Would Duality working with combo effects be a bad idea?

[MagiusNecros]

That's all it is. A stronger life surge. Without the heal. It is stronger then LS yes but I think the skill is so lackluster when you make that connection a ninja hits things fast and hard and multiple times. The ability had the potential to hit twice with each WS for 10 seconds but they said whoa wait a minute and just gave you a slightly better lvl 18 skill as a lvl 58 skill. And then rub it in with ADfaD and let you hit 3 times but for 100 pot each all with a chance to crit.

Grump grump aside Duality Aeo Edge is our strongest attack in our kit. Duality is good but it could have been better.

[RiceisNice]

That's all it is. A stronger life surge. Without the heal. It is stronger then LS yes but I think the skill is so lackluster when you make that connection a ninja hits things fast and hard and multiple times. The ability had the potential to hit twice with each WS for 10 seconds but they said whoa wait a minute and just gave you a slightly better lvl 18 skill as a lvl 58 skill. And then rub it in with ADfaD and let you hit 3 times but for 100 pot each all with a chance to crit.

Grump grump aside Duality Aeo Edge is our strongest attack in our kit. Duality is good but it could have been better.

Doubling weapon skills for 10 seconds is absurdly overpowered for burst damage, especially since NIN pumps out the most weaponskills per second alongside with monk.

Not to disagree that NIN could have gotten better changes instead of straight up utility and oGCD damage (meaning in general, not duaility specifically), though. I feel they really dropped the ball on that in regards to NIN, BRD and MCH.

[MagiusNecros]

I just don't like samey skills. The only skill in HW for Ninja I care about the most is just Armor Crush. Enmity control is for bad groups or to let the Tank DPS more. Or give a overzealous healer or a guy who doesn't have quelling strikes take a chill pill.

I do find it interesting that both NIN and DRK for their lvl 60 skill both are quoted as using a 3 fold attack but only Ninja's hit 3 times. They really need to be more clear with these tooltips.

[Jonnycbad]

That's all it is. A stronger life surge. Without the heal. It is stronger then LS yes but I think the skill is so lackluster when you make that connection a ninja hits things fast and hard and multiple times. The ability had the potential to hit twice with each WS for 10 seconds but they said whoa wait a minute and just gave you a slightly better lvl 18 skill as a lvl 58 skill.

Yes, but NIN has a host of other tools pre-58 that made it on par or better than DRG even with life surge. Even if NIN's DPS was slightly below DRG pre3.0, +10% raid damage for 20% of the time contributes significantly more added damage than a DRG does. So really, they gave it to NIN late in the game because they didn't really need it in 2.0. In 3.0, now that MNK and DRG are stronger they had to give NIN a few things to increase their damage as well--hence Duality. It's all balanced in its own way.

Given that other DPS have a native skill to boost the damage of the next WS (Reassemble, Life Surge, Barrage), NIN was given one as well. Don't forget NIN has a permanent 20% DPS boost with their Venoms compared to MNK which gets 5% and DRG which gets 15% (but requires upkeep).

[Fellesarah]

Ninja skills for heavensward are a crap ... why agro skill for ninja??? I do no want to be a support class, the ninja dps is ridiculous and the only utility it is to be an enhancer dps for the raid group, i will wait for samurai ...

[Viridiana]

Ninja skills for heavensward are a crap ... why agro skill for ninja??? I do no want to be a support class, the ninja dps is ridiculous and the only utility it is to be an enhancer dps for the raid group, i will wait for samurai ...

Good luck with that. So far there are no DPS classes who don't bring utility. If you're expecting SAM to change that, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

[MrCookTM]

Since this disagrees with the math I posted earlier, I looked up Shasta's NIN guide. Neither his reddit post nor his forum guide go into the math beyond "don't delay it so long that you lose a chance to use it later." The math I did earlier says that it's fine to do AC->SF->MU->DualityAE, because that's still a pps increase over using it for AC (just barely). Until someone points out a flaw in my math, anyway...

Could have sworn I read that in Shasta's guide, though maybe my interpretation was just hella off lol.

[Zojha]

Good luck with that. So far there are no DPS classes who don't bring utility.

Well, to be fair: Monk is really damn close. All they bring is an Int.Down that DRK brings as well. Blunt.R.Down isn't exactly big utility when you consider the only one affected by it are...other monks.

[Irysa]

Well, to be fair: Monk is really damn close. All they bring is an Int.Down that DRK brings as well. Blunt.R.Down isn't exactly big utility when you consider the only one affected by it are...other monks.

Hey, it can boost SMN dps by like, 5 or something! (sitting next to boss set to autoattack during the instants they have nothing to press inbetween for GCD!)

On the topic itself: I like the idea of duality AC giving more huton uptime, but the only thing that would do is increasing nin's personal dps, which is not needed. Nin is already highly wanted for every progression group, and nin doing more personal dps as it does right now, would probably fuck with melee balance pretty hard.

Why would it increase NIN's personal DPS above what the optimal is anyway? This doesn't actually make the best case scenario higher, it would only stand to very slightly increase DPS in suboptimal situations.

Honestly the main reason I was even thinking about this was because Duality and Dream Within a Dream are just so boring. Having some kind of flavor to them or alternative ways to utilise them would give the skills a bit more personality. I realise it's impossible to avoid there being optimal choices in a rotation everytime, but suboptimal choices can still have appeal if they've got benefits like consistency or ease.

[Viridiana]

Well, to be fair: Monk is really damn close. All they bring is an Int.Down that DRK brings as well. Blunt.R.Down isn't exactly big utility when you consider the only one affected by it are...other monks.

Close, yes, but not quite. The Int Down debuff used to be basically essential for progression. Not sure if it still is, but if it is, you can only get that through MNK and DRK, and it definitely counts for utility. Just because it shares the utility with another class doesn't mean it doesn't count, either, or else SMN would be a prime example of "no utility." After all, SCH is probably more popular than DRK for raiding. And MNK also gets that boosted Mantra. Granted neither is overly impressive, but it's still utility. If his complaint is that he wants to do lots of DPS and not do support, his best option is probably MNK, not SAM. But even then you can't deny that MNK has support aspects.