Hi, I would like to point out a few things. This might sound odd, but poisoning is not such a good skill for a ninja.
1. Poison damage ticks will pop you out of hiding.
2. There are numerous ways to cure poison and most pvp players cure out of habit.
3. You do not need poisoning on a ninja to poison (dp,lp) you can use shurikens and darts.
4. You need tactics for most damage and it opens up various special moves.
Now I have developed a technique to update ninja templates which are more balanced and more stronger. With the numerous + Stealth items and Imbuing there is more elbow room to really flush out a ninja and make him a terror on the pvp field.
To make the most out of these templates takes a bit of thought on wear to apply properties. So here are some basic guidelines.
1. Put all HCI/DCI on Armor and weapons. Not jewelry. This is to save Imbuing points for more skill, or more mods, being that +15 HCI cost about 130 imbuing points.
Suggested HCI
+15 on Weapon
+15 Spirit of the Totem
+10 Conjurers Trinket
Others
+15 Shield
+10 Gladiators Collar
and anything else I might have overlooked.
2. It is important to get your Stealth to a modified 120. A good portion of pvp players are just running 80 stealth which their Death Strikes only do 30-40 hp of damage which by like poisoning it can be potted out of on the run. However when you have 100 hiding and 120 stealth, you have 60hp DS and 70 with Joat Tracking, not to mention Hit spell effects on your weapon. An example would be Armor ignore, Armor ignore, DS. Which ever combo you can pull off to get your target to run.
Suggested +Stealth Items
+20 Shadow Dancer Leggings. Also good with +20 Stealing for a Ninja Thief
+20 Britanias Royal Guard Investigators Cloak. Hard to get or pricey.
+10 Cloak of Silence
or
+5 Oak Leaf Cloak
+30 Stealth on Imbued Jewels
Thus all you need is 45-50 Stealth. Buy the skill at New Haven, Take the Stealth Quest and within 20 minutes of playing around you will have 120 Stealth!
Imbuing Jewels - The Tricky part
The first rule of thumb is to put +15 Stealth on each Jewel. So-
500 - 140 (+15 Stealth) = 360 Balance
Now here is where you Really, Really need to think! Here you have 2 options. The Caster Route be it Chiv,Necro, Magery, Myst, or the Warrior Route
The Caster Route offers faster healing,Curing, maybe some ranged attacks and buffs, at the cost of a bit weaker physical damage and slight weaker Template. Example
+10 Ninjitsu
+15 Stealth
FC1
FCR 3
(Remember you have Damage increase on Weapon and Conjurers.)
Imbuing Cost 493
Warrior Setup - Now with a warrior setup you have quite a few options. You can place up to 45 skill points per jewel and have some left over like 20 damage increase to give you a total of 100DI with wep and conjurers, but you might find that putting 30 Skill will be the sweet spot, giving you enough room to tweak all the properties and skills you want.
Just don't rush into imbuing, because you cannot remove an imbued property, but just able to reduce it.
Templates - Now we get into the gravy of things. We have to use our imagination a bit because now there are more possibilities. First we have to decide on either Warrior based or Casting dependent based. This will effect the total skill points and balance of the character.
Casting Templates with the above example will have an extra 100-105 extra skill points to play with
Warrior Templates will have 110 (balanced) to 150 (beefy template) points.
I won't go through all the available templates but others are welcome to post based on the above guidelines.
Examples
4/6 Ninja (720) Using 100 extra skill with above casting jewels and items
4/6 with Resist and holy light.
120 Fencing
120 Tactics
100 Hiding
50 Stealth (120 with Items) 120 Stealth
100 Ninjitsu (+20 from Jewels) 120 Ninjitsu
120 Resist
110 Chiv
4/6 with Parry and Resist
120 Fencing
90 Tactics
100 Hiding
50 Stealth (120 with items)
110 Ninjitsu
110 Resist
60 Chiv
80 Parry (+10 on each Jewel) 100 parry = 30% to block
Shields
Boura shield - Paralyzes your opponent giving you time to close the distance.
Wall of Hungry Mouths - Takes elemental damage from magery based spells and converts a portion to HP, thus reducing damage taken.
Other Casting Types - You will probably have to sacrifice Resist or Tactics.
If you sacrifice tactics then you will not have special moves or do much base weapon damage. Mainly you will be a caster able to land a 60 hp DS after your dump.
Warrior Templates - I am not going to go into this, there are quite a few combinations . A good PvP one is a bushido ninja, and with the above techniques one may be able to round it out a bit more.
However one draw back on ninjas in the past was the ability to have a form of healing and resist. Thanks to SA and the many items it is possible.
