The first major class to receive skill edits in heRO will be the extended class:
Ninja.
Ninja's Problems in Pre-Renewall
Ninja has always been in an awkward spot where its niche is extremely limited even though it has such a diverse skill tree. Ninja has both physical and magical skills available, however both side of the skill tree are very questionable.
On the physical front, there's nothing really outstanding except Throw Zeny/Final Strike having a niche as a defense ignoring ability with a relatively fast cast time for a high risk, high reward play. Only one of the throwing skills are really usable due to no cast time, but it pales compare to actual ranged classes. Throw Huuma Shuriken is often made fun of due to being completely unusable with bad qualities everywhere.
On the magic front, Ninja spells are mainly for stunlocking gimmick, but otherwise it's quite subpar in performance for most part. Ninja has access to all 3 elements, but there's such a big difference between all the elemental spells such that you don't have actual options in what element to pick.
On the defensive front, Ninja actually got fantastic options, but they are often so expensive that only magic builds can really afford their cost. This is often another reason why most Ninjas often build for spells only. The physical trees are almost completely ignored.
Unique Aspect of Ninja: Be Capable In Either Path
In heRO, we want to utilize Ninja's special niche suggested by its skill tree: having both physical and magical attacks. Ninja spells won't be as powerful as dedicated casters like Mages or Soul Linker, but they should be capable. However, while a lot of mages may be stuck against dark/holy monsters or monsters with high mdef, Ninjas can switch to physical attacks to still contribute in these situations. Likewise, Ninja won't be as powerful as archers in ranged attacks, or be as strong as knight/blacksmith in melee combat, but Ninja isn't helpless against Pneuma or Safety Wall due to having spells as backup.
However, traditional RO stats can be punishing as RO favors putting all stat points into just one main damage stats. We will change Ninja skills to favor having both STR and INT so that you aren't severely punished for splitting your damage stats, while giving some quality of life improvement and SP cost reduction to some defensive abilities as well.
Lot of Ninja skills will be given an "INT" or "STR" scaling as part of their skills. For example, Mist Slash has a new scaling of "100 + 20 per skill level + INT stat." How the "INT stat" scaling work is that the skill will take the amount of INT you possess, and add it as part of the ATK % multiplier. For example, a level 10 Mist Slash when you have only 1 INT will do (100 + 20 * 10 + 1)% of your ATK, which is 301%. However, if your INT is 50, then the skill scaling will change to 350% instead. Therefore, lowering your STR for some INT may actually boost your damage overall. No longer is it so straightforward to put "99 in one stat", as for example, splitting your stat to "80/50" or some other ratio may be better.
Spells that use your MATK have some STR scaling, while physical attacks that use your ATK stat will have INT scaling instead. This will be the new core identity of Ninjas.
The Changes
Mist Slash
Skill ratio:
100 + 10 per skill level => 100 + 20 per skill level + INT stat
SP Cost:
8 + 2 per skill level => 10 at all skill level
No reason why something that does Hide may cost triple the SP of Hide if it's leveled up. We have removed the SP cost penalty so that there's actual incentive to level this skill. Damage is increased but not dramatically so there's still incentive to proceed with the next skill in the invisibility skill chain setup.
Even if you have no interest in heRO's hybrid approach, the skill's base ratio has been increased such that a traditional pure strength build will see a boost in performance.
Shadow Slash
Skill ratio:
100 per skill level => 120 per skill level + 3 * int
SP Cost:
12 + 2 per skill level => 9 + skill level
A big Int scaling is added. SP cost is also much lower so it's actually affordable to no-int classic strength Ninja to use it multiple times. Base scaling also got boosted so even without int, classic strength builds will benefit. For being the final skill in a skill chain, the skill finally got better skill ratio pay off.
Throw Mastery
New effect: Instead of working exclusively with Throw Shuriken, the passive bonus will also apply to Throw Kunai, Throw Fuuma Shuriken and Throw Zeny.
