Ninja is a class that was built from a bunch of different corpses.
In Bastion it was very clear that the Ninja class was once two classes that were merged together. It was functional, but clearly lacking an actual design. I then took that corpse that was the Bastion Ninja, and butchered it further to create a whole new Ninja, which was later killed to create the Haven Ninja.
Here was the Balance post I created at that time to discuss my original revamp:
Ninja Class Assessment(Mid Bastion)
- The Ninja can stand toe-to-toe with most melee in any given situation.
- The Ninja has complete and utter dominance over casters within an enclosed space.
- The Ninja is weak against casters within an open area.
- The Ninja has trouble "catching" other players, whether they be casters or other melee.
- The Ninja has an emphasis on stealth / initiation, but does not actually need to do either to perform his role.
- The Ninja cannot use his stealth based abilities for PvE.
- The Ninja is dependent on the RNG factors of both Blackjack, as well as Backstab. Having favorable RNG guarantees his victory, while having an unfavorable RNG simply allows him to perform on an equal level as other classes.
- The Ninja does not have many traits that would be commonly found on the standard concept of a Ninja (such as Shuriken, high mobility, or other miscellaneous "tools".)
- The Ninja is a low skill, high reword class, with very few "combat" abilities. Players would often describe this as a "left click win class".
I wished to shift the direction of the Ninja. I wanted to drive the "Ninja" concept into him, while also addressing several of the above issues.
Here is a snippet of the current changelog that details each of the changes so far:
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~SNIP
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I believe these to be relatively balanced, and I've made several tweaks along the way with the aid of both the community as well as fellow balance team members.
New Ninja Class Assessment(End of Bastion, Post Revamp)
- The Ninja cannot stand toe-to-toe with most melee in any given situation. If he does not have favorable positioning, he must resort to using ranged attacks to keep his opponents at bay. If he is able to acquire a favorable position however, his ability to deal damage is superb.
- The Ninja will no longer have complete dominance over casters in a small space. He will still have the advantage, but he will likely take longer to achieve victory than he would in his previous state.
- The Ninja now has more tools to handle casters that are in an open area. While they still have the advantage, he is now more on an equal footing due to his increased mobility / evasive skill usage.
- The Ninja can now use his stealth based abilities for PvE.
- The Ninja still is not able to catch other players as much as he could, but I believe the situation is more favorable than it was previously.
- The Ninja has an emphasis on stealth / initiation, and must now actually use those tools to properly fulfill his role within a group.
- The Ninja no longer has any RNG abilities, and thus, his victory is not influenced by it.
- The Ninja is now, undoubtedly a "tool user". He must carry a bow, he must carry arrows, he must carry string, gunpowder, flint, and of course, a sword. The influx of required items will make him less potent when graveyard running, but also give him more interesting actions while participating in a fight.
- The Ninja is now a high skill, high reword class. He still has very few direct "combat" abilities, but that is offset by how he controls his character. He must be mobile, he must be agile, he must strike at key times. I believe this to provide a very interesting playstyle that is both fun and engaging. Players should no longer refer to it as a simple "left click win" class.
I wish to see what everyone's thoughts on the changes are, or if you disagree with any of my points. These are the factors I've considered when designing the changes, and I am relatively happy with the result. However, I'd like to know if that is the same for everyone else.
Now, I won't say that the end result was a perfectly designed, perfectly balanced class, but I was relatively comfortable with where Ninja was at after this revamp. However, this all got thrown on it's head when Haven launched. Attributes had a very undesirable effect on the Ninja's combat and CC potential, and pushed me to rework a few things (such as Envenom). He was not forced to put points in strength to deal large melee damage, and his CC abilities could reach very imbalanced levels without sacrificing anything major.
This resulted in a slew of ninja players abusing his abilities to the fullest. Players could run from anything, and if they were in a group, they could CC any target from start to finish with little effort. If they were ever in a jam, they could escape without worry. These things were likely always an issue to some degree, but like with all classes on Herocraft, once you start stacking multiples of them, things get out of hand very quickly.
I made a few tweaks early during Haven, but I wouldn't say I left it balanced. After my exit, Blackjack was replaced with Garrote (An old skill that was reworked for attributes in about 45 seconds) and a bunch of number tweaks hit the rest of his skillset.
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So where should he be now? I honestly couldn't tell you. After my Bastion revamp, I would have described him best as an extremely adaptable opportunist. Sure, he couldn't just faceroll anyone anymore (Something that old Ninja players liked about the class), but if he was skilled, he could take on most classes in his own ways.
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Classes should have a clear cut "role" or "play style" that they revolve around. Ninja doesn't really have this. It has the tools to suggest that it
did, but not anymore
- Are ninja's burst damage? Kinda. The eviscerate+blitz combo can do around a third of someone's health, but you have to be in melee range and manage the warm up of blitz. Then once the combo goes off you have to wait a whopping thirty seconds before you can do it again. 35 if you used smoke to land blitz. Any caster class can do identical damage from the safety of range on a far shorter cooldown. Hell, runeblade can deal that kind of damage with a fraction of the cooldown. So our burst is... decent, but nothing special considering its overly lengthy cooldown
- So are we sustained damage? Well we have slightly more left click damage then the warrior classes (6-10) but less than a runeblade (58vs60) while paying the price with significantly less armor. (this is fine) While we do have envenom, the eight damage that it provides will seldom make or break a fight. So we don't really have a good damage steroid like a berzerker, tons of filler abilities like a goon/runeblade, constant DoT tics of a necromancer, or the armor ignoring short cooldown magic damage of a dreadknight/runeblade. Backstab is cool and all, but you are never going to backstab someone unless they are lagging like crazy (in which case the fight is already won) tunnel visioning your team mate (which is player error on their part) or just plain new to the game (again, you have already won) so not really sustained damage
Honestly, the "burst" damage set is something that was leftover from the previous Ninja, but I felt it still had a place in the new one so I left it in. If you got the jump on someone, you could apply a very high amount of burst damage on your initiation, and then whittle them down with left clicks / shuriken. I know a few Ninja players that played like so: Smoke->Eviscerate->Blitz->Burst to finish. OR: Smoke->Evisc->Blitz->Kite->Repeat Cycle for finish.
To answer your question directly though, no there is no clear cut playstyle for the class. You can rely on your burst, you can rely on your kiting tools, you can try a direct approach, or mix and match any to your preference. The stealth can play in at any time, whether it be for initiation, kiting, or escaping.
The key with Ninja is to always ensure the situation is under your control. Maybe you're faded next to your target's door. Maybe you see them in the distance and you want to get a good jump so you smoke from afar, maybe you just head straight for them and save your cards for later, the choice is yours.
However I haven't seen or played Ninja since blackjack was removed. Blackjack was a very powerful CC ability, and it was amazing for ensuring your initiation was potent. Unfortunately it also lead to stunlock instakills, but I think that could have been fixed without removing the skill entirely.
The key factors for the Ninja are control and adaptability. Allow them to approach every situation in a different way, and ensure that there is always
something he can to do turn the situation, provided he is playing at a high skill level.
