The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

So I was thinking, being so grossly under the attack cap sometimes on NIN, I wonder if some of these Mochizuki +3 pieces come out ahead for Blade Shun/Metsu/Ten over other options. Anyone able to run some comparison numbers?

Woops! Looks like I'm late to the party. Lots of talk over last two days. OK lots to cover.

1. Yes I am absolutely assuming the Samnuha beats Gyve in MB situations. HOWEVER, Gyve is the one piece I don't have for my magic sets so I can't do an actual test to confirm this. Still doing 10 runs or so a week so hopefully someday he will drop it for me and I can do a true proper comparison. Excited to see what we can do now with our new neck option from Sheol B.

2. Ku gearsets. Just as a reminder I keep up to date BiS gearsets for Trust and Capped situations updated on my github page for reference here. https://github.com/NextGames2000/Spreadsheets
Please note I haven't added in any changes from Sheol B equipment yet! Doing that this week. If you notice anything that gives an increase that I missed, let me know and I'll update.

So in regards to the gearset Buuki showed. It's very close to both my capped and trust BiS gearsets that I show in the spreadsheet with the following changes.

Trust BiS Changes: Aurgelmir +1 , Fotia Belt, Adhemar B Feet, Back IS STR DA.

Capped BiS Changes: Aurgelmir +1, Hachiya +3, Fotia Belt, Nin Nodowa +2, Back IS STR DA.

3. Yes I show Mochu +3 Pants as BiS in MANY situations. They include

Hi - Trust and Capped
Ten - Trust and Capped
Metsu - Trust and Capped
Kamu - Trust and Capped
Shun - I'm showing Rao HQ B as BiS w/ Trust and Jokushu w/ Capped by like 175 DPS so it's not even close... this always shocks me but it really appears as if Shun's damage isn't boosted much by WSD as no other wsd gear rises to the top in these sets either.

I've decided to make a series of videos on various mechanics in FFXI and here I started with a video on hybrid ws's since it took a lot of research even just to find the correct formula.

I think Buuki was considering whether the other Mochi+3 pieces - besides legs - have any good uses for uncapped atk situations. It's a very good question. The following Mochizuki +3 pieces look pretty good to me for uncapped atk:

Shun: Felt to me like the most likely situation where relic gear would do well, since it's a multi-hit WS. And yep, that seems true - Mochizuki +3 hands/legs/feet all look like winners with uncapped atk.
- For body, Adhemar +1 is better.
- For head, it's a very close jumble of Adhemar +1, Ken+1, Mochi +3. I get Adhemar looking slightly best for severely uncapped atk, but I default to Ken+1 myself (since they're all so close uncapped, but Ken+1 pulls ahead significantly at cap).

Metsu: Mochi +3 is pretty much legs only. But if you don't have a very good DEX/WSD Herculean Boots, Mochi +3 might be your best feet option (they beat Ken+1).

Ten: AF+3 head/Relic+3 legs are winners, no big surprises there. For the other 3 slots, I still get very good WSD Herc winning, but Mochi +3 get very close - so it kinda depends on how good your Herculean augments are. If they aren't excellent, Mochi +3 may indeed be your next best choice for uncapped atk.

OH! Thanks I completely missed that. Just echo'ing what you said this is what my uncapped spreadsheet shows... indeed it's closer than expected and I actually learned of a new BiS in 5 area's in uncapped situations.

Shun:
Mochi +3 Head is a 27 DPS loss over Adhemar B
Mochi +3 Body is a 31 DPS loss over Adhemar B
Mochi +3 Hands is only a 2 DPS loss over Adhemar B
Mochi +3 Legs is a 65 DPS loss over Rao HQ B
Mochi +3 Feet are... oh wow BiS in this setup by 9DPS over Adhemar B.... updating spreadsheet

Metsu:
Mochi +3 Head is a 39 DPS loss over Hachiya +3
Mochi +3 Body is a 28 DPS loss over Adhemar B
Mochi +3 Hands are.... oh wow BiS in this setup as well by 9 DPS again.. updating spreedsheet
Mochi +3 Legs is BiS
Mochi +3 Feet is... again wow BiS in this setup by 9 DPS over Adhemar B...updating spreadsheet.

