The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Hey so relic officially picked up tonight, what did you all kill for your trials lol? i know abys is popular but id like t cp at same time if possible.

For the undead portion, I did abyssea dogs. ... I think. That was so long ago~

Trying to CP while doing killshot trials with a non-ilevel weapon strikes me as horribly inefficient for both goals. You can complete any trial in an hour or two inside Abyssea, just do that.

^^ I did the same, dogs with the occasional skeleton at Abyssea-Attohwa. IIRC, I also did Abyssea for Amorphs (leeches in Konschtat I think) and Aquans (frogs in Misareaux). Arcana are also easily handled in Abyssea, but I managed to get it to where I could get TP just in time to WS for kill on dolls in Sky (Despot hallway) so did that... but I guess there's little point now that you can even bring trusts inside Abbysea - wasn't the case when I did it.


So I did finish 269 skill Kikoku this weekend, and it's pretty great! AM is very simple to fulltime and overwrites itself at any level, so it's basically a permanent 100+ attack from AM, in addition to the attack+60 on the sword (and, if comparing to a 242-skill option, another additional 27 attack from skill).

Not sure whether this is common knowledge already, but the relic AM is 10% of BASE attack. The AM does NOT use additional attack from food, Chaos Roll, Berserk, and I assume any other attack+ buff. E.g. if you had 1000 attack before food/buffs, AM would be a constant attack+100 regardless of buffs.

Also, the AM value will be slightly less than 10% of equipment menu displayed attack value, because it's x/1024 calculation - i.e. 9.76% (100/1024) times displayed attack value.

I'm kinda thinking that for most cases, Kikoku will be best mainhand on any content that matters (where attack is likely uncapped). AGI+50 and OTD on Kannagi is certainly nice, but to me doesn't really outweigh the constant huge attack boost from Kikoku. A boosted Hi is good and with crits will give high spikes, but 40%+ Metsu is also very strong now, and Blade:Shun is also greatly improved thanks to all that extra attack and is consistently strong.

For me using Kikoku, Metsu has more or less replaced Hi for most SC purposes requiring Darkness, though Hi does retain a use for Gravitation attribute (with Metsu being Darkness/Fragementation instead) and if you need a crit WS for whatever reason (chopping off Orobon lanterns or hydra heads, etc.). Attack boosted Shun for pure damage or associated SC properties.

Relic AM is SO much easier to maintain too, since unlike Empy/Mythic, any level Relic AM can overwrite itself and you don't need 3000tp WS to get full benefit. Only difference between 1000+/2000+/3000 tp WS is AM duration (1/2/3 min), and frequent use of 1000tp+ Metsu during the fight is certainly viable (maybe open a fight with a 3000tp Metsu if you can to give one less decision to worry about though).

Comparing the upgraded RME, Nagi takes a hit thanks to lower dmg/delay, bad associated WS, finicky AM activation, Enmity+40 being undesirable if you're looking to use Innin, and lack of the extra ~160+ attack (Kikoku) or AGI+50 (Kannagi). In theory the AM3 OA2-3x may pull ahead in perfect situations, but it's a question of whether you're realistically able to maintain AM3 as needed (and assuming you can WS right away without so many DD that you're stepping on each others' toes for SCs). It's fairly easy on NIN to self-SC anyway with either Kikoku or Kannagi, so OAx isn't very necessary for that purpose in most cases.

Plus, there's that issue of ease of acquisition/upgrade, Relic's a hell of a lot easier/cheaper to obtain than Empy/Mythic for a weapon that's arguably best choice at least in many situations (including on the hardest content). If you have a 119 Empy already I don't see why not to upgrade it, but for realistic use I'd probably rank them Kikoku>Kannagi>Nagi (and Aeonic probably slides in below them).

I'm happy to hear your input on Kikoku! I should really pick up the rest of my plutons for it...

Yeah I'm sure you'll love it! Had to give some real thought to what to upgrade first, since I have limited gil/time, but I went with Kikoku and am super pleased with the results.

Also, made this offhand today, for situations where I don't need the mega-acc of Shigi.




Compared to max Ochu, it's same dmg/delay, Acc/Atk+15, Crit rate+3%, Store TP+5, FC+5%. Ochu advantages are DEX+8 (this is the big one), AGI+12 (DEX AGI on same weapon is awfully nice if you're using both Hi and Shun a lot), slightly higher Racc for Daken, and the nifty MAB/M.Burst/INT/ninjutsu skill for nukes (the main reason I would use it).

If you were a Kannagi user, could shoot for something similar on Kanaria but with AGI instead of DEX. For me with Metsu/Shun the vast majority of the time, I'm firmly in DEX-land now.

