Ninja changes

[aloneatsea]

snip

In the well-meaning assumption that this isn't bait, not all classes are for everyone. Mudras are the core gimmick around which Ninja is built; Trick being locked behind Suiton is part of that. If that is unappealing to you, that's fine, but that's an indication you just don't like the class, which is also fine. I personally hate how Samurai, but I'm not about to walk into a Samurai thread and demand they reduce the number of GCDs in their core loop to fit my personal preferences. I'm just gonna play Ninja instead.

If you don't like Dualcast, don't play Red Mage. If you don't like Dancing, don't play Dancer. If you don't like swapping between two different phases of gameplay, don't play Black Mage. If you don't like mudras, don't play Ninja.

What you find to be 'effort' and 'unrewarding' and 'unnecessary unfun stuff' is like, the whole fun of the job for me, and many other Ninja mains. That's fine! But that's not a problem with the job; you just don't mesh with it.

[RyuuZero]

For example: Why does Dream Within a Dream even exist? Its just another one of those "Push every 60s inside your burst window" buttons with no real synergy or purpose.

the 60s Cool Down makes it line up with Trick Attack and Kassatsu, that's it's Synergy!

let me tell you a Part my Rotation, how it is after 6.1, I do not claim that it's the perfect rotation, but it helped me making sense of NIN, since the Famous Ninja Level Rework of Shadowbringers:

Suiton > Mug > Trick Attack > Dream within a Dream > Kassatsu > Hyosho Ranryu* > Ten Chi Jin > Ten > Chi > Jin > Meisui > Bawakhakra > Raiju > ect.

and the next Minute:

Suiton > Trick Attack > Dream within a Dream > Kassatsu > Hyosho Ranryu* > Raiton > Raiju > ect.

*sometime I follow Hyosho Ranryu up with a Raiton or Bawakhakra

but while reading this Thread makes me realize.. Suiton is kinda like Kaiten, a core mechanic.

[RyuuZero]

originally I wanted to say that I like that Mug now does more then just being an OCD Attack with 40 NIN, but changing it to Trick Attack and changing Trick Attack into something else just feels wrong and should be switched, so that Mug does the Personal Damage Buff and Trick Attack stays Trick Attack.

I think that would be better than what we got with 6.1.. but seriously.. how did they mess-up 2 melee jobs in 1 Patch oO

[Shurrikhan]

originally I wanted to say that I like that Mug now does more then just being an OCD Attack with 40 NIN, but changing it to Trick Attack and changing Trick Attack into something else just feels wrong and should be switched, so that Mug does the Personal Damage Buff and Trick Attack stays Trick Attack.

I'd honestly rather Mug just go back to its roots. Have it steal an "item" (the ability --not an actually an item, as to still be queueable-- then being hotswapped onto Mug's hotbar slot), perhaps updated or varied for flavor with expansions, of one of some 3 to 5 types, with consistent color schemes for their effects (green for a heal --usable also on others, blue for a self-shield/mitigation, yellow for resource generation, red for a bit of bonus damage, orange for a snare, etc.).

Reduce Mug's cooldown to 40 seconds, two charges. No inherent Ninki gain. In turn, just have each Ninjutsu generate 10 Ninki. That'd be plenty to get Bunshin rolling quickly between Suiton, Kassatsu, and TCJ.

[VentVanitas]

I'd honestly rather Mug just go back to its roots. Have it steal an "item" (the ability --not an actually an item, as to still be queueable-- then being hotswapped onto Mug's hotbar slot), perhaps updated or varied for flavor with expansions, of one of some 3 to 5 types, with consistent color schemes for their effects (green for a heal --usable also on others, blue for a self-shield/mitigation, yellow for resource generation, red for a bit of bonus damage, orange for a snare, etc.).

Reduce Mug's cooldown to 40 seconds, two charges. No inherent Ninki gain. In turn, just have each Ninjutsu generate 10 Ninki. That'd be plenty to get Bunshin rolling quickly between Suiton, Kassatsu, and TCJ.

