Dex also gives acc. If you're seriously hurting for acc so badly that the extra 3ish you get from going straight acc+ instead of DEX is an issue then you probably shouldn't be meleeing at all imo.
Of course you have to balance the pros and cons but +dex seems the better gamble thanks to better ws and a tiny chance to increase crit rate.

Any further testing done on Heish (nin aeonic)? I have AG kikoku right now and have been using blade ten quite a bit for 4 step SC and have been having a desire to make one possibly. But it would be a lot of work for something that maybe is crap.

What kind of "further testing" are you looking for....I there aren't many hidden stat hidden within aeonic if that's what you are asking to test.

If you enjoy Blade: Ten, you'll enjoy it even more with a Heishi... bout all there is to say.

We used a NIN with one in the SL Master Trial fight. With Aeonic Aftermath activated, you can skillchain with light property weaponskills to make double light. In this case, CDC. Master trials are limited to 6 people, so getting the most from every job role is important. The fight takes many different damage types, as each general will put on an aura that lowers damage taken from all other damage types but what they are weak to, to zero at some points. NIN can do both slashing and piercing (with the right daggers) well, as well as effectively tank. Skillchaining is also crucial to upping dps when their aura's aren't up. All of this makes NIN very well suited to it and showcases I think some of what NIN can do. Here's a link to the video if you want to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkjRTUyeJuc

So in short, it's not maybe crap, it's a very good katana for NIN.

Some notes on the tp sets posted:
There's really no reason for mache earring to be in the (non max-acc) sets except that it's omgshiny. Brutal, cessance are better options.

Regardless, if acc isnt an issue:
Neck: ainia collar
Ear2: dedition earring.

As for acc alternative set: digni. and zennaroi are both less accuracy than mache+1.

Also the Dw sets don't really make sense. The max dw set on the far left is at +39 with normal cape, +49 with dw cape.


Floral hands and ambuscade feet aren't the best trade-offs to gain dw. Ahemar to -> floral is actually a very large drop off

Using your set with a dw cape, ahemar hands, herc feet, soa ring, eabani earing would bring you too 46 and probably be the "ideal". (Lol soa ring tho)


Also for max accuracy sets:
Rao kabuto +1 (english client description has a mistake the base acc is +42 not +32).
Rao Sune-Ate +1.
Ryuo Domaru +1 (which even for non acc set need an extremelly great herc aug to beat)
and again Mache+1 beats both zennaroi and digni (but you can argue keeping telos in for racc component)
Cape: keep the dex/acc ambuscade cape.

Small note on ambuscade cape: the 3rd aug is DA not TA

Heishi is an amazing weapon that can pump out some pretty respectable numbers. I would always recommend getting it as it is a solid katana depending on the situation.

I generally find myself in Zerg situations where attempting to cordinate a multi step SC isn't feasible. So I lean towards Kikoku 65-70% of the time. Metsu spam is going to do some fantastic numbers as well as produce darkness if your fast enough in between everyone else's spam fest. Coupled with AM and AG up full time. My general rational for Metsu spam (in straight Zerg) is the above points and that you will usually fire off five Metsu's for every four Shun's/Ten's. You don't need to hold TP for Metsu to be effective. However, you will always be holding to at least 1250 with Heishi and moonshade.

When you have the support and maybe another coordinating DD ( can do solo as well though) to complete an aeonic four step you will see better performance with Heishi.

You are probably correct in that in some situations Cessance Earring will certainly perform well enough over Mache+1 that you should be using it instead.


First, I'd like to know why you feel you need 46 DW in gear?

With the typo taken into account, this is a great helm for acc needs. Giving the exact same accuracy total as a perfectly augmented Herculean Helm for Acc/DEX, and just slightly higher than a fully augmented Dampening Tam. Ryuo +1(A) does have more though.

I'd probably still stick with Herculean with maximum augs. But these give a great ~72 accuracy on Path A.


Domaru +1 giving 84 total accuracy is pretty large. Adhemar Jacket +1 does give more.


Ha ha, noticed, and fixed! Thank you.

At first I though this too, but checking ffxi calc is does show you need 46 DW to cap with 0 forms of haste. I have always followed the 39 DW with 35 natural as the norm. Thinking logically though 35+46 = 81 which is cap, and 39+35 = 74 which would not be. What am I overlooking or is it really 46 Oo? I do feel like i gain a bit less tp in my full DW set, but I always assumed that was the stp, DW loss of stp, and just general little bit lower acc.

On a lot of that gear, you will also find Haste+. You leaving that out of your calculation? Sure sounds like it.

Edit: It's been said before. Probably something like a thousand times by now. But I'll place it here anyway in order to help.

Total DW Needed = 1 - (0.2 / (1 - TotalHaste%))

I'll let you plug in .25 (gear haste) in that equation. If you end up with 40+ DW you made a mistake somewhere. Adding more DW than necessary is going to kill your TP gain~

Thats what i always assumed ad ya i had 15% haste on the calc haha, not 26% which is what i tp in :D

btw i used that formula always, which is why i was all wtf at first too :D

forms so dead, did everyone quit nin all of a sudden?

Q; do you fulltime emp body when under the effect of migwari? I do currently but idk if it is really needed at this point.

I'd rather Migawari proc on the attack that hits me for ~70%+ of my HP than ~58%-69%. Losing ~58%-69% of my HP is manageable for a WHM to heal up and not really necessary for Migawari to absorb. Seems better for the effect remain and focus on something that's going to hit me a bit harder.

Yeah, a part of me wishes that the Ambuscade cape didn't have that stat on it.

What are people doing for Group 2 Ninja merits these days?

