The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

100% positive on 6 FC with Fern.

Magical Path, correct?

Yeah, magic path.

According to research submitted to the wiki by Byrth any fern stone category has a 3% chance to be capped out, this is divided among 8, so your chance of seeing the capped fern augment of your choice is .03 / 8 = .00375, or about 1 in 264, if you want that accompanied with other good augs then it's no wonder you see people saying they spent 3-5k stones for one augment they wanted and still aren't totally satisfied with.

I've seen both TA 4 and FC 6 on herc. Getting a FC max aug is far easier than getting a TA 4 aug with good acc/attack and hopefully some dex on it though.

Dunno, never seen FC higher than 4, whereas I've seen plentyful of TA+4 (now if we're talking about TA+4 AND some good stats no, that only happened twice for me so far)

I've heard the 3% thing before and I don't believe it. I see 5% Critical Hit Rate/Critical Hit Damage/WSD and 4% TA on Herculean on a fairly regular basis. I think the distribution properties are different for each category. That said, I have never seen a 4% TA Kanaria.

YMMV would be nice to see the data set that was taken from though. A nice rule of thumb is whatever the average, multiply it by 2.5 and that is a not unheard of worst case scenario.

And yes TA and FC should have the same chance of being capped, the harder part was you don't really care about FC augs other than FC most the time, but for TA you want it all.

Do you have data that stratifies the capped rates for different augments? The only data I saw just assumed that the rate was the same for all of them and lumped them all together.

Just what's on bg-wiki but as I said whether it's even distribution or not which it probably is, you're going to get cases like you're saying.

I don't think Fern stones have an even distribution, I think it's more like the following (for any augment).

r = floor(f()*(b + s))

r - The resulting augment.
f() - A (0, 1) random number generator with a uniform distribution for Pellucid/Taupe augments and a normal skewed distribution for Fern augments.
b - The base cap for the stat
s - The stone bonus (1 for Fern, 5 for Taupe, unknown for Pellucid)

Fern augments with lower caps (including the bonus) would have a higher chance of getting a capped roll, particularly those with 5 or less.

Well I didn't do the testing or see raw data for it and you're gonna have to burn stones if you want the aug either way so I don't really see much point in discussing it further. You are right tho that ones that have more values may see less caps but I really don't like talking in probablies, especially since I'm not planning to test it so at that point it's not much removed from feels so gonna drop this convo, hope you take no offense. I've got capped FC on two items by the way if that helps you in any way and seen it other times I didn't keep it.

By the way I ended up using Dread Jupon for NIN fastcast body slot, though for utsusemi you have either relic body or passion jacket as options, even for midcast it works to lower recast. Legs and head would be the two best options for herc augs for utsusemi.

250 Fern Stones on Herculean Boots - 5 Triple Attack +4% augments
250 Fern Stones on Kanaria - 0 Triple Attack +4% augments

I'm still trying to get that Elusive Lino's with the Tachi: Fudo augment...

I threw about 1250ish+ fern and best I have seen is DMG +15/TA +3/ACC & ATT +15

Keep in mind weapons tend more often than not to be kinda special and different to sets when it comes to augment types and caps.
Wouldn't be surprised if Kanaria caps at 3% TA instead of 4%.

I'm not saying this is the case since 250 is quite a small sample, but then again it wouldn't surprise me if it were.

im at around 1500~ fern on kanaria, never seen past 3% and never heard of it. IMO doesnt go past 3.

Thanks for your testimony Azagarth. I threw another 200 Fern Stones at Kanaria, I did not see 4% TA. I don't think it's possible at this point (except for maybe Dark Matter.) I was wondering if this is some kind of property of Reisenjima weapons, so I decided to mess around with Colada magic path for a bit. The most Refresh I ever saw using Pellucid was 1, yet after switching over to Fern I very quickly got a 2. So the Fern Stone seems to function for that weapon/path. I've also never seen 3% Triple Attack on Skinflayer but I have not spent as many stones on those as Kanaria.

I think all this lends credit towards the distribution properties I mentioned earlier with the added information that Triple Attack +4% is not possible to roll on Kanaria (and probably Skinflayer). I am not sure if Fern stones have no effect on the Melee path for these weapons (other than forcing the slot), or if it's just Triple Attack in particular.

I think we can conclude that Fern stones are a waste of time on Kanaria and you should probably use Taupe. The +5 DEX is going to boost Blade: Ten and Blade: Shun whereas there is almost no apparent benefit to using Fern stones. Within just 250 Taupe stones, I got a 6 DMG 15 DEX 3 TA 17 Accuracy augment. I know that's not the best but I think it's fairly good, better than any of the augments I received with the 600+ Fern Stones I've used.

