RIP Ninja

[Spiritreaver1217]

Wall of bellyache #4?

ps: by the way about musou sandan, if it work on TA and SA, i feel we gonna see a lot of ninja move infront of the boss... because 500*3 it's still a 1500 potency.... insane number, even if we stick with other it's still 1200 potency.

pss: 2 skill of control of enmity? seriously...

@PS-I think that the 3x boost is for Wss. Not JAs like SA or TA.

@PSS-One to transfer enmity from a targeted party member and one to transfer to a party member. Not a hard concept. Quick example: that balls to the wall BRD who lets rip on the mob with Foe's and a fast initial dmg burst-you take hate from him. You then dump that hate on the tank.

Sorry, but any tank worth his salt isn't gonna turn down free hate. Especially since tanks are across the board gonna be having to mix more and more dmg into their tanking to keep up with the increasing dmg output of all the DPS.

@Wall of bellyache #4-Don't like the new additions...well i can't rightly say that I like them as they haven't been added yet. I can say i am going to at least give them a chance and see how they mesh with what i have to work with now ingame. What i can also say is just enough man. Your stance has been made evident. You think NIN is getting the shaft, you think we've been given table scraps, you think other jobs are getting better stuff, you think blah blah blah. Just stow it.

How about you stop looking at NIN from a position of exclusively what you think is proper and right for it and start trying to look at the job like a dev might-how the job performs in situations WITH the other jobs and not necessarily AGAINST them.

And honestly if job changes like this have you riled up now, you are in for fits later on. This is the first expansion and the real beginning of the cycle of job additions->job assessments->job re-balances->job additions. And this being SE, be ready for some doozies down the road. Hell they are giving all the jobs stuff atm, wait until they start taking and the nerf bat really starts to swing. And trust me, SE devs are not afraid of drastic changes(perceived for the good or bad by the playerbase), if it is for a vision they have of something, they will change it.

And no, i'm not saying anyone has to be Sammy Sunshine-it is the internet be as asinine as you like. But by that same token, do you really expect to be taken seriously when you drone on about how bad or useless or unnecessary additions are when you are looking at a single piece of a whole picture ad nausea?

[Viridiana]

useless is maybe a bit too strong as terms, but low utility if you prefer... like i did said countless time, this sort of skill was able to be added while a patch, like they have done for stoneskin 2 (if it was needed)

Meh, Stoneskin 2 was a quality of life thing. It doesn't change anything at all in combat (except weird fights like Mog HM where you drop combat in the middle). No one has had an actual combat ability completely added in a patch, that I can think of. And that's even with WAR getting a hefty rework in 2.1.

for musou sandan, yeah i did read after hand, and AE with it will hit for 960 potency, however i'm a bit worried about this sort of easy way to increase our dps without really asking us anything. same for issou, that increase the damage of the weaponskill.

Eh, it's a DPS CD. I get that it might be underwhelming for an expansion, but it's still pretty nice. I mean, I don't see BLM players complaining that Ley Lines and Sharpcast aren't attacks but instead buffs. And really, a lot of what's added for all the classes is new CDs and tools. I mean, going off of the google doc, NIN is getting the short end for actual attacks, but not by as much as you might think. NIN is shown getting one new attack, which is the Huton extension, and several new tools. Meanwhile, BLM is apparently only getting two new actual attacks, but only if you successfully maintain the Enochian buff (which doesn't seem too difficult, but bears mentioning). BRD is getting three, but at least two of those require WM to be up (and if you think NIN players aren't impressed with what we're getting, you should check out the BRD thread). DRG is getting at least three, but they're only usable with a buff up. MNK is getting a handfull, but even they get two abilities that are pure self-utility.

I'd say we seem to be (based on the info we have) getting the short end of the stick as far as the number of new attacks we're getting, but I still like our prospects more than some of the other jobs'.

on the 4 skill announced for the ninja (and i pray the god we do get more) 2 are buff that increase our dps (in burst mostly), one with low utility (kage-watari) and one that allows us to use more ninjutsu, but no new ninjutsu.

sorry, but i don't see this giving us more utility in raid, kage watari with a good group will be useless, since enmity is not a trouble. depending of the CD on issou and musou sandan, it can have a lot or a little impact on the dps of the ninja. but it don't change the fact that the way to handle this augmentation of dps, is.... how say nicely... weird?

