Abbreviation: NIN

Ninja's only previous appearance was in Etrian Odyssey III. They were a class with no real previous parallel, or even current parallel. Their skills were a mish-mash of bizarre, disconnected effects, most of them having to do with ailments and evasion, with some damaging ability. Unfortunately, ailments were very hard to impossible to use in that game, evasion was nearly worthless owing to the fact that they couldn't tank with it, and their damage was hamstrung by their poor STR and inability to use anything but knives for their skills to the point that even Charge and Berserker Vow couldn't help. As a subclass, however, Ninja was second only to Gladiator in popularity.

Nexus' Ninja makes a complete 180 in everything. Ailments are very worth using here, and they get some of the best ones; they have debuffing support and their evasion is actually usable thanks to their Force Boost. They can still only use knives for their attacks, but at this point they're already useful so that's not as much of a sticking point anymore, plus their damage values are adjusted to account for their low STR. On the other hand, their ability to duplicate themselves is no longer so effective, as it disables their Force Boost and you will always lose a significant amount of TP in the split. They're some of the best crowd control specialists for random battles, and against single big enemies they can provide several successive safe turns for your whole party with their trickery, and apparently their pet fox spirit?


Stats

(Full)

Very Strong Points: AGI, LUC
Strong Points: INT
Average Points: STR, WIS
Weak Points: TP, VIT
Very Weak Points: HP

Equippable Weapons: Knife, Katana
Equippable Armor: Cloth Armor

Common Passives:


Skills: Force

Boost: Diversion Gambit
For 3 turns, increases the user's evasion by 65% and chance of being targeted by 40%.
Time to dodge-tank! Diversion Gambit makes for a very effective counter to either single-target attacks, or multi-hit random-target attacks. Even if those aren't in play, though, it still makes Return Malice activate a lot, which is, pretty obviously, very helpful!
65 evasion isn't enough to be consistent, and the fact that it draws hits to the rather frail Ninja means they can go splat quick if they don't have additional evasion from other sources. On the other hand, even without building for Evasion, it's very useful for nullifying a lot of inaccurate random targets, and just occasionally help them out against multi-targets and such. It generally helps more than it hinders, but if you aren't going all in on evasion, in general you'll probably end up choosing to get out a Clone ASAP over trying to maintain an inconsistent evasion bonus. It can occasionally help out in randoms at least - if you're careful about when and where you use it. Of course, if you're going to make an evasion based Ninja to do dodge tanking, then you'll want to use this often.
I'm not a fan of this one. It doesn't actually improve the Ninja's core competency unless you have Return Malice, and since it's the Ninja's only aggro drawing tool it means they can only dodge-tank for three turns in an entire fight. Maybe more if you use Final Trick or the fight goes on very long.

Break: Ninpo: Toxic Mist


Attempts to inflict poison on all enemies.

For reference, at level 130, Ninpo: Toxic Mist will deal around 2000 damage per tick.
Toxic Mist has two primary uses: emergency encounter clearer, and extremely easy way to get an ailment on a target. Seriously, 1000% base chance means that even if an enemy had only 10% vuln to poison, they'd still face a 100% base chance to get poisoned.
The damage it does is actually fairly considerable assuming you don't get unlucky with a two turn poison, although its end-of-turn nature means that it isn't as good at being a panic button as the straight up all-target Breaks. Unless your party wants to make use of a debilitating ailment (rather than one that doesn't hinder enemy attack at all), it's generally worth the one turn delay to pop this before you set up your clone. If you're going for evasion, however, you generally need the Boost too much to use it up.

Skills: Novice

Ninpo: Daggers


Deals ranged STR-based stab damage to random enemies. Attempts to inflict sleep on hit targets.
The damage on Ninpo: Daggers isn't great, but that isn't the main attraction; that would be the sleep. That's a pretty decent chance to inflict sleep, and it can tag all, or at the very least, most, enemies in a battle. It's cheap, too. A decent investment.
At maximum skill level, the crowd control it can offer is insane, and you can and probably will use this all the way to the endgame. The skill point investment required for it is rather heavy, though, and at low levels the infliction chance is a bit inconsistent. Ninjas have this rather first world problem of having a lot of useful skills at Novice, so consider other things you can get before dedicating SP to it. Also, since it doesn't require a knife, you can use a katana to get more damage out of it if you arne't planning to use a knife skill anyways.