For offhand, the lower DMG augment isn't really a big deal. It's more about the other stats for an offhand, though if you were mainhanding a Kanaria you'd want a better damage aug (19 is highest I've ever received, but supposedly is +20 max).

I suspect this also comfortably beats Taka as an offhand for a Kikoku user despite the higher delay, thanks to the DEX WS mod and Store TP. Skill+14 means it has substantially more Acc (for the offhand hits) and about even Atk too. Need to get some updated spreadsheets and play with em though, and if the lower delay is the difference between being able to self-SC and not that's also obviously something in favor of a 190 delay offhand (Taka, Shigi).

For that Metsu set, would something like Seething Bomblet +1 or Grunfeld Belt be better in those slots? For the Herc pieces, I think 6~10 DEX would be more realistic if you want the 4% TA from the fern stone. Also, what are we looking at right now for our top of the line Shun set? I'm looking to putting more work into both of these sets as I kind of want to gravitate away from Hi despite how hard it's properties make it.

Personally, I've been using Jukukik/Grunfeld for both Metsu/Shun. Would be interested to see input from others though.

As far as waist is concerned, I've always been a little more conservative than some on WS in favoring consistency over potential higher spikes. So I tend to give a little more weight to Grunfeld's attributes/acc/atk (and DA+2 at least gives SOME multiattack) over Windbuffet's TA/QA+2.

For ammo, I kinda doubt Seething+1, due to Metsu/Shun both having a very heavy DEX mod.

Ah, forgot to mention the earrings too! I assume you want a Moonshade for Shun, but what other earrings are typically used? Trux seems good but then wouldn't a DEX earring end up being better? I was thinking about getting around to doing more Sovereign Behemoth to get the fancy new Pixie Earring. At night I imagine nothing would beat Lugra/+1.

I use good ol' Brutal/Moonshade, but I probably need to look into that as well.

FWIW, my current Metsu set below. Adhemar head/hands are B path (STR+10 DEX+10 Atk+15). Body is A mainly because I just have the one body, but I guess if I got another abjuration I might think about making a B for WS purposes.

As for the Herculean pieces Gippali listed, I'm sure Herc helm can win without much difficulty (I just don't have a better one than Adhemar myself). Herc Gloves, on the other hand (no pun intended), you'd need awfully great augments to beat Adhemar - maybe not the ideal use of stones if you have other stuff to use them on.

ItemSet 342506

I use both lugra earrings during nighttime, moonshade/brutal for shun during daytime and ishvara/brutal for metsu. As for belt I still use ele belt for shun, and windbuffet +1 for metsu just because I don't have grunfield lol. The sov behemoth earring is pretty good. I'd need to get around to that sometime.


Got this earlier with fern but didn't keep it because of the lower acc/att and dex ._.

It appears grunfeld seems to be evading others as well lol.

Windbuffet +1/Grunfeld/Fotia are all pretty good for Metsu depending on whats available. Fotia neck and belt for Shun, by quite a big gap (250+ pts.).

Don't know why I put down Dex as 10~15, should be 8~10 if you're shooting for TA +4, apologies. But Capuchin is correct in that the gloves would need to be near perfect augments. Really wish I could get some of the "Takisan god tier" augments (DEX12,ACC/ATT16,TA3,QA2) with Dark Matter, but that's wishful thinking. ; ;

Lurga combo is best for Metsu at night. Im getting Trux/Ishvara, Trux/Telos, Trux/Brutal are all around the same range (about 15pt.) for Metsu. Lugra +1/Moonshade is best for Shun at night. Getting Telos about 20pts. over Trux, and Trux edging out over Brutal. I haven't tested the Behe earring though, so that might change.

If Samnuha legs are giving you poopoo augments you have a couple options. Taeon with perfect augs, Herc with near perfect augs (just like hands), or Adhemar legs Path A/B. I know the Adhemar wont be the best, but at least both those paths have DEX and more ACC or some ATT. They are a very good ACC leg piece if nothing else.

My Kanaria is Currently DMG +18, DEX +6, ACC/ATT +15, Stun +2. Hopeful I can get one with higher ACC/ATT values and some TA with around the same DMG increase.

On the topic of Shun, is Gavialis Helm still the best on the proper days?

Yes should be

So far, at least on Leviathan, I'm very disappointed at Kikoku compared to Kannagi. >.< Perhaps I'm actually hitting attack cap and not noticing it. I guess maybe Leviathan isn't the absolute best thing to test it on since avatars seem to take weird amounts of damage. This could, of course, come down to me needing a better WS set. That said, I don't feel my Hi set is anything stellar either.

Heishi and Ten. Game over!

