Ninja: Walk in shadow.

[Ejell]

Though it would be nice for drg sub ( unlikely) for access to Bob and invigorate. With those low to costs it probably won't need invigorate as much.

One of the datamined passive is increased TP regeneration, so it should be able to be independant of invegorate.

[Sigmakan]

Enjoying the discussion, lets keep it going! Heres a question:

How potent will these mudra be?
I think we'll be underwhelmed with the potency of the mudra. Its a move you can do every 20seconds, off GCD. Its basically free damage every 20secs that you can do over your class-role. A similar situation is DRG being able to do jump every 40secs, and thats a potency of 200. One could almost expect then mudra to only have a potency of 100, but I think it'll be higher like 150.

However, there could be a mechanic/toggle that applies poison to your blades and disables mudra. The poison could be a 30% dmg boost. This would allow the mudra to be more potent while remaining some sort of balance with class damage. In this scenario we could see mudras being 500-600 potency. I actually think this is the route they will go. They've mentioned that rogues will use poisons, and if it was a toggle then it would allow the job-class to be more balanced.

[NoctisUmbra]

Enjoying the discussion, lets keep it going! Heres a question:

How potent will these mudra be?
I think we'll be underwhelmed with the potency of the mudra. Its a move you can do every 20seconds, off GCD. Its basically free damage every 20secs that you can do over your class-role. A similar situation is DRG being able to do jump every 40secs, and thats a potency of 200. One could almost expect then mudra to only have a potency of 100, but I think it'll be higher like 150.

However, there could be a mechanic/toggle that applies poison to your blades and disables mudra. The poison could be a 30% dmg boost. This would allow the mudra to be more potent while remaining some sort of balance with class damage. In this scenario we could see mudras being 500-600 potency. I actually think this is the route they will go. They've mentioned that rogues will use poisons, and if it was a toggle then it would allow the job-class to be more balanced.

Yoshi P did say in an interview that the majority of Ninja's DPS will come from the base Rogue skills, and that ninjtsu will be better served by using the right jutsu at the right time, etc.

An example of this seems to be apparent in the Aniversary video where the Ninja casts the water jutsu and on top of the damage it likely does to the target, it also applies a 5s buff with a sword icon. While this buff is active, 2 off-GCD skills on the hotbar become activated (they were greyed out otherwise) and then the player uses one of them, and it immediately removes the sword buff.

There were also a couple or so skills that went unused for the entire duration, one of which is likely to be the application of poison to the blades that the animation was shown for in the reveal video.

[Sigmakan]

Good to know about Yoshi's comments. Every third mudra should be on that gives that buff thats used for one of those two moves. It'll be interesting to see all the other mudras. Will everything else be fillers? Or will we see some unique effects like ice resistence down, etc etc.

Also, I tried breaking down all the videos best I could and posted the move set in this spreadsheet. Theres a fair amount of speculation, but thats the fun of it! Feel free to contribute comments and corrections.
Ninja Speculation Doc

[JakzChurchill]

At lot of talk now has been about stat balance; but I honestly hope they don't go this route, as soon as jobs implementation becomes dependant on balancing stats the devs then lose all creative freedom. It no longer becomes about what jobs would work well here (ala Ninja being the stealth class) to what jobs do we need to balance out the stats.

Having the devs limit themselves in this fashion will be detrimental to all future job releases, and I would hate for the devs to say, we have ideas for 2 cool tanks, and evasion tank and a mage tank, both using VIT, but if we implement them both we create an imbalance so only one can be used.

If a job works well for the game it should be implemented, whether the stats are balanced should never be a thought when it comes to adding jobs.

[NoctisUmbra]

At lot of talk now has been about stat balance; but I honestly hope they don't go this route, as soon as jobs implementation becomes dependant on balancing stats the devs then lose all creative freedom. It no longer becomes about what jobs would work well here (ala Ninja being the stealth class) to what jobs do we need to balance out the stats.

Having the devs limit themselves in this fashion will be detrimental to all future job releases, and I would hate for the devs to say, we have ideas for 2 cool tanks, and evasion tank and a mage tank, both using VIT, but if we implement them both we create an imbalance so only one can be used.