I'm pretty sure we have more abilities hiding in the wings that haven't been covered. SE seems to like to keep the number of abilities fairly even across the classes. As for Kage Watari, let's look at this from another angle:

So far, we haven't heard anything at all about either PLD or WAR getting new aggro generating moves. They're both getting boosts to their DPS as OT, but there haven't been even hints of new abilities in their aggro rotations. So, in potency per second, it appears that they'll be generating the same amount of aggro that they currently do (actual enmity numbers scale up to level 60, but potency numbers aren't changing). Meanwhile, every single DPS class is getting boosts to their potency per second numbers. At all stages of the fight, the information we have points to DPS classes generating more enmity than they are now at 50. I'm not saying it'll definitely be enough to make pulling aggro more common. It might not be. But I know that if I'm getting an extra 640 (times B4B, times TA) potency in my opener, I'm going to wince at the aggro bar. Every job but MNK and NIN have an existing way to deal with this (Quelling and Elusive). This could mark a return to players other than the tank having to actively make sure hate isn't going all over the place, which would be nice.

ok let me explain what i want to say, all the other jobs will get this boost of dps throught new mechanic that will recquire a bit of more skill for be mastered. what worried me about this way to do thing, it's if the ninja get a better or a close dps to the top dps, that the other community will come and cry that we don't have get any difficulty from it... and i'm worried it's the reason behind the positional or worse, the fact that we do get tool for increase soo much our dps soo easily... is because we do get positional. meaning that they admit to add positional make the jobs really hard to master and add more mechanic to the jobs is complicate.

maybe i read too much into it. but the fact to get positional fighting + this easy mechanic of boost of dps.... i can't shake the idea that all of this stink badly. i really feel that we did get the shorthand of stick and nothing we say or do, will change this, because (and i have said it a lot of time) they don't know what they want to do with the ninja... instead to work on it seriously and work on our symbolic skill (ninjutsu) they did decide to ignore it totally and focus most of the change on the weaponskill... the rogue part of our jobs. for me we didn't receive jobs skill, but rogue skill. even the jobquest until now was about how use ninjutsu correctly and how ninja use them for get the advantage over the fight. but here, nothing of this. if they don't plan to work on our main tool.... why did they create the ninja? why not have stick with the rogue from the start? it will have been far easier for them... no mudra lag and able to put all the positional they want!

Hmm. . .I see where you're coming from. I mean, neither of us really wants positionals, and the info we have so far hasn't made me actively excited to play NIN in HW (Honestly, I think AST and DRK have had the best presentations so far, but I suspect that's largely the novelty). But aside from the positionals, nothing they've revealed so far has made me question their direction with NIN; and I'm reserving final judgement on the positional issue until I see it in action.

I mean, you say that we're getting nothing new for ninjutsu, but I disagree. True, we aren't getting new mudra combinations, but our damage from ninjutsu will be increasing. Even if the Huton extension attack doesn't change our average GCD potency at all, you're still looking at 6 more potency per second from Raiton (roughly). That's about 1.3x the contribution you get from Kassatsu. I'm not saying it's huge, but I think you'd agree that Kassatsu is ninjutsu-focused, so why wouldn't you count a WS that lets us use more ninjutsu (basically what Kassatsu does) as ninjutsu-focused?

*shrugs* more i learn about the ninja in heavenwards more i don't understand what they try to accomplish with the jobs... for me all we did get was change on the rogue part... not the ninja part, outside the skill for refresh huton, but it was more a qol change than a real upgrade for the ninja, since we are still stuck with the 3 same ninjutsu.

