PCB/CPB/FCB Ninjas rise up!

[CyclopsSlayer]

Demand equal pay, for equal slay! Heh heh...
Just getting frustrated in finding weapons in my last few Ninja starts. Oh, Look! A nice weapon! Oh... Lu, again.
Seems all the common artifacts, and many egos, add Light which makes them nearly useless. Especially with my terrible luck with Dark lamps.

Ah, well... back to wandering in the dark.

[amalek]

Preach it brother. Ninjas may be the fastest class to reach mid-game, but when you do that you either get lucky with your Ninjato drops or you're gonna spend a whole bunch of time scavenging dungeons for better weapons, as you eventually reach a point where even Ego Ninjato/Tanto won't be able to kill L40-50 uniques effectively.

[debo]

I thought ninja in poscheng was pretty busted. They felt unkillable to me, which meant you could dive and floorscum for a lot of stuff.

[CyclopsSlayer]

I thought ninja in poscheng was pretty busted. They felt unkillable to me, which meant you could dive and floorscum for a lot of stuff.

You can and you can't. But when you are stuck wielding a pair of crap weapons, you have to rely on the Surprise attack out of hiding bonuses. So, while AC, innate speed, and Surprise/Backstab let you mass kill grunts, Uniques can be very annoying.
The Hide, Surprise, move to re-Hide, Surprise, move to re-Hide, repeat ad nauseam... Can get very annoying when it takes a lucky crit to do any serious damage to the bigger uniques.

Never got very deep with my Ninjas. Sure, the early Quests (Tengu/Mimic/Dark Elven Lords) are easy with care and a good Bow, but often the only reward for a Ninja is selling all the trash for coin.

[Sideways]

I nerfed ninjas a bit in Frog. But they're still very strong; and I feel like they have a very steady development curve, they're strong throughout the game, instead of being strong early (like berserkers) or strong late (like psions). Getting Hide in Mud is a huge game-changer of course, but the "I can't get killed now, I have Hide in Mud" overconfidence aspect compensates for that a bit.

Ninjas can use Lu weapons like Sting at a pinch. They're not ideal, but ninjas are strong enough they can get away with using stuff that isn't ideal.

[amalek]

I think I read that some of the later skills are outageous

Kawarimi, Nyusin, Swap Positions, Chain Hook and Hide in Mud are broken. Also, the very last one Ninjutsu seems OP as fuck but my best ninja died at CL39 so I never tried it.

And Quick Walk lets you escape from everything and literally run circles around your enemies.

BTW with the Weapon Versatility talent you can have your ninja additionally master rapiers, small & short swords, wakizashi and falcon swords, but sadly all other weapon still give the 'Icky Wield' malus.

[debo]

The last ninja I played was in poscheng 4 and I think it's probably still #1 on the ladder (didn't check.) I'm guessing things have changed enough that they probably aren't so easy anymore, but the combination of all their skills made them so much more survivable compared to any other combo I'd played that it really did feel like I was playing wizmode a bit. I remember spending a lot of time killing non-unique lootbags at deep depths to get the proper kit (ancient dragons etc.) Once you get one good light weapon with +At it's pretty much open season. They do so much damage on stealth hits. Lightcasting monsters are always a pain, and Gothmog in particular is very exciting (magma aura!)

I guess I was also a tonberry, which was also pretty busted and worked really well with all the innate +speed the ninja gets.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I'm glad you clarified what a lootbag was, because these variants are so insane, I figured that lootbags were just a regular monster type or something.

[CyclopsSlayer]

I'm glad you clarified what a lootbag was, because these variants are so insane, I figured that lootbags were just a regular monster type or something.

Yup, those wandering sacks full of loot called monsters and uniques.

[Nick]

I'm glad you clarified what a lootbag was, because these variants are so insane, I figured that lootbags were just a regular monster type or something.

Lootbeard!