Leviathan has butt loads of defense. Its funny enough that with Nagi, Kamu performs alot better than Kikoku/Metsu did. Kikoku is still a really great weapon though, avatars are just a different story.

ya aub dont ruin it hehe :D

Finally got my trails done too, now to farm 10k pluton....

I finally got around to adding all the rules for the three new RME to my spreadsheet. My results line up with Kincards from the other thread, so nothing really new.

I'm not saying my DPS sheet is 100% legit either. I had to make a few adjustments to it, and could have messed something up. (Thanks to Langly for helping me with formulas)

These results used sam's + hunter's rolls, mad + march, with haste II and RCB for food (on Tojil). Intentionally keeping attack far from cap.

Kikoku - 1090 DPS with AM. 1075 DPS without.
Kannagi - 1219 DPS with AM1. 1069 DPS without. (AM3 was 1318 DPS)
Nagi - 1164 DPS with AM3. 1035 DPS without.

This is with all weapons using Blade Hi. I also tested Metsu, with Kikoku's relic bonus applied and 5.0 fTP mod.

Kikoku - DPS 922 with AM up.


For comparison, I threw bolster frailty on with Minuet V to cap attack.

Kikoku AM - 2191 dps / no AM 2191 dps
Kannagi AM1 - 2544 dps / no AM 2226 dps
Nagi AM3 - 2400 dps / no AM 2142 dps

Gear for TP was as follows. herc pieces had at least 3% TA and 30 ACC.
Happo +1
Adhemar A
Lissome
Brutal
Trux
Adhemar A
Herculean
Rajas
Epona
Yokaze
Windbuffet +1
Samnhua
Herculean

Gear for Blade: Hi.
Yetshila
Adhemar A
Gorget
Brutal
Lugra
Abnoba Kaftan
Ryuo D
Garuda +1
Epona
Yokaze (5% WSD)
Windbuffet +1
Samnhua
Herculean

If anyone has different results, please post them.

Hmm, I guess I wasn't wrong to feel unimpressed with Kikoku. If only you were here yesterday! Oh well, gotta catch em all, I suppose. Thanks for the information.

Thats actually very nice results to see and kind of lets us know what we had all thought. Under perfect circumstance where you can keep Am3 up then the emp/mythic rock, otherwise they are all very similar to me it seems.

The utility of kik I still enjoy and being able to just 2 step spam light also is a big benefit too IMO without having to use kamu that is.

also at like what 1/3 the cost, for us non rich people its a good trade off ~.^

Good to see someone else's numbers, mainly so I can scratch my head at my own lol.

The biggest red flag I see in your post is the use of Blade: Hi for all weapons. That's just silly. A Kannagi Holder would use it most of the time, as that makes quite a bit of sense. But a Nagi/Kikoku user would be popping AM and then riding Shun spam in a zerg situation. Your testing is really only playing into the benefits of one weapon.

This doesn't mean your tests are wrong by any means. Kannagi would still be top due to its OTD and mythic's AM being diminished by all the TA we have now. It just means the numbers would be closer then led to believe.

In all my tests I'm using Haste II, 7 songs, 4 rolls, Innin, Zerk, Warcry, Dex Boost. These would be my normal buffs when doing any zerg, which is currently Souv. Behe. I also had AM's up the entire time. That's not as realistic on Nagi, but on Kikoku/Kannagi you shouldn't have any excuse not to have some form of AM on at all times.

I am getting Kikoku and Nagi very close to each other on Tojil using Shun.
Kikoku DPS = 2047.6
Nagi DPS = 2078.7

Double March, 3 Minuet, 2 Madrigal, Chaos/Miser's/Sam's/Rogue's.

All Herc would assume stats of Dex 8-10, ACC/ATT 25-30, TA +4.

TP(ws):
Happo +1
Adhemar NQ B (Herc Head)
Yarak (Fotia)
Trux (Moonshade)
Telos (Lugra +1)
Herc head
Herc Body
Herc Hands
Hetairaoi (Ramuh +1)
Epona's
Yokaze
Windbuffet +1 (Fotia)
Samnuha
Herc


Would be nice to see the adjustment to the OTD formula in spreads. I thought I had it correct on one sheet but didn't save it before the great work laptop meltdown of 2016 -_-. I also don't have spreads with geo buffs. As always, Thank you Orestes and Langly for contributing to the Nin community!

I think we both know from real experience that Shun is a damn good WS. I just can't get it to mimic the game in the dps sheets. It always under-performs. This is most likely due to us not really knowing how it's attack penalty/bonus works. So, for the time being, I use blade hi since it's the best option in the sheets.

I did compare Metsu though, if you missed that.

Would you mind sharing your sheet? The one I have is quite outdated and would like to play around with a few builds.

