RIP Ninja

[Nalien]

Honestly, I expect the developers to be thinking that competitive DPS should all have to dance the same dance for their GCD damage, as it were.

Mudra lag is the only issue with that, but that is something that can, and very much should, be fixed. Then what? Ninja is in the same league as Monk and Dragoon while having no real complexity to it at all. Ninja honestly feels more like Bard on a good day, and Bard doesn't really come close to Monk or Dragoon. They can either add positional requirements to justify Ninjas damage output, or they can nerf its damage output to be more inline with Bard.

They could do something different to "earn" Ninja its GCD damage, but I'm struggling to think what. If you remove the lag issue (which doesn't even seem to affect everyone) Mudra are a joke to execute, the added steps in their use is paid off by their frequency and potency compared to Dragoons Jumps, while Monks surplus of positionals is the cost for them not really having any abilities of note. If anything that Huton extending combo isn't a band aid to fix Mudra lag, it is in recognition of the ability output between Ninja and Dragoon compared to what goes into executing them; For Dragoon not really anything, for Ninja quite a bit more. Been a while since I compared Jumps to Ninjutsus but I remember it being surprisingly close.

It perhaps should be the cast that Monk and Ninja sit on different ends of the spectrum; Monk with most of its damage coming from GCD rotations with lots of positional requirements. Ninja with most of its damage coming from ability rotation with that holding the "complexity" (Mudra) with few positional requirements on a relatively weak GCD rotation. With Dragoon sitting in the middle. Instead Ninja and Dragoon seem to occupy the same spot, likely due to Mudra lag (which lets remember, has basically been an issue with the game since launch, Mudra just made it more noticeable again). They don't want to shift the focus to Mudra because then the issue is even worse. So now Ninja gets a higher ability output without having to refresh Huton to compensate for the "complexity" of their execution, but since Ninjas GCD rotation is still providing a solid chunk of its overall DPS, and now it isn't really relying on Mudra to enhance that DPS, it should be earned in the same way as Dragoon. That's what I assume the developers are thinking, anyway. Not really sure I agree with it though.

I wonder if it would have been a better idea to change Raiton to be more like Huton/Kiss of the whatever (it would certainly provide a nice visual effect). You keep Raiton up because it enhances your GCD damage, rather than positionals earning that damage bonus, Mudra is through Raiton. The added benefit would be that Fuma Shuriken would then be the main source of ability damage for Ninja. Slightly less damage overall, but then it isn't exactly complex to do. GCD damage would increase to compensate, but it would still be dependent on Mudra.