Ten:
Mochi +3 Head is a 46 DPS loss over Haichiya +3
Mochi +3 Body is a 3 DPS loss over Adhemar B
Mochi +3 Hands are... wow a 4th and our biggest increase 51 DPS over Adhemar B... updating spreadsheet
Mochi +3 Legs are BiS
Mochi +3 Feet are... wow 5th one...8 DPS over Ryuo HQ A...updating spreadsheet

Thanks for pointing this out, I really wasn't seeing this set as being this competitive in all these area's and must have overlooked it in my spreadsheet testing. Four 8-9 DPS changes and one 51 DPS change in those Mochi +3 Hands. Good call sir!

Right on, nice video

-offhand damage/hit is factored into the multiplier right? You still rock tp offhand outside of stuff like dyna? Last I was messing with I was getting kind of low #'s so stuck with ambu offhand given all the stats and base damage. But I realize something like dyna with dmg multipliers you cant do more than 99k anyways, so not like it would matter if you're already hitting 99k.

-you happen to find if sanc. neck is doing more for you than fotia? It does have nice stats that the ws needs eg attck/mattck but I'm torn because ftp is pretty low so you get decent mileage out of fotia. Also been messing with jse neck since hybrid ws set is getting a bit low on acc for upper lvl content.

yes I'm pretty sure offhand is factored in, If you don't use tp bonus you are definitely best off with aeonic mainhand which I finished last night so I'll be testing that build a bit. Of course having an offhand like the ambuscade or the su5 not only improves offhand damage but gives you much needed acc/att/mab/macc so I could certainly see using it in situations where I'm not already hitting capped, especially if SCing with someone else so I have time to gain a bit more tp.

All three of those necks are pretty good. I'm not going to be too definitive here since I still have several more things to fix in the dps spreadsheet I've adjusted to handle Hybrid Katana WS's but it does have sanctity beating fotia narrowly pretty much always for Chi but that is reversed for To and Teki as they are one hit instead of 2 and then jse winning when desperate for acc for any of them.

Finally got some time to delve into the new Odyssey gear and how it compares. I've updated my spreadsheets to reflect the new gear that came out from Odyssey. 3 pieces came into play

Ternion +1 - Most obvious choice. Now BiS in many situations including:
Trust Setup:
Blade: Hi
Blade: Metsu
Blade: Ten

Capped Setup:
Blade: Hi
Blade: Shun
Blade: Metsu
Blade: Ku
Blade: Kamu

Fudo Masamune appears to remain best for Trust with Shun, Ku and Kamu and Hitaki remains king for Blade: Ten Capped situations.

Seething Bomblet+1 Augmented:
Now appears to be BiS for
Trust:
Blade: Metsu
Blade: Ten
Blade: Ku
Blade: Kamu

Capped:
Blade: Ten
Blade: Ku

Agony Jerkin +1 appears to now be BiS in several trust situations in the following setups:
Blade: Shun
Blade: Metsu
Blade: Ten
Blade: Kamu

Other useful pieces I'm finding for my setups not on spreadsheets:
Odnowa Earring +1 - Great additional stats on this def piece
Warder's charm +1 - This could be neat when mixed into the MB setup... currently working on upgrading and should know exact numbers soon. Also there is now enough skillchain+ gear that it's worth playing with to see what can be achieved.
Ghastly Tathlum +1 - Looks to be an upgrade for the slot in both MB and MATK setups. Options here before were all pretty close to each other but this should make it the definitive winner I think. Will work on after Warder's for exact numbers.
Alhazen Hat, Caocethic Ring - All increases to our total possible Accuracy.

Gearset Spreadsheets updated with gear for reference only.
https://github.com/NextGames2000/Spreadsheets

I'm working on a skillchain+ setup to see what this new neck offers us in the way of increased skillchain damage, especially in multi step sc's. Looks like we can get pretty close to the cap now. I'm seeing

12 from Trait
5 from Mujin Band
15 from Warder's Necklace +1
5 from UAC Jerkin
11 from Ryuo Hakama +1

So I'm counting 48. Appears that bgwiki is very out of date in this regard as it doesn't even list many of the above pieces on it's Skillchain Bonus page. Am I forgetting any that would get me that extra 2% for the 50% cap or 3 so I don't have to get a Ryuo +1?

Also, I'm assuming that it only affects the current skillchain. For instance. If I use Ten - Kamu - Shun for Light does equipping it for the Kamu only increase the Skillchain caused from Kamu or does it happen to carry over to the Shun Light sc as well? I doubt we are that lucky but just wanted to make sure I understood it completely before I started playing with it.

you can get up to 5% on taeon pieces with dusktip stones if necessary

You get 5 from Innin Merits, assuming you are behind the monster. So you should easily cap. Also, I would scrap UAC Jerkin and use Sacro Mantle, which is another 8 SCB+8% and has huge AGI/DEX Modifier, and comes with 6% WSD (this is a very underrated piece of gear because of JSE capes)

There we go! That's what I was hoping existed was a piece like that. So agreed best setup to me looks like.

