So with the new patch on glabs today, we got our hands on the upcoming class changes, for Awakening Ninja, that will deployed in roughly a week and a half. After playing around with them, I wanted to leave my feedback on the changes.

Murderous Intent

Better known in the community as MI, and what I will be referring to it as henceforth, MI is a bread-and-butter skill for awakening Ninja. It is one of our primary methods of moving in combat and one of our main combo chain skills. With the core skill, it gives the class access to a reliable protected stiff/movement skill and is used as our main dueling core skill. Since the skill's inception, the cooldown has always been 3s. Today's change hits that cooldown and increases it to 6s. Not only does this disrupt class movement because we can't use it as often, it affects the user since our muscle memory is used to years of using this skill on that prior cooldown and will lead to mistakes that could be costly. They also reduced the SA duration during transition stance MI, which isn't great, but not very unfair by itself. Paired with the cooldown change, it's very unfair and unnecessary.

With today's meta, sa stiff MI isn't a gamebreaking feature, and in a class that isn't regarded as very strong outside of 1v1, nerfs are absolutely something PA shouldn't be considering. With the changes to MI's core and cd, it makes core: Serpent Ascension the only pick worth running in the current meta. That's very stifling. The main hand use when ankle cutter is locked is a very good change, however.

Changes I would suggest: Either 1 - Reduce MI cd back down to 3s and change Core: Murderous Intent to Core: Shadow Slash. 2. Reduce MI cd to 4s and leave everything else as is, or 3. Reduce MI cd to 3s, increase to 4s when using Core: Murderous Intent.

Katana Shower
The pve increase is substantial, but even with 100% crit rate, pvp damage is still very lacking for how long this skill takes to execute. I'd suggest increasing the pvp damage by 10-15% as a start and go from there.

Mach Explosion
Good changes. Adding forward guard and 100% crit is the best thing you can do for this skill in its current iteration. Only thing I could suggest is speeding this skill up a tad more.

Vacuum Slash
All the damage and linking changes are good, but the removal of forward guard leaves this skill as very exposed. On top of that, the core issue with this skill isn't its damage or linkage, but the input method for executing the skill. As it stands, if your serpent ascension skill is on cooldown and you try to use it, you will instead activate Vacuum Slash. Same for if Katana Shower is on cooldown. If you use it in that case as is, you would start an unprotected attack string that could get you killed in pvp or cc'd in pve. I would suggest making Vacuum Slash a flow skill that only connects off other skills using the F key, and hotbar only for the full attack string, or eliminating everything but the last attack to be used as a flow. WIth any case, putting fg back on the skill is a must. As Warrior players have said in the past, we don't need another unprotected float. 

Serpent Ascension
Awakening Ninja as class has always struggled against evasion classes because of its innately low accuracy modifiers on core skills. With the addition of a 9% eva debuff in place of Flashing Light's 6% (which got removed, don't worry), this helps alleviate the issue somewhat. Or at least it would have prior to the Land of the Morning Light update. 3% more eva reduction is nothing when all player characters can now gain access to 1200+ evasion easily with the new crystals and gearing options. An increase of the 4% accuracy base on Serpent Ascension (and Flashing Light) is still necessary, and I would argue even 10% might not be enough now. 12% should not be out of the ballpark. Having evasion shred on this skill is a good start, but more work needs to be done.

Shadow Slash

Crit rate buff is largely unnecessary with the new ninja buffs in place. I suggest replacing it with movement speed buff or a 10% attack speed/movement speed slow.

Flashing Light

Moving the eva reduction debuff from this skill to Serpent is a really good change. However, with the damage number changes, this skill does less damage than it did previously, which isn't good. I would opt for a 10% - 15% pvp damage buff to the skill, and go from there.

Sura Chaospree

Oh, boy. The new kid on the block. The skill they showed off at the ball. This thing is flashy as hell. But it's still very bad, and seems to have been launched in an uncomplete state. As it stands, the skill has no proper cancels and locks you in place once it's used. Like the old chaospree before reboot. It also only combos into Shadow Slash, which is strange, but appreciated for what it is. Why do we take 1 step forward and 2 steps back? The damage feels somewhat nice (I think... not entirely sure until we get it in the live server) while the animation is very flashy and very cool. But being unable to move and being unable to significantly speed up the skill with the use of a combo makes this lackluster. It could have the highest damage in the kit, but it wouldn't matter because I would be locked in place for 2-3s and that just gets me grabbed, or cc'd because this is a forward guard skill and not super armor. Mach Explosion suffers from similar issues, but after all the changes, it does more damage and it's much faster than this skill. It's also cancellable and connects well with other skills. 

Final thoughts

Vacuum connection with Serpent was a needed change, and was something requested by many Ninja users. The improved cancel into Silent Charge from Transition Stance goes a decent length to solving a longstanding awkwardness with Transition chains. All the new combos are a nice qol. The improvements to damage in most cases is nice, but ultimately, nothing here is more than just a nice gesture. It's not impactful. It won't change how Awakening Ninja stands in the current meta. In fact, the MI changes alone set us back in our 1v1 match ups, and we now have some additional options that could very well be a detriment in pvp. New spree is somehow slower than old spree and more of a lock. Leaving Vacuum Slash unlocked could get you killed because it now has 0 protected and comes off one of the keys you use for inputting Serpent Ascension or Katana Shower. If they're even 0.5s left on the cd, you're boned.

The best changes today were the 9% evasion shred, MI use from main hand mode, and the improved transition -> silent charge chain. Everything else feels like it was tacked on or done to make pve easier for the class.  However, no one is pveing on this class when Succ Ninja pulls 20-40% more trash loot at most spots, or when they can tag an easier class like Maegu that pulls the same amount of loot as Succ Ninja or better with significantly less effort. This isn't enough. We shouldn't have to be given qol  we begged for months and years for, and then also handed nerf as a compromise when they finally do make changes to our class as requested. We're not a top tier class, and haven't been in 5 years.  While I don't want this class to become too powerful, what's been done clearly isn't enough, and we still get some nerfs. Please do more. Please do better.

Murderous Intent Feedback

I made a topic, especially about Murderous Intent in the Feedback section.

Link to the topic: https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/Forum/ForumTopic/Detail?_topicNo=35971

Giving stationary frontal guards but taking away movement is not viable for awakening Ninja. Please Change the Murder's Intent cool down back to 3s.

Moreover, there should be a reward for taking the risk               of standing still for 3 seconds on these long FG skills. Low-medium damage isn't really a reward. 

Mach Explosion: The explosion damage should go off even if you cancel the last part. As long as you use the first part, the explosion should go off. However, if you do the full animation, there should be some incentive such as increased damage or a self buff is applied like down attack bonus.