EW 6.10 Ninja: What do you want to see change, or stay the same, in 6.20 (or beyond)?

[Eorzean_username]

Goals with this thread

In the recent "Patch Notes Reading" stream for Patch 6.10, Mr. Yoshida expressed (or at least, he did, based on an unofficial translation in the "FFXIV Reddit" Discord's "Translations and Live Letters" channel) that he encourages players to give feedback about what parts of their Jobs they both dislike and like, especially regarding Ninja and Samurai.

This commentary was made after he saw an unexpectedly-heated response to the changes made in Patch 6.10, and he encouraged posting on the forums after trying out the job changes, because this feedback will be used to help shape future design decisions — both what to change, and what not to change.

My feelings about Ninja, as of Patch 6.11

Personally, I am mostly happy with current Ninja. I feel like it works well overall, and I don't feel like it needs a major overhaul or rework.

Instead, I feel like current Ninja just has a lot of annoying design "pocket lint" that could be cleaned up, without needing to modify the core rotational design much — basically, my personal complaints about EW 6.11 Ninja are limited to just QOL, Comfort, Aesthetics, Fantasy, Flavor, etc.

Bring back 70 second Huton

I'm not smart enough to put into mathematical terms exactly why Huton at 60-second duration feels so bad to play with, but something about it feels... wrong.

The extra 10 second "slush space" of 70s Huton historically played nicely with the +30s from Armor Crush to give Huton refreshes a certain "leeway" in order to work around other rotational timings, or situational elements.

Now, it feels like every time that I naturally would want to refresh or top-up Huton, it's slightly too early to do it without wasting some of the timer. Everything just feels "off" about it.

I don't really understand why Huton had to be reduced from 70 seconds, but I do know that I really don't like it.

I mean... like... to be clear about this, I'm not trying to imply that 60s Huton is a crisis-tier concern. Ninja is still perfectly playable. This isn't one of those "nightmare fuel" design issues like some Jobs have had in the past.

It just feels bad. Something about the Armor Crush rhythm doesn't feel as smooth or intuitive any more, even though I can't articulate exactly why.

Mug and Ninki generation

It feels a little uncomfortable that Mug both generates nearly half a bar of Ninki, but also is now a Party Buff™, and so Mug button must be slammed again the instant that it lights up (in most situations).

Previously, Ninja could try to accumulate high Ninki, spend Ninki inside buffs, then Mug inside buffs in order to spend even more Ninki.

Now, there is an awkward design situation where I feel like I have to deliberately expend unbuffed Ninki right before entering a phase of amplified damage, in order to avoid wasting Mug's Ninki. This feels counter-intuitive.

But it's tricky to figure out how to adjust this, because Mug's Ninki generation is important to being able to activate "Bunshin" in a timely manner when beginning an encounter.

Perhaps the Ninki generation that is currently assigned to Mug could be switched to a different action, now that Mug is an important partywide cooldown.

However, I can't really think of another option. Ninja has very few OGCDs left, these days. It would feel awkward to have to "Dream Within a Dream" too early in encounter openers, and "Kassatsu" generating Ninki would feel just as awkward as Mug does now, if not moreso.

Perhaps an alternative solution is to remove the Ninki generation from Mug, and also remove the Ninki cost from "Bunshin".

Ninja would lose 40 Ninki every 120s, and gain 50 Ninki every 90s. For example, in a roughly 6-minute full-uptime encounter, this would be +250 Ninki from free "Bunshin", and -160 Ninki from "Mug", for a net gain of 90 Ninki.

Assuming about 7 potency per 1 Ninki, that's a pretty chunky "free" buff for Ninja, so some Potency adjustments (ie, nerfs) would pretty much have to be made elsewhere — possibly setting Bunshin to 120s CD, for example — but it would clean up the current awkwardness with Mug resource generation, which I think often feels "wasteful" now.

Raiju button bloat

I know, "button bloat" is starting to become one of those "trigger phrases" for players that are getting irritated by all the action removals.

But in this case, I feel like Forked and Fleeting Raiju kind of are unnecessary keybind bloat, after seeing someone else's post pointing this out:

• Raiju Ready can only be triggered by Raiton.
• Raiju Ready is immediately removed upon activating any Combo Weaponskill (since Raijus are basically "combos" with Raiton... I guess?).
• Therefore, the Raijus are literally mutually-exclusive with the Combo Weaponskills.

...so... why do the Raijus need to be separate buttons?

