Wind Style: So far

[Embyr 8]

Alright, so it's pretty common knowledge at this point that wind mastery is kinda booty. I've been pushing it on my main for a few weeks though and, while I don't have too much experience with other Masteries, I feel like I can give some solid feedback on each of the first four abilities and how they compare at least to each other.

Note: Tool tip doesn't mention the daze it applies, it also does about 400 damage, not the 70 mentioned.

Imo, this is wind's best ability of the first four for the sheer utility of it alone. 400 damage is respectable for wind style and the knockback is useful to interrupt casting like a Moth's blinding pollen or pushing a wolf with the 150% damage increase pounce buff away. Most importantly however is the daze debuff it applies to enemies which activates Shuriken bonus damage. Considering wind doesn't deal that much damage, a 750+ hit from a shuriken is really important for taking down harder mobs.

The main issue with using this ability right now is against bees and moths, unless you run along with the knockback they'll cast super jump and wreck your day.



There is honestly nothing good I can say about this ability, It is just worse than Gale palm in every conceivable way right now. Except against burrow eggs, there is not a moment I can think of that I didn't regret using it compared to just auto attacking it's so bad. Its range also seems to be very low, basically melee range although I could be wrong on that. The damage isn't misrepresented either, it actually does like 125 damage.

I dunno how you'd improve this outside the obvious reduced cast/cd time, increased range/damage. It might just need a complete redesign.



This is marginally better than breeze blast simply because the cast time and CD are both lower. Again, the damage is actually that low, I see it hit double digit damage frequently even with two "of the dragon" katanas. Another major problem I have with this ability is that it's an AoE, melee range ability with a cast time. You are essentially guaranteed to have your cast time knocked back while using it which feels really lousy (Note: This also applies to breeze blast).

Besides an obvious damage increase, this ability would feel so much better to use if it didn't have a cast time. If it needs a longer CD in result that's fine,  but interrupting your auto attacking and casting in melee feels really bad.

Note: This ability applies a magical slow to the enemy despite not being listed in the tooltip. It does not count as a daze despite being called one by the debuff's tooltip. So no Shuriken bonus damage :<

This is the other contender for wind's best ability, although I do think Gale palm beats it out. It basically works like a slower moving, insta cast chain lightning that slows. It does about 450-650 damage (With Spell power weapons) and, unlike wind's other abilities, seems to Crit for double damage rather than 1.5x. It does seem to scale off spell damage despite mentioning using a sword and is easily the most damaging ability of the first 4. This ability is a genuine breath of fresh air after two stinkers however it does still seem to be lackluster compared to what other masteries are doing at this point.

 

I'll try to keep this post updated as I unlock further into the wind mastery but as of right now it feels really really weak. As a point of reference, I've been leveling an earth alt on the side, and stoneshatter Jutsu genuinely feels like it's better than all four of these abilities combined. I know it's been confirmed that tuning is coming for wind, I just want to share this on the chance that it helps make the mastery feel fun to play.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Embyr

[donaldwasright 2]

This spell has weirdly high cast time for low damage

[Embyr 8]

Alright, Finally have played enough since patch 32 to feel confident enough to give feedback so here we go.

I forgot to add my level and equipment to my previous post so I'll go ahead and rectify that here.
As of writing this post I am a level 27 wind genin using duel Katana of the Dragon t1, I do not have a scroll.

Patch 32 introduced Wind buffs, from what I've noticed here are how each of the previous 4 abilities I've mentioned have been changed and my new opinion on them.

Wind Style: Gale palm
he jutsu itself is unchanged from what I've noticed however the icon and tooltip for the Dazed debuff has changed! The defuff now specifically mentions that Shuriken bonus damage is activated, I like this! Despite being unbuffed I still believe it's wind's best jutsu. Knockbacks are still a bit buggy in caves, likes to hit mobs into ceilings, but everywhere else it's super nice to have an instant, aoe knockback for casting interruption.

