Stealthy fighters who excel at surprising enemies and can wield two weapons at once.
Description
The Ninja is a job in Final Fantasy V obtained after the Fire Crystal shatters. It focuses on dealing fast-paced damage, and much of its strength lies in the ability to wield two weapons at once. This gives giving them two separate chances to inflict damage with regular attacks which, on top of their turn count, makes them potent.
Beyond their speed and ability to wield two weapons, Ninjas use the Throw command, allowing them to throw weapons and items at enemies. This means they can throw scrolls, giving them some elemental damage. Ultimately, the main prize of the job is learning the Dual-Wield ability, allowing other jobs to likewise equip two weapons; Freelancers and Mime gain this and First Strike as innate support abilities on mastery. Pairing Dual-Wield with other jobs' abilities, such as Ranger's Rapid Fire, can lead to devastating effects.
Mastering Ninja in all four characters in the now defunct mobile and Steam version earns the achievement "Ninja Legend".
Characters[]
Bartz and Galuf wear pants, Krile wears a skirt, while Faris and Lenna wear bodysuits. The ninja design is based on modern fiction, as this style was not invented until the 20th century.
Gameplay[]
Stats[]
| Stat | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Strength | +15 |
| Agility | +14 |
| Stamina | +3 |
| Magic | -10 |
Ninjas boast decent Strength, affecting their physical damage, and high Agility, affecting their turn rate. They have negligible Stamina, relating to their HP, and a small Magic penalty (though this can be alleviated by equipping a magic skillset in their ability slot if needed).
Upon mastery, Freelancers and Mimes gain the Ninja's base Strength, Agility and Stamina unless they already have a higher base from another mastered job.
Equipment[]
Ninjas use light armor and unique weapons. They can equip knives, short swords, boomerangs, combat hats, light armor, and armlets. Their equipment set is similar to that of a Thief, with additional access to short swords.
Short swords deal damage based on Strength and Agility, but due to a bug, Agility will only add 0 or 1 to the damage modifier. Short swords only take 50% of the target's Evade into calculations. The best short sword in most versions is Sasuke's Katana, the sealed weapon, though the Game Boy Advance version added the superior Kagenui to the post-game dungeon Sealed Temple.
Ninjas cannot boost the damage output of elemental attacks outside of the Wind element through Air Knife, and therefore have no way to boost the damage of elemental scrolls used through the Throw command, unless they sacrifice their second slot for Equip Rods. Equipping a magic skillset can help alleviate Ninjas' low Magic Power. The best throwing items are the elemental scrolls, buyable in Lix, Quelb, and Phantom Village.
Using boomerangs and throwing weapons allows the Ninja to stay in the back row without suffering a damage penalty, however, their Dual-Wield trait makes them great to equip with any strong weapon; using equipment abilities from other jobs can be especially good on the Ninja, who don't natively equip any of the best weapons in the game.
- Throwing weapons
- Combat hats
- Light armor
- Generic accessories
- Command-specific
accessories
- Armlets
Abilities[]
| Ability | Job level | AP required | Type | Innate | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smoke | 1 | 10 | Command | No | Use the confusion of a smoke bomb to escape from most enemies without them even noticing. |
| Image | 2 | 30 | Command | No | Create illusions to absorb two direct physical attacks. |
| First Strike | 3 | 50 | Support | Yes | Increase the chances of having the first attack. |
| Throw | 4 | 150 | Command | Yes | Toss weapons at enemies. Scrolls and shuriken can be thrown as well. |
| Dual-Wield | 5 | 450 | Support | Yes | Carry and attack with a weapon in each hand. Bows and harps cannot be dual-wielded. |
Throw (top) and Smoke (bottom).
Two of Ninja's abilities are identical to abilities from other jobs: Smoke is identical to Thief's Flee, while Image is similar to the White Magic spell Blink, although Image costs no MP. These abilities have a small amount of utility, but are not the main draws to the job.
The Ninja's default command, Throw, lets the player choose an item to consume to damage a target. This includes weapons, scrolls, and shurikens. Rarer items usually equal more damage. Scrolls allow abilities to target enemies' elemental weakness and hit all enemies, while shurikens are simply empowered physical attacks.
First Strike increases the chance of the party receiving a preemptive attack. This ability becomes innate to Freelancers and Mimes upon mastering Ninja, and can have great utility in making dungeons easier. Though the ability slot is often better given to other command abilities, First Strike is nonetheless a great additional benefit to mastering the job.
Dual-Wield is the job's main draw. It allows the user to hold a weapon in each hand, meaning that they attack twice, similar to Monk's Barehanded attacks but with the ability to take advantage of an equipped weapon's stats and potential special abilities. Dual-Wield is especially devastating when combined with the Ranger's Rapid Fire ability and the Mystic Knight's Spellblade, allowing characters to hit eight times for potentially immense damage.
Etymology[]
A ninja was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan who specialized in unorthodox warfare. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, and open combat in certain situations.