I dunno, I'm still looking at the Huton extension as groundwork for new ninjutsu when we eventually get them, as I assume we will. A three-ninjutsu rotation isn't flexible at all. It would always be Huton->Suiton->Filler, where Filler is currently Raiton or Fuma if you have latency. Nothing beats the ungodly potency of Huton. Nothing outside of Huton is going to beat the 180+400+somehugenumber potency of Suiton+TA. So any new ninjutsu they add to the current system would be competing against Raiton. Is it better than Raiton? Then Raiton goes into the "do not use" bucket. Is it worse than Raiton? Then why bother adding it? But with Huton being extended without consuming ninjutsu chances or Kassatsu, they can add new mudra as time goes on with different "timers." In the most boring case, they could add another one with a one minute timer, so that the rotation would be Huton(before pull, extend through WS)->Suiton->New ability->Raiton->Repeat from Suiton. Or something on an 80 second timer, etc. Basically, if you look at the Huton extension as the foundation for later changes, it looks even better than it already is even if it's the finished product.

ps: by the way about musou sandan, if it work on TA and SA, i feel we gonna see a lot of ninja move infront of the boss... because 500*3 it's still a 1500 potency.... insane number, even if we stick with other it's still 1200 potency.

pss: 2 skill of control of enmity? seriously...

Doubt Musou Sandan would work on TA/SA, since they aren't weaponskills. Even if they did, you would still TA instead of SA. A NIN by himself can make up over 100 of the potency difference; the other 5 people smacking the boss will push the numbers way in TA's favor.

Two enmity abilities does seem a smidge excessive, but they do kinda fill two different roles, so. . .what the heck, I'll take it.

[silentwindfr]

when i say the shorthand of the stick i'm talking about new mechanic that will expand our gameplay. we can say that the buff and the refresh huton can be counted like this, however, it still far from what it was possible to add. they are quite simple mechanic already used... the huton refresh without new ninjutsu still lead to 3 different type of ninjutsu used, indeed it's an increase of dps, but it's quite simple... not game changing.

i admit, it's still possible they surprise us by adding a mudra, not nessecerly adding ninjutsu with 4 mudra, but offering more skill by adding a 4th mudra that can replace the three other in the process to add skill. they can even use the already existing mudra for add more skill. but, why not use this in the presentation, any ninja will have be extremely hyped by this. more than by what they have shown us. but i doubt it.... since they have said that they will not change a lot the fighting capacity of the ninja.

ps: the refresh of huton is nice, don't get me wrong, what i'm pointing out, is the fact to not add anything for be used with, leaving us with huton, raiton and suiton as usefull ninjutsu. katon, doton and hyoton are quite situational and not often very good sadly. and more important we will not see an expansion before 1-2 years... it's quite long for wait to see our ninjutsu extended. no?

[Shamirah]

mmh will the spell that allows us to use an ability 3 times work on mudras ? or kassatsu ?

i dunno but I feel like ninjas are already in a good place atm, no need to give them changes in the like of the old jobs. Nin is already quite new and refreshing as it is atm.

[silentwindfr]

mmh will the spell that allows us to use an ability 3 times work on mudras ? or kassatsu ?

i dunno but I feel like ninjas are already in a good place atm, no need to give them changes in the like of the old jobs. Nin is already quite new and refreshing as it is atm.

the ninja still need tons of work, mainly around the ninjutsu, our symbolic skill, the refresh of huton via weaponskill is nice, but the main trouble is the lack of utility of the ninjutsu. half of them are still situational... and i feel it's possible to make this soo much better. like make it work into combo... so far weapon skill and ninjutsu are two different system that have little to no link together. exept suiton with ta/sa the rest is like an ogcd skill... it's sad to think that a jobs that often rely more on this is barely using it.

i will have loved to see a rework on the ninjutsu for allow to use it into a combo and work on it for make it more fluid and most interesting.

[ChaozK]

so far weapon skill and ninjutsu are two different system that have little to no link together. exept suiton with ta/sa the rest is like an ogcd skill.

So what is missing is kinda like a weapon skill that would interact with ninjutsu by, i dont know, maybe increasing the time of huton. They really should have made something like that, i agree.

[Taranok]

So what is missing is kinda like a weapon skill that would interact with ninjutsu by, i dont know, maybe increasing the time of huton. They really should have made something like that, i agree.