While "Raiju Ready", Spinning Edge could become "Fleeting Raiju" and Gust Slash could become "Forked Raiju".

Then, you still have direct access to Armor Crush in case you really, really, really need to refresh Huton right now (since dropping Raiju Ready sadly seems less costly than using Huraijin).

I guess you could argue "But what if Huton will drop in exactly 5 seconds, and I currently don't have a combo active, and I need to use Spinning Edge to start my combo right now?!"

...but... like... I don't know... it seems like maybe that's a situation so rare, that you could probably just plan better for the next pull, or something?

Personally anyway, I would be up for the trade of gaining 2 keybind slots in exchange for having to Huraijin once per 5 months on some horribly scuffed pull during a bad reclear trip where I somehow mismanaged Huton to the point of needing to choose between Raiju and Armor Crush.

Ten Chi Jin fragility

I think that "Ten Chi Jin" is a cool and fun action that is, unfortunately, marred by a ridiculously-fragile design implementation.

I think that it's absurd that an entire 120s CD — that is rotationally-crucial, especially with the addition of "Meisui" — can simply vanish, just because your fingertip accidentally brushes a Strafe keybind, or you release your finger from a movement key 0.02s too late after triggering the "Ten Chi Jin" key.

This is pretty much my only complaint about "Ten Chi Jin", and the only change that I personally want to see to this action — stop making it break so easily.

It feels awful to have to babysit this cooldown, and try not to breathe on it wrong, especially during hectic encounter situations. It kind of disrupts the whole rhythm of the combat for me when I need come to a full-stop and hesitate a moment just to try to make sure that "Ten Chi Jin" isn't going to have a fit, and instantly delete itself.

Possible solutions could be things like:

• Just disable movement keys while "Ten Chi Jin" is active. Players concerned about emergency situations can still manually click it off and cancel the action.

• Make the zone on the floor that "Ten Chi Jin" creates behave like Black Mage "Ley Lines". While standing inside it, you can do the "Ten Chi Jin Mudras". While standing outside it, your Mudras are locked-out.

• The ritual zone moves with the Ninja (ie, it remains "attached" to your character as you move around). The ritual lines "gray out" while moving, disabling Mudras. When you stop moving, the ritual lines "light up" again, allowing Mudras.

• Just make TCJ a personal buff on the Ninja, and discard with the "ritual diamond" entirely. If you want to jump and run in a circle around the boss while doing your Ten-Chi-Jin mudras, well, have fun.

I don't personally care too much about the exact change — as long as "Ten Chi Jin" stops instantly breaking from trivial movement, I'll be pretty happy with this action.

Bunshin cooldown

I know. I am a boring person. I like things orderly, consistent, and predictable. So you can probably guess where this is going.

Now that I mentioned Bunshin CD in the previous point, I actually think it feels awkward to have Bunshin as a "hangnail" cooldown on a 90s CD.

I do understand that SE is trying to make rotations still have some variance and texture to them, rather than all being 60/120 clockwork cycles, but... well, honestly, I kind of like having a clockwork cycle, personally. For me, I get enough "variance" and "texture" from the encounter mechanics themselves, and I enjoy my rotation following predictable cycles of "beats" that I try (emphasis on "try") to stick to as closely as possible.

For me, this actually isn't about the Potency of Bunshin itself. I'm not consciously hungering to try to push more potency into the big 120s damage-amplification windows.

Instead, I just... like the feel of Ninja's personal 120s rotation a lot better whenever it lines up with Bunshin:

• It looks cool to see my after-image effect constantly triggering during the "big 2-minute burst" loop.
• It feels a lot better, and just... more fun... for me, to get to use Phantom Kamaitachi during Mug windows, when I'm unleashing all of my other "big actions".
• Ninja is otherwise all about coordinating all of its tools together. So it feels kind of... limp? And almost pointless? When Bunshin's cooldown pops up at random between Trick Attacks. For me, there's this sense of a fairly-unsatisfying "Oh, I guess I should press that." It's almost an after-thought, because the impact just feels unexciting during those "middle-of-nowhere" Bunshins.

So, I think that I actually would kind of prefer if Bunshin either just dropped to 60s CD (with the inevitable potency nerf to it and Phantom) or jumped up to 120s CD.

Allow "Enhanced Shukuchi I" to trigger from "Suiton"

Currently, "Enhanced Shukuchi I" resets the Shukuchi CD when a Ninja uses Katon, Raiton, or Hyoton.

...but... like...

