The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Unless my Migawari expired one nanosecond before getting hit by Fullers and I didn't notice then no, it doesn't work on Fullers.

For someone who doesn't use gs, how would you recommend toggling between Sange with NQ shurikens and Sange-down HQ shuriken? Surely you don't expect someone to change their macro every time they activate sange? (though it would only take 15 seconds but still)

As I don't use built in gearsets... I can't really tell you the best way to implement it.

Just that you should find a way. Perhaps working with separate macro books that swap when you activate sange. And another that swaps back to the original book when you notice it's down. Gonna be a manual exercise no matter how you dice it.

I guess you will just have to make a separate macro to hit when sange wears off to requip sange down shuriken. I dont know how long /wait can go but maybe /ja "sange" /equip xy shuriken /wait 60*w/e the duration is then /equip normal shuriken

But you're leaving out the times when you'd weaponskill or cast and return to your TP set.

I'm kinda fine with my default choice of 4/5 Sange due to laziness and wanting to always have every element available for San nukes for obsessive compulsive reasons (without reconfiguring merits on a case-by-case basis), but yeah choosing between 4-5 seems like the best choice. For me, Daken's innate ~100 Racc bonus plus the +25 Racc per additional Sange merit already puts my Ranged Accuracy very close to my melee accuracy, which is where I need it to be, so I don't sweat that 5th merit. But yeah, if you're using a lot of Sange and few nukes, 5/5 Sange is probably the slightly more optimal choice (and can still 5/5 one nuke for a particular SC element).

I won't rehash everything in the little Sange tangent we got onto in the recent Kannagi topic, but ultimately to summarize where I fall on the debate (and bring the discussion over to this topic where it probably belongs):

I agree that Sange is undeniably a great TP generation tool. However, I reserve it for a fight that actually matters. A hard Intense Ambuscade fight, one of the top tier Geas Fete NMs, maybe a Dynamis-Divergence NM? Sure, toss those shuriken. Other less demanding active content: Omen trash mobs (and even bosses, aside from like the last part of Ou), CP parties, Vol.2 Ambuscade, Zi'tah or easy Sky/Reisen Geas Fete, Sinister Reign, Delve plasm farming? Nope, no Sange for me.

Not only is it annoying to have to constantly burn through shuriken and keep multiple inventory slots tied up with sacks, there's the issue of cost. When you're using up to ~1/3 a stack of ~20k shuriken for every 1min Sange activation, that adds up to potentially over 100k gil/hour in shuriken if you're using Sange fairly consistently when it's up. Just like I don't use HQ food on every trash fight that is no trouble without it, I don't feel the need to go all out on consumable damage when I'm on NIN. I really don't think Sange makes a realistic difference in results on anything but the hard stuff anyway (and when we really get down to it, on melee zerg content of consequence, I'm probably not on NIN anyway... more likely I'd be on something like WAR COR or a tank).


This definitely doesn't work. Hitting a different macro when you're midway through a /wait timer will cancel the initial macro at the time you hit the new one.

Sange is tricky, especially when you want to do stuff like WS with an ammo like Yetshila/Jukukik/Seething then swap back into shuriken for TP phase.

For situations where you may be using Sange, probably the optimal solution for not wasting good ammo if you don't use or fully trust an automated GS solution is to just accept the smaller loss of using easily obtained NQ Happo Shuriken, and put your +1 away in a non-throwable storage bag. The extra DPS from Sange TP (and resulting more frequent WS and SCs) will outweigh the loss from not using the HQ shuriken. I equip my HQ if I'm doing easier content where I don't Sange, and I put it away entirely when I am gonna be in an event/fight where I may use Sange.

Applicable to Happo+1 in particular, which I have thrown before and was devastated (though I now own 2, one spare and one that I used my one-time FFXI item restore to get back!) It's not as big a deal with Seki Shuriken or something, since you have 98 screw-ups to play with. Happo+1 is rare and pricey though.

I'm just gonna sell it because there's no realistic way to do both without risking millions. Sad, I love my white box

yeah I didnt think about the metsu button and screing w/ the wait timers.
I do agree w/ rappychin id just sange and tp in NQppo and save stress

Just make 2 TP sets?

Yeah, as someone who doesn't use GS, my method is:

1) One page (2 row set) of macros with NO SANGE macro, which uses TP sets with Happo+1 (or Seki, whatever fancy shuriken I don't want to lose).

2) Macro page with a Sange JA macro (actually several pages apart from the other one to even further guard against accidents), which points to TP set with NQ Happo.

