Class feedback post: Awakening Ninja for PVP:
For the past few months, the Awakening Ninja has undergone various changes that have drastically altered the feel and identity of the class. Many Ninjas no longer recognize their class or find it less fun than before due to several major issues.
In this post, I will mainly talk about how the class feels rather than balance, as the goal is to restore the Ninja's identity. Since the hit/FPS/dr patch (that appeared in june of last year), awakening ninja has lost a significant amount of speed. This is mainly due to the slowdown of the game with FPS changes. However, the class's fluidity has also been significantly impacted. This happens because the class relies heavily on cancels, which have become more "clunky" with these patches. Some cancels no longer work or have become obsolete, and some skills simply no longer function as they are supposed to.

Fluidity issue:
Serpent Ascension:
This skill has long been one of the Ninja's signature abilities. However, it heavily relies on the ability to apply Air Attack. The skill has been nerfed both directly and indirectly.

- Direct nerfs came in the form of an increase to pvp damage reduction.
- Indirect nerfs, the patch unintentionally impacted the skill negatively in the following way:

Previously, Serpent had 13 hits. The first hit couldn’t apply Air Attack because it was the initial CC, meaning that 92% of the skill benefitted from Air Attack.

With the hit changes, the skill now has only 4 hits, meaning only 75% of the skill can benefit from Air Attack.

Additionally, as shown in the video below, Air Attack is inconsistent, leading to situations where only half of Serpent applies Air Attack properly.

Proposed Solution:
Ensure that the Air Attack from the second hit applies correctly.
& Slightly increase Serpent’s damage to compensate for the 17% that can no longer benefit from Air Attack.

Serpent → Bladespin:
Because of the same fluidity issue, Bladespin can no longer be cast quickly from Serpent and thus can't apply its Air Attack.

Current:

Old: https://streamable.com/1iptyl

Solution:
Rework the transitions between abilities to improve their fluidity.

Keep in mind that this issue is not only limited to Serpent & Bladespin but to almost every ninja's spell that use air attack.

Issue of staticity:
Still on the topic of class identity, Ninja has become extremely static when dealing damage. The class has shifted from being fast and mobile to slow and immobile in its combos.

This is due to the Serpent nerf mentioned above and the buffs to Corrupted Sword Dance, Sudden Decapitation, Sura : Chaos Spree, Katana Shower, etc. which have forced their usage at the expense of the class's signature abilities such as Serpent, Drastic Measure, Bladespin and Flashing Light

Combos have now gone from looking like this:
[Combos Before]:

To this:
[Combos After]:

The goal here is not to demonstrate the quality or damage output of the combos but rather to highlight how Ninja has become overly static in this aspect.

Additionally, understand that the majority of Ninjas who have played the class for a long time and perform well with it hate Corrupted Sword Dance. For a long time, it was primarily a movement skill, not the class’s main damage ability which it has become.

Solution:
Drastically reduce the damage of:
- Sudden Decapitation
- Corrupted Sword Dance

These skills are too slow to fit the class's intended fast and dynamic identity.
Instead, redistribute their damage to the class’s signature abilities listed below :
- Serpent
- Flashing Light
- Drastic Measure
- Bladespin
- Shadow Stomp

Skill specific adjustments:
Shadow Stomp
Increase its damage again since it received the same treatment as Serpent and also suffered an unjustified nerf to its Absolute version.

Serpent:
Ensure that the Air Attack from the second hit applies correctly.
& Slightly increase Serpent’s damage to compensate for the 17% that can no longer benefit from Air Attack.

Bladespin:
Add crititical hit rate to the skill

Sudden Decapitation & Corrupted Sword Dance:
Reduce their pvp damage

Flashing Light & Drastic Measure & Bladespin:
Slighlty increase their damage to compensate for the nerfs to Corrupted Sword Dance and Sudden Decapitation.

Chaos Spree:
Increase its casting speed significantly or remove its startup animation to match the class’s intended playstyle.
In return : Adjust its protection Change from Super Armor (SA) to Forward Guard (FG).

