Ninja, The problem job and some ideas to change it.

**Zytoryu** · 07-20-2018 04:12 PM

Im not gonna sugar coat this. Ninja is a mistake in its current state.

It's labeled as a melee DPS and even been referred to as a pure DPS job by the Dev team. but the Job does the lowest damage amongst all DPS jobs including even Bard and Machinist. In return, this Job offers one great ability and one OK ability, being Trick Attack and Shadewalker Respectively. In addition to this, Ninja also has pretty broken game play that only seems to get worse as time goes on.

Mudras of course being the lead problem, as you only ever use 2 mudras in an average raid encounter and with higher latency, become problematic. The recent addition of the Ninki gauge that has no real methods of management feels awful in combat as well forcing you to clip the gauge past the 100 cap in some situations to best align your abilities with others as well as one of the skills tied into the Ninki gauge (Ten Chi Jin) breaks the current flow of the job and is actually a DPS loss to use depending on latency.

Now all of this would be fine if the Job atleast felt rewarding to the player, But the simple fact is very little people do. its only because the job happens to be meta that people pick it. if you dont believe me on this just look at how many groups are in constant need of a Ninja over almost any other job. This is an extremely shitty situation for a job to be in. The Job is a fucking chore for so many people to play. myself included, and this is coming from someone who mained it since 2.4 - 4.0

I love this Job and I don't want it to be in this god awful spot a moment longer.

Let Ninja be an actual melee again square. and I have some ideas to at least make it tolerable again.

Change Ninki Gauge to go up with every auto attack interval in combat, regardless of dealing damage to a target.
This keeps the rotation relatively the same but doesn't punish you in situations of forced down time. i.e rocks in A6S.

Nerf Trick Attack's vulnerability to only 5% as opposed to 10%.
This should have been done on StormBlood launch tbh.

Buff Potencys in Gust Slash, Aeolian Edge, Armor Crush, and Shadow Fang by 20 each.
Let it at least do comparable damage to Dragoon

Change Dripping Blades to affect magic damage by 10% in addition to Physical Damage by 20%.
This makes the clipping on all mudras a bit more forgiving and lets some skills such as Bhavacakra and Hellfrog hit a bit harder.

This last one is a bit of a Stretch but I think it would be nice.
Make Assassinate usable regardless of HP% but consume 40 Ninki unless the target is below 20% HP, then the Ninki cost is 0.
This makes the Ninki gauge a bit easier to manage as well as make a previously less touched button gain more use.

I know none of these are gonna reach the Development team but by god I'm going to try. I can't continue to play this game so long as my formerly favorite job is relegated to playing Babysitter in raids with no real reward besides the right to raid.

Would love to hear some other peoples opinions on the matter though!

**Shurrikhan** · 07-20-2018 04:58 PM

Ninja already has a 20% physical damage buff that Dragoon does not. And while Dragoon may deal up to 15% direct physical damage bonus, Ninja also attacks 15% faster...

Changing Dripping Blades to affect magic damage would worsen, not reduce, clipping, as it would make Raiton superior to Fuma in regular use. Additionally, a certain amount of clipping, planned for in compromise with higher potencies depending on smaller buff windows within larger personal CD windows, can better perfect the timing of your CDs -- especially TCJ and Duality.

It is incredibly unlikely that TCJ would be a DPS loss. Remember that the potencies of each are doubled. Even taking a full 2 seconds for the combination of added mudra plus the next Ninjutsu itself, you'd be dealing 360 to 720 potency over the near-GCD. Only the loss of an Aeolian or Shadow Fang (when all DoTs can tick during the jump phase) could warrant clipping TCJ early, and only the Suiton part (if no TA will be available and there won't be enough time left the Doton alternative to reach its full potency).

I personally like that TA still has some bite to it. While I dislike how that reduces Ninja's value in longer 4-man fights don't end near to a TA use, 4-man content is so casual that it hardly matters, and is more than compensated for by the free Ninjutsu made available by the Hide refresh.

The Assassinate change likely wouldn't see any use, except perhaps during TA windows paired with Mug (e.g. to drop back from over 80 Ninki before adding the extra 30) and only if flooded with other external buffs or forced by upcoming jump windows. It would still be less efficient than Bhavacakra or Hellfire Frog (at 2+ targets).

Ninja's issues are everyone's issues. Sometimes TCJ is late to notice that you already stopped moving, self-cancelling; due to slow activator interactions sometimes a would-be Suiton comes out a Hyoton or even Fuma instead; and often what appears to have been a rear attack will not grant Trick Attack. But all of these are issues that plague every job with movement-broken, buff-activated, and/or positional skills.

While we could mitigate some of those factors by, say, removing the positional requirement on TA and/or making TCJ function more like Ley Lines, we're at a point where those issues really should be doubled down on by 5.0, for everyone's sake.

**Shamox** · 07-20-2018 05:54 PM