The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

RUN does give up a fair bit to be able to DD. Its best DD gear is still Escha gear, so it loses a large chunk of it's meva advantage while DDing when compared to DD's these days which can access JSE+3 from two sets, or the Windy Volte set. And has very little PDT and just parry to defend itself when DDing unless they're maining Epeo, which is less damage than Lionheart. It very much is a juggle to determine how much you're going to focus on damage and how much on survival for RUN, which will vary drastically per fight.

If they were to buff NIN so top end DD was comparable to other top end DD, AND allow them to tank while doing it, it would be broken, so a Yonin/Innin switch is quite viable. But there absolutely should be tweaks to enhance both of them in their respective ways.

Which is exactely the point of what we were discussing.
Yonin and Innin need to be undispellable and each (especially Yonin) need to counterbalance the pros with some cons, so that they can't be abused.
I.e. Innin for tanking (which is unlikely) or Yonin for having a super-sturdy DD that's almost impossible to kill and would circumvein a plethora of in-game mechanics that way.

Rune is unbelievably flexible, however more often than not I’m relying on my rank 15 lion to maintain hate with damage. Rune gives up very little to toggle into DD in the short term. I’m normally on rune in situations where I have songs rolls and geo buffs. Even where something is potentially damaging rune can just pop Pflug and Battuta and basically not have to worry about defence at all.

A good example of this is the Meebles Ambu from a few months back. I would just pop battuta and last resort and spam reso unless adds popped then I’d toggle into hybrid or tank for a few second and back to full DD. The boss was normally dead before battuta wore. This is also how I’ll generally tank farming runs for Dyna D wave 1/2. Especially where you’re in a low man situation being able to kill a mob in a single ws is pretty helpful.

In full buff situations resolution seemingly does a lot more damage than blade Ten, Schun or Metsu. In order for ninja to get to that level I think we’d need to see changes to Migawari inquartata along with a damage boost. To be honest I’d be surprised if the changes coming to ninja were anything more than what we just saw from blm. I kinda doubt that we’ll see changes to any of nin’s abilities it looks like they are only handling merits. So it’ll probably be something like Ninjutsu MACC/ MB, maybe reduce decay on innin/yonin by x amount, and something random that’s probably useless.

If Ninja isn’t going to Tank it would be nice if SE would model Ninja after blue. Blues damage is higher, has comparable durability but has spells that are actually worth casting.

Sorry for rambling im on my phone*

I hear ya that there are sacrifices, but even when going balls out DD, RUN has runes, Battuta, Inquartata, Pflug, One For All, Liement, etc. It’s sturdier than your average DD for sure, especially in fights where mitigating against a single element is effective... and it's the best at resisting status effects that could cripple other jobs while still remaining in DD mode (though TBF, NIN with 5/5 Ken+1 also does pretty well on the Meva side of things while playing offensively).

And it’s not that hard to mix in some DT/hybrid gear, including on the fly (not having to give up a timer-limited stance JA to do it) like Ayanmo body (assuming no Ashera), Meg+2 legs, Moonlight Ring, etc. There’s really not much difference between NIN and RUN max DPS set, they include a lot of the same gear: Adhemar +1 head/hands, Herc feet, and Samnuha Tights are good for both jobs. Main difference is only that NIN gets Su3 Kendatsuba set for Acc/crit/Meva, while RUN gets a few Acc/DT options from Ambuscade armor.

Surprised to see all these post about fear of making nin too strong. I love nin, but man, it's in a pretty bad place. I don't think it's anywhere near being too op anytime soon.

It doesn't have a spot in a party- it doesn't have war/drk/sam level damage and doesn't offer any party utility compared to any other jobs dd brd/ dd rdm / cor / blu or even thf. I could probably shadow tank almost as good on rune given it's inquarta.

Something's has to give- I'd love to see it get some legit party utility debuff/buff, bump up it's survivability to make it more desirable, or increase it's damage a good bit. Something to warrant a spot in a party.

The magic evasion on yonin is a pretty cool idea or even maybe a damage soak for shadows on aoe- 1 shadow = 80dmg mitigation or something.

Nobody's talking about NIN being overpowered in general, the "too strong" comments were all specific to a rather wild what-if scenario regarding Yonin letting shadows absorb AOE. Since holding hate is already not hard in Yonin, and we have Migawari, that really would be a major game changer in that NIN would become a phenomenal all purpose tank while retaining very solid DPS. Wouldn't be that unreasonable at all to gimp offense a bit in that case (only in Yonin stance). You'd be opening up a whole new role to the job though, that it can't do at all today (reliably tank outside of certain niche scenarios). That would certainly make NIN more widely used than just an incremental bump in DPS that nobody would pay attention to anyway (just like MNK Impetus/acc buff hasn't changed any meta even though it was a substantial improvement).