[Hypothetical chaospree casting speed]:

Katana shower:
Inverse the first and last hit for the purpose of having a faster damage output without sacrficing PvE.

Flow: Murderous Sever:
Delete the startup frames of the animation to make it similar to muderous intent

Flow: Execution:
Remove the option to cast it with RMB from Chaospree, currently this flow option makes it impossible to change stances after casting chaospree because of input conflict.

Illusion of Restraint:
Increase fluidity of the skill by making it cancel/flow from certain animations even via quickslot.

Shadow Slash (awakening):
Give the option to put add-ons on the skill

Conclusion:
The primary focus of this post is Corrupted Sword Dance, a skill that is largely disliked by the majority of Ninjas as a damaging ability (because of how clunky it feels) but was forced into our kit due to the Serpent nerf, the buff to Corrupted and other skills losing fluidity.

The fluidity and dynamism of the class were key reasons why many Ninjas enjoyed playing it. By making it immobile and slow in its combos, the class has lost significant popularity among veteran players.

Credits:
This post was made in collaboration with the following players:
Aidxn, Ragey, Votan, Lenke, Genyin, APTDuck, Kalista, Blockjump, Sede, Toyo.

Ngl, you had me in the first half. I can't upvote anything in good conscious even if I agree with the majority of it when it calls for nerfs and isn't exactly consistent in what its asking for. CSD honestly sucks ass as a movement skill in this meta. There's too many fg pierces with big aoe now. Too much movement creep.

If you want to nerf CSD back to only being a movement skill, then you can't just ask them to "slightly" buff Serpent or the other damage skills. You can't put the equivalent of the csd damage spread across 3 or 4 skills either, because now you blow 4 cds for the same amount of dps instead of 1 skill. The only difference is feel in this scenario, and even with all these changes, it won't feel as good as before because fps = dps is permanently gone.

And them splitting our skill dmg across skills has been a thing since reboot. They reduced the overall damage of serpent, made it faster, and then distributed it to other skills. We don't need more of that. We don't need more fgs either. You could make chaospree instant like in the clip, which would feel amazing, but an awaegu or succ dosa will just waste you for using it and a deadeye will rotate around the skill and cc you through it. That's part of why csd feels so shit as a movement skill now.

If CSD is a problem because it feels like shit to use, then ask them to fix that. If damage is too low on skills or they're too slow, then ask them to fix that. You did half of that, then turned around and told the devs to dog you some more. Don't concede more nerfs to the class just to get a gimped Ninja that feels slightly better, man.

I hate that after years of trying to push you guys to put out a feedback post that you'll support, you put this half baked thing out and then ask the devs to screw you over for some nostalgia bait. And then you guys actually squad the post too. Fuck me, man.

Edit: I'm shocked Sede didn't get a core katana shower nerf pushed into this.

If you expect them to buff ninja without any drawbacks at all you are delusional, please don't comment on a topic you don't know anything about. Thanks.

You call me delusional, but awaegu, awake hash, awake striker, awake tamer, and deadeye are right there, bro. No nerfs in sight and they're ACTUAL blights on balance. Let's not mention you couldn't break 2200 in over 1k games of AoS last season and got kicked off the top 100 board by Toyo who doesn't even open the game but once a season if he even feels like it. That's actually sad, bro.

Now be real. You can't tell me I don't know anything when you are literal proof that Ninja isn't doing hot. Are you gonna do another 1k game season and wind up outside the top 100 again, then blame that on the fact the class is more stationary now or what? You can't ask for more nerfs to the class to justify mid changes to the class when the class is just that - mid.

https://www.twitch.tv/irageyy/clip/CrazyConcernedLettuceLitty-qvDJpEJ0eXjNyxVm

Like look at this shit. You think what you're asking for will change the outcome of this? You are still going to do 10% of a striker's hp and die in less than 2 seconds when you show one gap because the reality is that our damage is actually garbage and we go full blast to compensate for that. You get to be paper thin just to pray your csd can kill someone when everybody else is putting out pantsshitting amounts of damage and people are complaining about it. And you just want more of the same of that, but on a cooler and faster skill while making the less cool skill weaker for no reason other than to make some person you don't know MAYBE take pity on you and not even actually buff you. just to make it feel gooder. Cool. And you wonder why the devs don't ever actually throw us a bone.

