I finished the second area of the game, Plankerton, and starting early Canny Valley, and I must say, as the Dragon Scorch or Sarah Hotep of the Dragon Ninja class, they are not just viable but more than viable. I'm basing this on my experience, which might be an outlier as I tend to grind a lot, and sheepishly, I got the ultimate edition so I have excellent support heroes and support survivors to beef up my stats. But I'm also basing this on the other extreme end, my friend, who got the standard edition and purchased no v-bucks, and watching him play the Ninja class. Further, he even stopped using the Dragon Ninja as he felt it was too easy, and moved onto the not so overpowered Ninjas, Dim Mak and Energy Thief Mari, and routinely carried the team.
Literally, the only reason to play Dim Mak is because of her cute cat backpack, which is black if
she's epic evolved to 3 stars, and white, if she's legendary evolved to 3 stars. See Exhibit A and note the adorable pink ears. However, even so, my friend excelled as Dim Mak throughout Plankerton, with less than ideal hero and survivor support. I expect that he's of the Fashion Souls camp, where you're so good at the game play that you chose the armor based on looks rather than function, whereas I'm forever wearing that hideous Havel's armor in Dark Souls 3 NG+4 and beyond. However, based on these two extremes, I can safely calculate that anyone can excel as a Dragon Ninja (even feeling like a Tank) up through Plankerton, as long as your Dragon is near the level of the mission. Clearly, if you're a level 19 you'll get destroyed in level 40, and that goes with all the other classes, even what is considered the meta, the soldier class.
Exhibit B is a screen shot of my combat score. I striked through the names of the other players for privacy, but nothing else is edited. The key thing to note is that at the very top, note Plankerton, and level 40. FatNyams (me) on the left is level 49 with a combat score of 15, 670. Instead of a full team of 4, as you can see there's 3 of us. I took a screenshot of this particular mission as this was my highest combat score thus far.
Although I was rather over leveled for this Plankerton Storm Shield Defense (SSD) 8, nevertheless, a combat score of 15K is nothing to sneeze at. Due to the fact that these SSDs tend to have waves and waves of enemies, and the fact that you can clear these trash mobs reliably with your Dragon Slash ability, you end up getting at least 8000 on your combat score. In other words, you're not just viable, but more than viable.
Starting in early Canny Valley, which again is after Plankerton, however, I died a few times, because I played Sarah Hotep as a Tank. The Dragon Slash was not taking out the elemental husky husks in 1 shot, as they did in Plankerton. Even so, that just means I have to adjust my play style because before, I can just Dragon Slash into deadly bees, laser-eyes and jump out, wait for my shield to regenerate, to jump back in. Now, in early Canny Valley, you can get killed as a Ninja if you play recklessly. However, the worst that can happen when you die is that your weapon degrades (if your teammate doesn't revive you) so it's really no big deal.
At any rate, I recommend evolving your Dragon Ninja to 4 stars if possible, as well as your support heroes as much as possible, as leveling these heroes improve your stats the most. Then, work on leveling up your survivors.
In terms of game play, I believe my friends carried because they know how to build the fort and carefully placed traps, as well as routinely killing the more deadly husks, leaving the trash mobs to me. However, if you're not doing a protect the objective type mission, but instead, a pure combat mission such as Rescue the Survivors or Destroy the Encampments, if you see a lot of Laser Eyes, hopefully your team will take them out, then you can Dragon Slash the trash mobs if your shield is full (as the Bee husks take a chunk out of your shield) then get out. If your team isn't able to take out the Laser Eyes, I recommend Dragon Slashing the trash mobs, get out ASAP, build 1 or 2 walls for cover and take out the Laser Eyes from range. This is easier said than done, so it's something that I need to work on.
However, as I'm leveling up my Dragon, early Canny Valley isn't that challenging as a Ninja, you just need to be more careful with combat and building. But it affords a new dimension in the game play as you feel compelled to improve your stats and game play, whereas in Plankerton, as a Ninja, you really don't have to think about cover and building, and just tank.
