Ethical question: SHOULD San Ninjutsu be put in...?

[stray]

Hmmm.

At 66 I'm really feeling like the level 40 elemental Ni line is just... outdated. It doesn't do much damage or lower resistance that much, and it doesn't even give much hate anymore... I need to chain cast to even get a flinch from a mob. My Ninjutsu is at 226 btw.

I think Utsusemi 3 is the big sticking point, but I don't see how with the rest of the San/Ni line we'd be "overpowered." A 2 second para and poison just round out abilities, and I don't see how San elementals could do more that 150-200% more damage and element weakening.

As far as Utsusemi 3... I really don't know... the AoE nerf made any Utsusemi vulnerable. And as far as uninterrupted tanking... that's already pretty much standard with a good nin and Utsu 1 & 2. The one thing Utsusemi San would open up, is to essentially allow a Ninja that has no concern with Shihei cost to basically swap any and all +evasion gear for +attack/+str/etc.

[Kiyosuki]

I'm personally not too big on the idea of Utsu san being a random working spell similar to the basic Whm/Rdm blink spell. That'd be a nightmare to keep count of for me.

I like the idea of plain old brand new Ninjutsu that comes later level. Remember the infamous "fake new abilities list" before CoP came out? It said a new Ninjutsu called "Smokebomb" (Or its Japanese equivalent), that would be a self spell and would raise your critical hit rate, and raise your evasion rate a tad. Its extremely Ninja esque, throwing down a bomb to create smoke or mist, and your critical rate would increase because you can come out of nowhere, and your evasion would increase because your much harder to see in the fog.

If its duration weren't too long, and its cast rate were balanced out it would be a wonderful spell. Best thing is it would be flexible.

The central thing about Ninja's is flexibility. Ninja's a job whose abilites are centered around having distinct uses. So that would give Ninja's offensive edge for a period.

The Dark and Light elemental enfeebles are definitely something Ninja's could use. Dark=Metal Viel, Light=Warding Paper. It would make sense for them to come in later too, since Light and Dark elemental tends to be more advanced than the standard earth/wind/fire/water/ice/.

If any of this happened, would they come in as ichi but with ni spellcast timer's or different timer's than ichi? Or come without being either Ichi, Ni or whatever, just as it is?

Well..anyways, as many possibilities as there are this thread was more for the San line thing than the possibilities of new Ninjutsu. Thats worth a new thread. :sweat:

Oh, one more thing. I think Ninja's in this game were modeled after Edge. The motif is basically like every other Ninja in the FF series, but in FFT, FFTA, and FF5 Ninja's were offensive machines that could enfeeble because of the increased hit count. If Ninja's were like this here dual Wield would be much faster earlier on rather than later. But Edge was more of a variety character who dual wielded more for stats and to make up for his attack power, and used his abilities to help out Rydia with magic damage and enfeebling, and image was very useful if Edge was put in the front line only. He was a real help to Cecil, and I bet SE wanted it to be like this, ok attack and throwing weaponsbut your abilities help out the tank a lot. You can make the tank be hit less, and can take hate yourself for a bit to take a few hits. Good on paper, but in the game Ninja's just ended up skipping the whole process and ended up just taking the tank position in general anyways. lol

As people have said, whatever ninja was designed for now is irrelevant. Whats important is how Ninja's ended up being now, they're very unique attacker/tank's. But that could be a good explanation as to what Ninja was originally designed as. Something that gets the tanks back. But just ended up becoming the tank in the end. :sweat:

Edit: Now thinking about it in fact, I'd bet anything thats what Ninja's were originally meant to do. Be the tank's best friend. Sneaky style, while the tank has the monster's attention suddenlly out of nowhere, its blinded and slowed and it doesn't know where from. All the while something is hitting it from the corner, but it doesn't feel like much now, just bitch hits. Then suddenlly it tries to hit the tank only to be paralyzed. Then it finds its weakness is exploted for the magic user's, who the heck is doing this!? Then gently but surely something in the corner is hitting it a million times, it doesn't feel like much at first but the monster starts to realize later that all that sneakingly acumulates very high, but by then its too late. Even if it tried to retaliate the "Sabotour" will just dodge it, and its too weak to put up a fight anymore until finally the Ninja and everyone else beat it to a pulp. Very sneaky and cheap. All the Ziratt jobs seem to be based off of variety gameplay rather than straightforward. Samurai indirectly affect dd damage and backup tank, Ninja's indirectly damage and cripple the opponent watching the tank's back and slowly disintigrating the monster behind the scenes, and Dragoon is the mobile damage dealer. Thats how they all were originally I bet. But we all know Ninja's eventually figured out they didn't need to backup someone else to do all that, they just needed themselves. lol

Its cool, I like it better that way. Although I bet if it stayed that way, Ninja's would get better throwing, faster DW and more damaging WS to be able to keep up. But now as tank's that would unbalance, which is cool. Tanking like this is incredibly unique.

