On the proposed changes to Ninja in 6.1

[aloneatsea]

I will preface this by saying I am by no means an expert on the Ninja job, nor someone who has played it for a particularly long, and I do not profess to be. However, I am someone who has enjoyed Ninja for the entire length of time I have played this game, enough that I cleared the recent Savage tier and TEA with it, and I find the changes in 6.1 to be very concerning.


Another thing to note is that I am not concerned about the relative strength of Ninja as a job. How strong or weak a job is in relation to other jobs often comes down to raw numbers, and potency can be easily adjusted. I am mainly concerned about the play feel and identity of Ninja.



In the PLL 70, it was announced that Trick Attack would become a personal buff for the Ninja only, and Mug (120s) would instead become a party buff.

This change feels very sudden, and very unexpected. I think most people would agree that the 6.08 Ninja felt like it was in a relatively good spot -- especially compared to 6.0 release. While there might have been things that could have been tweaked, such as Ninki generation, it did not feel as if it was in need of major changes.

Firstly, Trick Attack is the only remaining 1 minute party damage buff remaining in the game. I understand that there were more buffs on strange/non-2-minute timers in the past, but at least for now, Trick Attack is the only 1 minute buff. When you look into things only at this level, it might be easier to think 'Trick Attack is strange', and have a change such as this be imagined as a result. However, I think most players would agree that Trick Attack is one of Ninja's most defining attacks -- if not the most defining. When I play with other players over voice call, 'when is Trick Attack up?' is something I hear very frequently.

Which brings me to my point: Trick Attack changes the way other players play their jobs when a Ninja is in the party. For example, I have had long discussions with friends of mine who play Reaper and Samurai about how best to optimise their resources to deal as much damage as they can during Trick Attack. It is also rewarding for jobs that have natural 1-minute burst, such as Gunbreaker, to have Trick Attack available.

These changes were supposedly made to increase Ninja's synergy with other jobs, but I argue this change will reduce Ninja's synergy with these jobs. Any job that has 1-minute burst now has no inherent synergy with any other jobs, and any job that needs to spend resources in between 2-minute party buffs now has no particular place to spend them. You could argue it makes these jobs more flexible, I suppose, but that flexibility remains simply by removing the Ninja from the party.

[aloneatsea]

Next, the changes for Ninja itself. The Ninja rotation has remained quite stable since 5.1, to my knowledge. You can use Suiton to prepare Trick Attack, use Spinning Edge and Gust Slash to gain 5 Ninki each, then weave Mug (+40 Ninki) and Bunshin (-50 Ninki), before using another GCD and weaving Trick Attack to begin bursting.

Both Mug and Trick Attack already have distinct identities as Ninja abilities. Mug allows you to recover 40 Ninki, which is great for building up before or during Trick Attack windows, and Trick Attack itself is the iconic burst window for the Ninja. Moving the party buff effect to Mug seems very strange for multiple reasons.

Firstly, Mug already has the identity of a Ninki gain ability. To additionally tie it to the activation of a party buff means the ability becomes quite overloaded, and also inconvenient. What if Mug is about to come off cooldown, but you already have 70 Ninki? If you do not want to overcap on Ninki, you are forced to spend some Ninki on Bhavacakra or Hellfrog Medium (or Bunshin), in order to keep alignment with party buffs of your party, when you may have otherwise been able to delay using Mug until within Trick Attack, and then be able to use Bhavacakra underneath Trick Attack for more damage.

It is possible that the Ninki gain effect could be moved to Trick Attack, but this does not really solve the above problem, as you will want to align Trick Attack with the Mug party buff, as well as keep in mind that Trick Attack is on a 60s cooldown, which is half that of Mug.

This is all speculation, but my point is not to exhaustively examine all potential options for adjusting these abilities, but rather to point out that they function very well as they are currently and it is not trivial to adjust them in a way that feels good or makes sense. It is very possible that the developers have in mind a perfect solution to the problem above.

[aloneatsea]

The next is concerning weaving windows during the Ninja opener. Typically, you will have two weave windows after a weaponskill, such as Spinning Edge or Raiju, and a single weave window after a Mudra, such as Raiton. If you are trying to put as many high-potency attack as possible into Trick Attack (and now the Mug buff), you have a very limited number of weaving windows.

An example of a typical opener will lead with Suiton (prepared while the countdown is ticking). The weave window after Suiton will be Kassatsu, to prepare a mudra. Then, you will do Spinning Edge -> (potion) -> Gust Slash -> (Mug -> Bunshin) -> Phantom Kamaitachi/Aeolian Edge -> (Trick Attack).

Trick Attack is placed on this GCD to align with the typical usage of party buffs by other players. Red Mages, Dancers, Summoners, Monks, Reapers etc will all typically use their 2-minute party buffs at this mark. As Ninja will want to align with this, I imagine you will want to weave both Mug and Trick Attack after your third GCD (Aeolian/Phantom), to maximise buff synergy. However, without the Ninki gain of Mug beforehand, you will not be able to activate Bunshin. While there is room (specifically after Hyosho Ranryu) to activate Bunshin without a dps loss, it makes this rotation much more rigid, and if later in the fight you need to repeat the opener (for example, at the 6 minute mark), means you will have less windows available to spend Bhavacakra, which is typically pooled for buffs.

