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

[Elena_Farron]

Ninja feels restrictive.

I'm not sure if you understand the meaning of restrictive if I'm honest, since the current iteration of Ninja is anything but.

You can freestyle so much on Ninja even during burst windows which makes it so versatile, as well as nearly always having PK ready.

I can no longer freely disenage with a Raiton for minimum loss, that will cost me a whopping 650+560 potency inside trick.

You do realize that Trick is only a 5% buff right. Using a raiton + raiju outside of trick doesn't suddenly make that potency go away. If you even cover like half a gcd worth of downtime it's already worth it to use raiton as a disengage. That far outweighs the 5% bonus potency you'd get from putting those skills in trick. Uptime > All.

I can no longer slightly overcap ninki to get more Bhavas in trick because GCD ninki generation is backloaded.

If you were ever overcapping Ninki just to get bhavacakras in trick you were doing it way wrong to begin with, even back in Shadowbringers. This is never a thing any job wants to do because of the uncertainty of killtimes and how even overcapping 5 Ninki could lose you a full bhavacakra usage in the worst case scenario.
Besides any overcap also affects trick windows later down the line.

With everyone having 2min bursts, it becomes even more vital for us to get trick right on CD without any leeway of GCD optimization in trick.

You would do this anyways. Every raid buff does this. Because it's a raid buff, you use it on CD because it makes it easier for everyone to anticipate your buff timing.

You would never delay trick (or any raidbuff for that matter) to optimize your own potency within it. You can do that with personal buffs, but even then you need to know what you're doing because you run the risk of losing usages again.

I have trouble understanding your philosophy in general...

[VentVanitas]

Unless it's returning the timer back to 70 seconds, don't touch Huton. It's fine, it doesn't need to be passive like GL or BotD.

[Quyn]

snip

I find myself agreeing with this post. Very well written as well.

[Xenon_S]

You can freestyle so much on Ninja even during burst windows which makes it so versatile, as well as nearly always having PK ready.

Let's take a look at even minute trick attack windows then

You want the following "GCDs": 1 Hyosho (2.5s), 2 Raiton (5.0s), 2 Raiju (4.14s), 1 Tenchijin (3s)
and the following off GCDs: DWAD, Mug, TCJ, Meisui, 3 Bhavas (if you entered trick with at least 50 ninki)

Points to consider
- All the ninjutsu action have only 1 weave spot
- Tenchijin cannot be used near the end because we need 2 weave slots for meisui + buffed Bhava
- 1 Bhava needs to be used early to avoid Mug/Meisui overcapping ninki
- You don't have access to a double weave window (raiju) until you use raiton
- The first GCD action must be a Hyosho because Kassatsu was used previously, rendering both normal raiton and tcj unavailable
- You want to use a normal ninjutsu early, because TCJ lasts 3 seconds and can lead to charges overcapping

So here is what you can do

(Trick Attack) - Hyosho (DWAD) - Raiton (Bhava) - Raiju (Mug + TCJ) - Tenchijin (Bhava) - Raiton (Meisui) - Raiju (Bhava) (Trick ends)

Alternatively, if you double weave Trick on the previous GCD (which is not always possible as it can come up on the 2nd weave spot)

(Trick + Bhava) - Hyosho (DWAD) - Raiton (TCJ) - Tenchijin (Meisui) - Raiton (Bhava) - Raiju (Mug+Bhava) - Raiju (trick ends)

While there is more flexibility in the 2nd option, which I have acknowledged in my main post, it requires the trick to be the early weave, and that is not always possible.
On top of that, outside of downtime, the order of Mug/TCJ/Meisui is set strictly throughout the encounter, because you will be using them as they come off cooldown while trick is underway
Which means unless you are coming out of a downtime and going into trick with all of them off cooldown already, you cannot freestyle.

And for the record, I am in favour of Ninja burst being busy, Heck I want the odd minute to be busier. But Meisui is just lazy button bloat.

[Xenon_S]

As for your other points

Regarding Disengage
- Let me put it this way, right now you lose more disengaging with raiton to keep uptime compared to with ShB, because Raiju is tied to Raiton and you cannot hold Raiju effectively.
- The other tool for a free disengage is PK which is only available once every 90 seconds.
- Trick is 5%, it also lines up with other 2min party buffs, and buffs apply multiplicatively. On top of which, Raiton+Raiju are high potency skills which benefits more from crit/DH.
- Uptime is good, I agree. But using Raiton for disengage makes it so that Raiju also falls out of buffs, which subjectively feels bad to do, even if it is objectively better than straight up losing uptime.


Regarding Ninki overcap
- Uncertain kill time is not an issue with an optimized group, and I am not advocating to always overcap ninki to fit in trick.
- As far as I am aware, it is standard affair for BRD to treat Apex arrow as a 1min CD and overcap their song gauge to fit it inside raid buffs.
- Back in StB where ninki was tied to AAs, as awkward of a design that was, there are cases where you would overcap if a Bhava can fit inside trick as long as it doesn't cost a use.
- Again, I'm not advocating for you to stay overcapped on ninki and use Bhavas exclusively in trick. please do not misconstrue my point.


Regarding Trick Strictly on CD
- Using trick strictly on CD means you press it regardless of what your current GCD spin is.
- Sometime it will be on the first weave window, sometimes second, and sometimes it will cause clipping, which doesn't feel good.
- Again, I'm not advocating that you always delay trick to optimize your own damage under it, every even min trick window is identical and there are only 2 free GCD in odd min trick anyway, so there really isn't anything that can be done.

I have trouble understanding your philosophy in general...

My "philosophy", if you choose to call it, is thus
- I want ninja gameplay to feel better and be more engaging outside of once every 2 minutes.
- Hitting 95 ninki and your next GCD is AE into Trick feels bad because there is the looming sense that there was nothing you could've done to get that Bhava inside trick.
- Odd minute trick windows only have 2-3 off GCDs to press feels boring compared to even minute trick windows.