The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

maybe metsu's not the bestsu?

what the *** did you just say boshi

Do you actually need fudo for acc? If not switch to DEXnaria or ochu, +3 head. My hercs are all 10% w/ no DEX at all but im still getting minimum like 16k WS DPS. Are you buffs/mob debuffs actually set right in the sheet? Sorry if i'm repeating what Eiryl said was too busy being offended by boshi's blasphemous rantings

Nah. Don't need it for accuracy. I have a TA/DEX Kanaria, I can use that. In the sheet they seem fine. I'm just not seeing it translate to live.

This set looks like it has very little attack. What you mean by fully buffed? Whats your attack? Whats the target? What debuffs?

Yep def looks like a pDiF problem.

So kinda #butthurt about NIN getting only tier 1 Damage Limit+ job trait which is on par with RDM... thoughts?

It's largely irrelevant (for now) there is really no difference

More is more but yeah "not groundbreaking"

Sub /drk and you get tier 2 ;)

Better than nothing?
I'm more butthurt at NIN getting at level 50, meaning it won't be granted by other jobs going /NIN.

This makes /DNC a challenging alternative to /NIN now, for jobs that get no traits natively?

It's Damage Limit trait 1 + DW2 + Waltzes (and a small acc bonus through traits)
vs
Utsusemi and DW3


My DW11 builds with /NIN cry now :(

This is what I suggested to a ls member. Ninja loses, what, roughly 6-7 DA (rounded due to su3) by subbing dark and gains an extra tier bonus to attack and pdl. Last resort/berserk is a wash, and 25 from aggressor isn't much. Is it worth subbing? Roughly equal I imagine yes?

You talking about BRD yeah? I might be wrong but reaching above 3.575 pDif should already be hard for BRD on majority of end game content, so getting even higher cap wouldnt benefit us that much?

nin/drk metsu meta

I was thinking mostly about BRD yeah.

It's hard to say when you're capped or not, depends on many factors, playstyle.
If we're talking about ME and MY bard, then the majority of situations I won't be even close to cap, so that trait won't really make a big difference.

In general I wonder if it's gonna change things for other jobs.
COR maybe? They often /NIN after all, don't they.

It doesn't really make sense. Ninja was already far behind on the DD ladder now it's even further behind everyone except for THF(and possibly monk, who knows where monk is now).

Kinda making a .1 increase into a bigger deal than it is

Ninja should have gotten tier2, I would agree. But I don't think they are much further back. This is a cap increase, in most cases, you aren't going to hit it anyways.

NIN wasn't in any danger of not being able to perform effectively. From the list of tiers, it looks like they gave higher tiers to jobs that needed the most benefit, with the exception of DRK (who has all of the attack to support the highest tier, so it makes sense). PUP got higher than NIN, but NIN was strong enough to hold it's own anyways. If anything, I would have left THF at tier1 and given NIN + RDM Tier 2. Even still, no job is below Tier2 if they sub drk (NIN can get away with this).



Also, they got something right by completely leaving Corsair off of the list.

Your set is pretty solid. If you're looking for swaps, I'd look into:

1) Mochizuki Hakama +3 - I usually find them to perform no worse than sidegrade-ish to Jokushu, and easily better when uncapped cuz Atk+64/STR+13 advantage

2) Grunfeld Rope - usually spreadsheets better than Windbuffet+1 whether capped Atk or not, even better when uncapped because STR+5/Atk+20, far more consistent in all circumstances

3) Ilabrat Ring prob beats Epam in a lot of situations, though this is not likely to be a huge difference


TBH, it's not at all surprising that SAM/WAR/DRK/THF average higher. Despite people here trying to maximize NIN DD, it's really not designed to out-WS those heavy hitter 2h DDs (and THF, as the DW job that has always been the most focused on a higher proportion of DPS coming via big damage spikes from SATA stacked WS).


Meh, COR/DNC is still the same as COR natively getting tier 1 and that's still the most commonly used COR subjob. Just makes stuff like /NIN and the oddball /SCH less appealing.

Personally, I find DRG getting a higher tier than WAR SAM pretty interesting. And honestly, as someone with PUP NIN as my "main" 2 jobs - PUP getting a higher trait level than NIN is the one thing that made me shake my head the most.

/NIN was the goto SJ for melee cor before update. Using samba lowers dps because of delay and tp lose, and if you don't use it you lose dps from lower tier DW. I've used both in ambu parses before and I parse higher with /NIN overall just because less ***that needs management.

Shadow is also very good for survivability. Many of super super dangerous tp move such as fell cleave from dyna can be absorbed with shadows, it also buys player reaction time when hate are pulled because player will notice shadows decreasing.

/dnc used to be good when cor was more support than DD and step matters. These days less so as capping pdif with frailty is so much more useful. And using steps on a job with such strong dps is wasted of pt dps anyways.

I think it's very very unfortunate that se didn't give /NIN at least 1 tier. It basically punishes people using that SJ.