Um..anyways, sorry for the long post.

[ForumWhore]

Personally, I think Utsusemi:San should be added, with a similar extension from Ichi > Ni (i.e., makes 5 shadows, short casting time). As a balancing nerf however I'd make it work somewhat like mage blink: You have a chance to get hit by an enemy based on how many shadows you have at any moment (i.e., having 4 shadows would give you 20% chance of getting hit).

Additionally, this % chance would be further modified perhaps by opponent's INT vs yours, to simulate how a smarter opponent would be more likely to see through the illusion.

Finally, I'd say once you get hit, all your remaining copy images would disappear, forcing you to recast (it only makes sense that once an opponent knows which 'image' is real, that it wouldn't attempt to hit any of the others).

Of course, this would probably make ninja job perhaps a little too hard to play for extended periods of time?

[Kiyosuki]

I personally think it would be a little too unecessarilly complex myself. But thats just me. I understand the idea, its pretty clever and it makes sense, but by itself. Together with everything else a Ninja does I think it would be a little too much to do at once, everyone has they're limit.

The idea's for the elemental jutsu's so far are pretty cool. But I want to ask a question I never get an answer to whenever I ask.

Why is Jubaku and Dokumori Ni unnatainable in the first place? Is there some kind of balance issue or maybe something I'm not thinking of?

No matter how I look at it, I just can't understand why they're not in, not without a pretty hokey explanation.

[Divine_Spirit]

I think the San line should be AoE spells
Well at least the Elemental line should be.

Also the Light and Dark Ninjustu and Tank's Best Friend sounds good

[Navia]

I'd rather see a new ninitsu that acts like stoneskin (wouldn't stack with stoneskin from titan or mage sub).
If it only absorbed 250 damage and had a 90+ second recast it would be sooo . I was down to 30 hp last night at one point tanking a sand cockatrice, it completely owned my shadows and then petrified me, stoneskin would have been a nice little buffer there since the whm was a bit slow on the stona/silena casts that night >.>

Light and Dark elemental San ninjitsus would be nice in the level 65+ range when people shift towards level 3 light/dark chains so we can magic burst for bigger numbers.
Giving us a full set of San ninjitsu would be nice, but I think it could completely marginalize shurikens (which has kinda happened anyways when it costs 40k+ for 99 manjis) and maybe make the rangers a bit mad if we crank out so much damage :sweat:

Jubaku and Dokumori Ni: yes please.

Ninja's really should have recieved a /ja sneak, but again a ninjitsu here would be a nice alternative to silent oil.
Oh and a bind style ninjitsu wouldn't hurt either to save some overaggroing fool thats used to a paladin covering their ass :p

[Kiyosuki]

Having the elemental san's be AOE's is actually...a very good idea.

Like Seiken Densetsu's Hawkeye and his best set of Ninjutsu, if he went that path.

It would have limited uses though, it must have something though.

[Burzum]

I dunno what would be the big problem

I've stated this in other threads but... on a fundamental level Ninja's SHOULD be better tanks than PLD's. For the sole reason that if PLD's had to spend what NIN's did to lvl then they should be equal in their respective roles situations. Although as well all know PLD's can get to 75 on next to nothing in comparison. Thus San SHOULD be implimented to fully restore Ninja's Blink Tank ability in end game situations. It's crazy that Ninja's are tanks for lvl 37-75 and then castrated on end game encounters.

My other reason for this being that RNG's pay to be the Supierior DD. Thus Nin's pay to be the Supierior Tank... I mean I don't hear cries for NERF RNG's they do too much damage!

My basic feeling on the whole Ni screwage was it should have been a 41 ability say like Covert for RDM. I also find it complete hogwash that one Job takes an almost complete monopoly on tanking in HNM situations. BRD is the only other job that has a complete monopoly on what it brings to the table. Although several other jobs do bring alternative but lesser buffs.

That's just my piece. Ninja's shell out the gil for the title of King of tanking as RNG's shell it out for King of DD. I mean if PLD costed as much as NIN did to lvl how many would there be Vs. War/Mnk Tanks for ppl's first 75 jobs????