Ninpo: Caltrops


Targets one row of party members. For one turn, when that row is attacked, the user will counterattack with ranged STR-based cut damage. Attempts to inflict poison.
Caltrops's actual damage is really shit, but the poison damage is beefy for random encounters. Also a decent investment for random encounters, though do try to think about if you need Daggers or Caltrops more based on your party composition.
Be careful that it only counters physical attacks, not elemental ones. It can deal back a very strong poison at max and doesn't require as much as investment as some other skills, but is also especially bad at low levels. Pick this over Daggers if you want to kill things faster and don't mind getting hit for full damage, though you'll probably end up getting both eventually.

Shadow Bind


Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Attempts to bind the legs of the target.
Shadow Bind is basically your best way of inflicting leg binds on a single target. I don't have a ton else to say about it.
The leg bind chance is rather strong, but leg bind itself may or may not help you a lot - the afflicted target will be less accurate due to the AGI penalty, but otherwise Ninja doesn't really capitalize on it that much (it doesn't even activate Dominance's Force gauge gain). Given how useful their other Novice skills are, in all likeliness you'll end up getting this later rather than sooner, if at all.
There's a lot of FOEs and bosses that have really important (to them) skills or passives that use the legs. Shadow Bind is the highest leg bind chance in the game, at least by base (Ninja doesn't have great STR which affects the chances), so it'll be great for disabling those enemies.

Bone Crusher


Deals melee STR-based bash damage to one enemy. Reduces the target's physical defense for a set amount of turns.
Basically the best knife skill in Novice, for what little that's worth. Deals the most damage, comes with a debuff attached.
This skill is Ninja's best contribution to boss and FOE battles at low levels. It deals the highest damage out of Novice skills, but unlike other debuff skills, the debuff strength only scales at half and max level (other levels only increase damage), so once again it'll need a decent bit of investment to be really helpful, though since debuff isn't as all-or-nothing as evasion or ailment, it can probably afford to be delayed a little.
Since it's Bash damage, that means the Ninja can handle two damage types for conditionals and such. Daggers is stab, but it deals such diminutive damage that it's almost not worth it if you need to finish off an enemy.

Reflexes


When the user evades an attack, their TP is restored.
Definitely worth the 4 SP before long, but don't grab it too early. You need points in skills your Ninja can actually use for that TP to be worth anything, afer all!
It's only useful with Concealment. Most Ninjas will probably get Concealment at some point, so get this after that.
Now, while the Ninja isn't going to do any long-term dodge-tanking without something like a Shogun for Great Warrior, a Nightseeker for Decoy Sign, or some ridiculous infinite Force engine, they're still going to dodge a whole lot of attacks, so Reflexes is very worth it.

Concealment


Increases the user's evasion.
A decent investment late in the game, but it's a bad idea to get it early. Again, you need SP in other things.
If you want to go all in on evasion from the start, then you'll probably want to throw some points here early to make your evasion more stable - 20% does matter a lot when you're already dodging 65% to begin with. (Although you can also invest in Shadowbind instead.) Otherwise, it's an evasion bonus that's totally free (actionwise) but also very expensive (SP-wise), so it's something you will probably pick up at some later point.

Ninpo: Mirage


Creates a decoy in an empty party slot. The decoy has added evasion, and added chance to be targeted.
Ninpo: Mirage is pretty decent defensive utility--it's basically a Bunker from EO5, but it unfortunately eats a party slot. Don't grab it if you're running a Hero, obviously.
Once again, this is another skill that requires investment to be useful - the scaling stat modifier means your mirage will eat any hit and die at low levels, but actually have a fair chance of dodging a couple of attacks (and survive weaker stray hits) at max. Unfortunately, it conflicts with Ninpo: Double, so if you want to use that, any points you get here will eventually become a waste. Evasion based Ninjas will probably not want to bother with Clone (since they want to retain the ability to use Force Boost), so if the party doesn't have a Hero (or another Ninja who wants to use Clone), they can throw one out to help redirect some attacks. Most other Ninja will probably want a Clone, or cite a Hero as their reason for not getting one, which means this isn't going to help them in the long run.