It's interesting to see if I continue to find the Ninja viable through the very last area of the game, Twine Peaks, so I'll be sure to update my progress in future posts. I want to continue as a Ninja as this class fits my game play style (less reliance on shooting elements) than the other classes, and being more offensive than the Constructor class.
Have you played the Ninja and what are your experiences like with this very fun class?
Literally, the only reason to play Dim Mak is because of her cute cat backpack, which is black if
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| Exhibit A: Epic Dim Mak's Cat Backpack at 3 Stars |
Exhibit B is a screen shot of my combat score. I striked through the names of the other players for privacy, but nothing else is edited. The key thing to note is that at the very top, note Plankerton, and level 40. FatNyams (me) on the left is level 49 with a combat score of 15, 670. Instead of a full team of 4, as you can see there's 3 of us. I took a screenshot of this particular mission as this was my highest combat score thus far.
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| Exhibit B: Ninja Dragon Combat Score Results |
Starting in early Canny Valley, which again is after Plankerton, however, I died a few times, because I played Sarah Hotep as a Tank. The Dragon Slash was not taking out the elemental husky husks in 1 shot, as they did in Plankerton. Even so, that just means I have to adjust my play style because before, I can just Dragon Slash into deadly bees, laser-eyes and jump out, wait for my shield to regenerate, to jump back in. Now, in early Canny Valley, you can get killed as a Ninja if you play recklessly. However, the worst that can happen when you die is that your weapon degrades (if your teammate doesn't revive you) so it's really no big deal.
At any rate, I recommend evolving your Dragon Ninja to 4 stars if possible, as well as your support heroes as much as possible, as leveling these heroes improve your stats the most. Then, work on leveling up your survivors.
In terms of game play, I believe my friends carried because they know how to build the fort and carefully placed traps, as well as routinely killing the more deadly husks, leaving the trash mobs to me. However, if you're not doing a protect the objective type mission, but instead, a pure combat mission such as Rescue the Survivors or Destroy the Encampments, if you see a lot of Laser Eyes, hopefully your team will take them out, then you can Dragon Slash the trash mobs if your shield is full (as the Bee husks take a chunk out of your shield) then get out. If your team isn't able to take out the Laser Eyes, I recommend Dragon Slashing the trash mobs, get out ASAP, build 1 or 2 walls for cover and take out the Laser Eyes from range. This is easier said than done, so it's something that I need to work on.
However, as I'm leveling up my Dragon, early Canny Valley isn't that challenging as a Ninja, you just need to be more careful with combat and building. But it affords a new dimension in the game play as you feel compelled to improve your stats and game play, whereas in Plankerton, as a Ninja, you really don't have to think about cover and building, and just tank.
It's interesting to see if I continue to find the Ninja viable through the very last area of the game, Twine Peaks, so I'll be sure to update my progress in future posts. I want to continue as a Ninja as this class fits my game play style (less reliance on shooting elements) than the other classes, and being more offensive than the Constructor class.
Have you played the Ninja and what are your experiences like with this very fun class?
Energy Thief > Dragon
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a Ninja Main. My prefered playstyles aren't in this game, or what is, isn't very good, as a direct support player. I like to make my team look good more than anything, and while I do like the Warcry users, I feel like they're still very self centered, we don't have a true support class yet. Because of this, if offered the ultimatum "Which hero are you picking?" I will default to Ninja, and ask myself if our team needs a different pick after the fact. I definately want to say they're strong viable picks, their abilities from a raw powerlevel are unmatched, even a base, unupgraded Dragon Slash is a force to be reckoned with, never mind when coupled with subclass bonuses from Dragon, Energy Thief, or Skirmisher. Shurikens are terrifyingly strong weapons, even unupgraded they still offer good utility for those who need it, due to edged damage. Cresent Kick isn't a terribly impressive ability on it's own, however when coupled with Kicking and Screaming it turns the Ninja into a timewindowed Urban Assault. And Smoke Bomb has a ton of uses, whether just as an AoE damaging ability over time, or as a panic button to buy some space to jump and Dragon Slash to safety.
