The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Are omen bosses even a good representation of tank/dding? I've done all of them with multiple jobs solo talk/dding them and I imagine it ws much faster than going nin

I've tanked them on my lolDNC without even good gear or proper sets.
With enough support any ddjob can tank Omen bosses these days, I think.

When you're with small pts or lacking "key" buffers or key roles though it's a different story.
Or, like, you wipe and need a tank to hold the omen boss while everyone else recovers.
A proper tank can do that weakened.
A DD can do that but... he would probably struggle and would pose higher risks.

From this perspective I think a weakened NIN isn't really as good as a weakened RUN or PLD, probably.
Uhm... better than most other DDs probably because of hate tools (yonin+ utsu, yo!) but the weakened status would seriously cripple your defense compared to RUN or PLD.

Tried some mainhand Ambu Katana Shenanigans this morning:
Was theorycrafting what I could do with the tp from the fast regain of this katana with idle time in Dynamis-D, using darkness ws Blade:Ei

Maybe on statues before they aggro (like in jeuno where you can literally walk right behind them in the lower embassy square and pick them off), or use it on dark weak dyna-d mobs.
Ei also skillchains (weakly) with Leaden Cors in either direction and gives ninja a way to maybe play better with magic damage oriented setups (Cor + Crocea Rdm).

ItemSet 365628
35% wsd total
68macc 68mab total from herc augs

Buffs:
Regal Necklace , crooked wiz (Lucky 5)
Idris Geo, BoG Malaise ,Indi-Acumen, Entrust Int on ninja
Voidstorm2 from SCH to simulate dyna-d weather

WS damage at 3k tp
50k peak with Bolster


45k peak damage no Bolster


At 1k TP, Damage is about 16k (compared to 6.5k with only double dark weather) and scales up linearly,
it makes a stronger case for using tp bonus offhand katana instead of malevolence depending on how long you end up idling before wanting or needing to ws. Geo buffs basically double your damage which is unsurprising to most.

Malevolence Aug: 7 Int 3 macc 5 mab
non crooked lucky wiz roll only lowered damage by 2k

I'm not able to try this out in practice in dyna-d until monday, maybe a ninja could theoretically sneak off solo and oneshot
some statues with an entrusted acumen+tactician roll+wizroll as a minimum buff.

Ag Nagi + Gokotai new bestu lockstyle btw

That katana is hot as hell! Going to be the first glowing Ambu weapon I make for my alt <3

Nice. Now I just need a prison jumpsuit lockstyle so I can fulfill my dream of a Criminal Upper-Blade Ten crossover!

Some more tryhard gearing for Gokotai katana, idle regain set BiS (no darkmatter)

ItemSet 365635
idle regain when main handing Gokotai
75dw from gear +36 base = 111 regain / tick from gear and still have slot space for dt gear that dont have any dw items available.
*HOWEVER*
** IF YOU GO OVER 64DW from gear, this regain effect breaks **

edit:
gearing past '100' regain combined from gear+katana makes you get zero regain at all , ive tried swapping gear pieces around, the regain effect breaks entirely. nice bug SE!

then add 66-79 more regain with a Rostam Cor Tactician, +10 from adloqium, so you could get 200 idle regain if it wasnt buggy.
Best regain possible right now with cor+sch buffs ends up being 189 regain/tick unless SE allows more excess gear DW to work.

-Offhand weapons excluded since weapon choice is highly situational
-Herc hands can get 6dw with fern (Floral Gauntlets is a low effort 5dw option)
-Mochi. Chainmail+3 is an alternative body, since its possible more people own that (9dw)
-Cape has 10dw augment

What my current CP PT looks like with gokotai off-hand.



Gokotai is pretty good offhand if you're MBing.

Then call me the Queen of Spades because I prefer Kannagi Nagi. I love black. . . swords.

Ninja always get shafted for real. The additional effect was cute, but not even THAT useful compared to other options (Shining One, Gaxe). And they just HAD to break it somehow huh...

I'm looking to redo my merits. I've seen Rua's guide and tend to agree with his points about subtle blow and tool expertise. I had those maxed out :X. I do have a question about which of the ninjutsu spells to cap out. Is there any benefit to any of them in regards to landing debuffs or increasing WSs? Is it just preference?

