[Karinya]

Originally Posted by Malacite

My only concerns here are the shared timer rather than a Hasso/Seigan thing which is really quite odd, and the accuracy penalty. Ninjas usually use sushi anyway IIRC, but that penalty could still prove troublesome, and it's not like SE isn't aware the majority of ninjas tank in parties. They need that acc to help hold hate.

I think it's a signal from SE to tanking NINs that they should be doing more than swinging at the mob and occasionally provoking to hold hate. Bonus evasion will reduce your damage taken and bonus enmity will improve the hate generated by all your actions - not just provoke, but also ninjutsu, which can get quite a bit of hate if you bother to use them. (The new abilities are level 40, same as the elemental Ni wheel.)

Probably it will be intended to balance out so that a ninja who uses ninjutsu for more hate and evades more attacks will hold better hate and need less healing, but one who relies solely on swinging and provoke will benefit less, if at all.

It would be logical to introduce more higher level enfeebling ninjutsu to complement this playstyle (Jubaku: Ni and Dokumori: Ni already exist as mob only spells, all they would have to add would be scrolls) but I don't know if SE will want to do that much in one update.

Whether SE will actually get it right is harder to be sure of, but it looks good so far. (Also a very good call to make these above SJ level. I'm sure PLD/NIN would love Yonin and DD/NIN would love Innin but it would be way too good for them - getting Ni is already OP for a subjob.)

It also looks like if your party's speed is determined by healer MP, you want to use Yonin to reduce your damage taken and/or keep hate off the DDs more often, but if your party has plenty of healing and its speed is determined by how fast you can kill, you want to *not* use it, even if you're tanking, so you'll do more damage. Unlike SCH, SAM, and WHM, the tradeoffs in these abilities are significant enough that the neutral stance (not using either ability) might remain worthwhile in some situations.


In any case, updates to RDM and NIN prove that this is not just about who needs improvement, they want to give cool stuff to everyone. It's just hard to give cool stuff to jobs that are already borderline overpowered without making them absolutely overpowered.


P.S.: Good catch on the Red Oni/Blue Oni thing. I think a good example of this, if you've seen it, is Samurai Champloo - Mugen is red oni, Jin is blue oni.

[Feba]

Originally Posted by Karinya

Probably it will be intended to balance out so that a ninja who uses ninjutsu for more hate and evades more attacks will hold better hate and need less healing, but one who relies solely on swinging and provoke will benefit less, if at all.

Hm.

I wonder what would happen if SE changed things so that NINs and PLDs didn't need to use provoke to keep hate without problems; or even made provoke somewhat detrimental.

[Malacite]

As far as SMN goes, in that last interview Tanaka gave (again, it might just have been a typo on Elmer's part) it sounded like we may not even get the avatars this month, and worse yet that it will only be one. Previously the devs said they were working on two and that the testing should be done by either the spring or summer update... so what gives?

Not that more summons will fix the core issues with SMN anyway. It would be nice to see a few other minor tweaks as well, such as a further increase to ranged damage (to balance things out between SAM and RNG a little better) and please SE, begging you on this one...

Fix the automaton's casting AI. If anyone's played PUP you should know how retarded the little guy is when it comes to prioritizing spells, even with the right attachments. A friend of mine just wants to face palm every time he takes a little bit of damage and instead of a cure 2 or 3, his auto blows all it's MP on Cure 5. Or how it will always Enfeeble before nuking, even with Spiritreaver head.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Feba

I wonder what would happen if SE changed things so that NINs and PLDs didn't need to use provoke to keep hate without problems; or even made provoke somewhat detrimental.

As is, NINs and PLDs (and RDMs) don't use Provoke--Lv.75, when tanking stuff much harder than meripo targets.

Provoke isn't detrimental, just that /WAR doesn't bring enough/right tools for tanking certain things.

Originally Posted by Karinya

P.S.: Good catch on the Red Oni/Blue Oni thing. I think a good example of this, if you've seen it, is Samurai Champloo - Mugen is red oni, Jin is blue oni.

Oni are traditionally blue or red skinned, but I don't think their personality/temperament is necessarily color coded? Not even sure if it can even be considered a manga/anime convention; plenty of works use oni without anything remotely resembling the blue/red divide described.

Yonin (陽忍) = Yang Nin(jutsu), and Yang is more or less "sun", so red.
Innin (陰忍) = Yin Nin(jutsu), and Yin is associated with cold, so probably why it's blue.

Not much to do with oni anything, if you ask me.

