Changing up Ninja

#1

Ninja at the moment is a very unusual class. It lacks much character and just feels like the actual use was rushed while the designs were super thought out. So… why not give the character more depth, more strategy?

First thing’s first: stats.
70 Attack -> 65 Attack
70 Dexterity -> 75 Dexterity
60 Speed -> 75 Speed
70 Wisdom -> 60 Wisdom

These changes will allow the Ninja to feel more quick without relying too hard on its Speedy, and it may lose DPS overall, but it is meant to be quick, not brutal, and fits more.

Next, onto ability changes:

Make all tiered stars pierce, and up their damage a good amount along with adding pierce, but also…
Replace Speedy with Invisible and Stunned.
(With more MP cost, less range, and a time of 1.5 seconds where you have to wait to use Invisible again.)

Doing this would make Ninja feel more like, well… a Ninja. They currently do not feel like they are stealthy, only agile, which is a defining characteristic. Adding this will also help make Ninja a strategic character, as you can take your time of not being able to fire while invisible to aim yourself properly. The pierce would also be more keen towards stars being very quick and sharp.

Now for the final thing:

Make UT held effects differ from tiered effects.

This is pretty basic. At the moment, only projectiles do anything unique, so adding a unique effect to Ninja’s UTs for its held effect will make it more diverse.

Here’s some examples of improved or changed stat concepts.

(All tiered stars would have 12 range instead of 15.)
Tier 0:
100-200 -> 100-225
30 MP -> 40 MP
+Pierce
Tier 6:
850-950 -> 900-1000
100 MP -> 125 MP
+Pierce
Midnight Star:
When held
Keep Speedy, add -15 Dex
When released
300-600 -> 450-800
Keep 15 range
Keep no pierce
4s Paralyzed -> 4.5s Paralyzed
90 MP -> 95 MP
Kageboshi:
When held
Replace Invisible and Stunned with +20 Def and -15 Spd
When released
414-506 -> 1425-1800
8.4 Range -> 7 Range
Add armor pierce
80 MP -> 115 MP
Add 2 second Cooldown

Kageboshi is the biggest concept change, while the others mainly got a buff/tweak; Midnight is simply a buff so it can compete with the other Stars and has its own quirk outside of lower damage now, and tiered stars cost more and have lower range but deal more damage and pierce, as listed above.

If you don’t like my proposed changes, totally fine. This is simply my take on it.

(EDIT: Hella reduced tiered damage and clarified the added pierce.)
(EDIT #2: Boosted Attack up to 65 and added an “Invisible timer”.)

#2

I feel like stacking status affects on an ability doesn’t make for a very original or useful one. The fact that you’re stunned while invisible pretty much negates the chances of making ninja an offensive class since it’s ability makes it a defensive one and ninja is already defensively weak.

And plus you’d have to rework rogue which I’m pretty sure no one has any complaints about.

#3

Invisible and Stunned is a logical fit for things, and really, Ninjas aren’t necessarily the most offensive beings in existence. They’re meant to be stealthy while being agile, which isn’t exactly what it does right now. Stunned on top of Invisible is a way to help imply the “keeping hidden” feeling of Invisible.

It also doesn’t replace Rogue, since Rogue has a timed Cloak and that is its main function, while Ninja with this would have Invisible being its first function that aids the second function. Its use is far more strategic, since you lose out on damage if you’re invisible for too awful long, and only punish yourself for extended use unlike how Speedy currently is with the only punishment coming from being unable to control yourself, which is easy to work around.

#4

The held effect could be a variable in ut’s, i very much agree on that, but idk if stats are the way to go
I know the bloody cloak has it too, and i could work, im just not sure
While the concept of invisible and stunned works for the ninja, i think that should just be one of the ut’s held effects otherwise it could feel like a rogue 2.0
Just like archer and huntress
The best point is the stat changes though, the changes would indeed give it more character and feel more like a fast and fleeting persona
(kinda weird order, but eh)

#5

Dont forget tho that if you release space and hold it again youre close to being perma cloaked anyway while still dealing massive damage from the star, but pets
Which could be sorta prevented by upping the mp/s cost a lot, but that would be super unbalanced toward newer players (or just ones without pets)

#6

It’s best to not try and focus balance around pets, since anything with a pet is unbelievably powerful even if it isn’t at all great. My 90/90 can permanently use a Tier 0 helm.