[Deneb]

What you fail to realize is that a ranger is paying for superior DD and little else. They have no real versatility, and without a nice big tank to hide behind they would probably even get ganked by EP. Its much the same for paladins, there offense is terrible, and ive seen paladins get beat on by DC's before solo, all defense, no offense.

Ninja on the other hand can already solo fairly well, and in terms of dot damage, provided your not a cheap bastard shihei only ninja, you can nearly keep up with some of the heavy hitters, add in the fact that you can completely negate nearly all incoming damage at 37 and you should see where im coming from.

Just looking at the Nin/Blm thread you can see what kind of havoc would be created by making san elemental ninjitsu, between the Ni's and San's you would effectively replace the blm, and probably even rangers in terms of damage.

With Utsusemi San you wouldnt need a whm ever again, and since you'd have the san series for blind, slow, para, etc, you wouldnt need a rdm for debuffs either. Essentially you would be a one man wrecking ball. Assuming that ever happened you'd likely end up with a serious nerf, and see your katana, parry, evasion all being kicked down to C+. Its the same reason rdm has low capped parry, shield, evasion, and a B in swords, if we were any better it would be unbalanced galore.

[Burzum]

I understand your arguement. Although as I stated previously Ninja's pay Gil for their spell casting ability. I see Ninja as kinda jack of all traits I highly doubt you'd be seeing Ninja's busting out 1K plus MB's so I think BLM still can hold on to some job security. As for replaceing RDM well I doubt you'd see that either as I haven't seen a Refresh or Dispel Ninjitus yet . Also with the advent of the Blink nerf Ninja's aren't and never were the invincible force! All a San would do is allow them to counter act AOE's if both Ichi and Ni have already been used.


As for RNG's I was mearly making the point that they pay to be King of DD. With the current situation with Ninja it's like RNG's kill for DD all the way to 75 and then come HNM time they suddenly becomely almost completely ineffective and DRK moves into the top DD melee spot thus making all the gil you spend lvling from 1-75 basically irrelievent. You just spent 4-5 million gil in just ammo alone just to have a job that spent 2-3 million at the most with no additional upkeep costs (aka ammo expenses) now to have another job outperform you.


Now take Ninja in most HNM situations... here at HNM LS ninja lvl equipment (aka has Scorp Harness) and cost of lvling 1-75 I'd beg to estimate somewhere around 10-12 million in ninjitsu expense + equipment costs. Just to be able to pre-nerf tank a selected # of HNM's. Then after that SE takes most of those away via AOE nerf. Making basically another job almost as effective subing your job in War/Nin since you both lose your shadows equally quickly and nobody Evades GOD lvl HNM's so there goes that A rated evasion advantage over warrior. The rest of your Ninjistu is ineffective, your Katana's are ineffective... etc... Then the job aka PLD who spend maybe 3 million in gear which get's removed btw by cursed (which blows for Ninja since no cursed armor are effective replacements for their top end gear) so they get to resell that Adaman armor eventally. Is the prefered Tank. So its like saying it's ok for DRK to replace RNG for DD as PLD replaces Ninja for Tank.

That's my point that comparitive low cost jobs should not replace jobs who shell millions in non-recoverable <--- NOTICE NON-RECOVREABLE gil just to be second Rate... or have your 37-75 role remove completely. That is my point....

PS: BTW the reason I'm talking about HNM's and not exp party is realistically post lvl 75 which would be the main reason someone would shell out 12 million gil to get to 75. Most content that ppl are interested in is HNM Dyamis etc.. most ppl don't lvl NIN and RNG to 75 just to lvl another job

[Cryptik]

I would like a bind , sleep and silence ninjutsu plz.

[Kiyosuki]

Hmmm..

"Kasumi Tate Ichi" (Mist Shield, or in other words Smoke Bomb)
Level 45.
Self spell, increases critical hit rate and evasion rate.
Duration 2 minutes.
Recast time, 4 minutes.

"Kasumi Tate Ni" (Mist Shield step two, Smoke Bomb..still)
Level 65
Self spell, dramatically increases critical hit rate and evasion rate.
Duration 3 minutes.
Recast time 7 minutes.

Tool : Kemuri Kara (Smoke Shell)

"Mienaku" (Vanish)
Level 60.

Self spell. Increases running speed by 25 % and and sheds Emnity for a duration of 5 seconds (So you gotta get away pretty quick)
Duration (Emnity shed):5 seconds, (Speed increase):30 seconds.
Recast time: 7 minutes.

