The Ninja Superthread

[GrimoireOfAlice]

All they've really accomplished by doing this is turning Ninja into a more failure punishing orientated ARR Monk. Now if we mess up the mudra or the positionals we are punished with lower DPS and possibly the Huton Refresh bonus.

If that is to be the new reality of the Ninja, that's fine. But what did we get in exchange to distance ourselves from the ARR Monk model. Literally no improvements to the very mechanic that makes our class unique save for an utterly meaningless quality of life improvement which equates to nothing more than a reduction of one Mudra.

The Ninja needed a forth Mudra... They could have easily kept the complexity down by keeping it down to 3 combos only. With skills that added complexity based on the situation, skills that dealt more based on your party type or the flow of battle. If I didn't already have heavensward I'd probably just unsub and come back when Ninja gets its expansion worthy content.

[Arkenne]

It's way too easy for a ninja to do max dps at the moment. It's a necessary change.

This comment is pretty similar to the wording used in the letter, and the reason why positionals can be interpreted as a nerf until patch notes by many. Something along the lines of "NIN can go full power from the get-go, so we are adding positionals so they won't do that".

2 enmity management skills for NIN in a sense screams to me, however, that NIN will have the potential of generating a bestial amount of aggro on themselves and hence will NEED those skills. My chocobo will suffer!! hue hue

Maybe they will go the boring way and just affect the potency of weaponskills if they are done from the right position.
Maybe the only skills that will get positionals will be Jugulate, Mug and Assassinate.
Maybe the potency affected wont punish with a negative but rewards with a possitive. (Same skills, more damage).

The only sure thing is that we are about 7 days away from knowing the full theory of the changes (since we'll need to reach lvl 60 first)

[silentwindfr]

one more time it's too naive to think that they will add potency with positional... like said, why do this exept break the balance of the whole game. no point to do this.

yes they will go the boring way of the nerf, because don't get the wrong idea that positional will be anything else than this.

they have never add damage from positional, never ever... the damage of the ninja is already in the top 3 what the point to add more damage?

other point positional on....assassinate? a skill where ou character jump on the head of the monster? seriously? are you insane dude? other point, they haven't said that our Out GCD skill but our combo will have positional... that a huge difference. not enough to get a 4th combo... (*sighs* branching one more time from gust slash) they want us to manage more stuff than any jobs.... because that the fact, the mudra is already something tha break the rythm of our gameplay. we must keep an eye on the debuff on the enemy, that don't match and make this far to be fluid (2 second between the duration of dancing edge and shadowfang), watch out the aoe from the fight... we will need to match the right positional...

i'm a bit scared to play my ninja with heavenward... because what they have announce us is... not fun, it's more a punishement in terms of gameplay and if i'm right (and i pray for be wrong) the jobs will be.... horrible to be played...

you can try to be optimistic and think that all will be fine, it's your right. but what have done SE until now, have teach me that being optimistic.... never match the reality.

ps: no need to reach 60 for see if something will not be fluid or not work...
positional is added on the skill will already have, only this will allows us to know the extend of the mess. 2 of the skill will have no real impact on our gameplay, even if enemity tool are nice, they stay situational, depending of the group, you will probably never need them.
the skill for extend/refresh huton, if it's stays behind gust slash is already making a mess in the cycle... depending of it duration it will have a big impact on the fragile balance of the cycle.

only musou sandan and issous are the unknow... depending of what they are, they can have either a good or bad impact on the game. but for this two, we will need to see this with the skill at heavenward.

indeed we need to have all the information about the skill, but some information already are showing that it will be bad.

[Allyrion]

they have never add damage from positional, never ever...

That is an incorrect example. The rear positional was removed from Impulse Drive and instead added to Chaos Thrust, which would normaly deal 200 potency on its non dot portion, which it still does, but if you execute it from the rear it now deals 250.

So your example is proven wrong, adding positionals can be a dps buff, because it was for DRG.

They also added damage to Demolish and True Strike for monk when those were given positional bonuses.

I think they've only added damage from positionals, speaking historically.

That's not to say I believe it will be the case. They've been to vague to believe so.
But if we're talking about what they have done, they've added damage when adding positionals.

Not that it really matters either way. Numbers can always be tuned to balance us.