But let's be real here, we aren't getting anything on that level anyway, so this is all just speculation for fun. More likely outcome is that we'll get a few irrelvant ninjutsu-related merits, and perhaps some minor additional job tweaks.

For monk it's more a matter of the sheeps/people not having realized fully, yet, how powerful monk is after the acc patch. Damn I was surprised to see myself parse so high despite my shitty gear and not even trying hard.

I had to see it for myself before I believed in it. So yeah, (not) surprised to see that people consider MNK still as THE ***, it's actually quite nice nowadays.

Monk is better than it was for sure. I use it all the time. But it's still miles behind Sam, war, drk, and drg, especially when impetus wears off. I have a near perfect Monk in most sets besides two levels on verethragna, and, though I can destroy your average run-of-the-mill DD in a parse, there's no chance I'm beating the heavy DD in an equal buff scenario. Have tried it on several events and it's just no comparison.

Unfortunately, If you look at things in pure DPS like 95% of the players, your going to just skip past Monk in virtually every scenario you want a DD despite how strong it already is. Like I've said before, nobody is going to take Monk seriously until it can pop out victory smites for as much as torcleaver or impulse drive can do. It doesn't mean Monk is weak at all, quite the contrary. But when all people see are numbers, if those numbers aren't eye popping then they won't turn heads. You'll impress a few people here and there who thought Monk sucked, but that's about it.

I hope they do something huge to Monk and Ninja during the monthly patch just to shake things up a tiny bit, but I already know they won't.

Hi,
I checked the OP for gearset for tp'ing and didn't see any of the relic +3 gear listed under any of the sets.

Is all the relic +3 gear useless for using for tp?

Seen someone yesterday with all +3 on and was wondering why.

It's useless?

Thx

Yes, which is not bad at all considering there are over 22 jobs in the game.
Definitely not the "lolmonk" most people (myself included before I put my hands on it) are used to think.


While clearly behind the ones you mentioned, I don't even think the difference is THAT huge, not as big as to say "MNK in place of one of the other 4 mentioned would lead to definite failure".
Pretty viable pretty much everywhere if you ask me.
Really really surprised bout it.

Just flexin' showing it off. None of it is useful for TPing. Head is nuking, body is LOL, hands NTE, legs WSD, Feet Enmity. Body would have been good if they swapped the DW with any other useful stat (high DA/TA/STP/Crit Hit even DT would have been interesting). They really goofed on that piece, it's even quite awful for DW since Adhemar+1 body exists. You get higher DW from AF+3 body for Gokutai Regain, so again, wasted potential. The Daken is cool, but it and AF+3 hands +10% bonus is fully wasted due to other pieces just being simply better. Whoever is designing Ninja gear has no idea how to make any of the pieces competitive for DPS (see strange pieces like AF+3 legs, head).

Hattori Zukin +3 is our last hope.

I'll take exception to all of relic being useless for TPing. If you have capped magical haste, then DW gear is not what you want to use.

But the legs in particular are a piece you want anyway thanks to the WSD, and if you ever happen to need a low buff DW/acc/atk option they are good (sets in the OP are a little outdated, I don't believe they have been reviewed since relic+2/+3).

I have Mochi+3 legs in my delay capped sets for:
(1) DW+39 (no haste)
(2) DW+32 (150/1024 magical haste, i.e. Haste I or equivalent)
(3) DW+21 (300~307/1024 magical haste, i.e. Haste II/equivalent),

They're a no-brainer for sets 1 and 2, and a viable option for #3 despite some more flexibility with alternatives (like, say, DW+21 from JSE cape + Adhemar+1 body + Suppa).

I don't really use Mochi+3 body for anything and made it largely for 5/5 +3 set completionism... but it's also:

- Not a totally insane choice as a high DW option. Yes, it has 1 less DW than AF+3, but is also WAY cheaper (NIN torso void/shard are dirt cheap, and AF+3 requires more expensive materials and the big hassle of farming 60 Paragon cards). Harder to justify using though, since you can likely put together better overall DW sets using Adehmar Jacket +1 for your body slot and making up the fairly small DW difference elsewhere.

- A good Utsusemi precast piece?

- LOCKSTYLEEEEE! I do have a 5/5 relic lockstyle set (not that it requires +3 anything), just to rep Ninja... though 4/5 AF and bird head is more my typical style ;)


IDK about that, with the strong TP alternatives that already existed... Between Kendatsuba having a killer combo of TA/crit/acc/racc, and Adhemar+1 offering a strong DW/TA (and crit from set bonus) option, there are very few realistic alternate combinations (much less just a swap out of DW for some other stat) that would have been that compelling as a TP piece. Your DT option is actually the most interesting to me, they could have potentially made some sort of legit non-Ashera hybrid piece.