"Suiton" is actually a key tool for managing disconnects any time that being forced off-target lines up with Trick Attack being ready soon.

And it's also single-target, just like "Raiton" and "Hyoton" (ie, "Hyosho Ranryu").

So, uh... for the sake of gameplay consistency when using Ninjutsu while off-target, could "Suiton" be added as a trigger for this Trait?

Make Hide less terrible

By the standards of Rogue/Thief/Assassin archetypes in other games, FFXIV's "Hide" is... really gross and unpleasant.

• It's clunky to even use — it still requires a macro just to toggle it off.

• It has a weirdly-long 20-second cooldown. Why does it need a cooldown at all? What dastardly exploit am I going to do with this... spam "Huton" at the market board?

• It reduces your movement speed by 50% — why? What terrible sin am I going to do with normal-movement Hide... use it to avoid 3 quest mobs once per 2 years?

• It's always useless vs. Bosses, removing one of the iconic "Rogue things" in most MMOs... sneaking up besides the opponent and preparing for an opening strike.

• Its only practical function is to reset Mudra cooldowns. Which is weird. Those could just reset automatically after combat ends.

Sorry if I'm coming across as petulant here, but... why does the Rogue/Ninja Hide have to be so crude? It feels so weird.

You know that some random guy with a fishing pole is a more effective "stealth agent" than my trained Upright Thief / Doman Ninja? What's the Banri Oda lawyered-up explanation for that?

I think that no great harm would come to FFXIV if you just allowed Ninjas to:

• Toggle Hide without a macro. (???)
• Set the Hide cooldown to 1, or 3, or 5 seconds.
• Move at full speed while Hidden.
• Approach Bosses while Hidden without being detected.

I think that this would feel more in-line with modern MMO interpretations of Rogue/Thief/Assassin archetypes. The current design feels straight outta 1996.

Return some party utility

I used to like how Ninja was one of the "trickier" DPS, that contributed a wide variety of different tools to a party.

I get that Enmity-management has essentially been deleted as a gameplay mechanic in FFXIV, so the classic FFXIV Ninja utility wouldn't make sense any more.

But I would still enjoy having tools along the lines of Bard's "Nature's Minne" or Dancer's "Curing Waltz" — just ways to contribute that feel "versatile", rather than being all about pure DPS.

For me, the fundamental difference between this kind of stuff and Dragoon's "Dragon Sight" is that Dragon Sight is also a personal damage buff, forcing it to be awkwardly applied at one of the tightest and most inopportune times that a Dragoon can possibly want to have to swap targets, or fiddle around with "soft targeting".

But support utility is a little different, the timings are generally more forgiving, and it can be pushed and rearranged since it's not so fixated on maximizing usages per encounter.

Just as quick examples:

• "Shadewalker" could increase the target's Parry rate by 50%, allowing it to be used to as a helpful Tank tool during long auto-attack periods.
• "Smoke Screen" could temporarily drop a party member's Enmity to zero — so you could use it to try to save someone if a Tank KO's.
• "Goad" could increase a single party member's movement speed temporarily.

...And so on.

I don't know... I guess this really isn't that important, overall, but it's just some flavor that I miss Ninja having.

Clean up the levels that Ninja receives certain actions

I think that being down-synced, in general, feels awful for almost all Jobs in FFXIV, but I think that being down-synced with Ninja feels unusually-bad compared to a lot of Jobs.

My primary complaints are:

• No AOE Weaponskill until Level 38.
• No Armor Crush or Huraijin in any Level 50 / ARR content. This makes a lot of Roulette duties often feel kind of tedious.
• Hellfrog comes before Bhavacakra, so there's a range of Stormblood duties where I have to keep flipping back and forth to my AOE hotbar just to spend Ninki while fighting single-target bosses.
• Ten Chi Jin without Meisui is really weird, because it changes the entire rotational logic compared to L72+, by encouraging rearranging Ten Chi Jin positioning to try to use it exclusively to trigger Suiton for Trick Attack.
• Not having Hyosho Ranryu until L76 is very annoying, because muscle-memory defaults to the awful Hyoton, as you constantly forget and get surprised by content without "Enhanced Kassatsu" active.

