Suggestion Ninja Suggestions/Ideas

[RShooter2000]

Ninja is decent at fighting squishies and casters, but is rather weak against warriors and tanks.

It would be nice if Ninja could stand a better chance against warriors/tanks. Here are some of my thoughts and ideas.

A.) Make garrote not require string to use, reduce the silence effect to 2.5 seconds.

Or

1.) Make garrote not require string to use, instead raise damage scaling to (40 + 1 per strength point) then make it an interrupt.

Or

B.) Add a skill I came up with similar to piercingstrike, called Stab. Take out garrote.

Skill: Stab
Stamina: 250
Mana: 0
Warmup: None
Cooldown: 4 Seconds
1.) Description: You stab your target with your (sword or shears) dealing 50% of the targets weapon damage as damage. This ignores armor.

Or

2.) Description: You stab your target with your (sword or shears) dealing 2-3% of the targets health as damage. This ignores armor.

Or

3.) Description: You stab your target with your (sword or shears) dealing 50% of the targets armor rating as damage. This ignores armor.

This skill is focused around fighting warriors/tanks. It also discourages building pure strength due to the fact its damage is based on the target's stats, against casters this skill will do little damage and is a waste of stamina due to casters usually having lower health, armor, and weapon damage.

Or

C.) Reduce blitz's warmup to .5 seconds. Reduce its base damage by 20-30.

Stat Buffs

D.) Raise base health by
20-30. Increase base armor weight by 2.25.

Or

Other Skill Ideas

E.) Skill: Poison of Vigor
Stamina: 300
Mana: 125
Warmup: None
Cooldown: 35 Seconds
Description: You poison your blade with a poison of vigor, when you strike your target they are unable to use skills that require stamina for (2 + 0.044 per intellect point) seconds.

Or

1.) Description: you poison your blade with a poison of vigor, when you strike your target their stamina drains (45 + 0.35 intellect point) every 1.5 seconds for 6 seconds.

Of course for the poison of vigor skill to be viable something would have to be removed so I'm just going to say scrap garrote, because of the string problem.

Again the point of these skills are to help fight against warriors/tanks. Not really casters.

Some of these skill ideas just came off the top of my head. Some of these ideas are probably too OP but I want to see what the feedback is on them.

These are just a few suggestions/ideas, I figured I would get a little creative with them, but also make them viable. Not so sure about some of the numbers on some of these suggestions. Just want some thoughts and opinions.

Tagging people who I know have played Ninja, for their input on some of these.

@Irishman81 @CoolBeans279 @Im_a_Pickle @JupiterRome @Da_Burg @TrueCorruptor

 

[Ahrall]

Garrote needs to go, it's a useless skill and ninja doesn't need more silences/intereupts

A band-aid solution that I thought up: It's garbage and a total cop out but it works
Envenom causes your attacks to ignore 50% of your target's armor. Useless against casters because you probably won't land that many left clicks during the 14 second duration but will greatly help against warriors

Option two that I like much more:
Cloak and Dagger
Stamina 300-400
Range 6
Warmup .5-1 second
Damage 50-70 (depending on strength)
Ignores armor and stealths you for 2 seconds
10 second cooldown

Either of these options would come with the removal of garrote, and potential damage nerf in other areas of the class if deemed necessary

 

[malikdanab]

Just a grab bag of ideas.

New Passive: Assassinate

• Whenever you turn invisible or start sneaking, your next auto attack will do bonus damage. This damage bonus is removed if you take damage before inflicting it.

Eviscerate:

• Only half the damage is dealt up front. The remaining damage is dealt through a slowing bleed that ticks every 2 seconds for 8 seconds.

Blind:

• Remove it

Redone Smoke-

• Throw a smoke bomb to your feet which blinds nearby enemies.

Fade:

• Renamed to conceal

New Fade:

• 1-1.5 second warm-up
• Lasts Max 15 seconds
• You automatically get unstealthed if you move within 5 feet of an enemy
• You receive slow II when stealthed

Blitz:

• Keep the warm-up, but make it not slow (Like pyro's dragon's breath)
• Make it interrupt

 

[JupiterRome]

I like stab 1 and 2 a lot, I like arhalls suggestions to I Also think ninja having some poisons would be cool

 

[RShooter2000]

Just a grab bag of ideas.

New Passive: Assassinate

• Whenever you turn invisible or start sneaking, your next auto attack will do bonus damage. This damage bonus is removed if you take damage before inflicting it.

Eviscerate:

• Only half the damage is dealt up front. The remaining damage is dealt through a slowing bleed that ticks every 2 seconds for 8 seconds.

Blind:

• Remove it

Redone Smoke-

• Throw a smoke bomb to your feet which blinds nearby enemies.

