The Mug change, predictably, feels like garbage.

[aloneatsea]

The thing is that Leveling is actually forever because level sync exists.

This is honestly a very good point! I don't make a habit of running sub-level content often beyond Ultimates, but it'd be remiss of me to dismiss the fact that roulettes exist, and of course old Ultimates will always be 'relevant' content synced to 70/80/90.

That said, I still think the focus of balancing should be towards level 90 content or 'relevant' content. I think it's fine if a fight that is no longer endgame becomes somewhat unbalanced. Like I said, obviously, don't ruin the experience, but I still don't think that making huge sacrifices on the part of current content is fair, when those who run older content (with the exception of, say, min-ilvl no echo runs of old savage/extremes) are not likely looking for tightly tuned content, which is what the purpose of balancing serves. When I go into levelling roulette, I want my tomestomes ASAP and then I want out.

To make it super clear, I'm not advocating for ignoring balancing during levelling, not at all. I just think that balancing for the current endgame should always be the priority.

If you can't get the flavor of your job fantasy, no amount of retuning will feel good. The same applies to ninjas with their assassin job fantasy here. It feels like utter garbage to play as an assassin role that is known for going solo, but not have the ability to properly assassinate the enemy because a large portion is just made up from having allies to do it for you.

I think is the core of our disagreement. You believe (if I'm not misunderstanding you, in which case please correct me if I am) that 14's Ninja job fantasy is about being a solo assassin that can take down a target from the shadows? I believe the 14's Ninja job fantasy is about hitting a target's weak spot, and following up with high burst damage.

I don't understand where your notion of 'going solo' is coming from. FF14 Ninja is notably heavily inspired by Naruto, and while I've never seen the show, my impression from years of osmosis is that they operate both in teams and solo sometimes. Even historical Ninjas often worked in teams. The Hollywood notion of a Ninja is definitely assassin-like, but my impression of Ninjas is japan is that they functioned more as spies -- support roles, if you would.


While the fantasy of a solo assassin is cool, I don't think it really fits a multiplayer game either, and I think the developers are aware of that -- which is why hitting a weak spot, doing a lot of burst, and letting your allies follow up is a bit more fitting to an MMO whilst still holding true to that Ninja job fantasy.

Something closer to a 'solo' job sounds more like a Samurai to me - a job that can consistently output high damage, and will generally win in both short-term and sustained fights. They have a ton of burst, too.

5.0 ninja was actually very weak. They got buffed heavily in 5.08 5.1 ninja was when it felt strong because Trick Attack overall rDPS got nerfed (10% to 5%) and the overall toolkit had been buffed to compensate. - Aka rebalancing Trick Attack to increase ninja's personal damage.

Ah, yes. You'll note I specifically said Ninja has been strong since 5.1, not 5.0, which lines up perfectly with what you're saying. I don't think we have any disagreements here?

And that's the thing. Because of how prominent Trick Attack was to raiding, Ninja ended up developing a trick attack identity. People hated ninja when ninja wasn't a trick attack identity.

Do you have a bit more supporting evidence for this? Trick Attack has been a part of the kit since Day 1. We haven't had a Ninja without Trick. The job is very literally designed around its existence.

However that's not the only identity that makes up a ninja. It's two core identities were always - support + fast paced high burst DPS via through melee or ranged (due to assassin job fantasy).

I think we're in agreement here!

If Trick Attack became too impactful, ninjas basically put in a ton of work on their core rotation for low DPS. That's why there were plenty of problems with balancing ninja to not just be a "trick attack" job for raiding and to make their own damage toolkit still impactful.

This is a problem that will always exist so long as any job has any buff. Currently, only two jobs provide meaningful buffing outside of the obligatory 2-minute button press. There's 17 whole other jobs which don't need to do that. I personally don't see the problem with letting those who enjoy buffing continue to buff, and those who enjoy playing selfish DPS to go and play jobs like Machinist, or Samurai, or Black Mage.

The thing that gets me about arguments about how much damage you're dealing overall is that... at least for me, personally, how much damage I deal doesn't impact how much I enjoy the class? I liked Ninja in Shadowbringers, I liked it in 6.0, I liked it in 6.05, and I liked it in 6.08, too. I was playing a class that had powerful burst that played well into raid buffs, and I was bringing along the king of all raid buffs to boot. I don't consider Ninja having high APM to be 'working harder' for 'less DPS'. Ninja hasn't been weak except in 6.0, and maybe 6.05.

The thing is, is that everyone definition of 'work hard' is different. For some people, jobs with high APM mean 'working hard'. I disagree. I'm just pressing the same buttons over and over, but faster. Ninja is not a hard job, despite what people who don't play Ninja will tell you. I think jobs with a flexible rotation that needs to adapt and change to maximise their DPS, such as Black Mage, is a good example of 'being rewarded for working hard'. You can play a very standard Black Mage, where you Blizzard 3 -> Blizzard 4 -> Thunder 4 -> Fire 4 x3 -> Paradox -> Fire 4 x3 -> Despair -> Repeat, but you can also do crazy stuff with different lines, making use of Transpose. Ninja just doesn't have that level of complexity. It would be amazing if it did, but currently it doesn't.