My suggestions to improve this are:

• Death Blossom is granted at Level 18. Stop messing around and tormenting Melee DPS, specifically, in low-level duties.
• Either Armor Crush or Huraijin is granted at some point before, or at, Level 50.
• Swap "Bhavacakra" to Level 62 and "Hellfrog Medium" to Level 64, 66, or 68, or just learn both of them at Level 62.
• Learn "Meisui" at some point before, or at, Level 70.
• Grant "Enhanced Kassatsu I" Trait at Level 50, at the same time that "Kassatsu" is learned. "Enhanced Kassatsu I" increases the Potency of "Hyoton" to 700 while "Kassatsu" is active. Then rename the L76 Trait for Goka / Hyosho to "Enhanced Kassatsu II".

[Eorzean_username]

Reserving this into a separate section, so it can be "voted" separately from less-polarizing topics, if you particularly-disagree with me here.

Mudra fragility

Basically, I think that the current Pass/Fail, All-or-Nothing Mudra-entry design is (and frankly, always has been) inappropriate to FFXIV's overall design style, as well as just a poorly-matched mechanic to FFXIV's boggy game engine and often-dubious connection quality.

I think that "Mudra fragility" makes Ninja a strange and uneven outlier in the Job design system, especially at this point in FFXIV's evolution, where we are playing in a design space where there are already unironic changes like "Inner Release now only works on Fell Cleave and Decimate".

The general design direction of FFXIV seems to be to put basic safety-rails everywhere. You can certainly argue (and likely quite passionately) about whether that's "good", "bad", or "neutral", but it does make Ninja's particular Pass/Fail punishment mechanic seem even more jarring and antiquated than ever.

Remove the possibility for Mudras to "Bunny"

At the risk of sounding melodramatic — I'm actually just trying to be objective about it — I think that the Bunny is a near-pointless so-called "humiliation ritual".

Not only does the Ninja suffer a severe potency loss and, often, a severe rotational derangement — already bad enough — but they are then also forced to advertise this to all other players present around them. To exaggerate a bit, it makes Mudra entry vaguely like a hazing.

If every Job had these kinds of potential messes, it might be more "in good fun" (I guess?), but Ninja instead is peculiarly singled-out to be punished (in terms of fairly extreme Potency losses and/or rotational disruptions) far more than other Jobs for even a single stray keypress at the wrong moment.

The Mysidian Rabbit is certainly cute and iconic, but this mechanic is also obnoxious and, frankly, totally-unnecessary. I think that Ninja would still be just as fun to play regardless of whether or not it was still possible to breathe wrong on your keyboard and instantly delete 750+ Potency from your rotation.

In exchange, add a purely-flavor action, "Forbidden Mudra", which cannot be used in combat, and does nothing except summon the Mysidian Rabbit to sit upon your head. Or possibly, just make it a learnable Minion. That sits on your head.

Stabilize Mudra entry

The exact method of doing this isn't as important to me as just, in some way, bringing Ninja more in-line with other Jobs at the fundamental design level of "degrees of failure" — ie, how "binary" an error is.

I basically just think that Ninja players should not be "All-or-Nothing" punished for errors that would be trivial — or not even an error — on other Jobs, such as:

• Double-tapping a key while distracted by mechanics
• Having a finger spasm due to nerve issues in the arm, wrist, or hands
• Suffering a brief random latency spike
• Forgetting that Mudras require annoying babysitting, and falling into the otherwise-healthy habit of spamming GCDs to keep the GCD clock rolling
• Having to immediately use a defensive tool to react to a sudden encounter-mechanic development (ie, "Oh, Alliance B failed its add, I need to Shade Shift instantly or I will KO — annnnd, goodbye Suiton").
• ...etc.

Honestly, in normal rotations, it just feels good to confidently hammer the next GCD that you know is in sequence. You can even do this during "Ten Chi Jin", and it feels much more responsive as a result.

But normal Mudra GCDs? Those are almost guaranteed to break if you hammer them, or even double-tap them, due to how quickly a 0.5s GCD will be accepted into FFXIV's action queue — forcing the rotational pace to suddenly awkwardly slow down, as you have to treat each Mudra like a fragile Fabergé quail egg.

For example, you could make the cooldowns of Mudras always work like they do during "Ten Chi Jin".

In other words: once pressed, you can't activate the same Mudra again until after using Ninjutsu. This would prevent small double-press errors that result from spamming GCD keys to keep the GCD rolling, stray keypresses, nerve twitches, etc.

What I mean is something like this:

1. You press "Ten"
2. The game receives and acknowledges the "Ten" command.
3. "Ten" immediately becomes locked/grayed out.
4. You press "Jin"
5. The game receives and acknowledges the "Jin" command.
6. "Jin" immediately becomes locked/grayed out.
7. You press "Chi"
8. The game receives and acknowledges the "Chi" command.
9. "Chi" immediately becomes locked/grayed out.
10. You use "Ninjutsu", activating "Doton".
11. Ten, Jin, Chi all immediately become unlocked and usable again.

