Commentary on the Black Scarf and its associated classes.

[Nyalyn]

This skill already bypasses enemy defense. Every other class would need a Combat Knife or Incant Sam card to do this, but you're doing it just by the base skill, and it's ranged to boot. Also, it never misses unless there's a pneuma or tatami (meaning you don't need dex for this to even hit). Making it go any faster is ridiculous.

Actually, it's only the mastery-bonus of the skill that bypasses defence, which is a truly minuscule amount. Also note that the skill doesn't benefit from percentage-cards, instead providing increased damage with higher ATK. A ninja with 120 STR wielding a +10 triple diligent gladius, throwing ice kunais against a high orc will do 2150 damage per throw.

Being crippled for 5 seconds after a ranged skill that can do up to 5k (in PvP) or 10k (in PvM) and cannot be reduced? No, this skill is fine as is.

Its damage is halved against players by default, as you say. What you neglect to mention is that it is also reduced further by PvP gear, not to mention WoE, but let's disregard that for now: rank 10 TZ will do 1575-2700 damage per 5 seconds against a player with thara and a beret. 945-1620 in WoE. Every 5 seconds. I'll grant you that the damage is fair in PvM, though.

It's balanced because of the 3 seconds, especially since you're already given cicada skin shedding. If you were able to spam tatami and spells in between, then it would be like you have a walking pneuma AND safety wall at the same time.

Except that the effect doesn't follow you; it stays rooted where you used it, and the other can hardly be classified as a safetywall since it shoots you off like a pingpong ball. As a somewhat of an aside; Can you think of another skill besides Basilica that serves no purpose but to root you into place, render you immune to a certain type of attacks, and disable all your attacks? And can you think of an actual use for such a skill? The humble fly wing strikes me as much more an attractive solution to any situation where you'd need the aforementioned skill.

DFF is a strong skill already - you don't need to make it any stronger.

I actually agree with you on this point. As mentioned in the OP I was intending on writing a several-pages long wall of text of suggestions for slight improvements to each individual skill I felt was stupid, but figured it'd be far too much of a hassle for people to read, so instead I condensed it into as few sweeping points as I could. An unavoidable consequence of this is that skills I didn't want to be affected were, and I added DFF into the summary list specifically so I wouldn't get accused of trying to "sneak" buffs by the public eye. DFF is indeed fine as it is.

O admit FIP and Lightning crash aren't as good as they could be, but there are simply MUCH easier ways to level or use a ninja (at bradium golems, for example) that wouldn't require you to get such useless skills.

But I was explicitly asking for buffs for these skills because of the utility they'd offer. As should be clear by now, the only source of substantial damage increase emerging from my suggestions is the doubling of over-time damage from TZ. Kunais will still be shitty, Fuuma will be slightly better but thanks to its damage split it will be limited to single or two-target kills, and all the spells with the exception of DFF which would be affected by the buffs are outdamaged by DFF and NW even without these buffs. I am not trying to make a killer class here, I am trying to make a harassment class, which is what I see the role of the ninja being, and as I see it these buffs would do exactly that.

TZ is ranged, CT is melee. You can't reduce TZ, but CT you can pot off all day long since its very reducable. Give TZ a bragi and it's even more scary, especially since you stacked kiel on it (unless it's approx the same, then TZ itself is already strong enough and needs no buffs whatsoever).

As mentioned earlier you can reduce TZ damage with basic PvP gear, and even with double kiel cards the aftercast delay would still be 1.225 seconds, which is easily outpotted by aloe leaflets (RMS server; bragi with cranial+beret, using leaflets against a TZ-spamming ninja receiving aftercast-reduction from 70 int bragi, go test it out for yourself)

LSOI is a great skill that can be spammed, yet you seemed to just ignore it. By using LSOI, you already have some pretty nice DPS if you're geared properly.

Wouldn't you know, I made a short video-series a few years back which still seems to apply:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkkh6wXjhw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iLTzZnTgoY

There are some flaws in there, but overall it is still sound enough for this discussion.

Shadow slash lets you hide after you're on the person's cell, which is a significant improvement on FSK or snap, since it won't show your emblem hanging over your head because you're in hide (which is how I identify people in our emp, but maybe that's just me). Shadow jump allows you to move through a castle as fast as or even faster than a TK. Once again, a significant improvement compared to any of the mobility skills.

And how do smokie and frilldora cards not factor into your complains of this? Also it will still display a gigantic textbox reading "Shadow Jump !!", though. Another thing you left out is any mention of negative or imbalanced situations that could occur from giving ninjas this boost. What would they be able to do with this newfound mobility that makes it so horrible that they must never have it?

To sum up your ninja section: you're asking for a gear that's more powerful than kiel to built in for ninja. I'd say no, right off the bat. Caster ninjas should be treated like wizards such that without bragi, they're definitely weaker but when you put them in bragi, they're pretty difficult to take down. Ninjas don't need a kiel - they just need to learn to work with a group.

The gear is only as good as the class you're using it on. The idea of a headgear that's basically a dual Kiel card only seems overpowered to you because you're appraising its value in terms of what it'd do to other classes.

You're also lumping wizards and ninjas together simply because they both use spells. Ninjas have vastly lower damage, they can't freeze reliably, don't have stone curse, their AoE slow has a relatively long cast-timer and its effects don't persist after the targets move out of it and so on - and rightly so. Again; these buffs wouldn't up their damage by much, it would just bring the throwing-skills out of the cesspit of mediocrity they currently occupy. The magic tree would only get utility buffs in the form of using FIP to freeze and LC to uncloak assassins, break ice etc.

The scarf stacks up the GS' HP, so it actually already increases the survivability. As for your built in pharaoh card for slingers, I'd say no once again. The skills are balanced with their costs, and slingers having more explosive long range damage would naturally have higher SP costs.

But they'd STILL have higher SP costs, even with this. 2.5 times that of DS, in fact. And anyway, I didn't actually argue for higher survivability, I find that the idea of slingers being glass-cannons suits them very well, as I am sure I made clear in the OP.

Gunslingers and Ninjas were made such that they were stronger than nontrans, but not stronger than trans classes. You only need to 99 them once for their maximum potential (which definitely overpowers any nontrans classes), so I think it's normal for GS and Ninja to be weaker than the classes you're comparing them to.

Again you're not arguing against things I've actually said. I haven't compared them to other classes at all, I've made these suggestions solely based upon the hope of making them seem more interesting to play, which in my interpretation does not include doing omfgwtf-damage. I think you'd find that even with the suggested buffs they'd still be easy kills for anyone who knows what they're doing and is, in the case of the ninjas, lucky enough to be a class that has skills that pierce cicada upon encountering one.