Thanks

Seems like it's just preference.

But it depends on what you use NIN for. The San spells are marginally better than Ni spells. You can get away with doing Hyoton (Ice) and Raiton (Thunder), since that covers both light and dark skillchains and are the strongest nukes you could probably use for most cases. When I was soloing JP on NIN, I maxed out Raiton so I could multi-step -> Finish MB nuke. If you're going to be nuking any higher level bosses (Kei), you'd probably want a nuke that the rest of the group is using buffs towards (storms, etc).

Personally, I enjoy nuking on Ninja, so I put one merit into every spell whenever nuking is needed, so that I could use it when necessary. TBH, you should generally have 5 in Sange anyways, so you're not going to get any real benefit to multiple San nuke(s) in the way of merits.

Very slight improvement: max Taeon feet are BiS with DW+9 (DW+4 base plus DW+5 augment). I sure as hell wouldn't lug them around, and Hizamaru+2 are an easier choice with DW+8... but yeah.



LOL so dumb.

Seriously though, stupid that the regain doesn't work in offhand. Would it have been that gamebreaking to give NIN a good source of idle regain? (also, it's kind of a clever way to counteract excess DW penalty)

the regain bug isnt the end of the world, we're currently only losing the ability to get like 12 more regain at best.
Just put on less dw gear when idle.

Most people concerned with inventory space and ease of getting dw pieces probably wont hit this issue (again, you still want some dt gear someplace for a decent idle).

With an average tact cor roll and not trying so hard to make an idle for this, most people can get around 150 regain/tick which is pretty neat.

That's interesting. Rua suggested not meriting Sange because we have Daken already and using Sange chews through shuriken.

I disagree with Rua on that point. I choose to do more damage and gain more TP. Decide what you like your NIN to do.

I love Rua but that's just bad advice. For several reasons.

Shurikens are 100% buyable with Curio, so there is never a worry about not having enough ammo anymore. If you have a rare ammo (AAGK), make a macro to swap to something more expendable like Happo Shuriken.

Additionally, Daken trait is very high on NIN, but Sange turns NIN into a TP spamming monster. You don't get close to the TP accumulation when it's down (though with the +2 neck, you'll have a high Daken rate). I don't recommend using Relic+3 body nor AF+3 hands for additional Daken, as this robs you of useful STP/TA.

Finally, Sange merits improve the ranged accuracy by 100 total. So it's damn near a requirement to boost your racc for highly evasive mobs (i.e. this and last month's ambuscades), a stat which will arguably be your worst supported in various sets. There is good acc/racc gear that ninja can gain access to, but more racc only ever helps your dps even more. Plus its guaranteed to activate. Think of how useful those weapons are that do "Chance of Follow-Up Attack" are. Sange makes this 100% process rate. Cannot substitute this at all.

There isn't a current scenario where having Sange meritted is not useful, unless you're 100% nuking. In that case, you can tailor your merits according to that fight. But in general, Sange should always be 5. Also, the other categories outside of sange are arguably gahbij (NTE is good for money i guess).

Thanks, that makes sense. Do you have a set that you switch to to get the most out of sange besides swapping shuriken to a more disposable type?

First off, I want to say that I'm 5/5 Sange and I do think that's the right call for most NINs. I use it for zerg situations. It's also pretty helpful for when I use Kannagi and want to build to 3000tp mid-fight (more of a Kannagi and Nagi weapon-specific benefit, but that's a legitimate use).

That being said, some of the comments here are seriously exaggerating how much of a benefit it is. Realistically, for most scenarios you're getting like a 1-2% DPS boost while Sange is up (which is only a a maximum of 60 of every 180 seconds, so over time Sange is adding *maybe* 1% DPS over time). This also assumes you're maximizing the benefit of the extra TP (consistently WSing without much delay, etc.)

Some considerations:

1) NIN already has a very high Daken rate without Sange:
40 (Trait V, at lv95)
14 (Gifts)
25 (max +2 JSE neck)
---
79 Daken total, ignoring any Daken+ gear (which you probably aren't using, but maaaaybe 10 more from Mochi+3 body for DW/Acc sets). So you're already getting a Daken proc on about 4/5 of all non-Sange attack rounds, meaning Sange doesn't add a *crazy* amount of extra hits.