Proficiency


Increases the user's damage dealt. At max level, removes the penalty for using a melee attack from the back row.
How early you max out Proficiency depends on your party comp. If you absolutely need your Ninja in the back row, you'll obviously need to grab it sooner rather than later. If you can deal with them being in the front row, then it can be put off.
Get this early. Ninjas are very frail and will not survive front row combat easily without a lot of support.
One thing that threw me off about this skill is, this doesn't make you hit for full damage when you'd otherwise get the melee range penalty. This makes your attacks ignore range targetting entirely. The description makes it sound like it does the former, but you can hit enemies on either row from either row for full damage, so melee attacks are essentially ranged.

Skills: Veteran

Ninpo: Mirror


Attempts to inflict any ailments and binds one enemy is afflicted with on all enemies.
Ehhhhhhh? Decent in random encounters, but not the greatest. If you're angling for the random encounter utility side of Ninja, feel free to grab it, though it's obviously best used when you have another party member for infliction support.
Ninjas have enough AoE ailments on their kit that this is pretty much superfluous in randoms. About the only time I can think of where it might be useful is on bosses with adds, as a lot of them tends to be a lot more vulnerable to inflictions than the boss itself is (assuming they're not some kind of appendage; those tends to be immune to everything instead), and investing a lot of SP on a skill that's only useful for maybe a third of the bosses out there is rather questionable.

Izuna


Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Attempts to inflict petrification on the target.
One of the few spammable ways of inflicting petrification. Petrification's an extremely strong ailment, of course, but you do need a party that can work around the increased physical resistance. If you have a way of doing that, then feel free to grab Izuna really quickly!
This is the only spammable class skill for inflicting petrification, and the base chance is... not that great, but not horrible either. Honestly, I'd say that completely immobilizing the boss for a few turns is even worth an entire party's worth of damage loss if you consider the fact that you're essentially getting free damage for a few turns.
Spammable petrification! Ninja's STR isn't the greatest so the infliction chance isn't great, but hoowee. I guess if you're trying dodgetank Ninja without Decoy Sign or Great Warrior, you could try inflicting this and then spamming Dominance to get your Force back once your dodgetank thing peters off?

Hawk Strike


Deals multiple instances of melee STR-based cut damage to random enemies.
It's damage. If you want your Ninja to contribute damage, this is A Way to do it. I don't know what else to say.
It's actually the strongest spammable skill ninjas get, and it's rather horrible - 600% on a class with knives and lackluster strength means really futile damage. It can trigger links at least, for what it's worth. With a clone active, two Hawk Strikes in a row is somewhat less futile, I guess. If you find yourself having a lot of free turns and want to do some damage on them, then go ahead and take it.
I find this skill to be alright damage. Like, okay, it's not a frigging Drive or Charged Shot or Helm Splitter, but that doesn't make it bad. If in two turns, a support class can deal as much damage as a nonbursty DPS can in one turn, that's a pretty good skill.

Revenge Bomb


When the user first dies, deals ranged STR-based fire damage to one enemy.
Bad.

Okay, I guess damage on death isn't awful, but also, you're spending 6 SP for an on-death, once-per-battle effect. I don't think that's a really good deal.
All doubles and afterimages get a chance to trigger this once, but unless you're doing a Hero/Ninja solo or something, chances are you probably don't want to die that often to trigger it a lot. The damage isn't even as notable as it looks because pure fire-elemental damage means physical only debuffs don't affect it, and buffs can't help it period since they're cleared before this skill fires off. It's possible to make some kind of meme build with level 1 Afterimage, and spamming Mirage Sword to create extremely frail afterimages to trigger this, but it's still extremely inconsistent and (as mentioned) not even all that strong.

