The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Even if this insane enmity generation from Yagyu Darkblade was an oversight, it's likely they would make adjustments to it somehow. (Don't ask me how they could even fix it without hurting ninjas or taking away this weapon's utility)

inc another nerf for NIN, LOL!? /s

There is no way SE would allow a freaking 8k CE/26k VE enmity just from a 10 second recast Utsusemi rotation. The only saving grace this stays in is if the weapon keeps its' rarity and maybe one of the dev's who knew how enmity works added this in without saying anything to the higher-ups because he/she was a huge fan of ninja's in FFXI and was mad how ninja's cant effectively tank in 119 content. (gogo wild conspiracies lolol)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tldr; enjoy this while you can whoever lucky f**ks got their stinky paws on these broken af katana.

It wouldn't be that hard to "fix". Limit enmity generation to the shadows that affect the NIN themselves (not party members). Simple as that, then there's no "broken" tanking/enmity generation aspect. Whether implementing that is too much of a technical development challenge for the current dev team is another question, but from a mechanics point of view... simple.

And the weapon would still be incredibly useful for the purpose they likely intended anyway, the party defense aspect of giving other party members shadows.

Still think this should have been a shuriken. As for locking this forever behind Bonanza, if that is the plan, single handedly the most insane decision they've ever made in this game. It doesn't make any logical sense AT ALL. This is what Nagi was supposed to be. Why make such a great weapon and only mules will ever get it?

Here’s hoping they change the mijin augment on Nagi to this so I can still off hand the odyssey katana for more enmity :D

I doubt they'll nerf it any more than it already is. The enmity gain is really only useful if what you are tanking doesn't bypass or wipe shadows. I think the balance of content right now being such that fights either ignore shadows or wipe them keeps this in balance with the game and not insanely OP unless they change shadow dynamics. I think it brings more power to NIN tanking, but not out of balance, at least in my observation (and I could be wildly mistaken). The mechanics and limitations of shadow tanking keep it in check.

One pipedream I had with this is that SE would cap the amount of players aoe spells would do damage to and, in similar effect, cap the number of shadows wiped by aoe spells or abilities. It'd be neat to see this paired with a change to where shadows were wiped based on the # of people with shadows up in the party. So let's say 6 people have 3 shadows for a total of 18, an -aga only wipes one shadow. If 6 people had 2, it erases two for most and 1 for the rest, and so on. The idea being that an -aga would only hit 18 players or shadows, then the rest would be ignored. I doubt they'd do this, but it would be one change paired with this weapon that adds some interesting party dynamics and could facilitate more tanking options with NIN.

I think Ruau's comment about the weapon reducing the need for other DDs to /NIN is probably more of what SE was going for, though, allowing NIN to provide shadows as support (esp given the cap on the # of shadows). They probably see the emnity generation as a downside to use it rather than a bonus to push NIN towards tanking. They figure that NIN can take a support role, use it to keep shadows on the party, but require some balance around enmity to prevent pulling hate, allowing other melee jobs to sub other jobs than /NIN.

NIN had its heyday during the 75 cap era, I'd love to see it return to that, but I am honestly not sure SE knows what to do with it. If they make it a more functional, widely used tank then PLD and RUN would fall off similar to those days. If they make it too potent of a DD, then combined speed of TP gain and WS damage along with survivability would make it too strong. It'll likely remain situational DD and situational tank.

The whole problem with the thinking that "SE made this weapon for ninja to fill the shadow gap while others sub something else instead", is that it's way too interdependent. Groups don't normally work in that way where one DPS is constantly hindering their own DPS to support another DPS defensively do they can continue to more damage. You give SE too much credit if you think they thought ahead to that kind of strategy.

These weapons are toys that all have unique effects; SE probably couldn't fit ninja on anything else besides maybe Icebrand, so they gave it their own weapon. And threw in the one thing they know Ninja's will be doing, casting shadows. So it's more of a cool trick: "I can give you guys shadows" that next to nobody will be able to do because of Bonanza. Nothing else to it. The fact that this thing multiplies Enmity so much is obviously an oversight because even native tank jobs cannot accrue that much Enmity so quickly . But they don't play their own game enough to know the implications when they add things

They could easily fix this weapon (they won't because next to nobody will have it) by just altering Yonin, since you only get Enmity bonus while Yonin is active.

I honestly want this Yagyu Darkblade + Yonin enmity to stay because it would make the game more interesting to me.

Reasons I say this is because -

1) It gives us more options to modify strategies that can use ninja as a tank role, whether it be as main or off tank... this katana would shift NIN's into a more respectable place in terms of value among tank roles in the current state of FFXI.

2) PLD has gotten better as a healer with Majesty, RUN has incredible hybrid tank/DPS potential along with aoe MDEF abilities and gambit/rayke to boot.

Where does this leave NIN's at?

