Locking a couple of things

[Indra]

Hey guys, Im here to discuss about unpopular opinions related to in game PVP and masteries.

This is a pretty big post so if you are not willing to read it, please do not answer.

 

First of all, lets talk about the medical ninja's, 60% of the current player base.

I cannot seem to ''get good'' and have the upper hand against them. Why? Because they truly have the best of both world. The mastery itself has no down side. You can heal your allies, enemies and even yourself. You can also resurect fallen allies and enemies. Both of these abilities are unique to the medical mastery which make of it one of the most valuable ''class'' in any kind of fights.

Until now I dont have much problem with this. Those are normal abilites for any kind of HEALERS. Every games has a support role meant to heal and revive. Those rarely can do something else. Some will have CC's so their interaction has more meaning than only heals without leaving the supportive role it was designed to be. Some wont have any heals BUT will have the ability to tank lots of damage and CC their enemies so their allies can attack targets easier. Support means support and it should mean support.

There are games where classes that can support also has the opportunity to go for an offensive path like in World of Warcraft. A priest can chose holy or shadow. One heals, the other attacks. Both cannot use the abilities of the other and both are locked to their choice. You cannot do a dungeon or win a battleground without a HEALERS or DPS. Both are usefull. Both have their job.

Now come the problem Nin Online has with its only supportive role . The mastery is both the holy priest and the shadow priest at the same time. They provide heals, they revive, they cc, they damage, and they dot. The best of both world.

We need to remember that Chakra medic scales with chakra which is needed to do anything. Its a free stat scaling that complement perfectly with its sub path but also with ANY other mastery. (You need chakra to do jutsu's and the more chakra you get, the better your jutsus and capacity to spam them become.) I see no downside to it. 

A tai wants to go medic second? Well his chakra points invested to make sure he can use his taijutsu abilities will also grant him new abilities. Same goes for any masteries. Because every masteries need chakra. You go for the intelect based medical path? You also get the chakra path for free.

Both medical path are very strong on their own when we concider the fact that everyone gets a second mastery anyways. You chose the int medic because you are not interested in healing others. Or you chose chakra medic because you want a supportive role. Having both at the same time doesnt feel balanced for me at all. Same goes for any other masteries that has a sup path and this post will expose every of those.

A big exemple of what I mean : NerdyHeal42 uses Flicker + poison scalpel+ a whole fire combo including dragon. Make a ton of damage.(As much as a full damage mastery.) Then proceeds to heal an allied with with bandages to end up healing himself with his self heal.... Get it?

I am sure many agree with me. So how can we fix the problem?

By simply locking sub path masteries. When you get to chose what you want, you chose either the chakra or intelect path. You want both? Well you cant. I know that this seems like a VERYYY huge change/nerf, but it really isnt. Its all about fixing roles and what they should be able to do.  Second mastery stat reset could be needed for those who would suffer from this ''rework''. 

Ajustments should occurs if this happens.

 

Taijutsu is my second concern!

For me, Taijutsu is a really easy mastery. (much like Weapon Master) They have a low damage but it is really required because they have an amazing kit. All of their attack abilities CC, most of them are instant or have a really low cooldown.(None has slow run cast) They have an extra sub and their melee attacks are fast and deals the exact perfect damage it should do.

So what is the problem?

1 : Taijutsu weapons. The problem with it is that the whole mastery was designed around the fact that the user is the weapon. It was balanced over the fact they didnt need weapons. The damage dealt by a Tai was designed around the fact that they have fast attacks that CC with low CD. Them having a low damage feels balanced.

Now Taijutsu has weapons and the whole idea behind the mastery is ''ruined''..You are no longer the weapon and become a sort of weapon master. Since those weapons boost the melee attacks damage, the mastery feels very unbalanced because it truly wasnt meant to be. Taijutsu users had great attacks but low damage while Weapon masters had less effective attacks but a good damage.

Tai became the best of both world between Tai and WM. 

2 : The sub path. Its the same problem as medics. A taijutsu user shouldnt have access to its other skill tree. If someone goes Gentle fist, He shouldnt have access to the tai sub. Both masteries should be locked once you chose one.

How to fix the problem?

There arent many ways to fix the first problem. Nerfing tai weapons damage to the ground and have them being more of an esthetic item or make their attacks very slow like Weapon masters. Either way taijutsu users shouldnt be Weapon masters.

For the second problem, like medic, locking the other mastery sub path once you chose one fixes everything.

Ajustments should occurs if this happens.

 

Weapon Masters!!

