The Ninja is a speedy physical-based job that can dual-wield weapons with great skill. It has amazing Agility and good Dexterity and Strength, meaning it can dish out considerable damage and quickly. Although it’s fairly fragile, it can evade physical hits with ease.

Dual Wield is the Ninja’s first–and arguably best–trick, letting it wield single-handed weapons in both hands without suffering the penalty to attack power. Thus doubling its attack power. Its Utsusemi is the bane of physical-based foes, allowing guaranteed evasion of one physical hit.

Specialty: Dual Wield¶

Single-handed weapons equipped in the left and right hands do not receive the 50% penalty to attack power. This effect also applies to weapons equipped to the head or body armour slots.

Whew… no matter how you slice it, this is one amazing ability. Now that additional weapons don’t receive a penalty, you effectively double your damage ouput.

Although the game doesn’t advertise as such, Dual Wield also works in conjunction with Triple Wield and Quad Wield, so you can even triple or quadruple your attack power! Crazy!

Level 1: Shippujinrai¶

Attack one character at the start of the turn, dealing 1 times damage.

This fearsome move can be used to swiftly finish off weakened enemies before they get a chance to heal or cause further damage.

Level 2; Confuse Immunity¶

The user is immune to confuse during battles.

Confuse is one of the most frustrating ailments, so this is a great ability to equip. Of course, Peace Rings achieve the same result, but ability slots are more numerous compared to accessory slots.

Level 3: Shunshin¶

Increases the user’s evade to maximum for 6 turns (up to 150% normally).

Confusingly, this ability doesn’t allow Ninjas to evade attacks perse, unless they’re facing really low level foes. What it does is drop the enemy’s hit rate, causing their normal attacks to inflict less hits (and if all the hits miss, then your Ninja misses the attack outright).

Level 4: Transience¶

After the user evades an attack, the user counter-attacks dealing 1 times damage.

Not particularly useful by itself, but fun to have if you can blind the enemy. Which sadly doesn’t work for most bosses.

Level 5: Dual Wield¶

Single-handed weapons equipped in the left and right hands do not receive the 50% penalty to attack power. This effect also applies to weapons equipped to the head or body armour slots.

This ability doesn’t become any less amazing when used in another job. However since it costs 2 ability slots, it does limit some of the setups you could have, allowing Ninja to keep its niche somewhat.

Level 6: Utsusemi¶

The user can evade one physical attack.

An excellent ability when facing physical-oriented foes. Utsusemi and Transcience are a match made in heaven and you can pile on the blessings with the Red Mage’s Turn Tables and the Swordmaster’s Counter Amp.

Level 7: Comeback Kid¶

Each time the user evades a physical attack, their Physical Attack and Magical Attack each increase by 25% for three turns (up to 150%).

Another great ability you can stack on if you’re running Utsusemi; a bit useless without it.

Level 8: Ikkikasei¶

Increases the user’s hit count by 100% for that turn only (up to 200%).

You need to Brave or this ability is useless; to make the most of it, you should Brave three times. If you normally perform 8 hits per attack, for example, you’ll now perform 16 hits, resulting in double the damage!

Watch out that the number of hits is capped at 16 and, since Ninjas are so speedy, they’ll probably hit the cap without Ikkikasei. As such, ideally this should be combined with Frenetic Fighting (see later).

Level 9: Kairai¶

Choose an ally. From the start of the turn, for one turn, all of the enemy’s single-target physical attacks will hit the ally instead.

When up against foes that rely on single-target attacks, this ability has a lot of strategic value. For one, you could force them to attack your Ninja with Utsusemi. Or you could redirect hits to a tank or perhaps even a Fencer or Swordmaster to trigger a counter-attack.

Level 10: Frenetic Fighting¶

The maximum number of hits in a normal attack is increased from 16 to 32.

This is a great ability that’s often poorly understood. It’s great for Ninjas or similarly speedy characters who are close to or surpass the normal limit of 16 hits in a normal attack. Also works well with Ikkikasei, which doubles the number of hits.

To really make this ability shine, you can combine it with the Hawkeye’s Eagle Eye and the Ranger’s Precision. At 32 hits, you’ll get a 96% damage boost from Precision, on top of the double damage during the jump from 16 to 32 hits. Yowzers!

Level 11: Impermanence¶

Reverses buffs and debuffs for all allies or all foes for four turns. If used again, will extend the duration. The lower limit for stats is 75% and the upper limit is 150%. Does not affect Special Move, berserk or Fencer stance buffs.

This is a neat ability that can quickly turn the tables on foes. For example, if an enemy has 125% Physical Attack, this ability makes it 75%. Unfortunately, for some reason, it simply doesn’t work where it matters most–against the terrifying sin beasts.