Alternatively, you could make Mudras work more like Dancer Steps.

In this system, pressing the same Mudra again would waste time and drift the GCD — that's bad. But it wouldn't cause total failure.

For example:

• You press "Ten".
• Your hand spasms, and your finger presses "Ten" again. This wastes 0.5s of unnecessary extra GCD space, drifting the GCD cycle — bad.
• But you can then enter "Chi" and "Jin", and still execute "Suiton" — just slower than necessary.

The exact details of what happens if you try to "change" your code mid-way are not personally important to me, because I don't see it as a problem that, for example, entering "Ten Jin" locks you into Doton, even if you wanted Suiton — I personally think that's okay, that it's not asking too much to simply remember the correct code sequences.

ie, if you enter "Ten", then move on to "Jin", the game could lock out "Ten" until you execute Ninjutsu — no backtracking. So spamming "Ten" wouldn't break the Mudra code (which is more forgiving to the errors discussed above, with latency, GCD-queuing, etc), but trying to change your Mudra code mid-entry would still not be possible.

But, hypothetically, the Ninjutsu command could instead look at only the most recent 3 Mudras entered, and use that to determine what happens when you trigger Ninjutsu — truncating from left-to-right until it reaches a valid entry formula.

So "Ten Chi Ten" would become "Katon", because Ninjutsu would not parse the three Mudras "Ten Chi Ten" as a valid Ninjutsu. It would truncate the leftmost Mudra, and move down to "Chi Ten" — which is valid — and stop there, unless a new Mudra was entered.

Likewise, "Chi Ten Ten" would become "Fuma Shuriken". Neither "Chi Ten Ten" nor "Ten Ten" would be parsed as a valid Ninjutsu, so it would truncate down to just "Ten".

Anyway, if this was the system used, a Ninja could hypothetically "fix" errors such as "Ten... Jin... (oops)... Ten... Chi... Jin". You would now have spent 1.0s of GCD time on just "empty", wasted Mudras... which is pretty atrocious... but you also would get the "Suiton" you wanted.

I guess that could be an okay trade-off for errors like that? Or perhaps it would be considered too forgiving. Personally, I truly have no strong opinion either way about this particular aspect — my issues are with individual Mudra hypersensitivity and fragility, not the possibility of entering the wrong code sequence.

If I had to choose personally, though, I'd go with locking out the previous Mudra after entering a new one, so that sequences are still fixed once started.

[Eorzean_username]

Reserving this into a separate section, so it can be "voted" separately from less-polarizing topics, if you particularly-disagree with me here.

Mudra / Magical flavor dominance

This will probably be polarizing or even unpopular, and that's fine — if you disagree, fire it up and say so — that way the developers can see your own sensibilities about Ninja design and make more holistic decisions.

But personally, I don't like that basically Ninja's entire burst cycle has become pure Magic at this point.

Originally what drew me to trying Ninja was Rogue, because it was a cool standard RPG Rogue/Thief/Assassin archetype. And, Ninja mostly remained that way, just adding some cool embellishments.

And the original Ninja burst phase was almost all Weapon/Blade attacks, with some Mudras peppered in for flavor and completeness.

But over time, Ninja has gradually mutated into more of a "Mudra Mage" than a melee attacker.

I know that FF Ninjas have almost always mixed in Ninjutsu Magic into their skillsets, including Elemental attacks that ranged from "meh" to "powerful", depending on the specific game.

But... those FF Ninjas also used a lot of pretty strong physical Attacks with their special Ninja weapons, and a lot of Throwing too, including pretty strong Shuriken options. It was a balanced mix of Magic and Physical — if not favoring Physical heavily. Plus various cool utility tricks.

The original ARR/HW Ninja seemed to "get" this, being a Melee attacker that was primary Physical, with some Magical flavor mixed in.

Now, it's like... I spend almost my entire "burst windows" under Trick Attack and Mug just spamming Mudras/Ninjutsu and big flashy Magic attacks, over and over again:

• Phantom Kamaitachi
• Raiton
• Ten Chi Jin Raiton / Suiton
• Fleeting Raiju
• Bhavacakra

...and then it's like... "oh." That's it. My big Trick Attack/Mug window is already over, and I basically just played "Black Mage Jr." the entire time.