If a job works well for the game it should be implemented, whether the stats are balanced should never be a thought when it comes to adding jobs.

The stat balancing is pretty much a DPS exclusive thing. VIT will be the primary stat for Tanks and MND the primary stat for healers all the way through. Can there be exceptions born from creative new designs? Perhaps. In general though, that's going to be the case and that's fine as long as there aren't multiple tanking stats in the game like there are DPS stats.

Also, if you think stat balance should never be a thought when implementing new jobs, you're highly mistaken lol.

[JakzChurchill]

No it isn't your exact reasoning for balancing stats is too make it fair for accessories working with an even amount of classes. So if one VIT accessory works across 4 classes, against DEX on two classes the same issue would come up that tanking accessories have more use than DEX accessories.

I bet you wouldn't have the same opinion if we had a higher threshold of jobs, lets say 6 new dps were added, 3 STR, 2 DEX, 1 INT, giving us 3 DEX 5 STR 3 INT. The difference now almost seems minute, and eventually this is how the game will go. It will eventually build up to the point where one accessory will work across so many jobs you won't even notice that one has more usefulness than the other.

I would accept if making Ninja DEX had a purpose, if dex did something like raise crit rate, speed or accuracy; but it never will, the secondary stats have already made that a fact, so making a melee class that is already set into an established category, become part of another just for gears sake is a dumb reason. For a change to be made it has to hold serious value, which in this case it does not.

[NoctisUmbra]

No it isn't your exact reasoning for balancing stats is too make it fair for accessories working with an even amount of classes. So if one VIT accessory works across 4 classes, against DEX on two classes the same issue would come up that tanking accessories have more use than DEX accessories.

No, because there are always either 1 or 2 tanks in a given party. VIT is the tanking stat. Tanks either get all the tanking gear on an instance where they solo, or they compete against 1 other tank. Regardless of how many tanking classes are added, that doesn't change.

However, there are 2-6 DPS in any given party for content, and among them there is variance in primary stats. This variance has to be balanced to a reasonable degree.

[JakzChurchill]

No, because there are always either 1 or 2 tanks in a given party. VIT is the tanking stat. Tanks either get all the tanking gear on an instance where they solo, or they compete against 1 other tank. Regardless of how many tanking classes are added, that doesn't change.

However, there are 2-6 DPS in any given party for content, and among them there is variance in primary stats. This variance has to be balanced to a reasonable degree.

I cannot honestly agree with your point, having mained Monk, Dragoon, Black Mage and Scholar I have dealt with fighting for gear a lot, the times when i don't worry about the fight? when I play Monk and Dragoon.


why? Because they only share half their gear, and even then it's only in places where accessories drop that even happens. By this point adding an extra STR based class is of benefit to STR classes as it decreases the likelyhood of there being a duplicate of your class in the party. If monk and dragoon shared all their gear I would be more inclined to agree with you, but they don't.


Either way a standard set up that the content is designed for is 2-3 melee, 1 caster and 1 bard. So adding an extra melee doesn't change how many you will fight against in a party, it will just annoy bards who are now fighting against a melee.

[NoctisUmbra]

The direction the discussion has taken lately here may give the impression that stat balance between DPS jobs is the only, or perhaps even the primary reason I expect DEX to be the primary stat for NIN. This is false, and I think it would be best if I made a post in an attempt to succinctly explain my reasoning in general.

First, the matter of why I have been seemingly focusing on the whole stat balance discussion lately. The reason really has been that, to my surprise, some people have had great difficulty understanding what I've tried to explain. I do not enjoy being misunderstood, so I have repeatedly tried to clarify or elaborate to make it clearer... and to a point I will continue to do so.

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First, there are a number of things I have deduced from the various sources of information we have regarding Rogue>Ninja. From here on, I will just say NIN when referring to the class an it's job as it's pretty much a given they will function identically regarding their primary stat.

We of course had the initial dat mine of traits for NIN. These were fairly early, so of course they are subject to change (particularly the DEX buffs since they are essentially copy paste from other jobs just replacing the primary stat); however there are some interesting traits in there that shed a new light on the job now that we have other sources of info.