My problem with it is that there are swords way off the chart. (in my opinion.) Ex: The bone sword. The weapons feels like an ''end game content'' and people other than weapon masters have to fight it without their own "end game content''.

1 : For my part I think that no matter the rarity, it shouldnt be a thing if every masteries doesnt have a way to cap that. A sword that has a very high damage, heals and has the best attack speed. Sounds broken, feels broken.

2  : About the mastery lock, It feels only natural to lock one if you chose the other. Its the same mentality as every sub path in this post.

Ajustments should occurs if this happens.

 

Fan and Bubble.

As I dont know much about them, I wont go into it. The only thing I can say is that it should follow the same mastery lock idea. You are a wind elemental user? You shouldnt know how to use the art of the fan. Imagine a shaman in WoW going for both elemental + enhancement. Why are there sub path if you can just play both at the same time?

Ajustments should occurs if this happens.

 

My reasoning behind mastery being locked. 

Having to chose between them and having the other locked makes the sub path even more important and unique. Right now, medic uses their character as battle warriors with heals in additions. Weapon masters uses the kenjutsu + tool path to make up for its lack of ranged abilities. Fans users combine fan techniques plus the whole wind mastery.

All of them have the best of both world without paying a real cost. There is the sub paths sharing CD's but the utility of the techniques arent syncronized with the good ones.(I hope that it makes sense to you xD) Exemple : When I was WM, risky shared CDs with a trap jutsu that no one uses if hes mainly Kenjutsu. When i would shadow shuriken, it would share CDs with a useless kenjutsu spell. Explosive kunai would share CDs with shockwaves which is the worst spell of the game. 

The idea of sharing CDs was brilliant but each masteries have their own Shining level peaks and their sub path a different one. It is not as present as it should be.

 

Village Weapons. 

This one is tricky because everyone coming from the leaf says they are broken and every one coming from sand and mist says they are bad but will use it in every fights. 60% of the sand players have a fan without being a fan user, and about 99% of mist has a pipe without being a bubble user.

The reality is that they give a blatant advantage to anyone who carry's it. They provide instant CCs and are more usefull than other weapons like swords in term of utility. They create free plays that other village doesnt ahve access to.

Why do I think it should be mastery locked?

Its simple. to make diversity. Right now you are wasting potential if you dont have a pipe. Every mist has one. But none of them plays the mastery that require a pipe. It is so good and free that there is no reasons not to use it.

Maybe its me, but we saw a very few fan users in naruto and only one person who had a pipe. You have those tools when you have mastered the art of the fighting style. You shouldnt be able to create a bubble that roots your enemy without having learned to master the bubble mastery. Same for the fan. Those arent like sword that anyone can wield with the required strenght. They dont just slash and cut. They have effect DIRECTLY related to thier destined masteries.

 

If you read everything until the end, make sure to like, dislike and comment your opinion about it!

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

[Jiaox]

I agree with most of this.

Bubble should require Water mastery or water+wind mastery to use since its technically a Kekkei Genkai not everyone should be able to use it.

Fan should be wind style locked.

 

[Zayn]

I agree with everything! especially how Med atm is just the most broken supp mastery, being used as a second by almost 60% of players. but unfortunately these changes will impact to many of the player base negatively leading to player base loss, people quitting, crying for resets or mastery resets ect... and are too 'used' to the current game mechanics. Hence nothing will come of this  

[Mana]

Completely agree with mostly everything said in this topic. I have never understood the desire from development team to create more "playstyles" when in fact what they are allowing to be created are simply overpowered combinations.

People did not complain about this because the Advanced Mastery was supposed to be the "balance" solution to these problems in the eyes of the community. But since that has gone down the drain I completely support separating everything.

You are not making more "possibilities" you are simply allowing people to take the best from every option to create an overpowered option.

[Slifer]

I read the whole thing. You worded your opinion and potential solutions very well. I agree with the fan and pipe criticism heavily. Luckily, so does our Lord Rory. He has said he will be locking them. 

 

I do also heavily agree with the logic of having to choose a path with the healing or cc/damage side of medic. However, I think both paths would need to be worked on a lot and possibly have more jutsu designed specifically for the role. This is quite a lot of work, and I'd doubt it will be worked on soon, if at all. That is the only downside I think.

 

Anything that doesn't mess with my beloved fire earth I'm fine with tbh >:)

[South]

First of all nice post i like the way you use wow analogies to try to come uo with fixes for nin. 

The issues i have with these posts is most of it is based on outdated ideas. 

Everyone knows why taijutsu has a kit that strong. Its because agility is the worst scalling stat, and tai has just been nerfed again on jutsu dmg. 

