Ninja's Ninki Generation Problem Leading to Very Awkward Play Feel

[Xenon_S]

I should preface this by saying that Ninja as of patch 6.08 is fine damage wise. This is not meant to be a post about damage output, my focus is mainly on Ninja's play feel, which are of a more subjective nature. You may think that Ninja is completely fine, to which I mostly agree. But there are some oddities and tweaks that can be made so Ninja can feel even better. Now that's out of the way, let me get to my main point.


Main Point
- Currently Ninja's Ninki Generation is very lopsided, this results in the odd minute Trick Attack sequence being boringly uneventful, even minute Trick Attack sequence being disproportionately busy, and filler phases bordering on AFK.


Problems with odd minute Trick Attacks
- In terms of GCD, you always want to fit 1 Hyosho Ranryu (2.5s), 2 Raiton (5.0s), 2 Raiju (4.14s)
- This leaves 3.36 seconds remaining on TA, where you can fit two regular GCDs
- The only actions that generates Ninki during this sequence being the 2 Raiju and 2 GCD, where the ninki generated by that 2nd GCD will not fit inside the Trick window.
- Depending on what GCD falls into the Trick window, you will generate either 15, 20, or 25 Ninki
- Because the 123 GCD combo generates 5/5/15 Ninki, overcapping Ninki on Aeolian Egde or Armour Crush is disproportionately punishing.
- More often than not, assuming you are using Trick Attack strictly on CD, you will not be able to generate enough Ninki for one extra Bhavacakra from GCDs alone, meaning at most you can get 2 Bhavacakra in an Odd minute Trick Window, most of the time you only get 1.
- A standard Odd Minute Trick Attack sequence is as follows, with oGCD windows in parenthesis

(Trick Attack) - Hyosho Ranryu (Dream within a Dream) - Raiton (Bhavacakra) - Raiton (Bhavacakra?) - Raiju (2 empty weave windows) - Raiju (2 empty weave windows) - GCD (2 empty weave windows) - GCD (Trick Attack ends)

So as you can see, there are 9 oGCD windows in an odd minute trick (10 trick is early weaved and you double weave in there), but at most you only press 3 oGCD buttons.


Now, I'm not advocating that a Trick window should be filled to the brim with weaves, because that is what even minute windows look like and thus very unforgiving.



Problems with even minute Trick Attacks
- As established earlier, there is a 3.36 second window remaining on Trick after the standard fill of 1 Hyosho 2 Raiton 2 Raiju, which is enough time for Tenchijin.
- TCJ will take 1 oGCD window, it gives 1 oGCD window, and introduces 2 oGCD buttons in that of Meisui and 1 more Bhavacakra
- There is also Mug, which is 1 oGCD window, and more often than not generating enough Ninki for 1 more Bhavacakra
- Assuming you enter even minute trick with at least 55 ninki, it will look something like this

(Trick Attack) - Hyosho Ranryu (Dream within a Dream) - Raiton (Bhavacakra) - Raiju (Mug + TCJ) - Tenchijin (Bhavacakra) - Raiton (Meisui) - Raiju (Bhavacakra) (Trick Attack ends)

- If Trick is early weaved, there is a bit more flexibility, but compared to odd minute trick windows, even minute trick windows are disproportionately stricter and busier.



Problems with filler phase
- Given that Ninja wants to put all the big hits into Trick Attack, the filler phase consists of just going the 123 combo, spending Bhavacakra to avoid Ninki overcap, and doing 1 Suiton & Kassatsu to set up the next Trick Attack
- To some extent, hitting Bhavacakra does not have a good reward feedback because we know we cannot effectively pool it for the next Trick window
- Maintaining Huton is not really engaging either, at this point it is more of a chore than an active mechanic. I understand that it would be difficult to turn Huton into a trait given its interaction with Mudra, having it to solely be for a buff upkeep is just not interesting.



