Shadowbringers Ninja Job: Complaints, Feedback, and Suggestions

[Eorzean_username]

Do you currently enjoy playing Ninja in Shadowbringers?

Not really, no. I've pretty much lost interest in using it at all, for any kind of content.

However, to be clear, I don't think that the current version of Ninja is "bad", per se:

• It's not a design disaster.
• It's completely "usable".
• Numerically, it pulls its weight well in raid instances.
• Its rotation is not particularly obnoxious to play.
• For the most part, it's not unfairly difficult, either.
• And the design isn't problematic enough to be considered "unfun", in my opinion.

Instead, I think that the key word that I would use for the current version of Ninja is "disappointing". And in that sense, I find Shadowbringers Ninja very disappointing:

• Post-5.10 Ninja doesn't feel at all like the Job that it used to be.
• Ninja has drifted a very far distance from its initial roots in the ARR Rogue Class introductory experience, and that initial introduction now feels very misleading.
• Ninja does not feel like it satisfies the fantasy niche that it was originally intended to, and is one that FFXIV is distinctly missing: the traditional "Thief", "Rogue", "Assassin".
• A great deal of aspects about the rotation do not feel comfortable or satisfying to perform any more, especially compared to previous Ninja designs.
• Other aspects of Ninja's design have been problematic since their inception, and either remain unaddressed, or have been compounded over time.
• A lot of the Ninja toolkit does not have a satisfying place in AOE situations, such as the entire "Trick Attack" / "Vulnerability Up" window.

In this post, I would like to try to explore why Ninja no longer feels as appealing and fun as it used to. I would also like to explore ways that Ninja could be refined and improved from its current state, preferably without rebounding the design back into having the historical design issues that the aggressive Patch 5.10 changes attempted to address.