Suggestion Balancing Ninja In 2 Steps

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

I'll spare you with the play-by-play details on why Ninjas are in a horribly overpowered position at the moment. I've heard so so so many suggestions on how to balance Ninja. Some of these suggestions would require an extreme re-work, and some of them were fairly simple. This is my 'Easy' solution to balancing Ninja, in 2 steps:

1) Nerf their base HP. A Ninja shouldn't have similar HP to the majority of Warrior specs. They are meant to be a squishy/bursty class, but they're only 1 of those things.

2) Being Smoked is required in order to Blackjack. Currently, as long as a Ninja is 5 blocks away from you, then you WILL get stunned by his blackjack, no questions asked. You will get stunned for nearly 2 seconds and take extremely high amounts of damage due to backstab.

Is the amount of damage a Ninja can do too high with backstab? Probably, as I typically get drained 8 hearts during a blackjack stun, leaving me ready to flee a fight that only just began 2 seconds ago. The real tragedy however is that the stun is inevitable. It's coming, you know it is, and there's not a god damn thing you can do about it... Until my suggestion gets put in place.

If a ninja is required to smoke before stunning his enemy then at least all classes are able to counter/avoid it. The ninja still has the advantage of being invisible, he just needs to find a way to get close enough to his enemy without taking damage. The enemy will either fight or flee when he sees the ninja smoke; a quick AOE in hopes that it removes the invisibility from the Ninja, or run away until the Ninja re-appears again. Keep in mind that smoke lasts 5.5 seconds, which is PLENTY of time to get in range of your enemy for a blackjack.

It's also worth noting that if Smoke is required as a more offensive skill in order to get Blackjack going, that its availability for getting out of a fight will lessen. Smoke's CD is 45 seconds. If you're going to use it at the beginning of the fight to get a blackjack going and fail, you'll need to wait 45 seconds to try it again. What happens if the fight isn't going your way and you want to do the 'ol backflip/smoke combo to escape the majority of fights? You'll have to wait for the cooldown to expire, of course. Perhaps you'll use other abilities to keep your distance from your opponent such as Blind, Backflip, or GrapplingHook.

All in all, this feels like a win/win suggestion. It's putting skill back into Ninja. Nobody can deny that the Blackjack/Backstab combo isn't short of amazing. Keep it, I say, but give us a fucking chance to counter it, will ya?

Don't you all hit the *Winner rating all at once, we wouldn't want to crash the Internet.

Seacrest out.

 

[werwew19]

I liked blackjack when it was passive with a fairly low chance I don't like how it is activated now and it really ruined the class powerwise.

 

[szatanista]

YES YES YES SO MUCH YES! Listen to this guy!

Its just dumb that ninja have almost the same base hp as dragoon.

 

[malikdanab]

The HP nerf has already been discussed (Will probably make it when we update to 1.7)
In the case of blackjack I'd rather it have a smaller range (3 Blocks) and possibly a small warm-up (0.5 Seconds)

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

The HP nerf has already been discussed (Will probably make it when we update to 1.7)
In the case of blackjack I'd rather it have a smaller range (3 Blocks) and possibly a small warm-up (0.5 Seconds)

A 0.5 second warm-up is not a warm-up at all. It's a once and a million shot for anyone to react to a half second warm-up. HeroCraft PVP is intense, if applying a warm-up is your idea of making a class vulnerable to getting silenced/interrupted/run out of range, then 0.5 accomplishes nothing.

Simply put, Ninjas are silent assassins. Nobody can argue that definition. With that being said, the only time I see a ninja become 'silent' (invisible) is when they wish to FLEE a fight, not engage one. This is simply wrong, and foolish. There's nothing silent about a Ninja running directly head on with you, as clear as day, stunning you with their blackjack. Yet this is where the bulk of their damage comes in.

