Wait....where are the Ninjas?

[Hawuhawuu]

Most people gravitated towards reaper due to its low skill/ high dps playstyle. Ninjas are around but just the hardcore ninjas. Nin is strong but not rewarding. Its balanced around bis ta contribution which saw a drop in players. It does feel sad though that if my rotation is 98% perfect a rpr around 70% optimal will do the same damage. Ninjas not in a bad place but will prob not be the best dps option until crit scaling gets better towards the 2nd half of the ew. It needs some kind of buff to solve the high skill ceiling / low dps playstyle. Fights like p4s pinax really demand a lot higher skill out of a ninja as your trying to do your full burst rotation as the mechanics are going off compared to less button spam burst jobs. I would like to be able to out dps a monk only spamming kick but I guess its balanced since devs think so.

In short if your not committed to playing ninja to its fullest competitively then don't. All other melees will output more damage with lower skill levels required to outpace a ninja.

[Colt47]

There are no 70% optimal reapers. A reaper is either doing the rotation correctly and understands gluttony + arcane circle timings, or is not playing the job right at end game. It's just one of the better designed jobs they've done in a long time.

[Hawuhawuu]

There are no 70% optimal reapers. A reaper is either doing the rotation correctly and understands gluttony + arcane circle timings, or is not playing the job right at end game. It's just one of the better designed jobs they've done in a long time.

Should have specified percentile parses when comparing jobs. For what the job is capable of since your both competing to fill the same role. Outside of the rpr winning with more damage they also bring more healing utility over a ninja. While I understand every job is viable. On paper there is no reason why you would take a nin over rpr/mnk. They overall just contribute less to a group which is why we've seen a decline.

[Kolsykol]

Most people gravitated towards reaper due to its low skill/ high dps playstyle. Ninjas are around but just the hardcore ninjas. Nin is strong but not rewarding. Its balanced around bis ta contribution which saw a drop in players. It does feel sad though that if my rotation is 98% perfect a rpr around 70% optimal will do the same damage. Ninjas not in a bad place but will prob not be the best dps option until crit scaling gets better towards the 2nd half of the ew. It needs some kind of buff to solve the high skill ceiling / low dps playstyle. Fights like p4s pinax really demand a lot higher skill out of a ninja as your trying to do your full burst rotation as the mechanics are going off compared to less button spam burst jobs. I would like to be able to out dps a monk only spamming kick but I guess its balanced since devs think so.

In short if your not committed to playing ninja to its fullest competitively then don't. All other melees will output more damage with lower skill levels required to outpace a ninja.

Funnily enough I switched over to NIN from MNK and SAM this exp and I don't regret it.
I've played NIN since ARR tho but never as a main.

In regards to balance.
Imo Trick Attack should be strong enough that if everyone lines things up perfectly it should be top.
I dunno what the point even is with Trick Attack unless it has the potential to actually outweigh the damage sacrifice.
And very few parties would even be able to actually do it, but I think that the potential is what would make NIN more compelling.
As it is right now it feels more like you're playing a weaker Job and have to rely on others to minimize the con of having you in the party.

[Quyn]

Funnily enough I switched over to NIN from MNK and SAM this exp and I don't regret it.
I've played NIN since ARR tho but never as a main.

In regards to balance.
Imo Trick Attack should be strong enough that if everyone lines things up perfectly it should be top.
I dunno what the point even is with Trick Attack unless it has the potential to actually outweigh the damage sacrifice.
And very few parties would even be able to actually do it, but I think that the potential is what would make NIN more compelling.
As it is right now it feels more like you're playing a weaker Job and have to rely on others to minimize the con of having you in the party.

This is such a good point really. As it stands, Nin is a fair amount of effort and error punishment, for less rewards. I like the job to a degree but raiding on it stacks he odds a bit against my static, compared to the other melees.

[Nafreyu]

Ninja's honest to god have some of the best glams, and coolest animations.

I think though it's hard to compete with Reaper which is more straight forward, has an infinitely better looking weapon, and stance, and summons a ghost in combat.

It's hard to justify playing any other melee when the newest is just the best, all round.

[Hawuhawuu]

Ninja's honest to god have some of the best glams, and coolest animations.

I think though it's hard to compete with Reaper which is more straight forward, has an infinitely better looking weapon, and stance, and summons a ghost in combat.

It's hard to justify playing any other melee when the newest is just the best, all round.

I think you prob is that ninja only brings damage to the party and is the worst melee at damage. It needs utility or a dps buff. Every melee job is currently a better version of ninja. Ninja just increases the difficulty by making fights take longer / enrage timers harder.

[Aword3213]

As soon as they remove the naruto run, you will see an abundance of NINs. Trust me...

as a Hrothgar, my upper body could almost kiss the floor while sprinting.

I prefer Rogue running animation

[Colt47]

Ninja is probably one of the more fun jobs to play due to the ninjitsu. The problem with it is largely that the person playing ninja needs really good reaction times to pull it off since they are about keeping up a speed buff while dancing around different attacks. The ninjutsu isn't so much something a person weaves as does in place of a weave/GCD. At least that seems to be the intent.

[Hysorn]

I would say it's a combination of having a not so rewarding high skill celling gameplay with a very specific class fantasy that will either be hit or miss to a lot of people. Also, I am not sure how the class is rolling right now but it sucked hard at the beginning of the xpac.