Problems with AoE Ninki Generation
- Ninki generation on AoE is just terrible, it takes 10 GCDs to build up to 1 Hellfrog Medium, and you will be prioritizing Doton/Katon anyway so that is even less Ninki.
- All the other melee DPS have faster (or at least the same) rate of resource generation in AoE rotation, Death Blossom/Hakke spam just doesn't feel as good, especially when tanks pull things out of your Doton.



Proposed solutions that won't require immediate reworks
- Normalize Ninki generation on GCDs, instead of 5/5/15, make it 10 across the board for all weapon skills, this way the punishment for overcapping Ninki on the 3rd GCD won't be as severe, and would help with pooling Ninki for Trick windows.
- Allow Ninjutsu actions to generate Ninki as well, perhaps 5 ninki per Ninjutsu.
- Reduce the CD of Mug and Bunshin to 60s. This will give the odd minute Trick windows more buttons to press, and generate more Ninki from Bunshin, without further burdening even minute Trick windows.



Problems requiring more extensive reworks, considerations for 7.0 perhaps

Huton
- As mentioned earlier, Huton upkeep is not engaging nor interesting.
- If we look at other DPS classes: MNK's greased lightning, DRG's Blood of the dragon, BLM's enochian have all been made into traits; MCH Hot Shot and BRD Straightshot have been removed and repurposed from simple damage multiplier; MNK's twin snake, DRG's disembowel, SAM's shifu&jinpu are all 2nd step combos that leads to something else, where the buff upkeep is not the main focus.
- It should be turned into a trait, and the Mudra input be repurposed into something else.
- Perhaps introduce a prepull/downtime tool similar to RPR's Soul Sow/Harvest Moon.


Tenchijin, specifically the Suiton from TCJ
- Previously in Stormblood, there is the option to use the suiton from TCJ to setup a Trick, or use TCJ in Trick for more damage, leaving a suiton hanging (or even just skipping that suiton)
- Meisui was introduced in Shadowbringers, and after adjustment so its CD aligns with TCJ, encourages the use of TCJ inside trick and consuming the suiton for extra Ninki.
- With TCJ raiton giving raiju, and meisui granting enhanved bhavacakra, the incentive to use TCJ in trick is even higher, but this leads to further button bloat and essentially punishes the use of TCJ/Meisui outside trick.
- This could be solved by repurposing Meisui into an attack button, eliminating the need to juggle ninki overcap and a subsequent cast of Bhavacakra
- Alternatively, since the idea is to use TCJ in trick anyway, take the Kassatsu route and upgrade the suiton in TCJ to something else, doing this will also eliminate meisui, freeing up a space on the hotbar.



TLDR/Conclusion
- Normalize Ninki Generation to 10 per weaponskill.
- Reduce Mug & Bunshin to 60s so odd minute trick windows are somewhat more engaging.
- Huton should be a trait, make the mudra combination do something else, maybe a downtime tool similar to soul sow, rework goal for 7.0
- Meisui or TCJ Suiton could be reworked to reduce button bloat.
- Ninja is mostly fine, but if you don't feel a little bad when you are 95/100 on Ninki and 2 GCDs away from Trick, I'm happy for you but this post is probably not for you.

[Theihe]

Very well thought out points, and although I'd like to add onto it- I am certainly not as formal or well spoken as you.


Huton
Moving Huton to 60 seconds as opposed to the previous 70 was a mistake. It has removed the leeway which used to be there, where you could move your positionals around to better work around boss positions- now you really do not have much of an option. Refresh it at 3 seconds or lose it.
You can no longer hold Huton through extended cutscenes (most notably TEA) and although one might think Hurajin would be a decent tradeoff- it's a bandaid fix to a problem which the developers themselves created. It also feels absolutely awful in content before lvl 54. Please revert it. The current state of it is stressful.
Huton to 60 is a change for change's sake. Do not change what isn't broken.