In its current state I see a Ninja and say "Oh shit, time to get stunned and lose most of my health now." It SHOULD be "Oh shit, I just got stunned out of nowhere and holy fuck where has my health gone?" Silent assassins, its that simple.

 

[Dakinara]

Yeah, i love the way backstab brings more strategy and requires additional situational awareness to team fights, but blackjack undermines the supposed entire "counter" to ninja - dont give them your backside. Ninja has enough armor penetrating damage to be a serious risk to anyone even without backstab, they should not be able to force backstabs on their own so easily.

 

[malikdanab]

Ninja has the problem is if you make them too "balanced" in favorable conditions they'll be not viable in normal combat. With the lack of stuns, it's not that hard to prevent backstabs in 1v1 situations. I'm not saying that ninjas should excel in 1v1s (Quite the opposite), but you'll end up with the problem where people will find them under-powered. I think it's safe to say that ninja need the HP nerf and a range reduction on their blackjack (Why does it have a 5 block range anyway? Other melee skills such as bash have a 3 block ranger)

Maybe the emphasize their stealthy play-style make the stun on blackjack less if they aren't sneaking/behind you. Possible change the values to:
Current: 1.125 seconds
From front: 0.5-0.75 seconds
From behind: 1.0-1.25 seconds

Now that I think about it, maybe add it too eviscerate too.
Current Damage: 130
From front: 90
From Behind: 150

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

I don't think anyone would find Ninjas underpowered even if they're not able to get 1 blackjack off in a fight. Let's not forget they have Kick and Blind, which is enough to shut down most classes for a little while. Eviscerate and Blitz are two powerful skills that go through armor. A ninja is obviously most valuable from behind, but 58 base Diamond Sword damage is NOTHING to cough at, it hurts. A ninja's skill set without blackjack makes them a dangerous class anyway.

Finally, you can't forget that if something goes wrong and a Ninja wants to back away from a fight, he is perfectly capable of doing so with Smokes, Backflips, Grappling Hooks, and Fades. Hell, even if it fucks up by using too much stamina too quickly an Instant Cast Energize is enough to keep him going.

Honestly, a Ninja doesn't really NEED a stun with all things considered, but I'm sure people will flip their shit if it got taken away from them.

 

[Dakinara]

I guess the main thing that makes me wonder about ninjas is just a basic comparison to their closest comparable class, runeblade. i know PVP Is not played on a spreadsheet (lol), but lets assume no backstab and both classes just sit there and whack each other, using abilities on cooldown.

Just eyeballing the damage numbers and cooldowns, it would appear the ninja would be very likely to be neck and neck with the runeblade on damage dealt between envenom, eviscerate, blitz and kick, and the slightly lower sword damage (only 2 less, wow did not expect that ). And i dont think anyone really thinks runeblade is a weak / crappy class overall.

I agree with std, blackjack could be completely taken away and ninja would be a very strong class in 1v1, and an incredible asset in group fights where people get distracted and more backstabs are possible.

 

[malikdanab]

Ninja has a very large kit and the loss of blackjack would definitely make them less of a terror on the battlefield. TBH blackjack was just a residual skill of the "Thief" merger and IMO doesn't fit the class.

 

[Keache]

I liked blackjack when it was passive with a fairly low chance I don't like how it is activated now and it really ruined the class powerwise.

Are you KIDDING me? People were complaining how RNG it was before the update, and here you are complaining about how it's an active ability...

Guess you can't please everyone...

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

RNG is stupid no matter how you look at it. You're literally relying on 'chance' whether you win or lose in most cases.

 

[Keache]

RNG is stupid no matter how you look at it. You're literally relying on 'chance' whether you win or lose in most cases.

Agreed; RNG should almost NEVER be a significant part of the combat equation, in any game (with a few exceptions, as always).