The problem I noted by just thinking of what they're asking for is that such a system substantially complicates the Ninja rotation, as now you have to factor in trying to land specific points in the combo before activating specific mudra that specifically boost that attack. The Mudra system seems like it was never designed or intended to be used to boost the next weapon skill used in quite this fashion, and the overwhelming amount of new abilities the devs would need to account for in such an addition would border on the insane when you finally got down to it. Even if it was just 3 new abilities that augmented your next weapon strike because you didn't fire it, what would be the fundamental difference between that and activating a specific GCD that would do the same thing?

In a system that by design mutually competes with literally everything else in the same system, it's a lot of extra bloat that doesn't really add much flavor when you truly delve into what is being asked for, and complicates a class in a way that it doesn't need to be complicated. Hell, as much as I hate positionals, it'd make more sense to make specific mudras fire when doing a specific positional than to tack on more features to the mudra system that it really doesn't need. For instance, side-stabbing someone with aeolian edge? Congratulations, have a fireball to your face! Backstab with Shadow Fang? Icy feet or what have you! It would fundamentally add the same thing without adding more competition to a system that is innately designed to compete with itself without ultimately devolving the system into "We don't actually know what half these abilities do because only these ones are ever worth using." Much like Hyoton, an ability so little used that you probably had to look it up simply to know what it was. Its only crime is that literally everything else is vastly superior to it in every way, shape, and form, unless you specifically want the ability to root things. Hell, even the bunny rabbit is vastly superior, because it does a dance and a jig to calm you down after messing up another ability for any given reason.

[Taranok]

Honestly, I don't particularly like the vast swings of meta involved in adding game-changing abilities at certain levels. To use BRD as an example, BRD after Wanderer's Minuet will be a fundamentally different job than before WM. If WM is a level 60 skill, that means every single non-60 instance will have BRDs playing fundamentally differently than they do at 60. That's not fun (imo), that's frustrating. I'm more happy to get nice toys to play with every few levels that give me more tools to use.

This is the big reason I also don't like the addition of positionals to the Ninja class, though it's not nearly as profound as turning the most mobile class in the game into a class that treats the least mobile as company, even if it might not be as immobile as a Black Mage ultimately ends up being.

Classes that get their uniqueness expanded upon with new content? Fantastic. Classes that get something fundamental to the class substantially altered if not outright removed? Not fun at all. Though Bards definitely got hit harder than pretty much any other class.

when i say the shorthand of the stick i'm talking about new mechanic that will expand our gameplay. we can say that the buff and the refresh huton can be counted like this, however, it still far from what it was possible to add. they are quite simple mechanic already used... the huton refresh without new ninjutsu still lead to 3 different type of ninjutsu used, indeed it's an increase of dps, but it's quite simple... not game changing.

i admit, it's still possible they surprise us by adding a mudra, not nessecerly adding ninjutsu with 4 mudra, but offering more skill by adding a 4th mudra that can replace the three other in the process to add skill. they can even use the already existing mudra for add more skill. but, why not use this in the presentation, any ninja will have be extremely hyped by this. more than by what they have shown us. but i doubt it.... since they have said that they will not change a lot the fighting capacity of the ninja.

ps: the refresh of huton is nice, don't get me wrong, what i'm pointing out, is the fact to not add anything for be used with, leaving us with huton, raiton and suiton as usefull ninjutsu. katon, doton and hyoton are quite situational and not often very good sadly. and more important we will not see an expansion before 1-2 years... it's quite long for wait to see our ninjutsu extended. no?

Must every change be so fundamentally game-changing? The devs could have just as easily delayed the Ninja until Heavensward and people would still think it was awesome, despite largely being rather reserved as far as class abilities are concerned. About the flashiest thing the Ninja does is summon a single bolt of lightning. A far cry from the star-swirled sky that Arcanists get at level 50, nevermind the Nova that Black Mages summon. Looking at the preview, I was pretty happy watching the Ninja jump around the mob to hit it in multiple places. It's a sort of reserved flashiness that fit in just fine for the class.

