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Posit: NIN, as a tank is inherrently unbalanced. For most purposes, the ability to completely avoid both physical and magical damage can not be balanced compared to another tank that is based on reducing damage. This deprecates the damage reduction tank as well as reduces the importance of healers. There is only one effective damage negation tank for most levels, the NIN, though the WAR/NIN can be effective at level 74. The initial balance to NIN, limited number of slots to carry tools, has been mostly reduced thanks to added inventory slot quests and tool-bags and the cost of the tools is not a significant impediment at higher levels.
Recommendation: Change NIN from a tank job to a DD/backup tank pet job. This must be done in such a way that the substantial investment in gear that NINs have made is not invalidated, though inevitably some dislocations would occur. The proposed changes are as follows:
Recommendation: Change NIN from a tank job to a DD/backup tank pet job. This must be done in such a way that the substantial investment in gear that NINs have made is not invalidated, though inevitably some dislocations would occur. The proposed changes are as follows:
- Utsusemi: Rather than creating shadows that absorb hits, it creates a shadow duplicate of the NIN, which would look like a Fomor version of the NIN. It would function like a mime, exactly mimicking the NIN's actions, including job abilities, job traits, spells, and attacks, but not weaponskills. Rather than use the NINs weapon skills though, it would use the NIN's Ninjitsu skill as its weapon skill . It's Ninjitsu skill would be equal to the NINs. At the Ichi level, it's characteristics and base damage would be 20% of the NINs, as would its HP and MP. At the Ni level, they would be 33%. For monsters with San, it would be 50%. The shadow's hate would be tracked as for any pet. However, if the NIN is attacked directly (by weapon or non-AOE spell), the shadow has a chance of being targetted instead. The recast for Ichi and NI would be changed to 10:00 minutes each with a duration of 20:00 minutes. As normal, the NIN could only have one pet at a time. The stack size for Utsusemi tools would be reduced to 12 and recipe yields adjusted accordingly. If used by a /NIN, the shadow's stats would be proportional to the ratio of the NIN level to the main level (i.e. 50% if a fully leveled sub) and the chance of absorbing a hit would be likewise proportionally reduced.
- New Enmity-based Job Ability: NIN's would gain a new level 35 job ability called Distract with a 5:00 recast. When used, it would, based on the NINs current rank on the enmity list and the amount of +Enmity the NIN had, force the monster to attack the NIN for a certain amount of time (10-15 seconds typically). It would also reduce all party members' enmity rank by a small amount, enhanced by any +enmity the NIN had.
- New 2hr Ability: The NIN's 2hr would be replaced by a new one called Shadow Blade (in Japanese of course). The NIN's next normal attack would work like a Ranger's Barrage, with a maximum of 10 hits (and like Barrage, ending as soon as an attack missed). Double Attack could process as well. If the NIN had a Shadow up, it would use Shadow Blade as well.
- Shurikens: The yield on Shurikens would be increased so that the recipes would yield 99 on a normal success. HQ1 would produce 33 +1 Shurikens, HQ2 would produce 66 +1 shurikens.
- Monk: Change Guard to check for skill-up whenever the MNK is hit, not when Guard actually processes. Give MNK a level 40 job ability called Chi Fist (3:00 recast, 0:30 duration) that adds a MND-based added-effect healing effect to its unarmed attacks that automatically processed on each hit. Chi Fist would heal an amount equal to the MNK's MND divided by 5 per hit. It would not cause extra damage to the target and would work even if facing undead.
- Warrior: Give WAR a new level 40 Job Trait called Stagger. It would only work with 2-handed weapons. Each time the WAR hit, the enemy's next attack would suffer a delay penalty equal to 10% of the WAR's weapon delay, but would only process if the WAR was at the top of the enmity list.
- Samauri: Give SAM a new level 40 Job Trait called Blinding Blade. Each time the SAM hit, the enemy's next attack would suffer an ACC down equal to the 20% of the SAM's skill with their current weapon. It would only process if the SAM was at the top of the enmity list and the mob was facing the SAM.
- Miscellaneous Changes: Parry and Shield would check for skill-up whenever the character is hit. To avoid stepping on DRKs' 2hr, their 2hr would be altered to instead act as Souleater, with +50% effectivenes, and with no self inflicted damage. Either new gear would be added or existing gear altered to give MNK and SAM access to a wider selection of tanking gear at all levels.
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