Tool:Kaede Ha (Maple Leaves)

"Kane Ame Ichi" (Metal Rain, like Sheik's needle attack)
Level 60
Elemental Attack spell. Attacks to the Darkness element and lowers defense against Light.
Duration: Its an attack..
Recast time: Cast and recast time are the same as the Ni's
Tool: Hari (Needles)

"Tengoku Kagami Ichi" (Mirror of Paradise)
Level 60
Elemental Attack spell, Attacks to Light and lowers defense against Darkness.
Duration: See Kane Ame
Recast time: Cast and racast time are the same as the Ni's
Tool: O-Fuda (Talisman)

They're attack power may be better than the basic Ni's since they're "Advanced" magic attacks, that can each magic burst to multiple elements much like the Magic burst properties (IE Light can also mb to fire, wind etc) They're basically there to make up for the lack of San enfeebles. I think the idea of the san enfeebles being similar to Ga spells is a great idea.

"Kage Torimasu Ichi" (Shadow Catcher)
Level: 65
An enfeeble attack that lower's the enemy's evasion, and binds them. (Imagine how cool that'd be for Black mages)
Duration: Depending on the monster's resistance, 3-5 minutes.
Recast time: 7 minutes:
Casting time is 2.5 seconds.
Tool:Noroi Hocho (Cursed Knife)
(This is based off of a famous attack where a Ninja would throw a cursed small dagger at someone's shadow, thus trapping the shadow and the shadow's owner)

Job abilities:

"Grand Lethal"
Recast time: 10 minutes
Duration: 2 minutes.
"Dramatically increases hit speed (decreases delay inother words) and pierces defense (All strikes ignore defense up to 50 %
At the cost of evasion rate and defense power. (Coupled with berserk this thing would be lethal, but the evasion and defense penalty would keep it something you use at certain times, when the moment is right, rather than all the time.)
Level:60

"Shinjimasu Ninjutsu" (Believe in Ninjutsu)
Recast time: 15 minutes.
Duration:2 minutes.
Increases the potency of Ninjutsu abilities for a period of time.
The enfeebles: Stick harder and a bit longer.
The elementals: Do 15% more damage
Utsusemi: Resist AOE's more and protects from Ga spells, but Ga spells take ALL shadows. But the user is protected from damage nonetheless.
Level:65





Thats all I would need, I think thats all Ninja's would need in general.

What do you guys think?

[Karinya]

Kiyosuki's ideas are interesting, but I think adding all of that might be a bit much.

I'd like to see NIN redefined as something *other* than a blink tank - in which NIN wouldn't usually be the primary tank (but might be SATA partner, etc.) But NIN is already crazy strong - you can't add anything to them without taking something else away, or you break them completely.

Part of the reason is that, like RNG, limitations based on having to use items aren't very limiting if the player has the gil to buy the items and is willing to spend it. Item-based abilities also need to be limited by something else - for RNG it's accuracy and hate, but for blink tanking NIN the hate is an *advantage* so they have to be limited by casting or recast timers.

The main reasons blink tanking hasn't been nerfed much - and can't be nerfed much - are the overall tank shortage, and the perception that NIN aren't useful in any other role.

1) The tank shortage. Out of 15 jobs, only two are really respected as main tanks, NIN and PLD. WAR may be merely underrated and not actually weak; MNK/WAR has the HP and VIT to take hits, and good JA's/traits for tanking, but lacks the DEF. SAM/WAR also has good HP (more than PLD), A parry, Third Eye, but weak DEF. In addition, none of those can heal themselves like a PLD (MNK have chakra but not very often, and I don't remember if WAR/MNK get it at all.) which reduces MP use and hate for the WHM, and raises hate for the PLD.

MNK could become a viable tank just by introducing new gear; I don't know what, if anything, WAR needs to help them tank before 74, though. (Maybe Provoke should be more effective for WAR main than for WAR sub - but they'd still need just as many MP for healing.) Better armor would just benefit PLDs more, and better weapons help more in the DD role (and don't help the paper tank problem). But I'd like to see WAR, MNK and maybe SAM become possible choices for main tanks in an exp party (in addition to keeping the option of being good DD with the right gear). Better DEF in martial arts gear would help MNK and SAM tank better, but benefit NIN little because it's not their style of tanking. More ability for other jobs to tank could not only help those jobs into parties, but also help NIN get into parties that had another viable tank because you wouldn't constantly have 2 or 3 5-person parties lacking only a tank.