I use "plain" Windower gearsets just for the unlimited lines and out of habit, but /equipset would do the trick too. It's pretty hard to accidentally screw up, and I haven't done that yet. I further protect my Happo+1 by trying to remember to totally remove it from inventory and stash it in my mog satchel when I know I'll do Sange-worthy content, but even if I forget that, as long as I'm on the correct macro pages there's nothing there that will equip Happo+1.

While I'm not a GS expert, I do have some familiarity using it and even then, it's not that hard to have a LUA issue that could cause an unintentionally lost shuriken, lag screwing it up, etc. Even GS with a fair amount of confidence you have things programmed correctly makes me a little nervous in this particular case.

Still wish stuff like the HQ shuriken were handled like the fix to the old Patriarch Protector's Arrow and similar, where they made the item dispense one R/E arrow at a time on like a 1 week cooldown. Elegant solution: can't spam em, can't accidentally lose them forever - just a relatively short inconvenience until you can "make" a new one. I also liked Snaps' (excellent) suggestion a long time ago to make RMEA katana dispense fancy shuriken, similar to the ranged RMEAs.


First person to ever explicitly call that out :) /highfive

I must be a rare animal. I have never lost a shuriken/animikii bullet with Lua.

All it takes is a lag spike or a dropped packet, no matter how well you design the lua =/

Granted when I lost mine it was due to a small error in my lua, yes you're right.

I currently have multiple "defensive" systems active to avoid the possibility of a lost shuriken during Sange, it's still possible that I loose one if a packet-loss happens as the wrong time.
It's very very unlikely but... possible alas.

Bad answer which I know you're not looking for but I'm gonna serve it regardless (with good intentions and not shading ones): GET GEARSWAP.

Or Ashitacast, or whatever else. It's such a game changer Buukki, you can't imagine.
Give it a chance!

I've lost the bullet before, but I think that was because I was spamming QD/WS really quickly and probably re-pressed QD as the game was about to WS so I WS'd in QD set or some such thing. I'm not as twitchy as I was in my earlier days for this reason, and haven't lost anything since.

My damage macros and sets are sufficient enough without it. My computer is so archaic that I'm at the point where I'm just happy enough to run ffxi without crashing mid fight. I'm sure it's better and faster but u can perform at a very high level without it, and I have. In game gear sets aren't great but they work. I'm not sure I want to bother with gs and all that lua jazz.

Yes these are excuses and I'm lazy but let me die a lazy old man

Yeah I'm overloaded in gearsets. There's zero chance I create two macro lines and sets with sange and one without. These are the obvious limitations of windower w/o gs, I get it. But the lesser of two evils is to us nq/sange and be happy with higher dps than hq/no sange or hq/throw sange sadface.

You guys don't know how happy I was when I got happo+1 and all of you *** just crushed my dreams with this "you're hurting your dps" crap. To the pit of misery, all of you!

You don't really need extra equipset slots for the ammo. Just make a TP /equipset without ammo, then use /equipset + /equip ammo hq for the JA up, then another macro with /equip ammo nq for JA down. That way you only use 1 valuable /equipset slot but it can accommodate JA up/down TP.

This can apply to every JA up/down or weather up/down sets, and only 1 equipset slot is used that way.

It will still use 1 extra macro botton but it's less likely to run out macro botton IMO.

If you want to be absolutely safe with HQ ammo, I would make a couple of /equip ammo NQ in the JA activation macro to make sure NQ is macroed in. As long as you don't touch the HQ ammo TP set by accident you should be safe.

To avoid accident, Anza's suggestion sounds great.

Have tried that before. All of those extra clicks and back and forth between WS spam/tp set is what would cause me to mistakenly click hq/sange off macro and throw my shuriken. I've done this dozens of times with Animikii.

What you're suggesting is something like this

/equipset 99 (let's call this NIN tp set)
this set includes everything but ammo

in the normal macro use
Line 3
/equipset 99
/equip ammo "Happo Shuriken +1"
/echo **** SANGE IS OFF, USING HQ****

For sange use
Line 4
/equipset 99 (can add <wait 1> to be sure it equips happo nq)
/equip ammo "Happo Shuriken"
/equip ammo "Happo Shuriken"
/equip ammo "Happo Shuriken"
/echo ***** ACTIVATING SANGE, CHECK NQ ****
/ja "Sange" <me>

When sange wears off, I'd go back to Line 3 and resume TPing with HQ. It's a very noble idea in practice, but 3mil if I get too fast with click (or I just completely mess up and forget which book I'm on, and accidentally equip HQ during sange) would fck me up too much. I use /equipviewer, so I guess I could always test this out and try it. I appreciate your suggestion, I am just not very confident about not throwing it, and tbh the increase from NQ isn't amazing.