Ninpo: Double


Consumes a percentage of the user's current HP and TP to create a clone of themselves in an empty party slot.

The user and their clone cannot use their Force Boost or Force Break while the clone is active.
Whew. Okay, so, Ninpo: Double ate big nerfs compared to EO3. The biggest one is that the empty party slot is way more valuable due to the existence of Heroes, alongside the fact that it kills your Force while active. Not having Diversion Gambit can be really bad if certain attacks in boss fights are coming up, and you can't just end Ninpo: Double at will. Besides Drawing Slice, but that's not exactly an easy way to end it, and you don't get it until Master.

Also, the fact that the HP/TP cost isn't 50% means you will always lose HP/TP even if you reform. That's another one of the nerfs.

With all that said, that doesn't change the fact that, if you have no other use for the empty party slot, Ninpo: Double is still good, it's just not as strong as it was in EO3. Having an extra party member that you can fully control, even if it disables Force on both the clone and the user, is as strong as it ever was, and Ninja in EON can make especially good use of it with, say, stacking Ninpo: Panic.
The real nerf compared to EO3 is the fact that losing a lot of your TP is a lot more painful, since you don't get easy-to-obtain Amrita II/IIIs to offset it. Outside of that, it's generally every bit as powerful as it was in EO3 unless you rely a lot on your Force - you get two chances at infliction, two instances of whatever support skill you've installed on your ninja, and - though this is more of a subclass thing than main class - double the damage dealt. (Or more than double, if you're brave enough to run a less-than-full party.) Unless you're running an evasion build (or have a Hero in the party), this skill can easily become a huge asset.
Finally, my own clone,

Beheading


Gives the user's normal attacks a chance to instantly kill their target.
Loud shrug?? This is obviously completely worthless in boss fights, but in randoms it's...still not great! Why bother gambling on a low chance to instantly kill one enemy when you can inflict disables on a bunch of them?
For those of you who still remembers Alice's rampage in the EO3 LP, keep in mind that 1) it had higher base chance back then; 2) EO3 infliction formula lets you easily double the base chance with the slightest of LUC/TEC advantages, which is simply not true in Nexus; and 3) EO3 infliction formula also gives you a free 0 to 9 precentage point bonus, whereas Nexus isn't nearly as generous. Overall, this skill is about 1/3 to 1/4 as likely to behead anything as it was in EO3, and is pretty much completely worthless.
lmao

sorry about the flippancy, it's just that lmao

Auto-Mirage


If the user knows Ninpo: Mirage, gives them a chance to use it at the start of battle.

If another party member activated Auto-Mirage, the user will be unable to activate it.
Even louder shrug??? I don't know what to make of Auto-Mirage, to be honest with you.
If you really want to use Mirage, then it's pretty helpful to save you a turn. If you don't really want to use Mirage, getting this is an active hinderance because you have to waste a turn on Drawing Slice to get rid of it.
If you have someone subclassing Ninja for non-Double related reasons, don't have an Afterimage or Double user, and have surplus SP, might as well get this.

Ninpo: Flight


For one turn, the user's evasion against physical attacks is increased. Each time the user evades an attack while under the effect of Ninpo: Flight, the evasion boost is reduced.
Good for turns where you really want your Ninja to dodge above all else. Which are few and far between, sure, but if you put an aggro buff on them, or have Diversion Gambit on, it makes them a very effective dodgetank. Situationally useful, I think is fair to say.
It's sorta like Chain Dance with no aggro drawing, but also more dodge bonus that deteriorates. You can try drawing random target skills without a ton of hits, or combining it with Scapegoat. It could also be used to help activate Return Malice if you really want to time your infliction on a particular turn. There are probably some other uses for it out there that I haven't thought of; it's not really a generalist skill, but you can find some niche for it here and there if you look hard enough.
Again, unless your force is on or you're using Decoy Sign, Great Warrior or Scapegoat, this skill is functionally worthless.

