The Mug change, predictably, feels like garbage.

[Sequora]

Summoner, Machinest, Bards and Monks would say otherwise. If anything yall are the second to last batch. Dragoon was announced next, and AST will get it's second round. Dancer, Reaper, Black Mage and Red Mage haven't been hit yet, but Dancer and Reaper aren't exactly fun or engaging either.

I’m not a monk but wasn’t their rework fairly well received?

Your comments about dancer and reaper are opinions. They’re both really well received by the community.

[IdowhatIwant]

I’m not a monk but wasn’t their rework fairly well received?

Your comments about dancer and reaper are opinions. They’re both really well received by the community.

No monk rework was not fairly well received.
No these are not opinions, dancer and reaper are not very engaging, fun how every can be subjective. Reaper was well received because of its look, the fact its the closest you will get to dps dark knight, and because it read more complicated than it played. When was dancer well received for anything other than is job armor? There were PFs that were not even letting them join.

[Manofpassion]

Whether they were well-received or not, is in my opinion, not relevant. Old monk, for how jank it felt, was the positional job. Old summoners, for how jank it also felt, was the pet job. Old bard was also the dot job. All three of those jobs can not be said to fulfill those niches anymore. The changes to these three choices reduced the amount of gameplay variety in the game, and I think we can all agree that is not a good thing. Personally, I hate positionals, all the bosses in this game spin like a beyblade. But if someone wants to torture themselves with positionals, more power to them. The game needs to allow more gameplay choices via the picking and choosing of jobs. If the job system doesn't allow that, what is the point of a job system?

Now ninja no longer fulfills the niche of the one minute buff job. Im not sure why the devs feel the need in ew to remove all the niches that jobs occupied, but they are doing so. But if your job has a niche? Enjoy it while it lasts. Ninjas just seems to be part of a recent dps role trend of removing variety.

[wereotter]

I’m not a monk but wasn’t their rework fairly well received?

Your comments about dancer and reaper are opinions. They’re both really well received by the community.

Monk change was VERY controversial, mostly long-time monk mains were upset about it while the people who praised it were mostly people who didn't really have much of any experience with the job. So definitely a mixed bag. I've gotten used to it, and I don't hate it as much as I did to start since it makes a lot of the mechanics they introduced into savage easier, but I'm still not convinced this is the best they could have done.

As for ninja, though, which was the main topic. I agree. Mug just doesn't feel impactful enough for the big skill that raises the party's damage, especially when I think of it compared to skills like brotherhood and arcane circle that have bigger animations with better sounds to accompany them. If the developers are intent on keeping ninja's damage buff at 120 seconds, I wonder if they start you with mug as a rogue, and later it gets upgraded to assassinate at some point leveling up ninja? Though they'd have to dramatically reduce the animation lock for that to work out well.

[RArchet]

Monk change was VERY controversial, mostly long-time monk mains were upset about it while the people who praised it were mostly people who didn't really have much of any experience with the job. So definitely a mixed bag. I've gotten used to it, and I don't hate it as much as I did to start since it makes a lot of the mechanics they introduced into savage easier, but I'm still not convinced this is the best they could have done.

As for ninja, though, which was the main topic. I agree. Mug just doesn't feel impactful enough for the big skill that raises the party's damage, especially when I think of it compared to skills like brotherhood and arcane circle that have bigger animations with better sounds to accompany them. If the developers are intent on keeping ninja's damage buff at 120 seconds, I wonder if they start you with mug as a rogue, and later it gets upgraded to assassinate at some point leveling up ninja? Though they'd have to dramatically reduce the animation lock for that to work out well.

Honestly, they should just remove positionals entirely at this point with how often they force us into ignoring flanks and rears, such as the 2nd boss of The Dead Ends where it forces you to circle around it constantly. True North doesn't last long enough to cover these situations.

Mug should have been the Personal Damage boost (it already has a lot of personal effects). Trick has a cooler Animation, which is the only reason I'm kinda half and half on this as someone leveling NIN.

[aloneatsea]

As for ninja, though, which was the main topic. I agree. Mug just doesn't feel impactful enough for the big skill that raises the party's damage, especially when I think of it compared to skills like brotherhood and arcane circle that have bigger animations with better sounds to accompany them. If the developers are intent on keeping ninja's damage buff at 120 seconds, I wonder if they start you with mug as a rogue, and later it gets upgraded to assassinate at some point leveling up ninja? Though they'd have to dramatically reduce the animation lock for that to work out well.

I agree with you that Assassinate/Dream within a Dream is pretty boring as it is (cool animations aside!), and that Mug is not a very satisfying party buff button. I really don't understand what was wrong with keeping it on Trick Attack, the iconic party buff of the Ninja class since the very day it was introduced. I just... why not just keep it there... it has historical precedent, a great animation, and most importantly nobody was unhappy with it!


I think the idea of upgrading Mug into a more Ninja-like skill is a great idea too. I don't think it needs to become Assassinate or have a party buff attached, though.

[wereotter]

I agree with you that Assassinate/Dream within a Dream is pretty boring as it is (cool animations aside!), and that Mug is not a very satisfying party buff button. I really don't understand what was wrong with keeping it on Trick Attack, the iconic party buff of the Ninja class since the very day it was introduced. I just... why not just keep it there... it has historical precedent, a great animation, and most importantly nobody was unhappy with it!


I think the idea of upgrading Mug into a more Ninja-like skill is a great idea too. I don't think it needs to become Assassinate or have a party buff attached, though.

