In my opinion, we don't care early game. Because early game help people to learn how the skills work but the purpose of the game is late game.
There is no doubt Wind main skills are broken.

-Tons of bunshin which is used for meat shield (hi kushina / sasuke play boy/ itachi / ... focus bunshins) but also used to proc pursuits even if you interrupt mystery or w/e

-Remove debuff + reset mysteries skill is completly broken

Combo of this 2 skills is just absurd.

+ tons of overpowered ninjas are wind (hello konan, hello minato, ...)

Bunshins could be balanced if they die in 1 hit. It's just absurd to start combo on this bunshins when wind main will make 2 new bunshins 3sec later.

IMO, wind main need a nerf.

as if we don't care early-mid game as a process and also take times. so within 2 weeks all main pretty much the same. and other month or what not 2 full months LM rocking solid and takes arena, ranked, sage, matsuri, and so so so sooooo many PVE that alot easier since if not most of em are IMMUN and have LM INSANE attack growing stat. so by that how much resources that you gain faster than other main with same $ to burn out? and its some how seem still on reasonable balance logic?

kushina, playboy sasuke, itachi, angel konan, minato,etc all has its own costs compare to basic free sword ninjas. if u r claiming WM too OP with rare ninjas then i have the simple way to answer it. ALL MAINS need OP ninja on end game its not exclusive for WM only... yes u can play with potato ninjas but will it standing equal vs rare ninjas? hell no....

end game its all about OP ninjas(maybe its nicer if those ninjas sync well) and stats and so on. regardless what your main using on.which none of ur claim seem justified.

The 4th mystery unlocks at level 80, sand dust is a 4th mystery exactly like skewering. The reason why those 4th mystery were added in 2.0 (before the 4th column of talents did not exist) is exactly because they are supposed to counter root of warrior teams, while sb 4th mystery is there to counter poison tai teams, or at least that was the original idea.

Light main do not spam bunshins and do not remove debuff + reset mysteries.
If u think windmain is balanced, just LOL. You obviously play her.

Arena is full of windmain, everybody play same build aka bunshins auto, bunshins passiv, reset mysteries.
I do not talk about light main, who is also "broken" because of his immunity sword passiv, but way less than wind main who have tons of meatshields + reset mysteries (absurd skill)

Now let's talk fire/water main? what can a control team do vs windmain? N-o-t-h-i-n-g ; except if the windmain play very bad.

Water main can endure round 1 and 2 and keep you under chaos permanently until you die, both with mb and with bd. Kisame samehada + angel konan is also a perfect shark bomb neurotoxin team if you use as 4th ninja kurenai or gakido.

About arena... if you own initiative gengetsu, mei, jinpachi with azure fang let you beat almost every common team, overall shisui teams because shisui flat out dies under the combo started by gengetsu in round 1, and is annoying against a lot of rare teams. Wind main itself, being made of paper tissue dies even if has the shield of flower guard if hit by the combo of gengetsu.

An even easier to get arena team with water main that kills with ease most of the wind and lightning teams? Bee sst, kushina habanero, sailor sakura. Another one? Kisame (both normal and samehada works), kushina normal 3 star, kabuto snake cloak.

The immunity on its own is not the problem with WM but when you pair her with a ninja like Kurenai with enchanted skills then its get really stup1d and impossible to deal with it. Add to to that a ninja like Shisui or MM and you got the most annoying team to face against while you yourself have no counterplay since no matter who you focus you got a cc reflect / shield + heal / a full team cleanse and mystery reset to do everything all over again next round. But thankfully theres a guy comming soon who will deal with all these mains immunities and deal the finishing bL0w to most of these immunity teams except for jinchurikis ofc.

I do not say other main are not viable. I'm saying TONS OF BUNSHINS + OP reset mysteries skill combo is just ABSURDLY OP. It make the windmain an annoying support and as someone said , in couple with kurenai it's just annoying and frustrating. And btw, sharkbomb builds can be annoying, but you see it 1/15 fights.

But wind main is EVERYWHERE, i meet her 8 fights/10. You think people play her for his FUN GAMEPLAY? :)

Please, stop eyes wide shut wind mains :)

Wind main is really tanky too considering people run her with a life mood and flower guard is gives her protection from cc. The most successful main in Arena is probably wind main, and the only people who win with a water main these days (in Arena Atleast) are people who run the heal cancer with her. IMO, none of the mains are balanced, and maybe it was meant that way to give people an inherent advantage in battle or give an extra layer to make battles more exciting. Arguing over who is more broken is never gonna give you a concrete answer, every main has its goods that can be easily countered by the other main.

actually using clones could be extremely counterproductive if the enemy uses an heavy repulse team (like for example ay 3rd meta with CF, chojuro-mangetsu-mei/kisame samehada-AF, itachi susano'o-shisui/AGK-madara-CF/SB, 6 tails naruto-shisui/edo roshi/gaara-bee sst-CF are 4 examples...) why? because the clones are made of paper tissue and repulse damage can't be avoided by evasion. Is actually possible that you get flat out nuked thanks to those clones if the enemy hits you enough hard.

believe me, i've used for long time water main, then i went to earth main and now to wind main. It's all up on what you run and on what you meet.

i've use to hit 6 paths the team scarletblue talks about for over 5 months.

The only main that gets nuked round 1 by the combo started by gengetsu is wind main. Even fire main if you do not crit on the mystery itself often is left at 5-10% hp, but wind main dies even if shielded by flower guard.

Just want to add.

With our current version 4.0 you unlock full talent at level 76, not 80. (72 for 4th mystery and 76 for 4th passive). And with the new daily practice you can rush to 72 within 1 month easily. So the "early game" don't really matter.

However when we discussing about balance between mains, there are a lot of factors in between. The problem actually is how much synergize they has when you place them into top meta teams.

Currently MB and BD has the best synergize with most meta ninjas so it's seem like they're OP but the main itself actually isn't (ofc I'm not counting people who using SB with top tier p2w ninjas with very high bp.)

When 5.0 come the meta will shift again with Madara 5 Kage Submit or we tend to call him Cool Tobi and main's talents change. All the immunity and buffs stacking will be put to rest (except edo hiruzen). At that point there will be new "OP" mains just because they work better with new meta ninjas.

After all, what we are arguing about here already been fixed in CN, the mother version. It's just matter of time when it come to us.