The anniversary demo clip is filled with hints that go well beyond the obvious. Everybody notices the combo chains as they light up on the hotbar, what skills are offGCD and what skills apply buffs or debuffs. Also, another thing that captured attention right away is how the mudras work and how ninjutsu is casted. The more astute observers will take note of TP costs and GCD duration.

Taking a look at the TP costs, we can immediately notice that they are on the low side - similar to the costs associated with MNK. We know why MNK has such low costs - because MNK operates at a reasonably faster pace than other jobs. It is for this reason, combined with the % damage buff of their GL3 buff that they have low TP costs and low potency skills.

However, when we take a look at the GCD of NIN, it doesn't seem to be as fast as a GL3 MNK. This immediately suggests that NIN will not be one to have much of a TP issue. That isn't it, though. If we go back to the dat mined traits, there is a trait that increases base TP regeneration.

What does this all mean? NIN will have next to no TP issues in most scenarios. What this further implies is, giving NIN access to Invigorate would be overkill, or at the very least redundant. This is further evidence to support the likelihood, as others have come to expect, that the 2 sub classes for NIN will be ARC and PGL.


Now, if we explore the attributes STR and DEX and their design back in beta versus how they function now, we can arrive at some interesting conclusions there, too.

During FFXIV ARR Beta, STR and DEX functioned differently from how they do now. The tooltips, however, were essentially the same. STR determined how much damage a character would do with melee physical attacks. DEX determined how much damage a character would do with ranged physical attacks. What this meant, in action, was that skills such as Piercing Talon, Shield Lob or Tomahawk were based on DEX, whereas things such as an ARC switching to punches for AA in close range was based on STR.

Come launch, that whole thing changed. Damage formulas were reworked so that there wasn't any dependency on more than a single stat. How? Attack Power. Attack Power is the stat that is used in determining how much damage a character will do with physical attacks, melee or ranged. If you take a look at how the Attack Power scales right now, it should immediately be obvious. For every job except BRD, Attack Power is of identical value to their STR attribute. For BRD, Attack Power is identical to their DEX attribute.

STR and DEX were essentially abstracted from the damage formula, and replaced simply with Attack Power. The job/weapon in question would determine if STR or DEX was used to represent Attack Power, and in turn the same exact damage formula could be used for all physical damage. Similarly, Attack Magic Potency is identical to INT, and Healing Magic Potency to MND.

The ultimate point here is, as far as damage output is concerned, STR and DEX are mutually exclusive stats. If your DPS is based on one, it is entirely unaffected by the other. BRDs can run around with 999 STR or 0 STR and it won't do anything for them. Furthermore, they are identical in how they function in terms of DPS - simply the value that is copied for Attack Power.


This core design immediately shuts out any notions of a physical DPS job being a hybrid STR/DEX job. Similarly, it demonstrates that the game, at it's core algorithmic design, doesn't care if an action is ranged, melee, or whatever. It simply cares what weapon class you have, and whether this weapon class tells it to take it's Attack Power stat from STR or DEX.

So, for the devs to implement a hybrid STR/DEX job or something "innovative" such as that, they would have to redesign damage formulas from the ground up. However, for them to make a class a STR or DEX class means simply coding the weapon class to be STR or DEX based. Done. The game isn't actively checking for melee or range.

This is what I've been trying to say regarding how DEX works now and how the tooltip is misleading. Reading it now, you can argue that it's valid since DEX is being used by a ranged job and STR by melee. That's more likely the reason they haven't bothered to change the tooltip. Not only would it confuse some players, but would hint at jobs that don't yet exist... also they hadn't decided yet. If it still makes sense, no need to change it.

However, by making NIN a DEX job, not only will it have increased synergy with its ARC sub class (receiving the DEX increase damage buff from Hawk's Eye) but also expand the definition of DEX to better match what is actually happening in the background while allowing it to sensibly be used by a wider range of jobs, assisting in long term stat balance.

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Please let me know what you guys think, but before you do I suggest that you actually read the above text in full and make sure you understand. I may have worded some parts in a manner difficult to this request, but I would be happy to clarify in that case.