Skills: Master

Ninpo: Panic


Attempts to inflict panic on all enemies.
The big one. Ninpo: Panic has a lot of stuff going for it: its high base chance for a panic inflicter, the fact that it targets every enemy, and the fact that it only uses LUC, meaning it benefits a lot from Ninja's very strong LUC. Absolutely worth maxing out on any Ninja.
It pretty much destroys randoms (though not as hard as Lullaby) and can almost completely disable bosses for a few turns without any risk (something Lullaby can't claim). It's one of the best skills in the game, and regardless of what you're building your Ninja for, you pretty much always want to get this, and get this early.
I'm pretty sure the only thing that can match this skill's Panic infliction chance is an Item Echo-boosted Confuse Gas.

Return Malice


If the user evaded an attack on the previous turn, their chance of inflicting ailments is increased.
Even if you aren't in Diversion Gambit or Ninpo: Flight, Ninja's natural stat spread means you've got a good chance of getting Return Malice on quite a lot of turns. Again, worthwhile pickup.
Once you have access to this and Dominance, evasion Ninja becomes a lot better - the idea is you dodge a few hits while in Force Boost, use this bonus to inflict something back, then hit them with Dominance until your Force gauge regenerates. If you're not really going for evasion... well, you still have the free bonus from Concealment, so it'll probably kick in once in a while. Unless you're going for some kind of weird build that uses neither evasion nor infliction, it's always going to be helpful to some degree at least.

Dominance


Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Cannot miss. If the target is afflicted with an ailment, restores the user's Force.
Reasonable damage, and the Force restore is a nice bonus. If you can keep ailments on enemies, this is worth grabbing.
See my comment on Return Malice. It's not really worth using outside of an evasion build, since Diversionary Gambit isn't going to be that helpful then. The cannot miss aspect could have been helpful if you can ge this skill before level 40... but oh well.

Drawing Slice


Deals multiple instances of melee STR-based cut damage to random enemies. If the user has any clones active, the damage is increased. Clones will disappear after use.
If you've gotten all the use you wanted out of your clone, this is a really good way to get some final big damage out of them before dismissing them.
One clone Drawing Slice deals exactly the same amount of damage as two Hawk Strikes, so summoning a clone and using this is completely pointless for damage (this skill is so fast that the Clone will not have the chance to use most damage skills). I can't imagine any scenarios where you will have decided that you've had enough of your Clone and wants to pull them back, either - at the very worst, two clones still act as two item throwers. This skill does retain the whole geometric damage growth from having more and more clones out, so throwing your Ninja out solo and using this skill to deal big damage after splitting a few times is still possible (though harder to do since you no longer have the broken Berserker Vow + Charge combo available), but outside of that gimmick, this skill is more or less pointless.

Ninpo: Smoke


Consumes a percentage of the user's current HP to increase their evasion for a set amount of turns.
If you're doing a dodge-tank Ninja, I think Ninpo: Flight is better for what you probably want. However, if you just want a buff that makes your Ninja more likely to activate Return Malice, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Ninpo: Smoke.
Non-evasion based Ninja doesn't really get a whole lotta use out of this since it doesn't last very long and isn't that strong, but evasion based Ninja will definitely want to pick this up to make their dodges more consistent. The HP penalty is pretty stiff, though, so be sure to top your Ninja back up postehaste.
Holy shit, plus fourty? That's immense! This plus your Force Boost is I THINK 115%. Only a fistful of moves can hit you at that point...

Mystic Calm


Reduces TP costs of skills.

Cannot reduce a skill's TP cost to 0.
Definitely snag when you have some spare SP. It's not a big reduction, but saving 4 TP per turn adds up over the course of the battle.
The reduced TP cost helps a lot with dealing with Ninpo: Double's TP loss, but evasion based Ninja won't need it a lot since they aren't going to be splitting, and will constantly be getting TP back from Reflexes. There really isn't much to be said about this; just get it whenever you feel you have the SP to spare.
This plus Reflexes makes Ninja hilariously good for long battles. And on a subclass, -2 is not all that shabby.

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