If anything, perhaps the choice that would have been most useful would have been if they made Mochizuki Chainmail +3 a WS body with WSD+10%.

I would have preferred getting WSD+10 on the body than the legs, honestly. Legs already had a strong STR/WSD option in Hizamaru+2, so the improvement from Mochizuki+3 is fairly small relative to what they could have done in another slot. The only other body WSD choice requires Oseem augment hell on a Herc Vest. And besides, relic legs would have still retained a smaller niche as a legitimately good DW option, as noted above. They really didn't need to be the WSD+10 piece.

Artifact+3 legs sports higher accuracy, ranged accuracy, and store TP with enough DW to make the set workable with other options. Just missing the attack. My pov is If you require accuracy in a low buff set, you likewise require ranged accuracy as well as that will have a greater impact on your overall DPS, along with the stp (subtle blow is nice too). I'd pick the artifact legs over the relic in almost any scenario where I'd use the two, which is limited as is. I use it for gokotai full dw and that's about it but if you want to find a reason to use them you will.

The real issue is that ninja gear isn't well designed for any specific purpose and there are too many conflicting pieces of armor that compete for any particular slot on ninja. Both artifact and relic legs are really low on the priority list for tp pieces when compared with other options. Same could be said about the body pieces (they seriously suck).

They really didn't need to create two dual wield leg and body options for jse, especially when ninja already has the highest value in the game. Just feels like whoever designed the ninja sets literally slapped stats together without considering other already existing options.

Well, you also lose 5 DW, essentially requiring whatever sacrifice you need to make from giving up another slot for DW gear (say, using Suppa at the expense of a different TP earring). Still, I agree that DW sets are somewhat of a niche use in the first place and you do have a variety of viable options for DW gear.

My main point would be that if you want some DW legs, why bother making AF+3 when you should have Relic+3 in your bag anyway (due to their use for WS)? For people who already had the Hachiya +3 gear, great, use it as you see fit. But someone who doesn't already have it? I wouldn't really suggest anyone has a pressing need to get the obnoxiously high number of paragon cards to do body/legs (that's 115 cards to +3 both) and spend on the kinda pricey upgrade materials.


That's fair. But again, irrelevant as to making legs for the express purpose of being a TP piece. You make them as a WS piece, period. They just happen to serve double duty when you run into the less common need for a high DW option.

Another quick question,

Just made a AG kikoku yesterday and I have aeonic also,
Which should I main hand and which should be the ws or ws's I should be spamming for maximum damage.

Heishi main and spam shun or ten? Or kikoku main and spam metsu?

Thx

So relic +3 legs better than escha ru'an byakko legs compared to what OP has listed?

I R15'd kikoku and spam metsu now. Its extremely good. Aeonic I use for when I spam chi or something . That's just me though.

Thx but is relic leg better than ru'an byakko legs,
And also with non R15, what's the main and off hand from those 2?
Also which is Best options for ws.
Ty

Is Ninja great yet ? I'm Dual Wielding my *** off and I can't get any party invites.

Keep your *** on and you might be worth half the salt you spew.

I just ag a kikoku and out the box, it's weak compared to heishi. Probably much different at R15 but can say personally its not there yet as a main hand for me. I imagine R15 is quite competitive as evidenced by the comments.

Heishi/gokutai or kikoku/gokutai is good spread

Mr *** have u got something important to say for once?

Everything on the internet is important.

Relic legs versus Jokushu depends on the WS.

Blade: Ten? Mochizuki Hakama +3 is easily the best choice.

Blade: Metsu? Mochi+3 usually beat Jokushu, though that somewhat depends on buffs. While Jokushu CAN win in some situations, they're still near sidegrade territory even in the best case. Mochi+3 win in most cases, and sometimes by a wide margin (any uncapped acc/atk situation favors them), so if you're gonna just go with one... that's your choice.

Blade: Hi? Mochi+3 or Mummu+2, depending on buffs.

Blade: Shun? Jokushu are generally best WS legs, unless you're extremely accuracy-starved. WSD doesn't have too much impact on Shun as a multi-hit WS and there are so few DEX legs options.


A fresh 119 AG Kikoku is kinda disappointing relative to other high end options until you get more augments in it. You'll probably do best with mainhand Aeonic until you're at something like R9+ on Kikoku.

For either mainhand, read up on the last couple pages of posts in this topic about offhands. TL;DR version is (a) offhand Kanaria (TA+3% + whatever acc/atk/DMG/stat augs you can manage) unless you need acc, (b) use either of Ambu or Su5 katana offhand when you do need acc, and (c) don't use any RMEA weapons as offhands ever (RMEA are mainhand only).

