Is ninja spy a total fail or am I doing it wrong?

[BigErkyKid]

Just for laughs I was calculating the DPS of ninja spy. Am I getting something wrong or is it a total disaster?

It forces you into kukris for 14-20/x3. The attempt to balance kamas seems to fail, getting them to 16-20/x3. And it only seems to have sneak attack as a booster.

The obvious comparison is rogue. And oh boy, compared to rogue, doesn't it fall totally short DPS wise? Rogues can get kukris for 15-20/x4 plus a whole lot more SA. I fail to see the and I think it is kinda obvious that it does not have the tricks a rogue has, dark monk finishers being weak atm.

Again, am I doing something wrong or is it completely lackluster?

[boredman]

It forces you into kukris for 14-20/x3. The attempt to balance kamas seems to fail, getting them to 16-20/x3. And it only seems to have sneak attack as a booster.

Can you use Kukris while centered on a ninja spy build?

How about er... shurikens?

[BigErkyKid]

Can you use Kukris while centered on a ninja spy build?

How about er... shurikens?

Based that on EMG. If they cannot it's even sadder. As for shurikens, yeah I know they are way better than trying Melee. But the tree looks like they weren't even trying anymore. Unless as well said I'm missing something.

[Saekee]

If endgame were still level 20, then a pair of EMGs would be a fair comparison. They are too weak beyond the mid levels of epics, unless one wants them for Improved deception with a powerful weapon in the main hand.

The named weapon that works well with ninja is the Forester's Brush hook (formerly 19-20/3). In the past, that came out to 13-20/3 with the ninja expanded crit. Here is my old screenie; this is no longer valid:


then with Divine Crusader: (no longer valid)


The changes to Improved critical have altered this, making them 18-20x3 base; then, with the ninja enhancement, I guess this would be 15-20/3? Add IC: slash and they become 14-20/3? Then capstone for 14-20/4 plus vorpal?

Ninjas get great max dodge thanks to the changes to water stance, an ease in combining a dex-based range attack with melee (basically a drow star chucker/short sword wielder), a boost to melee power from Henshin, and incorporeality. I think that gives them better defenses than rogues, as well as faster speed (not by much) and abundant step.

[BigErkyKid]

If endgame were still level 20, then a pair of EMGs would be a fair comparison. They are too weak beyond the mid levels of epics, unless one wants them for Improved deception with a powerful weapon in the main hand.

The named weapon that works well with ninja is the Forester's Brush hook (formerly 19-20/3). In the past, that came out to 13-20/3 with the ninja expanded crit. Here is my old screenie; this is no longer valid:


then with Divine Crusader: (no longer valid)


The changes to Improved critical have altered this, making them 18-20x3 base; then, with the ninja enhancement, I guess this would be 15-20/3? Add IC: slash and they become 14-20/3? Then capstone for 14-20/4 plus vorpal?

Ninjas get great max dodge thanks to the changes to water stance, an ease in combining a dex-based range attack with melee (basically a drow star chucker/short sword wielder), a boost to melee power from Henshin, and incorporeality. I think that gives them better defenses than rogues, as well as faster speed (not by much) and abundant step.

Thanks for the reminders both of you. However, depending on a bad base W and old as heck kama seems pretty bad. Other classes can get that critical power with good weapons. No matter how I compute it, I'm getting big levels of fail in my ninja calcs. Aside from a totally flavor build that poses as a ninja,!and maybe some uses for shuriken arcane archers, I see it as a disaster.

I have found ZERO ninjas in my gameplay since the monk update, surely the devs must have some metrics on that.

I'm still open to be proven wrong, if there is some synergy there I am missing.

[Jetrule]

The best thing about my pure monk ninja foucused epic life was shurikens and throwing a amazing number of them with 450-550 sneak attack damage at cap with scion of ethreal. This was running in shadow dancer. The latest update added about 100 sneak attack damage but hurt ranged characters with a single volley suddenly causing a unheard of number of monsters to sometimes agro on him and be able to know where he was even invisible and stealthed around 2 corners with over 160 hide and move silent. The problem for ranged ninja is they have no special attacks no ranged power and no way to increase point blank/sneak attack range. The ninja poison is a very weak d.o.t. and poison exploit never seemed to land for me. Not once. Prior to the agro change the ninja dummy was actualy efective and enimies would attack it making for a nice tool. after the agro update they ignore the dummy in all cases unless I dont attack at all. The Idea with ninja seems to be to mix throwing and melee with stealth and monk mobility and overall surviveability. But for me the most effective way to make him was focusing on ranged and sneak attack.

