SE and their beloved Ninjas

[WishMaster3K]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

NIN and THF have highest evasion and parrying in the game, Btw, but because of the shadows, most never get to lvl it. Watching a MNK with capped guard and counter activate Counterstance is purely insane: they don't take any damage and they dish out whatever is thrown at them.

I think that maybe MNKs and SAMs should get tweaked a bit, in addition to making Evasion and Parrying more effective for NINs, while making Utsusemi Less "end-all-be-all", but not less "reliable" (if that makes any sense..[agreeing with IceMage here)

The problem with Tanks nowadays is that a Tank is defined by how they mitigate damage. PLDs take less damage than everyone else and can cure it all away, and build up constant hate over time. NINs avoid losing hate and build it up with debuffs and damage.

WAR, MNK and SAM, imo, are jobs that can also tank pretty well if SE implemented some tweaks and gear. The problem is that we are stuck between two tanking jobs, and as it's been pointed out, people are more willing to go for more exp per less effort.

I've done both NIN and PLD, and I pay attention to those jobs when I'm in the backline. Both have their hard parts, but to say that one is harder than the other is a moot point, because the jobs operate SO different.

PLDs need to understand timing, they need to see the flow of the battle and they need to use their abilities right. They also need to be able to adapt to the fight if things go horribly wrong. Being a PLD is hard in that sense.

NINs need to count shadows, WHILE debuffing, WHILE macro switching for different things like voke, utsusemi and WS. NIN is a hard job because, much like RDM, it's a lot of work and keeping track of things.

Comparing NIN and PLD is like comparing Apples to Oranges and saying Oranges are overpowered as fruit because they have a skin that is peelable, or something like that.

Ask a BRD which tank they prefer. Ask a RDM which tank they prefer. Compare which two backline jobs are the most desired at the same time in an end-game merit pt. . . No matter how you slice it, the game is unbalanced and needs to be addressed.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

All the proponents of pure evasion tanking are forgetting one huge flaw with your reasoning, that being, against HNMs their accuracy is so far in excess of our evasion skill they rarely miss. Why do you think ninjas load up on damage reduction gear for mobs such as Byakko as opposed to going full evasion?

Believe it or not, some people care about how the game works, and they care about balance.

As do I. I don't consider it balanced to have a one tank monopoly in FFXI. If anything I believe there should be more choices for prospective exp party builders.

The fact that he chose PLD as his main has no bearing on the way he sees the rest of the game.

Maybe not, but for the topic at hand the fact he plays a paladin bears a great deal of relevance to the discussion.

Stop into the SAM forums and see his SC chart -- something that doesn't matter at all to PLDs.

Paladins don't SC anymore? An offensively geared paladin can put out considerable damage when the situation calls for it and SCs form part of that damage.

While you guys get one job to level 75 and then rush off to get the next job to 75, he studies the jobs and enjoys it. It's 2 methods of attaining satisfaction with the game. Honestly, I trust his view on a 75 ninja more than I do the view of a 75 ninja (I know a lot of very stupid level 75 ninjas).

You guys... eh? If you'd read the thread you'd see I stated I played paladin to 66 then retired it and levelled ninja to 75. My only job at 75 and I have no intention of levelling another because I found the job I enjoy. I know my class inside out and have played it at all levels of the game. So, whether you value his opinion over someone who has played the job to 75 and continued to do so for nearly one and a half years is your choice, however, don't expect me to suddenly bow down to nerf cries from someone who patently wants the sole tanking monopoly. Saying ninjas can DD fine and you'd like to see them fill a DD role is simply tossing the problem on someone else's lap and not resolving any balance issues just transferring them from the tanking playerbase to the DD playerbase, of which there are already more than enough people sitting for days on end praying for invites.

[Taskmage]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

don't expect me to suddenly bow down to nerf cries from someone who patently wants the sole tanking monopoly. Saying ninjas can DD fine and you'd like to see them fill a DD role is simply tossing the problem on someone else's lap and not resolving any balance issues just transferring them from the tanking playerbase to the DD playerbase, of which there are already more than enough people sitting for days on end praying for invites.

Who are you referring to with this comment? Armando? Are you even reading his posts?

Because NINs don't do good damage and don't have useful debuffs? No offense...I'm not saying S-E should kill NIN tanking, but really now...to say NIN would become useless if it can't tank is ridiculous. I would personally love to see NINs DD'ing.

And now you're arguing a completely different point. Your original argument was that NIN would become useless. My counterargument is that it could still be useful as a DD. Yes, having just one tank would be an enormous problem, but that wasn't what was being discussed.

..

[Icemage]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that Ninjas should be changed back into being DD's (at least I certainly hope not - I absolutely agree that there are already too many melee jobs), but that's a different statement than saying that Utsusemi's gameplay mechanic is extremely limiting as well as slightly too good.

