Ninja Overhaul

This is from the Crazy Suggestions thread:

Shurikens Aren't Weapons, They're Distractions: The weight of kunais and ninja stones is reduced by 50% (they weigh like hell atm). Also, the Ninja skills are overhauled:

       Tobidougu: Adds mastery damage to Fuumas and Daggers (only 60% for the daggers). Also improves DEF and MDEF by Fuuma Refine Rate.
       Throw Shuriken: Shurikens are no longer ammo. Instead, the type with the highest ATK is chosen when casting. Damage reduced to 105% + [5 x Skill Level]% ATK + [Shuriken ATK]. Every hit has a [2 * Skill Level]% chance to refresh any status effects on the target. May also inflict Decrease Agility on an equal chance. The level of Decrease Agility is half of that of Throw Shuriken. Whenever one of the above on-hit effects is applied, the target also receives a debuff called "Distracted".
       Throw Kunai: ATK on the kunai items is increased to 100. The skill damage is still 100% + [10 x Skill Level]% ATK per hit. If the target has the "Distracted" debuff, the debuff is consumed to increase the damage of Throw Kunai by 100%.
      Fuuma Shuriken: Damage is [70 x Skill Level]% ATK. Damage is no longer split between targets. AoE is resized to 5x5. Can be cast both on ground and on target. Damage is increased by +25% ATK if the enemy is standing on the 3x3 zone and by an additional +25% if he is in the middle. Cooldown 2.5 seconds.
      Zeny Nage: Throws upto 1000 zeny, Skill Level times. Damage for every 1 zeny is 1, affected by % increases and decreases to damage and ATK, as well as WATK. The damage can never be reduced below the amount of zeny spent, except in WoE. The amount thrown each time is 100 ~ 1000 zeny.
      Tatami Flip: Knock the enemy back by Skill Level cells. Stuns the enemy at a [12 x Skill Level]% rate. Damage is 100% ATK, only reduced by the armor and cards on the enemy's Footgear. Blocks the next [2 x Skill Level] ranged attacks. 5 second cooldown.
      Kasumi-kiri: Hits three times for a total of 100% + [20 x Skill Level]%. If it hits successfully, it knocks you back 5 cells (even in WoE) and then casts Hiding on you. The level of Hiding is equal to what you currently have. Hiding level 1 required.
      Kirikage: The crit rate can't be reduced by LUK. Has a three second delay in WoE.
      Utsusemi: No longer reduces damage. Instead, knocks the user back 4 cells and reduces the attack and movement speed of the opponent by 25% + [5 x Skill Level]%. [Skill Level / 2] charges, rounded up. Consumes a Shadow Orb.
      Bunshin-jutsu: No longer consumes a Shadow Orb nor Nen. Instead, it is now toggle-able ability like Nen. As long as Bunshin-jutsu is active, SP Recovery - [2 x Skill Level]%. Skill level is selectable.
      Issen: (For my ideas, cast time fixed at 2.0s) Either what Lothar suggested above OR The skill is (also) usable from Hiding and is Ranged (works like Kirikage), and the skill damage is (ATK x WATK x [HP Consumed / 1000] x % modifiers]. Consumes Nen and a Shadow Orb. OR It consumes Nen, Bunshin-jutsu, Skill Level Shadow Orbs and [4 x Skill Level]% of Max HP. It then chooses upto Skill Level targets from within a 11x11 area around the caster, then casts Kiri-Kage on all of those targets with a 0.5 second delay between each strike, ignoring any skill requirements or limits. Cannot hit the same target more than three times. If the skill runs out of targets before it is finished, the caster is stunned for [0.5 x Remaining Hits] seconds. Max Skill Level is 10.
      Hyou-sensou: Total damage increased to 900%.
      Hyou-shouraku: AoE increased to 9x9.

My Giant Shuriken Is Big, Cool and Dangerous: Cards applied to Fuumas have their effects increased by 50%, however the wearer's ASPD is reduced by 5% for every card on the Fuuma. Nen also applies to Fuumas. (Fuumas are crap right now on the damage side, compared with daggers. This is a somewhat balanced solution that should make them usable in all three of the major Ninja builds.)

Math in the next post!

