Help me avoid another waste of time....Ninja/TA

[Crysis]

I want another MM character.  I have really enjoyed the rework of Mercs and built out an incredibly effective Mer/Cold character.  She was fun all the way through T4 Incarnates.  Shelved now as I'm a bit of a completist and once I've achieved all the accolades and incarnate tiers, I've no desire to play that character any longer.

 

After the rework to Nina's, I completely rebuilt my old Nina/Time character and found it effective enough to finally finish up all the accolades and Incarnate powers.

 

Most recently, I finished up my Necro/Storm Michael Jackson homage build after the Halloween event.  Great fun, will likely pull that one out of mothballs next October as well, gods willing.

 

But now I'm waffling between a Ninja/Cold or a Ninja/TA.  Very recently I ran an "all bow users only" ITF and actually surprised the leader when I showed up with my Nina/Time.  They forgot that Ninja MM's have bow attacks as our primaries....easy enough to not remember that since in the past so few MM's took their native attacks.  So it got me thinking...what about a Ninja/TA?  Both Ninja and TA have been updated since Live days.  Maybe those changes would create a far more effective toon than in the past?  I love bow animations, so maybe...just maybe.....

 

But then there's /Cold.  It's an incredibly powerful secondary for the paper defenses of ninja's.  Two +DEF shields, a -RES and a +END power all in same set?  Worked -very well- for reworked Mercs.  Maybe Ninja's also?

 

I ran a Demon/TA in Live and to this day that's the -only- toon I've ever totally "melted down" for their IO's and deleted, despite having T4'd all incarnate powers.  Just a horrible combo.  

 

Thoughts?  Is a Ninja/TA better off in the PVE world than a Ninja/Cold?  And if so...any recent builds around these two updated sets to show me the way?

 

 

[kelika2]

flash arrow and train ninjas will keep you well defended.  i ended up 6 slotting genin and jounin early to get the 5% defense IOs in asap

and that was pretty much it while leveling up.  flash arrow on cooldown and throwing out some disruption arrows and working way up to oil slick arrow that the oni sets off or revoking your origin power for the taser

because i skipped most of trick arrow i had plenty of room for Maneuvers and attacks

 

nin/cold was far more passive and sometimes i preferred preemptive buffs over reactionary debuffs to keep pets alive

[StrikerFox]

Both Cold and TA should be pretty good with Ninjas. Softcap pets with Cold shields; equivalent softcap with TA's Flash Arrow. They both have a proc monster power (Infrigidate and Ice Arrow). I say play TA. Flash Arrow's -tohit debuff will helps the MM's survivability. Cold, less so except for Arctic Fog. Thematically TA works better (Unless you have some zany backstory of an eskimo-ninja clan), and overall is more fun to play imo.

[C U R S E]

The only real hole I see is you do nit have a AOE heal. Ninja can heal themselves, but without a AOE heal they will fold real quick.

[Crysis]

14 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

 Thematically TA works better (Unless you have some zany backstory of an eskimo-ninja clan), and overall is more fun to play imo.

 

Get outta my head!  I was actually considering a Zane (of Ninjago fame) type of character, an Ice Ninja.

 

But honestly, I really like the concept of going all bow attacks between primary attacks and TA.  So maybe I'll just make one of each.

 

How much of /TA is skippable to allow me to take the primary Ninja attacks?  Even proc'd out they aren't all that good, but some of the build crafting I'm doing is showing me it's still going to be pretty tight if I want to fit in Fold Space (and I'm pretty sure I do!).

 

[StrikerFox]

I took Flash, Poison, Disruption, Acid, Oil Slick, Emp and Ice. Skipped Entangling and Glue. But I'm paired with Beasts and only have one personal MM attack as a mule.

[Ringo]

My Ninja/Cold (pre Ninja update) was great fun, but Cold is very passive.  I ended up taking the Fighting pool attacks and spending my time in melee letting my ninjas do their thing

 

As for Ninjas/TA, the +crit seems to be the true incentive for the bow attacks.  If you want personal damage try proccing out your /TA attacks like Ice Arrow

[tidge]

I have been considering folding up my Ninjas/Pain MM and rerolling it as Ninja/Trick Arrow.

