Dawntrail Ninja looks boring

[HikariKurosawa]

Nothing is actually new, you're just doing 1 more AC per AE than you used to.

So there is more interplay between the two than before if we're doing more AC per AE. AC actually changes the potency of AE now, and we don't have to waste mudra or bother with pre-pull nonsense that rarely works out in DF trials or raids because nobody uses a pull timer.

Then for the rest of the changes, trick attack will now feel worthwhile in AoE, and tenchijin has way more AoE value. AoE ninja is going to feel 100x better for those who do a lot of dungeons. Mug got an interaction added to it with your ninki spenders and a new animation.

How can you complain about these changes if you loved ninja already? It is just becoming objectively better in every single way with added nuance.

[Ilyn]

Aeolian Edge and Armor Crush are not "playing off of each other" any more than they currently do pre-DT. You still alternate between the two, you still need to maintain a buff with Armor Crush (which is less potency that a buffed Aeolian Edge), and they both still provide the same amount of Ninki. Nothing is actually new, you're just doing 1 more AC per AE than you used to.

All I'm saying is AE will be more impactful especially in lower level content where you can fit multiple AE inside a burst and more incentivized to do so . Right now if (for some reason) I have to use AC to reset my timer instead of AE I'm basically like "whatever" .. no big deal . Nothing new is fine, like I stated in an earlier post " I've prolly played like 6 different versions of nin in the past 5 years and it's in a good place, no need to break the job again just to rebuild it " the beginning of 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 were not fun times .

There are some interesting things they could've done.
They could've made Dokumori give a use for BOTH Zesho Meppo and Deathfrog Medium, and made Deathfrog Medium stronger than Bhavacakra so that you use both, instead of being stuck to Bhavacakra in single-target.
They could've made Tenri Jindo a GCD which would give options for what to push out of buffs. Maybe it allows you to push a Raiton out of buffs which can then be used during filler to maintain uptime if there's a melee disconnect.
They could've kept Huraijin and made it use up all stacks of Kazematoi, with its potency increasing per stack consumed, similar to the new Six-Sided Star.
We could've gotten a third AOE GCD, instead of being stuck with the same 1-2 AOE we've had since Heavensward.
We could've gotten upgraded Aeolian Edge and Armor Crush at least, since these have also been the same animation since ARR and Heavensward respectively.

There are so many more interesting things we could've gotten, and instead we got a QoL update for an expansion.

The only thing I would want is for Kazematoi to get spent with Raijus as well as AE .
It's not just QoL and 1 new ability , it's a fully jacked up opener which is ninjas whole identity . Ninja is like the only job where it's combat loop didn't stop evolving till lvl 90 which IMO is a good stopping point

Hmmm I'm pretty sure Hakke Mujinsatsu didn't get added till Shb .. all we had was Death Blossom up to that point lol

It's just a wait and see now, you never know what changes they'll make by release and all the way till 7.1

[GoatOfWar]

Everything looks boring in Dawntrail.
Story is looking like a beach episode, combat is an extention of EW class design but further simplified and everyone got the same new thing.
There's a hillarious amount of overlap of decline in gameplay quality between Warlords of Draenor and Endwalker.
I think 14 has peaked, and reached a stagnation point in SHB.
Endwalker just had the benefit of a worldwide pandemic, a bad WoW expansion and very big streamers trying it out. Which makes it less obvious.
All those streamers left dissatisfied with the gameplay loop, the Zodiark/Hydaelin story arc concluded and the pandemic is over.
I've seen *so* many people quit the game in the last 2 years. And general interest in Dawntrail seems kinda low.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Speaking only for myself, though I suppose I number among the OP's "masses," I could not disagree more.

Currently, NIN is one of my favorite classes from any MMO, and I've played quite a few. (I was fortunate, I think, to start playing FF14 during ShB as I don't think I would have liked the prior mudra implementation.) The flow of ShB NIN played great for me: the ebb and flow of satisfying burst windows and calmer intermissions is my jam. EW made NIN even better by dropping some things like shadowfang and adding some things like phantom kamaitachi and raiju. Love EW NIN.

Now, DT is coming with updates to current moves (some situational during burst), a new gauge for intermissions, and a new oGCD magic finisher with a sweet graphic while keeping the flow of NIN through the last two expansions. Yeah, I'm hype for that.

Sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Dyvid]

They are going all in on the combo system this expansion to free up hotbars. I think they are going a little too far, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Ilyn]

I'm personally happy ninja isn't changing much , honestly it's like the only job that truly didn't stop evolving in its rotation till lvl90 . If it's just flashier moves and power bursts this time around I'm all for it . Having to deal with changes like at the beginning of Shb and EW and for it to be clunky and underpowered for TA's balancing issues and waiting til X.08/X.1 for major reworks for it to be even viable for hardcore content was the worst ... I basically had to unsub after the msq both times till ninja got somewhat fixed . I've prolly played like 6 different versions of NiN in the past 5 years and it's in a good place, no need to break the job again just to rebuild it . I get to go into an expansion feeling like a MotherF***'N NINJA ASSASIN and this version being the most selfish dps that it has ever been makes me happy

[Raikai]

I think the kunai gauge is more or less equal to what it replaces, not mad at it.

In fact, with AoE Trick Attack, I feel that NIN was the most fortunate of the dpsers, which in general is pretty bad. Basically Dawntrail job design boils down to 'bland follow up attacks'.

[Ramiee]

They are going all in on the combo system this expansion to free up hotbars. I think they are going a little too far, but we'll have to wait and see.

I still think removing stuff to make stuff more interesting later on is just cope. The Devs could of added anything to SMN and they added another Demi-Summon and not only that but another bahamut with an aoe version of pheonix's targeted heal.
Does anyone really expect anything from 8.0 and not only that why are we even thinking about future expansions versions of jobs when we are 2 weeks away from the the newest expansion.

[kackal_Jackal]

+1 and agree with Akashi. From Media Tour information, Dawntrail NIN is uninspiring. Slapping a new shiny oGCD every 2-minutes appears lazy on the dev's behalf. Of course people will eat it up because new awesome animation, but from a critical point of view, it's boring. Our job has been roughly the same since 5.1. Only good thing I feel was the Huton change for dungeons.

They could, trying to utilize what they already added and being simple:
- Extend Kunai's Bane to 20s, similar to other buffs. This would allow us to finally fit our entire burst in (this is more QoL though).
- Tenri Jindo a GCD, paired w/ the change above.
- I would have liked to see Deathfrog or Zesho more (or tie it to Kunai's Bane instead). And maybe if we could use both Frog & Zesho, and that they don't cost ninki.

Ideally I'd have liked a change to our basic combo path, or a new combo route (but maybe this is asking too much considering across other jobs the changes are bland). We spend most of our time spamming 1-2-3-1-2-3. This has been an issue with the job since 5.1. Our new gauge doesn't make this any more interesting either.

Oddly enough, I do somewhat prefer them giving little changes opposed to an entire rework that ruins a job (like EW SMN and what appears to be the BLM changes now), but that speaks more how much I don't trust their design philosophy anymore. I do love this game and I love the idea of ninja, but I can't help but feel increasingly disappointed at many of SE's decisions in regards to job design.

Sounds like they want to make major adjustments in 7.2 (unsure how true this is) and at least 8.0.

[SashaDKV]

Looks like that got changed, Huton is an AOE now.