Ninja is an easy job. That's the way it is. I would say, in fact, Ninja is probably the easiest DPS to play at a high level. It has infinite disconnect options, an incredibly static rotation, and all the recovery tools you could possibly need. The only things that might be hard about it could be getting used to the pace you need to hit your mudras, because that is, admittedly, pretty janky. You're always going to dump the same abilities into Trick, the order in which you do so doesn't really matter, and all you need to do is hit your cooldowns on time, and don't overcap on Ninki.

And that's ignoring the fact that Ninja already deals shittons of damage. Your rDPS is your DPS. It's not worth less because you made your teammates stronger. If we balanced the game around every job having a 'satisfactory' amount of DPS that doesn't come from raid buffs, nobody would have raid buffs. Or, everyone would have the same raid buff, which is a reality we are getting scarily close to, what with 12/19 jobs have a 2-minute buff of some variety. The other 9 jobs? Don't have raid buffs.

I don't play ninja for trick attack only, I play it because I want that assassin job fantasy outside of raiding.

PVP is pretty much the only place in this game where an assassin job fantasy is going to make sense. I would say 'assassin' is the role of Ninjas, Samurais, and maybe Dragoons in PVP. It works, because you have a lot of high-value targets to kill, with a limited amount of HP.



I already went over why I don't think Ninja has or has even had an 'assassin' fantasy in PVE content, so I'll that there.

I might want to support my teammates sometimes, but I also want to feel impactful when I'm doing solo stuff because this is a job that is supposed to be able to annihilate an enemy instantly when they use their entire burst.

I mean, what aren't you killing in solo with Trick + your full burst? Ninja has some of, if not the single highest burst in the game. If you're not killing it with Ninja, it wasn't designed to be assassinated.

And honestly, sometimes it doesn't feel like that. Sometimes I use my entire burst and the enemy's still kicking, hale and hearty. It really puts ninja's job fantasy in a weird place for that reason because of how much Trick Attack makes up for ninja's damage. Raiding should not be the only thing that influences a job identity if the job fantasy doesn't align with the identity.

You keep saying that Trick 'makes up for' Ninja's damage, but Ninja once again, already has good damage. It has incredible burst, and once that burst is over, it has low sustained damage until you can burst again, which is about as close to an assassin as you can really get in a game with elongated PVE encounters.

The only way to fix the problem you're describing would be to increase Ninja's sustained damage, at which point it's not really a Ninja anymore, or to increase Ninja's burst -- which would be absolutely catastrophic for game balance. Ninja is, as it stands, is the single best job for feeding into two-minute raid buffs. It is absurdly broken. I cannot emphasize enough to you how gross Ninja's burst is. Making it burst even harder (presumably at the cost of sustained damage) would make it a must-pick on every single team because the value it brings during in raid buffs would be astronomical.

Once again -- Ninja already has the strongest burst in the game. If you can't burst something down with a Ninja, you can't burst it down period.

It's why I think PvP makes ninja exactly that good. You still get lots of support utility (Raiju stun, Doton heavy + Goka Mekkyaku synergy, Huton shield + movement speed buff, Meisui healing buff, damage up via mug) but your utility is all focused on enhancing yourself and becoming more impactful / flexible to adjust to the situation. It captures the essence of the job fantasy without losing any value as a support-based job. The problem is that this can't translate well into PvE due to how static and inflexible job design & encounter design has been.

Completely agree! PVP Ninja is super fun, and I love the versatility of your kit. I will say that none of your support options feel super impactful, but the fact is is that they're there! PVP Ninja is the closest to a true 'assassin' with their ult -- being able to finish off any low-HP is very assassin-like, in my opinion. Like you said, though, this is impossible to translate over to PVP.

Dancer and Bard are known for being a support ranged job that supports their allies' DPS in particular, which is why their personal DPS is generally much lower as a result. They have multiple skills designed to be support oriented for a team setting. However, ninja doesn't fall into this category of being a job that solely supports their team.

I don't see why you're making this distinction between Dancer, Bard and Ninja. Dancer and Bard press a few more buttons and buff a little harder, but Ninja still has to (or used, to) Suiton -> Trick to buff the team. It also does that every minute on the minute. Dancer and Bard do have sustained buffs, but they're unique to them. Ninja's team support makes completely for a Ninja. Hit a weak spot, open up a vulnerability for your team, and burst hard until your opponent recovers, then repeat when you next can hit a weak spot. Why does the number of abilities matter? Should not the impact or value these abilities bring be a bigger deciding factor?

Ninja is the only job that holds two unique identities that counteract each other. In the past, Ninjas focused on support - yes, but that support also aligned to their personal DPS. In the past, they had Slashing debuff and dripping blades. While some jobs can take advantage to their slashing debuff, their debuff solely exists to help them - with Fuma Shuriken being used often over Raiton for clipping as it benefitted from both slashing debuff and dripping blades. Their whole toolkit - from support to damage all amalgamated to give that quick and high burst DPS job fantasy, which is what made it fun to play in a party setting and in solo instances. No matter where, they always had a toolkit that fit their job fantasy.