So, let's start by comparing Throw Shuriken and Throw Kunai, as they are now. Each shuriken spent deals 3 x 300% ATK, whereas Kunai spent deals 3 x 200% ATK. This means that the difference in ATK in percents is (modifiers are ignored, since they'd get nulled anyway):
         [Shuriken Damage / Kunai Damage]  * 100%
This is equal to:
         (9 x [ShurikenATK + ATK]) / (6 x [KunaiATK + ATK])  * 100%
Now, the best shuriken has 100 ATK, whereas all kunais have only 30 ATK.
         (9 x [100 + ATK]) / (6 x [30 + ATK])  * 100%
           = (900 + 9 x ATK]) / (180 + 6 x ATK])  * 100%
The difference in even the items' base attacks is more than enough reason to buff the Throw Kunai skill. However, let us finish the calculation.
         (900 + 9 x ATK]) / (180 + 6 x ATK])  * 100%
           = (300 + 3 x ATK]) / (60 + 2 x ATK])  * 100%
Let's find how much the difference is at 50 ATK, 200 ATK and 400 ATK.
         f(x) = (300 + 3x) / (60 + 2x)
           f(50) = (300 + 150) / (60 + 100) = 450 / 160 = 2.8125 = 281.25% ~~ 280%
           f(200) = (300 + 600) / (60 + 400) = 900 / 460 = 1.956... = 195.6% ~~ 195%
           f(400) = (300 + 1200) / (60 + 800) = 1500 / 860 = 1.744... = 174.4% ~~ 175%
A as can be seen here, the damage increase from using a Shuriken over a Kunai is 50% ~ 100%, based on how much ATK you have. This is hardly a situation where you can say "But kunais are elemental!" because there exists element change scrolls that ninjas can use to change their shurikens' elements even more conveniently.

Let's say that we have enough ATK for the damage to be only 150% of Kunai's damage. Each kunai weighs 2 units, whereas each shuriken weighs 0.5 units. This means that for every kunai that I could carry, I can carry four times as many shurikens. This means that per weight unit, I can carry six times the damage if I pack shurikens instead of kunais. Even when taking the maximal element damage boost into account in the kunais' favor, this will still be three times as much damage. This is the single most broken thing in the ninja skill tree.


So, what I've done here is that I've reduced the damage from Shurikens from the 900% ATK per item to a more tolerable level: 465% ATK per item, with the shuriken's own ATK added as a fixed increase to the total damage. It will still remain the "BNB" skill for Throwing ninjas, due to it increasing the damage of Kunais. Now, each kunai will have 333% more ATK in the item, which will already make it a lot better. The ATK% is still the same however. But, to make players actually use the skill instead of just spamming shurikens, it has its damage increased to 200% (1200% ATK per item) after a proc from the shuriken spam. Since shurikens are no longer ammo, kunais will become the primary ammo for ninjas, thus making it less troublesome to swap between the two.

Next, let's look at Fuuma Shuriken. I am not entirely sure if Fuuma has cast time on Mou, but it does have a cooldown of 1 second. We'll assume that it is instant cast for the next part, which is largely in its favor.
At max level, it deals 900% ATK in 3x3 square around the target. This means that the skill has a dps of 9 x ATK per second. Compared to Shurikens, which have a dps of 3 x ATK x ASPD per second. However, the Fuuma Shuriken requires you to equip a Fuuma, thus making you unable to use a shield for protection. I will discuss the changes to Fuumas' defensive properties a bit later.

So, with my changes, each Fuuma will deal 350% ATK, if the enemy is standing on the rim of the attack. It also has its delay increased to 2.5 seconds and its area to 5x5. This means that it can deal 350% x [Targets] ATK per hit, every hit being approximately 3 seconds apart from each other. This means that there will be a dps of 117% x [Targets] ATK. However, the target in the middle receives more damage than the rest, 350% ATK x 150% = 525% ATK. The ones in the 3x3 zone that are not in the middle will receive 350% ATK x 125% = 437.5%. ATK. These numbers will then be turned into a dps of 175% ATK/sec and 145% ATK/sec.

