Thread: Not enjoying the 5.1 Ninja changes

Well I got a chance to try out the 5.1 Ninja after the patch and I have to say...so far I do NOT like the changes.

The entire pace of the job has slowed down considerably with these changes due to to the fact Mudras were put on the same GCD with the weapon skills meaning that there is a lot of downtime where you are just waiting compared to before. It feels jarring to me not being able to queue up Mudras right after using a weapon skill. Some of our skills/buffs such as Mug, Ten Chi Jen, and Meisui have longer cooldowns compared to before meaning that your pressing them less which leads to just spamming a mudra every 30 seconds (Outside of having 2 stacks) and using your now only 2 combos (A.Edge and Armor Crush) which in my opinion makes the class much less interesting and boring. The Shadow Fang skill feels terrible to use. While I do prefer having it as another combo tree ender so it gives us more things to track and press, allowing it to be used without breaking combo isnt a terrible idea, but the fact that it can only be used every 70 seconds and it only last 30 seconds just feels off.Previously you have to manage the dot and reapply it when it was about to fade away, now you use it once and have to wait another 70 second and it doesn't even last the entire 70 seconds.

With the new Ninkei changes you technically use Hellfrog and Burekava more often but they lowered the potency to balance it (Hellfrog technically balances out since its a flat number instead of getting weaker after hitting another enemy) which makes them feel less strong and leaves less of an impact. Kassatsu has been changed from one charge instead of two meaning that you can only use the Advanced Mudras once every 60 seconds instead of being able to use it twice. Shukushis starting placement distance seems changed? I play on controller and seems harder to place the skill farther away. The only change that I enjoy is what they did to Ten-Chi-Jen. Being able to use the Mudras without having to press the cast button actually feels nice. All in all some Ninja mains might enjoy these changes which is fine, but the classes fast pace/wild nature is gone and the entire class feels different and less exciting.

As someone who mained Ninja since 3.0. I'm not enjoying the changes and ill probably have to find another job to play. What are your opinions on the new changes?

I like them except the slowed down transition between ninjutsu and taijutsu. I can't understand the reasoning behind it, it can't get unbalanced because even if you get to pop them faster they still have the same cooldown.
Oh, and the changes to Bhava / Hellfrog are great, now I get to pop them a lot more, gives a better feel not to be using slashes only for so long.

TCJ should've been like this from the start, but other than that it doesn't feel good overall. The numbers may add up better, idk, but it feels pretty clunky.


1 thing remains unchanged though:

TCJ change is good and certainly an improvement.

Kassatsu having a separate mudra cooldown is good, no charges and 60s cooldown is a letdown though.

Shadow Fang change is meh, but I suppose I'll eventually learn to live with it (similar when SF was changed from 3-chain to 2-chain in 5.0).

The new mudra system feels extremely clunky, like walking in a mud pool. Not a fan, even though it should help with latency.

Impartial to the other changes so far.

Just from my experience on getting my feet wet with Ninja, albeit my ninja is still relatively low level and I'm mostly drawing on experience from SB, not ShB:

TCJ's change is amazing.

Mudra being a GCD instead of an oGCD is a mixed bag, I partially love it, partially hate it. Overall I think it's an improvement that I'm just not used to.

Kassatsu should have charges again just to make it less punishing from rolling abilities over.

Trick Attack change is welcome, but I would have preferred a 20s duration instead of 15, personally. Either way Trick Attack has needed a change, and making it no longer require backstabs while also lasting longer is a huge benefit overall.

Shadow Fang could honestly be removed and I wouldn't care at this point. Being a cooldown-based DoT to throw on top of all the other cooldown-based crap Ninja has is needless clutter. It made sense when you had to maintain it, and if it was turned back into a maintenance ability instead of a cooldown ability I wouldn't mind, but as a 70s duration (more like stack SS to get it to 60s), I'd honestly it rather be merged into Dream Within a Dream because it's really just redundant right now and taking up bar space for what is fundamentally an ability that should just press itself.

I feel like I need to practice the rotation though to get used to it, since GCD Ninjutsu is very different than oGCD Ninjutsu. However, given enough time, it will feel pretty solid, just slower paced, which is somewhat frustrating for those who like the faster-paced style. However, when it comes to a choice between "Faster pacing" and "Usable by people with higher pings," I will always default to making the game friendly to higher pings over preserving faster playstyles, at least until the game can properly support said faster playstyles.

Overall there's a couple bad things that really make the class feel worse mixed in with a lot of good things that make the class feel better. It likely will need some refinement pushing forward, however, since it's a radical new direction for the class overall.

Tcj is perfect
Rest is fine imo nothing really jarring outside of some muscle memory stuff

I find that the only clunky part of the job is the Shadowfang not being able to be refreshed. The cool part is not having to use tenjijin or whatever to do the opener, which means you can use it instead to secure a second Bhacakavahagh (sp?) during the opening TA window. I don't have a parser, but using the savage dummies as a guide and without knowledge of the best new rotation for Ninja, I noted the dummies each die roughly 10 seconds faster than they used to.