Mudras and the current state of Rabbit Medium
Hear me out, this shit has got to go.
Ninja is one of the most punishing jobs in this game. And I truly do mean that when I say it.
Mudra rollback, inputs skipping, not being able to queue abilities is clunky- and anyone who is fine with the current state of Mudras have Stockholm Syndrome.
Having to weave Trick second in your oGCD window and no longer having Shadow Fang as a reliable button to spam to ensure you won't clip is CLUNKY AND UNFUN.
Now I do understand that some people simply have better ping, but my ping is really good and even I have mudra inputs randomly skipping every few days. And if it happens to me I can't imagine how bad it is for some people.

The mudra system, in it's current state, is also very bad at translating information.

Clicked: Ten -> Chi- but you see Fuma? Well now you have to guess.
- Do you use that Fuma and guarantee potency?
- Do you hope that Ten counted and not Chi? Risk it and either get 650 potency + Raiju 560 potency or get 0.

Clicked: Ten -> Chi -> Ninjutsu -> Kassatsu- but Ninjutsu didn't activate? Well you just lost Kassatsu aswell as Raiton and Raiju.

Have Kassatsu up, do Ten -> Jin for Hyosho, see the icon for Hyosho? have Kassatsu fall off and use Hyoton.

"Don't be bad at the game" is not a viable argument, and you don't sound as smart as you think you do when you say it. I am good at the game. I am aware these issues can happen. My musclememory has been trained to work around this for thousands of hours. And it still happens.
I shouldn't feel like I need to tip-toe around my kit. I shouldn't feel like the abilities at my disposal try to work against me. And I sure as fuck shouldn't be punished with thousands of potencies lost because the server decided to have an epileptic attack and roll back my mudras.
Know what job also needs to combine buttons in a specific order? Dancer.
Know what Dancer lose if they click the wrong dance step? Nothing. Nothing at all. You can use Standard step then press 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 and still get the same ability, at the same potency. The only obvious downside being that you would lose time.

And the developers know this is a problem- which is why they don't let us bunny during TCJ. They know it's a problem. Created a fix for the problem. And then went halfway. Creating two separate rulesets for the same system. This is bad design.
It is unfun. Would the job be worse off if mudras were greyed out upon usage, just like they already are during TCJ?
It would be more intuitive, responsive, and would honestly make the entire job flow so much better.


Trick Clunk
You know that Trick that comes up 1 minute into the fight that doesn't properly align with your GCD? You either have to chill on the 2nd hit of your combo, stand around doing nothing, and then push Trick on cooldown to ensure you don't drift- or use it after the third hit, resulting in some drift, and less personal potency under trick.
Well in Shadowbringers the mudra that was left after your initial burst could be turned into a Doton. This would push your GCD 0.5 seconds forward, resulting in a perfectly timed trick. Well now with Raiju that is just straight up not happening. On that note- if I wanted discount fell cleaves I would play DRK.

This point isn't that expanded upon but it is honestly one of the things I miss the absolute most about this job currently. Freedom.

The new Huton is restrictive. The Raijus are restrictive. Mudras feel restrictive. The Ninki system is not only uninteractive it's also somehow restrictive.

The downtime in NIN, often cited as a negative aspect for many players, was what I loved about the job. And even then it was one of the highest APM jobs in the game. Now I have a burst that doesn't even fit under my own buff and it feels garbage.


Trick isn't "support".
Trick isn't support.
It's damage.
It is damage Ninja themselve doesn't bring- and in turn they need 7 other people to make up for it by actually press buttons.
If none of the 7 other people have a death debuff, damage down, bad gear, drifted their rotation and they actually use raidfood and pot during the correct window- only then does Ninja contribrute equal to their other melee counterparts.
You are giving up agency if you play Ninja. And you are gaining nothing.
It isn't a support job.
You know what ability NIN has that actively helps the team survive? Feint. Feint is a real support ability. And every single DPS has either exactly the same thing- or a better variant.