For instance, playing with Sange toggle on a spreadsheet with a pretty standard Kikoku/Fudo setup, I'm seeing values like Sange reducing rounds/WS about 0.10-0.12 (no SAM roll, baseline non-Sange amount of about 5.0 rounds/WS), or even less with more STP buffs (e.g., SAM roll on and Sange reduces 4.11 rounds/WS to 4.04). It's something, but it's relatively minor.

2) Minor DPS losses from Ammo slot
People are probably using NQ Happo shuriken while Daken is up. Which is fine, but you also need to recognize that equipping Happo for Daken's 1min duration causes a slight dps hit from not fulltiming a shuriken that's slightly better for every melee/ranged hit (Seki, Happo+1, whatever). Really, all of Seki, Happo +1, and NQ Happo are pretty close - so while it's not a massive step down, it's another thing to consider. Hell, just using Sange also introduces a slight DPS hit from JA delay (which Sange makes up for, but another little thing to erode a little bit of Sange's benefit).

3) Sange 5/5 Racc boost.
This is undeniably a nice bonus, since a lot of people TP in sets with significantly more Acc than Racc (remember too, Daken inherently has a Racc+100 bonus). Plus, if getting BRD buffs, Madrigals further exacerbate the imbalance between melee acc and ranged acc (not affected by Mads).

Honestly, use of Sange just doesn't have a huge impact. Sange was comparatively more useful back when we had no gifts and no JSE neck (on the other hand, back then our typical melee gear was often far more lacking in Racc, which also watered Sange down a bit). Now that we're running around with 4/5 attack rounds getting a Daken proc... Sange has considerably lower impact. Still worthwhile for minor improvement, but hardly a game changer.

Edit: see Buukki's comment below, false alarm (forgot about swapping to bow wiping TP)

Double posting for a totally different topic:

PSA, final stage Ambuscade bow (Ullr) is equippable by NIN and has some very good uses. Not sure if this was discussed earlier and I just missed it, but even if so... very much worth highlighting.

DEX/STR/AGI+15 makes it a significant improvement for all of our commonly used WS. Big step up from Seething+1 (Ten) and Jukukik (Shun/Metsu), and a minor improvement over Yetshila+1 for Hi.

It's also by far our best Ninjutsu ranged/ammo piece. Macc+40 smashes the previous BiS, Yamarang (Macc+15). If you were using Pemphredo Tathlum (Macc+8/MAB+4/INT+4) for nukes, probably also an easy call to go with a huge chunk of Macc.

Splitting hairs by mentioning ja delay, ammo swap DPS loss. But ok There isn't any major exaggeration here because there is no comparable merit ability to compete with sange. Ninja gains nothing else to improve it's dps in it's normal assignments.

You literally have the option to unlock a nuke for a very niche and not oft used role, or an ability which will increase your DPS. Whether it's by 1 or 100 matters not. An increase is an increase regardless. If a ninja chooses to not unlock sange, that's fine, buthe's opting for a dps loss by choice. Simple as that.

Just no. You lose the ability to use a shuriken if you swap to a ranged weapon. So you get no benefit from daken, which is a large part of ninjas multi attack. Switching out types will wipe your TP. At best it's a magical accuracy piece for nukes or debuffs

I already said I agree that Sange 5/5 is worth it. Totally agreed that it's a better choice than the other lackluster merit options.

But I don't agree with the hyperbole from statements like:

It's a tiny increase in DPS, definitely no "monster". Like I said, over time you're looking at a sub 1% increase. Even if you're talking about an exactly 1 minute long fight with 100% Sange active time, then oooh... maybe your DPS goes up 2%?

Increase is increase, I get it. I have 5/5 Sange and use it, every little bit counts.

But let's not act like hitting Sange suddenly changes the game. It's so minor as to be fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. There is no fight in the game that will go any differently if your NIN uses Sange or doesn't use it.

