I've never run a Ninja/FF, but Def is one of those things you want to stack, stack, stack. Look into getting the IO that gives pets near you %5 extra defense, and when you get your Incarnate Alpha slot, look into Nerve. I believe there's one in that tree that gives +Def to your bubbles, as well as +Acc for your pets.
I'd also suggest getting Manuevers from the Leadership pool. In general, the more you can give them, the better. Between that, dispersion, and the single target shields, they should be hard to hit.
I think Force Field has one of those moves that takes an enemy out of the fight temporarily, doesn't it? If so, I'd recommend it, at least while levelling. It's situation, but they're good for locking down big AoE enemies like Scrapyard Demolitionists, which can be trouble for any MM. Lock them down, deal with their friends, then take them out.
I think the goal is to softcap your henchmen:
1) Dispersion Bubble 6-slotted with Red Fortune: 11.8%
2) Maneuvers 4-slotted [3 LotG + 1 IO end reduction]: 4.05%
3) Edict of the Master: 5%
4) Deflection/Insulation Shields: 6-slotted each with Red Fortune: 25.1%*
*Take Power Boost from Mace Mastery and cast before refreshing the shields.
Total: 45.95%
I'm sure there is alternative/better way to do it, but this is as good a place as any to start 
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...[I]t would be more proper to say this game is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly dying.
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I am very happy with my Incarnate Ninja/FF. Your goal is to add as much defense to them as possible using Power Boost. Power Boost makes a world of difference on Genins since they are lower level and they have less innate defense than Jounins. |
Originally Posted by MRDEANE
I got a toon that's a ninja/forcefield MM. Ok its a fun toon to RP with, but at level 37, I'm not seeing any pyoff with this toon . Its great to ff teammates and use dispersion bubble, but other than that the ninjas seemquite useless. They go down fast and don't seem to do a lot of damage..The forcefield doesn't even seem to protect them much either. Is there any hope for my toon, or should I bet happy to attain my first lev 50 rp only toon?
Do ninjas get any better even with all the power-ups later on or did I just waste time making one ? |
When you have Power Boost, Dispersion, two shield bubbles, Maneuver and two Pet unique (one of them is +resistance and it's good to have), your Jounins will have over 60% defense and Genins are over 50%.
There was a long thread about Ninja/ff a while back when I did the math but my point is, if you like Ninja, then Ninja/FF is a great combo. Problems with Ninja is they die very fast and /FF should reduce that problem a lot. If /FF can't reduce that problem, then there's probably no secondary that can help paper ninjas.
You find Ninja's damage too low when they are not dying? Can I ask what kind of damage you are used to seeing? Blaster type? Thug MM? I have many lvl 50 Stalkers and I know my Ninja/FF has higher damage than Stalker if none of the pet dies.
Ninja with Musculature tier 4 and Reactive are doing pretty good damage. Don't forget to give Jounins Negative Damage Proc and -resistance proc. Use other pet sets to get a good mix of Damage/Acc/End.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
@Jibikao - whoa, innate defenses?!?! That's awesome!
I'm showing 6+% on my Genin and 12+% on the jounin for my 17 ninja/traps.
That. IS. AWESOME!
I think I'm finally convinced to try a ninja/ff 
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...[I]t would be more proper to say this game is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly dying.
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Well, at lvl 50, I think Genin will grow to have about 7% innate defense, which isn't awesome at all. lol It's actually very pathetic considering they have no defense debuff resistance.|
Originally Posted by Nyghtmaire
@Jibikao - whoa, innate defenses?!?! That's awesome!
I'm showing 6+% on my Genin and 12+% on the jounin for my 17 ninja/traps. That. IS. AWESOME! I think I'm finally convinced to try a ninja/ff |
What's awesome is you can stack all the defense together. :P
You want Genins to survive because I've done a test before on Freakshow boss. As a tier, 3 Genins, 2 Jounins and 1 Oni, the 3 Genins take down the boss the fastest! I know it's shocking but there are some annoying factors that reduce two Jounin's damage potential, like when the boss runs.
Your black ninja will chase, and stop or choose low damage poison dart. And the boss will run because of caltrops.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Thanks guys for the advice . I figured I would be using IO with defense on them in the sets . I'm glad some folks have found uses for ninja/MM. AT your giving me hope
Life changes either we adapt or perish...
The victorious army seeks victory first then seeks battle
the defeated army battles first then seeks victory
if u can wait i suggest ninja/time. you should have 38-39 min(jounins will be softcapped) def on the pets with powerboosted far sight, manuevers, pet unique and the minute def the ninjas have innately but atleast your secondary makes you participate along with your ninjas rather than watching them do everything for you. For the events your ninja do take damage you have a heal, you also have 2 ways to facilitate their damage other than smoke flash spam. your "fortitude" buff and your "anguishing cry" debuff ie temporal selection and slowed response. Honestly they really need to do something about FF. It was great back in the days when we all had TOs/DOs/SOs but slowly as HOs and IOs came along I see 0 benefit to being a force fielder now that we have traps and time as secondaries. Hell if the devs keep to their promise of full powerset prolif cold dom should put the nail in the coffin for force field and they should just delete the set
I keep reading about power boost Far Sight combo. It does look very good.