TLDR/End

All this busywork with the highest APM in the game, and all we got was:
Abilities that don't align with burst windows (Hello Bunshin).
An incredibly uninteractive gauge (Gain Ninki to spend Ninki to gain Ninki to spend Ninki to gain Ninki to spend it on Bunshin every 90 seconds- so that you can gain more Ninki so you can spend more Ninki).
Abilities that we click on once every 2 minutes that just clog hotbar space (Mug & Meisui) that do nothing but give us more Ninki so we can spend more Ninki.
A gapcloser you don't want to use since it would put you outside of oGCD range- so it would mean gutting your entire burst.
Huton at 60 seconds.
A new fancy action off of Bunshin that you don't want to put under Trick anyways since it's a loss.
AoE potencies gutted, so they gave us a fancy new trait to Doton (which has such a small range you can't catch all enemies in it anyways- that is if the tank doesn't pull them all straight out) which just barely makes up for the loss. (Hint: it doesn't.)

Ninja is currently the least played job in the game and it doesn't even get mentioned by the developers as a thing they want to look into.
The only reason people aren't complaining is because all the NIN mains left.

[Xenon_S]

Appreciate your detailed inputs, and I'm quite flattered that you think I'm well spoken XD.

And you hit the nail on the head, Ninja feels restrictive.

I can no longer freely disenage with a Raiton for minimum loss, that will cost me a whopping 650+560 potency inside trick.
I can no longer slightly overcap ninki to get more Bhavas in trick because GCD ninki generation is backloaded.
With everyone having 2min bursts, it becomes even more vital for us to get trick right on CD without any leeway of GCD optimization in trick.
Heck I even miss Dancing Edge, the option for a combo ender when I'm forced out of positionals, not to mention the beautiful animation.

[Elena_Farron]

Ninja feels restrictive.

I'm not sure if you understand the meaning of restrictive if I'm honest, since the current iteration of Ninja is anything but.

You can freestyle so much on Ninja even during burst windows which makes it so versatile, as well as nearly always having PK ready.

I can no longer freely disenage with a Raiton for minimum loss, that will cost me a whopping 650+560 potency inside trick.

You do realize that Trick is only a 5% buff right. Using a raiton + raiju outside of trick doesn't suddenly make that potency go away. If you even cover like half a gcd worth of downtime it's already worth it to use raiton as a disengage. That far outweighs the 5% bonus potency you'd get from putting those skills in trick. Uptime > All.

I can no longer slightly overcap ninki to get more Bhavas in trick because GCD ninki generation is backloaded.

If you were ever overcapping Ninki just to get bhavacakras in trick you were doing it way wrong to begin with, even back in Shadowbringers. This is never a thing any job wants to do because of the uncertainty of killtimes and how even overcapping 5 Ninki could lose you a full bhavacakra usage in the worst case scenario.
Besides any overcap also affects trick windows later down the line.

With everyone having 2min bursts, it becomes even more vital for us to get trick right on CD without any leeway of GCD optimization in trick.

You would do this anyways. Every raid buff does this. Because it's a raid buff, you use it on CD because it makes it easier for everyone to anticipate your buff timing.

You would never delay trick (or any raidbuff for that matter) to optimize your own potency within it. You can do that with personal buffs, but even then you need to know what you're doing because you run the risk of losing usages again.

I have trouble understanding your philosophy in general...

[Xenon_S]

You can freestyle so much on Ninja even during burst windows which makes it so versatile, as well as nearly always having PK ready.