12 From Trait
5 From Mujin
15 From Warders
10 From Ryuo
8 From Sacro Mantle

Capped! The Innin piece was good but I didn't want to make it so dependent on that.

Off I go to bug my LS to help me get a Sacro Mantle. Thank you sir...! will report back with findings of course.

My main thought here came from me doing my multistep sc's... they easily hit for 33-50k even though my ws's are weak and not hitting for near that figuring if I can boost that damage it may lead to more overall DPS.

You can get SCB on Herculean gear also. 5 with Fern (GL augmenting that) with Ranged path

Just thought of something...

Does anyone know if the Heishi Shorinken Aftermath of "Increases skillchain potency" takes away from the 50% cap at all?

I had considered doing this a while ago but I didn't feel like carrying the extra pieces of SCD and having a separate set of macros for when I am spamming vs Multi-stepping. Also, I think I had asked this a while back in the BLU forums, and people just said that WSD translates to just about the same thing. So how is SCD+ gear any different from just using additional WSD or gear that modifies WSD greatly (Fotia i.e.)? Does it gain successive increases for each SC performed? I am asking.

This is just my limited understanding here so bear with me but yes I think so. For instance when I multistep with my Heishi I'm only hitting for like 10-18k with Shun on Step 4 but Light is hitting for 33-48k and if I get to radiance it does even more as it seems each step adds more damage. So I was figuring boosting ws dmg by 5% is only going to increase the 10-18k number but boosting 33-48k by 5% would be a bigger benefit. Again though this is just speculation... no idea if this is going to be how it actually works. I'm only 1 piece away from the setup I mention so I'll be giving it a try soon I hope. If nothing else will be interesting to see.

This is mainly coming into play on Sheol B content, trying to come up with ways to more quickly cut through the bosses and I found a ton of success today with Self - Multistep.

I asked this question a while ago, as I had the same thinking as you.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/51743/skillchain-damage-build/1/

i want to say in nins case, a lot of their ws' are low ftp transferring WS, so wsd doesnt apply as strongly as say your avg 1 hit closer, for ws' like hi/ten/sb/metsu etc wsd is likely the way to go but shun/kamu/ku and the like can probably benefit more, though im not sure at what point one overtakes the other in terms of scd vs MA/fotia/high stat pieces, namely gorget/jse neck in this case vs warders which offers nothing but the scd.

looking over that thread looked like even in the case of sam ws theres a point where scd can overtake wsd? So dont see why nin couldnt, though itd be a pain to have seperate ws sets to shift through depending on if you sc/where in the chain the ws is

Latest A Guide To Ninja video is out. This one covering Blade: Ten Gearsets. Hope some find it helpful.

At start I just want to say that by "WS damage" in this post I mean damage of the WS, not WSD stat on gear.

Skillchain damage is based on WS damage. If you make 33k skillchain out of 10k WS, then increasing WS damage to 11k, will increase skillchain damage to 36.3k damage. So basically increasing WS damage by 10% will increase skillchain damage by 10%. Keep in mind increasing WS damage in this example would still win, because skillchain damage will be the same, but WS damage will be higher by 1k.

For skillchain damage to be worth on gear, it would need to be a big number, if you sacrifice WS damage for it.

OK that helps. Wasn't thinking of the ws dmg being multiplied as well. So lets just start with a single piece and the one that gives the biggest boost and see if that even makes sense. The new warder's charm +1 with +15 skillchain damage on it. Shouldn't this beat ninja nodowa +2 for skillchain damage? I'm asking an honest question as I'm not sure how to compare these two.

Looked over my merit allocation today and for some reason I have 5/5 Hyoton and 5/5 Katon (expected the katon to be ration) and...can’t for the life of me remember if there was a specific reason for that...or did I just screw up?

Katon to help land Aisha on something maybe, no trusts do attack down (that I can think of offhand)

Like soloing garbage gel

Undead are weak to fire so you get some use out of it, but Raiton is what I have always used since its stronger.

NIN can solo Garbage Gel or any similar slime/special rersistance NMs just as easily tossing out nukes and not engaging. They don't get TP fast enough to do anything and nukes hit for like 8k/ea. None of their TP moves can bypass shadows and it takes less than 2 min fights. The safest method by far for those kinds of monsters

Tweaked my magic burst sets thanks to the awesome recommendations in this thread from Logical and gang. Decided to go out and test the damage on some higher level mobs and see how far this can go, and with some "moderate" buffs.

