The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

ya but now you get +70 magic accuracy from it in your mainhand now right? to um... land ninja magic? people totally still use kurayami, hojo, and jubaku, plus those other sweet ones like yurin.....

:[

can we just get an aoe sleep ninjutsu spell?

You are aware that TP Bonus does nothing for Metsu other than extend the duration of Subtle Blow AM... right? TP bonus is great for Ten, good for Shun, and at least adds crit rate for Hi... but if you have R15 Kikoku it should be ALL METSU ALL DAY METSU IS BESTU.

really lol?

Kikoku AM up > Ten spam with TP bonus = fodder lawn mower.

mAH boi

LOL WHAT? Kikoku AM can actually help Shun (depending on whether or not you're heavily buffed for said fodder), but is mediocre for Ten. Ten spam is also incredibly crappy for SC, so you lose out on a lot of SC damage in exchange for TP Bonus offhand to a poorly suited mainhand. Feels like you're ONLY doing this cuz TP Bonus bandwagon from other jobs. TP Bonus for NIN is maaaaaaybe worth looking into for Aeonic, not for Kikoku.

Counter-points:

1) METSU METSU METSU METSU, self-darkness all day. Even better "fodder lawn mower"

2) If you have some psychological aversion to METSU IS BESTU, do Metsu>Shun. Light SC, Shun takes much better advantage of Relic AM.

3) If you're just bored and want to mix stuff up, Ten > Metsu (Fragmentation) > Shun (Light).

4) See #1 again, cuz METSU IS BESTU.

Even with Metsu AM Shun sucks unless you want to Light SC. Tbh, when comparing Katana's lately the thing that has made Kikoku beat Aeonic with TP bonus is literally just mass white damage. I have yet to run into a well geared Kannagi NIN to compare vs AM3 Kannagi though. Metsu SC properties make Kikoku my favorite Katana by far.

I agree that Metsu>Metsu>Darkness will beat spaming Ten if said fodder mobs have enough HP to actually take advantage of SC damage. That's all I can agree with tho.

How you can say Attack is better for Shun, than it is for Ten. It has no sense. Shun will always have higher attack than Ten, because of native Attack+ on WS itself, so if Attakc do somethign for Shun, it will do for Ten too, but it's far more possible to be attack capped with Shun, than Ten, so Attack has more chances to help Ten.

TP bonus to spam Ten has more sense on Kikoku, than Aeonic. With Aeonic, Moonshade and TP bonus offhand, you are at capped TP with just 1250TP. NIN will tp overflow above that frequently, making some of the TP bonus useless.

You are aware that TP Bonus doesn't affect Aftermath...right?

I think you are looking to far into this. Fodder is fodder is trash, you aren't SCing. TPbonus is without a doubt a play on the current trend. (Tizone/TPbonus is crazy strong) NINs best Main to go with TPbonus would be SU5 or Kikoku.

I'm a huge Metsu is Bestu promoter with a R15 Kikoku.

This is more an argument that TP Bonus isn't that great for Ninja, period. You're likely to waste part of the TP Bonus fairly frequently with Heishi, you have better WS options with Kikoku. TP Bonus offhand doesn't have much of a place on "serious" content, so why make one just for fodder when you're crushing the weak mobs regardless?

If you have strong buffs, like everyone here loves to assume... the relic AM is useless. If you have weak buffs to where relic AM is making a difference, Ten is going to suck (or at least be worse than Metsu). Either case, why focus on Kikoku/TP Bonus Blade: Ten spam?

People just overthinking trying to force NIN into the TP Bonus bandwagon even when it doesn't really make much sense. If you're using Kikoku on trash mobs, just spam Metsu... building a TP Bonus weapon isn't making a significant change in your effectiveness on garbage.

But I can't tell people how they want to prioritize their time, so if you wanna take the time to make a TP Bonus weapon that doesn't have much of a place for NIN... go for it? My take is that even giving the benefit of the doubt of slightly better performance on fodder (which I kinda doubt, but for argument's sake) - who cares about minor optimization on fodder?

Wat

Metsu has an 8.4 ftp at r15.

Ten has a ~12.5-13 ftp at 2250.

You can slam it all you want but it’s not as bad as you want to make it sound.

I don’t have much else to do in game. My r15 Tizona/TPbonus is really fun for farming, but i like NIN a lot more than BLU.

Metsu also has a huge built-in WSD bonus that Ten doesn't have.
Regardless, the point the other guys were tryin to make is more about the fact that TPbonus for Metsu does absolutely nothing.

I think maybe you guys are mixing the bonus granted by elemental gorgets/belt and the TPbonus granted by Moonshade and stuff like TotM Katana with TPbonus+1000?

To make things clear: TPbonus won't affect Metsu's damage nor Metsu's aftermath duration.
It would only affect the Paralysys thing.

But it isn't tied to the weaponskill? Sometimes I get paralysis proc's without AM up or having weaponskilled at all, like first swing of the fight get a proc?

I think you might be mixing things up.

Kikoku has an En-Paralysys effect of sorts. Each time you autoattack your target you have a certain chance to inflict Paralysys on it, no clue how strong of an effect we're talkin about here.

Then there is the Blade: Metsu effect. Metsu, like many other WS in game, inflicts a Paralysys effect on the target.
The duration and (I think?) potency of this Paralysys effect depends on the amount of TP you use Blade: Metsu with.

This means that Blade: Metsu damage will always be the same regardless of the amount of TP you have when you use it.