Just no reason why Throw Mastery does not apply its bonus to all Throw skills.
Throw Shuriken
Skill ratio:
4 ATK per skill level => 4 ATK per skill level + 8% per skill level
The original skill gives literal 4 ATK worth of damage boost per level... that is hardly worth the extra skill points and is mostly a skill tax. We will give it some resemblance of scaling such that at level 10, now it has a base 180% ATK with 40 bonus ATK instead of 100% ATK with 40 bonus ATK.
Throw Huuma Shuriken
Cast time:
3 second => 1 second
Skill ratio:
50 + 150 per skill level => 50 + 150 per skill level + 3 * int
New effect:
Damage is no longer divided among its targets.
Cast time is no longer stupidly long so you don't need an absurd amount of dex to make the skill barely usable. You can focus your stats on str, int and/or agi. We removed the penalty to split damage so that an AoE skill can actually do AoE damage.
Mirror Image
SP Cost change:
Old: 30:32:34:36:38:40:42:44:46:48
New: 30:32:34:36:38:40:42:35:28:21
Cast time stops improving at level 7 so generally the duration increase at the cost of skill points and just 1 more hit blocked is hardly worth it. We are giving the last 3 levels a SP cost reduction so there's at least a bit of reason to get more than 7. At cost of extreme amount of skill points, the skill is possibly affordable to be used more than a couple of times now.
Ninja Aura/Soul
HP Cost:
5% of your HP => none
SP Cost:
10 + 10 per level => 15 + 5 per level
We have lowered the cost of Soul so that it roughly matches Blessing. There is no reason where it does less than Blessing (since it doesn't give DEX), yet it has a HP cost along with higher SP cost.
Wind Blade
Skill ratio:
100% per bolt => (75+str)% per bolt
New effect:
Number of bolts changed
1/2/2/3/3/4/4/5/5/6 => 2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11
Cast Time:
retains 0.7s cast time per level, but the average cast speed per bolt changes from 0.91s per bolt => 0.6s per bolt
Change in Damage Per Level (assuming 0 strength)
100/200/200/300/300/400/400/500/500/600 => 150/225/300/375/450/525/600/675/750/825
As you see, even with 0 strength investment, the new Wind Blade performs much better than the old one as Wind Blade was one of the worse spells in the entire game. Now the basic Ninja wind spell is not completely inferior to its fire and ice version.
Wind Blade also have a different number of bolts compare to the other basic Ninja elemental spells, so that they are not direct clones of the Mage bolts either.
Lightning Crash
Skill ratio:
160 + 40 per skill level => 160 + 40 per skill level + 3 * str
Added new strength scaling to give hybrid builds more spell options.
North Wind
Skill ratio:
100 + 100 per skill level => 100 + 100 per skill level + str * 2
North Wind is one of Ninja's best spell already due to its spammability. We are adding a small strength scaling so that hybrid builds are once again rewarded.
Crimson Fire Petals
Skill ratio:
90 per level => 90 + (half of STR)
A tiny strength scaling is added to set itself to be different than "just a bad Firebolt" while having some small differences with other Ninja basic elemental spells as well.
Falling Ice Meteor
Skill ratio:
100 + 50 per skill level => 50 + 150 per skill level + 3 * STR
Ice Meteor is supposed to be the final water spell for Ninja, yet it scales extremely poorly. Its AoE is almost melee so it's dangerous, yet its pay off is only 350% originally. This is not enough. We have massively boosted its base scaling so that it's nearly the same as Exploding Dragon with no STR, along with optional STR scaling for further boosts.
Skill Clarification: Final Strike
There is no change to this skill. However, iRO classic wiki erroneously claim that damage is reduced to bosses. That is not true in heRO or any private servers that utilize the Hercules engine. Furthermore, the damage formula is "(STR*40) + (HP/10 + 35)*skill level".
New Equipment to Accompany New Skills
We have already released the new Runic Cloth which will boost hybrid builds. However, we also got new Ninja-exclusive revamps. We will post the new Ninja gears once the revamp is released, but know that all of the following gears will be revamped.