Coming from what seems to be the developer's visions for party buffs, Trick Attack had to change. They seem to be in the mindset currently that personal buffs and bursts happen every 60 seconds, even if that burst is rather small, and party-wide buffs go out every 120. With trick being a party wide every 60, changing it to just a personal damage buff is a very sensible solution. But what comes is that mug just doesn't feel like it has the impact that trick does when you use it. It's got a goofy sound effect and very subtle animation, and unlike ninja's trick, requires zero setup to use

Honestly I'd forgotten that Assassinate upgrades to Dream because I never play low level ninja, but I do think there are better solutions than just using mug. Another thought might be having Ten Chi Jin apply a personal buff that upgrades your next trick attack to what we had before, increasing party damage. Sure that would delay ninja's party support, but not so far as to cut off much that's really important these days, and gives it to ninja at the same level monk gets its similar move, brotherhood.

All that being said, I do think that they couldn't do much more major since they tend to avoid massive job overhauls in odd numbered patches so that people don't have to entirely relearn their job potentially mid way through a savage tier or right before ultimate comes out.

I don’t feel Positionals need to go away at all personally. But they do need better implementation if certain jobs are supposed to have a lot of them. I prefer Samurai’s softer approach where you can flex your basic Sen combos around how you will position in the next 25ish seconds or so to more static options like Dragoon, but I don’t think either is ‘Bad’, but the focus is misapplied. Heavier Positional jobs like pre-Endwalker Monk need to be designed in such a way that they are inherently more flexible by default to compensate for problems with their demand. This is why I’ve wanted positional based chakra generation for so long. With a tightly controlled gauge it would fit better with XIV’s fights overall.

I agree. I think that overall positionals are more of a positive than a negative for the game. I just think that there are some fights where I don't feel like the developers think through entirely how melee damage will be impacted. P3S has a phase starting at Firestorms of Asphedelos through Death's Toll where, for the most part, where you stand is dictated by the raid mechanics. The phase lasts for nearly 2 minutes, during which time you'll get 40 seconds of true north. So thinking of ways around that so melee jobs aren't punished because of how the fight is designed would be nice. Both myself and my co-melee partner have brought up to the raid group how we can't get enough true north to do our jobs effectively there, and he's just a reaper, he can theoretically hold off his positional moves. I'm a monk, I don't have that luxury.

[aloneatsea]

snip

They do seem to be in taht mind, I am firmly against it. I don't think Ninja needed a personal buff in the first place -- it was already doing plenty well balance-wise this tier as it stood. Having a manage a personal buff on top of the party buff just makes the class feel clunky in my opinion. I would sincerely feel better about the changes if they made Trick a two-minute party buff and removed the personal buff from Mug.

That said, again, the class did not need such a change in the first place. If the developers want to make classes focus around two minutes, that's fine. However, when it comes to the point of changing the usage of an iconic ability of a class, I think it goes a little too far. Ninja is not Ninja without a one-minute Trick Attack party buff. As many people have said time and time again, one minute fits neatly into two minutes. If the problem is balance, there are other solutions that do not come at the cost of class identity.

What I struggle with is that so many people seem to want to compromise on the personal buff. Am I abnormal in thinking that it feels quite awful to play around? There's a reason I avoid classes like Monk or Dancer -- having to put up a personal buff and a party buff feels quite wretched to me. I'd much rather potencies be adjusted to account for the damage increase the personal buff gives. I don't think receiving a personal damage buff makes gameplay more exciting. Buffing the party, however, and lining up my big damage abilities -- that feels meaningful.

I just don't want Ninja to lose what made it enjoyable for me to play in the first place -- the fact that it wasn't like anything else. If they keep these changes, there's really nothing else I can move to.

It makes so much more sense in my mind to keep Ninja as it is, and adjust the potency on Trick Attack if it's so problematic. The developers could always approach it like Dragoon's Dragon Sight and have it buff the Ninja's damage by more than the party member's.

Frankly, I'm glad they couldn't do anything more major. The only 'major' change I want to see in Ninja right now is them reverting the changes to Trick and Mug.

The only problems 6.08 Ninja had were a few unspired oGCDs (Mug, Meisui, Dream within a Dream) and poor Ninki generation. I don't think Ninja needs an overhaul to fix these problems -- nor were they more pressing than other job issues.

[wereotter]

That said, again, the class did not need such a change in the first place. If the developers want to make classes focus around two minutes, that's fine. However, when it comes to the point of changing the usage of an iconic ability of a class, I think it goes a little too far. Ninja is not Ninja without a one-minute Trick Attack party buff. As many people have said time and time again, one minute fits neatly into two minutes. If the problem is balance, there are other solutions that do not come at the cost of class identity.

I think this sums up the difference in our opinions (and that's fine) to me the identity of ninja isn't the 60 second trick attack, it's the ninjutsu system. Trick attack could be every 60 seconds, every 90 seconds, every 120 seconds, and to me, that wouldn't change the identity of the job.

But even then, the developers are also doing a lot of upending of job identities this expansion too, so I get the frustration there. When monk lost its identity of being fast paced and positional heavy to having the fewest positionals of the melees and had it's OGCDs moved into it's version of mudras, that hurt as someone who's always bounced back and forth between monk and ninja as my main jobs. Summoner had it's identity as a damage over time job removed too.

I do think we both agree there are better ways the changes to ninja could have been implemented, at least, even if we disagree on what those solutions should be.

[Rufalus]

Monk still feels Monk enough to me while they keep the opo opo, coeurl, raptor stance gcd combos. Things I like about the EW changes are multiple charges of zooming to ally/enemy and the collecting seals/chakra thing fits really well in my opinion.

The worst job killer change that comes to mind is when they made Ast cards all basically do the same thing. Also I was disappointed with Ast's dps kit from its very introduction in Heavensward; that was when I realized healers will always be DoT + spam one other button.