Revert the Ninja change please, thanks.

[Kelg]

What are you on about? Ninja feels infinitely better after the changes since you don't have to decide whether or not you should try to get that suicide dive in for a dps gain.

It is stupid that you still can't hold the stacks though since it's rare you can make use of the gap closer without being able to hold.



Imo If they just made your stacks not fall off from using other weaponskills ninja would be perfect from a gameplay standpoint.

[Bureda]

What are you on about? Ninja feels infinitely better after the changes since you don't have to decide whether or not you should try to get that suicide dive in for a dps gain.

It is stupid that you still can't hold the stacks though since it's rare you can make use of the gap closer without being able to hold.



Imo If they just made your stacks not fall off from using other weaponskills ninja would be perfect from a gameplay standpoint.

What are you on about? Suiciding isn't a problem that's your issue. The skill stops you outside of a hitbox of a boss so if there's one under it then just don't walk forward or time your charge. I don't know you and I don't want to call you incompetent, but just because you had that experience it doesn't mean the rest of us are suicidal like you or it warranting a dead skill right after release.

[Kelg]

What are you on about? Suiciding isn't a problem that's your issue. The skill stops you outside of a hitbox of a boss so if there's one under it then just don't walk forward or time your charge. I don't know you and I don't want to call you incompetent, but just because you had that experience it doesn't mean the rest of us are suicidal like you or it warranting a dead skill right after release.

why Yes I'm totally incompetent because I don't like being forced to spam 4-6 gapclosers in a row! ah yes incompetency feel good


There are still cases where forked will cause you to move just close enough to be hit by aoes, so I don't see how it's a bad thing to have the option to not gapclose.

[Shurrikhan]

why Yes I'm totally incompetent because I don't like being forced to spam 4-6 gapclosers in a row! ah yes incompetency feel good

That's... not at all optimal in the first place. What of your Hyosho Ranryu and Suiton? Why would you ever be using 3 Raiton in a row?

In my humble opinion you would never not want utility. Utility is god-tier. We've lost a whole complete skill and a gap closer for some minor potency increase and now we are left with an inferior skill that you should never use.

And that's assuming the increase over average ppgcd on the now single Raijuu GCD isn't simply the sum of the increase over average ppgcd of the previously two Raijuu GCDs. In all likelyhood, NIN wasn't buffed at all; it's just become faintly more frontloaded, which is only really a boon if it allows us to get off an extra Aeolian Edge inside raid buff where we'd previously only manage up to Gust Blade. To call that a negligible difference would still be an overstatement.

I'm being hyperbolic but there were definitely times where you would get 4 stacks and have to gapclose 4 times. Ninja is 100% better off now lol

But, again, what is the issue? The gap close from melee range binds up at most a half-second of movement; you have 77%+ left of your GCD in which to prepare for it. Your alternative is to simply have used another melee range skill anyways, subject to nearly all the same issues. Instead, now your level 90 skill has been halved in its frequency and you've lost available capacity, often wasted or no.

[Satarn]

That's... not at all optimal in the first place. What of your Hyosho Ranryu and Suiton? Why would you ever be using 3 Raiton in a row?

You should have two charges of Ninjutsu every Trick that you spend on Raiton and every other Trick you also get TenChiJin, which results in another Raiton when in singe target rotation. So yeah, nearly all of the Raitons you ever use are close together. Suiton is never used inside TA obviously and Hyosho spends the extra Ninjutsu you get from Kassatsu.

So yeah, 4-6 was exactly accurate.

But, again, what is the issue? The gap close from melee range binds up at most a half-second of movement; you have 77%+ left of your GCD in which to prepare for it. Your alternative is to simply have used another melee range skill anyways, subject to nearly all the same issues. Instead, now your level 90 skill has been halved in its frequency and you've lost available capacity, often wasted or no.

The important difference between a regular melee skill (like Fleeting Raiju) and a gap closer, is that the former 1) can still be executed while you need to stay at max melee range to not die/not fuck up a mechanic and 2) can be executed while bound by a mechanic.

As for losing frequency, that is purely subjective, but a lot of people hate spamming the same button a lot in a small burst window, so that's actually a big plus for them gameplay-wise. Just because it's new and flashy, doesn't mean I want to see it 4-6 times in every TA.

----

I find it rather curious that people wanting the previous Raijus back both say that it's so bad we lost the utility of a gap-closer (we didn't? you can still use Forked, where would you ever need 4-6 gap closers on top of Shukuchi?) and also that Forked is useless now because Fleeting is just superior (nah, the gap-closer can be handy sometimes, also how is Fleeting superior but simultaneously we didn't need it?).

NIN's dps output is a completely separate issue though, they should definitely increase the potencies, but at least the job feels way more enjoyable to play after the changes imo.

[Shurrikhan]

...

Yep, completely my bad. I was thinking of them as literally back-to-back, rather than ever possibly having intervening Hyosho or TCJ casts (though I earlier said Suiton just because that --into Meisui-- would be between TCJ's Raiton and the following Raiton; idk, dumb of me).

On the whole, I think it the annoyance of a gap-closer may be a ping thing (Californian here), but yeah, I can see why people would get tired of that outright replacing 2 whole Aeolian combos or the like.

It just felt like a weird change compared to simply, say, allowing multiple Raijuu Ready stacks to exist simultaneously and for the effect not to be purged by other weaponskills, perhaps with some AE/AC interaction, as then it could at least act as a modulating combo for alignment and/or a freer gap-closer (though, yes, with 2 stacks of Shukuchi, that's hardly necessary). At 3 non-Kassatsu Ninjutsu casts per minute, one spent just to ready TA, those 6 Raijuu in the opening minute and every other thereafter, or 4 per its TCJ-less minute, were the only Raijuu in said minutes, as compared to ~15 other GCDs per minute. That hadn't seemed like an overly large or therefore disturbing portion to me, but I can see why it would to others.

NIN's dps output is a completely separate issue though

I wonder how much of NIN's shortfalls is due to community issues of fearmongering over remembered days of "mandatory NIN" or some players still overvaluing rDPS on principle (despite its actual precisely calculated values still placing NIN far lower than it, historically and by what criteria have been most reliable indicators over time, deserves to be)... We've recently seen Bards, BLMs, and SAMs get far nearer to where we've expected of them, with SAM regularly staying within the top 4 rDPS for Extremes and Bard entering the span from time to time (though that's only when in high-performing parties), but it doesn't seem like NINs have seen that climb. I'm not sure there's much, if any, player error left to correct; the difference may just really be too damn low of potencies.

[Bureda]

why Yes I'm totally incompetent because I don't like being forced to spam 4-6 gapclosers in a row! ah yes incompetency feel good

In my humble opinion you would never not want utility. Utility is god-tier. We've lost a whole complete skill and a gap closer for some minor potency increase and now we are left with an inferior skill that you should never use.

[Shurrikhan]

What are you on about? Ninja feels infinitely better after the changes since you don't have to decide whether or not you should try to get that suicide dive in for a dps gain.

You still have to be in melee range even to use Forked Raijuu, so there's no decrease to risk. We just now get a choice of (A) a standard melee skill that can't be banked or (B) a melee skill that can't be banked that also has a free gap closer... for the same potency.

Imo If they just made your stacks not fall off from using other weaponskills ninja would be perfect from a gameplay standpoint.

I don't get why they didn't just do this, even if it'd mean shortening Raijuu Ready from 30s to, say, 5s in balance.