Wind Style: Breeze Blast Jutsu
This one got some work done on it and my god did it need it. It's damage has been significantly buffed to 206-680 at base and the knockback sends enemies significantly higher now, giving it more of an identity from Galepalm's more horizontal knockback. The damage in testing seems to be more weighted in the middle of that damage range, usually hitting for somewhere between 400-600 damage with spellpower weapons but will occasionally hit above or below this range. I still think this jutsu could use a slight range increase, the melee range on a cast time is a bit awkward to land against moving targets, but I like it a whole lot more now.

Wind Style: Slicing Gust Technique
Damage has been buffed to 251 -450 damage, with spellpower weapons it seems to hit in practice for 350-500 damage. Again, significantly more usable than back when it'd literally hit for double digit damage. I generally use this only when fighting three or more enemies because on two or one auto attacking is generally better. This might change with a 2h weapon due to longer time in between attacks but Wind seems to heavily rely on duel weapons still to do single target damage.

Wind Style: Slicing Whirlwind
Unchanged from what I've noticed. Imo, still wind's second best jutsu even despite the buffs to the other two. Being able to crit against up to three targets for 1.3k damage, even on a 45 second cd, is still really really nice for wind. Its unmissable quality is also a nice ribbon as well, although it is still possible for it to miss against enemies significantly higher level than you. One more thing to note is that it still applies a magical debuff that applies a slowing effect. It calls itself dazed however it does not buff shuriken damage.

 

 

The new Jutsu!

This one is a really weird one and it's honestly wind's new black sheep Jutsu. Let's talk about the random movement first.

This is me spamming the ability off cd, note the tornado that dissipated in front of the building, that's about how far they wander although I have had a few escape the square through the building while testing it here.

The jutsu also doesn't seem to like to move when you're on a different plane from it. They'll occasionally move but more often than not they'll expire where you set them.

There is a second aspect to their movement thats a lot harder to capture in screenshots, The tornado will always move away from you if you get within ~25 yards of it. For example, if you cast it right in front of you, it'll always immediately start moving away from you while if you cast it at its full 30 yard range it'll usually stay put. In addition, if you move towards it it will run away from you. In result, this jutsu is almost impossible to use in melee situations unless you're cool with it only hitting once, and with wind being a very melee range encouraged spec with Breeze blast and Slicing cutter it feels really weird to have something that discourages you from moving into melee.

As for the damage... It isnt great it does 200ish damage, 300ish on a crit and tics once about every second. The enemies I've found it the most useful on are ones that move very little and have a large hitbox, the best current candidate being Heavy Ox.

This is one of the best case scenarios for the tornado, where you can manage to stack up a bunch of them on a large target (Preferably more than one) without them moving around too much and able to consistently do it at a 30 yard range so they don't run away from you. Worst case scenario is against something like MM, Kaze or another player where they're small and move around all over the place.

Imo, this thing could use some major love to keep it from being a gimmick. If I were to make changes on it I'd do the following

1: Increase it's cool down, damage and maybe cast time. Make it less spammable but more rewarding to use.
2: Increase its area of effect
3: Make the first hit deal significantly more damage than subsequent hits. Not sure how possible this is in engine though.
4: Make it not run away from you.

Obviously there are other changes that could be made, this is just what I came up with after a bit of theory crafting while using it. Summoning multiple of them from a single cast would be kinda cool as well, would still need to make it unspammable though.
 

Overall, wind feels significantly better to play than back in patch 31. It's not great but I can aoe farm now that Slicing cutter does damage and dailies just feel way better to do than before. It has this identity crisis though where it wants to be both a melee and range mastery at the same time, having two different kits for each. In addition, its single target damage feels much weaker than its aoe but I feel like that might be intentional. Either way, just wanted to get this out there before the new year. I unlock the 150 passive later today (Hopefully) so perhaps that ties together the spec a bit more.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Embyr

[donaldwasright 2]

Passive doesn't work from tornado or slicing whirlwind

[Zoogie 4]

The base damage on most of the abilities is really really poor compared to other masteries. Also, knockbacks + NPCs anti-safezone mechanic is an overly punishing nightmare. 