I am much happier with a handwraps shianto focused epic life and find his at cap performance very enjoyable. I only miss the working ninja dummy

[blerkington]

I'd expect the DPS to be lower than an assassin's because of better defences and more/better class abilities.

Have you had a look at how much extra damage you can get from poison in the NS build? I heard it was a worthwhile amount if you invested heavily in it.

Thanks.

[BigErkyKid]

The best thing about my pure monk ninja foucused epic life was shurikens and throwing a amazing number of them with 450-550 sneak attack damage at cap with scion of ethreal. This was running in shadow dancer. The latest update added about 100 sneak attack damage but hurt ranged characters with a single volley suddenly causing a unheard of number of monsters to sometimes agro on him and be able to know where he was even invisible and stealthed around 2 corners with over 160 hide and move silent. The problem for ranged ninja is they have no special attacks no ranged power and no way to increase point blank/sneak attack range. The ninja poison is a very weak d.o.t. and poison exploit never seemed to land for me. Not once. Prior to the agro change the ninja dummy was actualy efective and enimies would attack it making for a nice tool. after the agro update they ignore the dummy in all cases unless I dont attack at all. The Idea with ninja seems to be to mix throwing and melee with stealth and monk mobility and overall surviveability. But for me the most effective way to make him was focusing on ranged and sneak attack.

I am much happier with a handwraps shianto focused epic life and find his at cap performance very enjoyable. I only miss the working ninja dummy

Same here, happy with shintao, unhappy with ninja and henshin. Henshin is good on paper but it plays for way less DPS in my experience than shintao.

I'd expect the DPS to be lower than an assassin's because of better defences and more/better class abilities.

Have you had a look at how much extra damage you can get from poison in the NS build? I heard it was a worthwhile amount if you invested heavily in it.

Thanks.

It is not that I am asking for equivalent DPS. It's just that aside from shuriken it seems abysmal and much weaker than the 2 other trees. Assassin is the obvious comparison, and frankly it looks a lot more fun to play, with several interesting enhancements. Poison is kinda of a flavor thing (immunities and all), and again very single target. Maybe my calcs are off, hence why I came here to ask.

[blerkington]

It is not that I am asking for equivalent DPS. It's just that aside from shuriken it seems abysmal and much weaker than the 2 other trees. Assassin is the obvious comparison, and frankly it looks a lot more fun to play, with several interesting enhancements. Poison is kinda of a flavor thing (immunities and all), and again very single target. Maybe my calcs are off, hence why I came here to ask.

I am kind of curious how much poison damage is available in the trees. I've heard some people describe it as very good while others seem to write it off completely.

If you are still playing around with this build, maybe you could show your results here please. We probably all have different ideas of what 'good' is and seeing some numbers would be interesting.

Thanks.

[BigErkyKid]

I am kind of curious how much poison damage is available in the trees. I've heard some people describe it as very good while others seem to write it off completely.

If you are still playing around with this build, maybe you could show your results here please. We probably all have different ideas of what 'good' is and seeing some numbers would be interesting.

Thanks.

Let's check the upper end of damage.

Ninja Poison's damage ticks once every 3 seconds, with up to 20 stacks possible. The poison can be also be forcibly purged at 1d20 damage per stack of Ninja Poison using the Poison Exploit Ninjitsu enhancement. Poison Exploit is magnified in damage using the Deadly Exploits enhancement to 1d30/1d40/1d50 damage per Ninja Poison stack removed (up to 20d50 damage, or 1,000 points of damage).

Assume 100% vulnerability and 20 stacks. That's 2000 base damage with 20 stacks. Now make this multiplied by melee power. Let's give the ninja 200 MP (very unlikely, but still). So that's 2000x3=6000.

This is the upper end. Otherwise, even with 100% vulnerability, 1d4 is 2.3*2*3=13.8 per stack.

I can see this mattering more if you are throwing shurikens, but it hardly seems interesting as a melee.

I am doing a run with all the monk styles to rate them, and I was planning a reincarnation into ninja. I just can't bring myself to do it, it looks so freaking weak.

