ninja/poison at lvl 25... and not hating it

I created a ninja/poison during a recent alt-itis attack. So far I'm not hating it.

Pros - The pet animations are fantastic, those low-level paper mishes against the Tsoo were low-budget kung-fu action flick heaven.

Cons - Too numerous to list. Ninja/poison has SEVERE limitations. In fact it's only decent at one element of the game, assassinating very small groups of hard targets.

To keep this toon fun I only play certain content. I rarely team, and never big teams. I'm just running paper mishes and tips at +1, with occasional street-sweeping.

I've already got powerful team-oriented toons, so I don't feel bad that this guy will always suck on TFs, incarnate trials etc. If he's still fun at 50 I'll keep him just to run tips. For me tip mishes are a good mix of fun and reward when I don't feel like teaming or there's nothing interesting going on. I mostly leveled my crab that way from 20-50 and random A-merit rolls earned me hundred of millions, tips seem a viable niche for solo-only toons.

Preliminary verdict - a fun concept toon if and only if you play within it's strict limitations.

Ninjas/Poison plays like a stalker, in that it scales vertically. You will do well to increase the level of your enemies as you progress, and keep the number per spawn at x3 or less. Add bosses as well when you feel comfortable. Your single target debuffs and damage mean that one boss is not a problem. Thirteen minions, however, is.

This is the opposite of most Brutes, for example, that scale horizontally. Brutes do well to actually increase the spawn size of their enemies at the cost of decreasing their level by one. As the brute gains power, the spawn size increases further. The only time a brute should increase the level of their enemies is if they're already at x8 foes.

Teaming is where that set combo falls apart. Once the spawns start getting bigger you do not have enough debuffing to handle the extra mobs. Then with the ninjas having paper thin defense that makes it that much worse.

update - Now at level 29. I did some teaming this week, ran the new Mortimer Kal SF and did some GM hunting.

I knew there would be ninja-hostile parts of the SF. The Assault Bots' burn patches were devastating, I was resummoning nonstop.

I think a big part of enjoying this toon is having the right expectations. I had good teammates to carry me thru some parts, but Mortimer Kal has enough AV fights that I still felt I was pulling my weight. I got good XP, a handful of merits, and there's always more ninjas waiting to be summoned to certain death.

I also joined a Scrapyard team, we had my ninja/poison, a trapper, a rad, and a sonic/sonic defender. I've never seen Scrapyard go down in 30 seconds before, it was ridiculous.

Random thoughts - running at +2x1 the ST hold is amazingly useful. I usually tackle 3 or 4 red/purple critters at a time, if I my hold hits I've just reduced incoming damage 25-33%. Will be slotting up Paralytic for sure.

Quick question: Do you have either Provoke or Challenge in your build? I know it sounds obvious, but I find my pets take a lot less damage when they're not actually getting hit.

With Ninjas and especially poison and your small, high level enemies, it might not be the best option anyway. I'd assume you debuff the boss/LT and tell the ninjas to focus down the minions first. Then as the debuffs wear off, the boss is alone and not really a threat anymore anyway.

I'm just curious.

Well.

Your not going to have serious problems until your 50, then the challenge begins.

Certain combinations of primary and secondary perform very well, but in general I think you'll find most combinations struggle to keep their pets alive. Even the stronger sets can easily eat dirt pretty fast with incarnate content.

Poison is going to be a very rough ride at the end where most interesting content is seas of very tough mobs. Poor ninjas will die in waves ;(

This is opinion, but I think mm's in general are poor in incarnate content.

Ahh, nin/pois...how fondly I remember my first MM to 40.

He is still sitting there.

I would advise maybe checking out some of the MM bind threads so you can set up fast targeting binds for your pets, helps a bunch with the healing.

Alright, dinged level 35 last night.

Having good luck at +2/x1, no AVs. The pets are frankenslotted for lots of acc/dam, and I've been able to get more slots for my debuffs.

I enjoyed a couple of the Nerva arcs, Crimson Revenant and Operative Rutger gave me a chance to tackle Mynx, Luminary, Babs and Infernal, admittedly as EBs.

Mynx - She's tough, I had to run away once and resummon.

Luminary - not too bad

Back Alley Brawler - I expected him to 1-shot my entire retinue with his first footstomp, but it wasn't quite that bad. I had to retreat when I had him down to 1/3 health or so. After resting and resummoning we came back and nailed him.

Infernal - died twice, lost temper and reset diff to +0x0. Not only does Infernal have a fire aoe, he summons a big pile of demon pets. Not ninja friendly.

I've also ran a huge pile of tip mishes, which vary from not very hard to hilariously easy.

My villain merits were spent on various +end procs, which help with the clicky nature of /poison, running tough/weave... and the constant resummoning!

I'm tempted to jump on the ITF treadmill now that I've hit 35 and grind some fast levels. Once I get Scorpion Shield I can respec to get provoke and try tankerminding.


tldr - still not hating it.

quick update - some EBs are tougher then others.

Still running +2x0 no AVs.

