Ninja Training improvements

[Leogunner]

Just putting up my list of gimmies for this particular Blaster secondary since it was a late addition and likely pushed out without shoring up some issues. 

 

Some low hanging fruit

• Sting of the wasp and Golden Dragonfly - could stand to get the blasterdization treatment and be adjusted with longer rech/higher END cost for bigger damage.
• The Lotus Drop - either adjust its rech to match its damage or adjust its damage to match its rech. 

 

The main issue

Shinobi is holding the set back a bit. This is supposed to be the replacement for Build Up but instead of a button that you press for 100% and damage and a moderate amount of ToHit for about 10sec, it's a 50% (it's actually less but can't recall exact amount) damage bonus to your first attack and then a small damage/ToHit bonus (almost 7% and 5% respectively). I actually enjoy this dynamic but you have to wait 30sec without attacking anything to get the bigger bonus which is ludicrous. It's like having to wait 15sec without attacking to be able to click Build up. 

 

Proposed change:

 

Ninja Training gets a new mechanic called Initiative. Similar to stalker hide, initiative shows up in green text when you toggle on Shinobi and you get the damage buff available. It's not linked to the stealth portion of the power though (it never was, stealth takes 6-8 seconds to unsuppress). It lasts for only the next attack you execute. 

 

The new portion is that Shinobi gives all your attacks from your primary to have a small chance to gain initiative back if you defeat a foe with that attack. This should be easy for a blaster. I'd make the change smaller for AoE's and higher for ST (something in the realm of 5% to 10%).

 

On top of that, using any Ninja Training power gives a bigger chance to gain initiative by being used at all. Some powers like blinding powder and smoke flash will always grant initiative while powers like GD or SotW are only high chance (75%).

 

The rest of the defensive powers seem fine. It's just the offense that needs work. What do you guys think? 

[General Idiot]

If nothing else, Shinobi needs to be changed to be at least as good as the new Targeting Drone in Devices, and Lotus Drops needs it's recharge fixed. Personally I always suspected it was copy/pasted from the Sentinel epic pool version when they made the set, and they forgot to remove the doubled recharge all epic pools have.

 

I love the Initiative idea though, it'd give the set its own unique identity beyond being a loose mashup of Katana and Ninjitsu.

 

Seriously though, Targeting Drone gives a bigger buff plus has less than a third of the delay before the larger buff reactivates. What's up with that?

Edited March 9, 2020 by General Idiot

[Saiyajinzoningen]

actually theres a lot wrong with this set besides the points you bring up. for example. 

 

1.   the odd redraw when switching from blasting to slashing.

2a. the shinobi power does not appear to apply the speed/jumping buff its supposed to

2b. as well as the reduced DPS compared to build up/aim

3   The lotus drops seems to have a far longer recharge and lower damage for similar pbaoes in this tier for this AT although its end cost is lower than non weapon powers (wtf)

4.  choking powder and blinding powder and Smoke Flash? Does this powerset really need all 3 of these? how about caltrops or a shuriken?

5  the fact that you HAVE to take immobilizing dart is just frustrating to all hell. 

 

That being said, i do love it, its probably by 2nd favorite secondary for blasters. 

[Replacement]

Blinding Powder is also only Mag 2 Sleep and Confuse, so it... only affects minions?

 

It is, I've noticed, a really effective Secondary for IO boats.  1.75% defense in Shinobi?  Don't bother slotting this for defense.  I'll just stick a 5% resist IO here.  Kuji-in Toh is in a similar boat: I don't care to enhance the 7% psi resist so much as add 2x 3% Defense uniques to it.

Blinding Powder looks pretty useless outside of the 7% ToHit penalty (disclosure: my /nin blaster isn't high enough to prove this), but those blapping set bonuses on Siphon Insight...

Edited March 9, 2020 by Replacement

[Leo_G]

7 hours ago, General Idiot said:

Seriously though, Targeting Drone gives a bigger buff plus has less than a third of the delay before the larger buff reactivates. What's up with that?

Did they change Targeting Drone?  What is the effect and delay on that?  

4 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

2a. the shinobi power does not appear to apply the speed/jumping buff its supposed to

I was going to comment on that but I figured it was a typo.

 

The power does a lot of stuff crappily.  It's got a minuscule buff to defense, a situational protection to fear, a minimal resistance to psi and an unwieldy buff to damage and To Hit.

