Suggestions and Improvements for kunoichi Succession PvP

Hello everyone, im SHRKY

I've been playing this class since i started the game, around 6 years ago? I've seen all the changes to Kunoichi, before and after 2021 class reboot. Over the years; I've experenced all the highs and low of playing Succession Kunoichi, from her strongest moments to her most difficult patches.

This is my first post here. I want to share feedback and suggestions about Kunoichi Succession in PvP.

Note: This post is only focused on the Succession version of the class. I am not asking for higher damage or larget (AoE) Area-of-Effect skills. The goal of this post is to suggest improvements that would make her more viable in group PvP scenarios.

Just a heads-up: I'm using an AZERTY keyboard, so some of my skill keybinds might look a bit different from what you're used to.

Current Situation in PvP

1. Potential in 1v1 :

Succession Kunoichi remains a technical, high_skill class in 1v1. Success relies on precise input, cooldown management, and matchup knowledge.

2. Difficulties in group content (Node Wars, GvG, Arena of Solare, Guild League) :

I believe Kunoichi Succession is a class that requires a lot of time and discipline, whether you are a new player or a veteran. Due to her lack of protections, a single mistake usually leads to immediate death. This issue has become worse with the rise of "Super Armor Trade" classes, which make Kunoichi obsolete. She is no longer suited to the current meta, and this can clearly be seen by the very small number of players choosing her in Arena of Solare or Guild League.

3. Mobility: 

Although her mobility is still decent, it is now easily countered by classes that either:

       - Have large AoE skills, such as Awakening Sage;

       - Or have very high movement speed, such as awakening Nova or Succession Berserker.

Kunoichi remains a signle-target class, which puts her at huge disadvantage in group situations where everything happens very fast, especially with the buffs provided by shai's.

4. Lack of Sustain:

The class also suffers from a lack of health regeneration during fights. With the new crystals increasing HP and the garmoth changes, it takes longer to recover HP which means it also takes more time before the class can safely return to the fight.

The Global Lab update from April 11, 2025, introduced a small buff by adding +20 HP recovery to the skill Shadow Explosion, which is a great step in the right direction.

Suggested Improvements

I'm suggesting 8 changes to Succession Kunoichi, specifiaclly focused on Protections, Cooldowns and Crowd Control (CC's). These suggestions aim to help the class feel better and more competitive in the current meta, especially in group PvP settings.

Here are the topics i would like to discuss about Kunoichi

1. Add protection to One Damage Skill

Succession Kunoichi lacks any properly protected damage dealing skill in her kit

These are the feew offensive skills that i trully believe should receive a protection effect: (Shackles and Fox Claw):

2. Add protection to Shadow Slash

Succession Kunoichi has very few defensive skills that allow her to stall while waiting for cooldowns

Shadow Slash could fill that role

3. Add better protection / CC to Crescent Slashes or Floor Sweping

Currently, Succession Kunoichi only has Crescent Slashes for good Float opportunity, but the skill isn't protected enough

The class also needs an unprotected KD to perform in the meta

Potential CC skills that should have protection and/or KD added: (Crescent Slashes and Floor Sweeping)

t

4. Increase the Protection of Movement Skills

Succession Kunoichi has access to several strong mobility skills, but their lack of reliable protection places her at major disadvantage in group fights.

The following movement spells should be fully protected from beginning to end: (Danse Macabre and Heart Snatch)

5. Add a Linger effect to one skill

Succession Kunoichi currently has no skills in her kit that offer a protection Linger effect. Adding one would help her sustain herself longer in team fights, especially during high pressure situations.