[Saekee]

A poison build really benefits from 1) stacking ninja poison rapidly via enhanced crit profiles & 2) venomed blades 3) venomed weaponry

The problem is #2. Venomed blades scale 200% with melee power & get boosted by ninja poison stacks (20 stacks=double damage). However, venomed blades are nowhere in the ninja tree. Drow get them but are insanely expensive. So either bilge AP on drow or multiclass with 2 rogue for the cheaper assassin venomed blades. Once you multiclass, you lose the capstone, so you want that crit multiplier back, meaning a poison build will feature 6 kensei or 12 ranger or some other split. 6 kensei means you can stay centered with a high-crit weapon like scimmies or rapiers so that strikes me as the best synergy--at least 6 monk & 6 kensei & 2 rogue.

[BigErkyKid]

A poison build really benefits from 1) stacking ninja poison rapidly via enhanced crit profiles & 2) venomed blades 3) venomed weaponry

The problem is #2. Venomed blades scale 200% with melee power & get boosted by ninja poison stacks (20 stacks=double damage). However, venomed blades are nowhere in the ninja tree. Drow get them but are insanely expensive. So either bilge AP on drow or multiclass with 2 rogue for the cheaper assassin venomed blades. Once you multiclass, you lose the capstone, so you want that crit multiplier back, meaning a poison build will feature 6 kensei or 12 ranger or some other split. 6 kensei means you can stay centered with a high-crit weapon like scimmies or rapiers so that strikes me as the best synergy--at least 6 monk & 6 kensei & 2 rogue.

This sounds fine, but where is the 20 monk ninja left? And aren't quite a few mobs immune to poison anyway?

[Saekee]

This sounds fine, but where is the 20 monk ninja left? And aren't quite a few mobs immune to poison anyway?

I haven't played a poisoner in a while, but I recall it working well on a surprisingly large variety of mobs. Yes, it is limited, although keep in mind that Sting allows other players to enhance their poison attacks--it becomes a party buff.

I suggested in the ninja threads for them to add some poison damage (venomed blades) to the ninja cores in the same way that paladins get light damage. Even if this poison damage did not start until level 12 or so. So it might be 1d2, then 1d4, etc. That would make a nice addition to the tree and make sense since so much of the ninja tree is about poison use.

edit: here is unbongwah's drow ninja. As you can see, he cannot fit in drow envenomed blades.

edit 2: the Forester's Brush Hook has the nice touch in that it breaks DR

[BigErkyKid]

I haven't played a poisoner in a while, but I recall it working well on a surprisingly large variety of mobs. Yes, it is limited, although keep in mind that Sting allows other players to enhance their poison attacks--it becomes a party buff.

I suggested in the ninja threads for them to add some poison damage (venomed blades) to the ninja cores in the same way that paladins get light damage. Even if this poison damage did not start until level 12 or so. So it might be 1d2, then 1d4, etc. That would make a nice addition to the tree and make sense since so much of the ninja tree is about poison use.

edit: here is unbongwah's drow ninja. As you can see, he cannot fit in drow envenomed blades.

edit 2: the Forester's Brush Hook has the nice touch in that it breaks DR

Just checked, devils are immune to poison. So no way I am playing a ninja in the short term.

In any case, thanks for all the tips; I am learning about the nuances of the archetype right now.

So far I am not seeing any evidence that they re actually any good, though :S

[unbongwah]

edit: here is unbongwah's drow ninja. As you can see, he cannot fit in drow envenomed blades.

Well, technically I could: 41 Ninja / 18 drow / 11 Henshin / 10 Shintao (Iron Skin). I'm just not convinced Venomed Blades is better than, say, Lighting the Candle and another 10 MP from Henshin; or higher-tier Shintao atks like Jade Strike (since I went WIS-based anyway).

The biggest question marks I had are (A) can a pure monk hit viable DCs for ToD & dark finishers (necessary for Poison Exploit) and (B) if so, are there too many poison-immune mobs in current endgame for it to be viable? And, well, I haven't been playing enough DDO lately to be able to answer either myself.

[Assassination]

The biggest question marks I had are (A) can a pure monk hit viable DCs for ToD & dark finishers (necessary for Poison Exploit) and (B) if so, are there too many poison-immune mobs in current endgame for it to be viable? And, well, I haven't been playing enough DDO lately to be able to answer either myself.