 

The one thing I think I would be sure to do is to slot %-Res from Annihilation, backed up with at least one other piece from that set (for the MaxEnd bonus) in each power to try to keep the extra Resistance Debuff in play as long as possible, to improve henchmen damage.

 

The Endurance tax on Masterminds is pretty brutal, so I am inclined to 6-slot Annihilation in at least three powers. I like a LOT of the powers in Trick Arrow, but a constantly attacking MM can quickly drain the Endurance bar... so with the rest of the attacks (that I almost certainly would take) I would prioritize Accuracy, Duration and then Endurance costs for the secondary. Recharge can be a killer for active MMs so I would make that a lower priority (at least in my current theory crafting).

[Crysis]

5 hours ago, Ringo said:

My Ninja/Cold (pre Ninja update) was great fun, but Cold is very passive.  I ended up taking the Fighting pool attacks and spending my time in melee letting my ninjas do their thing

 

As for Ninjas/TA, the +crit seems to be the true incentive for the bow attacks.  If you want personal damage try proccing out your /TA attacks like Ice Arrow

On my Mercs/Cold (very high +Recharge) I didn’t find it all that passive.  I had procc’d out Infrigidate as an attack pretty much and of course dropped Sleet often.  That plus having all three attacks PLUS Fold Space and Cross Punch kept me plenty busy.  Heat Loss was also up pretty often.

 

I guess it depends on your play style.

[Thraxen]

I would do ninja cold so you got more time for ninja blasts of your own for the buffs. TA is active as hell on its own, much less trying to do TA debuffs and direct minions. 

[kelika2]

I skipped Entangling, Ice, Poison, Acid.  While I do have EMP I do not use it much.

I pretty much play on large teams and task forces and getting use out of those abilities are few and far in between when I only have the time to setup flash arrow

 

Assault puts out more damage than Entangling

Ice is weird because you cannot control when your Oni does his hold to stack them

Poison was close to being in my last build but i found it only useful for AVs/GMs which are not fought a lot leveling up

And I do not take acid arrow because of the tohit check + not fully understanding what "-resistance to tohit" and others means

EMP has a long cooldown and a rather small radius.  sure it lasts a long time but this is not a stationary game.  either a twitchy tank or an AV moving around JUST enough can suck

[StrikerFox]

13 hours ago, kelika2 said:

I skipped Entangling, Ice, Poison, Acid.  While I do have EMP I do not use it much.

I pretty much play on large teams and task forces and getting use out of those abilities are few and far in between when I only have the time to setup flash arrow

 

Assault puts out more damage than Entangling

Ice is weird because you cannot control when your Oni does his hold to stack them

Poison was close to being in my last build but i found it only useful for AVs/GMs which are not fought a lot leveling up

And I do not take acid arrow because of the tohit check + not fully understanding what "-resistance to tohit" and others means

EMP has a long cooldown and a rather small radius.  sure it lasts a long time but this is not a stationary game.  either a twitchy tank or an AV moving around JUST enough can suck

 

I think Acid Arrow is pretty good. It's sort of the bread/butter of the set. I have it slotted with Achilles' and Annihilation procs. Did a short test to see how often they activate on a single target. They will trigger more on multiple targets.

 

33 Acid shots, Achilles' activated 14 times and Annihilation activated 12 times. Here's a screenshot and made a video. I don't know why their percentages are so high. I thought Achilles' is -20% and Annihilation is -12.5%.

 

 

 

 

As for stacking holds with the Oni, create a new tab window that displays pet attacks. When Oni uses Char, click the Oni and launch an Ice Arrow at his target. The new tab can be disconnected from the main chat window and moved around. But it's tough with 6 pets, that window scrolls fast.

 

 

As for the -res portion of Acid, it makes debuffs stronger. Like Solomon Grundy stronger. Here are a couple screenshots. First one shows the targets tohit bonus with Flash Arrow (-42.11%). The second one shows the same Flash Arrow debuff + Accid Arrow used immediately after (-58.54%). It will improve your teammates debuffs too. Though I thought Acid was supposed to debuff regen and rec but it doesn't show it on the combat attributes screen, or it doesn't at all. Acid improves a few other TA powers as well.

 

[Mawari]

Any Ninja/TA build to share?