Reminds me of GW2 Thief's steal. Gives a random attack depending on the enemy you steal from (bleeds, buffs, debuffs, etc).

[RyuuZero]

Reduce Mug's cooldown to 40 seconds, two charges. No inherent Ninki gain. In turn, just have each Ninjutsu generate 10 Ninki. That'd be plenty to get Bunshin rolling quickly between Suiton, Kassatsu, and TCJ.

40s Mug CD sounds bad, since it wouldn't line up with anything^^;
now it lines up with Ten Chi Jin ^^ and theoreticly with Trick Attack, Dream and Kassatsu, which I certainly like.

[Shurrikhan]

40s Mug CD sounds bad, since it wouldn't line up with anything^^;
now it lines up with Ten Chi Jin ^^ and theoreticly with Trick Attack, Dream and Kassatsu, which I certainly like.

On two charges. That means two uses on even minutes (opener, 120s, 240s, etc.) and one on odd minutes. Or are we to pretend that Perfect Balance / Masterful Blitz doesn't "line up with anything"?

Let the obvious thief ability (not "Ninki boost," "Not Ninki raid buff," but "Mug") have its flavor. It can be more than just a lockstep part of a 2-minute burst macro without losing alignment. ^^

[aloneatsea]

but while reading this Thread makes me realize.. Suiton is kinda like Kaiten, a core mechanic.

Suiton is one of if not the defining mechanics of Ninja. An entire mudra (of which there can only be a maximum of seven) devoted to a single ability. Admittedly, it was two abilities in the past, but they shared a cooldown, and Sneak Attack was likely removed because Trick Attack was superior in pretty much every way. There just wasn't a use case for it.

I'd honestly rather Mug just go back to its roots. Have it steal an "item" (the ability --not an actually an item, as to still be queueable-- then being hotswapped onto Mug's hotbar slot), perhaps updated or varied for flavor with expansions, of one of some 3 to 5 types, with consistent color schemes for their effects (green for a heal --usable also on others, blue for a self-shield/mitigation, yellow for resource generation, red for a bit of bonus damage, orange for a snare, etc.).

Reduce Mug's cooldown to 40 seconds, two charges. No inherent Ninki gain. In turn, just have each Ninjutsu generate 10 Ninki. That'd be plenty to get Bunshin rolling quickly between Suiton, Kassatsu, and TCJ.

I kinda like the idea you've got here, honestly. Ninja's rotation is incredibly static as it is, so adding something vaguely akin to a proc would do a lot to make things just a fraction more interesting. RNG is a bit of a cursed term, but I personally really enjoy the 'proc' classes Dancer and Red Mage, so I think this would be a flavourful, if minimal impactful ability. The main problem I can see with it is that if it stocks an ability, you're locked out of using the other charge until you consume that item. Additionally, you might not want to use that self-heal or mitigation right then and there, but you'll overcap on charges if you don't. Still, I really like the concept. I think it's a much better of the Mug's presence than what we currently have.


I do disagree with the lack of Ninki gain, though -- you've obviously though out your changes fairly well, as you'll double-weave Trick and Bunshin in your opener (assuming Huton's Ninki gain isn't killed when you Hide), and still maintain most of the potency gain. This does have a flow-on effect of every Bunshin only being available within Trick as opposed to just before it, which means if you're plugging the standard Hyosho + 2 Raiton + 2 Raiju into your odd windows, you're missing out on a Bunshin-boosted basic GCD if you're trying to minimise DwaD drift. I guess you could just accept that DwaD will drift and lead into your Trick window with Hyosho, but it's not ideal. The other issue I see with it is that this is going to lead to way more Ninki generation over time than Mug ever provided. Three mudras a minute = 30 Ninki a minute = 60 Ninki every two minutes. 20 Ninki might not sound like much, but it's there, and worth roughly 140 potency. That, and it feels like we're overloading Mudras by making them responsible for having their own effects as well as being a part of your Ninki generation management. On one hand, it's a nice solution if you're really dead-set against there being a Ninki gainer in Ninja's kit, but the complexity it will introduce doesn't sound particularly fun to me. One of the nice parts of mudras in my opinion is that they don't give you gauge. By giving them Ninki gen, literally every GCD ability in the Ninja's kit will increase your gauge. This means if you ever end up in the ideal situation of entering Trick with 100 gauge, you're forced to double-weave Trick -> Bhava, because anything else you press will overcap you on gauge. If Trick comes off cooldown later in your weave window, you have to clip or use Bhava earlier.