Please, don't get me wrong — individually, all of these attacks look cool, and are fun to press. And I don't personally want to see Ninjutsus removed, or anything super-extreme like that.

But there's just... too much Magic. I feel like the Rogue/Thief/Assassin aspects of Ninja have been almost entirely drowned-out in its PvE design.

Like, look at Warrior. If a player comes to FFXIV, and they want to be the familiar RPG/MMO "Big smashing tough Warrior dude/tte"... well... they can. It's right there. And it delivers pretty much exactly what they expect it to deliver. Nothing misleading about it.

But if you're looking for Rogue/Thief/Assassin, it's... teased by the Rogue 1-30 design, and then suddenly gets slowly turned into something more like a weird fifth Caster DPS, that sometimes hits people with a dagger to pass time, if it's especially-bored.

I would personally prefer it if Ninja's design balance of "Rogue/Assassin-style Physical Weapon Attacks" and "Spell-like Magical Attacks" was brought back into a bit more of an equilibrium, like it used to be.

Changes like:

• More weapon-attack cooldowns like "Dream Within a Dream"
• Getting to use "Fuma Shuriken" rotationally again (I really enjoy this aspect of 6.10 PvP Ninja)
• More RPG archetypical Rogue/Thief/Assassin-themed attacks
• Poisons returning as a gameplay element (but not in the old clunky "Stance" implementation — possibly as a 30, 60, or 120s buff cooldown)

This isn't a complaint about the actual key-to-key rotational feel of current Ninja, but rather just the aesthetics, concept, flavor, fantasy, etc.

[Eorzean_username]

Exploring other possibilities

I reserved this section for stuff that I'm not personally advocating for. ie, it's not anything that I feel too strongly about myself.

Instead, these are just various aspects of Ninja's design that I could see potentially changing in the future, and I'm curious about that from a conceptual standpoint, and looking to provide potential discussion topics for how other players might feel about these possibilities — so that it can maybe be discussed and "ruled on" before it shows up as a "surprise" in future patch notes.

Does "Huton" still need to exist as an action?

Huton, like a lot of maintenance mechanics across Jobs, has steadily dwindled in importance since it was first introduced:

• In ARR, Huton was FFXIV's clone of classic WOW "Slice and Dice" — a buff that was expensive to maintain, but with very powerful effects, so maintaining it as precisely as possible was a major rotational detail.

• In HW, Armor Crush instantly reduced Huton to little more than a formality performed during pull countdowns. However, being KO'd would wipe away this advantage, and thus Huton still had a (unpleasant) place as a (unfun) recovery tool. And it still required attention during AOE.

• In ShB, "Hakke Mujinsatsu" removed the need to juggle and maintain Huton in AOE situations — just doing a simple AOE rotational spam would basically keep Huton active forever.

• In EW, the addition of "Huraijin" means that there is basically never a need to ever cast Huton once combat has begun, except for niche situations like being Raised while the Boss will also be untargetable for the next 20 seconds.

It's beginning to feel like "Huton" is just a "hangnail" of a design, a formality that's there just because it feels like it has to be.

So I'm wondering things like:

Would Ninja gameplay actually be any worse if "Huton" just became a Trait, like what happened to Monk's "Greased Lightning"?

Or alternatively, if "Huton" was switched to work like Samurai's "Shifu", and just triggered automatically from "Gust Slash"?

Then, the Huton Gauge could become something else — maybe a "Bunshin Gauge", maintaining the Bunshin effect with Armor Crush, instead.

And the "Huton" Ninjutsu could become a weakly-damaging utility effect, like Hyoton, but be upgraded into a powerful AOE wind blast around the Ninja by "Kassatsu", mirroring the Hyosho Ranryu upgrade.

This isn't something that I feel particularly strongly about myself either way, but I will admit that I'm not sure I'd really mourn Huton's passing at this point.

It's mostly reduced to just an annoying clunky Huton → Hide → Unhide ritual before bosses, now, since I Armor Crush so automatically these days that I often don't even notice I'm doing it.

Does "Phantom Kamaitachi" actually need to be a keypress?

Technically, Phantom Kamaitachi can see use as a disconnect tool, to try to reserve more "Raiton" uses for Trick Attack / Mug windows.

But, how important do you feel that actually is?

Would Phantom Kamaitachi be better, neutral, or worse if it was simply a "finisher" that the Bunshin clone performed automatically once all 5 charges of the buff were consumed, similar to Machinist's Queen Automaton "Pile Bunker"?