It's no Akh Morn like the summoners get, but the Ninja was never as flashy as even the Monk or Dragoon is, and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Furthermore, you're short-selling the utility of threat-manipulating abilities. For all we know, the devs are going to bring threat much, much closer together compared to now, or maybe the devs will add major threat wipe or threat jumbling mechanics that could make Ninjas a very valuable group member to deal with situations where the Healer was given phantom aggro. Sure, the tank could simply cast provoke, but sometimes having a little bit more is quite useful.

The class by design simply by proxy of Goad, nevermind Trick Attack, was always going to be a support DPS class, and having more support is fine by me. Nothing can be more useless than All Fours is, and it's not like Ninja is unique in receiving abilities of dubious worth. I still struggle to find use for Foresight on my Warrior, its effect is simply that intangible even on high-end raid content. Nevermind the threat dump on the Dragoon, which I never found a use for but have seen others use it for reasons other than a threat dump.

But do remember, a 4th mudra by itself, without altering anything about how mudras work right now, is adding seven new abilities to the class. The devs would be better served making a special mudra that, when combined with a very specific combo of mudra of N lengths long, would give the ninja some hyper-powerful buff or damage ability or something. That's something the devs could do that would be interesting and really feel awesome. But I digress.

At the end of the day, the devs did expand a lot on the Ninja with stuff we know, even though it's not simply a major mechanics overhaul like so many classes needed. The only problem I have is that the Ninja is gaining positionals. That's it. Everything else sounds good.

But I digress.

[silentwindfr]

who have said flashy stuff?
add a skill with the same function will have no interest. and if they want to make us a support melee, ok, then do it well. use ninjutsu for do this, like add debuff that will give synergy to the group.

it was possible to make tons of stuff, want a few example?
- a ninjutsu that will the target with a debuff after deal damage, this debuff boost the people attacking the monster increasing them cast/skill speed.
- a ninjutsu skill that allows to gain effect similar to the elemental wheel. each element giving a boost to a type of elemental damage. suiton, boosting the next thunder spell casted on, hyoton increasing fire,...

you can even think at some buff for the ninja, like:
- a kage-bushin, but instead to protect the ninja, allows him to get the same effect than oath of sword for a short period.
- allows to cast a Short duration AoE huton, that increase speed of attack of the whole group in the area.

and even some that have function different than what we have so far:
- a ninjutsu that allows to switch place with a team member. can be exellent when the healer is target and for give him some room.
- a kage-bushin that can be cast on a party member only that will absorb one attack.
- a ninjutsu allowing us to be teleported behind the target of a team member.

i dunno, i'm sure, i'm not the only one that did think to different ninjutsu that have different function that can be added? but most important was maybe to add the ninjutsu as a part of the weaponskill system. make the two system work together, not against each other. my main grips against ninjutsu, is the shared CD of 20 second, we are the only jobs that can only use our symbolic skill every 20 second. a dragoon if he want can simply do him 3 jump in row, is stupid i know but it's still possible. why not have give the cd to each ninjutsu skill? like Raiton do have 20 second CD, etc... it will have give more flexibility to the ninja.
but more important it will be able to add ninjutsu skill with less cd, allowing them to be added into combo.

i dunno, i'm only trying to think what it's possible or not, this jobs have soo much potential and for now... it's clearly unexploited. because soo far, with positional, we aren't really different of the dragoon or monk... (depending of the number of skill with positional) the only difference is the mudra lag, every 20 seconds.

why play ninja over dragoon or monk? what we had soo far was 3 jobs with different gameplay, but with positional and the ninjutsu underused, we aren't different of the dragoon or monk. before it was, if you want an heavy positional class, you go with monk. a job with a bit of positional, you will go with dragoon. and if you want a jobs without positional, it was ninja. it was the difference between the 3. no?

[Viridiana]

we are the only jobs that can only use our symbolic skill every 20 second. a dragoon if he want can simply do him 3 jump in row, is stupid i know but it's still possible.

Huh? Now you're just making stuff up. Every single jump is longer than a 30 second CD. Even if you combine Jump, Spineshatter, and Dragonfire, that's 7 jumps in 2 minutes, which is pretty much exactly what we have with Kassatsu.