Should also be noted that my above proposed change to Utsusemi would help, not hurt Ninjas vs. Byakko. Ninjas tend to run out of shadows faster than they can cast them against triple-attack enabled enemies who have AoE and nearly perfect accuracy. Sure you'd get hit once in a while, but you'd have extra shadows to play with too (especially if SE adds Utsusemi: San as a third option to restore shadows) - it certainly beats running out of shadows and taking every hit until your timers recharge.


Icemage

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

Because NINs don't do good damage and don't have useful debuffs? No offense...I'm not saying S-E should kill NIN tanking, but really now...to say NIN would become useless if it can't tank is ridiculous. I would personally love to see NINs DD'ing.

Taskmage, I guess it comes down to personal translation of the post but I'll highlight the areas I am concerned with and maybe then you'll understand where I'm coming from. Also, bear in mind, the above post was in response to someone being concerned a proposed change would destroy a ninja's tanking ability. Funny how the majority of the thread highlighted advocated ninja DD'ing as opposed to tanking.

[Omni]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

I'm starting to subscribe to the opinion that Impaction is going out of his way to be generally negative.

what's new, he's the lonely job freedom fighting martyr.

[Taskmage]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

There's no "as opposed to tanking" involved. Ninjas could fill many roles in a party including DD if they weren't always pigeonholed into the tanking role by Utsusemi. I would like to see ninja, and all jobs really, play out their potential versatility more. Obviously weakening nin as a tank or at least modifying its near-perfect damage mitigating ability is one solution, though there's some arguement as to whether that's a good idea.

I think we're in agreement that it's difficult to compete with Utusemi's power in many situations. I think ideally there would be three tanking jobs, each more suited to tanking certain mobs than the others, yet also having abilities that would make them useful in fights that they're less suited to tank for. I think this may be what SE means when they say they'd like to see "more dynamic party arragements." Obviously this is a compicated problem that can't be solved by a simple tweak to utsusemi or it'd be fixed already. I think some sweeping changes in multiple jobs and mob behavior are going to have to take place before we get a "balance" that everyone can be reasonably happy with.

Double Post Edited:

There's no "as opposed to tanking" involved.

I should clarify this bit. >_> I don't believe he was advocating ninjas as DD to the exclusion of the tanking role. Clearly you're doing one thing as opposed to the other, but it's not a situation of black and white where the job either is a DD or it's a tank, which is what I believe your viewpoint is. There's a gray area which is what I'm trying to get at with the above.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

Taskmage, I guess it comes down to personal translation of the post but I'll highlight the areas I am concerned with and maybe then you'll understand where I'm coming from. Also, bear in mind, the above post was in response to someone being concerned a proposed change would destroy a ninja's tanking ability. Funny how the majority of the thread highlighted advocated ninja DD'ing as opposed to tanking.

I don't see anything wrong with that post. He has an opinion about things he would like to see. He would like to see people accept nin's as DD's too and with the current attitude thats impossible in the lower lvls. It's one of the reasons I stopped lvling my nin. I would love to see nin's have the option to be either a DD or a tank but not be forced into only one slot. The mob mentality is nin = tank and if you invite them to be a melee people think your a nub.

Personally I like a little shake up once in a while, it gives me a challenge. Same old poo day in and day out yadda yadda yadda.........OH LOOK! SE screwed with my job, <insert swearing here> and then add the challenge of adapting. I get over the irritation and have a new goal to look forward to.

[Armando]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

I don't consider it balanced to have a one tank monopoly in FFXI.

And neither do I.

Maybe not, but for the topic at hand the fact he plays a paladin bears a great deal of relevance to the discussion.

It doesn't. It just happens to suit my style more.

Paladins don't SC anymore? An offensively geared paladin can put out considerable damage when the situation calls for it and SCs form part of that damage.

My testing is FAR more useful to a SAM than it could ever be for a PLD. Yes, PLDs skillchain sometimes, but it is generally not their job to do powerful skillchains; PLD can't self-skillchain by its own virtues, much less create multiple skillchains. When a PLD is in a skillchain, his job is simply to close it - the PLD can't do anything beyond that, except maybe burst with Banish. On the other hand, SAMs can make multiple skillchains, and my testing could help SAMs do skillchains more efficiently, and maybe even do 300%+ damage Light/Dark skillchains.

Funny how the majority of the thread highlighted advocated ninja DD'ing as opposed to tanking.

Here's the thing - NIN is NOTHING BUT a tank right now. Why does it have to be restricted to tanking? Why can't it be looked at as a DD as well? WARs can tank and DD. Yet 90+% of the NIN population starts the job with already understanding that their job is solely to tank, and likewise, the great majority of people seeking only use them as tanks. I support NIN DD'ing simply because they have the potential to do it, yet nobody allows them to - just like PLD has *some* DD potential which can come in handy in one or two situations. I could care less if I have to compete with 10 tanking jobs. In fact, I'd like to see more WARs that can REALLY tank (WAR/MNK tanking has mainly died by now,) and I wish S-E would make it viable (or at least easier) for SAMs and MNKs to tank throughout the whole game. You're making way too big of a deal out of the fact that I'm a PLD. I could easily play the "well, you're a NIN so you're biased in favor of NIN" card as well if I wanted to. Let's just avoid the whole "You're biased" thing until I give you reason to believe I'm biased.