Here are the skill that i think could be good candidates for a Linger effect: (Danse Macabre and Shadow Slash)

6. Add a Flow/Skill Link between Fox Claw and Black Moonlight

Kunoichi have several skills that are unused at all in PvP, i think creating room for more combination can be good for the class

7. Swap back 10% Down Attack damages from Shadow Clone to Floor Sweeping

Move the prebuff of Shadow Clone back to Floor Sweeping

8. Increase the HP recovery during Combat

Kunoichi lacks of Hp recovery during Combat, adding more HP recovery per HIT will help the class sustain in the fight

Example of a skill that can be buffed: (Tendon Cutter)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Details of the Proposed Improvements

These adjustments would allow Succession Kunoichi to maintain her technical gameplay while giving her the necessary tools to survive in today's meta

1. Add protection to One Damage Skill

Adding protection to a damage skill would allow the Kunoichi to have at least one safe offensive skill group PvP, without making her overpowered in 1v1 fights.

For example, Shackles is one of the core DPS skills in her kit. Giving this skill a protection effect would make sense and would not be unbalanced.

However, since Shackles currently applies a Stun ,adding protection could make the class too strong. To avoid this, i propose removing the Stun from Shackles and replacing it with a Frontal Guard or Super Armor instead.

This change could also help the Kunoichi Succession in PvE, as she lacks protection in high-end grind spots.

Example of a combo using the skill that should benefit from a protection:

In my personnal experience, i can never use this skill outside of 1v1 scenarios because im getting CC 90% of the time while casting it. Since this skill is one of our highest damaging abilities, giving it protection would help make Kunoichi more relevant in SA trades.

2. Add a Protection to Shadow Slash

This skill is already protected in Succession Ninja, and i believe giving it to Kunoichi Succession as well would help improve her ability to safely reposition and create openings in group PvP, without making her overly tanky.

Here's an example on how the skill can be used with a frontal:

Adding a Frontal Guard or Super Armor to Shadow Slash and giving it a 7 second cooldown would be, in my opinion, the best solution for the class, as 7 seconds dont feels too long or too short. Not spammable, but still frequent enough to use without being too oppressive in 1v1.

3. Add better protection / CC to Crescent Slashes or Floor Sweping

Iam proposing to add a better Protection / CC to Crescent Slash / Floor Sweeping.

Crescent Slash:

This skill is considered a semi protected CC, but its protection only applies during movement. As a result, it is not reliable as a core CC skill. I suggest adding Super Armor during the full animation of the skill.

Here's an axample of the skill with a Super Armor effect added:

Floor Sweeping:

Floor Sweeping currently only applies a Bound , but i believe it should be changed to a (KD) Knockdown instead, without adding any protection to the skill. Given the current meta, where most players run High Dr Builds, a simple float isn't enough to capitalize on for kill potential. Kunoichi Succession only has Stun, Bound, and Float as CC's.

Other classes already have protected KD, but kuno lascks of damage and pressure because of the absence of theses options.

4. Add better Protection to Movement Skills

Althought Succession Kunoichi has several powerful movement tools, gaps in their protection make her extremely vulnerable in large scale scenarios. Closing those unnecessary Protection gaps would greatly improve her viability.

Danse Macabre:

The beginning of this skill is completely unprotected, leaving the Kunoichi vulnerable to crowd control effects (CC's) during the opening frames.

Here's the skill page where the gap is writen:

Here's two examples of a CC occuring while using the skill:

Heart Snatch:

Same as Dance Macabre this skill does not provide any protection during it's initial phase. Protection only activates once the character is hidden, which creates a window of vulnerability at the start of the animation.

Here's the skill page where the gap is writen:

5. Add a Linger effect to One of these skills

Succession Kunoichi suffers from protection gaps and cooldown on her rabams (3O seconds is a lot!) in large-scale scenarios. Adding a Linger effect to one of the following skills would allow her to safely reposition or enter the fight:

Danse Macabre:

Even after the animation ends, stamina does not regenerate immediatly, giving it Super Armor after the damage animation would not make it overpowered.

Adding stamina recovery at the end of the animation would improve the class movility and make it more viable in group combat situations by having a tiny bit more Stamina.

Shadow Slash:

Adding a 2 second Linger effect during the end of the animation would allow a smoother transition into Smokescreen, increasing overall fluidity and suvivability of the class.

