NIN changes changed nothing, and that's why they shouldn't exist

[butchersblock]

This still means we run into the issue of not being able to drift our Ninki gainer inside of Trick... because it also has a personal buff on it.

If SE is so dead set on the idea of Ninja having a personal buff for some reason, it should at the least be on its own button.

This is why I said I'd rather it be a personal debuff button than the Ninki button, I find it far more interesting that way.

[aloneatsea]

We already have a personal buff. Huton. To me that’s more than fine. If SE took a look at that and went “Well Huton doesn’t affect most of Trick Attack, so we can add a little damage boost to make up for moving the raid buff to where we want it”. SE wanted to add a damage buff I’d rather they put it on Huton than anything else. And an easy one that accomplished the same goal is to have it boost elemental damage potency. That way it applies to Mudras, Phantom, and Raijus, but Bunshin and the filler is unaffected.

To me the identity of TA is worth preserving more than adding something like that, but it is an easier and less punishing way to go about it.

Honestly, I'm actually kind of interested in a personal buff that only boosts elemental potency. I think Ninja's magic damage is currently just coded as unaspected magic, but it would be cool if we could boost our damage like that! Keeping it on Huton is fine, as that doesn't affect the rest of our rotation -- just makes dropping Huton that much more punishing, which I'm honestly fine with. Another alternative is sticking it on Trick Attack, similar to old Red Mage Embolden -- how it buffed magic DPS for the RDM, and physical for the party. It could be a further boost to elemental damage from the Ninja, or something.

...Having a gauge does not necessitate having a further button whose sole job is to generate gauge. Samurai functioned just fine before Ikishoten.

If you're worried about taking a bit longer to reach Bunshin, then it makes more sense to simply take Bunshin off the gauge; given that it now costs only 50 Ninki, down from 80, such that you can pretty easily bank for it, its gauge management requirement is minimal and very infrequent.

If you're worried about losing Baha casts per minute, despite Shukiho III more than compensating for it, then that's perhaps even a reason to have Bunshin outright duplicate your next 5 attacks at a given % damage, rather than existing as a flat potency bonus, at which point it could double Ninki generation over its 5 attacks.


On the whole, I'd prefer to simply have the changes reverted so that those playing alongside a NIN can actually have back their one-minute windows, so the point is irrelevant to me, but the existence of a Ninki gauge does not necessitate the need for a discrete Ninki generator, especially when every weaponskill already generates Ninki and spenders cost a small enough portion to allow for banking.

No, having a gauge does not. The existence of Bunshin, however, kind of does, because without it, we wouldn't be able to pop Bunshin until well after raid buffs had vanished. For a CD as powerful as Bunshin, that feels pretty bad. Removing the Ninki cost from Bunshin would also mean that our Ninki gauge becomes the Bhavacakra gauge, at which point you might as well just make Bhava and Hellfrog an ability that shares a cooldown and can stack two charges, or something. Or, put TCJ back on the Ninki gauge -- but then you'd run into the same problem of needing a Ninki gainer to activate TCJ in your opener, or being forced to use it out of raid buffs forever unless you drift it a full minute and a half. While fairly easy to do, stocking Ninki for Bunshin is something of a minor skill check, and removing it entirely would make the job even easier than it already is.

It's not about losing Bhava casts overall; it's about being able to control when you use those Bhavas. Right now, we can only stock two for Trick windows, maybe three if we're lucky. In 6.0-6.08, we could stock three for every window. In SHB, we were sometimes able to stock four. We're getting much more Ninki overall, but somehow losing the ability to force those Bhavas into Trick. I do think our general Ninki gain needs some adjustments, however, as played perfectly you end up overcapping on Ninki just before you enter burst windows. Slowing it down just a tad would be hugely beneficial for being able to fit more inside your burst windows.

I agree that the simplest solution would just be to revert the changes, though!

This is why I said I'd rather it be a personal debuff button than the Ninki button, I find it far more interesting that way.

I'm glad we agree that the current situation -- Mug being a personal debuff and Ninki gainer -- is not great. However, for the reasons I mentioned above, Ninja needs a Ninki gainer. Its rotation does not, however, depend on a personal buff, so if one had to go (and in my opinion, one of them does), removing the personal buff would do the least damage to Ninja.

[Shurrikhan]

No, having a gauge does not. The existence of Bunshin, however, kind of does, because without it, we wouldn't be able to pop Bunshin until well after raid buffs had vanished.

Again, though, what you're describing is that no one wants to have a skill that feels like it needs to fall into raid buffs but is nonetheless too slow to become available and/or too slow to complete for that to actually happen.

That can be fixed in any of three ways:

1. You spend an extra, instant gauge-generating button just to deal with this requirement. (Though, you then generally don't want to give this double-purpose, e.g., as a personal damage buff that then necessarily takes up time at the start of your burst window.)
2. You remove or reduce the cost of that damage tool. (Though, this costs you that --very minor/infrequent, relative to Kaiten or, say, ShB Ikishoten and Senei-- gauge margining element.)
3. You provide the instant gauge generation on something else that'd be more attractive in its own right (say, Dream Within a Dream). (Though, this would doubly need to be used under raid buffs. It'd just save you a button.)