8% SC Bonus from /DNC is pretty freaking nice too! Especially somewhere like Dyna where you'll be quite useful in some pretty impressive SC with Leaden in particular, but also with Savage or Last Stand. Fair enough though, COR/NIN is a reasonable thing for higher DW and shadows... but now it's more a decision between that and /DNC's different offensive benefits, which doesn't strike me as particularly unfair.

For any 1h job without native DW, if you change to /DNC, you can pretty easily stack another DW+10 in gear with relatively minor loss. Only need 21 on /DNC with capped magical/gear haste. So, it really comes down to whether you really need (a) the defensive edge of Utsu Ni/Ichi and the somewhat higher gear stats from not needing to use DW gear in a couple slots, versus (b) the stuff /DNC brings to the table in PDL I + SC Bonus I + steps/waltzes/sambas (to me, more minor concerns). Particularly for COR I see no reason for too much boo hoo, given the widespread usefulness it already brings to the table across the board in any 2016-present content (strong buff slot while also being a very good DD) and especially in Divergence.

But anyway, I digress... COR talk in the NIN forum! Somewhat Ninja related though, since it applies to a variety of uses of /NIN subjob.

I do /dnc in dyna if we go mage setup for increased darkness dmg. In melee pt ws fires off fast that SC dmg matters less. In shorter fights using samba is often the difference between doing 5 ws or 6 after the fight ends, and that makes a bigger difference in overall dps than sc dmg imo.

Without haste samba I lose 10stp in tp set because extra dw required. So Yeah, gonna sacrifice something no matter what.

I think with new traits dnc probably beats nin as SJ if attack capped.

There is a serious lack of good enmity+ ninja stuff.

Eh, it isn't THAT bad. I've been able to do pretty well holding hate with Gekka/Yonin and this set for enmity actions:
ItemSet 361042

Most of the pieces are pretty solid. Might be nice to see something like a better waist/legs, but meh, can deal with what we have. That being said, yeah it's a little annoying the lack of very quickly obtainable AH-ish gear.

Head is a black hole of a slot for ilevel enm+ gear (I tossed in Genmei for the HP's effect on enmity, plus ilevel DEF and the PDT- just in case I get caught with something in this set), but there are some mediocre non-ilevel pieces like Versa Celata/+1 or Canute's Helm. Would be cool to see a good new ilevel enm+10 head or somethin' though!

If someone doesn't want to spend 30+ mils on Mochizuki+3 just for Enmity, there's Ahosi Leggings which are more tank-focused and are free.

Likewise if someone doesn't want to spend 20 mils for the neck there's Unmoving Collar +1 for Enmity+10. Again, free piece.

running into a weird issue testing apex bats with idris geo bubbles malaise and lang Ochu vs eletta katana off hand for MB. Ochu is hitting for 31618 and eletta is hitting for 33177 both are consistant not resist- light MB, lightning spell. Eletta only has 99mdmg and 30macc/30maccskill over ochu. Ochu has 4mab, 13mburst and +12stat over eletta. I cant figure out why eletta is hitting higher regardless of either gear. Even without mb eletta is doing more which i expected from the mdmg but on MB? that seems off.

edit: did more test same issue repeated with main hand.
as a baseline used same mainhand as before but changed to a non Mab/MB katana chidori and it did 25517 dmg.

MDMG matters alot for ninjutsu, unlike t456 elemental magic

its not my nin im the geo. Their set is:
5/5 relic +3, sanc necklace, sortarius earring, friomisi earring,mujin band, jse cape mab/int/macc/mdmg
its not a great set for mbing but theres a 6k difference between ochu and chidori which have almost the same mdmg and a 2k dmg difference between ochu and eletta which has a 99mdmg difference.

and im getting too tired to break it down into math atm. None of this looks right to me unless mdmg is just that powerful.

im thinking their lack of almost any mburst outside of the base ninja trait might be why mdmg is winning atm. Going to try again when they get more.

Yeah, definitely cheaper options out there, I was just posting my current set.

Rager Ledelsens +1 are also a nice cheap Enm+7 feet option that may be more practical for most than T4 Reisen HELM drops, I used them for quite a while. Or, +2 Relic feet are not too pricey. I didn’t spend a ton on my Relic +3 (got some drops, voids and shards for that piece were not so expensive anyway - certainly way less than 30m in mats if not converting Medals) and made em just because 5/5.

NQ Moonbeam neck is also viable and not that pricey, and doubles as useful SIRD gear for NIN. I like it for Utsu midcast anyway for the combo of enmity AND interrupt- just in case.

Anyway I don’t see lack of more enmity gear as that big of an issue. What more do we really need other than a better head? Gekka/Yonin are nice tools. For relatively recent stuff the Divergence katana, even HQ1 version, is great and arguably a tanking game changer. I can keep hate off buffed DRKs so I am not seeing a huge problem. Current FFXI NIN tanking issues are really gonna tend to be more about AOE damage or shadow wiping than lack of enmity gear. If anything, more native enmity JAs/spells (aside from utsu under Yonin) would be a better improvement than shoring up the handful of more mediocre gear slots.