FROOT

Just to add something here for the two passives: The reason why I am confused by the is that they ought to be melee-focused, whereas the rest of the Sarutobi skillset revolves around kiting and hit-and-run. Even if they are melee-focused, they seem to be significantly weaker than, say, Three Tomoe Sharingan which provides 35% increased attack speed/spell haste(here we have only 12% attack speed) and 200 Strength (which if I'm not mistaken gives more than 10% increased attack power and you don't have to stack AP in order to benefit from it the most). The good thing is that it shares that buff with the whole party, which further boosts its support qualities. If the first passive was caster-focused, I think it would be more beneficial for both the Sarutobi and their part in a party/platoon (even though that technically you'd still only need one of them)

What I really like is how big the world feels. Even with Shinobi Travel Speed, exploring the map (and it's just Land of Fire at the moment) takes quite a while, especially since you don't have a live in-game map of your whereabouts. This only gets me further excited to wait and see how big the whole map is going to be by the end, because it feels like an actual world is being built with direct references to the franchise, rather than some sort of a random allocation that loosely resembles a WC3 map. Even if the world is yet to be fully populated, it seems rather lively with the addition of mobs and, most importantly, TREES and other gobjects that just... make sense. Saying that, however, what I don't like is the grindy aspects. Don't get me wrong, I too have engaged in them and they are sometimes relaxing, but once one grind ends (levelling, for example), another one begins (skill points) and is followed by one other (weapons). I understand that those things are planned to be conquered throughout time and at great depend on the player's playstyle, but if we take into consideration the point above, there is no other incentive (yet) than to do your dailies and go kill some mob for X resource. I think a potential counter to that would be more small-scale events, such as spawning a random boss somewhere to invite people over to search for it (which could potentially instigate some open world PVP as well), jump puzzles, secret hideouts, patrolling elites, sidequests that require you to gather/find/loot something rather than kill X amount of mobs, or even some random variable such as get Y buff (Sensei Mentor, Blessing/Curse) or heal/hit Y person (I'm not sure if those are possible, but just thinking out loud). Anyway, the game seems to be off to a good start, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops in the future.

If I can join here and add: The first spell that we learn seems quite nice and strong for its level, but shines most in AoE. The second spell sounds nice, because it provides a disengage for you to combine with the Shuriken Shadowclone Jutsu. However, its damage done is insignificant, and the high cooldown makes it more of an "emergency button" to combine for an escape route, rather than a combination technique with the first jutsu. If it had a lower cooldown (like Disengage in WoW, which would match the cooldown of the Shuriken Jutsu), I believe it will add more to the whole hit-and-run, kiting guerrilla fighting style of the Sarutobi. The staff as a pet does have a lot of HP, I agree, but to balance that out, it has quite the low damage and attack speed. Additionally, the pet matches one's speed when following, but if it starts attacking/is commanded to attack, its movement speed considerably drops, making it easy to avoid altogether. I would love to see its movement speed adjusted if the HP is being lowered. Protect the King is nice because it not only redirects damage taken from a party member, but reduces your damage taken as well (for 8 seconds I believe). Outside of party and in PVP, it can be used together with your pet staff, which further amplifies the gameplay of the clan - the combination/sequence of their abilities. As far as I've heard, the lack of damage from the other spells is substituted by the ticking DoT of Burning Ash. Along with its silence and low cooldown, it's a chef's kiss that is still not overpowered, imo, because unlike Hazy Mist that lingers with its damage after you leave the smoke, the damage from this ability is lost outside of its range. Although not particularly excited about the passives ahead, they seem to further boost the Sarutobi's melee capabilities. Would have loved if there was a balance between casting/melee buffs like there is with the Uchiha, but considering the supporting attributes of Will of Fire has for all of the group, it's gucci. (Although saying this, there is only a need of 1 Sarutobi in the party.)

Tsukihime

Hey, bby.

Removed.