Two Suggested Ninjutsu Changes for NIN

[Equitable_Remedy]

I'm a big fan of NIN generally and of Ninjutsu in particular. However, I am here offering a couple of ideas for Ninjutsu that don't really work. I'm not demanding that SQEnix make these changes, nor do I think that any devs will ever see this. (In fairness, these aren't revolutionary ideas.) It's just something to discuss.

Last year, I posted a little review of all the Ninjutsu for fun.

Fuma Shuriken

• Problem: The problem is simple - Fuma Shuriken is completely replaced by Raiton at level 35.
• Proposal: Add a trait at level 35 that upgrades Fuma Shuriken to have a 60-second DOT such that the total potency of the initial hit + DOT is greater than Raiton after a long time (30 or 45 seconds). Bonus Idea: you could even add something like Hollow Nozuchi that would give Raiton and Forked/Fleeting Raiju a little extra damage to a target with with the DOT - call it Lightning Fuma Shuriken.
• Discussion: The basic idea would be for Fuma Shuriken to be to Raiton what Doton is to Katon. With the potencies right, you'd replace one Raiton per Trick Attack window with Fuma Shuriken on bosses, but you wouldn't use two Fuma Shuriken as the DOT would not stack. Like Doton, it isn't always superior (some mob pulls die too fast for Doton to be better than Katon, though the recent reduction in Doton duration helped with that). One complication is the Fuma Shuriken in the single-target Ten Chi Jin window, and I don't have a simple solution for that beyond 'deal with it.'

Hyoton

• Problem: Hyoton—poor, tragic Hyoton. The bind could theoretically be useful somewhere, but as a practical matter, this is only something that gets used when you try to use Hyosho Ranryu from muscle memory only to remember that you’re synced.
• Proposal: The proposal is simple—replace Hyoton with a Raise effect. Thinking off the top of my head, call it Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei.
• Discussion: The bottom line is that Hyoton cannot be saved. Ninjutsu already covers single- and multi-target well, so there’s nothing to gain from another Ninjutsu competing with those. At that point, you need an effect that can compete with damage—a Raise is one of the few things that could. While NIN doesn’t use mana, using a Mudra charge on a raise is a sufficiently high opportunity cost. It also leverages the flexibility of the Ninjutsu system to sprinkle a little utility into the kit.

[butchersblock]

Fuma having a dot that would be higher potency over Raiton would likely not be enough since Raiju is tied to Raiton, unless substantially higher. I think it's a decent idea, though I really don't like the raise for Hyoton, something else would be thematically far more coherent in my opinion

[Equitable_Remedy]

Fuma having a dot that would be higher potency over Raiton would likely not be enough since Raiju is tied to Raiton, unless substantially higher.

You're right - it would need to be greater than Raiton + Raiju. All the more reason, I think, to give a buff to Raiton and Raiju on any target afflicted by the DOT, to make it easier to balance and to synergize.

I think it's a decent idea, though I really don't like the raise for Hyoton, something else would be thematically far more coherent in my opinion

The theme is Naruto More seriously, it's hard to think of anything else that could compete with the damage potential of Mudra charges without unbalancing other things. Besides the elemental attacks on Ninjutsu, NIN can also summon frogs (and bunnies -_-), create clones, and do whatever Bhavacakra is. I don't think that I rez is too particularly out of theme, but fair point.

[TheElvenQueen]

The bigger problem still is not being able to chain sequence macros thanks to some genius decision to keep the /wait timer at rounded full seconds.
Just curious as a new player, 10 years of using godlike flexible wow macros: why? What was the point of this horrible design?
Why do you need to torture and punish people who just want to have custom timed skills sequenced in one key?

In wow I would have something like /castsequence reset=3 A, B, C, D and then assign it to one key let's say "3".
I could then COMFORTABLY execute all 4 skills in my predesigned desired order, without breaking my wrist trying awkwardly reaching and stretching out for ctrl/shift/1/2/3 keycombos,
just because the devs delusionally think "that makes the game better durr". We're not all guitar/piano playing nerds irl with girly bending fingers okay? This is literally painful and stupid.