I ran a pure ninja to 30 recently. I can tell you that:

A: No you can not hit viable Dc's, it may be a bit better now with stunning dc's added. Problem is that the finishers are semi pointless because mobs are not around long enough for them to be effective.

B: There are many mobs that are immune to poison, so you're one power or claim to fame, which is very weak to begin with, often has no affect.

My current ninja sits at lvl 27, she is 12 fighter, 6 monk, 2 rogue. The fighter lvls help greatly, rapiers are a nice poison weapon, she still underwhelms me, and I'm back on my main as a pure assassin....

So I kind of agree with op, the tree is sort of a fail. It is really underwhelming compared to the other two monk trees. It's a nice way for a stick or handwrap monk to get dex to hit and damage, and the defensive boost of shadow veil.

I declare that "ninja monks" are "punks"....

[BigErkyKid]

I ran a pure ninja to 30 recently. I can tell you that:

A: No you can not hit viable Dc's, it may be a bit better now with stunning dc's added. Problem is that the finishers are semi pointless because mobs are not around long enough for them to be effective.

B: There are many mobs that are immune to poison, so you're one power or claim to fame, which is very weak to begin with, often has no affect.

My current ninja sits at lvl 27, she is 12 fighter, 6 monk, 2 rogue. The fighter lvls help greatly, rapiers are a nice poison weapon, she still underwhelms me, and I'm back on my main as a pure assassin....

So I kind of agree with op, the tree is sort of a fail. It is really underwhelming compared to the other two monk trees. It's a nice way for a stick or handwrap monk to get dex to hit and damage, and the defensive boost of shadow veil.

I declare that "ninja monks" are "punks"....

Thanks for your sacrifice! I am always open to surprises, that's why I asked. For example, on paper henshin staff damage looks more powerful than handwraps, yet after playing both (equally well geared) I can say without doubt that hand wrap is in practice more DPS in most situations.

As for ninja, yeah it looks extremely bad.

[chrysahor]

Just for laughs I was calculating the DPS of ninja spy. Am I getting something wrong or is it a total disaster?

It forces you into kukris for 14-20/x3. The attempt to balance kamas seems to fail, getting them to 16-20/x3. And it only seems to have sneak attack as a booster.

The obvious comparison is rogue. And oh boy, compared to rogue, doesn't it fall totally short DPS wise? Rogues can get kukris for 15-20/x4 plus a whole lot more SA. I fail to see the and I think it is kinda obvious that it does not have the tricks a rogue has, dark monk finishers being weak atm.

Again, am I doing something wrong or is it completely lackluster?

No, you're correct. That's why there is a thread asking to do a pass on ninja.
One obvious comparison is indeed assassin, ninja being the monk version of an assassin.
Another would be the monk's reference itself: shintao.
Shintao is the natural evolution of the monk class. It improves every signatures that defines the class.

Ninja starts with a weaker weapon. You lose "unarmed damage" bonuses. Between lvl 20 (3.5) and shintao (3), you lose 6.5W, not even factoring reinforced fists, improved martial arts (epic) which only widen the gap. You also get full damages on offhand and great DR bypass spectrum with all handwraps.
The ninja capstone gives you less +W as sneak attack, and a vorpal that shintao can get with vorpal strikes (both w/o added +W). Both shintao and henshin gets melee power while ninja gets none.

Ninja also get no passive doublestrike/doubleshot, ranged power, PRR/MRR. As dark monk (or you can forget ninjutsu), you also don't have any healing. We still have umd as a cross class, have no mana, no healing amplification nor boost to positive energy.

Now as several people have pointed in the "ninja needs love" thread, you can work around it...but for me it only widen the problem even more.
Ninja is front loaded. Meaning that it's easy for the other trees to get most of the interesting stuff. While Henshin and Shintao's bonuses are more spread, meaning it costs you more...and you have to do that in 2 trees. Even as a splash, 3 lvl will getyou poison, good deal of SA, and dex to damages for ANY ki weapon. At 6, you'll get shadow veil (11 pts for shintao and henshin), the best ninja's ability.