Time is so much more diverse than FF. FF is just very one-dimensional.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I skimmed the thread so I may be repeating someone else but often with MMs alot of people take provoke from the power pool. Increasing pet survivability.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
My Shoguness ran this set, skipping Genin, and it was awesome. I recently tried rerolling her as /dark, but I'm going back. /FF was the funnest ever. I could stand solo against mobs that were meant for my entire team.
The key is skipping Genin. I know that, technically, that lowers the power of the build, but it massively reduces the annoyance or "I'm getting bored with this set" factor. The question is: are you playing to have fun, or playing to maximize damage? If your only goal is to maximize damage, then by all means, summon those poor saps time after time and waste your whole end bar trying to keep them alive while your Jounin are dying.
With soft capped defense, your Jounin are super scrappers, and your oni supports them beautifully. You'll want to take Mace Mastery, both for the power up, and for the AOE immobilize, because it has fly protection to force flying enemies to engage your boys in melee.
Those kinds of powerset combos (as people have correctly pointed out) just require a little bit of work in the form of IOs and wise power selections. /FF masterminds are easily the most survivable but only if you stack your defense as much as possible, you have to make up for the fact that you don't have anything in the form of quality debuffs against your foes.
And yes, take Provoke and do a bit of Tankerminding, It really helps to break up and spread the damage across more, and you'll find it'll be easier to soft-cap your own defenses than it is to do on your minions, so foes will have a harder time landing attacks.
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
The key is skipping Genin. I know that, technically, that lowers the power of the build, but it massively reduces the annoyance or "I'm getting bored with this set" factor. The question is: are you playing to have fun, or playing to maximize damage? If your only goal is to maximize damage, then by all means, summon those poor saps time after time and waste your whole end bar trying to keep them alive while your Jounin are dying. With soft capped defense, your Jounin are super scrappers, and your oni supports them beautifully. You'll want to take Mace Mastery, both for the power up, and for the AOE immobilize, because it has fly protection to force flying enemies to engage your boys in melee. |
I've tested not using Genins at all before the Force Field group buffs. Yeah, I, too, found it very annoying to keep them alive. I also didn't try Power Boost with FF.
It was ok. The "fun" factor was there 'cause the pets don't die as much but the damage output isn't that good.
With the Group buff change, I think you should try to keep Genins. They also reduce two upgrades' endurance cost by half. It doesn't cost nearly as much to re-summon, re-upgrade and bubble each minion. You now have saved more than 50% of endurance cost...if not more than 50% what you were spending.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
By the way, if /Cold Domination ever makes it here, I am sure I'll use /Cold over /FF. The thing with /FF is that it fits well with Ninja because Ninja is mostly defense-based and they really lack survival.
/Cold domination doesn't give as much defense but it makes up by having so many other useful tools. So if you are not a Ninja, you really should pick Cold Domination over Force Field because FF may be just overkill on +defense.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Definitely. The trouble with /FF is that, aside from the shields, dispersion field, and personal force field (which is situationally quite useful), the other powers are all just a big waste of time. Too much KB.
I'd go either Thugs/FF or Ninjas/FF or maybe Bots/FF, but for the other 3 it's kind of a waste of time and energy.
I can see synergies with Necro/FF (tohit debuff stacks with Defense) and even Demon/FF. Both Necro and Demon can use two sets of pet unique. Ninja by itself can only use one set of pet unique.
With power boost, your Demon can get over soft-cap, while having better resistance and even resistance debuffs from Whip attacks and demons.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I've seen ninja FF on a mail box. Don't know if that's good.
http://www.peopleplanking.com/?q=node/249
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
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Yeah with ninjas, you've got to plan on going all out defense. However, smoke bomb gives you an easy way to bail out a ninja that's gotten hit with some debuffs or needs healing (they're easy for most mobs to 2 shot, or 1 shot in the case of Genin). |
Originally Posted by Jibikao
I can see synergies with Necro/FF (tohit debuff stacks with Defense) and even Demon/FF. Both Necro and Demon can use two sets of pet unique. Ninja by itself can only use one set of pet unique.
With power boost, your Demon can get over soft-cap, while having better resistance and even resistance debuffs from Whip attacks and demons. |
When you're just running the top 3 pets, they get hit rarely enough to make that practical. If you run all 6, then you'd be going out of your mind trying to keep them all up.
I got a toon that's a ninja/forcefield MM. Ok its a fun toon to RP with, but at level 37, I'm not seeing any pyoff with this toon . Its great to ff teammates and use dispersion bubble, but other than that the ninjas seemquite useless. They go down fast and don't seem to do a lot of damage..The forcefield doesn't even seem to protect them much either. Is there any hope for my toon, or should I bet happy to attain my first lev 50 rp only toon?
Do ninjas get any better even with all the power-ups later on or did I just waste time making one ?
Life changes either we adapt or perish...
The victorious army seeks victory first then seeks battle
the defeated army battles first then seeks victory