It's not quite so "A requires B" such that Bunshin, as a general concept, is dead in the water without a Mug/Ikishoten/Barrel Stabilizer skill.

I agree that the simplest solution would just be to revert the changes, though!

But yes, this! Haha.

[butchersblock]

I'm glad we agree that the current situation -- Mug being a personal debuff and Ninki gainer -- is not great. However, for the reasons I mentioned above, Ninja needs a Ninki gainer. Its rotation does not, however, depend on a personal buff, so if one had to go (and in my opinion, one of them does), removing the personal buff would do the least damage to Ninja.

I completely understand where you're coming from, and I did also enjoy drifting Mug to maximize Bhavas in Trick. Ninja is the only job I ever optimised to its almost maximum, and personally I enjoy something slightly new in terms of having double stacking debuffs. If they were to fully revert I'd be fine with that too, but since I've played the job so much I would like to have some new stuff (though I'm not willing to compromise on Trick being raid-wide) and Raijus just didn't really add that much to Ninja.

[aloneatsea]

I completely understand where you're coming from, and I did also enjoy drifting Mug to maximize Bhavas in Trick. Ninja is the only job I ever optimised to its almost maximum, and personally I enjoy something slightly new in terms of having double stacking debuffs. If they were to fully revert I'd be fine with that too, but since I've played the job so much I would like to have some new stuff (though I'm not willing to compromise on Trick being raid-wide) and Raijus just didn't really add that much to Ninja.

I definitely agree on Raijus not adding a whole lot to Ninja. If anything, they ruined our two-target rotation - rip Katon/Doton - but provide a bit of extra mobility. Which, as we all know, Ninja historically has lacked. /s


I'd be more happy to lose a Ninki gainer if the entire way Ninki worked was overhauled in some way to add a bit more nuance. Right now it's just 'spend on Bunshin if it's up, otherwise Bhava/Frog'. Without bigger changes, though... mm

[butchersblock]

I definitely agree on Raijus not adding a whole lot to Ninja. If anything, they ruined our two-target rotation - rip Katon/Doton - but provide a bit of extra mobility. Which, as we all know, Ninja historically has lacked. /s


I'd be more happy to lose a Ninki gainer if the entire way Ninki worked was overhauled in some way to add a bit more nuance. Right now it's just 'spend on Bunshin if it's up, otherwise Bhava/Frog'. Without bigger changes, though... mm

This entire tier + ultimate up to 2nd Thordan I've barely ever found a use for the gapcloser Raiju over just sprinting or using the buffed Shukuchi which is the best gapclose tool in the game by a longshot. Its animation over the non gapcloser one is also pretty lackluster, overall pretty disappointed with Raijus.

[aloneatsea]

This entire tier + ultimate up to 2nd Thordan I've barely ever found a use for the gapcloser Raiju over just sprinting or using the buffed Shukuchi which is the best gapclose tool in the game by a longshot. Its animation over the non gapcloser one is also pretty lackluster, overall pretty disappointed with Raijus.

I do really like the Raijus in concept -- like, hell yeah, a big electric dash ala Chidori. The implementation, however... I mean, yeah, it does feel kinda superfluous. There's no fight out there which has me using Shukuchi on cooldown, because not every class is as mobile as Ninja. This is fine, but adding additional mobility just feels like a waste.

I wonder if the Raiju concept couldn't be reworked into something a bit more useful. As of now, we have two Raiju skills, only one of which ever really gets used. While I do like having a different GCD to press, Shadowfang used to fill that role.

Thinking about it, I wonder if spicing up our GCDs could fix the Ninki generation issue? A dot applicator combo finisher ala old Shadowfang which maybe generates only 10 Ninki instead of 15. Who knows.

The fact that they're attached to your Raitons, too, feels a tad painful. I suppose we have Phantom for disconnects now, but it hurts knowing you're losing out so much more than in Shadowbringers if you need to Raiton out of Trick to keep uptime. Not just because of Raijus, either. The increased personal damage is a bit more punishing in that regard.

[butchersblock]

The fact that they're attached to your Raitons, too, feels a tad painful. I suppose we have Phantom for disconnects now, but it hurts knowing you're losing out so much more than in Shadowbringers if you need to Raiton out of Trick to keep uptime. Not just because of Raijus, either. The increased personal damage is a bit more punishing in that regard.

Honestly call me a boomer but I really don't think Ninja needs any more ranged options than it currently has. I really enjoyed working for uptime in Shadowbringers, it was a core part of raiding that made it enjoyable past the initial prog. 6.2 is gonna make or break the game for me. If neither Ninja nor Samurai get changes for the better and on top of that we get another tier where there's no downtime (or very little forced RNG downtime that you can't get around by just playing better) I'll stop playing the game.