Thread: Ninja Redesign 2.0 Shadowbringer Edition

That's a LOT of Ninjutsu skills.

Is there a reason why the three-mudra skills are so inconsistent?
Currently, all three-mudra ninjutsu are defined by their last mudra. E.g. Ten>Chi>Jin and Chi>Ten>Jin both result in Suiton.

Originally Posted by Seraphor

That's a LOT of Ninjutsu skills.

Is there a reason why the three-mudra skills are so inconsistent?
Currently, all three-mudra ninjutsu are defined by their last mudra. E.g. Ten>Chi>Jin and Chi>Ten>Jin both result in Suiton.

Yes, two xD

1) I ran out of Skill Ideas n time for researching japanese terms to name them as correctly I can try to do lol, am pretty sure most of my stuff is surely grammatically incorrect xD
2) And like said, I wanted to give the devs somewhere also space for some own creativity within my concept

If there is naturally some kind of lore thing that says that any 3 Mudra Skills and above "have to end always" with Jin, then this will shrink down that part naturally alot, but my concept is based on giving Ninja with it's gameplay mechanic the maximum versatility

Just with the current 3 mudras, we can have way more jutsus if we were to make each individual combination its own jutsu, instead of just what it ends on and whether it was 2 mudras or 3. For example, Ten-Jin and Chi-Jin being different jutsus. It sounds like in the next patch they will be moving to a system that only ever uses a max of 2 mudras. As it turns out, all the current 7 jutsus will still be possible even with 2 mudras as long as you do each individual combination. And that's without even reworking the 1-mudra-no-matter-which Fuma Shuriken. But it has also always been a waste to have 1 mudra, regardless of which symbol, all result in Fuma Shuriken, an ability we are not using all that much since people seem to prefer Raiton.

If we made Ten by itself, Chi by itself, and Jin by itself all different things, we have much more potential and efficiency without having to resort to 3 mudras in a combination. And with Shadowbringers making Kassatsu able access wholly new jutsus, the possibilities are truly endless. But simply making proper use of 1-mudra jutsus would do a whole lot to streamline ninja. I propose Raiton on Ten, Katon on Chi, and Suiton on Jin. Huton and Doton could be on 2 mudras since you'd only use those occasionally. Hyoton and Fuma Shuriken could probably just be removed altogether, honestly non-essential unless they gave them a meaningful new function or potency. Goka Mekkyaku could completely replace Katon since they work the same, Hyosho Ranryu could replace Hyoton because nobody uses Hyoton anyway, might as well eliminate the Kassatsu prerequisite.

If we were to keep 3-mudra combinations AND make each combination unique, the amount of possible abilities we would have on just 4 keys would be truly huge, which could be awesome but perhaps too complex to remember. Great way to reduce button bloat though. Add in new Kassatsu jutsus and you'll never run out of new abilities just with the current 3 mudras. If you were to add a FOURTH mudra... oh god. You could probably have a hundred different possible abilities just from that getting introduced into the mix.

My concept above would mean in total 49 Jutsus to possibly use just by the mention combinations above with 4 Mudras . Thats what I'd call maximum versatility out of just 4 skill buttons to form the skill you want ^^

8 1 Mudra Skill, 1 per Mudra Sign and each an alternate if you have enough Ninki left over.
16 2 Mudra Skills based on each sign combinated with each other primary as secondary and with itself double
24 3 Mudra Skill similar done like above, but here with copy aktefnative forms to limitate the complexity so ghat it doesn't get out of control proportionally, what it would do otherwise.
1 final 4 Mudra skill baically as the tip of the iceberg.

As you can see I moved all existibg skills kind of into my Ninjutsu Skill Concept, so that nothing gets lost and turn certain talent skills into simply Ninjutsus to fill up the gaps, while adding here n there noturally some own ideas and complementing some gaps with inspirations from Naruto, like the animal summons, adding the Snail, Weasel and Snaketo the "Fire" Frog, that is a clear refernce to the anime, same as much as the Fuuma-Shuriken. it is iconic.

So i think my concept is still vey overviewable, even if more complex, but thats how nijas should be, masters of situational versatility - easy to learn, hard to master due to the high amount of skills they can use out of nowhere anytime.

In general, and in my opinion, Ninja has gotten alot closer to something very fulfilling to play in the last "reworking" of Ninjutsu. I've mained it since ShB's release and one of the things I definitly agree with is the concept of expanding mudras. As it is now, if you use any 1 mudra, it'll result in Fuma Shuriken rather than different ninjutsu based on the mudra (i.e. Ten = shuriken, Chi = Something else, so on...). However I think that with 9 current ninjutsu (Including kassatsu variants, which is a key ability I will note again) Any new mudra (Rei, or whatever else you may like to be the 4th) would be a welcome change, however it could come with some caveats. For one the current ninja rotation feels quite seemless imo, and while adding a new mudra might not neccisarily hinder that, the dev team would need to account for a bunch of new combinations that suddenly need to actually be useable; Something that if kassatsu was expanded upon, could be done just the same. And don't get me wrong, I'd love more buttons to mash in combos, and I'd really want a new green or white Mudra, but if they were implemented, I have an idea to hit two birds with one stone; Kassatsu.

Now before I talk about Kassastu, Huton. Huton In my opinion does not need a change at it's current state, at least not as far as to remove it. The idea that ninja is always juggling some sort of gauge/ timer is what keeps me on my toes like no other class (Other than monk, the positionals drive me nuts, ninja for me is okay though since only combo finishers need them + Trick Attack). To me part of what drew me to the class is it's speed and how flexible it feels, at range or melee, always having a solution for a problem. So I feel that a three part combo compliments the mudra and ninki system, where it's just enough on your plate to juggle trick windows, mudras(Tenchijin and Meisui as well), and oGCDs. Huton in my opinion is why Armor Crush is still a thing, and with the DoT combo opener now a seperate cooldown, It's pretty much all you're refreshing, and it doesn't need to be hard in of itself, which is why I think it's at a good spot at the moment. (Part 1 of 2)

Now Kassatsu, This ability to me feels like if they expanded it, Kassatsu could seriously make Ninja feel even more amazing than it already is in burst windows or even cool-off periods. At the moment Kassatsu only can trigger two upgrades:

Goka Mekkyaku & Hyosho Ranryu.

The only issue with proposing upgraded skills is that a Kassatsu variant of Raiton would more or less negate Hyosho. So what if we had a 4th Mudra open up only when under the buff of Kassatsu?

Just think back to Dancer, and other mudra icons for that matter. This isn't all that difficult code wise either, when you use kassatsu it would change the action into a brand new mudra (Whatever you call it, not all that interested in names, though white or green or purple sound like great eye candy while I blow up stuff like a mini black mage c

When this occurs, new exclusive combinations would arise, where there would be enhanced ninjutsu available. It'd need to have some caveat like a timer on the extra mudra/ Ninki requirement so as to not invalidate Hyosho or Goka as well, so that'd be an issue, but if it, say, offered a once every 2 minute change to all the mudra (Think of a toggle, similar idea to Samurai's Tsubame Gaeshi, inverts colors/ new icons) That would mean that Hyosho is used when this toggle is down, and every two minutes you'd resort to this new set of modified abilities (Say new mudra is soul, abilities are ancient Ninja techniques, drawing on your soul crystal's ancient bearers' knowledge for example, lore wise)

Just a musing, though honestly I love Ninja as it is, and want to see it only get better since I love the flexibility. This isn't perfect for sure, but I'd be interested to see this come to fruition in some form or another. (Part 2 of 2)