Ninja abilities... too weak?

[June-pie]

I really dislike the 'pay your stats for ability' schtick the ninja has goin on. The abilities feel very weak for what they do and how much you pay for them.

I feel I'm missing something very vital, cause overall the Ninja is a cool class, it's very mobile and has good stat growths, but my test playthrough makes it feel very lackluster cause I never wanted to use my class abilities at all for fear of crippling my character. When I DID use them, I was really unimpressed with the result.

The mine ability you start out with can't even hit the Dark Lord cause he floats, I was really irritated by that.

I really feel like I'm just not grasping something critical.

[Zuboki]

I completely agree. In my ninja run through, which lasted 1000+ km, I used each of the abilities 0-1 times, due to their heavy drawbacks, and still ended up with a rather low max health and stamina due to poor growths. The shuriken is barely better than a piercing shot, the landmine is worse than an Elzite Bomb since it doesn't give exp (why?), shadow selves is decent as a distraction but not super useful for a fast class with other crowd control options, chaos attack is actually good, but hard on your weapon and already piddly max health, and the teleport would be amazing and a great capstone ability if you had any stamina left for it at that point.

Maybe if they made some of the lower abilities have standard costs (Shuriken, Landmine, Shadow Selves) while keeping the max costs for the "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I'm trapped" abilities (Chaos and Teleport), it'd make an interesting dynamic of trying not to use unnecessary powerful abilities in order to be able to have enough stamina to freely use the cheaper ones.

Right now, to me, the ninja is saved only by his fantastic agility and strength growths, and his minor perks of darkvision and +combo. Having all those skills cluttering up my screen is basically having a barrel full of shotguns and 4 beanbag shells.

[panzerrunner]

To my experience on Ninja you just need to pick your fights smart. Save your 'pay stats' abilities only for strong foes or whatever you have to kill. Ninja is really good at choosing targets and assasinate them (that's what ninja does, duh). It is not hard to hunt foes with modifiers for large exp to level up quickly.

Once you gain enough levels you should be fine dealing with most foes. Ninja's abilities scale well into mid-late game as you have good stat growh on Will. If you can't take down a foe, just run...

[Tailwind]

The Ninja has high Agility and some Lockpicking/Swimming/Climbing. I usually play as him/her like the Adventurer; abuse his/her mobility to escape or kite enemies. Also, higher Strength means s/he can clear dungeons a bit more easily.

You can use Instant Movement to sneak into Holy Shrines. (or just pick the door.) Make sure you have a Teleport Pill to get out. Chaos Attack is very deadly when combined with Awaken. Shadow Selves is useful to distract strong enemies and bosses. Shuriken and Landmine are just emergency attacks for lower levels. None of those abilities is to be used so often.

(edit)

Originally posted by Deceus:

Originally posted by watbesh:

(or just pick the door.)

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Learn something new every day.

Really, you can just use your Lockpicking to pretty much any doors. But beware; the Holy Shrines' doors are pretty tough... If I remember correctly, you need at least 20-ish Lockpick level to make it in time.

[The Fool]

Originally posted by watbesh:

(or just pick the door.)

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Learn something new every day.

Also, you can use instant movement to get both in and out if you time it so it passes from one day to the next while you're inside the shrine, though obviously, that won't always be possible, and that's that many more stats you lose.

[Red Bat]

The Ninja is odd. He can theoretically abuse all his abilities and burn his awakenings to kill the Demon Lord on the first or second time he shows up, but other than that, yeah, he does seem kind of weak.

Problem is mainly his ST growth rate. It's not too uncommon to go 500 KM in, and only have the opportunity to use 5-6 abilties the whole run, not including Chaos Attack. I can't imagine how frusterating it would be to try an end of dimension run with him. If you get lucky with stat growths, he can play as a weaker Force User as a fallback plan thanks to his wisdom stat though.

All that being said, I still think he is mostly better than the Adventurer.

[Zuboki]

Oh, I don't know about that. Jump is fantastic once you hit the point that it's abusable, and free EXP for entering dungeons (which you can find easily with treasure radar) helps alleviate the concern from "wasted" swimming/climbing growth. Lockpicking lets you actually use the chests you find, and bonus appraisal is nice too. Plus, those pub merchants who ignore most classes will do business with you, and Plus has introduced a skill that's essentially free Tentacle Weeds.

