Ninja Magician (discontinued)

This guide is discontinued, i will no longer maintain or update it.
Instead, i made a new one: http://toramonline.com/index.php?threads/the-elusive-illusionist.13115/

This is the 6th version of my Guide to the "Ninja Magician" class.

"My Staff is stronger, my magic is faster and i look much cooler than you, because I'm a Ninjaaa XD"

this class specializes in utilizing the Damage Drop-Off Mechanic to maximize damage.
you will still play as a mage class, not a front-attacker, but unlike other mages you can do more than just casting and charging.

Equipment:
Visual Appearance:
Hachigane, Hachimaki or Spiky Bandana
whatever you prefer

Staff:
whatever you desire, usually you have a choice between 2 staves. (the newest and the one before it. of course they won't be equally strong, but being able to switch elements or resistances is a good thing to have.)
get both and use the one that is most effective in the current situation.

the best staff for now is Mace of Destruction. it has magcial and physical powers, which will almost double the damage of your dagger skills
the Folium Staff makes up for it's lack of physical power with it's awesome attack speed.

Daggers:
there are 2 types of daggers: those with high ATK and offensive stat boosts and those with lower ATK but helpful other stat boosts. always use the latter type.

the best dagger for now is the Army Knife. it adds 100mp, 10% evasion and 2 DEX.

when Evasion is triggered, you will slide backwards (with a really cool ninja move) and throw a dagger at the same time.
the damage of this attack is similar to the Throwing Knive skill.

Armor and Add. Gear:
the ninja's special ability is their speed and trickery.
Evasion and speed are just as important as magic power, so try to get some of everything.
-x% aggro stats are usually together with magical stats, so it shouldn't be too hard to get them too.
at first there are only basic armors available, so the we start with the Mage Robe.
later, the Forest Wolf Garb is really good, then the Green Dragon Garb.
(Aqua Garb is also possible, but remember to get different stats on your armor and add gear to cover both, magic and ninja moves.)

the best armor for now is the Killer Coat, it covers all the stats that we want .

Special:
in the beginning, the Spy's Talisman is your best friend.
it gives 250MP and reduces your aggro by 25%.
later you can get the Sand Veil Ring, which is even better, but has no extra MP, so you need MP stats on other gear if you want to use it.
getting less aggro means, that you won't be targeted when you are with a party.
in the later game, when you can get better eveasion stats and have more helpful spells to defend yourself, you can switch to the new powerful magic boosting rings.

Philosopher's Ring is the best magic ring, and it gives 300MP.
if you have MP stats on your other gear you can also use the newly added Adroit Magician Ring.

Stats:
most people tend to put everything in 1 stat and try to compensate their weakness with their equipment, but this is not the best way to go about stats.
the game recommends to use INT and DEX for staff weapons, and that is what we are gonna do.
with a few changes of course
we will splt our DEX points between DEX and AGI. INT is as usual and for our personal stat we select CRIT.

Main: INT
Sub: DEX and AGI (think of it as DEX, but split some of the points on AGI)
Other: CRIT

1 INT = +4 MATK, +1 ATK, +1 MDEF
1 AGI = +3 ASPD, +2 FLEE, +1 CSPD
1 DEX = +3 CSPD, +1 HIT, +1 MATK
CRIT = personal stat gained after Lv40, raises critical rate

FLEE makes enemies miss more often, ASPD reduces attack intervals, CSPD reduces cast time and charge time, EVASION is triggered by chance, it works independent from FLEE and can only be raised by gear and skills.

but if you spent all points equally, you might appear a little weak in combat, so we spend our points as we need them.
our main stat is INT for magic power and in the beginning there is nothing else we can do, so let's get it up to 50.
then we can start to increase our speed with DEX and later DEX+AGI.
CRIT will not be available until lv40, but before we start adding it, our INT should be around 75 and the combined points in DEX and AGI should be around 50.
so maybe you will have to wait until lv50 before you use CRIT ...

i'm using a 2:1 ratio of INT : DEX/AGI and have CRIT at 50, that is enough for now. (i also have 10 points on VIT, on higher levels, the difference is really noticeable.)
we won't need more crit until we learn Concentrate from the Battle Skill tree, it enables critical hits on magic attacks, by raising the magic crit rate from 0 to something.
the base value is small, but crit stats should increase it like they did with the physical crit rate.

