The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

No.
You can only do 2 step due to the mechanics of the shield.
3 stepping will result in healing him due to magic damage dealt while his shield is up.
For Ninja it's best to spam Shun -> Shun with Aeonic for Light and Hi -> Hi for Dark.

Don't worry about doing like 2-4k weaponskill damage, the skillchain will still do about 15-20k damage, if not more.

That depends on your accuracy. Shun will hit harder probably due to attack bonus, but R15 kikoku would probably be better given the speedier casting time from augments and the one hit in metsu missing less than shun.

Uuuuh... not so sure about that. Hardly matters, especially if you're at capped FC, for Utsu you likely are without that and you're not really gonna cast the other ninjutsu that much, are you.

If we're talking about other weapons then I would mention Kannagi. Given the low level of buffs you get with trusts, the AM3 could be very nice for both the miniboss and Gin (thinking about the AM3 DPS in low buffs situation report that Capuchin provided some time ago)

...granted you won't be able to do Light though.
Only two weapons allowing to do 2 steps Light are Heishi Shorinken (Shun>Shun) and Kikoku (Shun<>Metsu)... I think? I'm not sure but that should be light.

Given the low buffs though I can see R15 Kikoku pulling ahead of R15 Heishi because of the att bonus and the random 2x damage procs.
Heishi is +30 acc though and on stuff like Gin that might prove really really useful.

I know it's always assumed at this point in FFXI that you're walking around capped everything but it's not always a given. Maybe I should have expounded on that a little better.

If you're not already capped, the katana makes it a lot easier. If you are capped, you still benefit because you can swap out 20% for some useful DT and meva (malignance).

But I was simply highlighting one overlooked aspect of kikoku. When you compare all weapons and what they bring to the table, and add the fact that you're practically devoid of buffs, kikoku gives you the most "ninja" bang for your buck.

20% faster (or safer) casts
Close to 200~ attack
Bonus to your bread and butter darkness WS, Metsu
Subtle blow (yeah I know everyone's always capped at every moment of every action)

In the case of heishi, if you're using shun on an already evasive monster, you're unlikely to get maximum damage potential throughout the fight because you're going to miss a good chunk of hits likely. It's a great weapon considering the attack bonus and STP, and the accuracy is sweet. Not knocking it, just saying for everything ninja does and has to be cognizant in low buff solos, R15 kikoku is well rounded and will likely pull you ahead. The enhanced casting I mentioned was small but nets benefits in your survival and DPS

It's an assumption that always gets thrown out there, and is impractical in many cases. Best I could come up with is:

ItemSet 368739

And I don't have that neck, body, or even bothered with the legs/feet augments (I'm lazy for those last few%). This is 73% which is good enough. You would use the relic+3 body and beads which will give you 9% extra casting a speed for your shadows. You can probably hit 80%, though that ring is not reasonable to include. Point I was making was the sword bridges that gap much easier and makes your casting much smoother and safer. And it's a better weapon for the discussion. You're still going to cast migawari and possibly debuffs if you can land them, Subtle blow and STP every time it wears off. But the main key is shadows and miga.

There’s a 1% belt

Woe ear is 2%

Not aware of the belt, but just put that ear in there because of all the other sweet stats paired with it

Don't forget about job points...

I said for Utsusemi, which is the only thing you'll be casting aplenty. For the rest sure, you won't be capped, but you won't be spamming those spells either so 20% less casting time is not gonna be making a huge difference on something that takes 18 mins to be killed.

This is my current precast for Utsusemi:
Herculean head (7+6 FC)
Magoraga Beads (10% casting)
Loquacious + Enchanter+1 (4%)
Mochizuki+3 (14%)
Perf Leyline (8%)
Kishar + Weather+1 (10%)
Ambu Cape (10%)
Rawhide Legs (5%)
Taeon feet (5%)

That's a total of 79%
There's 2% more from Sapience Orb which I dunno why but it's not in my precast set. Wonder why since I do own a Sapience Orb >_>'

For non Utsusemi you lose 5% in the neck slot and 4% in the body slot, so you would be at 72% FC for non-utsusemi spells.
There's at least 2% more FC that you can get from a 6% FC aug on Herc legs and Feet though (I'm using stuff with 5% in those 2 slots)



To get back in topic before I give the wrong impression that I'm fighting against Kikoku: I do think Kikoku is an excellent weapon in general, love it.
I just don't think Ninjutsu casting -20% is one of the most attractive parts of the weapon, that's all.



