Ninja's Ninki Generation Problem Leading to Very Awkward Play Feel

[Theihe]

Very well thought out points, and although I'd like to add onto it- I am certainly not as formal or well spoken as you.


Huton
Moving Huton to 60 seconds as opposed to the previous 70 was a mistake. It has removed the leeway which used to be there, where you could move your positionals around to better work around boss positions- now you really do not have much of an option. Refresh it at 3 seconds or lose it.
You can no longer hold Huton through extended cutscenes (most notably TEA) and although one might think Hurajin would be a decent tradeoff- it's a bandaid fix to a problem which the developers themselves created. It also feels absolutely awful in content before lvl 54. Please revert it. The current state of it is stressful.
Huton to 60 is a change for change's sake. Do not change what isn't broken.


Mudras and the current state of Rabbit Medium
Hear me out, this shit has got to go.
Ninja is one of the most punishing jobs in this game. And I truly do mean that when I say it.
Mudra rollback, inputs skipping, not being able to queue abilities is clunky- and anyone who is fine with the current state of Mudras have Stockholm Syndrome.
Having to weave Trick second in your oGCD window and no longer having Shadow Fang as a reliable button to spam to ensure you won't clip is CLUNKY AND UNFUN.
Now I do understand that some people simply have better ping, but my ping is really good and even I have mudra inputs randomly skipping every few days. And if it happens to me I can't imagine how bad it is for some people.

The mudra system, in it's current state, is also very bad at translating information.

Clicked: Ten -> Chi- but you see Fuma? Well now you have to guess.
- Do you use that Fuma and guarantee potency?
- Do you hope that Ten counted and not Chi? Risk it and either get 650 potency + Raiju 560 potency or get 0.

Clicked: Ten -> Chi -> Ninjutsu -> Kassatsu- but Ninjutsu didn't activate? Well you just lost Kassatsu aswell as Raiton and Raiju.

Have Kassatsu up, do Ten -> Jin for Hyosho, see the icon for Hyosho? have Kassatsu fall off and use Hyoton.

"Don't be bad at the game" is not a viable argument, and you don't sound as smart as you think you do when you say it. I am good at the game. I am aware these issues can happen. My musclememory has been trained to work around this for thousands of hours. And it still happens.
I shouldn't feel like I need to tip-toe around my kit. I shouldn't feel like the abilities at my disposal try to work against me. And I sure as fuck shouldn't be punished with thousands of potencies lost because the server decided to have an epileptic attack and roll back my mudras.
Know what job also needs to combine buttons in a specific order? Dancer.
Know what Dancer lose if they click the wrong dance step? Nothing. Nothing at all. You can use Standard step then press 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 and still get the same ability, at the same potency. The only obvious downside being that you would lose time.

And the developers know this is a problem- which is why they don't let us bunny during TCJ. They know it's a problem. Created a fix for the problem. And then went halfway. Creating two separate rulesets for the same system. This is bad design.
It is unfun. Would the job be worse off if mudras were greyed out upon usage, just like they already are during TCJ?
It would be more intuitive, responsive, and would honestly make the entire job flow so much better.


Trick Clunk
You know that Trick that comes up 1 minute into the fight that doesn't properly align with your GCD? You either have to chill on the 2nd hit of your combo, stand around doing nothing, and then push Trick on cooldown to ensure you don't drift- or use it after the third hit, resulting in some drift, and less personal potency under trick.
Well in Shadowbringers the mudra that was left after your initial burst could be turned into a Doton. This would push your GCD 0.5 seconds forward, resulting in a perfectly timed trick. Well now with Raiju that is just straight up not happening. On that note- if I wanted discount fell cleaves I would play DRK.

This point isn't that expanded upon but it is honestly one of the things I miss the absolute most about this job currently. Freedom.

The new Huton is restrictive. The Raijus are restrictive. Mudras feel restrictive. The Ninki system is not only uninteractive it's also somehow restrictive.

The downtime in NIN, often cited as a negative aspect for many players, was what I loved about the job. And even then it was one of the highest APM jobs in the game. Now I have a burst that doesn't even fit under my own buff and it feels garbage.


Trick isn't "support".
Trick isn't support.
It's damage.
It is damage Ninja themselve doesn't bring- and in turn they need 7 other people to make up for it by actually press buttons.
If none of the 7 other people have a death debuff, damage down, bad gear, drifted their rotation and they actually use raidfood and pot during the correct window- only then does Ninja contribrute equal to their other melee counterparts.
You are giving up agency if you play Ninja. And you are gaining nothing.
It isn't a support job.
You know what ability NIN has that actively helps the team survive? Feint. Feint is a real support ability. And every single DPS has either exactly the same thing- or a better variant.


TLDR/End

All this busywork with the highest APM in the game, and all we got was:
Abilities that don't align with burst windows (Hello Bunshin).
An incredibly uninteractive gauge (Gain Ninki to spend Ninki to gain Ninki to spend Ninki to gain Ninki to spend it on Bunshin every 90 seconds- so that you can gain more Ninki so you can spend more Ninki).
Abilities that we click on once every 2 minutes that just clog hotbar space (Mug & Meisui) that do nothing but give us more Ninki so we can spend more Ninki.
A gapcloser you don't want to use since it would put you outside of oGCD range- so it would mean gutting your entire burst.
Huton at 60 seconds.
A new fancy action off of Bunshin that you don't want to put under Trick anyways since it's a loss.
AoE potencies gutted, so they gave us a fancy new trait to Doton (which has such a small range you can't catch all enemies in it anyways- that is if the tank doesn't pull them all straight out) which just barely makes up for the loss. (Hint: it doesn't.)

Ninja is currently the least played job in the game and it doesn't even get mentioned by the developers as a thing they want to look into.
The only reason people aren't complaining is because all the NIN mains left.