[Embyr 8]

Alright, doing a bit faster of an update this time because my opinions on a few things has changed and I wanna get it out there asap. As far as differences from last time I've unlocked the passive at 150 koban and managed to get my hands on two scrolls, loading them up with two spell power cards each.

 

Covering the first part of the passive is difficult considering it's bugged right now (As mentioned above, doesn't proc off of tornado or slicing whirlwind) but I'm pretty convinced that it will end up being rather meh. With the kit as it is right now it's really difficult to keep up the MS increase without weaving in pointless moves unless you're spamming tornados in which case you're likely in a position where you can just turret cast. It's hard to test due to the bug, but I doubt the first part will be too notable.

The second part is honestly out of my league to talk about. As a wind user, I look at extra Jutsu haste and my low cast times and think "What's the point?" However, pretty much everyone I showed this to was like "Wait, wind gets Jutsu haste! That's so good!" I'm gonna believe everyone else and say It's likely great for other masteries, and it is thematic for wind, I just dont really have the means to test it out that way.

 

Alright, for part two I managed to get two scrolls and filled them up with spell power cards which gives me a great chance to properly test out Wind's Spell Power scaling. For reference take I will be testing these jutsu under two conditions. All targets are Oversized rat Swarmers and I am only reporting normal hits.

Condition 1: Cosmetic: Shinobi Rough Katana (2h damage bonus)  Jutsu power 10

Condition 2: Nodatchi of the dragon t1 (2h bonus damage) Two scrolls with full spell power 3 cards for a total of 316 spell power (392 after the nodachi) and jutsu power 10.

 

Wind Style: Gale Palm (Crits for 150% damage)

Condition 1:      Min: 143    Avg: 198    Max: 277      (127 uses in testing)

Condition 2:     Min: 301    Avg: 557    Max: 863    (80 uses in testing)

 

Wind style: Breeze Blast Jutsu (Crits for 150% damage)

Condition 1:      Min: 87     Avg: 192    Max: 353       ( 113 uses in testing)

Condition 2:     Min: 231    Avg: 489   Max: 1100      (114 uses in testing)

 

Wind Style, Slicing Gust Technique (Crits for 150% damage)

Condition 1:       Min: 78       Avg: 149    Max: 536      (247 uses in practice)

Condition 2:      Min: 336    Avg: 589    Max: 878     (173 uses in testing)

 

Wind Style: Slicing Whirlwind (Crits for 200% damage)

Condition 1:      Min: 499   Avg: 647     Max: 833    ( 24 uses in testing)

Condition 2:     Min: 531    Avg: 700     Max: 865    (35 uses in testing)

(I theorize this might scale off of mostly attack power but have no good way to test this right now.)

 

Wind Style: Cutting Tornado Jutsu (Crits for 150%)

Condition 1:      Min: 61       Avg: 159     Max: 256    (429 uses in testing) 

Condition 2:     Min: 272    Avg: 381    Max: 398    (262 uses in testing)

 

I believe this paints a solid picture of what's wrong with the spec the most, its base damage is abysmally low to where you need scrolls to really hike up that damage to respectable numbers. It so difficult to recommend someone take this as their first spec because auto attacking will be the vast majority of your damage until you get your hands on scrolls which are rather difficult to obtain right now. With that said, once you get those scrolls things get quite a lot better. As mentioned before in this thread, I can't compare it how other masteries do at this point, but it have noticed that seem to keep up to people of similar level way more than I used to.

 

One final thing I'd like to address is that my opinion on Cutting Tornado Jutsu has shifted quite drastically since my last post. While it's still certainly wind's black sheep jutsu, it's also certainly our strongest by a long shot... in the optimal circumstance.  That optimal circumstance being when you're fighting enemies that you can keep at its max range of 30 yards reliably such as Heavy Ox and certain bosses with preferably a large hitbox. It absolutely redefined my grinding style from slowly killing bees to gathering 4-5 heavy ox into a close area with the help of knock backs and shredding them down with tornadoes. You really need at least a scroll to do this though because at lvl 30 with full spell power it often takes me my entire chakra bar plus the recharge to kill them doing this.

