Any new new in NIN's positional so?

[silentwindfr]

I think Positionals are to Melee as Casting is to Ranged.

for me positional in mmorpg, is mostly something that design a rogue class, however in this game it was the monk that did end with the most positional recquirement, i had said it while the beta that it was more a rogue stuff.

when they did decide to bring the ninja without positional, i had found it ironical, but at the same time, the lack of jobs free of this that was a head on fight that was able to fight without take advantage of weakness was too important for be against it.

in most game, only one type of melee class have positional, it's the sneak rogue type class. not all.... for take an example from WoW, the warrior dps don't fight from flank or back, they are attacking wherever they want. same for the monk... positional don't definite melee, it your vision, not the reality! it will be nice to admit that your vision is not forced to be the one that will be good.

[Allyrion]

You may want to review the thread I posted on the last page. The person who posted it personally doesn't mind positionals but does see why people do mind them on NIN.

I also never said all NIN mains are like I am. I am saying that a lot of people do like NIN for its playstyle though, and preserving it is important in order to preserve diversity.

I read that. What I'm saying is that they're making a more basic design for all dps to consider.
You can see that with the addition of WM for BRD as well.
It's okay to not like positionals, play a class with less positionals then. NIN might not even have much.
But everyone should have to consider their movement to some extent.

Mudra lag certainly is an issue and I admit the Fuuton change is a bandaid fix for now.
That said, it's a technical issue and I don't think they're ready to make it client-side just yet.
I think people underestimate how much it would take to do that when almost everything is run server side.


The rest of that post is addressed by the fact that we simply don't deserve more changes yet because we haven't been out long enough for testing and thoughtful development forward.
Lack of positionals is not a play style in itself. It's just the context and foundation of how the rotation is framed.
You're not supposed to love your cast times as a caster, but you're supposed to consider it worth the payoff in the end.

Diversity should come in parts and DRG already barely has any positionals. NIN has one a minute and MNK has almost all positionals.
That seems to favor a lack of positionals more than it doesn't on live.
That's not more varied. It's less.

in most game, only one type of melee class have positional, it's the sneak rogue type class. not all.... for take an example from WoW, the warrior dps don't fight from flank or back, they are attacking wherever they want. same for the monk... positional don't definite melee, it your vision, not the reality! it will be nice to admit that your vision is not forced to be the one that will be good.

Well aware of how melee work in other games.
But guess what? FFXIV took positionals on a different level than any other MMO out there and made it a foundation for melee when the game launched.
And I personally think it puts all other games to shame because it has a cohesive design about battle movement.

So yea, I'm talking about FFXIV which I didn't think I need to state since this is the FFXIV forums, and SE clearly has a different vision.
Positionals are honestly one of the unique features of the game and it may not be the best thing ever but an aspect of movement consideration that was only for ranged in most other games.
Brilliantly, it's the opposite as well.
You have to move as Melee and you have to stay still as Ranged for maximum dps.
There should be different levels between Jobs but that's the basic guideline in this game. And it comes across as much more cohesive.

[BlueThunder]

Positionals certainly haven't killed Monks ... Sincerely doubt adding a Flank req to a couple of NIN skills will cause a mass exodus.

Here's the thing: Monks don't have to deal with 20 sec recast Ninjutsus, which require manual input for maximum dps increase. Mudra lag already hinders those who suffer from it (quite a lot of players in fact).

What have monks to deal with outside their GCDs? Nothing actually, hit your only 2 off gcd attacks when ready and that's it, easily done while dancing around the mob.

Adding positionals to ninja can become a real stress when moving and managing mudras at the same time and meeting your positional hits for max dps output.

[Adire]

snip

But see, that's the problem. "Play a class with less positionals then." NIN is the class I've been playing with "less positionals." Now that is potentially one less option, especially given that it's going to be on old skills.

And yes, lack of positionals is very well a playstyle. Why? Because NIN's difficulty and appeal lies elsewhere. Timer management, a high amount of multitasking. That's what replaces positionals.

And I don't think bringing up DRG is a good idea. DRG originally had many important positional requirements (like Heavy Thrust, missing this was even more of a hit to DPS than missing MNK positionals), now they are removed. NIN is getting Dragoon's former weaknesses added to it. How is this progress, or even change worth making? DRG is strongly looking like it's going to be the easiest class to play with the 2nd highest DPS.

