The Ninja Superthread

[Taranok]

So, I haven't read much of the thread about E.G. the NIN's new rotation with Armor Crush, but is anyone else getting the feeling that it just doesn't fit very well with the rest of the NIN's skills? The mere existence of Armor Crush basically means that you can only use Aeolian Edge about once per minute unless you have a warrior in the group, and I don't know about you, but it feels awful not being allowed to actually use my damage combo simply because of what tank I am with.

It really feels like the devs didn't playtest armor crush, and that DE should practically be merged into a new combo (such as before Shadow Fang) instead of being a combo finisher like it is now. There's too much competition in the rotation for a third finisher and it just makes the class a bit clunkier than it needs to be. Armor Crush is nice in and of itself, but I'd like to use Aeolian Edge more often than once a minute.

[MrCookTM]

So, I haven't read much of the thread about E.G. the NIN's new rotation with Armor Crush, but is anyone else getting the feeling that it just doesn't fit very well with the rest of the NIN's skills? The mere existence of Armor Crush basically means that you can only use Aeolian Edge about once per minute unless you have a warrior in the group, and I don't know about you, but it feels awful not being allowed to actually use my damage combo simply because of what tank I am with.

It really feels like the devs didn't playtest armor crush, and that DE should practically be merged into a new combo (such as before Shadow Fang) instead of being a combo finisher like it is now. There's too much competition in the rotation for a third finisher and it just makes the class a bit clunkier than it needs to be. Armor Crush is nice in and of itself, but I'd like to use Aeolian Edge more often than once a minute.

I had the exact same feeling when I got the skill pretty new. Now that I am used to it, I actually have the feeling the rotation is even more fluid than before, not clunkier. The reason i think is that recasting huton via mudra was just some kind of a 'stopper', since it's actually not possible to do without clipping, no matter how good your latency is.

[Dante_V]

Ultimately its a dps increase but parses should be as bare as possible to allow for accurate assessment between two people or to figure out a general range of dps. Having a warrior do you debuff is in essence stacking your parse. I mean we could also add another ninja to trick attack for you so you can sneak attack instead but you see what I'm getting at. As far as a striking dummy goes once you add in another PC it's no longer your parse, it's a group effort.

As for the difference it used to be like 20 - 30 dps. I'm not sure what it is now.

[Sleigh]

Ultimately its a dps increase but parses should be as bare as possible to allow for accurate assessment between two people or to figure out a general range of dps. Having a warrior do you debuff is in essence stacking your parse. I mean we could also add another ninja to trick attack for you so you can sneak attack instead but you see what I'm getting at. As far as a striking dummy goes once you add in another PC it's no longer your parse, it's a group effort.

As for the difference it used to be like 20 - 30 dps. I'm not sure what it is now.

In this case it's one of those things where you should look at both numbers, since the "stacked" parse is going to be the norm in an 8 man scenario. Personally I'd prefer to know the WAR giving SE number more than the NIN giving DE number since it's more realistic as of right now, where most groups run a WAR.

[Korashy]

They could have merged AC with DE, considering the rest of the the abilities we got kind of suck, and AC is mostly just a button for the sake of another button, when a passive triggering on DE flanking would arguably work a lot smoother.

[Arkenne]

merged AC with DE

Then it would have gone one of 2 routes:
1) DE with AC properties would end up on a never-falling-below-1-min Huton.
2) DE as an extender would end up not extending for too long so to not end up as in case 1 and at some point you'll have to recast Huton because of Class mechanics rather than player skill.

[Korashy]

Then it would have gone one of 2 routes:
1) DE with AC properties would end up on a never-falling-below-1-min Huton.
2) DE as an extender would end up not extending for too long so to not end up as in case 1 and at some point you'll have to recast Huton because of Class mechanics rather than player skill.

The thing is you already don't let Huton fall off, if you are worried about damage implications then make it do lower damage on flanking to compensate. Essentially you still want to execute most DE's from the back and only flank to renew Huton, if the ability works that way.

It just eliminates a button that's not really needed. Armor Crush seems to have been added to help out with the mudra lag and hard break in our rotation, but I find it just ends up making it awkward.

[Arkenne]

Nope, still don't like AC

Maybe there were other solutions for the Huton extension outside GCD, but this one isn't too bad. Sadly I can't agree the extent being on DE because:

Yep, we don't let Huton fall off, but thats different from it NEVER falling off... because right now it CAN fall off if you aren't careful :/
If you forget AC. If you can't AC. If you sync below 54. Etc...

DE happens once every 20 seconds, if it were to extend Huton in 20~30 seconds it would never go below 50 seconds because DE already must happen consistently every 20 seconds... might as well make Huton into a toggle, don't you think?
And if it were 5~10 seconds it would fall off at some point, and you'd be forced to recast Huton because of class mechanics.

Not only that, but DE would be constantly overwritten if more than 1 NIN is around, since no NIN would like to lose their Huton.
And what about WAR's Storm's Eye? There would be no point for them to place something that will be overwritten because the NIN don't want to lose Huton. Hurting the NIN-WAR relationship.

There is a chance Double AE would still happen but I see it being more clunky if the extent were to be on DE...

[Korashy]

snip

There is plenty of other things you can bake it into, like AE on flank instead of back, (losing the extra Position dmg, but getting the utility). I'm not opposed to any tradeoffs, I just dont see why it's an extra button. On the PC you can do some keyboard acrobatics + mouse buttons to deal with it (I'm on PC btw), but for console any button you can get rid of by merging abilities with 2 different outcomes based on conditions, is extremely helpful, hell it's also helpful for PC. This is inconvenience for the sake of inconvenience.

Essentially this is how it goes now:

Case 1: need to refresh Huton:
SE -> GS -> (move to flank) AC

Case 2: don't need to refresh huton (and DE is up)
SE -> GS -> AE

If it was baked into say AE:

Case 1: Need to refresh Huton
SE -> GS -> (move to flank) AE

Case 2: No need to refresh Huton (back pos AE for dmg)
SE -> GS -> AE

[Korashy]

This easily gets rid of the button, if you adjust the dmg values into the positional, without making really any changes besides getting rid of the button.