Edit:
Forgot about the job points hahaha
Guess you're capped for pretty much everything then with that -20% from Job Points alone, making Kikoku's third augment even more of a nichey and not particularly noteworthy stat.
I still stand by my point that Kikoku is fantastic, it's just that specific aug in particular that's nothing special.

100% forgot about this. I'm guessing this doesn't exceed the cap right? If anything it means you can build closer to a full DT build with Kikoku, 40% faster casts is incredible, I hadn't even factored these into my sets and I'm probably wayyy over.

Thanks :D

Outside of SCH shenanigans I know of no other effects to reduce casting time beyond the global 80% cap. So my assumption would be no it doesn't exceed.(?)

*shrugs*

I'm always lurking, willing to remind the NINjas. :D

With 3 tiers of utsusemi, there's never going to be in a scenario you will ever have any on a timer unless you're slowed, so dropping aother 20 FC in favor of something else probably won't hurt your recast time that much.

Oh that's for sure, especially because that doubles up the use since you can keep it for midcast if you want.

Guess Magoraga Beads and Mochizuki+3 aren't worth it anymore with those 20% from Job Points.
Time to update my set! lol

with capped haste/magic haste you only need 24 FC to cap recast reduction cap anyway, so if you can fit that into midcast somewhere thad cover you outside of slow and the like

I would like to point out 2 things:

1.
Herculean head (7+6 FC)
Magoraga Beads (10% casting)
Loquacious + Enchanter+1 (4%)
Mochizuki+3 (14%)
Perf Leyline (8%)
Kishar + Weather+1 (10%)
Ambu Cape (10%)
Rawhide Legs (5%)
Taeon feet (5%)

If you get hit while wearing this, it will hurt a lot. Not to mention getting debuffed. I'm almost sure, that in case of soloing/tanking, I would rather have like 50% casting time with 5/5 Malignance, than 80% casting time with this. Definitely for :San and probably for :Ni too, maybe not for :Ichi.

2. I wrote this already, but I think it was lost while discussing other things. Use 3000TP Tachi: Ageha. -25% def is huge when you are underbuffed.

I only precast with that, I don't midcast.
Granted I'm 1/6 on Malignance atm, but I midcast with a mixture of Meva, FC, Haste and some DT.

My set is nothing special, just random stuff assembled from the items I already possess.
NIN is a "secondary" job for me, so I don't exactely strive for the best in every single aspect.

Btw when we are talking about Glassy Gorger, you better be glad that it takes 50% more damage from slashing. Soloing on MNK and getting that midboss is the worst :O

My guy I learned the hard way at first. My dumbass used Hundred Fists and Inner Strength on this guy as he used Blessing Sync and he was attacking so fast it wasn't coming up on my chat log and it's safe to say I died within a few seconds lolol.

Try doing it with a party that has souleater and retaliate up.

I give you "I have balls" strategy chellange for Gorger.
Go NIN/DRK and use souleater. Control the fight that it will only hit you with migawari up, so it will lose 10% HP every time he hits you, but you won't die :)

I have lmao. I took an 8k crit WITH 75% pdt lmao.

When I solo on RUN I kinda do that anyways without Migawari, but since I'm solo and not a full pleb, I know to use Battuta when I use Last Resort and Souleater lol.

Risk vs reward, eh

but it wouldn't lose HP when he gets parried, would it? So what's the point of souleater?

Extra attack for big *** numbers!!!

Souleater doesn't add attack and doesn't add defense down to yourself (so to gorger when it absorbs it). I understand last resort to give attack/haste for yourself and lower Gorger def, when he absorbs it. I dont understand the point of Souleater tho. It barely adds anything to your damage (100-200 damage per swing at full HP is nothing special at all), but only thing it does for Gorger is gives him the ability to one shot you. There is only risk and there is no reward.