 

[monkeyfatzer]

Ninja has the problem is if you make them too "balanced" in favorable conditions they'll be not viable in normal combat. With the lack of stuns, it's not that hard to prevent backstabs in 1v1 situations. I'm not saying that ninjas should excel in 1v1s (Quite the opposite), but you'll end up with the problem where people will find them under-powered. I think it's safe to say that ninja need the HP nerf and a range reduction on their blackjack (Why does it have a 5 block range anyway? Other melee skills such as bash have a 3 block ranger)

Maybe the emphasize their stealthy play-style make the stun on blackjack less if they aren't sneaking/behind you. Possible change the values to:
Current: 1.125 seconds
From front: 0.5-0.75 seconds
From behind: 1.0-1.25 seconds

Now that I think about it, maybe add it too eviscerate too.
Current Damage: 130
From front: 90
From Behind: 150

............... Yeh put ninja in the shitter on these numbers. Ninja should be a bursty class the way I see them being balanced is making the hp scaling on constitution less, and charisma scaling on blackjack less (not by too much on both). Ninja should have 900-950 hp when they have 20 con. I don't think adding retarded front and back shit would make the class any more balanced, physics in minecraft are stupid, the person will turn if they see you and about everyone on the server has entity radar which makes it even harder. Ninja isn't even that broken, people are just so bad that they can't fight a ninja and don't know how too. I should be able to burst you from 10-4 hearts if you let me blackjack you for free and fuck on your back. All warriors can beat a ninja too, which is what should happen.

No offense stds but you're a healer and healers should be getting beat by ninjas no matter what, and casters. All warriors beat ninjas right now, and rogues too if they play it right (Don't know about bard). I don't really see a big problem with ninja except their hp, lowering numbers is the stupidest option and would make the class shit like at the end of bastion. Another issue that I see people getting pissed about is that the render distance is stupidly low and you can't see a ninja when they smoke and run away, if the render distance on players got upped I would not even lower anything but their health.

That's my input.

PS: There's no bias on this, I have 5 classes mastered I don't care if this class gets nerfed i'm just saying what I think is wrong and right.

 

[monkeyfatzer]

Finally, you can't forget that if something goes wrong and a Ninja wants to back away from a fight, he is perfectly capable of doing so with Smokes, Backflips, Grappling Hooks, and Fades. Hell, even if it fucks up by using too much stamina too quickly an Instant Cast Energize is enough to keep him going.

If render distance went up it wouldn't be a problem.

 

[malikdanab]

i don't care about ninja tbh. Like I've and many others have said before:

• Their HP is too high
• Possible reduce the range on garrote to 3

I think most peoples main problem is that ninja is actually a viable class now and they don't want to admit that they are fighting them incorrectly.

 

[Dakinara]

there is no choice in how to fight them once stuns get involved. you get stunned, lose over half your health to the 4 backstabs or so, then are basically screwed at that point.

Srsly, ninja out dps most other melee classes even without backstab. They should have a snare rather than stun if need help preventing kiting. And they shouldnt get kited that bad given they will have high run speed and can always turn / flip to backflip forward.

 

[w0nd3rb0y]

if its not ninjas, then it will be something else. classes are broken.

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

Ninja isn't even that broken, people are just so bad that they can't fight a ninja and don't know how too. I should be able to burst you from 10-4 hearts if you let me blackjack you for free and fuck on your back.

I laughed for 10 minutes straight. Please tell me, as a Disciple, how can I prevent you from blackjacking me. I'm all ears. Last I checked blackjack was instant cast with a 5 block range, so there is NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. I guess I'm bad because I can't prevent a ninja from blackjacking me? lol. Maaaaaaaaaaaan, wtf.

 

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

I think most peoples main problem is that ninja is actually a viable class now and they don't want to admit that they are fighting them incorrectly.

You once again fail to realize that nobody can do anything to prevent blackjack. As a leather wearing class, I can tell you for certain, that a ninja can and will open up the fight with a blackjack and deal roughly 600-700 DMG during the stun...

So I'm fighting them incorrectly? You're absolutely right. The best way to fight a ninja is to not engage them in a fight at all.