EDIT: also, if we ever got a significantly better R/E shuriken, it's very likely that keeping it equipped full time could beat Sange and being forced to use Happo NQ. It's not a big deal today, because of how close the top choices of Seki/Happo/Happo+1 are... but if they gave us something with a significant boost to STP, Multiattack, crit rate/dmg, etc... it would definitely be worth re-evaluation whether Sange is worth the sacrifice. When Sange is only impacting us by ~1% or less over time, it's very conceivable that a good ammo piece could exceed that.

Bah, forgot about it wiping TP. NEVER MIND, ignore what I said. That's assuming that going shuriken to bow does wipe TP (though without double-checking it myself, I think you're right).

If for whatever reason you are focused on Ninjutsu and you already have the bow from another job (i.e., RDM), it might have some use on NIN though.

Sange is beneficial for monsters that spam annoying moves like perfect Dodge (like last months ambuscade). Also includes flying creatures that can negate physical attacks. The point of the comment is what I was responding to, which was Ruas commentary on it not being needed because of daken. Also, your speaking from a 2100 ninja perspective who may have the+2 neck. For any beginner ninja, they won't have those bonuses to daken, and that 1% increase you projected grows even more since they will always need accuracy due to not having The gifts

Again, there's nothing comparative to merit that would justify replacing sange. And nothing about ninja changes the game, period. That's a moot point. But if an ability makes it even marginally better with zero downside, why not? I mean, nte doesn't drastically change anything either but that's you're second best merit option you'll always get use out of. Nukes not so much

If using a mainhand like Heishi and using Blade: Ten, more TP does more for you than if you're mainhanding Kikoku for Metsu reasons.

Yeah, Heishi/Ten does get slightly more out of Sange - I was just doing some quick checks and Kikoku was what was on my sheet. It's still a minor impact regardless of mainhand/WS though. For most situations, for a high end NIN with reasonably strong buffs and proper gear, we're talking about increasing your DPS maybe a couple percent. And that's only during the up to 1/3 of the time Sange can be active, so even less of an overall DPS impact.

Again though: Sange is good, I think any NIN should 4/5 or 5/5 it(depending on whether you care to have all 6 element San nukes, which I kinda like). Just have realistic expectations about it - it's a minor boost that's worthwhile mainly due to not having other great merit options.


This is a fair point. The less Daken you have, the more benefit you can see from Sange. If you're a beginner NIN, Sange is even more helpful.

Also, if you're worried about losing ammo or gearswap, it's fine to just fulltime NQ Happo Shuriken that you won't mind losing. The increase from using Seki/Happo+1 is really small, and adds up to less than the gains you will see from using Sange.


Please... I'm agreeing with the main point that Sange is worth having and using, but this kind of example is the kind of thing I'm talking about. 30 seconds of Perfect Dodge where you're increasing non-Sange Daken proc rate of ~4/5 of attack rounds (assuming gifts/neck), to 5/5 of attack rounds? What is that, an extra... maybe two shuriken procs? It's trivial. Maybe you finish Ambuscade 2 seconds sooner because a NIN built slightly more TP during PD and got to WS a couple seconds sooner when PD wore.

Don't say I'm splitting hairs when you're using silly examples like this that are utterly insignificant.

But... Cap.

1 more percent is 1 more percent above that shmuck DD that thought NIN couldn't DD. :D

More katana testing against Gokotai this morning:
If you have a rank zero kikoku or nagi, save your detritus for something else, seriously.

The lowest regain of 36/tick even in a maxhaste situation pulled the ambu katana ahead of a rank 0 AG Nagi by 5-10%.

The only case where the Nagi edged ahead like 5% was in a zero buff situation with am3 kept up and blade: hi spamming same as Gokotai.
Nagi AM3 OaX was giving enough tp+ws frequency to pull it ahead of my 76 regain Gokutai no buff tp set, but again this is a zero buff scenario.

On apex bats and crabs for a couple hours I couldnt really see the difference between Blade: Hi spam with Gokotai compared to Rank 1 Kikoku spamming Metsu. This was the most suprising thing to me and i'm having a hard time justifying putting detritus into my kikoku.
For someone that rarely plays ninja or has better things to use detritus on, or a new ninja, making an ambu katana and calling it good enough is the way to go.

Anyone have heishi katana and ambu one to compare?
I think aeonic is the only one that easily pulls significantly ahead.