Saying hybrid builds should not be a thing its pointless because hybrid builds are terrible in this game and are way worse when compared to pure int pure str or pure agi builds, the only good hybrid mastery is wm and even when u go something like wm med with the usual 70 str 40 int build ur still useless for teamfights in the most part. 

I dont agree with the sub path locking cause it makes the game more boring in the sense u have less liberty to playa round with builds and in most cases those hybrid builds that people consider fun are usually bad.

Altough the wow analogies are nice wow isnt a good example of balance at all, in fact its one of tge worse pvp games in terms of balance and nin isnt a traditional mmo that needs roles. Its an mmo rpg were people can choose and have the liberty of becoming any kind of ninja they want

Just now, South said:

First of all nice post i like the way you use wow analogies to try to come uo with fixes for nin. 

The issues i have with these posts is most of it is based on outdated ideas. 

Everyone knows why taijutsu has a kit that strong. Its because agility is the worst scalling stat, and tai has just been nerfed again on jutsu dmg. 

Saying hybrid builds should not be a thing its pointless because hybrid builds are terrible in this game and are way worse when compared to pure int pure str or pure agi builds, the only good hybrid mastery is wm and even when u go something like wm med with the usual 70 str 40 int build ur still useless for teamfights in the most part. 

I dont agree with the sub path locking cause it makes the game more boring in the sense u have less liberty to playa round with builds and in most cases those hybrid builds that people consider fun are usually bad.

Altough the wow analogies are nice wow isnt a good example of balance at all, in fact its one of tge worse pvp games in terms of balance and nin isnt a traditional mmo that needs roles. Its an mmo rpg were people can choose and have the liberty of becoming any kind of ninja they want

I forgot to mention fan and pipe are already 100% confirmed to be locked

[Moon Knight]

I agree for the most part. However, Slifer is right. Both sides of medic for one would need to be worked on. It's not the Chakra path or the int path that make it so strong. Both are average at best on their own; but rather the combination of the two that is overpowered. Work on each sub path individually to make them their own individual mastery, and that's a great fix.

[Imhotep]

Agreed with everything, except I know of only 3 people using fan without wind and theyre all rogues. That's only because most people don't know how strong the Fan is though. 

Lock everything. Especially if advanced isn't coming or it's very far away. It just leads to more headache than it's worth. 

It's not really a coincidence that the double path masteries seem to be the source of most of the imbalance. Except for Bubble of course. 

Also fully agree that WMs and, to a lesser degree, Tai are the only ones with end game content. 

Edit: To add to this, I don't take locking everything lightly. It'll require reworks for the masteries getting their kit cut in half, but I still think it should happen. For one, it's a faster change than creating entirely new jutsu and masteries, which we're unsure of happening in the near future at all.

On top of that, creating separate lines will give a clear 2 mastery base from which to work from for future balance/mastery/jutsu implementation. As it stands, tool users/medics/hybrid wm/gf+tai are all playing 2 and a half masteries. To truly balance this stuff you're going to have to remove some of the variables.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Imhotep

[South]

This explains perfectly why med needs to stay like it is but instead tuned down a bit. Locking it would make it into a pretty average / below average mastery

1 minute ago, Clash said:

I agree for the most part. However, Slifer is right. Both sides of medic for one would need to be worked on. It's not the Chakra path or the int path that make it so strong. Both are average at best on their own; but rather the combination of the two that is overpowered. Work on each sub path individually to make them their own individual mastery, and that's a great fix.

 

[Indra]

12 minutes ago, South said:

This explains perfectly why med needs to stay like it is but instead tuned down a bit. Locking it would make it into a pretty average / below average mastery

 

In my opinion tuning down a bit medics is not the solution because you will still be able to provide heals and revive allies while being a killing machine. Thats why having locked roles are important. You either are tuned down but heal, or a killing machine that doesnt heal much. Being both at the same time is just unfair.

[Imhotep]

Diversity in builds should come from clan/special/universal justus (and hopefully one day combined jutsus). Trying to squeeze all the diversity you can from the base classes in a game is a balancing nightmare. Solid, balanced base first, and build from there.

[Ueda]

Not typing a comprehensive response to this, but just know all of this is already being considered with the exception of Taijutsu weapons. The downside of Tai weapons is the fact you lose all your attack speed scaling which all your AGI gives you, the trade off becomes bigger as your AGI stat increases because you're losing out on all that attack speed.

Medical Ninja just needs balancing.

Others are things being worked on.

[Desecration]

Once Chakra meds aren't nerfed I'm ok with the changes

[Raitou]

chakra scalpel stacking with agi weapons go brr