And in case someone doesn't know how this wow example macro works:
It waits (in this case) 3 seconds, if not used, it resets.
I still need to make the decision WHEN to hit the key again and again for each lined up ability, so timing and positioning etc all remains a factor.
It does not execute all abilities in a row by 1 key hit, like it does in this game.

Which is another thing I don't get, this autochain mode in FF macros. Why?
THAT is bad, something like that shouldn't exist. Even in wow there's no automode.
You can chain a ton of skills, but you still need to manually hit the same key whenever you want to pop the next skill.

And then you got a 15 line macro limit here? Wow has no lines, it has 255 characters.
I'm sorry but man, this FF macro system is just hoooooot garbage. So soooo bad in every way.
Could have made gameplay so much more enjoyable with straight up copying wow macros, but nope. Go figure.
I mean even if we had wow macros here, your hotbars would still be completely full.
Your rotation flow would just be 500% more comfortable and enjoyable irl and your fingers would thank you.

[TheElvenQueen]

(Post size limit, lmao true 1990's forum design at work. Can't make this up. Anyway as I tried to finish above)...

And trust me, as someone like most wow players with 10year/10k hours under the belt, this is a huge issue which probably shunned away millions of new players.
I can operate like 60+ skills in wow with 123456qrtf + shift mode easy bound to 10 unique keys comfortably in my reach in my sleep.
Here I need to stretch and reach and break my wrist and use casual mouse clicks on longer cooldowns on a massive unnecessary cluster of 40 skills on 4 hotbars, while also usually looking at them, which throws me off.

Oh yeah and then there is the packet sending issue.
Just like Asmongold said: it feels really bad hitting skills.
My guess is because FF uses lockstep mode, sends data packets and verifies them, and you can't pre-press keys.
Wow I assume runs in predictive mode where game actions are executed and procced on the client side in realtime, then verified in bulk intervals. This makes gameplay flow feel ten times smoother
It can have occasional /out of sync issues but those are insanely rare and totally worth it. This should at least be a setting in options, a decision made by the player which mode to use.

Also what I really don't understand is... wait for it... YOU ALREADY HAVE THIS IN THE GAME.
You use combos in pvp! One button = chain all skills in a row.
Why can't we have this for pve?
I'm seriously out of words here. Can anyone direct me to a interview where the devs try to justify torturing pve players like this?
What is going on Yoshi? It's 2022. Get with the times my man.

[Sighearth]

(Post size limit, lmao true 1990's forum design at work. Can't make this up. Anyway as I tried to finish above)...

And trust me, as someone like most wow players with 10year/10k hours under the belt, this is a huge issue which probably shunned away millions of new players.
I can operate like 60+ skills in wow with 123456qrtf + shift mode easy bound to 10 unique keys comfortably in my reach in my sleep.
Here I need to stretch and reach and break my wrist and use casual mouse clicks on longer cooldowns on a massive unnecessary cluster of 40 skills on 4 hotbars, while also usually looking at them, which throws me off.

Oh yeah and then there is the packet sending issue.
Just like Asmongold said: it feels really bad hitting skills.
My guess is because FF uses lockstep mode, sends data packets and verifies them, and you can't pre-press keys.
Wow I assume runs in predictive mode where game actions are executed and procced on the client side in realtime, then verified in bulk intervals. This makes gameplay flow feel ten times smoother
It can have occasional /out of sync issues but those are insanely rare and totally worth it. This should at least be a setting in options, a decision made by the player which mode to use.

Also what I really don't understand is... wait for it... YOU ALREADY HAVE THIS IN THE GAME.
You use combos in pvp! One button = chain all skills in a row.
Why can't we have this for pve?
I'm seriously out of words here. Can anyone direct me to a interview where the devs try to justify torturing pve players like this?
What is going on Yoshi? It's 2022. Get with the times my man.