Yeah, the WS choice made my senses perk up too. The other RMEAs would use Shun (or for Kikoku, solely considering self-SC you'd want to mix in some Shun->Metsu for Light). Kikoku might as well have a "Boosts Blade: Shun" effect, cause that's basically what riding attack 100+ AM is going to do for Shun. You just need to Metsu sometimes to keep AM up.

Of course, there's also something to be said for the simplicity of HI HI HI HI for ease of Darkness SC.

While I'm not shocked to see Kannagi winning at least in some (and possibly frequent) circumstances, I also wonder if it's getting overvalued/Kikoku is getting undervalued in other ways and the results should be closer/different. A few other items that came to mind:

1) Orestes, are you SURE you're handling Kikoku AM correctly? I'm a little skeptical, it seems way off that AM is only adding ~15 DPS when you're not attack capped. Relic AM will be adding over 100 attack for all hits on both hands + WS. Should have a significantly greater impact than 15 DPS (for instance, I just plugged an extra 100 attack into my TP and WS sets using a rather outdated but semi-current MNK spreadsheet I had laying around, using an averaged SR mob as target... and we were talking about an impact of like +75~90 DPS depending on changing some gear, buffs, etc.)

EDIT: also grabbed a couple other more current non-NIN Spreadsheets and did the same +100 attack to TP/WS gear, which again resulted in significant dps gains (like, triple digit dps+, up to well over 150 in an uber-BLU set). Super quick and dirty test if you want to get a ballpark figure for NIN and assume near constant AM: just ignore trying to perfect the AM model and make a Kikoku entry with atk+170 instead of atk+60 (110 more selected because my normal pre-buff/food gear is atk+11xx, so AM 10% of that)

2) Are these tests limiting Empy AM to mainhand as they should be? I'm guessing so, but doesn't hurt to mention.

3) Are you accounting for Kikoku's occ. 3x damage procs (~16% first swing)? Obviously much weaker than Empy AM, but it's something (and I forget it myself from time to time).

4) I notice assumption of stuff like Samurai Roll, which skews damage more toward WS for all comparisons and would favor higher WS numbers (i.e. Kannagi-boosted Hi spam) while weakening non-Kannagi Hi, Metsu, maybe Shun. This is all fine and good if you always have a COR running around with you. For me, I literally can't remember the last time I've had non-trust BRD+COR buffing me on one of my melee jobs so I like to spreadsheet with more realistic (for me) buff scenarios.

Also, ew... why are we still spreadsheeting for Tojil and taking that as gospel? I've always found Tojil to give weird results for current level gear, it's a strange mob anyway with super high defense and low evasion. I'm not concerned with optimizing for what's now a trash NM with abnormal stats. Make some test mob values more in line with current content (Reisenjima level NMs, 135 UNMs, Apex, even SR) - I've found that to paint a very different picture when using some other more recent spreadsheets. Unless what you actually plan to use your NIN for is spamming Tojil, I guess?

I do find it interesting that even these test results show Nagi substantially weakened (relative to the other RME). In current content it's more unrealistic to assume perma-AM3, so I rarely find real life performance to meet up to the optimal theoretical numbers in spreadsheets when most Mythics are involved (maybe like DNC SAM are a bit different in that it's easier for them to manage AM activation). And even the optimal numbers aren't overwhelming for Nagi. I don't have a Nagi myself, but from my own experience I do know that optimal use of my Kenkonken is a lot harder to actually pull off than I'd like. Bottom line, I certainly wouldn't recommend building a Nagi now when the current Kannagi/Kikoku are so good, easier/cheaper to make, and more easy to use in real gameplay. Though, hey, if you have a 119 already (or if you just love collecting NIN ultimate weapons) sure, why not.

And all this being said, I'm glad to see the work here. I haven't managed to fully update a NIN spreadsheet myself, so grateful for those who are trying to whip them into shape for the current game :)

Not really sure about that.
Shun is a cool WS but Hi still wins over Shun in many situations.
That's even more real if we're talking about situations where you're using Innin, which only benefits Hi.

Personally I'd like to see more Heishi Shorinken tests.
Wanna see how far below the others it falls.
The TPbonus+600 on Shun surely gotta matter if we're talking about a zerg situation? Likewise for the high base damage.
Even without taking into account the crappy Aftermaths, I think Heishi might prove not too far behind the others, actually maybe even better than Kikoku?

Does Heishi give Shun light properties while under AM in the early steps of SC? If so, this could allow for 2-step light spam which could compare to Hi and darkness.

Don't think so because the aftermath gets consumed after you make a LV4 light or LV4 darkness.

You need, I think, 4 steps to make Radiance. This would allow for 2-step light spam if it changes the properties like I think it might. I haven't looked into aeonic yet since I already know I want the katana and it'll be done when it's done.