They are my favorite class, because you need to be on the ball playing them. You don't have obscene health pools to rely on, they (usually) don't have any sustain outside of their shields, and they need to rely on their reflexes and gamesense to keep themselves alive. That pressure keeps you on the edge, and as a result even the easiest Ninja in the game can die easily to a dumb mistake.
I have still yet to experience every Ninja in the game, however if I were to rate them, I'd definately put Energy Thief at the top. She has more powerful offensive capabilities than the direct competition in Dragon, and while she suffers defensively because of this, not having Shadow Stance, she makes up for it with her energy regeneration on hit, and her vastly superior ability line up from a Kicking and Screaming upgraded Crescent Kick and a more freely usable smokebomb. Second I put Dragon, the easier of the two, while she doesn't have as much potential as her peer, she still get's the job done more than adequately, her buffed Dragon Slash capable of probably too much as of writing.
Next I put Shuriken Master and Deadly blade, both about the same level. While Deadly Blade does require some more synergy to make him work, he does have more potential than Shuriken Master has because of his affliction damage, and the bonus's weapons like Gravedigger gain from that. Because of that, they're on about even ground.
Next it's Skirmisher Edge, he's a solid pick, I'm tempted to even say sleeper OP right now, however he does have energy issues and needs either another edge in the support slot or Energy Thief in tactical to make up for it.
Finally Dim Mak Mari, though I think she's a solid hero, her skillset, what she offers to the mission, just isn't what's asked of her. She's a tanky, durable, slippery ninja, with a focus on staying alive amidst adversity instead of dealing damage, and to put it bluntly, the game doesn't need tanky durable slippery ninja's who can stay alive in a fight.
Of the other one's I reckon Swordmaster Ken has potential in melee. Brawler Luna has potential as a DPS oriented Ninja. Assassin also has potential, though I don't know if that potential will be reached. Fleetfoot Ken doesn't really do anything, I mean he is pretty mobile but as far as actually accomplishing anything he's going to struggle (though his tac bonus is pretty good) and though I like Stonefoot Crash because she doesn't have Dragon Slash, and ability that Ninja's widely rely upon, she just doesn't make up for losing it enough.
I totally agree that FN really needs to have a dedicated support class, which I think was the Outlander, since they're harvesting resources which they're supposed to bring to the team. However, that rarely happens, and it doesn't make sense that soldiers get warcry (making them even more viable a class) rather than outlanders.
DeleteI think that's very interesting re:Energy Thief. With your discussion, it may change my usual playstyle of sticking with one character that works. For instance, in Dark Souls 1, I always play a dex/int build (though of course leveling up all the other stats to 60 as per my usual master of everything strat), with the new remastered PS4 version of the Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope International, I main Reimi, and so forth. So perhaps Dragon Ninja is best for those missions with waves of enemies such as SSDs, encampments, and survivors. Although survivors don't usually have a lot of enemies, you need to kill them very fast otherwise the survivor can die, and most of them are trash mobs, of which dragon slash fits nicely in the survivors scenario.
However, for building missions, sometimes the enemies are dispersed in which case pinpoint shooting is most effective, but other times, there are waves of enemies, in which case a dedicated Ninja in dragon slash is a better option. Perhaps this may be where Energy Thief might be a good idea, since she has AOE (though not at the level of Dragon Ninja), and you need the energy/mobility to go from different sides of the map, in case your mission has enemies that are dispersed rather than clumped together?
Sadly, when you see Ninjas, it's always Dragon, Shuriken, and sometimes you see Dim Mak and Energy Thief, never the other Ninjas! In fact, despite the rarity of Mythic heroes, I see Mythic Kens more often than a Skirmisher Edge, Brawler, and so forth!