Just add iframe and super armor to every skill (its a joke). then it be able to be like the newer classes that let you midnlessly mash buttons to do good

CSD being frontal movement in this meta isn't as bad as it sounds because we got sever, it would just be a kiting tool more than a movement needed to loop like back then. Also the cd reduction of the 3rd rabam helped us for movement.

Concerning spreading CSD to other spells even if yes it makes you blow 4 cd instead of one, the casting time will be faster getting us back to being a burst class rather than a DPS class that just doesn't suit the playstyle of the class (full glass assassin), there is a difference between feeling and speed, we're not asking to go godspeed again but just to not have the clunky aspect anymore that's literally the whole point of the post. I'd rather get a weaker ninja state but with atleast the class being fun. I never played the class  because it was strong, broken or weak and nor did other ninjas, last time ninja was really meta was back in 2018 and even then you had probably stronger things.

We're indeed splitting CSD in our kit, difference is how hard CSD is to apply, yes FG are not that strong in the current meta because of how many classes have block jump or easy FG counter. However isn't CSD the WORST skill we have to that extend ? it's literally a 2s casting time spell in FG without CC that would lock you if you don't insta cancel. Same thing goes for sudden, especially since we're using it for fast cswap and we end up having it in cd almost everytime.
Spreading a locked & long FG animation to spells like drastic, bsb or flashing is a GOOD thing since it's faster and SA, also adding FG dmg to a burst spell is way different than having all of your dmg tied to a spell that 1st, you dislike & 2nd that is long, slow, clunky & FG.

CSD is a problem because it just doesn't fit the kit, yes we could ask for CSD to be instant but then what is the point of the spell ? 
Easiet and smartest solution would be to comeback to what we used to have and what we enjoyed about ninja, which was it's signature spell with Serpent and Bladespin for exemple. 

Then, I have to agree with Ragey on that, I don't think we can get any modification without conceading anything, yes I would like to have our old class AND csd dmg etc.. But it just won't happen and if I have to chose between the fun & the identity of the class or having something stronger but that ISN'T NINJA ANYMORE then I would just reroll to random FOTM class and I think a lot of ninjas are in that situation. You don't play awake ninja because it's FOTM you play it because you enjoy it, and with these changes most veterans just don't enjoy it anymore myself included.

In my opinion the solution is to nerf the overpowered classes, not bring Ninja up to their level. Buffing Ninja would just put all the other bad classes further behind. Also include nerfs for Nova, Berserker, and Mystic.

That's why we're not asking for buffs but rather fixing the identity of the class yep

That situation is gonna continue, though. Even if you get what you want, it rolls us back in performance while the meta continues to get stronger and more powercreep keeps happening. You and everyone else will be frustrated even more until you ultimately quit. Sede didn't even quit because of Ninja changes. He quit because of the loss of OW pvp. Toyo and Sede are the only ones that quit on your list, and that's because Toyo outgrew the game. Ragey quit for a day until he tried the changes and liked them. So I don't think people will leave the game because of how Ninja is besides people who already left and only come back for a moment.

Besides, I really don't see this happening. KR players been asking for rollbacks to skills for like 2 years now and the devs won't budge on it. They're really inflexible, so I don't ever see them doing something like what's suggested, which is why we ended up in a situation with nerfed serpent tiny buffs to compensate and a turbo buffed CSD as our primary dps skill now. But I just don't like the idea of giving up a skill that does semi-good damage despite some drawback just to go back to shitting out medium-low dps skills that require ccs to do more than tickle someone's nuts.

I also don't like reverting an sa to fg when the sa is the good part of the skill. Like I used to be on the bandwagon that hated fg -> sa chaospree and just wanted it to be faster, but after playing with it, I don't want to give it up. It's pretty useful in large scale. So I can't get on board with that idea, even if I like serpent more as a dps skill or miss the old crack-addict ninja.