I've eluded to this quite a bit but while wind is a pretty lousy choice for a first mastery, it's a really solid choice for a second mastery. I cant really speak for damage tuning or pvp balance, but its clear to me that the main help wind needs is early on as a first mastery.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Embyr

[donaldwasright 2]

Agree with your points, 3 things to add:

 

1. Jutsu haste as a passive doesn't fit very well into the toolkit as the casts are all instant/fast already, except for the 175 koban spell which has a normal cast time, and I assume the 200 koban spell. This point can be disregarded, and jutsu haste will be usable if more 1.5+ second cast jutsu are planned.

 

2. Damage even with spell power scrolls is too lackluster, especially for the spells without any CC effect. The numbers you show (and I have tested myself) for this mastery are low.

 

3. Issues with breeze blast and slicing gust as I think they are incomplete and lack in some ways:

Range on both are too low. Slicing gust seems to almost be melee range only, and breeze blast seems to be 5 yds?

Cast time on breeze blast is 1.5 second, which is a lot considering barely any damage, low range (in pvp) and only a small push effect.

 

I think if breeze blast has a longer range, it will become usable. If its cast can be scaled to whatever earth's quick cast root is, that seems fair (earth root rn is .5sec, if earth root will become 1sec, and this one matches, it should be fair and I can see it having viability besides being another button to press when you run out of buttons).

 

Slicing gust does way too low damage, its cast/cd is very fast so I understand the intention. However it is barely better than using a simple strike.. and that is instant without a chakra cost. I would never use this in pvp because you would rather get a guaranteed auto attack in melee range rather than cast a spell that may miss, and you will still do A LOT more damage with melee.

[donaldwasright 2]

On 1/3/2022 at 12:50 PM, donaldwasright said:

3. Issues with breeze blast and slicing gust as I think they are incomplete and lack in some ways:

Range on both are too low. Slicing gust seems to almost be melee range only, and breeze blast seems to be 5 yds?

Had a thought that these could scale off attack power? Since they are very low range, it would fit how boulderfist is AP scaling for Earth, lightning flow/cutter/chidori is AP scaling for lightning. This makes more sense for slicing gust than it does for breeze blast

[Zoogie 4]

I talked a little about this the other day in discord... The identity of Wind Mastery. I just dont understand its role or purpose at the moment. Apparently it is supposed to be a "battlefield control" mastery but I really dont see that being the case. The tornadoes are too random and dont do enough damage while the knockbacks and slows are either too short of range or just not effective enough. I think the mastery does underwhelming damage and only provides a moderate amount of utility. The best things about the mastery, in my opinion, are the interrupts. Which it only does so well. If I had to narrow down an identity or playstyle for wind at the moment it would be one that is focused around mobility and using abilities on the run. However it doesnt even do this very well. I would like to see either a massive increase in damage and go that route, an increase in utility, or an increase in movement abilities because at the moment it does all 3 of those things very poorly. If all 3 of those things got slightly buffed that would be okay too, then it could be another "jack of all trades" mastery but at the moment it fails and feels bad. 

[Embyr 8]

Alright, It's been a hot minute since I've done one of these. Figure now is a pretty important time to get my thoughts out on each jutsu while the memory of being a solo wind player is still fresh in my mind. Although tbh, even with the addition of earth style I find myself using wind abilities far more than earth. Sticking to what I know I guess.

For this post I'm gonna go over changes I've noticed, my thoughts on each ability, any bugs/tooltip errors I've noticed, and go a bit more in depth on the two jutsu I have yet to go over. So, In order of of when you obtain them...



No noticed change from previous patch.
No Bugs/Errors I've noticed

While I don't think this is wind's best Jutsu anymore, I do think this is incredibly solid and is a perfect introduction to the spec. Great utility, solid damage for a low level, can be combo-ed with Shuriken for bonus damage, and really just clearly displays what you're getting yourself into with the wind mastery. This is my favorite Wind Jutsu.