#7

Shield, right? not helm
But ye…
Pets make anything hard to balance

I guess putting a cooldown on the held effect could work, like the one on cloaks, but still being able to throw stars
Im not sure how that would work in programming but that aint my problem (and there’s like a natural cooldown on abilities or something, since i can tab space a few times a second but the spells always seems to burst at a lower fire rate)

#8

Any proposed changes on rogues then?

#9

My own personal suggestion on Rogue was just adding more Invisible time for more Wisdom and a short(-range) Daze on activation, but that’s unrelated to Prod. In Prod, Rogue is totally fine as is, since he mainly uses invisible to get damage in safely, while this Ninja would mainly use invisible to get by or line up star attacks.

#10

Ninja and Assassin are already very similar classes, being both Leather Armor with a very long-range damaging Ability. I don’t think giving them both the exact same stats would alleviate that.

Only if you take ninjas seriously. Most popular culture about them makes them out to be back-flipping murder machines wielding all sorts of exotic weaponry and improbable borderline magic techniques.

Look at Ninja Gaiden. Look at Strider. Look at all the old ninja exploitation movies. Look at Naruto.

This would make Ninja stupidly overpowered for rushing. Putting an effect like Invisible on a “when key held” effect makes it impossible to balance.

There are currently hundreds of non-failed Divine pets in the game. Legendary pets number in the thousands. We’re way past the point where burying your head in the sand and saying “pets don’t matter” was an option.

It’s also weird that you’d acknowledge pets as being unbelievably powerful only to give pet owners even more of an advantage.

And the worst part about it is that you should already know the solution:

No it cannot. Every Helm has a CD longer than its effect.

This is only going to hurt players without pets or lower-level pets. What’s more, increasing the Mp cost without touching the “when key held” Mp consumption doesn’t change anything to the possibility of being perma’d.

This is something I actually agree with. It’s just going to be a nightmare to balance out because simply slapping any kind of buff on an Ability that can be maintained permanently becomes broken or redundant with other classes very fast.

Those aren’t bad ideas. Instead of straight up buffing yourself, you’re switching between different modes based on the situation.

This could easily become overpowered and also would likely make Ninja players rely on their Ability too much (again, turning Ninja into an Assassin clone) instead of alternating between throwing Stars and going deep.

#11

The stats thing, yeah, I can see how it would look similar to Assassin, but that’s just stat-wise. Even currently WITHOUT speedy, Ninja plays way differently.

I went for a more “historically faithful” depiction, since it would fit more uniquely into the game than just “he goes fast”.

The whole pet part is the exact reason I’ve opted to making the When Key Held effect not allow MP regeneration. I’ll likely add it onto the main post somewhere.

The higher MP cost part I can understand, but lowering the range is more of a counterbalance to the higher damage and added pierce. I may keep the damage as it was or with much less of an improvement on damage, but the pierce will do more than help.

I had to be careful with Kageboshi, but Midnight Star felt easy to do for me. It would be an absolute shame to let Speedy go entirely, so adding it onto a Star that already had much more of a variety use felt easy to do. As for Kageboshi, the statues do a TON of damage, so I wanted to reflect that by making the damage INTENSE and adding Armor Pierce, but make it require time to cool down. Of course, lowering range easily makes it harder to use in some scenarios but acts as a balance so you can’t sit 12 tiles away and murder everything unscathed.

I already touched on this part up above, but I will say that I went for less effective range for this exact reason.

#12

No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
NEINEINNEINNEIN

#13

How constructive.

#14

Thanks

Also

No

#15

how constructive.

#16

T h a n k s

Also

no

#17

How constructive!
Get the point yet?

#18

No

Thanks

Also

No

#19

you saying “no” doesn’t do anything. would appreciate either just removing the unnecessary comments or making an actual argument like everyone else.

#20

I
agree
saying
No
will
not
help
Or
have
A
great
argument
and
feedback
on
this
thread,
Look
So
@PLEBJESUS
no
more…
Oh
forgot
to
say
No
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