Skills

we start with standard magic, which is also the most useful:
MP Charge - gather your energy
Magic Arrows - auto-fire magic cannon (still the best spell in the game)
then we start to learn how to use our dagger:
Throwing Knive - 0 MP cost at Lv10 -> free ranged attack
and lastly we want some healing power:
Bless - heal yourself (and the whole party)

now that we have magic for attacking and healing and can make use of our dagger, we want to power up our staff.
of course we will use daggers for this :
Hidden Arm - deal extra damage with attacks, cannot be blocked
Intense Knive - raise damage and activation rate of Hidden Arm, at Lv10 it will always activate

and that is all we need to get started.
now you can freely learn any of the skills listed below.
(of course you can't have them all, so pick what you want and master it).
Magic Wall and Magic Lances are a must-have!)

Daggers:
Spike Dart - inflict slow

Magic:
Chain Cast - speed up your cast time.
when you activate Magic Arrows, you will gain the cast status. it will stay active until you use another attack spell.
when you do, the cast time will be reduced by 5% per skill level.

Power Wave - extend the range of normal attacks, by using the Force
(and increase damage too)

Javelin - damage is like Magic Arrows, fire element will burn (very good), other elements just flinch (and are not worth the cost)
Lances - slower, but bigger Magic Arrows, inflicts stop and looks very cool
Impact - Shinra Tensei! (causes tumble -> finally a breaker skill, and halves the cost of the next skill)

Wall - useful knockback effect, use it as a shield
Blast - BOOM, explosion!
Storm - Tonardooo~



Combos:
there is no general combo set-up to spam here.
but you can make many short combos with consecutive Bless or Spike Dart to gain their beneficial effects without extra costs.

examples:
Arrows - Spike Dart (cons) > 1mp, good damage+slow (and cast speed bonus after you learned Chain Cast)
Wall - Bless (cons) > 2mp, shield+heal
Impact - Wall (smite) - Bless (cons) > 3mp, tumble+massive damage+shield+heal
Lances - Bless (cons) > 3mp, damage+stop+heal

then just remember to use the Damage Drop-Off, so mind the skills of your party members and attack with what is most effective. (or troll the snipers with Throwing Knive to reduce their damage and power up your magic )

 

*bump*
improved formatting and added the first details

 

My god. Your stats are all over the place :0
If I would to make this build I would focus more on int and dex. If you use daggers that with make the accuracy of hitting better and same for magic skills. Int stat after dex so that matk raises. Daggers don't need crit boosts since they don't do that much damage.

I wonder if you are really trying to make the build. I get that you want you're equipment ninja lik, but at least make them apps with good gear hidden. What stats in the staff and what dagger? What's the elements? If anything you should put a Forestia Xtal in a gear since it will give you a Evasion Rate +5% ( you wanted speed so this is slightly similar) Magic Resistance +3% and MATK+1% ( Helps your build with magic attacks ) you can also try the Mauez xtal for the MaxHP+150 ( to get your HP up. You can also use HP Boost ) Crit Rate +2 ( you wanted Crit ) but -4 accuracy. The Demon gate Xtal would also be best for the build. MATK +3% ( raises magic attack duh ) DEX +2% ( Helps you with daggers ) and CSPD ( can substitute Agi stats ) I'm not the best at add gears so I can't help you with that. Combos in my opinion are a bit dull.