This change will mean that the skill is a lot better in AoE situation, and a lot worse in single-target situations. Expecting the most abusive possibility, with all enemies standing in the 1x1 area, the total dps will go above the current dps of 900% ATK/sec only when there's six or more enemies stacked. With the addition of the card bonuses to Fuumas, this skill will be a lot more powerful than what it currently is in AoE situations, but not so good when dealing with single targets.

Zeny Nage. As is, the skill is relatively useless. It requires me to spend 15 skill points for 5,000 ~ 10,000 damage that does not even pierce armor nor is scalable. In WoE, enemies have a physical damage reduction of at least 40%, not to mention reductions to damage from Demi-Human, Neutral, Ranged and Medium-size. We are looking at 70% ~ 90% reduction to damage here. What I've done is made the skill have more variation in its damage dealt (10 ~ 10,000) and made it (partially) pierce the opponent's DEF. However, the damage should be reduced and increased by cards and effects. This will make it usable in both WoE and PvE.

Tatami Flip. There isn't much more to say about this than that the skill currently leaves you as a sitting duck to your enemies, both melee and ranged.

Kasumi-kiri and Kirikage. The primary thing here is the increase in damage, hit chance and the ability to back away from Ruwach/Sight while becoming Hidden for the following Kirikage. Kirikage's cooldown is reduced to make it a competetive dps skill in WoE in comparison with Throwing Ninjas' and Magic Ninjas' skills. This is also due to the fact that an enemy could easily activate Ruwach/Sight and then walk over you before you have a chance to recast.

Utsusemi. Here on MouRO, the damage reduction is redundant due to all builds focusing rather heavily on defense. As such, the knockback is mostly a nuisance when facing ranged enemies, since they'll knock you out of range before you can do anything, and when playing melee this skill is completely useless. So, it now actually penalizes the enemy for attacking you, but has fewer charges and shorter knockback so that you can better use it as a melee and deal with range enemies with all builds.

Bunshin-jutsu. Let's face it, what Skot has done with this skill is awesome. However, the reagent makes it a bit too costly in my opinion, since it also drains my SP every time I get hit. So, with this it is made less annoying to use by causing it to reduce your SP recovery whenever it is on - which is now until death or until toggled off.

Issen. The most useless skill for all ninjas. Whereas you can use Zeny Nage or Kirikage to deal better damage from afar, with Issen you have to walk right next to your enemy to sacrifice 30% of your HP in order to deal minor damage. One of these changes will make it a good skill again without making it spammable.

Hyou-sensou and Hyou-shouraku. Damage increase on Hyou-sensou to make it match with the other two bolt spells. There is no reason to give it a 6.6% damage penalty, even with Suiton increasing the total damage above the other two - Kouenka has a *lot* of enemies to use against and Fuujin comboes similarly with Hyou-shouraku - on the topic of which has its AoE increased to the same size as its combo partner, Raigekisai.


Tobidougu. This is both to make Fuumas usable again and to boost dagger-shield builds' damage a bit for them to stay in line with the Fuumas. With this, having a +15 refined Fuuma will give a total of 15 DEF/MDEF, which is shown as 7 or 8 in the stats, meaning a 7.5% reduction in incoming damage - this is in addition to having 30% instead of 20% reduced damage from Bunshin-jutsu. Compared with a +15 Valkyrja's Shield, which gives 20 MDEF and 12 DEF (10% and 6%), ignoring the elemental resists. However, the damage will be noticably greater on a Fuuma than a dagger, thus making it a balanced option of sacrificing some of your defense for a notably increased damage. This comparison in defensive power also ignores the existence of the Thara Frog and Hodremlin cards, as well as Alice card.

So, after looking at lots of calculations in excel, it seems that Throwing Ninjas and Magic Ninjas are fairly balanced at level 85/80, at least with my builds. That is, when comparing Kouenka and Shurikens.
So, what is my suggestion? It is to make all the ninja bolt-skills match the following:

SkillLVL + 2 bolts per cast.
75% MATK per hit.
No cooldown (cooldown based on ASPD, that is)
0.35 sec per level cast.

This will take us to 12*75%/(3.5*0.15) = 1714% MATK in dps, without taking ASPD-caused delays into account. Since hitting ten times a second is impossible on Mou, 0.1 sec per skill level delay is actually a huge dps buff in comparison with the ASPD delay (fastest I've seen is 0.4 sec delay, at 250 aspd).