[silentwindfr]

they will probably make the skill+positiona bonus = the actual potency, it's the safer for them and the easier for maintain the balance of the game.

when they have take out positional of the skill of the dragoon, the new skill had the same potency. it's a story of balance more than anything.
the way yoshida have present it was clearly intending like a restriction. it was player will need to pay attention to the position from now. but i digress, that not the trouble to gain or not damage from it, but to see if it will bring something fun to the ninja... do it will bring anything fun? clearly no! the whole ninja combo systeme was make more complex and hard to maintain than the other melee because of the lack of positional. adding it now go against what they have done soo far.

the new mechanic added to monk and dragoon, from the information get, are not really hard to use. it expand the experience and will go with the particularity of each jobs. monk get more skill out GCD (what it was lacking) and dragoon get option for increase the lenght of them combo (potentially the damage of the new skill will be probably important.) nothing like this is really game breaking... even the new systeme for the black mage is not really hard to master. it will remake transpose important, it's not that bad. and it go well with the actual particularity of the jobs...

even wanderer minuet, offer the possibility to the bard to get back into the run for the top dps. without making the jobs far harder to play nor make it a chores....

only the ninja, don't get any new true mechanic and.... get restriction and change unadapted to the jobs.... why that? it's like they want to make the ninja less and less played... great. because i doubt people will go with the ninja that will have positional, cycle all over the place and the mudra system... we play the game for have fun, why make the jobs a chore to be played?

why they haven't work on the ninjutsu instead? try to find a way to make the mudra system work for everyone! not only the japanese! why our main tool.... don't get any new stuff? seriously!?!

[Ryaz]

I personally don't have too many issues with positionals unless a tank likes to move to much. When I was playing my dragoon, there were many times I'd use heavy thrust, only for the tank to turn the mob just a hair-- but it was enough to put me behind the mob instead on the side, costing me the dps boost.

For ninja, as others said, it's mudra lag that gets me. Sometimes, I have no issues at all and I can use them with no delay. Then, on the next fight, I'll hit the key with the same exact timing and it won't register, costing me extra time or screwing up the sequence. I've even had times where I've had to press it a couple times to get it to register in one fight and then it would double press on the next. I feel that's a bigger issue than positionals.

[Butcherboy]

It's why I stop playing ninja all together. Seeing a rabbit once on top of ur head very cute but seeing over and over due to lag not so cute. They have possible of 2 fix for the mudra system.

1) get rid of the 20sec cool down. Give it no cool down, so if u mess up u can jump in and apply it again.

2) get rid of the mudra system and just go straight for ninjutsu. Sure I mean the mudra will still be perform, ur avatar will execute the mudras when u select a ninjutsu instead of u performing the mudra then pressing the ninjutsu button.

[Judge_Xero]

Found this - Seemed Appropriate

[Arkenne]

First and foremost, thanks for finally typing Gust Slash.

Nitpick at Assassinate

Did you, perhaps, maybe, I dunno, there might be a chance that you for some reason didn't, but, did you skip on the "maybe" at the beginning of that very comment you are nitpicking at?

Im just throwing a crazy line there for the sake of placing something purposefully stupid, weird and ridiculous. Not a line for nitpicking since, I am, not, being, serious. It was also not a joke, so its ok if you didn't laugh at it.


On a serious note tho, personally:
I do welcome that "mess" you are rejecting with so much vehemence. Since the matter here for me is not the positional excecution, hell they couldn't be any easer, and it'll be so much more for NIN than it is for DRG or MNK.
I take it that you absolutely see nothing interesting, nor fun, nor attractive from NIN having positionals, tho.
Yes, we have partial information and I can see how they can be intepreted as bad. But its still partial information, so its too early to call it "bad", or "good" even. I won't deny that it looks like AE could end up never again seeing the light in our rotations, but its still too early to call it absolute. At least hold onto it for one more week.

Maybe you will be right and a lot of NINs will drop the job... yay~♪ too many around, really. To see some more MNK and DRG would be pretty cool.

On a non-serious note tho:
If someone really doesn't wanna deal with positionals at all, and still wants to play on the melee they can always go tanking. We do need more tanks... or pick BLM, MCH, BRD or SMN and stay on melee range! Because melee DPS with no positionals! (yes, it wasn't funny).

[Leonus]

I really don't think positionals are going to be that big of a deal.

Truly, and wholeheartedly think that. I honestly think it may be more fun to ad positionals to some attacks.