No de-card options will be given, as they are all straight buffs in every scenario.
Revamped Weapons
All Huuma Shurikens will have at least 15% MATK, and have buffed base ATK/stat bonuses so that the sacrifice of shield is worth it.
New Elemental Huumas: these will focus on giving INT + 3, another stat +3, and a chance to inflict a powerful status effect when you use Throw Huuma Shuriken. The chance scales according to your BASE INT score.
Huuma Wing Shuriken => Huuma Stunning Gale[2]
Huuma Blaze Shuriken => Huuma Blazing Sun[2]
Huuma Swirling Petal[2]
Huuma Fluttering Snow[2]
Minor touchups: the following with have mostly just numeric improvement
Huuma Giant Wheel[3]/[4] => Huuma Spinning Wheel[3]/[4]
Huuma Calm Mind[2] => Huuma Calming Reel[2]
Brave Huuma Front Shuriken => Brave Huuma Piercing Star
Valorous Huuma Front Shuriken => Valorous Huuma Striking Star
Weapon for Shadow Slash
The following ninja-exclusive daggers will be revamped to support Shadow Slash, either by giving it a status infliction, boosted critical damage, boosted critical chances, or provide a small heal. All of these effects scale by your BASE INT once again. They will also have other minor touchups such as higher ATK power or more reasonable level requirements.
Khukri[1] => Khukri[2]
Kamaitachi => Kamaitachi[2]
Murasame[1] or [2]
Hakujin[0]/[1]: change to Holy Elemental
Ninja Class Set Adjustments
Set bonus update:
25% chance to cast Mirror Image after Shadow Slash => 25% chance to cast Hiding.
New set bonus effect:
10% chance to gain a Shadow Orb each time an enemy is killed.
Based on player feedback, being forced to cast Mirror Image may consume Shadow Orb at an exorbitant speed. We have changed it for a chance to use Hiding so you can use Shadow Slash again as soon as possible. Also, we'll reward Shadow Orb through the bonus so that the set promotes you to be more liberal with Mirror Image usage.
New Ninja Class Card Combo
Like original Gravity's class card set, a new set of cards will be created for Ninja, featuring a physical throwing build. The cards will be:
Chipmunk:
http://www.pandoraonline.net/heRO_wiki/i...pmunk_Card
Petal:
http://www.pandoraonline.net/heRO_wiki/i...Petal_Card
Aquaring:
http://www.pandoraonline.net/heRO_wiki/i...aring_Card
Kapha:
https://ratemyserver.net/index.php?iname...rch=Search
Karakasa:
https://ratemyserver.net/index.php?iname...rch=Search
Combo Effect
STR + 5
INT + 5
Kapha Card grants MDEF regardless of the refine rate of the headgear.
SP Recovery + 10%
When using the skill Throw Huuma Shuriken, Throw Zeny, Throw Kunai, or Throw Shuriken, add a 10% to cast the Confuse effect on the enemy.
[Ninja Class]
MATK + 10%
Long range attack + 10%
The effect of Aquaring card and Petal card are doubled.
Future Improvement
We have already reduced the weight of Kunais/Shurikens along with their Stone catalysts for their spells so that Ninja will not run out of steam due to weight as easily. However, we aim to do more to help Ninjas in weight.
"Ninja Ammo Box" (such as "Flame Stone Box", "Ice Stone Box", "Thorn Needle Shuriken Box" or "Heat Wave Kunai Box") will be made available in the future. They will serve just like Quivers for Archers in order to reduce the weight of your Kunais and Stones used for your higher tier Ninja spells. You will be able to create them at a NPC with a small fee, just like quivers.
This will not be released with the initial Ninja major update, but it will be released no later than being out at the same time as Christmas Quest 2020.
Of course, we will continue releasing new equipment and cards to support various Ninja builds as well. Look forward to continued support for this class in year 2021 as well!
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