Disclaimer: Long post! If you don't love Nin: There is nothing to see here! Keep moving...
This is not targeted at anything really (certainly not SE) but rather a game design exercise for myself where I spell out some ideas I had for Nin as a job. I am curious to hear what you guys think, how and if that would fit into the game and/or make the job more attractive in current end game content.
Nin, being one of my all time favorite jobs (love the concept and lore behind it), still sort of lacks a clear vision from SE. So I was searching for something that makes it worth using but balanced and not OP in every situation. Something that is fun to play and captures the lore of a Nin, fits into the current game as well as keeps alive what players currently like about Nin.
So for this I came up with something that Nin partly already is but would like to max out the potential here.
Hybrid (= phys/magic) debuff DD
i.e. focus on the hybrid weapon skills that Nin already has (Chi/To/Teki/Kagero/Jinpu/Goten) as a way to enhance its debuffs to a usable level.
Reasoning: Debuffing used to be an important part of the job but the potency has not at all kept up with the pace of the rest of the game. I am looking at you 3HP/tick poison from Dokumori: Ichi ... Also, Nin is the only job that gets access to hybrid WSs for all (of the 6) elements if you include GKatana. I feel these have great potential but are under used by the current game design due to nature and amount of buffs they require.
As a quick summary: My ideas are to slightly buff hybrid WSs to make them less reliant on heavy buffs, increase Nins GKat capabilities to make Nin + GKat a valid option, significantly increase debuff potency, have hybrid WS of certain element increase debuff potency similar to Cor shots. Along with some over due fixes...
In detail:
WS
Leave phys WS dmg as they are
Slightly increase katana hybrid WS dmg by increasing the fTP for the phys part.
Make Blade: Ei a one phys hit hybrid similar to To/Teki
Drastically increase Yu poison. Make it start at about 500 per tic, possibility to be resisted for half dmg. Subsequent uses increase the damage for the overlapping timer to a max stack of 5. thats "only" 45k dmg over 270 sec per use at 3kTP so probably still barely usable but could be nice on enemies that force you to turn or hold TP for some reason or another.
para from Retsu and put it on To, add (weak) blind to Ei, change Acc- on Kamu to inhibit TP that stacks with Yurin, add (weak) poison to Teki, add (weak) slow to Chi
Give Nin access to Kasha and Shoha to acknowledge that Nins can wield (G)Katanas...
Here is the meat:
Using a hybrid WS of the corresponding element buffs a Ninjutsu debuff to a next tier, e.g. using Blade: Ei when Kurayami: Ni is in effect increases potency to the III level for the remainder of the debuff. This works on all Ninjutsu debuffs, including Yurin and Aisha. Only works once on the same debuff (similar to Cor shots).
Ninjutsu
Change elemental Ninjutsu effect to give SDT- similar to Rayke for 6 sec (before merits)). One tier down for Ni spells,
2 tiers down for San spells. Duration does not refresh/overwrite, the weak element will overwrite. Increase recast for San spells to 90sec. (even with max fast cast you cannot full time the SDT- effect like that with just one Nin)
Give Nin access to Jubaku Ni and Dokumori: Ni
Buff all debuff effects and make some of them scale with Ninjutsu skill (see hybrid WS for III/II effects):
- Kurayami III: scales with skill. Max about -120 Acc so a bit stronger than Blind II, does not stack with Blind
- Hojo III: about 35% so an alternative to Slow II
- Dokumori III: scales with skill. Up to about 750 per tick, does not stack with other poison effects. Duration 180 sec for a max of 45k dmg over 3min.
- Jubaku III scales with skill. comparable to Para II on max
- Yurin II: same as penance value of 25% fix
- Aisha II : ~ 30% Attack Down scale with skill,
Increase duration of self enhancing Ninjutsu by 50%
Increase self enhancing Ninjutsu potency:
- Kakka: scale with skill, up to STP+20. a) to make up for the DPS loss when being forced to cast it and b) since Nin will rely more on different WS now
- Myoshin: scale with skill up to +20, make it SB II. that way Myoshin and merits cap SB II (see Merit section)
Leave shadows as they are right now
Merits
A restructure here is long overdue. How the king of shadows, silent killer, the job with second highest native SB can have such a hard time capping SB II is beyond me. First things first: make SB merits SB II. Keep the effect at 1 per merit.
Next remove the element specific merits completely. Instead:
Increase ninjutsu resistance down effect duration by 2 seconds. (see Ninjutsu section)
Increase Issekigan effect: increase parrying rate by 2% per merit level, 1% on NMs (see Abilities)
Ninjutsu magic effect duration by 6sec per merit, one category for buffs and one for debuffs (does not include elemental resistance down)
Reduce Futae recast timer by 6 sec
Job points
Make the casting time category also affect recast.
Abilities
Issekigan: Enmity + while using Yonin but Enmity- when using Innin. Make parry a flat % similar to Battuta to a moderate 20% (30 with merits).
Innin/Yonin: Remove decay, remove position requirement.
Futae: Turn this into a better elemental seal for Ninjutsu only: very high MAcc bonus, keep the dmg bonus, make buffs aoe in party when used.
Mijin Gakure: Always give RR effect, laaaargly increase dmg, make dmg scale with Ninjutsu skill up to ~40k dmg. If only to see hordes of Nins blowing up again haha
Mikage: Such an awesome ability already. Really underrated...well sort of. Stripping shadows is a bummer here. Fixing shadows is a tough one though, as this can easily make things unbalanced. However, I think we can mostly leave shadows as is. Just add: "while under the effect of Mikage, an enemies attack can consume at most one shadow". I think that would allow Nins to really make use of this hidden treasure.
Traits
影の術 Kage no Jutsu I/II/III: Trait that gives Nin Macc and MAB equivalent to the MAcc and MAB traits but only for Ninjutsu (don't judge me for the naming...)
Skills
Make Ninjutsu skill A+
Make GKatana Skill B+
Nagi...
It already has MAcc+40 on it, so lets make it Nins casting REMA. Change aftermath to MAcc/MAB, remove enmity, increase MDmg to the tier after +219, stop tool consumption while Nagi equipped, make casts quick magic casts with Futae while Nagi is equipped in the main hand. Half Futae recast when used with a buff spell.
So the idea is to highly increase Nins debuffing capabilities but lock it behind WS uses. Potency is comparable, sometimes slightly higher than Rdms but with a lower variaty of effects. Also Nin has to be in the front row for full effect. Nin's survivablility mainly servers self preservation and since Nin has to be in the front row capping SB is easier now. Together with the new SDT- effect on Elemental Ninjutsu and increased MAB and MAcc hybrid WSs from Nin have the potential for great dmg with the right buffs. Also Nin adds more utility to a party (Def-, Att-, Acc-, Inhibit TP, etc). It should not take away anything from the job and should not yet be over powered since its locked behind element weaknesses as well as a combination of the right buffs, magic dmg susceptibility and TP use.
Thoughts?
