The Problems With Ninja In Endwalker

[Satarn]

Garuda wouldn't be a problem your character doesn't charge forward all the way you can still hit them on the outer edge of their hitbox.

Edge of the hitbox is often still way too close. If you use Forked Raiju at max melee, it will move you and when you need to stay at max melee to live or not kill other members of your party (which is a case in numerous savage mechanics) then you won't be able to use it - now you can just use Fleeting instead. I can also tell you - you did not gap close and live on Garuda. "Edge of the hitbox" here is still very much in the death zone and I well remember both dying there on GNB gap closer and hearing DRGs bemoan this mechanic, esp with bad pf strats forcing melees on Garuda party in savage.

I don't think that regular melee attacks so to speak are inherently better than ones with gap-closers it's a matter of context, however I do think that it worked really well as a re-engage on NIN and made for a very fluid feeling in and out that actually lined up.

Of course they're not inherently better without context - which is why I said "in this regard". When you need to move, Forked will indeed be better, but that's the thing - you can still gap close with Forked, you just get a choice now instead of multiple back-to-back gap closers being forced on you.

Yes Raiju is a 1 spam. But it's still different than your 1 2 3 weapon skills and a change in pace and variety. I wouldn't have a problem with this either if they kept it as 2 stacks of Raiju, my primary issue is that it's 1 stack (and also weapon skills still break it ).

Matter of taste I suppose. I highly prefer to mix those 1234s with a couple 5s instead of just mashing 5 continuously. I find that to be more varied of the two. Also weaponskills breaking it is a non-issue now, because you can just use Fleeting same as a melee skill. It even eats a Bunshin stack.

Not really sure if you actually think that Ten Chi Jin is well designed either or if you're only defending it for the sake of disagreeing with me.

I don't see TCJ as an issue as much as a job mechanic to work around. The root is something I have to keep in mind, but the range makes the "temporary turret mode" useful in many situations as well. While it limits your movement, you can choose the spot you execute it at for yourself and it also doesn't take as long as 6 nearly back-to-back gap closers so it's far more flexible, it just requires a plan.

I can see how it may be frustrating in the chaos of Duty Finder, but I simply tend to not mind dps loses in casual content as I might as well lose far more dps due to getting deleted by a stray TB or any other reason. In EX/Savage/Ultimate, people shouldn't usually "randomly" run into you with a splash AoE, even in PF, making it a non-issue.

The only thing about TCJ is that they could maybe add a 0.5-1sec delay before it can be broken accidentally, because sometimes latency may cause the game to occasionally register you as still moving if you stopped right before executing the skill.