There's so many good things about Adventurer and they all synergize. Their only real problem is lackluster growths and a challenging start. You've really got to leverage all of the offensive potential your abilities indirectly grant you and not fall behind on levels if you want to be successful in a longer or higher difficulty run.

tldr; I love adventurers

[Zuboki]

One more thing I'd like to add- Jump, Dash, and Shadowbind are essentially how Instant Movement and Shadow Selves could be- extra tools to escape hairy situations, which become more accessible as Max Stamina and Intelligence increase. They're tools, they're not always available or applicable, and they're fun to use. Usuing ninja skills just feels like giving up and hoping for the best.

[darkfeline]

Ninja is even weaker in Maniac where Agility gets nerfed. At least the other two Agility classes, Adventurer and Hunter, get Dash which is buffed in Maniac mode.

I've also found the mines a pain to use. What use is an emergency ability if you have to use it three turns in advance so you don't kill yourself too? Not to mention it doesn't work on floating enemies, which are the fast ones you'd really want the bind effect to work on.

[Mama Llama]

Originally posted by darkfeline:

Ninja is even weaker in Maniac where Agility gets nerfed. At least the other two Agility classes, Adventurer and Hunter, get Dash which is buffed in Maniac mode.

I've also found the mines a pain to use. What use is an emergency ability if you have to use it three turns in advance so you don't kill yourself too? Not to mention it doesn't work on floating enemies, which are the fast ones you'd really want the bind effect to work on.

Yea, I feel like ninjas are just less interesting Adventurers. Adventurers are just about my favorite class at this point

[darkfeline]

Originally posted by Crunchepillar:

Adventurers are just about my favorite class at this point

Adventurers are really nice because they have so many escape abilities, and being able to escape is THE most important thing in a roguelike. For example in Nethack, one of the most valuable items in the game is not the powerful Wand of Death, but the measly Wand of Teleportation because it's such a good escape/emergency item.

[Bisen]

Several times I've used a max stamina draining ability once to then not have enough max stamina to use abilities learned from the skill trainers :(

[Mama Llama]

Originally posted by darkfeline:

Originally posted by Crunchepillar:

Adventurers are just about my favorite class at this point

Adventurers are really nice because they have so many escape abilities, and being able to escape is THE most important thing in a roguelike. For example in Nethack, one of the most valuable items in the game is not the powerful Wand of Death, but the measly Wand of Teleportation because it's such a good escape/emergency item.

I'm awful garbage at nethack, but it was the first roguelike I ever played. Fond memories. We could fill al whole thread with how great Adventurers are, though. I mean I've played like 15 hours since I got the DLC for OWH a week or so ago and the vast majority of that is Adventurer runs.

Bisen brings up a point that makes me really dislike playing ninjas, using what is supposed be a big impact move and draining your max ST really only results in disappointment and the inability to even try and make ninjas into some sort of speedy off-spec force user. Not to mention this is further compounded by what feels like a low max ST gain rate for the class. Really, you'd be better off putting AGI levels on a Force User than putting abilities on a Ninja.

I haven't even played Force Knight but from the sounds of it they're probably better than Ninjas too.

[darkfeline]

Originally posted by Crunchepillar:

I haven't even played Force Knight but from the sounds of it they're probably better than Ninjas too.

The Force Knight's only non-buff ability is an extremely versatile four-tile knockback. It can be used to throw enemies into other enemies, walls, lava, pits, or darkness for terrible terrible damage, or simply to give yourself breathing room. Ironically, it would've been quite useful on a Ninja to give yourself enough room to use a mine without blowing yourself up, and also ironically I've found it to be a much better emergency skill than any of the Ninja's.

[darkfeline]

Originally posted by watbesh:

But beware; the Holy Shrines' doors are pretty tough... If I remember correctly, you need at least 20-ish Lockpick level to make it in time.

Not sure if it varies depending on difficulty, but on Stroll I just got one open in 3 tries with 14 Lockpick, and not just lucky either, the text was the "this will open soon" one. I think you could even do it with 8 if you sat there picking it a dozen times.

[RT1]

I essentially echo most of the points made in this thread, and rather than create a new thread, I'd like to suggest the ninja be given defensive abilities to assist him in escaping. The ninja could use the Bard-like Dash, as well as a lowering the cost of Instant Movement such that it eats up energy instead of Max Strength.

I'd also suggest creating a new Teleport ability with the same Max ST costs as the present Instant Movement, given that it could potentially be abused.

And since ninja have been mythologized as warriors with mystical abilities -- dark abilities at that -- an idea would be to give him abilities that do moderate damage with things like hellfire and perhaps the ability to briefly turn undead for a very short bout of invincibility.

Just a few ideas.