This isn't something that I feel strongly about myself — for me, Phantom Kamaitachi is fine as a keypress, it's hardly a thing. Especially since Phantom Kamaitachi just flips over from "Bunshin" anyway.

But I'm curious how Ninjas in general feel about this possibility.

Does Trick Attack still need a positional bonus?

At first glance, this question might seem kind of dumb, but let me explain why I'm asking.

The back-attack aspect of Trick Attack used to be a pretty significant part of Ninja gameplay:

• There was no "True North" action.
• You had an entire separate action, "Sneak Attack", that shared a CD timer with Trick, and whose entire specific purpose was for stabbing things in the face when you couldn't get behind them (eg, while soloing).
• The "Vulnerability Up" on Trick Attack didn't even apply if you missed the positional for any reason. :joy:

"True North" kind of eroded this significantly in Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers made "True North" even more accessible, and ShB 5.10 deleted the positional requirement from the "Vuln Up" effect. (I think that was the chronology)

...Then, uh, EW 6.10 just took the "Vuln Up" off Trick Attack completely.

So what I'm asking is, does dancing around to try to get a positional on Trick Attack feel "worth it" as a design element any more?

And more pointedly, is it even a relevant design element? You always want to be behind the target for "Aeolian Edge" anyway, and if you can't get Aeolian's positional, you probably already activated "True North".

So if you really look at it, Trick Attack almost always has only has two possibilities any more:

• You have rear access, and can Trick mindlessly the moment it lights up.
• You don't have rear access, so you activate True North, then Trick mindlessly the moment it lights up.

I'm oversimplifying a little, because there are still cases where True North is more valuable overall if saved for a different point.

But does it feel like Trick's positional is actually adding much, or is it just an awkward "vestigial" feature that acts as little more than an awkward constraint on True North usage in niche situations?

These aren't meant as rhetorical questions, and I personally have no strong preference either way about this topic. It's just something I was thinking about.

Patch 6.10 Trick Attack/Mug changes and the general future of FFXIV Job design

I personally feel like the furor about the Trick Attack and Mug changes is basically a "tempest in a teacup" from the perspective of a Ninja.

That is not meant to dismiss the opinions of people who are genuinely upset about the change — I know that every player has a different personality, and different criteria for gameplay enjoyment.

I'm just saying that despite the initial community reactions of irritation and anger, I personally find the change kind of enjoyable while playing Ninja. I actually think that it's fun, and satisfying, having 2 separate debuffs to attempt to keep coordinated.

Instead, I think that the primary problem with the Trick Attack change is that it exposed how "empty" a lot of other Jobs's rotations feel around the 60s mark when there are no party buffs to attempt to coordinate with.

The problem with using Ninja to "plug that hole" historically is that Ninja was basically a Band-Aid that was only present at-random for many (most?) players, and I think that using exactly 1 out of 19 Jobs, which may or may appear in any given party, to solve a fundamental design issue, was... not an ideal design situation.

I think that what has really happened is that, with Ninja's Trick Attack "bandage" removed, suddenly the 60s point has become more starkly-exposed for a lot of Jobs that had been "crutching" on Trick Attack to give their rotation a sense of purpose at the odd-minute mark.

For example, Dark Knight, Machinist, and Red Mage end up with a lot of accumulated resources that they need to expend (due to risking overflow) roughly every 60 seconds, but they have no "internal" damage amplifier of their own to try to coordinate that expenditure against during the so-called "Odd Minute" gameplay windows.

Previously, gameplay optimizations like expending Edge of Shadows, Hypercharge, or Enchanted Combo during Trick Attack gave these kind of Jobs's amorphous internal rotation an external structure, an external goal, and thus an improved sense of satisfaction to otherwise "dry" rotation segments.

I think that rather than worrying about Trick Attack's removed partywide effect specifically, the developers should instead step back and consider if every single Job would benefit from having some kind of internal damage amplifier to coordinate its resources against on a 60s cycle, in the same way that Jobs like Gunbreaker, Dragoon, Monk, and Ninja currently do.

And I say this simply based on what seems to be a lot of evidence that players just strongly enjoyed the old Trick Attack 60s-timing rhythm, and the current 120s-timing rhythm feels too "spaced-out", and for many Jobs, leaves too much rotation that ends up feeling like "arbitrary" or "aimless" filler.