 

I was going to say take the speed/jump buff from Shinobi and put it in Kuji-In Toh, allow Kuji to stack but only the speed/jump buff (I was sad when I learned this power only refreshes and not stack) so you're getting some use out of extra rech slotting....and then increase the defense of Shinobi to a moderate level when unsuppressed (like 8% def) and link up the mechanic of initiative so that when you regain initiative, you also get back your 8% defense, making it a short-term offense tool for your next attack as well as a defensive bonus for planning out your next move.

 

But I figured that was too complicated and unnecessary to include as my idea's main goal is to make the set at least a little better for blaster offensive purposes.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Leo_G

[0th Power]

16 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

 

1.   the odd redraw when switching from blasting to slashing.

This issue forced me to give up on this set. I wish there was a (yes)redraw option. 

[Replacement]

12 hours ago, Leo_G said:

Did they change Targeting Drone?  What is the effect and delay on that? 

20% (maybe 25) damage bonus at all times, rising to 80% out of combat. It uses the much more forgiving slow snipe rules, or something close enough to be functionally the same (8 seconds out of combat).

 

Note that a lot of this was to "pay for" the loss of Defiance abuse. The Devices rework largely reduced the benefits of planting random bombs nowhere near enemies just for Defiance.

 

I know HC devs have mentioned that all the i24 manipulation sets need work... I suspect the only reason they haven't made the obvious adjustments here is because it will kick off a round of nerfs to most of them.

[Outrider_01]

On 3/9/2020 at 7:47 AM, Leogunner said:

blasterdization

I like that word, next to blapper..

 

And Blapperlock. 😆

[Leo_G]

8 hours ago, Replacement said:

20% (maybe 25) damage bonus at all times, rising to 80% out of combat. It uses the much more forgiving slow snipe rules, or something close enough to be functionally the same (8 seconds out of combat).

 

Note that a lot of this was to "pay for" the loss of Defiance abuse. The Devices rework largely reduced the benefits of planting random bombs nowhere near enemies just for Defiance.

 

I know HC devs have mentioned that all the i24 manipulation sets need work... I suspect the only reason they haven't made the obvious adjustments here is because it will kick off a round of nerfs to most of them.

Ah so then there is room to actually buff the numbers on Shinobi then.  Or perhaps the Initiative chance.

 

All in all, I'm an advocate for individuality and unique mechanics and while Targeting Drone sounds way better, I wouldn't want to change Shinobi into a semi-clone of Targeting Drone.

 

Unsure about the nerfs needed (unless you're talking about something like Tactical Arrow or Plant Manipulation?), I thought most of them were pretty mild.  

[Replacement]

All the sets with better-than-controller aoe controls, and something nebulously too good about Martial. Those are the 2 contexts I'm half-remembering, likely incorrectly.  Based on CP'S cryptic signature, I'm guessing a general Manipulation pass is next in the pipe.

[Camoron]

Bumping this topic rather than starting a new one. Shinobi is a horrible replacement for Build-Up offering very poor damage potential, and Lotus Drops inexplicably has double the recharge of any other variant with no additional damage to compensate. Shinobi operates similarly to Targeting Drone, only it's much worse in just about every way (other than bundling in Stealth and a negligible amount of Defense), adding a mandatory 30 second timer between being able to receive the "opening attack" damage buff from Stealth and having a pitiful 6.25% damage bonus outside of the also laughable 50% on the one attack that you'll make, if timed absolutely PERFECTLY, once every 30 seconds.

Personally, to differentiate it from Targeting drone, I'd keep the low damage buff all the time (maybe buff it to 10% at least) and then MEGA increase the opening attack from Stealth component by a LOT. Like 100%, at minimum, to bring it more in line with Build Up, considering Build Up lasts for 10 full seconds (not 1 attack), and can be fired off every 45s with no effort and every 27s with Hasten. Personally, I'd opt for a 120-150% damage buff, considering it only applies to the one attack, but I also recognize that the power has other utility components as well, so it's not a sticking point. I'd also raise the DEF it provides by a bit % to give the power and set some added utility. Blinding Powder has some crappy mez secondary effects that last a few seconds, but its primary component, -ToHit, is a not so great 7%, and nothing else in the set provides ToHit debuff, like you'd think maybe Smoke Flash would. I appreciate the damage res debuff on Smoke Flash, it's one of the few redeeming qualities of the set, but a tiny bit of ToHit debuff added in would do wonders to help the set jive better together, because as of right now, it's a weird mixed bag of Def Debuffs from the katana powers, small amounts of Def to all and Res only to Psionic (a fairly rare damage type), a single decent resistance debuff, a single okay-ish ToHit debuff, and a rather bad Damage/ToHit/Def/Stealth buff. None of these things seem to really synergize well together.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Camoron