Dear Ninjas

[QiLymePye]

The problem is in the game more so than the people. This game does not leave much customization in how you play. Yes, i can customize my outfit, house, etc. but when it comes to battles, if you are fighting in tough endgame battles, you are stuck just finding the right rotation for each boss fight. There isn't multiple ways to attack a situation in end game. its either "you do it this way or fail". But the problem is the beginning parts of the game, you can make more mistakes and try more things without as much consequence. This game gets super linear the farther you get. So you have new players and young players that like "yay, smash buttons, run around, use random skills" up to lvl 50, then bam!, everything is tighter, no imagination when fighting endgame. Have to fight fights almost in pre-planned, pre-made ways. There is not many ways to beat endgame content. That's the problem.

Now, if they can balance it more, then yeah, this game would have less problems. But you go from very easy to extremely hard with nothing in-between. So these "jobs" where you see alot of people doing stuff you don't agree with, those things worked for them early in the game, now they are not working. And hell, you can go through the game using less than half of the skills you learn up to lvl 50. Then all of a sudden, you have to fit in a skill that was useless to you early on, and you really never used it and don't even know how to incorporate it in your "rotation".

I laugh at this "rotation" bullshit. I should be able to put together my own set of skills to use in situations, not be forced to use certain skills every time. No flexibility, no imagination. That's the problem. Every job damn near feels and operates the same.

[Faelandaea]

The problem is in the game more so than the people. This game does not leave much customization in how you play. Yes, i can customize my outfit, house, etc. but when it comes to battles, if you are fighting in tough endgame battles, you are stuck just finding the right rotation for each boss fight. There isn't multiple ways to attack a situation in end game. its either "you do it this way or fail". But the problem is the beginning parts of the game, you can make more mistakes and try more things without as much consequence. This game gets super linear the farther you get. So you have new players and young players that like "yay, smash buttons, run around, use random skills" up to lvl 50, then bam!, everything is tighter, no imagination when fighting endgame. Have to fight fights almost in pre-planned, pre-made ways. There is not many ways to beat endgame content. That's the problem.

Now, if they can balance it more, then yeah, this game would have less problems. But you go from very easy to extremely hard with nothing in-between. So these "jobs" where you see alot of people doing stuff you don't agree with, those things worked for them early in the game, now they are not working. And hell, you can go through the game using less than half of the skills you learn up to lvl 50. Then all of a sudden, you have to fit in a skill that was useless to you early on, and you really never used it and don't even know how to incorporate it in your "rotation".

I laugh at this "rotation" bullshit. I should be able to put together my own set of skills to use in situations, not be forced to use certain skills every time. No flexibility, no imagination. That's the problem. Every job damn near feels and operates the same.

Yup! pretty much exactly what I said a few posts ago. If it weren't for my absolute love for the other gameplay factors of this game, the inability to customize your rotation would have ran me off long ago. This is the only MMO in existence currently where you can do everything on one character without having to roll a bunch of individual characters and switch to them every time you want to play a different class (and wow does that ever make getting gear, weapons, etc. so much easier). This is the only MMO (that I play, anyway) that allows you to take on ALL crafting without limiting you to 2 or 3 max. And this is one of the few MMO games where a healer can be a dedicated healer (even with the ones out there crying that healers should be DPSing, also). Those factors and a few others have kept me here, but the fact that all of our skill rotations are pre-made for us . . . well . . . it's like a steering wheel under me kilt . . . it's driving me nuts.

[QiLymePye]

it's like a steering wheel under me kilt . . . it's driving me nuts.

Funniest quote ever...lol. It took me a while to really, really, get it

[Faelandaea]

Ninja with Huton have NOTHING on the frustration of Monks and their Greased Lightning when it comes to sluggish tanks. Having played both, I know this very keenly.

We COULD start the boss while I'm still sporting three stacks, but NOOOOOO.

Personally I've always wondered why people start their short-term buffs while standing there at the door in the first place. When I play the occasional DPS, I never put on a single buff until the boss is pulled and the fight is underway. That way regardless of the speed of the party, I get the most out of my skills. As a main healer, it fucking bugs the crap out of me when the other healer stands there and pops off Succor/Galvanize when we're still gathering and preparing to fight. The damned regen buff that results from it last like 20 seconds and you wasted half of that at least IF the tank is a fast puller. If no one pulls, you just wasted the buff entirely. This I see a LOT at S-Rank hunts and in WoD. Other healer pops off regens and they are gone before we even start to fight, then we start and you now have to wait for cool downs.

I personally do not mind if the tank goes at his own speed. I'd rather have a tank that knows their limits than one that shows off and gets the party wiped all the time. But even if you have a speed puller tank, don't waste your stacks or cool downs intil you are actually IN the fight.

Funniest quote ever...lol. It took me a while to really, really, get it

haha. Yeah I get that a lot. It's one of those puns people have to think about for a bit before they get it

[Ilenya]

As a main healer, it fucking bugs the crap out of me when the other healer stands there and pops off Succor/Galvanize when we're still gathering and preparing to fight. The damned regen buff that results from it last like 20 seconds and you wasted half of that at least IF the tank is a fast puller.

Regen buff? Also, most fights, except on the tank, the buff from Succor does drop off on its own regardless. The trick is either knowing when to pre-cast it and/or using the shield as protection from anything following up the first AoE. I rarely precast Succor and mean it. Even Adloquium I don't tend to pre-cast much. Right after the pull and after Virus, sure, but before, not really.

[Atreides]

Personally I've always wondered why people start their short-term buffs while standing there at the door in the first place. When I play the occasional DPS, I never put on a single buff until the boss is pulled and the fight is underway.

Any Ninja worth his salt will use Huton before the fight starts, Ninjutsus are on a 20 second cooldown.
You'd obviously want to have the Huton buff up pre fight so you can use an offensive Jutsu right when the Cooldown is up again instead of wasting that time to buff yourself infight when you could've used an actual damaging skill.
Huton can't be compared with any of the buffs you mentioned, you want it up 100% of the time and before a pull, to utilize a Ninja to it's full potential it's best to engage a boss 15 seconds after the use of Huton.
This will not only Increase the damage of the Ninja but of the whole party with 10% more damage against the boss with everyones buffs in use.
Doing so helps a great deal to push or even skip phases and is especially useful in progress.

[Faelandaea]

Ninjas sound complicated. I did some reading (I do not have a Ninja, myself. Just a Rogue but he has yet to do anything Nina) and I guess these Ninjutsus (spelling?) are a series of buttons pressed per buff/skill/action? Sounds obnoxious. My standing on the prefight buffs was based on playing SCH as healer and BRD for DPS. Single click buffs, etc, so I can definitely see where some frutration would come into play for Ninjas.

I guess if I was a Ninja and i was with a tank that went slow and did ready checks, I'd start my buff during the ready check?

[LineageRazor]

Personally I've always wondered why people start their short-term buffs while standing there at the door in the first place.

Greased Lightning is an exception to this. GL is built up during combat, and wears off pretty quickly if not sustained through continued combat. A MNK is at their best when combat is pretty much constant and continuous. While it is to be understood that there are times when a healer needs to recover MP or whatever, when a tank seems to be derping around for no good reason when they could be pulling, it can be very aggravating for a MNK who'd prefer to dive in and start punching.

The amount of damage per second lost between a MNK going into the fight already pumped up with three stacks and going into a fight having to rebuild their GL from scratch is quite significant. This isn't a "buff they cast while standing at the door", it's a buff leftover from the previous fight - which COULD continue on into the next fight, if the tank is snappy!