Alternatives to "nerfing" ninja

[Krr]

The question being raised by any reasonable poster is not 'by how much', it's 'is it even necessary based on perceived facts in the game?'

DRG absolutely, certainly needed a buff. A great number of NIN players are former DRGs who got sick of being considered nonviable and secondary by their raid groups and being outshined by MNKs, because, well...look at the parse numbers, look at the sim numbers, look at the actual content participation. Everyone runs double MNK because it gives you Dragon Kick, The Good(tm) Version of Mantra, and The Best Melee DPS Ever. Also, of course, you don't need a healer babysitting you with Stoneskin so T12+ bosses don't instantly kill you with partywide magic damage if you're a MNK or NIN.

The NIN nerf on the other hand is what's being brought to question. TMK, world-firsters didn't even have time to equip them much less field them in actual endgame fights to see how they performed for their minimum-ilvl-runs, but we have odd nebulous reports of 'Look! I did 520 on a training dummy!' and 'B-but they're doing DPS on par with MNK and have more utility by being able to stun, silence, TA, and Goad!' never minding that DKick is basically going to be considered essential for Super Duper Hardcore Raiding, Mantra is an incredible boon for any 'stack up and pray you don't die' phase, and other basically doesn't matter.

[Jeckyl_Tesla]

The question being raised by any reasonable poster is not 'by how much', it's 'is it even necessary based on perceived facts in the game?'

DRG absolutely, certainly needed a buff. A great number of NIN players are former DRGs who got sick of being considered nonviable and secondary by their raid groups and being outshined by MNKs, because, well...look at the parse numbers, look at the sim numbers, look at the actual content participation. Everyone runs double MNK because it gives you Dragon Kick, The Good(tm) Version of Mantra, and The Best Melee DPS Ever. Also you don't need a healer babysitting you with Stoneskin so T12+ bosses don't instantly kill you with partywide magic damage.

I have no complaints about DRGs being buffed. They truly need it and I welcome it.


The problem about NINs, is as the Dev team themselves have stated, they wanted their DPS to be lower than that of a MNK due to Trick Attack alone. That move alone, simply means that NIN should never, ever, be higher DPS than a MNK (or I daresay, a DRG. But less so a DRG, due to Disembowel helping the BRD so much)


With Trick Attack, NIN parses higher than MNK. Yeah, sure, Mantra is great, and always will. But although Dragonkick is great in this coil, it wasn't that amazing in the last two. It was decent, but it wasn't one of the things that made MNK viable.

Trick attack, so along as the NIN parses decently, will always make a NIN viable. Always. 10% DMG, every 60 seconds is HUGE and always will be.

Also this 1k word bullshit needs to end.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-get-a-buff...

This thread has examples of that a very skilled Dragoon can do. T13 has also been downed with a DPS set up of 3 DRG, 1 BRD.

I fully support a buff to Dragoon. However the truth is a highly skilled Dragoon can deal comparable Damage to Ninja (though still behind Monk.) Dragoon is getting buffed, and in a way to remove some of the skill cap on it's higher tier DPS, so it's not outside of the realm of possibility to say post buff Dragoon can out DPS Ninja.

DRG is by far the worst DPS in the game. Not unviable though. I know that fully well. But the problem is, classes are not really balanced for what the top end DPSers can do. (Though I could be wrong) It's great that 0.01% of the DRG community are skilled enough to pull those sort of numbers. But that requires some intense sort of knowledge and skill of the class to do. The average joe still needs more unfortunately.

I will however, not be convinced of anything until I see the true numbers on my screen. That was my point.

I see that a lot of these forums. People making grandiose comments when they actually have nothing to back it up.

[dday3six]

The problem about NINs, is as the Dev team themselves have stated, they wanted their DPS to be lower than that of a MNK due to Trick Attack alone. That move alone, simply means that NIN should never, ever, be higher DPS than a MNK (or I daresay, a DRG. But less so a DRG, due to Disembowel helping the BRD so much)


With Trick Attack, NIN parses higher than MNK. Yeah, sure, Mantra is great, and always will. But although Dragonkick is great in this coil, it wasn't that amazing in the last two. It was decent, but it wasn't one of the things that made MNK viable.

Trick attack, so along as the NIN parses decently, will always make a NIN viable. Always. 10% DMG, every 60 seconds is HUGE and always will be.

If we are going to give all the increased damage from TA to Ninja, then we would need to factor in what 2 Monks can do as well. Being able to always use Bootshine and have Dragon Kick debuff is equally huge.

[Jeckyl_Tesla]

If we are going to give all the increased damage from TA to Ninja, then we would need to factor in what 2 Monks can do as well. Being able to always use Bootshine and have Dragon Kick debuff is equally huge.

That's fine. If there are two MNKs in the group, you do this.

If there is a BRD and a DRG, you do this.

But it doesn't matter what the actual composition, if there a NIN in the group, you add 105 from EVERYONE. Even the Tanks, even the healers spamming Stone II. There is a huge difference here.

[Ehayte]

TMK, world-firsters didn't even have time to equip them much less field them in actual endgame fights to see how they performed for their minimum-ilvl-runs....

Mimic from Adamantoise had a world 5th clear with a NIN in the party.

A - Trick attack is powerful, if applied across averages, you get about a 1.66% increase to overall DPS. Not to shabby for a single skill that also has an extremely high potency attack attached to it. If applied strategically, I bet the real impact is somewhere north of a 2% effect on overall DPS.

B - NIN is very easy to play. It was not hard to master for anyone switching from MNK, and I would imagine easier for a DRG switching over as the buff/debuff management was largely similar. With TA being the only positional (for potency only), it is crazy good in those fights where the boss may be facing you at times, or there is a forced rear-only stack that flanking creates some risks (Shiva X, Titan X, T9 for a few examples).

C - NIN's dps is good, but I don't think that that is the problem. Nor do I think its the utility (I'm not of the opinion that DRG is fine as is, btw). This job becomes too powerful in its TP management. If they increase TP costs great players are going to stay great on NIN, good players with take a slight hit, and average and below average players will likely fall to pieces.

The combination of the fact that they can feed a MNK, and completely self-sustain with Invigorate for a VERY long time in a battle with their Mudra down-time, is really really good. That increases MNK dps, that increases BRD dps, that allows the NIN to worry about Ninjitsu order, Goading, silencing, stunning, AEing, Mantra-ing, CD management, and rotation (all things that MNKs have to do already) WITHOUT having the constant nag of TP starvation in long fights. And long fights are what we are all worried about here. If you make NIN a TP-intensive class that can be sustained about as long or slightly longer than a MNK, the class changes a little bit and the mental load becomes one in which great players will continue to push limits, and everyone else will either have to work really hard or lay off the accelerator to think about what they are doing.

Please SE - DO NOT nerf NIN DMG. They are a really fun and dynamic class to have in raids. I like playing it, but I think that my fate is to end up tanking. Even still - I'd really like to see NIN stay relevant for end game raids. I don't care if you buff DRG to MNK-level damage, just don't make NIN useless.