I'd like to see NIN be able to distract a monster for a while, but if they still have hate after 30 seconds, they should be in trouble, and in a couple minutes they should probably be dead (assuming it's VT-IT, of course; they should still be able to solo lower level mobs and last a while against EM-T even if they don't have backup). It's one thing to be able to blink tank high delay, low accuracy monsters, but even relatively fast attacking accurate monsters still can't break through blink as it currently exists. 100% blink coverage means they can do things like berserk while tanking, which makes them even more overpowered.

2) NIN isn't respected as a damage dealer. I don't know if this perception is accurate or not, but if NIN damage really is low even using DD gear and tactics, adjusting the damage on 1h katanas or their WS could help. Or damage oriented throwing WS (even if they can only be used with shuriken) - and I think the game really needs higher efficiency and/or higher yield shuriken recipes (modern arrow recipes are *much* more efficient than the ones that existed at release, but shuriken haven't caught up). A Critical Up trait would be cool, thematic and appropriate, too.

3) NIN isn't respected as an enfeebler. They get no enfeeble that other jobs don't already have, they get them later and they don't stack. Nobody's going to invite a NIN for Kurayami and Jubaku when a RDM can cast Blind and Paralyze *and* backup heal, and at higher levels Refresh and Haste. Sure, the NIN does more damage than RDM, but there's lots of damage dealers.

I think NIN should have some new enfeebles that other jobs don't have, or the ninjutsu enfeebles should be adjusted to stack with mage enfeebles, or both. I'd like to see an attack down ninjutsu that stacks with Bio, a defense down that stacks with Dia (maybe acid like certain weapons?), Dokumori + Poison dealing twice the DoT. Hojo, Jubaku and Kurayami would have to be looked at so they didn't become too overpowering in conjunction with mage enfeebles (and potentially bard songs, too - Hojo + Slow + Elegy, Kurayami + Blind + Mambo...) Kiyosuki's Shadow Catcher idea is cool too, too bad they already gave a weaker version to RNG of all things. But everybody loves an evasion debuff. Of course it should stack with Gravity... All the current Ninjutsu debuffs are defensive, except Dokumori; a defense down debuff or Shadow Catcher would help NIN support the party's damage.

NIN's defensive debuffs could be a big help to a tank in the party (i.e. not the NIN) too - except that mages already have them all, so the NIN isn't really adding anything. That's why they need unique or stacking debuffs.

Stun ninjutsu would be interesting too (or something else that had a similar effect), even though it isn't anything new or unique to NIN.

4) NIN as a nuker - I don't think they really need much here. Elemental San's might be ok, but they need to have longer casting time (or *really* long recast time, like 1-2 minutes) to compensate for the lack of MP cost, or they will dominate BLM since you can just spam them in a circle, using each one to reduce the resist rate on the next one. (Unless the hate gets to be too much - but as long as you can ignore attacks with Utsusemi...) Light and Dark seem unnecessary - Lv3 Light and Dark SCs allow four possible MBs anyway, three of which NIN can already use. Are the Nis even worth MBing?

A Sneak ninjutsu would be nice too. I don't see any reason NIN didn't have it already. Or maybe the Stealth ability should just get multiple levels, becoming better and better at reducing sound aggro with level, until at level 50 or 60 it eliminates sound aggro completely. Wouldn't that be cool? (Has to be high enough level that THF/NIN don't get to walk into e.g. Beadeaux for free and pick coffers... coffer picking interferes with AF seekers enough as it is. 50 seems about right, you start doing a lot more dungeons after that.)

I think the best way to fix Utsusemi would be to make them unreliable. Whenever a monster attacks someone with Utsusemi, its level is checked against the person's Ninjutsu skill and if it "resists" Utsusemi, it hits the character, otherwise it hits an image. This nerfs /NIN more than NIN (good), has little effect on farming/soloing lower level mobs (good), but makes NIN an unreliable main tank (also good, IF they have other effective roles in a party and other jobs can tank). Lengthening the recast timers would be another option - making NIN a "burst tank" but not a sustained tank because they will run out of shadows - but it would be hard to prevent 100% shadow coverage after San unless it is pretty useless.

If you reduce NIN tanking without improving other jobs, you worsen the tank shortage; but you can't improve NIN's damage or enfeebling without weakening their tanking or they will be *really* too strong instead of just kinda too strong (because one of the main limitations on DD is hate, but main tanks *want* hate). So any substantive changes to NIN have to come as part of overall changes to other things too.

[Melkor]

Best way to fix Utsusemi is to make it unreliable? No thanks.

[Kiyosuki]

Yeah I didn't intend on thinking all of those could be added, just random idea's for thing's that could be worthwhile and still not overpowering at high levels.