The changes to Trick Attack impacts every class, and not in a good way.

[baklava151]

In the end we all are talking about numbers. The whole topic is about those numbers and how badly other classes suffer because they lost their odd minutes damage buffer. Personally I like those changes. Primarily at level 50-60 I like having that additional button that actually does something all while being stronger if a bit more selfish about it.

OP's originally point was about gameplay and describing how TA existed as a way for classes to break up the time between two minutes and give them a spot to dump excess resources as well as lining up with certain one-minute abilities to give them more oomph. Which yeah affects numbers but not in any significant way as opposed to the gameplay impact.

[aloneatsea]

On the usage of Trick Attack by certain jobs, SGE wouldn't burn Toxikon II as it has equal potency to their filler, it's Phlegma III that they would burn under Trick Attack, and they should have at least one for every application. For AST, Earthly Star happens to also have a cooldown of 60s, which lines up well. For BRD, they generate enough gauge for an Apex/Blast Arrow for every Trick Attack application.

Small corrections aside, I agree with OP, Trick Attack was a valuable resource for every job, not just the ninja, removing it made no sense and also made gameplay more boring to optimise.

Confirming the loss of optimizatoon for MCH as well. I'd always have an 80 gauge queen + Reass Chain Saw + HC window exactly at the odd minute mark for the extra aDPS. Sadly it's gone now.

Thank you for your corrections! I've updated my leading post accordingly.

I'll be a bit cynical here... So which of those classes (bar healers since at that point we'll probably take anything if it means we have something to do other than the barebone DPS rotation) is willing to take a dip in their aDPS to boost others? Genuinely asking here because most often I see Ninja Changes viewed by this prism and not the class itself (other than having more stiff Ninki management once that becomes a thing)

aDPS rewards you for playing into raid buffs, so absolutely 0 jobs would suffer an aDPS loss for playing into Trick Attack. In fact, removing Trick Attack is an indirect nerf to many classes in terms of aDPS.

Numbers, however, are really not my concern. I made this thread to express my concern about the changes to Trick in a more holistic way. Centering concerns around Ninja didn't capture the full changes, and led to arguing over "these changes are good because Ninja is stronger now!!" which is, in my opinion, both shortsighted and rather irrelevant to the quality of any particular job. Numbers are the easiest thing to adjust when it comes to job changes.

Centering the changes to Trick Attack around how it affects how every class plays, I hope, will encourage more thinking about rotations, gameplay feel, and synergy between classes -- the very reason cited for this change in the first place.

[Jaquan]

Thank you for your corrections! I've updated my leading post accordingly.



aDPS rewards you for playing into raid buffs, so absolutely 0 jobs would suffer an aDPS loss for playing into Trick Attack. In fact, removing Trick Attack is an indirect nerf to many classes in terms of aDPS.

Numbers, however, are really not my concern. I made this thread to express my concern about the changes to Trick in a more holistic way. Centering concerns around Ninja didn't capture the full changes, and led to arguing over "these changes are good because Ninja is stronger now!!" which is, in my opinion, both shortsighted and rather irrelevant to the quality of any particular job. Numbers are the easiest thing to adjust when it comes to job changes.

Centering the changes to Trick Attack around how it affects how every class plays, I hope, will encourage more thinking about rotations, gameplay feel, and synergy between classes -- the very reason cited for this change in the first place.

You're not wrong. Except from my noobish perspective it's concern for relatively small side - end game raiders. Statics that actively work together. In those groups? Sure Old Trick Attack would do wonders ensuring that Ninja's personal DPS loss (and whether we like it or not Suiton -> Trick attack was a personal damage loss for Ninja). In other groups? Random parties that clear other content like older Raids, Extremes etc? You're gambling. You hope your party will notice your damage buff and adjust accordingly and it's not always going to happen. In general for the part I'm mostly concerned with as new player? The change is a plus. Partially because it patches the glaring hole in Ninja's skill progression. Like seriously you get Mug at level 15 and it remains a dead skill for 2 enitre expansions and a majority of base MSQ of the third. I get that you at max level don't care as you view the class as a whole but from progression point of view? It's a big plus

[aloneatsea]

snip for character limit

I agree that for the vast majority of the levelling process, Mug feels and is essentially worthless (aside from on the free trial, if you're a crafter, and you're trying to level LTW/WVR... ask me how I know...). I'm not sure that making a change that impacts the entire collective of classes is the solution for a problem that only affects Ninja for a limited period of time. In my opinion, Mug should upgrade into a more Ninja-like ability, and have some kind of interaction with the kit -- whether it be keeping the Ninki gain, or something else -- or just be deleted.

You're also wrong in that Suiton -> 5% Trick is a DPS loss for the Ninja. Suiton and Trick (when the rear positional) is hit are both 500 potency each, for 1000 potency together. Assuming we're in single target, the only other combination you'd be expending mudras on is Raiton + Raiju. Calculating how much of a gain a Raiju is is somewhat complicated (it depends on what GCD you finish on), so for the purposes of explaining lets assume Raiju is just a flat gain in potency. So, Raiton + Raiju is 650 + 560 = 1210 potency. This means Trick Attack's 15s duration only needs to gain you 210 potency to break even. Consider that Hyosho will be ((1300 * 1.3 = 1690) * 0.05 = 84.5) an 84 potency gain by itself, I'm sure can you start to see that Suiton + Trick is a huge potency gain, even if all of your teammates decide to stop attacking during Trick.

Assuming you're getting in a Hyosho + two Raiton + two Raiju in every Trick window, 5% Trick will give you 205.5 extra potency from those attacks - +1000 potency from Suiton -> Trick = 1205.5 potency. That's only 4.5 potency away from Raiju, you still have ~6 seconds in Trick Attack left, so even alone Suiton -> Trick is still a gain.

You're correct in that when pugging, relying on people to feed into your buffs to maximise your value is a risk. However, this is true of every class that buffs significantly. Bard and Dancer also struggle with this. The great part about Ninja is that Ninja is very good at taking advantage of buff windows, as it bursts so much in Trick, which lessens the impact. Of course, this relies on your teammates putting up their own buffs on cooldown, but I personally like to assume the best of my teammates, and have a little faith in them. I've cleared all of the "hardcore" content I've done in PUGs, and had a pretty good experience while doing it. You're always going to get teammates you don't mesh with, but that's just the luck of the draw. Sometimes, you'll get a bunch of really great players.


I'm also not convinced it helps progression very much at all, given that Mug is a single-target party buff on a long cooldown. When levelling, you're spending much of your time in dungeons, and very little time in 8+ man content outside of daily roulettes. I suppose you could argue it makes pre-45 dungeon bosses a bit easier? Mug loses a lot of value relative to Arcane Circle, Embolden, Brotherhood etc in multi-target situations like dungeon packs, because you can only slap the one enemy with it. Because most of the levelling content is multi-target, I'm not sure I quite see where the benefit comes in.