Made one interesting observation regarding how acumen/malaise affected my damage and was wondering if anyone has seen something similar.


900 skill GEO indi-malaise/geo-frailty (more on why I ultimately chose this combination later), rest were just trusts for haste/heals/etc. (yoran,koru,joachim,ulmia).


This was with Heishi/Tauret. My MB set is nowhere near perfect, missing DM augs on herc hands/legs, and my Samnuha body is less than perfect so I am missing a tiny bit of MAB there as well. Everything else is pretty much on par with Logical's elite MAB/MB gear sets in his video.



Regular MB:




Futae MB:




And a juicy radiance followed up with a non-futae MB. This particular one was with fury/frailty to just see how the damage changed. My WS/SC damage went up a sizable amount but the MB dropped. Still trying to test out what the optimal approach is against these poxhounds. It’s looking like fury/frail with a 4 step radiance does most of the job and a single San or Ni MB off the radiance finishes them off so that’s probably the most overall DPS.





With Indi-malaise up the damage was pretty consistent. Bursts were always in that 30k range, and futae'd MBs were always at that 53-54k mark.


The interesting thing was, when I switched to Indi-Acumen/Geo-Malaise I expected to see a decent increase. I was surprised to see that the damage didn't really change...at all. It was more efficient to use frailty/malaise combo to up my WS/SC damage so I stuck with that. Thinking maybe I hit some kind of cap on MAB and Acumen wasn't pushing it any further? That doesn't sound right on the surface though.

What kind of numbers do you get on ilvl NMs? Normal monsters, regardless of level, generally have +0 or very low MDB, while even weak ilvl NMs often have +100 or more MDB.

Logical can probably answer that better than I can, I am sure he has some data in his head from doing this over a longer time. I was going to go to Ru Aun today to do some AA farming for a few items I need and test it out there and see how it goes.

Acumen definitely affects NIN nukes. Just went out and tested it on the same poxhounds with free nukes + MB. The question is, are you getting diminishing returns on MAB because you are combining so many buffs in the equation. But you also need to be specific with everything so we can deduce exactly why your numbers were off.

Which trusts were you using, specifically?

What level were the monsters. Did you check every one of them to make sure they were exactly the same? (Poxhounds can range from 137-139 or so)

Were you using Innin and were you behind the monster for it to be applied? I originally tested damage with Innin + Star Sibyl and was getting inconsistent results, but then I remembered that Innin decays. So by the time you fire off a 5 step radiance prepped with Futae, you lose a few ticks of Ninjutsu damage from the time you applied it. And if you aren't re-applying it or using it at the exact same tick every time, your numbers will be off? I re-tested without Innin and got more consistent numbers

Were you using Monberaux? He uses Mix: Elemental Power and Samson's Strength, which boosts MAB and Attributes (INT) resectively. So depending on if those buffs were up or not could actually throw your numbers off. Monberaux cycles through these buffs so sometimes they are not always up.

Was the GEO using Dunna? Indi-Acumen is only MAB+15(+30 with Dunna), so the value is really small in comparison to malaise. You might not even notice the increase, especially with some of the above factors differing. But even using Star Sibyl, it did appear it was adding damage to MBs as well, though it was kind of small.

With any one of these things, it could be easy to not notice much of any increase in acumen when your nukes are in the 50k-80k range and you have multiple sources of MAB working for you. Acumen is a nothingburger buff compared to anything else from what I have noticed. Even when I play BLU, it seems to not do much when I AOE farm omen and such.

edit: welp, i just dismissed Star Sibyl and tried the same set of nukes again and my numbers are all over the place. The numbers are actually GOING UP without her Acumen (though I do have Monberaux's mix). Gonna test again with zero trusts influencing the numbers

Thanks for testing that, Buukki.

Trusts were: Joachim, Ulmia, Koru, Yoran so none of these should play a factor.

GEO was 900 skill Dunna, +1 JSE neck. I know those poxhounds do fluctuate in level so I spent a good amount of time there to get a decent average and everything was within reasonable range. Only large fluctuations I did see were 50% resists.

Because of the setup I was pretty much tanking so no Innin involved.

I could try Star Sibyl but I suspect it is like you said...Acumen is just not adding a ton of value here. Malaise/No-Malaise is super noticable. That is the difference of 22k-33k I was seeing in my super quick test run this morning.