I have a skinflayer with 3 TA, so just keep your head up!!! I have never seen 4% on skinflayer though either, which makes me thing weapon TA caps at 4.

also your aug is very good on kanaria, better than mine. I have never got a 3 TA with high acc together..... has me dropping millions a month trying.

I also came to the came conclusion that taupe > fern for that reason. I get 3 TA with taupe already, so why not go for an extra 5 dex too. Though I think pellucid has a higher acc cap (25?) while I think taupe maxed at 20? I honestly use fern so much idk, but this is what i have seen.normally'

I have a 25 acc / 25 attack 1 QA dark matter aug, I was so sad it didnt get 3QA like the odys legs I did right ater, that would have been just amazing on a katana with the acc/att... oh to await next dark matter campign!!

Oh, sorry I meant I've never seen 4% Skinflayer. I also have 3%.

What is the consensus on a Path B Mijin? It has less accuracy than Shigi but also offers STP +5, Dex + 5 and Agi +5 while still at 190 delay.

You miss out on the Ninjutsu skill, recast and NIN tool exp. I don't think I'd use it for TP over Shigi however looking at it for path C as an alt for magic damage when Ochu isn't dropping might be worth it?

Achiuchikapu and Shigi from what I've been told are top two off-hands with shigi being better if you are needing accuracy.

sell the elixirs from mijin, and start working on shigi, anyone wanting to call themselves a nin needs it.

Yea, Shigi is a clear winner if you need more Accuracy and are potentially tanking.

I was just wondering for more of an offensive role at accuracy cap but it looks like Achiuchikapu is really good with less delay.

If you don't need acc, or need less, Taka is an excellent option as well, often underestimated.

Kanaria with really good augment is the best overall offhand (altough different situations make different offhand weapons the "best").

There's an in-detail discussion about "best offhands" some pages ago with some very nice posts from me, Capuchin and other people as well.
The best four as far as I recall are Shigi, Kanaria (with really good augments), Taka and... perfect Ochu?
I seem to recall it was those four.

What Sechs said.

Not to say Mijin isn't good, because it's a decent middle ground katana. But the argument is that if you can do Nosoi, then Giant is even easier for a Kanaria. Plus he drops stones that you can throw at it. Even with just "okay" augs kanaria pull ahead of Mijin.

I like the zi'tah dagger and katana both have magic evasion in very large amounts with path D to me that's their greatest use these days. Having enmity +4 and evasion on it too makes it suited for niche tanking, or an extreme magic evasion set.

Does anyone have an up to date NIN spreadsheet they will share please? Thank you.

Also, what is your take on Aizushintogo?

Think Langly updated the sheets recently, it should a few pages back.

The only time I use Aizushintogo is in salvage while certain armor slots are locked. Path B is probably the way to go.

Yea Aizushintogo's biggest weakness is the DW on it, which is also its strength.

I'm not familiar when it comes to working with DPS spreadsheets but I had a question regarding Single WS's like Ten/Metsu/Hi and WS Gorgets/Belts.

I understand how they contribute to the FTP of a skill (.1) and how something like Metsu with a high FTP it is only adding like 2% or something to the overall damage, so I am not confused on that.

I'm just generally curious how much more does a Caro/Grunfeld Combination add over the the gorgets/belts and if there is a situation where the Ele belt/gorge would win out?

My lack of understanding of the Weapon skill formula and how WSC works is where I am a bit lacking.

My assumption is that a certain Dex level it will be more beneficial to use Ele Gorget/belt but I have no idea what that threshold is.

And still linked on the Node in post 1. I will always keep it in the same place even with changes.

Aizushintogo is not terrible, but doesn't really seem to have a place with RMEA/Kanaria/Ochu/Shigi. Was more of a thing pre-Reisenjima.

As mentioned, the DW is the most interesting part of the weapon (whether it helps or hurts)... but NIN has enough other good DW gear that you can hit capped delay reduction without too much difficulty even with no magical haste and no DW on weapon.

FWIW, need 38~39 DW to cap delay with no magical haste. Could hit that with a variety of setups, one example (my personal max DW set for zero buffs):
- Ryuo Somen NQ (DW+8)
- Suppa/Eabani (DW+9)
- Adhemar Jacket NQ (DW+5)
- Floral Gloves (DW+5)
- Patentia Sash (DW+5)
- Hizamaru +1 feet (DW+7)
Total: DW+39

So, yeah, assuming you have access to gear, probably best to hit delay cap without sacrificing weapon. Very few exceptions like Salvage with locked slots - but really, who farms Salvage on NIN anyway when it's so much more efficient with jobs with better AoE?

And Taka!
Why do you guys keep on shitting over Taka!
I swear it's not that bad, in some circumstances it's an excellent offhand Q_Q