Ninja definitely has two identities in a sense, but I disagree that they counteract. I think they complement each other, as I've detailed up above.

You could argue that Ninja used to support more with Slashing debuffs, but many, many jobs had a way to apply a debuff that supported the team. Not to mention, WAR could also apply Slashing, couldn't it? It's technically more ways to support your team, but this isn't exactly unique to Ninja. I do empathise mourning a job gone by, and I personally think these types of debuffs are interesting, but unfortunately SE has stated their intent to be rid of them entirely. I'd be very surprised to see them come back .

Outside of the Slashing debuff, what else did Ninja have that made them feel better in solo instances? If anything, Trick Attack was even more powerful than it was back, so wouldn't Ninja personal DPS have been lower? You said so yourself -- in 5.1 Ninja's personal damage was increased, and Trick's potency was lowered. So -- what, exactly made it better in solo content? To me it just sounds like the problem you're describing would have been even worse, but maybe there's something I'm missing.

If you asked me what changed from ARR to Shadowbringers, it's that ninja became more streamlined and removed a lot of personal support buffs to directly increase their overall DPS per skill. Trick Attack was the only support buff that still exist as a result. However, Shadowbringers still kept their core job fantasy of being a high damage assassin via Hyosho Ranryu.

Okay, what? You talk about how Ninja lost all its support skills, and then you say it managed to 'maintain' its high damage assassin fantasy via Hyosho? You just finished saying it used to be more supportive. It's not keeping anything, my guy. It's losing its support identity piece by piece.

Even then, it took some work to adjust ninja to feel powerful. On its initial release, ninja was actually undertuned again when mudras moved over to a GCD-centric gameplay and went through multiple patches and buffs to make it feel good again for leveling - without just trick attack padding.

I mean, 5.0 Ninja was just horrendously undertuned across the board. It did less rDPS than Bard.

From Shadowbringers to Endwalker, we just lost flexibility to account for the big DPS gains other jobs have (raiju being lost upon using another weaponskill and Phantom Kamaitachi being an underwhelming skill on release).

Hard disagree. Raijus are fine as they are -- it would be nice QOL if they didn't drop, but all other similar GCDs do (reaper's gallows/gibbet, for example), so I don't see the issue. Phantom has always been an amazing ability -- not having to spend a Raiton outside of Trick to handle disconnects means that even if it only had the potency of Spinning Edge, it would still be fantastic.

Ninja is more flexible than it's ever been, what with all of our disconnect options. The only place we've lost flexibility is with our burst windows. We have to press Mug on cooldown now, which means we can't stock up Bhavacakras for burst. Feels pretty awful, quite frankly.

It honestly felt like they were trying to balance Ninja's rDPS because of how much stronger Trick Attack was, but our overall DPS didn't change much. It was after multiple adjustments on these skills that we got ninja's overall DPS back to where it was again - which is also due to its dual identity as an high burst DPS assassin. On Dragon Song Reprise release though, Trick Attack's damage got moved to mug - which I believe is exactly because of the issue of how impactful their RDPS was in relation to its personal DPS.

I'm not really sure what argument you're making here? Ninja was weak and underperforming, so it got buffed. The skills that were buffed were Hyosho and our core GCDs. One ability we use in burst, and four we typically only use outside of burst.

It also wasn't on DSR release, it was with 6.1. DSR came out with 6.11. I know myself and other Ninja mains were hoping for more meaningful changes to fix its current gameplay, but nothing came.

I would be fine if there was a job that was more support oriented than personal DPS oriented, but that's not what ninja's job fantasy is.

According to who? You've said yourself multiple times that Ninja has had a 'dual identity' of being a support and a high-burst job. You've said yourself that Ninja used to have many more support options.

Forgive if I'm misunderstanding you, but to me it just sounds like you want Ninja to be something it's never been.

It would be great if it can have both, but it becomes an issue later down the line, I am more willing to move the trick attack's raidwide debuff and have another job be what ninja couldn't if it becomes too much of an issue with its job fantasy.

It can have both. It's historically had both, and been very successfully. It performed well all through SHB post 5.1, without being absurdly broken. It also performed well in 6.05 and 6.08 without being absurdly broken.

My final hard disagree is that -- actually, no. Ninja should be a support job. It should revolve around Trick and its mudras (which are pretty inseparable). We already have four other melee DPS with high personal damage. We don't need to force Ninja to fit into personal DPS mold, when it's never fit there before.

You can't have an assassin in content where the point is to kill a boss with a huge HP pool over the course of 6-10 minutes. Assassination is just incompatible with this sort of context. You can, however, have a high-burst job which deals good damage, and can hit a weak point to support their teammates -- which is what Ninja has always been, and what I would it to continue to be.