Let's take a look at even minute trick attack windows then

You want the following "GCDs": 1 Hyosho (2.5s), 2 Raiton (5.0s), 2 Raiju (4.14s), 1 Tenchijin (3s)
and the following off GCDs: DWAD, Mug, TCJ, Meisui, 3 Bhavas (if you entered trick with at least 50 ninki)

Points to consider
- All the ninjutsu action have only 1 weave spot
- Tenchijin cannot be used near the end because we need 2 weave slots for meisui + buffed Bhava
- 1 Bhava needs to be used early to avoid Mug/Meisui overcapping ninki
- You don't have access to a double weave window (raiju) until you use raiton
- The first GCD action must be a Hyosho because Kassatsu was used previously, rendering both normal raiton and tcj unavailable
- You want to use a normal ninjutsu early, because TCJ lasts 3 seconds and can lead to charges overcapping

So here is what you can do

(Trick Attack) - Hyosho (DWAD) - Raiton (Bhava) - Raiju (Mug + TCJ) - Tenchijin (Bhava) - Raiton (Meisui) - Raiju (Bhava) (Trick ends)

Alternatively, if you double weave Trick on the previous GCD (which is not always possible as it can come up on the 2nd weave spot)

(Trick + Bhava) - Hyosho (DWAD) - Raiton (TCJ) - Tenchijin (Meisui) - Raiton (Bhava) - Raiju (Mug+Bhava) - Raiju (trick ends)

While there is more flexibility in the 2nd option, which I have acknowledged in my main post, it requires the trick to be the early weave, and that is not always possible.
On top of that, outside of downtime, the order of Mug/TCJ/Meisui is set strictly throughout the encounter, because you will be using them as they come off cooldown while trick is underway
Which means unless you are coming out of a downtime and going into trick with all of them off cooldown already, you cannot freestyle.

And for the record, I am in favour of Ninja burst being busy, Heck I want the odd minute to be busier. But Meisui is just lazy button bloat.

[Xenon_S]

As for your other points

Regarding Disengage
- Let me put it this way, right now you lose more disengaging with raiton to keep uptime compared to with ShB, because Raiju is tied to Raiton and you cannot hold Raiju effectively.
- The other tool for a free disengage is PK which is only available once every 90 seconds.
- Trick is 5%, it also lines up with other 2min party buffs, and buffs apply multiplicatively. On top of which, Raiton+Raiju are high potency skills which benefits more from crit/DH.
- Uptime is good, I agree. But using Raiton for disengage makes it so that Raiju also falls out of buffs, which subjectively feels bad to do, even if it is objectively better than straight up losing uptime.


Regarding Ninki overcap
- Uncertain kill time is not an issue with an optimized group, and I am not advocating to always overcap ninki to fit in trick.
- As far as I am aware, it is standard affair for BRD to treat Apex arrow as a 1min CD and overcap their song gauge to fit it inside raid buffs.
- Back in StB where ninki was tied to AAs, as awkward of a design that was, there are cases where you would overcap if a Bhava can fit inside trick as long as it doesn't cost a use.
- Again, I'm not advocating for you to stay overcapped on ninki and use Bhavas exclusively in trick. please do not misconstrue my point.


Regarding Trick Strictly on CD
- Using trick strictly on CD means you press it regardless of what your current GCD spin is.
- Sometime it will be on the first weave window, sometimes second, and sometimes it will cause clipping, which doesn't feel good.
- Again, I'm not advocating that you always delay trick to optimize your own damage under it, every even min trick window is identical and there are only 2 free GCD in odd min trick anyway, so there really isn't anything that can be done.

I have trouble understanding your philosophy in general...

My "philosophy", if you choose to call it, is thus
- I want ninja gameplay to feel better and be more engaging outside of once every 2 minutes.
- Hitting 95 ninki and your next GCD is AE into Trick feels bad because there is the looming sense that there was nothing you could've done to get that Bhava inside trick.
- Odd minute trick windows only have 2-3 off GCDs to press feels boring compared to even minute trick windows.

[Quyn]

snip

I find myself agreeing with this post. Very well written as well.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Two thoughts:

1) I find it conflicting to both complain that there's not enough to do outside of trick and complain that it's best to hit some bhavas outside of trick. Aesthetically, I don't see why ninki generation needs to result in exactly trick-aligned bhavas; the potency of bhava v. speed of ninki generation and lining up with trick is a separate question (since, for instance, ninki generation could be changed to align bhavas with trick and potency could be adjust to make it DPS-neutral).