Here's an example of a Linger with both of the skills:

6. Add a Flow / Skill linkbetween Fox Claw and Black Moonlight

The Black Moonlight skill is currently used only in PvE and is useless in PvP.

Adding a Flow between Fox Claw and Black Moonlight would enable the class to perform faster combos and reduce downtime when skills are on cooldown.

Since Cooldown management is a major challenge for Succession Kunoichi, this change would help significantly in group fights and in PvE.

Here's an example of what the Flow could look like:

7. Swap back 10% Down Attack damages from Shadow Clone to Floor Sweeping

The 10% Down Attack damage buff was moved from Floor Sweeping to Shadow Clone, which is not what players expected.

Floor Sweeping is faster and doesn't consume a major skill, this change would simplify the pre-buff process and make the class more effective in initiating fights, especially in group PvP.

8. Increase the HP recovery during Combat

Succession Kunoichi has four HP regeneration skills in her kit, and one additional regeneration effect through Ninjutsu release. While it may look like it's enough, we're spending most of our time trying to heal instead of actually engaging in combat.

While the other skills offer minor HP regeneration on HIT, Tendon Cutter stands out as the one that truly need upgrading.

Here are the skills that i think should have increased HP recovery:

HP recovery should be increased from 113 per HIT to 200 per hit.

This skill is often used in the middle of the fight and should recover more HP. I suggest increasing HP recovery from 73 to 120 per hit.

Conclusion

Kunoichi Succession is a unique and demanding class, but she is starting to fall behind due to recent game changes. The suggested improvements are aimed at enhancing her survivability and flexibility in group PvP scenarios, without betraying her identity or disrupting the 1v1 balance.

The requested protection changes involving Frontal Guard could also be implemented as Super Armor, depending on what the developers consider to be more balanced.

All those requested changes are the result of the current game meta and issues that Kunoichi has been facing for years:

        - Lack of Protection across the kit

        - Extremely punishing mistakes

        - The rise of Super Armor trade-based classes

        - Slow HP regeneration based on current HP

Im considering doing a post to rework old kuno unused spell/rabams(Skill Enhancement) such as (Tragic Blade, Ankle Splitter, Ground Thrust) but im waiting an answer from the developers on this post first.

i am not making any suggestions regarding the Awakening version of the class, as i do not have enough experience with it to provide meaningful feedback.

Thanks you to everyone who takes the time to read and consider these suggestions, even if they are subject of discussion or further refinement.

--SHRKY--

lol people still play Kuno?

YESS YESS YESS YESS PA LISTEN HERE YESS YESS YESS YESS !!!!!

I agree with SHRKY, Kuno has been a neglected class for years (Both Succession and Awakeking). The game is heading towards a direction where people have SA even when farting thus asking for protection buffs is reasonable. Having more protections such as FG would help us in PvP to not have all our key DPS skills unprotected where we get cc'ed by just commiting to anything(We're a melee class!!!!) but also our PvE in harder zones where being hit might mean death ex. [Elvia] Orzekea.

Really well said SHRKY, sadly we are in a point where asking for perma SA brainrot trading classes to be nerfed is not achievable anymore, kuno has to go with the flow and be a mobile phone game class like the rest of them. Hope these suggestions reach them at least.

Completely agreeing with SHRKY, he summarized and said what we're all thinking and hoping for. Too bad PA has eyes to see, mouth to talk but no ears to listen.

Completely agree with SHRKY !

+1 Shrky, class needs atleast an extra protection to not get cc'd by any skill from any class at this point.

its more frustrating than fun to play in current meta. a fix for the half protected danse would also be a nice addition.

u want to be like strikers ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

i tried her yesterday after 3 years not playing her the class feel shit in pve she lacks protection i died three times in high end spot and switch back to my comfy grind dosa i hope they will do something fo her the class feels outdated she need full rework bring kuno from 2018 to 2025 plz PA