Indigo - was going well until she terrorized my pets who ran off in all directions at 90mph and aggro'd the whole room.

Ice Mistral - hello there, here's a nice hold for you while the rain powers kill all your pets, haha where's bodyguard mode now smart guy? *faceplant*

Wretch - his footstomp was able to one-shot all pets except Oni, which Babs was unable to do. Maybe it's extra damage from brute's fury? He also seemed much more likely to target me then Babs.

It's an interesting learning experience anyway. My brute, bots/traps, necro/dark and crab ran at higher numbers of even level mobs, this is like a whole different game.

ps - still not hating it

Not a bit deal, but just pointing out I noticed you drop from 2/1 to 2/0.

Do you perhaps play your /Poison on Infinity?

These threads about Nin/Poison have me wanting to try one, especially since I've got a character concept all waiting in my head.

I wanted to ask before I roll the character, though: What are the weaknesses of ninjas and poison? What are the strengths?


Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Ninjas
Secondary Power Set: Poison
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Presence
Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Call Genin -- (A)
Level 1: Alkaloid -- (A)
Level 2: Envenom -- (A)
Level 4: Weaken -- (A)
Level 6: Train Ninjas -- (A)
Level 8: Boxing -- (A)
Level 10: Jump Kick -- (A)
Level 12: Call Jounin -- (A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- (A)
Level 16: Neurotoxic Breath -- (A)
Level 18: Smoke Flash -- (A)
Level 20: Antidote -- (A)
Level 22: Assault -- (A)
Level 24: Provoke -- (A)
Level 26: Oni -- (A)
Level 28: Paralytic Poison -- (A)
Level 30: Elixir of Life -- (A)
Level 32: Kuji In Zen -- (A)
Level 35: Tactics -- (A)
Level 38: Noxious Gas -- (A)
Level 41: Bile Spray -- (A)
Level 44: Knockout Blow -- (A)
Level 47: Shark Skin -- (A)
Level 49: Tough -- (A)

Tough and Shark Skin give me 65% resistance to smethal, which is why I have Provoke and not Hasten. Boxing and Jump Kick are mostly concept powers, but aren't THAT big of a step down from the ninja's bow attacks.
I'm a little uncertain about if I should be taking Tactics or Manuevers, but I figure that even on a mastermind the values are kind of small. I might also swap out Elixer of Life for Vengeance...

I have a thugs/poison at 50 and a ninja/pain at 25+

Fighting a small mob, thugs/poison is a nightmare to be up against. Due to the nature of poison, smaller mob is usually preferred. Up against a larger mob, it starts to fall apart. So I use it only for boss/GM hunt/fight.

With the ninja/pain, I regularly have to stand in melee with the pets. I had provoke on that MM but I ended up being CC'ed or KB'ed quite often. I have tried without using provoke and it was better. Ninja/pain can handle a big group quite well so long as you can keep yourself and the pets close to each other. The patron immo - perhaps the mace one - should help too.

Now, as to ninja/poison, I am guessing it would play very much like my thugs poison but without the ranged element to keep them out of harm's way. Ninja is rather weak up close without constant heals. You do need a great deal of patient to play one.

Ninjas could be made all kinds of more viable if they would tweak Smoke Flash (and Serum for Mercs!) to accept recharge intensive pet sets like the level 18 powers of Demons, Necro and Thugs. As it stands the only way to get the option to include those procs is to roll /Storm

I've been playing some other toons lately but I hit lvl 44 on my ninja/poison last night and thought I should update the thread.

I turned off AVs after Posi kicked my butt about 15 times before I finally got him. Big thumbs-up to whoever decided to put insp vendors inside the hospitals.

Playing tips and papers at +3x1 is pretty unforgiving, but the XP is worth it.

Desdemona is surprisingly challenging at +3.

I actually ran a very good TF, we could only find 4 people for a Mortimer Kal so I ran it with a stormie defender, a dark miasma corr and some melee guy. The crowds were smaller, the extra defence/mitigation kept my pets safer, and of course our debuffs were vicious. I only died maybe once the whole TF, and just for once ninja/poison pulled it's own weight on a team.

Honestly, at this point I'd say the most important /poison power is the hold. It is 6 slotted and I use it early and often. Oni throws his hold as his first or second attack, if I hold a second critter that's a really big deal at +3x1.

I'm getting closer to 50 and I'm trying to decide if I should incarnate this toon. I've had fun with this toon - the pet animations never get old. I won a costume contest and had a purple drop, I'll have 7 or 8 v-merits to roll when I hit 50 so I'll easily clear a billion inf by playing her to 50. I think playing this has made me a better MM, if you're not paying attention and using all your powers all the time it's curtains. Incidentally /poison would be a complete waste of time proliferated to corrs/defenders, it's so clicky you'd never get to attack.

OTOH I could shelve it and start over with a ninja/storm, which seems about as viable as ninja masterminds get.

Ah well no need to decide today, gotta hit 50 anyways to squeeze maximum inf from those vmerits.