 

i did expect comments like this, so i was prepeared:
this build is different from the usual magic-user and it's not like the "magician with magic daggers build".
it's similar to the magic knight (although i would call that one a spellblade) and you can imagine it like a combination of 2 classes (that's why i need stats for both, magical and physical skills).

my character just reached lv50. it started as a magician with passive dagger skills as support, then i switched to more dagger skills.
my INT is currently 60, DEX and AGI are at 15, CRIT is 20 (all from bonus points).
right now i'm building up STR to make my attack equal to my magic attack.
my current gear is the forest wolf set and the magic dagger (the best i can obtain right now and it has an evasion bonus).
my staffs are minotaur staff and rock staff.
i don't have better combos because i don't have the skills. magic combos are too slow, wall helps, but it draws too much attention if there are many enemies around. i also spent 10 skill points on alchemy, so i couldn't learn poison knive yet.
and crit on dagger is very effective: with consecutive, spike dart hits 3 times (level5) for ~80. when it crits i get ~110.
if i use the daggers after some magic, the damage increases further (up to 150), afterwards normal attacks are boosted to ~250 (up to 400 with crit).
the extra damage from hidden arm is currently ~50, because the magic dagger has lower attack than the others.

my plan for the stats is similar to the magic knight build, but it is a little unequal now, because i didn't want to reset.
my actual combo also involves wall, but i didn't make it part of the combo because i have to move afterwards to evade ranged attacks.
staying inside the circle only works for monsters with melee attacks.

when selecting stats, i switched from the "build help screen" to the "detailed stat screen" to see how much effect each stat has.
with this i decided what to use. firstly i only used the recommended main stats for staff weapons, then spent the bonus points on other stats up to 10 or 15 to balance my weaknesses.

 

Seriously, why do you have Agi? it does nothing for your build.

 

So your build is a hybrid? STR doesn't help for magic and only gives small boosts in dmg for daggers. Why waste 15 points on agi? I'm fine with dex but not really for agi. I wouldn't waste Str in this build. Btw, why did you put points in alchemy? If you only put 10 points it's a waste. Alchemists are best for one purpose, however, if you combine it will a dps type build or any fighting build its not a good build. Alchemists are best for potions, ores, etc and only that unless you combine it with a bs for adding stats. What points did you put in alechmist?

 

Unless he wants his flee high and casting speed ( which really only works when casting spells for his Mage) then he might not care, but you can use xtals for that. ( the seleito boss drops a Xtal casting speed +300. I can't spell the boss it it drops the vampire cape)

 

I mean, either put high amounts of Agi or none at all. Anything below 50Agi is practically useless. Aspd, Cspd, and Flee are only useful if you have lots of it.

 

and what will you do before you get those xtals?

that could be said about any stat.
i had a similar discussion about DEX being useful for mages.
and just 2 points in DEX made the difference between casting a spell and escaping the red zone and casting a spell and getting hit. the difference in cast time was 0.1 seconds and because of that i could cast and evade. with just 2 points.

STR raises attack and critical hit damage. it does help daggers and it mostly helps the staff attacks.
i won't stop with 10 points in alchemy, but i want to master the next dagger skill before i learn more alchemy.
the skill description of the production skills says "not needed in the beginning". so i waited until lv40 to start with it.
i can bath in regeras, so i use less revitas. that saves lots of money.
AGI is for Flee and speed. i need not only fast skills, but also fast attacks.
without AGI i can either attack or evade (aka run away) with AGI i can do both. i raise it every time when the mosters get faster and i need more.
so far 15 is enough for most of them.

 

If your gona build a dagger build with magic, your dps will be wasted on dagger really. Especially with those stats

 

Until you get the xtals leave them out of the build till you farm or buy them. My opinion says that's it's best to get the xtals before making a build. Studying the stats and making wise decisions on how it would effect the build.

Crit is not needed for mages and as for daggers. Even if Str raises crit it still won't do much for mages and daggers. Plus, Str doesn't even effect spells. It's only if you wack the boss with a staff. My Mage doesn't have any agi pts, but it can still summon spells fast ( thanks to xtals ) and escape a mob. Besides, to escape a mob you just go away 24m or go to next map. For bosses running in circles ain't that strategic option unless your party is dead. Thats also what tanks take care of. If you don't have a tank use revitas to endure it. Now moving to the alchemist skills. I get it makes potions for healing and buffing, but couldn't you make it on a different character?