Again, this is all potentially solveable. It is not the end of the world for this to occur, and it is manageable, but is less comfortable than Ninja's current state.


However, the last problem I see with the change to Ninja is simply identity. Mug as a skill feels much more like a Rogue skill than a Ninja skill, and does not have any connotations of providing a party buff. Trick Attack, however, definitely sounds like the kind of ability that would provide some kind of advantage, i.e. a buff. At least to me, it gives the impression of throwing sand in the eyes, or some other kind of 'Dirty Trick' which would lower the opponent's guard. Simply put, as a damage up buff, Trick Attack makes sense, and Mug does not. If it's impossible to avoid these changes, could we at least leave Mug as it is, and put Trick on a two-minute cooldown...?

[aloneatsea]

However, the two-minute party buff in and of itself is also a corrosion to Ninja's identity. At least for as long as I have played, Ninja has seemed to be considered a '1-minute job'. A one-minute party buff, many skills with a one-minute cooldown, though it has a few on longer cooldowns too, such a TCJ and Bunshin. Though I am not experienced enough with Reaper and Monk to definitively say what their distinguishing points from each other are, Samurai has the identity of the selfish melee dps, with no party buffs at all, only bringing pure damage to the party. Dragoon, on the other hand, grants the party critical up, as well having a single-target buff in the form of Dragon Sight. Alongside these two classes, I would say Ninja had the distinct identity of being the 'Trick Attack' job, with the one-minute party buff. With these changes, what about Ninja is different from Reaper or Monk? It deals damage, and grants the party a buff every two minutes.

Perhaps this is simply easier to balance for the developers, but I cannot understand why this change would be made. It seems as if the only difference between Reaper and Monk and Ninja now would be flavour -- personal preference. I thought the balancing numbers-wise was very good between all of the melee DPS as of 6.08, so I don't understand why they needed to be brought even closer together...

My word vomit aside, what do you think of the proposed changes to Ninja? Are you happy? Sad? Angry? Excited?

There is a lot we cannot know about it yet, as we have not seen the full scope of the changes, nor do we know the potency changes. This could be a straight buff to Ninja, or it could be a nerf. We can't know until the Patch Notes are released.

Despite this, I... feel very sad. I feel like the identity of my favourite job is being changed suddenly and without reason, and I really don't want that to happen. Before this Live Letter, I was really excited for the new Dragonsong War Ultimate, and now I'm not really looking forward to the release of 6.1...



Is it possible that something like this could be reverted...?

[Manofpassion]

I hope square Enix will revert these changes. When ninjas kicked up a fuss about 6 gapclosers in a row, it was fixed quite quickly. But considering how the devs seem to be hyper focused on making all buffs be on 2 minute timers, I think ninjas will be screwed over for at least a couple of patched, if not forever.

[Equitable_Remedy]

I'm just going to copy my response from the other sky-is-falling thread

I know that this is the internet and that the norm is to freak out before actually knowing what we're freaking out about, but might it make sense to actually wait for patch notes and try out the new build before definitively declaring that the sky is falling?

I'm old enough to remember when forums/Reddit/Balance declared that NIN was dead because of Raiju combo. I'm also old enough to remember when forums/Reddit/Balance declared that NIN was dead because of not Raiju combo. I'm also old enough to remember (because it's right now) when forums/Reddit/Balance declared that NIN was dead because of Mug.

Maybe take a breath, wait until we have patch notes, and then wait a little longer to actually play the game before collectively freaking out.

[dadong]

If no one screams the sky is falling, then no one will look.

[aloneatsea]

I'm just going to copy my response from the other sky-is-falling thread

The only providence patch notes will provide is solutions to the technicalities I listed above. Patch Notes will do little to change that fact that Trick Attack is no longer going to be a personal 1 minute party buff, which is my main issue. It's not a problem of balance, it's a problem of ideology. Patch notes might tell me how smoothly it will be implemented, but even if the new Ninja plays smooth as butter, it will not change the fact that it is more similar to Monk/Reaper, and no longer holds that which I (and many?) consider its core identity.


If the patch notes tell me they're walking back on the change however, I'll gladly concede I was wrong, and should have waited for patch notes.

[Manofpassion]

Apparently the jp ninja players are very displeased, so I'm optimistic they will walk it back. We might just be yelling into the wind in the English forums, but hopefully the jp bros will do what we can't.

[aloneatsea]

Something also to consider is how late these changes have been announced. It'll be very difficult to gear up another job for the new ultimate if you're not a fan of the changes. My group already needs to feed gear to our tank, so I'm effectively locked into playing Ninja for the ultimate, even though I really detest the sound of these changes.


Maybe it'll be strong, but does it matter if my job is good if I'm not having fun playing it...