So, for players that are upset about Trick Attack's removal at the 60s mark as a partywide effect: would having your own "No Mercy" to coordinate with internally in your rotation help to change the frustration that you're feeling? Or is that actually not quite the point for you, and it's about coordinating with other players externally at the 60s mark?

[Shurrikhan]

For NIN, itself, the changes... changed nothing. I want the changes reverted because of how badly it simplified gameplay in NIN comps for everyone else.

I'd prefer to have a NIN alongside my SAM even if it was an rDPS loss simply because its 1-minute intervals made gameplay that much more interesting.

[CyberSnake]

Jesus If they implement all the stuff you listed there won't be anything left of the job, I don't want to bring up that word but it's literally homogenization. Yeah there are some issues, 60s Hyton was an unnecessary change, Mug is a little clunky now, Hide could be more useful and Ten Chi Jin a little more forgiving. But otherwise I think the job is in a good place. I enjoy positionals, Mudras being heavy hitters, keeping Hyton up along with pre-pull ritual and Bunshin not being just another Trick Attack oGCD. That's what makes Ninja a Ninja, along with silly stuff like increased run speed and reduced fall damage. There's a difference between making QoL changes and just straight up dumbing down the jobs. And if rework means getting SAM treatment I'd rather have NIN stay as it is.

Also DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THE BUNNY, LEAVE IT ALONE.

[VentVanitas]

I'm fine with Bunshin being on 90s. It lets Kamaitachi be more flexible in its use which I prefer over it being another attack to squeeze into buffs.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd also have no problems with removing the bunny, as it has only ever been a thing for those with high ping and/or packet loss.

[butchersblock]

Jesus Christ if they implement even half of your latter ideas the job's gonna be left with nothing. I don't want my job to play like mitigationless Warrior.
The only thing I'd change about Ninja is swapping Mug and Trick's effect - Trick as the raidwide and Mug as the personal. Additionally I would like to have Assassinate back, sharing a button with DWAD, and it'd be nice for DWAD drift to be easier to deal with.

[nineofroses]

What I enjoy:

• "Ranged" melee: I enjoy NIN's uniqueness with its many ranged options for attacking while out of melee range. It fits the job fantasy of being an adaptive, dexterous job. I actually really like the Forked Raiju addition because it is finally a gap closer that I like using (see below for my complaint about Shukuchi).
  
• Fast-paced, burst job: I like the increased skill speed, and burst windows are hectic and fun without overly handicapping those on high ping. It fits well with the job fantasy for ROG/NIN.

What I do not enjoy, in rough order of importance:

• Lack of party utility with removal of Trick as 60s party buff: The only utility button unique to NIN was taken away and it feels terrible because I enjoyed bringing that something special to my party. While raiding with my static, my teammates have expressed multiple times that they enjoyed the added aspect of working with the party buff on a 60s timer. I enjoyed the challenge of making sure that Trick went out without drift, and discussing with my static how best to utilise Trick (e.g. after Kampeos Harma in P2S). With the 6.1 changes to Mug and Trick, it just feels like I'm another selfish DPS with a 120s party buff that feels really lame compared to other melees' party buffs (e.g. MNK Brotherhood). I could, theoretically, accept the loss of Trick if there had been other party utility granted to such a unique job that scratched that same itch of "feeling useful to the party besides doing big damage".
  
• Ten-Chi-Jin going away upon moving: I agree with OP that it feels bad to lose my big 120s skill when I twitch my character a little - it doesn’t fit into the job fantasy of NIN being agile and hitting with fast attacks.
  
• Mudra fragility: Also agree with OP given my own ping situation. Changing it to a lockout system like TCJ or DNC steps would be a good idea. At higher levels, you have generally built up enough muscle memory to not mess up your mudras and it’s more a function of panic-using the wrong mudra. NIN is the only job where you do zero damage with your main job mechanic if you mess it up, but rabbit-ing is almost always due to packet loss or lag spikes, not player error. Remove it.
  
• Raiju stacks going away upon hitting weaponskills: Functionally, I understand why this happens, and it is similar to other jobs e.g. Reaper procs. But it just feels bad, because NIN is the “ranged” melee job and it feels like I’m being punished for hitting my ranged ninjutsu and not being able to do the flashy follow-up move.
• Ninki generation: With the 6.1 changes making ninki generation feel a lot more janky, I’ve built the habit of just dumping Bhava out of Mug/Trick windows so that I don’t overcap within the windows. Mug as a button is doing too much - I think it should only either be a ninki-generator or a party buff.

(CONT. IN NEXT POST)