 

That's where you're dead wrong. Any amount of VIT is helpful. 17pts of CRIT translate to 5% Crit Rate which will be added to your 25% Base Crit. A few amount of DEX can be helpful to majority of bosses, in terms of Hit Rate, because only Forestia and Roga have crazy amount of Flee. Every point of INT will still net you a consistent increase in Damage, not to mention, it also gives MDEF.
However, most bosses have relatively high Hit Rate. A few amounts of Flee is useless against them. You have to have a decent Flee for their attacks to miss.
If you have a slow-ass basic attack, chances are, you won't be using it so often.
I have 665 Cspd on my mage and I still don't cast my spells so closely. A few Cspd won't do anything noticeable.

 

i read a lot of "mage". this is a ninja, not a mage.
many rpgs have ninja characters and they are ususally everyones favourite. did you ever look at their stat screens?

that example was from Magic Javelin. the range is limited to 8m and fast moving monsters always get close and hit 0.1 seconds before the spell is finished.
*flinch* 2mp wasted and trapped in close combat.

as for alchemy: yes i could. i could also move the daggers to another character and have extra charcters for farming and for bosses and ... oh wait, i don't have so many character slots! and i don't feel like grinding 4 times as much nuts and wood just to feed extra characters that can't fight on their own.
maybe my alchemy is weaker or slower if i use it as tertiary skill, but with my current HP count, i don't need revitaI and II and some regera is good enough.
i can also make vitaplus and magiadd, and my profiency level is not maxed yet.

all the guides and build tips here are based on the current level cap and the corresponding end-game equipment.
in japan they already have lv120 and based on the newest trend of game design i'd guess the max level will 999.

i decided to make the character this way because i want to play different.
i always read the manuals and instructions and player guides for every game i play,
and in all games there are lots of guides that are like "screw character customization. limit yourself as much as possible, this is the only way to do it right."
"don't use magic, it sucks. always use weapon attacks, even if you are a mage."
"don't use shields. just equip more weapons and spent all of your money on potions."
i hate it!

 

I can kinda see where you were going with this build and wanting to be different which I respect a lot, but I think you shouldn't spread out your stats too much. Seeing as the level cap is still low it would benefit a lot, and you can compensate for those lost stats with equipment easily

 

No offense, but my failed and deleted Lv50 Int Agi Crit MD Brawler(my first ever char), at least, deal 1k+ Holy Fist. And around 300 damage with basic attacks. I get that you want a unique build, but you're doing way less damage than my worst char.
If you really want a hybrid "Ninja", focus on 1:1 INT-STR then get Wall, Impact, Throwing Knife and Gattling Knife.

 

so is the plan ...
the AGI and VIT is all from extra points earned by emblem rewards.
i was like "hey, extra points! lets get some more health. (and later it was speed)".
i also want to try poison knive ...

the total damage of staff+hidden arm is almost equal to the sword damage of my paladin. and that character has only DEX and STR like it is recommended.

attack boni are mostly on warrior equipment, which also happens to have +aggro. excatly not what i want to have.
the -10% attack speed on the minotaur staff was really noticeable when fighting King Potum, but i only had ASPD+20 xtals, which didn't compesate enough.
so i raised AGI a little and used Dodge+2 instead which was much better than the others.

and whoever said that STR doesn't help daggers:
it increases the damage of Hidden Arm.
without STR it was equal to the daggers attack stat, with Intense Knive it gained 25%,
and with 12 STR it is now twice as high as before.

 

Just trying to point out a potential problem down the road, and hopefully you can figure out a solution and make it work ^^

While STR and INT will take care of the attacking power part of your offense, 50 or so levels later, you may start having problem with accuracy. Not so much for the magic, but for the dagger skills. Easy solution will be to add DEX which takes care of your accuracy and improve cast speed. But a STR/INT/DEX character will mean you have no stat left end game for AGI (dodge) or VIT (hp and def). Then survivability becomes an issue because almost every attack aimed at u will likely hit, as you cannot dodge, and you will have no def or hp to absorb that hit.

Interesting build nonetheless. Hope this helps.

 

Just let the guy do what he wants to do. It's his character lol.

 

Not stopping or discouraging him^^ I'm all for originality. Those are real obstacles that he has to overcome though ^^

 

I wasn't pointing any fingers to you or any other individual, just saying what needed to be said. ^^
And yeah I agree, overcoming those stat point problems and making a good ninja build will be a real pain in the ass.