WS depends on mainhand, and aside from selecting for SC purposes you'll generally use:

Heishi mainhand: several options depending on buffs/situation.
1) Standard physical damage with adequately high buffs is usually spamming Blade: Ten at 1250TP (effectively 2000TP after the TP Bonus from Aeonic and Moonshade Earring).
2) Lower buffs physical WS (or if you're able to hit more light SCs) is Blade: Shun spam.
3) If magical/hybrid WS are effective on your target, AND you have some magical buffs/debuffs (like a COR in party doing Wizard's Roll, a GEO using Malaise on the mob, etc.), Blade: Chi can be best option with a WS set focused on WSD/MAB/TP Bonus.

Kikoku mainhand: generally all Metsu all the time, unless you're using something else for SC purposes (but since Metsu has such good SC properties to begin with, that's a somewhat infrequent occurrence).

Kannagi is mostly sticking to Blade: Hi, and any non-RMEA mainhand are mostly sticking to Blade: Shun.

Sorry to ask such a weird nuking related questions here. The OP shows Malevolence as the Nuking weapon of choice, how do the Ambuscade Pulse weapons compare to that? Less MAB but almost double the Magic Damage+...

Second - Is there an updated MAB Set or the one in the OP pretty much still BIS?

For free nukes malevolence are pretty insane. I don't think anything currently beats two of those capped. At least when not bursting. I recall someone brought this subject up previously and malevolence still pulled ahead. Don't recall what was the final outcome as I'd use an ochu for bursting and offhand gokotai. Should be a fairly easy test which one is superior, but pretty sure those daggers were bis free/futae nukes.

Trouble is getting one of these capped, let alone two.

The set is correct with the exception of the waist in the mab set. It doesn't include Orpheus' sash, which should be an incredible improvement over eschan when you can get the distance bonus.

Okay, awesome. I guess I'll hit up Sinister Reign again sometime, not like its terribly hard anymore at least!

Say that 6 months from now when you've spammed it 1600 times and still don't have a malevolence.

RNG <Impossible to gauge!>

If you're good on Macc and doing a significant amount of free nuking, yeah, Malevolences are pretty insane and BiS.

However, another consideration with nuking is avoiding resists, and I find that NIN's biggest limitation is often magic accuracy. Magic bursts get a significant accuracy bonus, but resists tend to be a bigger concern when free nuking. Therefore, on stuff that needs more Macc, Malevolence can suffer a bit over time compared to higher Macc skill/Macc weapons (RMEA mainhands, Fudo Masamune, Gokotai, etc.).

Also relevant: are you meleeing as well? Malevolence obviously hurts melee DoT, so you really only want to pull them out for times when you're doing primarily nukes (or Aeolian Edge cleaving).

Also relevant, part II: if you're just sticking to magic bursts, Ochu becomes a more appealing choice.


Buukki beat me to it, but yeah it's largely up to date. As discussed though, Macc matters so you might not want to go 100% MAB focus, and mix in some Macc where you can (for instance, I generally prefer Sanctity Necklace's MAB+10/MAcc+10 over Baetyl MAB+13).

Also, the Herculean gear mentioned in the OP is really only for magic bursts, where you can use it to hit (or approach) the 40% cap (need 20% in augments, since you can get 20 from AF+3 feet, 5% ring, 5% earring).

For non-bursts, Herculean would have to be insanely good (likely DM augments), and you'd probably want to go with:

Head: Mochizuki+3 crushes everything.

Body: I just go Samnuha Coat on all nukes, the Macc/MAB it gets makes it difficult for Herculean augments to beat it even for free nukes, and that's before considering Samnuha is BiS for magic bursts.

Hands: Hattori Tekko +1 are great. Even without Futai, elemental damage +14% is pretty huge. I vaguely recall testing my best free nuking Herculean Hands long ago (which had room to improve, but weren't bad) and Empy still won for me.

Legs: I suppose this might be the best slot to employ a Herculean piece with high Macc&MAB, though I tend to prefer just dedicating this slot to the higher Macc alternative of Mummu Kecks +2 and skipping out on more visits to Oseem. If Macc is not a concern, Gyve Trousers are also still quite strong for MAB.

Feet: I use Hachiya +3 for all nukes, it would take godlike Herculean augments to beat them. Being charitable, maaaybe Herc could win in a situation where you don't need Hachiya's higher Macc, you aren't bursting, AND you got a very strong MAB augment on Herculean. But even then it's going to be close, so I find it practical to just use AF+3 and call it a day.