Maybe a visual update from previous patch? Tbh I don't use this ability enough to notice.
No Bugs/Errors I've noticed

And from the best we go straight into the worst. Breeze blast Jutsu's main problem is that it's long cast and short range makes it very awkward and cumbersome to use. It doesnt do much damage, interrupts your own auto attacks with its cast time and is very difficult to hit in pvp. Its purpose mainly seems to be as a way to get melee attackers off of you however their strikes will push back its casting even further, its almost always more worth it to chakra jump away because its instant cast.



No noticed change from previous patch.
No Bugs/Errors I've noticed

This one suffers from similar problems to breeze blast. Low damage, short range, cast time in melee results in knockback, interrupts your auto attacks, ect... Additionally, its chakra cost is weirdly high for the amount of damage it does.  It does benefit from a significantly lower cast time though which makes it a bit more usable. I still think the best change that could be made to this jutsu is making it insta cast.

Buffed! This ability now seems to scale off jutsu power.
Before the patch I've seen this ability miss, even against similar leveled targets, but this might have been changed since the patch. Also the tool tip doesn't mention the rather lengthy slow effect.

This ability feels so much better to use now that it scales. Hits for around 1.3k-ish at where my gear is at rn (5 spell power 3 scrolls) and is a very solid control tool in pvp as a ranged slow.

No noticed change from previous patch.
"You are not able to control the direction of the tornado" You actually can influence it, I mention how in a previous post.

I'm actually shocked this didn't get changed somehow. This ability absolutely carries wind in group PvM content but on the flip side is nearly useless in solo pvm and pvp (Might actually combo solidly with earth wave jutsu though.)

With that said I'm actually rather glad it didn't get changed, Wind would be an absolutely dreadful pvm spec if it weren't for this ability. Dps is a night and day difference between bosses you can use this on (Bird/Bear) and bosses you cant (Raido/Kama). Still, spamming nothing but this ability isn't the most engaging game-play so I do hope that it can be changed someday without completely ruining Wind's viability in bossing.

 

No noticed change from previous patch.
Still does not work off of Slicing whirlwind or Cutting Tornado Jutsu.

The movement speed buff is a bit better in pvp than I thought it would be but it's still very difficult to maintain. Still can't really comment on the jutsu haste either, even with the addition of earth most of my cast times are either instant or really low.

 

Much higher Chakra cost from previous patch.
Cast time is more like 2.5 seconds.

I haven't talked about this jutsu yet! This ability does about 1.1k damage in a large wide line in front of you and, for better or worse is a very bread and butter ability for wind in PvP and solo PvM content. Its high chakra cost is rather rough for the damage it deals though, leads to wind going out of chakra very quickly. I was initially very fond of this ability until I picked up earth and started comparing damage numbers. While it's still useful even with Earth style now it feels a bit weak now in comparison.



Higher mana cost, significantly lower max damage, longer cool down, shorter cast time and different name from previous patch. Basically reworked.
No Bugs/Errors I've noticed

Finally we're at the Daga jutsu! The best way to describe this thing is simply Slicing Tempest Jutsu+. It does about 1.7k damage on average in a large wide line in front of you with a breeze blast style high in the air knockback. It's longer cooldown makes it not quite as bread and butter as slicing tempest but it is significantly better as a trade off. Even with its rather significant nerf with the patch its still one of Wind's best Jutsu, albeit not quite as flashy as the other daga jutsu.

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

Overall wind feels weak right now, but its not unplayable weak. Other masteries seem to be having a rougher time as of right now and its probably preferable that they get attention first. If I had to change wind in one way, I'd rework Cutting tornado Jutsu and distribute its power in PvM in some way to the other abilities in the spec. As funny as it is creating a miniature tornado alley in the land of fire, it's probably not the healthiest gameplay spamming this one ability for an entire fight... and topping dps while doing so in some cases.

One of the motivations I had with making this thread is that I've had a lot of people ask me what my thoughts on wind style are and for me to link them the jutsu. I figured with something like this I could create a clear source for people to check and see just what wind style is like to play. With the entire mastery now addressed here I really hope I managed to accomplish that goal as well as highlight a few of the problems with the spec. Thank you all for being patient with my long winded talk about wind.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Embyr