1) If you edit your own post you can surpass the character limit.
2) A macro is extremely inefficient to play with, because you want to be able to press a specific skill at any time, specially because not much fights are dummy fights in this game.
3)By chain mode, you mean the queue system? The queue system allow to weave immediately after a GCD (thank God) try to weave a potion between gcds without clipping and you will see why queue system is a godsend.
4)I agree with the limit of 15 lines being terrible. Specially on crafters you need to break your rotation into multiple macros for no reason
5)In this game you have an animation lock for every skill of .75 secs which will not allow any new skills to start before that.
6) The devs really care about having a limit of buttons to press and avoid button bloat. They always keep the number of buttons around the same ( 32 ish buttons) or 2 full controller crossbars (some jobs have a little more or a little less). If you are having a hard time pressing the keys I would recommend trying to change or setup to include the numerical keyboard ( on the right end of your keyboard) so you have 0 - 9 plus ("/"), ("*"), ("-"), ("+"),(".") and ("DEL") at least, so that would be 16 keys for every mod key (ctrl, shift, etc). Or you can play on a controller as easily and efficient as KB + mouse, even on PC.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Fuma - sounds cool, even if a bit rigid.

Hyoton - are you high? For progression a NIN bringing 2x potential raise on a 20s recharge is an insane progression tool. Yes its a lot of damage lost, but for prog and damage downtime this will not matter.

[aloneatsea]

Largely in agreement with butchersblock -- while frankly I love the idea of having more options/reasonable combinations to use mudras on rather than just double Raiton every Trick window, the Hyoton solution feels ill-advised. Red Mage already has an issue with being an insta-lock in terms of aggressive prog parties; adding a melee job which can res twice a minute for free (at the cost of damage, sure, but in prog who cares?) is not only going to massively impact Ninja's power budget, but also just feels... out of nowhere, and kind of unfair to other melee jobs? Being able to res is a big deal.

That said, I'd actually put the DOT on Hyoton, instead. The DOT itself could be some sort of frostbite thing or whatever for thematics; the upgrade to Hyosho Ranryu would just be receiving all of that damage at once, instead of over time. The total potency of the attack + DOT should be slightly higher than a Raiton + Raiju, but not by much. Enough to make it worth using within Trick, if you can snapshot the DOT, but not outside of it (i.e. if you're forced to Raiton outside of Trick for a disconnect). I really love the idea of Ninja having a DOT again -- it's an extra little thing to optimise around in fights with downtime/fights you know your killtime in.

Why on Hyoton? Well, there is a conceivable situation in which Fuma is a damage gain. If the boss will die/disappear for more than 20s of downtime, and you don't have enough time to cast Raiton before it vanishes, if you have enough time to use Fuma, it's a gain there. It's the most edge case of edge cases, but it theoretically exists. There's absolutely 0 situations in which using Hyoton is a gain.

That said, adding it Fuma has its benefits too. I doubt it would affect much, but the shorter cast time for Fuma vs Raiton mid-Trick might mean you could gain a GCD in Trick with a very late weave? Unsure of the math there. It's a possibility, in any case.

The problem with adding utility to Ninja's mudras, I think, is that utility that comes at a DPS cost is rarely worth it, especially for a class for whom outputting damage is the goal. I'd rather we have utility we can use for free, like RDM's Magick Barrier, with the only restriction being a solid cooldown.

[xAFROx]

I miss when mudra were oGCD. I'm so hard wired to pressing them between my combos, I always have to remember to not do that and I end up getting the bunny more often than not because of the slow gcd

[AnotherPerson]

They could technically move Fuma into a permanent trait upgrade in Throwing Knives, but adjust Throwing Knives as a charge-based system instead like PvP's Fuma Shuriken.
That frees up 3 more slots for Ten, Chi, jin -- for more unique combinations that doesn't directly compete with Raiton or Katon for DPS after reaching Lv 45. This could also create an alternative rotation on the 3 slots work to start a new synergetic combo or a more free-flowing rotation that Raijus cannot offer without 2 additional hotkeys. Just food for thought.