Adding positionals to one job =/= removing them from another. They are very different changes, and why did they bother making DRG so non-positional if they felt all melees should be doing more positionals in the first place?

[Allyrion]

They removed positional requirements and added positionals bonuses.
Before they changed the DRG positionals, it was punishing to miss but it was still only 2 positionals to hit around 5 times a minute.
After the change, it's the same except the positionals were only bonuses rather than requirements.

Those old requirements were bad. I'll say that too.
Positionals should not stop a combo if you miss, or stop a buff like Heavy Thrust.
There's no reason to believe NIN positionals won't be bonuses. Because we have progressed passed those for the most part.
We do have a requirement positional but that's because it's a raid cooldown.


The range of positionals favor a lack of them between the 3 melee.
NIN still has everything it had before, and now it has something else to "multitask".
You don't need to have one or the other and I'm pretty sure NIN will not have as much as MNK.
Positionals won't suddenly define NIN, it will just be part of the flow of the rotation and people will need to learn to move while doing the rest.

And like I've said a few times now, people should already know how to move and cast Mudra.
If you can't, you're already potentially losing dps. Adding them simply adds it rotationally.

The scale has been pretty off anyway. The old DRG positionals were bad but still didn't happen often.
MNK had less at launch and then they made True Strike and Demolish have it.

Look at it -
NIN uses 1 every minute.
DRG uses 5 every minute. (Both before and after changes)
MNK uses 28 every minute.

How is that diverse or a decent scale? It clearly favors one side right now.

[BlueThunder]

snip

Maybe jumping a bit too much there. As in, I doubt SE will do the same mistake by adding OLD DRG positionals to NIN new positionals. They will do as they are now, potency boost. As it is thou, NINs have the positional that suffers the most if missed.

Again, I'm not in favor of positionals for Ninjas, dealing with mudras is enough. But we'll have to see what they add and how.

[Caraway]

I am reading this and I guess I am confused on some of the base points... Key one being; what is there difficult to manage about with the Ninja?

Now, before people try to pull out the "Cameron, you only have Rogue to 15 according to your Lodestone!" stuff, please note that I did have an alt with Ninja into Final Coil and was successfully meeting 2-3 DPS places without top end gear (so either I was playing with some poor DPS, or I managed the rotation well enough to get by).

So that out of the way... What's difficult to manage with the Ninja? I see people say Mudras. Okay, I can grant a little bit of that. Sometimes you might slip up and cast the wrong Ninjutsu, that can make anywhere from a minor dent (using the wrong attack skill) to a major one (messing up Huton). Anyone using a macro for Mudras should be discounted because of the inherent lag they add. But the lag part? I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. Why? Because your most common used Ninjutsu in hard content is going to be Shuriken. Unless Foe's Requiem is up Shuriken is going to outdamage Raiton slightly thanks to 1) slashing debuffs and 2) no impact to your GCD. Raiton will nudge your cooldowns back a bit. There's been math on this elsewhere in the forums and while it isn't much of a lead between Shuriken and Raiton it is there (you use Raiton while you're travelling if you would otherwise have used Shuriken).

The other bit of 'difficulty' I've seen mention is managing your buffs. Really? Somehow Ninja have that harder than the other classes? We have a pretty set rotation and don't have much in the way of buffs to really manage. It isn't a tough class and it's easy to get really high damage numbers, especially spike numbers.

The link to the Reddit post that Adire gave was mentioning positionals added to oGCD skills but I could not see any reference for this so I'm going to assume it's hogwash. That won't happen, simply put. So let's get that out of mind. So we have two camps for how positionals will be handled; monk, or dragoon. I am leaning more towards dragoon style positionals which is very minimal. And additionally those positionals are only for additional damage anyway. And how hard is it to skip back and forth over a three pixel line? You do not have to go all the way from a mob's left side all the way to its rear after all.

Personally, I look forward to the adjustment because I suspect that the added positionals will allow for a potency increase for a very, very minor increase in difficulty to play the class to it's full potential. I for one am excited to hit things even harder.