By the way, thanks to everyone who defended me. Though...given my lack of experience in endgame, I don't think my opinion is worth quite THAT much

[Omni]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

so after 129 posts, can we put down the nin vs pld debate? its just the same rhetoric over and over. nothing new has been posted about this age old debate and i think now its starting to step on peoples toes.

it will always be one long vicious circular conversation.

[DakAttack]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

For one, I'd like to see Ninjutsu tool ingrediants become more common, whether through guild shops, normal shops, or monster drops. I think if they would have more access to these extremely expensive tools they might hold hate better and we would be able to move on to other issues.

I would also like to see a percent chance that the enemy chooses the correct target to attack and hits the Ninja, leaving the other shadows still up. Ustusemi Ichi puts up three shadows, so there's a 25% chance the enemy will hit the ninja instead of the shadow. Utsusemi Ni puts up four shadows, so there would be a 20% chance here. This, coupled with a slight enhancement to Evasion and Parry, would make things a bit more fair.

To wrap everything up, I also think it would be fair to decrease the critical strike chance from an enemy by 25% or so while shadows are up. Critical hits are usually what destroy Ninjas, and in my eyes with the above idea, it would be a challenge to get a critical hit on an opponent you don't know is real.

I hope this all makes sense. I've been floating through the past few days on Ibuprofen and Tussin to help mitigate this flu. I think my general idea is that you can't simply nerf Ninjas, like how SE didn't just nerf Rangers. They retooled them a bit, and the same can be done for Ninjas.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

Welcome to the club, Armando. If you haven't noticed, if Impaction isn't being a self-martyr for some reason or another (I was rooting for him in his DRG endeavors), we'll have Grizzle complaining that he never finds a pt cause of his time zone. Or we'll even have Omni throw in a detrimental comment to get a certain Taru RDM interested in a thread again.

Welcome to Dreams in Vana'diel.

I get over the irritation and have a new goal to look forward to.

I could totally see them nerfing NINs while adding two more tank jobs or tweaking existing jobs, since it'll be easier. If you don't think NIN is unbalanced, realize that you can do the work of 2-3 or more pt members by yourself, add on some DDs and make a crazy pt.

Ever complain that there weren't enough mobs in an area? It's cause melee pts broke the system. There is a 15minute repop on mobs for a reason ._.

Edit: Added

Critical hits are usually what destroy Ninjas, and in my eyes with the above idea, it would be a challenge to get a critical hit on an opponent you don't know is real.

What irks me is that you can dodge an opponent for 5 mins, but the ONE time they hit you it's a critical. Many times I've died in Ifrit's Cauldron cause a Hurricane Wyvern got lucky.

I'd prefer if there was a response like: "Such and such scores a critical Hit! But hit a shadow"

[Tsikuro]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

Well, I'm happy with NIN. I can DD really well, and tank at the same time.
If you think the job is so much better than everything else, you can just level it and play it... no one's stopping you. All people want is nerf, but, thankfully, it doesn't really matter what you post here, because S-E is on our side right now, and I'm glad.

[Omni]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

detrimental comment? blunt maybe. bad delievery? sure. detrimental? nah.

all im saying is, seriously. its road kill thats 3 weeks old. this is what this topic has become and will always become. this thread topic is just a euphamism for all those dreaded NIN VS PLD, PLD PWNS NIN, NIN > PLD cry/whine/flame fests on alla/ki.

who knows what the changed instore for pld might bring to the job. the naysayers say its not enough~ nin still owns me~ all i say is lets see the results after its been implemented. i really dont understand where some players think they have some profound insight that SE hasnt thought of yet or doesnt know of. They built this game line by line so im sure they know how to make adjustments better than any of us do.

[DakAttack]

Re: SE and their beloved Ninjas

What irks me is that you can dodge an opponent for 5 mins, but the ONE time they hit you it's a critical. Many times I've died in Ifrit's Cauldron cause a Hurricane Wyvern got lucky.

I'd prefer if there was a response like: "Such and such scores a critical Hit! But hit a shadow"

Yea, it's a big DOH moment. I've seen quite a few highly regarded Ninjas perfectly tank an NM or EXP enemy until a double attack comes up and suddenly they're dead on the floor after two quick crits.

With the idea I provided above SE could add in items that "Enhance the effect of Utsusemi" that would basically enhance dodge rate with shadows are up, lower critical hit rate from enemies when shadows are up, or even add another shadow.