How will NIN nerfs affect them?

[Alistaire]

Truth be told, I have no idea what they mean with that. The rotation nowadays is very rigid and doesn't allow for a tremendous amount of overall alternation. My guess is that they alternated between Shadow Fang, Aeolian Edge and Armor Crush when testing, whereas players used Aeolian Edge twice whenever the Huton timer was higher than 40.

But then why nerf Gust Slash...? Ah, to heck if I understand this dev team >_>

The "different rotation" might not have anything to do with Gust Slash. It doesn't have to tbh.

What the dev team probably overlooked was that fuma>katon>doton under TCJ was more potent on 1 target than using the single-target ninjutsu....but then if they nerf either katon or doton it messes with aoe potencies, so they decide to just lower a single-target move instead, lowering NIN's single-target overall potency while leaving aoe potency untouched.

[Zojha]

What the dev team probably overlooked was that fuma>katon>doton under TCJ was more potent on 1 target than using the single-target ninjutsu....

The difference is very small though and only happens once every few minutes AND only if the enemy doesn't move out of Doton (or jumps/goes invuln during its duration)

I mean...
240
360
180
= 780 x 2 = 1560.
240
250
320
= 810 x 2 = 1620.

That's a mere 60 potency gain over 100 seconds. I kinda doubt it's something that small - it's gotta be something bigger, hence why I figured they'd simply not optimize Aeolian Edge usage. At 2 seconds GCD, rotating through all 3 combos takes 18 seconds and you necessarily clip Shadow Fang by 3 seconds - not enough to allow rotation deviation, as all combos are 3 step now. You clip Armor Crush by 12 seconds however - that's two combos worth of time. That's at the very least 40 potency every 30 seconds and thus, double the TCJ advantage at 90 seconds already.

[Alistaire]

The difference is very small though...

It's not about how much of a gain it is; it's about how likely it was that SE overlooked it. And we don't know how much of a nerf this will be, could be 10 potency. You're absolutely right about what you say but it's also much more likely that SE already took that into account.

[Zojha]

It's not about how much of a gain it is; it's about how likely it was that SE overlooked it.

Well, they overlooked STR accessories in spite of having that exact same issue like 3-4 patches before. They overlooked Holy upon ARR release when it had 260 potency with no fall-off. I'm more inclined to believe they overlooked the obvious nowadays.

As for how much of a nerf: Even a 5 potency nerf would more than make up for the TCJ increase. You will use one Gust Slash every 6 seconds, which means after 72 seconds, you already made up for that unintended damage increase via TCJ.