The amount of chaos on this page is funny :)


Metsu has 5.0 fTP on main hit and has +68% damage with R15 Kikoku. By writing fTP 8.4 Taint applied that +68% bonus to 5.0 fTP .



They have different WSC tho. Offhand hit for Metsu is also something that can't be dropped just like that. assuming something like 50%WSD, fTP on first hit from Metsu would be 7.5, so that additional 1 from offhand is +13% damage. Possible multi-attack proc are also quite nice for Metsu damage.

I don't want to go crazy now and build optimal sets for Ten and Metsu, but with just referencing to previous calculations, I think avg damage from Metsu should be close to avg damage with 2250 Ten. TP overflow will make Ten stronger overall, but that advantage will be in big part countered by white damage gain from ilvl offhand in Metsu setup.

Also since the Metsu is almost as strong as Ten with TP bonus, maybe Occ 2-4 hit Katana for Kikoku and spam Metsu would be way better? (idk, just throwing ideas)

Exactly.

Plus, IDK what kind of "fodder" we're talking about, but for anything that lives more than 2 WS, Metsu>Metsu also adds a strong Darkness skillchain. Ten>Ten adds nothing. That in and of itself would make me lean toward Metsu if the WS were rather close. If you're playing with other DDs, Metsu is also generally more compatible with other players' WS than Ten, resulting in more strong light/dark SCs if just spamming WS (i.e., not focusing on coordinating a SC).

"Fodder" can mean a lot of different things to different people, so yeah, depending on what you consider "fodder" (Apex mobs? Omen sweetwaters? Divergence wave 1-2 non-NMs?) the mobs sometimes do live long enough to benefit from WS spam resulting in SCs. People also might be referring to truly weak stuff like CL under 119 - in which case discussing optimal WS (or making a time consuming offhand to optimize for trash mobs) is truly dumb, because you can basically pick whichever WS has an animation you like and still get the same results, with stuff dying in 1-2 WS before accounting for SC.

Tp should not effect the para, should just be the same every time. MACC prob effects the landing rate

Why did they make the additional effect from the weapon the same status ailment as Blade: Metsu's additional effect? That's kind of redundant. And then there's Retsu and Jubaku.

???

edit: also, i thought excess tp on relics only enhanced the duration of the AM? When did it start affecting duration/potency?

Yes, you're right. If any of my comments added to the confusion, I apologize.

Relic WS do not have damage/effect that scales by TP. Only change is AM duration at 1000/2000/3000 (potency remains the same)... which ignores TP Bonus for purposes of calculating the AM duration (that actually slipped my mind for a moment on one of my earlier posts, so sorry if I confused anyone). As in, if you have 1250TP and use TP Bonus+750 in gear... the duration is still AM1 length.

AM duration is of fairly minimal importance anyway for Kikoku users, since you can constantly overwrite relic AM every time you use Metsu at any TP level - unlike Empy/Mythic AM needing to wear to reapply the more potent level 2/3.

Anyway, the point is that:
1) TP Bonus is totally useless for Metsu.
2) By extension, TP Bonus is fairly useless for KIKOKU (since it's highly questionable that you'd want to use not-Metsu).

Yeah, TP Bonus helps make Ten stronger when using any weapon, including Kikoku. But don't do that, just use Metsu since it's still better.

I'm 99.98% sure Tp doesnt effect the duration of the paralysis its probably a set duration like ageha.

Looking at the ingame description atleast of Metsu and it says nothing about paralyzing effects. I've also personally never noticed mobs being paralyzed after use but it could be because the actual weapon's add.eff.

I don't have the weapon, but BG clearly says it induces Paralyze effect. Is the description in-game different?



Also, TP Bonus page on BG says newer "TP Bonus" gear isn't active for AM effects. Strictly for damage:


https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/TP_Bonus

Right, TP Bonus doesn't affect ultimate weapon AM. This is easy to see by using an AM-granting WS with RME weapon at 1900tp with TP Bonus gear that would exceed 2000TP... you'll still get only level 1 aftermath.

The quoted piece above is still correct that TP Bonus can affect Mythics/Empys... with respect to whatever aspect of the WS you use (not just the associated WS) that is affected by TP still gains the "bonus", but AM calculation uses only actual TP (TP Bonus). For example, using a Nagi and you decide to use Blade: Ten at 2750tp with 250 TP Bonus from Moonshade Earring? Ten's damage will still be calculated as if you had 3000tp. But Mythic AM will only be applied at level 2.


It wouldn't shock me if BG was just wrong and the para was simply Kikoku's inherent en-paralyze effect. But even if Metsu does have its own paralyze, it's weak and crappy, and I doubt additional TP (including through TP Bonus) increases the potency or duration.

If anyone can confirm when they had that update where they changed a lot of WS FTP and effects (maybe was the same one where they added Atk+10% AM to Kikoku?), perhaps the update notes should shed some light.

Again though, main point is still that TP Bonus is an odd and probably not very worthwhile thing for a Kikoku user. Doesn't do anything but improve your Tens... but not to the point where it will be a better choice than Metsu.

the paralyze effect isn't from metsu.

The weaponskill itself says it paralyzes, in addition to the weapon itself paralyzing on melee swings

Which is redundant

but the weapon skill doesn't paralyze is the point. just like tornado kick wasn't an 8 hit ws

at least i've never seen it paralyze. only add. effect on autos

In game in the weaponskill description nowhere does it say blade metsu add effect paralyze