Which is better: Ranger or Ninja?

[Rhea]

I always have 3 characters: A Mook ranger, a Faerie Mage/Bishop and another Priest/Bishop (race subject to change ).

A Ranger has a huge advantage in helping you find goodies, among other things. And a Mook Ranger armed with one of the Giant Swords is awesome.

I had a Faerie Ninja and a human Ninja at different times. I liked them both very much. But they're definitely tanks.

In my current game I have a Samurai, who's doing MAJOR damage with Fang.

[FuriousGeorge]

The Ninja has some problems with its design. It's clearly inferior to other classes if going pure close combat or ranged combat. If you try to make a class good at both, you run into attrib & skill point problems.

The main advantage of Martial Arts is being able to attack with both hands without needing Dual Wield, yet if you're making a Throwing Ninja you need to build up Dual Wield (throwing 1 handed is far inferior to just using a bow, even for a ninja). Worse yet, while you're attacking with MA your Dual Wield skill won't increase.

So, since you're building Dual Wield anyway, why not just go with some weapons? So you have a dual wield critical fighter, who ends up being inferior to the Samurai. Might be OK except in addition to Weapon1, Weapon2, Dual Wield, Critical, Close Combat, Ranged Combat, Throwing; you must now invest heavily in Stealth whereas the Samurai can just put on some decent armor, and he gets Lightning Strike to boot.

Alchemy & Lockpicking (I'm not sure why a Ninja needs lockpick since Alchemy has Knock Knock in its spellbook)? Alchemy is a minimum of 2 more skills you need to learn.

All that being said, the Ninja is an excellent character to dual from. The fact that the XP table is so slow is a benefit (because you'll have more levels in your final class). Stealth and Critical are awesome abilities to enhance many other classes, the Ninja has almost every skill in the book so you can always work on skills useful for your next class, and Alchemy has some great low level spells.

[GenXCub]

What's getting on me is that I have a REALLY kick butt Melee style party, (Lord-Rogue, F-Ninja, Ranger, Bard, Bishop... RFS, Madras), but now I'm getting to the places where MAdras won't go (Bayjin, Rapax Rift) and I'm really missing my gadgeteer. I think the Ninja and the Ranger can complement each other, it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other.

Maybe next time I'll leave the Rogue out and use a Gadgeteer instead, but my Rogue does some great damage and criticals with Theives' Daggers.

Next setup will be Sam, F-Nin, Ranger, Gadgeteer, Bard, Bishop... fairly ranged group. I'll take Vi and RFS to balance that out. (Of course Vi chickens out on Rapax rift too.

Question, What are the areas that Saxx won't go?

[Bear]

A very cool-sounding suggestion that I read on another board was to start a ninja and have him/her use bows for a ranged weapon and dual nunchuks or katana/nunchuck for melee. Then, later in the game when your stealth and critical skills are nice and high (like 80 or 90), switch the ninja to ranger. That way you get the stealth and melee criticals of a ninja ( minus the 25% bonus, but still not bad) plus the better armour (******** Helm, anyone?) and long range criticals of a ranger. AND, they both cast alchemist spells, so you won't lose spell picks.

I have not tried it yet but I plan to in my next run-through. (Currently finishing up my 2nd full run.)

[Neb]

I'd say that the Ranger is better than the Ninja, Ninjas need more and better equipment to be strong than rangers do. And Rangers with mighty equipment are stronger than Ninjas with mighty equipment.

My Rangers always get more criticals than my Ninjas and often do more damage as well, PLUS, with the Triple- or Dual-Shot Crossbow they also get more attacks.

Add the fact that their attacks are ranged.