have some of it. All of your abilities dump hate amazingly, but you don't have any abilities that really grab hate to be dumped (except maybe Sneak Attack?). Maybe change Enhanced Sneak Attack Trait to increase enmity generated by successful sneak attack crits.

My only other suggestion would be to swap TP values of Debilitating Cut and Blood Booze. DC-1k. BB-250

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I think you got Time Bomb confused a bit. It doesn't deal death, but it activates upon death. Basically you place it on a monster, then proceed to kill him. Once the monster dies he blows up and damages all the surviving allies present and gives them a burn DOT. The idea behind it was to deal AOE damage (which the class severaly lacks) without generating enmity since no one is causing the damage, only the bomb is.

The Bleed Weapon skill combo is low damage and does depend on DOT but the other combo ending in Falconer's Dive is big spike damage. Falconer's Dive combo is the main source of enmity generation that could be dumped onto someone else. A SATA Falconer Dive also gives a 100% chance to double the damage you deal, as well as make it a critical, that's HUGE so it'd generate a ton of enmity.

But ya, you're right about the cooldowns, I did make them too short. I was trying to make the class fast paced, but I guess that'd be too OP.

Oh, it's also worth noting that Thousand Cuts can be criticaled as well with Sneak Attack, making each hit critical for 2 damage instead of 1, with a potential for 2K damage. Stack that with Hawk's Eye if it's available and you could have some real power there every 5 minutes.

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But ya, you're right about the cooldowns, I did make them too short. I was trying to make the class fast paced, but I guess that'd be too OP.

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30s is still really quick. Besides being OP, there were two reasons I wanted to suggest raising CD times. 1) you don't really need a spell that only blinds or only paralyzes to be 10s. The effect will probably last 10-15s as it is. No point in being able to spam it if you won't actually ever need to spam it. I could understand 10s if it generated hate or something but it doesn't. 2) if all your CD timers are really short (ie 10s) you physically have no time to go through all your rotations and keep everything/most everything on cooldown. Coupled with positioning, you'd never get anything done.