Weekly Discussion 60: Ninjitsu

[Chance Jackson]

10 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

I think the biggest issue of proliferating ninjutsu to brutes is just the 'stealth strike' mechanic. With a zero'd out end bar, Brutes have the worst melee attack modifier in the game period (least if I recall), so a lot of their damage is from their fury bar which is meant to build up in a fight. So the only way a stealth strike mechanic could work well for them would be something along the lines of giving them either a truly ridiculous damage bonus to make it worth it, or making it so the 'from hidden' thing actually forces brute fury to maximum which would probably be horribly broken.

I'd just assume the stealth strike mechanic would be removed or replaced with something else

[WindDemon21]

On 7/20/2020 at 11:18 AM, GM Miss said:

Weekly discussion 60 - Week 7/19/20-7/25/20:

 

⚔️YOU VOTED: Let's talk about Ninjitsu!⚔️ 

 

❓Things to think about:

>Here is a link on Ninjitsu: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Ninjitsu

>How does it compare to other armor sets?

>What things would you change?

>What do you love?

 

Let's Chat 😄

Probably my favorite most solid set overall. Only pet peeves are, for this, SR and shield, the mez click, needs to animate in .5s or less, too much of an interrupt in the attack chain, and should have it's duration extended so it's perma out of the gate.

 

Blinding powder could also use an improvement, and more DDR in the set, and the tier 9 should be resistance not more defense, or max hp too, and like other tier 9s generally needs a crashless lower rech rework in general. Otherwise it's the closest to most perfect set. Lowering the activation time on the +end power too would be greatly appreciated.

[Sakura Tenshi]

@WindDemon21
Having played Willpower and lost endurance, there have been times when I find myself suddenly wishing more sets used click mez protection toggles.

[Patti]

Or just allow stealth brute strike to give them a little start of fight Boost to  balance with the furry being zero at the start.

[mechahamham]

re: Ninjutsu on Brutes

 

The whole POINT of Ninjutsu is to be stealthy or undetected so you can be a spy, an assassin, or a guerilla soldier.

 

I can sort of maybe see stealthy scrappers and tanks, but it's tenuous. Brutes, on the other hand, are all about shock and awe. You go in as loudly and as violently as possible, and do as much damage as quickly and brutally as you can. Bruce Banner as the Hulk is the archetypical Brute. Juggernaut. Doomsday. Those kinda guys. Could there be a martial-arts defense set for brutes? Absolutely. It just wouldn't be Ninjutsu or Ninpo, even if you c/p'd some of the powers and certainly wouldn't offer any kind of stealth.

[WindDemon21]

35 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

re: Ninjutsu on Brutes

 

The whole POINT of Ninjutsu is to be stealthy or undetected so you can be a spy, an assassin, or a guerilla soldier.

 

I can sort of maybe see stealthy scrappers and tanks, but it's tenuous. Brutes, on the other hand, are all about shock and awe. You go in as loudly and as violently as possible, and do as much damage as quickly and brutally as you can. Bruce Banner as the Hulk is the archetypical Brute. Juggernaut. Doomsday. Those kinda guys. Could there be a martial-arts defense set for brutes? Absolutely. It just wouldn't be Ninjutsu or Ninpo, even if you c/p'd some of the powers and certainly wouldn't offer any kind of stealth.

Yes you would never see a stealth power on a brute, oh wait dark armor, oh wait energy aura.

[mechahamham]

24 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Yes you would never see a stealth power on a brute, oh wait dark armor, oh wait energy aura.

And I, personally, find those to be weird. Stealth just isn't part of 'brute' to me at all.

 

Energy aura has always felt to me like it was designed for stalkers, as far back as i6 drop. The addition of stealth to a brute just doesn't make thematic sense to me. Energy Cloak has always made me think 'What the heck's this stealth power doing bolted on to a defense set?'

 

Likewise, Dark Armor has always seemed like a scrapper resist set to me, despite leveling a Dark/SS tank to 50 back in the day. The stealth always felt 'tacked on' and I often wished I could turn it off without losing the other benefits of the power.

 

Ideally, IMO, a non-stealth MA defense set would take the form of something like Jujutsu dodging and throwing or Kempo Ukewaze blocking. Like I mentioned in my post, you could copy/paste several of the powers and call it done with almost no development effort. If you're feeling adventurous, you could tweak 'Blinding Powder''s effect into something like 'Choking Powder'.

Edited July 25, 2020 by mechahamham