Sange seems pretty strong now, do people go 5/5 Sange and where the relic body while its up?

Or is there a better way to spend the merits?

I'm definitely a 5/5 Sange user. I love to burn through shurikens for tp gain.

But no, I don't wear the body for the duration. I use it as a tool for expedited tp generation.

Where do you put the other 5 merits? Do you 1/5 most of the sans or max out another one?

Sange cost me a Happo Shuriken +1... F Sange. I don't trust myself to use it and not accidentally throw super expensive and hard to get ammo. I know I'm missing out on TP, don't care!

*I used my one-time item restore to get it back, because no Happo+1s were sold on my server for months (there was an AH gap from December 2014 all the way to this March when one person crafted some, now it's gone again). Picked up a backup when some were up, but I'm scared to lose it again...

So anyway, I'm 1/5 each San spell and 4/5 NTE. If I cared more about elemental ninjutsu it prob would make more sense to do one 5/5 and the rest 1/5. I'm fine with my lolNTE though.

I have not done any spreadsheet comparisons but I feel like Seki Shuriken is better than Happo Shuriken. I value Store TP more than Critical Hit Rate and it makes the accuracy delta between Daken and auto attacks less severe.

Also I've been ruminating about the following skillchain (which I have not tested.)

Blade: Ku -> Blade: Retsu -> Blade: Shun -> Blade: Ten -> Blade: Kamu -> Blade: Shun -> Blade: Shun.

It should be Distortion -> Fusion -> Gravitation -> Fragmentation -> Light -> Radiance with 1000~1999 Shun aftermath. Ryuo Hakama +1 and Mujin Band can be used to add 11% and 5% skillchain bonus. Combined with the ninja job trait it's 28% (although Ryuo might not worth using on Blade: Ten or Blade: Kamu, not sure.) You can cap this just using Mujin Band if you have Allies' Roll. I might test it out on Reisenjima T1 to see how it does later tonight.

If you like MB'ing with Ninjutsu I recommend getting one dark and one light element 5/5. The effect of mochizuki hatsuburi +1 is quite noticable when used with 5/5 spells. If you go 5/5 in both merit categories for two elements you can get some nice MB numbers.

Well gaining TP doesn't seem like a bad thing, and I don't think I will ever have expensive ammo to throw away. Not sure how fast you'd go through a stack of shurikens though.


Seems to be a lot of different views here.

If you go 5/5 Sange would splitting the other five merits between two san spells (One light based, one dark based) be the best route?

Spreadsheet disagrees, even NQ Happo beats Seki easily in a few quick sets I tried. Obviously Happo+1 even better.

Seems intuitive to me too. NIN gets a decent bit out of white damage, so Happo/+1 crit rate is quite helpful, in addition to bringing some melee accuracy that helps on anything hard that you aren't capped on. Seki's 2 store tp is fairly minimal, and may provide virtually zero benefit depending on total store TP in your set. While the higher throwing skill (and in turn ranged accuracy for TP generation) is something, realistically it's either not enough of a difference to make your Racc good enough to matter a lot (on hard content), or you're capping Racc anyway with the 14 less skill on Happo (plus whatever Racc stats on your TP gear).


Honestly, merits come so easily now that I'd probably suggest modifying it based on what you tend to be doing on NIN at the time. If you're doing a lot of Apex parties and trying to MB, do 5/5 of one each light/dark spells. If you're doing more of a typical melee role, might go Sange.

If you just want to set merits and forget them, I find that at least having all elements available is sometimes handy so maybe do one element 5/5, 1/5 in the others, and Sange 4/5 with your remaining (or NTE if you're like me and don't really care much about either Sange or nukes).

I think Sange is good (don't think reforged body is worth using). I'd say go 5/5 in one San and just change them as needed (I usually have extra merits around.)

I just use togakushi for sange and seki for tp. Free is nice, plus you actually make gil when farming togakushis.

I was going for the all around, but I keep forgetting how easy merits are to come by. Thank you guys for the advice. I greatly appreciate it!

Good question....any1 did the math? Assuming Sange is up and you can attack the complete 1min without interruption. For the sake of it lets assume no WS either and you have capped haste and stuff. How many shurikens would you burn through in one Sange?

Your base TP needs to be under 50 per strike in order for 2 STP to possibly not provide something. Using 35 + 6 DW, there's only two reasonable katana combinations where that's possible. 210 + 180 and 210 + 190 (unless you consider 190 + 180, nobody is ever going to use that.) In those cases it's still very rare, you would need exactly 50 or 100 (210 + 180) store TP or 100 (210 + 190) I use Heishi + Blade: Ten more often than anything else. Over TP helps, so it would never go to waste by any means.

I'd be curious to hear how you modeled this. I can see it possibly being better in specific situations but I highly doubt that in capped haste/attack/accuracy (my most common melee environment) that it wins.

I think it depends on the weapon but Kikoku + Shigi = 80 Delay w/ capped Dual Wield.

60 delay = 1 second

80 delay = 1.3 seconds

That would be ~46 shurikens thrown in a minute assuming you can only throw one per round.


Going a bit further assuming that the shuriken generates TP with the same formula : Happo would be

61+[(192-180)×88÷360] = ~64 TP per throw

Sange would give you a guaranteed 2944 TP.

Since Daken already has a 54% proc rate at full jp then Sange is really only adding an extra 21-22 attacks per minute of use or ~1354 TP.

You'll burn around 20-30 depending on how many multi attacks you have and recycle if you have any. Having less mutil attack, you'll burn much more.

I think it's unquestionably better to use (sange) rather than to not use although I do question how practical it is inventory wise.