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Hi, everyone, I’m dEt0uR, one of the content team members. You probably know me from infamous additions to the game like Itojinsei, Shinrai Ou, and 90% of the items in the game. It's long overdue, but this is a breakdown of my thoughts and what went into the most recent updates to items. Sorry it took so long.

First and foremost.. Keystones. The most recent game changing addition to the game. The idea started out as unique accessories, similar to crystals, that offered tailored buffs to different play styles. However, as we tested them, we realized combining multiple of them could become an issue so a dedicated slot for these items was created, Keystone. With this, we could make the items grant even larger or more unique buffs similar to BLs knowing that players can only ever equip one.
As Keystones were developed, it was suggested that some of them would benefit from being active effects due to the nature of the buff and so they were retooled and adjusted with that in mind. This however, made them a lot more susceptible to having no value if they were immediately cleared in combat… And then there was the Pride issue. While we did test each keystone, we unfortunately made the mistake of testing them in a vacuum and we were not able to identify just how strong Pride would be in conjunction with the other item changes and introductions. Lesson learned.
With this in mind, we went back to the drawing board for Keystones and brought them all back to being passives. We believe this is much healthier for the items and for the game. Now I will do a breakdown of the thought process that went into each item’s creation:

Pride:- The first Keystone I designed and what led to the creation of the others. It was designed to grant an immediate combat buff akin to using 2 40AP jutsus with the plus side being that it's unclearable, and the downside being that it prevented you from using any other kinds of damage buffs. It was meant to favor builds and play styles more focused around debuffing the enemy.

Lust:- A keystone for those who prefer longer fights, using less resources.Providing a huge reduction in jutsu cost, it’s perfect for those forbidden jutsus and to counter the effects of Poison. With the downside being a one time drain of chakra/stamina

Greed:- Greed provides a bit of passive healing every round for the duration of its effect. Similar to Lust, it takes a chunk of pools as its cost.

Gluttony:- For those among you who like to play around healing tags, whether that is Heal, Absorb or Lifesteal, Gluttony gives you a 30% increase to all those effects. The penalty being the inability to heal for the first 3 rounds of combat.

Wrath:- Another damage centered Keystone. Prioritizing burst damage if played around correctly. Wrath allows you a round of protections so that you can buff yourself or debuff your opponent while being safe from most forms of damage, utility, and the effects of being Cleared for the first round of combat. This allows for a potential of massive damage if your opponent does not adjust accordingly. The drawback being you cannot attack the first round of combat and you have increased pool costs to go with it.

Envy:- Providing 4 rounds of Lifesteal for those damage focused builds who want a bit of sustain added to the mix. The idea was to give players without access to a reliable form of sustain, a way to add it to their kits. The downside is that it lowers your defenses so you will be taking slightly more damage.

Sloth:- For those of you who like to play a bit more defensively. This Keystone prioritizes making you take less damage and as such, the penalty is recoil. We don't subscribe to the philosophy that tanks should also be doing burst damage, so this drawback is there to deter trying to go for damage while the keystone is in play.

Weapons: Weapons were falling behind in combat, people were more inclined to take more armor items vs bringing a weapon which meant that weapons were not doing what they were supposed to. With this update, we wanted weapons to have a place in combat. Offering more unique additions to combat that jutsus simply just did not provide. I believe we’ve achieved this for the most part, but some weapons do need a few more tweaks to either bring down their power, or bring them up to their peers.
The main reason for changes to weapons are:

• Get them to be used in combat more
• Make them viable for all persons regardless of elements, bloodline rank, etc.

Armor: Armor has been the second hardest thing to balance. We want to have a variety that everyone can find something for themselves without there being one clear must have armor, yes I know, swoosh. It took a bit of tweaking and a lot of math, but I believe we were able to get armor tag variety and effect power down to a point where everyone can build something that is tailored to how they want to play.

Overall, barring small mishaps, I believe these changes have been mostly well received and have impacted the game in a mostly positive way. This is likely going to be it for major combat changes for a while as we focus our attention to new gameplay features such as quest updates, more events, more rewarding feeling combat vs AI, adjusting missions, reducing some of the grind of the game, and overall creating a fun and enjoyable experience.

I, truly, thank each and every player for sticking around with us, providing feedback and support. Thank you for all the criticisms and praise.

Kinda hard to use weapons in combat when u can basically only have one if u also wear gloves. The change to how weapons are put on a character is very limiting now. Suggestion, have a belt with increase stats and the ability to hold more than one weapon.

Or maybe a double weapon only slot

that's an intentional limitation where you can get more damage scaling by taking gloves instead of a weapon, which i'd probably recommend you only do when you're also using a chakra sword in most cases for people that want to deal damage based on their output (offensive BLs) as opposed to a tank that could use weapons with essentially fixed values regardless of output

Thank you detour and content for giving us all this stuff. With these updates, i feel more comfortable in combat and not so unsure ofv myself in what i should be doing.

Alright stack. I'll keep that in mind and mess around with items. Seems like keystones might be more stable so I'll buy one soon

Thoughts on the NB ones?

i may or may not like the last few changes but this is an example of good, clear communication between staff and players. appreciate the update

What is wrong with you people

I cant see the text in a few of the keystone due to the colors they are written in. Can that please be changed.