[BlueThunder]

Snip

Take into account for example that DRG cooldowns attacks (mostly the 3 jumps) will lock em in position for about a second or so.

Same with Ninjas when enemies reach the 20%, assassination locks you in place while its going.

Monk is the job complete free of any of his skills that would freeze him in place, making it the most mobile one of the three melees.

Surely, ninja still has only 1 positional every min, but a lot of your damage comes from your ninjutsu, which requires more button pressin that monks rotations and dance around.

As said, every melee has its own thing to worry about when dpsing and exploiting itself to the limit.

Monk: gotta keep spinnin' around.
DRG: Gotta jump and meet my ocasional positional.
Ninja: better not fuck up my mudras nor my trick attack, else it will be pain and shame.

[Adire]

snip

Let's take a look at those numbers.

We've got a job that uses 1 per minute, a job that uses 5 per minute, and a job that uses 28 per minute. As you can see, DRG is the middleground. If anything should have more positionals added to it, it's DRG right?

We need something for the people who love positionals to death, we need something for the people who like the middleground, and we need something for people who do not like positionals. Increasing the amount of them in the lowest amount job (and I stress this again, old skills are being changed) sways the overall spectrum over to the positional favoring side.

Though I personally do not see a problem with the current numbers. They provide a fair amount of choice. Choice is a good thing. You have a heavily positional job, a middleground, and a mostly positional independent job. Adding more to the mostly independent job will only subtract from the amount of overall choice we have. To preserve choice the most, it's best that the middleground get more positionals if anything.

The thread also mentions why mudras and positionals won't mix well.

The following categories address that specifically:

"While highlighting their strengths"

"Raising the skill ceiling/More Fun"

And this category presents a strong, relevant point to that as well:

"Reduce jobs' weaknesses to fit all jobs in all fights so nobody gets left behind"

It isn't just about NINs not being able to move while casting mudras. A decent NIN should be able to do just that. It's also about the insane amount of weaving in of CDs in tandem with oGCds and positionals we will have to do in very tiny time frames, all while dealing with the ever present and not likely to go away mudra lag.

There is a clear reason why positionals have not been on NIN skills other than trick attack this entire time. The sudden change of heart is odd and impulsive of a decision. Even Yoshi's words during the live letter were pretty much saying "Ninjas currently don't have to move enough, so we want to make them move more." Who knows if he has a deep seated, well thought out reason why they need positionals after all this time. If he does, he really didn't insinuate that he does. And the only reasoning for positionals I've seen anyone provide on the forums is "I'm okay with positionals."

Maybe jumping a bit too much there. As in, I doubt SE will do the same mistake by adding OLD DRG positionals to NIN new positionals. They will do as they are now, potency boost. As it is thou, NINs have the positional that suffers the most if missed.

Again, I'm not in favor of positionals for Ninjas, dealing with mudras is enough. But we'll have to see what they add and how.

They've already done that. They lessened DRG positionals and made the job much easier and are increasing NIN positionals and making it much harder, when it was already difficult enough to justify its DPS.

What's difficult to manage with the Ninja?

The specific higher difficulties of NIN management: Mudras (which have a much faster and much more critical oGCD vs what MNKs and DRGs have).

Huton (vs the automatically kept up GL that monks have if they are doing their rotation correctly and the one button Heavy Thrust that is specifically there to give the buff that Dragoons have and serves no other purpose).

DoTs with very different uptimes AND application damages, one of which (mutilation) does not have high application damage and so much be used much more thoughtfully when thinking about overall DPS. Both of DRG's DoTs have heavy application damage and are combo'd, so are worth using than beyond just the DoT damage. Both of MNK's do not have heavy application damage and one is form dependant. One of these should (Demolish) have benefits outside of simply the DoT damage (form switching). The other (Touch of Death) is not form dependent but like Demolish, does not have high application. Both can be applied similarly. Mutilation's strength is only through the DoT and is not dependant on combos to be applied to its full effect (vs Shadow Fang, which is), so whether it's worth using and when it's worth using is much more situational, and the NIN has to decide more on the fly if it is worth it when factoring in which buffs/debuffs are up.

