Why is Ninja always the weakest melee?

[KageTokage]

The only place Trick Attack still has a significant edge over other buffs/debuffs presently is in large scale content like alliance raids or field instances because it's buffing the damage of everyone hitting the NIN's target instead of just their party.

It's a silly meta to optimize but having enough NINs to maintain 100% uptime on Trick Attack was optimal for Baldesion Arsenal and Delubrum Reginae speed clears.

[Absimiliard]

Trick Attack is the reason NIN's damage output is so low. It's such a powerful utility that allowing them to have actual damage alongside it would just destroy game balance. The low damage is, in essence, there to prevent NIN stacking. ....Which it sorta failed at as observed by the poster above me.

[rewd]

Trick Attack is the reason NIN's damage output is so low. It's such a powerful utility that allowing them to have actual damage alongside it would just destroy game balance. The low damage is, in essence, there to prevent NIN stacking. ....Which it sorta failed at as observed by the poster above me.

That's not how it works. Even when you factor in the contribution from TA, NIN's damage output is still too low. Damage buffs also aren't utility, they are simply another mean to the same result, DPS.

[Miminming]

Stormblood Nin say hi!

[Falar]

Always? Lol? Pretty sure this is the only time it's actually been the weakest melee to any considerable degree.
They don't balance for "solo" play. They never have, nor should they ever.
They balance pretty much solely for full party 8 man content.
They've also said just because they haven't mentioned a Job doesn't mean it won't see adjustments.

Considering how many people play solo, this is an ignorant comment, especially since there are plenty of abilities that are clearly intended for solo play.

In Stomrblood at launch Ninja had very strong DPS, I think 2nd only to Samurai and it was promptly nerfed. The excuse is always trick attack adding to group damage, so NIN damage must be lower to compensate.

Trick attack is much weaker these days though.

[Ramura_Sono]

Considering how many people play solo, this is an ignorant comment, especially since there are plenty of abilities that are clearly intended for solo play.

In Stomrblood at launch Ninja had very strong DPS, I think 2nd only to Samurai and it was promptly nerfed. The excuse is always trick attack adding to group damage, so NIN damage must be lower to compensate.

Trick attack is much weaker these days though.

Considering how faceroll easy solo content tends to be jobs doing <5% less dps than another job literally doesn't matter. And for the actually difficult solo content, NIN is hardly the only one that struggles.

Trick Attack is still one of the strongest raid buffs in the game. It has half the cooldown of literally every other raid buff while having an effect that is at par or greater than all but a very few raid buffs.

Not a single job is too weak to manage average solo play. Don't pretend that NIN is. When everything eventually sees buffs to bring them up to MNK/RPR levels, NIN will very likely still remain at the bottom of the melee and the middle of all DPS due to TA.

[Shurrikhan]

Trick attack is much weaker these days though.

Nominally, TA was nerfed by 25% weaker going from StB to ShB. That's irrelevant, though, unless your take on NIN's identity is that X% of its rDPS must come from Trick Attack -- and even that wouldn't change NIN's capacity except to buff it further in alliance raids and nerf it further in light parties. All that matters is how the job's overall rDPS compares to others in its role. (No, rDPS is not only the bonus given to party members. It's the bonus given minus bonus received plus personal damage.)

Right now, much like at the start of Shadowbringers, NIN simply does too little rDPS. That's it, though. It matters little to not at all what portion of that rDPS Trick Attack comprises.

In Stomrblood at launch Ninja had very strong DPS, I think 2nd only to Samurai and it was promptly nerfed.

No, its aDPS fell below most jobs. Only its rDPS was especially high, and it still never had any huge lead -- competing mostly with Dragoon, Bard, Machinist, and Summoner (and later also RDM, BLM, MNK, and SAM; the end of Stormblood was shockingly well balanced for the amount of utility and CD variance it still carried).

[Absimiliard]

That's not how it works. Even when you factor in the contribution from TA, NIN's damage output is still too low. Damage buffs also aren't utility, they are simply another mean to the same result, DPS.

The dev team disagrees. Party-wide damage buffs are considered utility, and jobs that bring significant amounts of it are kept from keeping up with those that don't in personal DPS. Ideally this would equal out through the extra DPS given to others, but this is generally not the case.

[Shurrikhan]

The dev team disagrees. Party-wide damage buffs are considered utility, and jobs that bring significant amounts of it are kept from keeping up with those that don't in personal DPS. Ideally this would equal out through the extra DPS given to others, but this is generally not the case.

No, that's generally been exactly the case. Look at SAM, MNK, BLM, NIN, DRG last expansion. Any time carries and buffers haven't been neck and neck within a given role, unless has a far higher learning curve than another (which just means they're balancing around, say, the 80th or 90th percentile, up to which point the harder job is disadvantaged and beyond which the harder is advantaged, instead of max), has been an admitted balance failure.

Heck, likely look at them again once the 6.08 patch has stabilized.

Now, if by "personal dps" you really meant personal dps, then... of course. Why would a job that brings "significant amounts of... party-wide damage buffs" have as much personal damage as a job that brings none?

[Navnav]

All this waffle for nothing. Change tricks down to 3% and make it buff NINs damage to 15% as a self buff. Job done. NIN saved, it is the right decision. This group and party utility nonsense in this game is actually at a point where it is silly. I will never be convinced that buffing someone elses damage while I do crusty damage is something I should feel good about or that I am 'contributing' to the raid. Nah fam, I wanna flex some dps, that is contributing...