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Oni are traditionally blue or red skinned, but I don't think their personality/temperament is necessarily color coded? Not even sure if it can even be considered a manga/anime convention; plenty of works use oni without anything remotely resembling the blue/red divide described.

Yonin (陽忍) = Yang Nin(jutsu), and Yang is more or less "sun", so red.
Innin (陰忍) = Yin Nin(jutsu), and Yin is associated with cold, so probably why it's blue.

Not much to do with oni anything, if you ask me.

Itaz . . . first of all, there are plenty of works that do use the convention: Red Oni Blue Oni - Television Tropes & Idioms

Also, note that it has little to do with literal oni, which may be confusing you. I just brought it up in sort of a response to BBQ and how he stated that the blue Innin was more thematically suited to what Ninjas are traditionally supposed to be.

I had mentioned that rather than limit themselves to just that (and to please multiple aspects of the fanbase at the same time), S-E seems to have taken the Red Oni/Blue Oni approach with these abilities - the Red Oni, being more likely to say "screw tradition," would be more appropriate for the kind Ninja who uses their cool esoteric tricks to make herself the center of attention and distract the mob while working with his friends to take it down; the much calmer and less fiery Blue Oni, however, is more suited for acting the cold, "stealth killer" role, and the fact that it is what Ninja traditionally do is a bonus.

The personalities themselves can also be described (or "named," per se) as Yang and Yin, by your own words:

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Yonin (陽忍) = Yang Nin(jutsu), and Yang is more or less "sun", so red.
Innin (陰忍) = Yin Nin(jutsu), and Yin is associated with cold, so probably why it's blue.

I just think that, given the way that they named it, and given the ability animations that are shown (same shape, inverse Red/Blue colors), and what the abilities themselves actually do, the Red Oni/Blue Oni relationship was the best way to describe what S-E is doing, and likely intending.

[IfritnoItazura]

YM,

Think you're way over-reading. The colors Blue and Red themselves already associate with some (relatively vague) sets of concepts in temperament--more importantly, they are also the colors often used to in the yin-yang symbol--exactly the yin and yang used in Innin and Yonin.

Don't need to add an 'oni' when SE itself didn't. 'Yin' and 'Yang' actually fit the what the abilities do quite well, by the way. (I assume you know what yin-yang is.)

A quick search on FFXIAH says the only NIN equipment with "oni" in it is "Oninohocho"--Oni's Kitchen Knife. (That's actually a lot scarier than it sounds, since oni is often depicted as man-eaters.) There is little evidence SE's running with "NIN as Oni" theme much.

I grew up on Japanese manga (not the pathetically small selections you see in U.S.) , and I've never came across this blue/red concept for oni before. If anything, the concept of "beware of striking bargains with oni" is central and canonical (to manga), while the red/blue stuff is just a few artists'/creaters' creative spin.

If you really want to color code personality or temperament in fiction, try the Incredible Hulk or something.

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

Also, note that it has little to do with literal oni, which may be confusing you.

Again, Itaz, you're focusing far too much on the literal meaning of the whole "oni" thing. It's a figure of speech - repeat after me: Red Oni and Blue Oni aren't actually oni. It's merely a way of describing a particular set of personality types that have a yang/yin relationship.

If the whole "oni" thing is bothering you so much, replace it with the word of your choice - "temperament," "attitude," "flavor," I don't care. Just stop getting so hung up on the whole oni thing and you can see that we're pretty much talking about the same thing.

[IfritnoItazura]

I don't get it, then. If oni has nothing to do with it, why label it blue/red oni when it's clearly yin-yang if just looking at Japanese for Innin and Yonin? Why not just call it, um, yin-yang?

[Takelli]

Because calling it just Yin-Yang isn't as flashy as Innin and Yonin. Also... There might be a deeper meaning to the words that you two aren't seeing?

[Raydeus]

陰/陽 VS 陽忍/陰忍


Count one vote for 陽忍/陰忍.

[Ketaru]

Unrelated to NIN so much as it is other possible job updates...

But I suddenly had this dreadful thought BLM might not see an update even now. See, prior to the recent string of updates, interviews and such were released concerning future plans for jobs. RDM will be getting some kind of situational frontline update. WHM will get spells that put them at a level similar to SCH. NIN will be getting something that will involve enmity manipulation. And it looks like we may have new SMN avatars in the works.

Several of those interviews created a buzz and, for the most part, SE has delievered. RDM got a frontline update, but it could also be manipulated to serve somewhat of a backline purpose. WHM got a whole plethora of features that added complexity to the job. And we now have the NIN update which has enmity manipulation attached to it.