2) I strongly disagree that NIN needs more outside of trick. The strength of the class system is exactly that classes can vary along different metrics (for instance, pacing) and players can find the classes that they like most. NIN is a class with high APM in and around trick and low APM outside of trick while having one-minute trick windows. Lots of other DPS classes have smoother APM over the course of their rotations, and I think that the variety is itself valuable to maintain. I'm someone for whom NIN pacing works really well, and homogenizing toward the median APM through the rotation would make the game less fun for me.

[Theihe]

Two thoughts:

1) I find it conflicting to both complain that there's not enough to do outside of trick and complain that it's best to hit some bhavas outside of trick. Aesthetically, I don't see why ninki generation needs to result in exactly trick-aligned bhavas; the potency of bhava v. speed of ninki generation and lining up with trick is a separate question (since, for instance, ninki generation could be changed to align bhavas with trick and potency could be adjust to make it DPS-neutral).

2) I strongly disagree that NIN needs more outside of trick. The strength of the class system is exactly that classes can vary along different metrics (for instance, pacing) and players can find the classes that they like most. NIN is a class with high APM in and around trick and low APM outside of trick while having one-minute trick windows. Lots of other DPS classes have smoother APM over the course of their rotations, and I think that the variety is itself valuable to maintain. I'm someone for whom NIN pacing works really well, and homogenizing toward the median APM through the rotation would make the game less fun for me.

Pretty solid points, these are my two cents as I am in no way shape or form a spokesperson for the entire playerbase yada yada yada.

1)
I personally don't mind that there's a downtime outside of TA where we have to use Bhavas; not entierly atleast. There is an issue with player perception though. "Use X thing under Y and do more dmg, use X thing outside of Y and do less dmg". It feels bad. In ShB NIN's burst was tightly tuned to be exactly as long as it had to be in order for everything to fit under the window (outside of the occassional Bhava you had to spend outside)- but now the burst window is so long that Trick literally cannot catch all of it. And it feels really really bad.
Making it DPS neutral isn't possible due to the way TA functions- although it would be very much ideal.

2)
I agree with this, and it's very well formulated.

[Xenon_S]

Two thoughts:

1) I find it conflicting to both complain that there's not enough to do outside of trick and complain that it's best to hit some bhavas outside of trick. Aesthetically, I don't see why ninki generation needs to result in exactly trick-aligned bhavas; the potency of bhava v. speed of ninki generation and lining up with trick is a separate question (since, for instance, ninki generation could be changed to align bhavas with trick and potency could be adjust to make it DPS-neutral).

2) I strongly disagree that NIN needs more outside of trick. The strength of the class system is exactly that classes can vary along different metrics (for instance, pacing) and players can find the classes that they like most. NIN is a class with high APM in and around trick and low APM outside of trick while having one-minute trick windows. Lots of other DPS classes have smoother APM over the course of their rotations, and I think that the variety is itself valuable to maintain. I'm someone for whom NIN pacing works really well, and homogenizing toward the median APM through the rotation would make the game less fun for me.

Thank you for your response, a few points I would like to clarify.
1. My main issue with ninki generation is that, with AE/AC giving 15, you are punished more if you overcap ninki with AE/AC. In this sense, I perceive hitting Bhavas out of trick as something that I have to do to avoid overcapping ninki, a somewhat negative association, as opposed to simply hitting it for damage.

2. My argument is not that ninja needs more buttons out of trick, but rather that the filler phase is not really engaging. Given how majority of ninja's damage comes from non-GCD abilities, you can effectively AFK during the filler phase, do 1 huraijin and 1 suiton, and the Trick window will be more or less the same minus 1 or 2 Bhavas. I'm also not arguing for ninja APM to be normalized, if anything the root of my complaints is that odd minute Trick windows being too tame.