Fade:

• Renamed to conceal

New Fade:

• 1-1.5 second warm-up
• Lasts Max 15 seconds
• You automatically get unstealthed if you move within 5 feet of an enemy
• You receive slow II when stealthed

Blitz:

• Keep the warm-up, but make it not slow (Like pyro's dragon's breath)
• Make it interrupt

I really like your blitz idea, at the moment trying to blitz a heavy melee target without smoking first is really annoying.

 

[Irishman81]

Ninja Will be more effective against Warrior classes if

A. It can get more backstabs
B. It can use more armor piercing attacks
C. It can drain the warrior's stamina

I like the sound of most of the skills here, and I was thinking of adding a skill similar to flicker with ninja. This could allow them to circle their opponent, and maybe get more backstabs. Just an idea though

 

[Dsawemd]

Wow guys all really interesting ideas. I don't have any ninja experience so I'll defer to balance members who do, but:

Several of these suggested changes seem too big to be done without basically a rework. So here is the change I am going to promote as much more possible in a timely manner:

Ninja's Backstab bonuses apply to their Envenom damage. This means that when attacking from behind, left click deals extra damage and is reduced by armor, while the Envenom damage is also multiplied but helps kill tanks more (Envenom damage is armor piercing).

Ninja, as a master of poison, gets a better Envenom, one that specifically helps it deal with tanks. I like the stamina-blocking poison too.

 

[Xhazed]

Just switch ninja back to how it was in bastion those were the ninja wrek days i remember winning all the DM all day

 

[HeroGuy426]

We could also just make Garrote to what it's supposed to be: A stun, which requires you to be behind the target and holding string.
Let's say Garrote is a 2 second stun.
Possible scenarios of a ninja successfully using Garrote:
Running from an enemy, backflips, garrotes, bursts with eviscerate, envenom, and a crap ton of backstabs.
Fighting enemy, uses current smoke, gets behind target, and garrotes, then bursts
Out of combat, sneaks up on target, garrotes, bursts

Also, another thing is EscapeArtist. It has like a minute and a half cooldown. So switch escapeartist's cooldown with garrote.

So these are the new versions of the skills:
Garrote: Requires you to hold string and be behind the enemy. Stuns the target for 2 seconds.
CD: 90s
EscapeArtist: Over 7 seconds, you break free of all stuns, slows or other effects that impede your movement, and gain a speed boost, moving twice as fast.
CD: 35s

 

[Irishman81]

We could also just make Garrote to what it's supposed to be: A stun, which requires you to be behind the target and holding string.
Let's say Garrote is a 2 second stun.
Possible scenarios of a ninja successfully using Garrote:
Running from an enemy, backflips, garrotes, bursts with eviscerate, envenom, and a crap ton of backstabs.
Fighting enemy, uses current smoke, gets behind target, and garrotes, then bursts
Out of combat, sneaks up on target, garrotes, bursts

Also, another thing is EscapeArtist. It has like a minute and a half cooldown. So switch escapeartist's cooldown with garrote.

So these are the new versions of the skills:
Garrote: Requires you to hold string and be behind the enemy. Stuns the target for 2 seconds.
CD: 90s
EscapeArtist: Over 7 seconds, you break free of all stuns, slows or other effects that impede your movement, and gain a speed boost, moving twice as fast.
CD: 35s

I'm not really for giving ninja a stun again.

 

[pure_autism]

We could also just make Garrote to what it's supposed to be: A stun, which requires you to be behind the target and holding string.
Let's say Garrote is a 2 second stun.
Possible scenarios of a ninja successfully using Garrote:
Running from an enemy, backflips, garrotes, bursts with eviscerate, envenom, and a crap ton of backstabs.
Fighting enemy, uses current smoke, gets behind target, and garrotes, then bursts
Out of combat, sneaks up on target, garrotes, bursts

Also, another thing is EscapeArtist. It has like a minute and a half cooldown. So switch escapeartist's cooldown with garrote.

So these are the new versions of the skills:
Garrote: Requires you to hold string and be behind the enemy. Stuns the target for 2 seconds.
CD: 90s
EscapeArtist: Over 7 seconds, you break free of all stuns, slows or other effects that impede your movement, and gain a speed boost, moving twice as fast.
CD: 35s

Ninja absolutely should not get a stun that long. If it ever does get one, it should be around 1 second and not scale with charisma.

 

[LightningCape]

Just switch ninja back to how it was in bastion those were the ninja wrek days i remember winning all the DM all day

120 damage per left click without sneak? No thanks, would rather have the theft skill back.

 

[JupiterRome]

We could also just make Garrote to what it's supposed to be: A stun, which requires you to be behind the target and holding string.
Let's say Garrote is a 2 second stun.
Possible scenarios of a ninja successfully using Garrote:
Running from an enemy, backflips, garrotes, bursts with eviscerate, envenom, and a crap ton of backstabs.
Fighting enemy, uses current smoke,
gets behind target, and garrotes, then bursts
Out of combat, sneaks up on target,
garrotes, bursts

Also, another thing is EscapeArtist. It
has like a minute and a half cooldown. So switch escapeartist's cooldown with garrote.