I think all that is left is SMN's new avatars and BST's "raised pets."

But all this time, I don't believe we've had one word on BLM at all. No "XYZ update is on the table for BLM" or "We're thinking of letting BLM do ABC." It wouldn't surprise me terribly if the Dev team was like this right now:

"OMG, July update is coming up! Wut r we gonna do with BLM?!?!?!?!"

[Gyotsha]

Other jobs, too, are scheduled to benefit from myriad adjustments to magic and abilities.

Unless it's been poorly translated, it looks like there's a good chance of either smn or blm getting updates to some magic in this update.

[Malacite]

Well, the Devs did say they admitted all the pet jobs need some serious beefing up for endgame (BST is so useless it's not even funny... And it's not necessarily the fault of the job, but the community and what kind of strategies get employed) and that the primary focus of 2009 would be to make every job fun to play.

I take that to mean every job is going to get some kind of update by the end of the year. They're probably going to do 3-5 jobs this update, and the rest between fall/winter. I'm hoping BLM will get some kind of overhaul similar to how WHM did but we'll see.

Tier 5 nukes would be unbelievably sweet but I'm pretty damn sure SE won't ever do that


I do have one idea that might cause a paradigm shift and IMO would very much benefit us greatly without being too overpowering.

Make Sentinel a 3/5 minute duration instead of 30 seconds. This would make WAR a viable tank from 60+ again and cement PLD's position as the premier tanking class. Hell, PLD would likely start seeing invites to merit parties again since they'd be locking down the mobs and taking very little damage, which may or may not be enough to ween people off /NIN (Nin sub doens't even get used in optimal merit parties anyway but when I say optimal I mean kick ass 30k/hour with godly gear >_>)

I don't believe it will overpower PLD main either. It will certainly make life easier though and reduce the dependency on support jobs, which IMO is how a PLD should function anyway. It makes sense for WAR to have to rely on good support since it basically just has a weapon and armor, but PLD really could stand to be a bit more self-sufficient.Even with level sync it's not like COR BRD and RDM are common.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Thing about BLM isn't so much that they even need a serious adjustment akin to what WHM got, its more to the end that they need some hook that makes them friendlier for party play in the current climate of the game. Its undeniable that people aren't going to pull away from this style of play and changing it after its been permitted for so long would come with a volatile reaction on the scale of the RNG nerf or accidental HNM enfeebling issues. Or greater.

So BLM needs some way into the current world of FFXI, there's nothing really wrong with BLM at its core, its just as BST doesn't fit into endgame strategy that BLM is the odd man out for EXP. Well, BST is too, but that's largely based on community assumption that anyone that levels BST always wants to solo, but I digress.

[Karinya]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

Well, BST is too, but that's largely based on community assumption that anyone that levels BST always wants to solo, but I digress.

Well, that and that they aren't necessarily prepared for party play. I wouldn't hesitate to invite a BST if I ever saw one flagged up (very rare in the first place), but I would also assume that if they flagged for invite they would be ready to bring appropriate gear and tactics for party play. That means, at a minimum, an effective DD sj and gear, a level-appropriate axe (two if /NIN), and some level-appropriate jugs and pet food. (If all you have is Carrie, that's not so good, but it's better than bringing no jugs at all to a party, which I have actually seen). Those expectations are not always met in practice and it contributes to the bad image of the job - so some people probably only invite BSTs they know and trust to have something other than charm gear to contribute to the party.

But I think the main reason most people level BST is as a 3rd or 4th job in order to not have to deal with other pt members, and to be able to keep all the seals (BST is very powerful in certain BCNMs, one of the few settings where they're wanted *more* than other jobs) and other loot - both of which would be undermined by joining a party as BST. They're probably not really racing to 75 - what would they do when they got there? - so even if a party gets better exp/hr, who cares? If you're not going to join parties, you don't need to maintain a set of party gear and jugs and replace them as you level up - and if you're not doing that you really shouldn't be trying to join parties.


I dunno about BLM. When a job can solo VT mobs and manaburn for exp as good as if not better than melee parties, do they really need another exp option? Everyone still lines up to worship them in endgame settings, so the risk of overpowering them with an improvement is obviously very high.

All that said, though, it's still quite possible that Job Adjustments Part II will be BLMs - we'll know in a couple weeks. I really doubt they would have put in the "Part I" if there wasn't going to be *some* job as a Part II.