So I think it's pretty universally agreed that ninjas kind of missed the mark. They just don't really do anything well. They kill too slow against groups (everything you fight), their AV is the lowest in the game, and they lack curse/stun which makes them not that useful 1v1 either. I don't see anyone playing ninjas and the general consensus seems to be they need a bit of a buff, so here are my suggestions:

1. Buff Assassinate - This skill feels kinda weird and I find myself rarely using it on my ninja. The guaranteed crit isn't all that powerful, and the increased crit chance is a little underwhelming. My thought to buff this is to keep the current mechanics, but to add in an additional WV mechanic similar to harden but for WV (so assassinate would be a sustained ability that drained endurance, but keeping it active would give a WV boost as well as the increased crit chance). An alternative would be to have it act like MS, where it costs endurance to cast but slowly drains over time. My thought with this is to allow the assassin to get the highest WV in the game, potentially helping with the slow killing and making them stand out in some way.

2. Buff Poison - Poison itself is probably the worst of the arch skills, so could use a buff regardless of the ninja class. My suggestion here is not only to buff the potency of the HP drain (again helping them kill faster), but also to add a "weaken" effect that lowers the targets WV (to help combat the low AV that ninjas get). Again this is similar to the AT warcry lowering AV, but the opposite.

Another easy option is to give their belts some stat boosts or add some unique ninja gear to the game (something that enhanced endurance regen to go along with the assassinate buff would be cool), or ninja armour that has no AV but some sort of stat boosts instead.

Thoughts?

I have been talking in game to both lordlava and lazywarrior about the ninja class. And to my understanding they are currently looking into it. So I expect a few changes incoming soon😊

It really needed something like a Sneak skill where it enforced a one or two tile clamp on mobs aggroing you. Offset by an adjustable usage of endurance.