I dunno, my complaints might seem kinda...small? Edge-casey? But I do think that mudras not being tied to gauge generation is a good thing. I'm trying to imagine it in my brain and it just feels wrong, for reasons I can't exactly articulate as succinctly as I'd like to.

To me, the most obvious solution is to just... put the Ninki gen on a different button. Preferably its own button. The charges on that would be great too, adding some flexibility on when you want it.

40s Mug CD sounds bad, since it wouldn't line up with anything^^;
now it lines up with Ten Chi Jin ^^ and theoreticly with Trick Attack, Dream and Kassatsu, which I certainly like.

A 40s cooldown means that two charges have an effective 80s cooldown, and three charges have an effective 120s cooldown. Suddenly it lines up, yeah? Most likely, you'd save two Mugs for just before your two-minute windows, and one Mug for just before your one-minute window. 40s cooldowns are no problem -- the point of the charges is that you don't have to use them on cooldown, but they allow you to if you want, and make your rotation infinitely more flexible.

[Shurrikhan]

I do disagree with the lack of Ninki gain, though -- you've obviously though out your changes fairly well, as you'll double-weave Trick and Bunshin in your opener (assuming Huton's Ninki gain isn't killed when you Hide), and still maintain most of the potency gain.

Ninki gain would be far higher with what I suggested earlier, spitball though it be. At present, we do 11 Ninjutsu per 2 minutes (6 naturals, 2 Kassatsu, 3 TCJ), which would be an increase of 60 Ninki per 2 minutes relative to the Ninki gain on Mug.

You could, however, level that increase out just by having that instead (10 Ninki per Ninjutsu instead of 5 more per AE/AC) be the effect of Shukiko III, as we tend to about 9.8 casts of AE or AC per minute, thus generating ~100 Ninki per two minutes from the current trait. At that point, you'd have roughly the same effect over time, just more burstily as to better suit getting Bunshin out fast an early.

It's impossible to "kill" Ninki gain, from using Hide after Huton or otherwise, but I imagine you'd make it so that Ninjutsu only generates Ninki while in combat.

And at that point, voila, we can actually have Mug be a thematic skill instead of just bloat action we take as necessary only because of our more recent obsession with having access to any and every ability within 4 GCDs of starting combat (despite Mug originally affording only half a Bunshin cast).

[aloneatsea]

Ninki gain would be far higher with what I suggested earlier, spitball though it be. At present, we do 11 Ninjutsu per 2 minutes (6 naturals, 2 Kassatsu, 3 TCJ), which would be an increase of 60 Ninki per 2 minutes relative to the Ninki gain on Mug.

Good point! I'd forgotten to take into account our other Ninjutsu casts outside of our standard 3-per-minute charges.

It's impossible to "kill" Ninki gain, from using Hide after Huton or otherwise, but I imagine you'd make it so that Ninjutsu only generates Ninki while in combat.

Oh, by this I was meaning they'd pull a Doton and just reset your gauge upon using Hide. I'd hope they wouldn't do it, but god knows with these devs.

To clarify, are you suggesting we remove Ninki generation from our base GCDs, and put it all on mudras? That's quite different from how I interpreted your original statement, and I'd feel a lot different about that.