The change to ninja basic training actually benefits more shintao, henshin and kensai than it benefits ninjas. As a matter of fact I'm currently leveling a shintao with 11AP in ninja. He's wisdom based, with dex to hit&damages. I don't have to worry about str anymore. And I make up for the lower dex to hit with focus from henshin (26 pts: +3 to DC, 40MP,12PRR, +1 ki regen, light the candle, etc). It's just for test, I'm trying to maximize DC, not dps, but since I can ignore str, less MAD makes it very nice.

Now it's true than you can get decent results by cumulating every poisonning effects in game, but that's a work around. You can throw shurikens at point blank (remember: getting close with low defense/means of healing) on helpless targets to maximize DPS, but that's a work around.

The facts are:
- most monks you'll see will be shintaos, with some mystics, and very few ninja's. Thoses "ninjas" will mostly be ranged, and elf to exploit AA. They just want dex to dmg and extra shuri.
I'm not one to tell ppl how to play, they are free to do what they want. But if no one is playing a ninja, with ninja T5 and capstone, something is fishy there. Getting extra point blank range would make non AA ranged ninjas more viable in the current SA setting.
- when ppl are asking on the monk forum for an armed build (non staff), they get told to go ask on the kensai forum. In my (obviously limited) experience, I've never seen a melee ninja. Meaning 20 monk with ninja and T5 capstone, while at the moment it's getting difficult to get a party or raid w/o shintaos.

Ninja's T5 are weak, touch of death is weaker than both T5 void strike and T4 tomb of jade. Overall the ki costs for ninjas are too high. Remember you get ki for sneaking...at slow speed, and mobility is your only way to mitigate damages.
Shadow double ain't that bad, it's a nice burst. Now at T2, henshin gets the reliable quick strike...with their huge MP behind it.

And all that on the good days, when the ennemies aren't immune to poison and SA. And rogues are starting to complain because we are now hunting on their signature (between the line and capstone, you get as much as a vanilla lvl 20 rogue).
Amongst the propositions, we asked for ninja to be more poisons focused, with a spread in core and poison working on everything. That could make up for the lower base damages and have a unique feel.

[unbongwah]

The problems with pure ninjas AFAICT (with the caveat I haven't had much time to actually play them lately):

• The crit bonuses are no better than Kensei - in fact they're worse since you get nothing on par with One Cut - but you're stuck with ki weapons which have worse base crit profiles than e.g., khopeshes or scimitars. There's a few decent named options like Brush Hook, Envenomed Blade, etc. but they're subpar weapon choices for crafted gear.
• Hitting viable DCs for ToD and dark finishers is too hard for current late-/endgame content, seriously hampering their viability. Shintao DCs are more forgiving: partly because they benefit from Stunning DC bonuses and partly because they target Will saves instead of Fortitude, which tend to be lower.
• Also ToD's damage is static; it will increase with Melee Power but you're probably still capping at around 150 base MP I'm guesstimating so there's a hard upper limit on it.
• Too many poison-immune mobs makes builds based on Poison Exploit (like, err, mine) too limited.
• For what's clearly meant to be the shuriken-centric PrE, too many Ninja abilities are melee-only, IMO.
• The capstone is weaksauce: Vorpal is pathetic next to Kensei's +15% doublestrike/shot and why make Ninjas wait until lvl 20 for a crit multiplier bonus that Kensei get at lvl 6?

I hate to say, "Just add more Melee Power and crit bonuses!" because I don't want Ninja to be just a carbon copy of Kensei. But there needs to be ways of making its unique features more useful. E.g., adding generic bonuses like Legendary Tactics to dark abilities would help with DCs; make ToD scale with # of monk lvls so it deals more damage in epics (e.g., "50 pts of neg dmg per monk lvl" so it's 1,000 dmg for a lvl 20 monk); tweak Poison Exploit so it deals half dmg on successful saves. Adding Venomed Blades to the tree would be a nice touch too. I'd probably move the crit multiplier bonus down to, say, the lvl 12 core.

[Assassination]

I think they could:

1. Add crit range and an additional multiplier to shortswords. Making them say 15-20 x4. Similar to what assassins have with daggers.

2. Add an enhanced venomed blades line to tree... more poison damage than rogue or drow do...

3. Redo the finishers into something useful, and make the dc's attainable. Currently this part is useless. I'm using the light finishers on my ninja for healing...

4. Add some special attacks? Melee power in upper cores? Something cool and ninja like...