I'll just sell the HQ back, unless someone is willing to craft me a spare one I can keep on my mule. In that case I'll try out the above method and see how far it takes me. I'm sure it would work, im just a btcha$$ when it comes to risky maneuvers like that.

I really do wish there was a planned in-game maneuver (or even an add-on) that did not allow you to expend your last ammunition if you only had one available. Something like //lua load "lastammo". It would refuse to shoot this ammunition if you only have x1. This would force you to change your ammo or use another pouch/bullets to ensure you could never mistakenly use your last ammo.

The idea behind it would be specifically for HQ ammo uses (animikii, happo+1). Does anyone know of a game command or addon like this that exists?

Wow, this would be quite a good addition. Wish some JP could make it so we could get an official reply on it by the JP devs.

(something along the lines of: "not possible")

It's not a really difficult request I don't think. I'm sure there's ammo out there we would keep and use situationally, if only we might not risk accidentally shooting it without "Unlimited Shot", QD, something. They changed a bunch of ammo way back to make it "non-throwing". It would just be an in-game command to disable throwing if your quantity reaches 1. This would ensure that if you inadvertently get caught with Animikii or Happo+1 in ammo slot, you could never shoot it unless you disabled the feature. The only drawback of this is you might wonder why you can't shoot if you run low on ammo (which could be cured by just using another pouch/quiver).

At the very least there has to be someone familiar with addons who could create this.

fk it let me go suggest it on the OF. I haven't been banned yet.

this is already built into most cor luas out there. some don;t do it correctly and it still fails but also most just add to chat telling you it was equiped its canceling ur ws or ranged attack. u could make it add that ur out of bullets to but if u c it happen more then once it's kind of given

people also tend to add to chat that ur getting low on bullets to start with

it be the same for ninja too just that ja checking and /ra

Well then.... There's no solution then. :/

The entire point of manual swapping gear instead of automating everything with scripts is tons and tons and TONS of extra clicks, and dealing with the that evil voice in your head: "don't you dare click the wrong button and lose DPS DON'T YOU DARE".

Then feel nice when every clicks are executed perfectly, or feel bad when all clicks are done poorly.

If you don't want to deal with this, then the only solution is GS/Ashitacast.

Link it here once you're done so we can overflow you with likes!

But don't get your hopes too high. Tipically 99 out of 100 suggestions in the Eng forums get ignored by JP devs, especially these days.

So I had only seen the last post and saw you were willing to have an addon didn't realize you were expecting it with equipsets since you're already using windower/ashita if an addon is ok with you.

I don't think any addon could reasonably 100% protect you against that possiblity because addons wouldn't be able to do anything more than you can already do with "defensive" mechanisms in your Gearswap lua coding.

That is: you can reach a very high level of security but you can never be 100% safe (packet-loss and such)

The only thing that could really protect you 100% of the time is a built-in system within the game.
Like a command that you either turn on or off, for instance, exactely like what you suggesed.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/53712-Preserve-Rare-one-of-a-kind-Ammo

Hahaha nailed it.

For me personally, I get that GS is "maximum efficiency", but I don't enjoy the game when every gear choice is automated and it's a satisfying rush when YOU do all of it correctly and manually. I LIKE manually flipping between my various TP sets/idle/DT/whatever, hitting the button, monitoring it myself on the fly. The game just isn't as fun to me when I let GS handle all of that. I'm not judging anyone who does/doesn't use GS, it's just my personal preference not to because I enjoy the game more that way.

Also, while I dragged myself to a semi-passable understanding of Lua scripting, I'm not pro level enough to make the subtle little changes that I would want, and I *despise* the idea of just "gimme your lua plz" and plugging in some gear, and not having a 100% understanding of it myself.

I've never really had an issue just using Windower .txt file sets, outside of struggling a bit to figure out the best way to handle preshot RNG COR sets for varying amounts of flurry (Rapid Shot complicates things). I thought I might have to bite the bullet (pun sort of intended) and use GS, and actually put together some custom stuff that toggled the sets I wanted, but I never felt fully in control and I didn't like that. Thankfully, Afania had some good tips a while ago that really helped me manage with just a combo of Windower macro and ingame /equipset, and I took that and never looked back.