So these are the new versions of the skills:
Garrote: Requires you to hold string
and be behind the enemy. Stuns the target for 2 seconds.
CD: 90s
EscapeArtist: Over 7 seconds, you break free of all stuns, slows or other
effects that impede your movement, and gain a speed boost, moving twice as fast.

CD: 35s

How bout no? Ninja with stun OP

 

[Devin52992]

Just an old idea but Frontflip with shared cd as backflip would be amazing. It will make them slightly better allowing them to shuriken ppl they chase with frontflip instead of spraying it behind them while they backflip closer. Not to mention its very easy for a dev to do/ implement.

 

[JupiterRome]

Just an old idea but Frontflip with shared cd as backflip
would be amazing. It will make them slightly better allowing them to
shuriken ppl they chase with frontflip instead of spraying it behind them while they backflip closer. Not to mention its very easy for a dev to do/
implement.

Think it was taken off test for being op late bastion

 

[Devin52992]

Think it was taken off test for being op late bastion

whaaat it was actually ingame @ some point , i thought i had an original idea .

but i don't see how it would be op right now? we have no slows or stuns & we r are about avg right now it be like 1/4th of what jump does, there's no way it would be op currently. it would be a nice replacement for lack of slows/stuns w/o making us 2 much better

 

[Dsawemd]

Xhazed had a solid idea but he's too shy, so here it is:

We all know that the Backstab passive is a strong mechanic that seems to be difficult to use well for most of the playerbase.

He recommends removing the passive Backstab increase and restoring Ninja's basic left click damage to the highest non-skill assisted (read: Runeblade) on the server.

I recommend keeping the "damage boost from behind" by making some of the ninja burst like Eviscerate and Blitz gain a noticeable (~30-50%) increase from the back.

 

[Ahrall]

No frontflip, no. Backsflip is a great tool for chasing... if you are good with it, and that's how it should stay. On the topic of stuns an instant stun is not healthy for the game. It promotes no counterplay and tends to make people rage. The positional requirement to activate the stun seems to be a way to alleviate the issue, but in the end it would suffer from the same issues as backstab. (almost impossible to get behind a semi decent melee class)
A (short unscaling) stun on blitz could work simply because the skill is obviously telegraphed which opens up opportunities for the person fighting the ninja to interrupt it or get out of its range.
Adding damage or additional effects to envenom is what I call a band-aid solution. It works in the end, but is a lazy way out. Adding stuff to envenom would just turn ninja into another left click class and that goes against the theme of "ninja"

Ultimate point: Please please please please please lets not turn ninja into another boring left click class. Backstab is a very cool feature that adds a lot to ninja, but is gated by the fact that you will never get any backstabs against a decent melee fighter. We don't need a +10 damage patch. That would push the class towards the "OP" range, we just need a new skill to allow us to use the amazing yet unusable backstab.

 

[Im_a_Pickle]

All of these are great ideas; I think. I didn't really bother to read all of them, but from what I did read, it seems like you all know what ninja needs. First off, smoke needs to increased back to 5 secs. This was the perfect amount of time for a ninja to complete what he wanted. I have noticed this map that I un-smoke a bit to early, and I don't accomplish what I was intending to, which can, and has, gotten me killed.
I'm too lazy to come up with a bunch of skills; and I'm not even sure if this one is possible, but here you go:

*Insert Fancy Name*
Does *Insert Adequate Damage Value Here* that ignores armor, and is multiplied by maybe half of the enemies armor rating? For example, if a paladin has 9 armor points, it does 4.5 times more damage.
I think this skill would be great because it doesn't but casters at an even greater disadvantage, but gives ninja a better chance against warriors.

Please edit this skill, make a name, insert good damage values and stuff, I'm too lazy D:
(I'm not even sure if this skill is code able but it's worth a try)

 

[malikdanab]

Xhazed had a solid idea but he's too shy, so here it is:

We all know that the Backstab passive is a strong mechanic that seems to be difficult to use well for most of the playerbase.

He recommends removing the passive Backstab increase and restoring Ninja's basic left click damage to the highest non-skill assisted (read: Runeblade) on the server.

I recommend keeping the "damage boost from behind" by making some of the ninja burst gain like Eviscerate and Blitz gain a noticeable (~30-50%) increase from the back.

Maybe "Backstab" could be a modifier for ninja's skills:

• Eviscerate: My bleed idea but instead 100% up front and 20% bleed/Slow
• Blitz: Micro stun of 0.5-0.75 seconds
• Garrote: Also blinds for a short period after the silence

More ideas:

• Change backstab from 2.25 and 4.5 bonus damage per agility to -> 1.75 and 3.5 PIERCING damage. With STAB in the name, you think the damage would go past armor.