Another difficulty: When to use trick attack. Trick attack only comes around once per minute, but it is by far the most important positional any melee has to do at the same time because of this and because of how hard it hits and how it applies vulnerability. Used at the wrong time (especially if you use your offensive buff cooldowns prior to using trick attack), you may have problems. If you suiton before a boss leaves the arena after you've popped your cooldowns, you've wasted a powered up trick attack. If you use it and the boss spins around to AoE someone, you've wasted your trick attack.

Another difficulty: Kassatsu. You have to try and time it right to have Kassatsu, trick attack, offensive CDs, and Mudra all off cooldown around the same time.

Are these things less difficult than monk? Maybe, but NIN does lower base dps than monk, so it's paying for it already if true. Are they less difficult than Dragoon? Definitely not. Dragoon is much easier to play now than NIN. Less managing of multiple things than NIN, less positionals than Monk.

It really feels positionals are really being added to NIN "just because".

Also, I can't say where the person's source was for oGCDs having positionals, but it's very possible so the concern is warranted.

[Allyrion]

Snip.

That's not a middle ground though.
15 positionals on one and 5 positions on another would be more of a spread scale.
I've already explained why NIN conceptually makes more sense to be closer to that middle ground being the faster class and one that should be more precise striking.

There isn't "choice" in that scale. It clearly favors your position.
There's one melee covered in positionals that completely dwarves the other two. DRG isn't a middle ground because it's not in the middle.
If people came to NIN purely to run from positionals, then they should just hop to DRG since that's the new lowest.

And I just disagree that NIN should lack positionals purely because of Mudra lag.
I don't see why it's that hard to deal with both. At worst, it eats into your GCD.
That's nothing compared to the issues of the old DRG who couldn't get through a combo or such.

They've already done that. They lessened DRG positionals and made the job much easier and are increasing NIN positionals and making it much harder, when it was already difficult enough to justify its DPS.

You need to stop saying that like if they made DRGs have less positionals.
They had 2 before and they have 2 after. They changed how they worked, which is progress.
No one is going to argue that positional requirements weren't bad, but bonuses are fine.
So they're adding positional bonuses to NIN which was never called into question.

I, personally, think Ninja can stand for more difficulty.
I don't think that difficulty has to be tied into positionals either, but I don't think adding them will make NIN that much harder to manage.
Honestly, there's no reason to talk about numbers before an expansion either. We don't know how potencies will change or things will scale.

On Live, though, NIN certainly doesn't actually have the difficulty to justify its dps. That's mostly because it does so much more than the other classes.
Of course that will change in 3.0 but everything will change, including the difficulty in other Jobs as well.

I'll accept that people don't like to dance, but this difficulty argument is just wrong.
Our rotation isn't that much harder that positionals are going to make our skill cap off the roof, even with Mudras and its lag.

Are these things less difficult than monk? Maybe, but NIN does lower base dps than monk, so it's paying for it already if true. Are they less difficult than Dragoon? Definitely not. Dragoon is much easier to play now than NIN. Less managing of multiple things than NIN, less positionals than Monk.

It really feels positionals are really being added to NIN "just because".

Firstly, this is not true. A NIN should never lose to a MNK of equal skill.
NIN is a good bit ahead and has higher base damage.

Secondly, you listed a good bit of diverse things you think NIN needs to manage already.
That's the nature of multi-tasking, right?
But then you're adding an arbitrary line saying your character's position shouldn't be one of those things, despite all of those being different types of tasks.

You say NIN difficulty lies else, but to describe it you have to talk about all types of things.
But positionals can't be one of them, because that's where the line is drawn.

You think they added positionals "just because". I think they didn't add it at launch "just because".
I think NIN only released without positionals because the Mudra system was new and wanted to test how people managed it.
The only positional mistranslation is likely evidence it was always designed with positionals in mind.
People did better than they expected and they even had to nerf NIN (but it's still the highest melee dps).

They're probably adding it because they believe the player base could handle the rotation with positionals.
That's easily the logical conclusion.



Lastly,
I know nothing I say is going to make people like positionals or the fact that there's not much more being added.
The latter is completely unreasonable but the former isn't. There's going to be backlash for a change like this, of course.
But some of these arguments like about difficulty or diversity go way too far, echoing off each other.