Being a situational tank + DPS doesn't cater to the playerbase as much as PLD/RUN does, we all know this (It's pretty awesome to do respectable hybrid WS damage with recent updates but it's not enough to compete with other DPS jobs).

Yagyu Darkblade as how it currently works does help the ninja job be much more viable.

Ninja's really need an adjustment just like SE did for MNK and RDM in recent years, I don't really care how.... but I am a fan of what Yagyu Darkblade does to Ninja's, just too bad how nearly impossible to obtain status the katana is at the moment.

I loved playing ninja's in the 75 era, there's nothing else out there that offers this unique experience. Utsusemi tanking is really a wonderful gameplay mechanic that hasn't been replicated in any video game to this day other than FFXI.

Any weapon that is as limited in availability as Yagyu is doesn't help NIN as a job at all.

NIN at 75 cap was probably The Worst job in the game. NIN couldn’t do Dmg vs anything serious. NIN couldn’t even hit anything serious neither. The only Endgame usage NIN saw was THF forcing NIN to Tank and all the rest of the DD subbing /THF. NIN wasn’t actually doing anything on its own other than casting Shadows. I’m fairly certain that NIN didn’t even have A+ Katana Skill back then but rather A- instead for w/e reason.

75 cap NIN was absolute garbage compared to now. Even before everyone started doing 99,999 wsd NIN was doing legit DPS when I quit in 2016. That’s definitely not how it was back in 75 era. NIN might be the most drastically improved Job in the game since the Dawn of Abyssea.

I picked it back up recently and had some fun with it, it still feels a little behind though in a lot of aspects.

It's perfectly viable for the majority (all?) of content thanks to the power creep we got.

But if you compare it with other DPS... it's pretty low compared to most others.
This gap gets much, much smaller in situations where you can reliably make use of the Hybrid WSs I suppose.

If you ask me I still think that NIN doesn't really need THAT MUCH to be in a much better position compared to other DPS.
We could talk for hours about all the small QoL tweaks they could do to Innin, Yonin etc, but they will never have the time and will to do it.
Realistically all that NIN needs is a small buff to Katana physical WSs. Do that and NIN will be in a much, much better position.

Are you drunk? NIN/DRK tanking was fantastic.

I feel when it comes to NIN SE are afraid of the Utsusemi mess that happened at the beginning of the levle 75 era, where Utsusemi was at the same time vital and too strong.


In all honesty it's an ability that's difficult to balance. Not impossible, but difficult. I don't think there's any other example in other games.
We're talking about an ability that, when it works, completely removes the damage you would've otherwise taken. It's not mitigation, it's complete damage avoidance.
An ability that has multiple charges and that you can spam to the point you can always keep it up.

It's hard to find the right point between making it useless (for a long time in a lot of content it has been practically useless) or too strong.
I think they are very afraid of this, of giving NIN too much damage while also making it semi-invincible.


Their fear is out of place, I think it's a thing of the past, but they probably haven't got past it yet, despite all the time that has passed.

Think he was mainly referring to it as a DD, on that note while nin wasnt the high end on the DPS scale it wasnt that terrible either from memory, was in line with most of the DW DDs at the time, which were all well under 2 hander DD potential, but still completely serviceable. The fact it got to both keep its shadows, and still get the advantages of /war were actually 2 key things in its favor at the time since everyone else was stuck doing one of the other until they got natural DW waaaay later post 75 cap

I sure hope so.

Nyame did wonders for all jobs, but Ninja is probably the one job that made out the most from it due to Hybrid WS. some of them even work on the higher level Apex Monsters, and are completely broken with buffs. I think that's the most of the Ninja buff we were expecting to get that we'll ever see.

It depends on when during 75 cap you were looking at since it spanned 7 years. 2 handers were pretty junk before they were rehauled, which was why WARs always dual wielded axes and swords (even the ones that didn't have Ridill).

The job that was most improved from original release was definitely Paladin. They were originally basically WARs that could cast really weak cures but couldn't DD. They had no hate tools except for what they got from sub (not even Flash), they weren't really any more durable than normal melees unless Sentinel was up (since shields worked like parry back then), and refresh was rare and weak enough that they couldn't really cure without running out of MP very quickly.

Yeah I should have specified post 2-hander/sam update patch period. Because yeah, if you count before then nin was in an even better spot due to how TP gain worked back then if I recall.

even as a DPS, a well-geared ninja (kikoku/perdu blade) was very solid in meripo parties especially. obviously it was nigh impossible to compete with bravura and other heavy hitting 2handers in a zerg, but ninja could keep up with ridill warriors and monks in those merit parties. honestly it was all about the buffs you got from support classes.

and DPS aside, NIN/DRK was an absolute monster. /THF on dps was not a thing for hate management when NIN/DRK was king. maybe in the early stages of NA endgame when Aerial Armor rotations for the PLD/WAR was a thing. but once NIN/DRK, RDM/NIN, and PLD/NIN started tanking, you didn't need outside assistance for hate management.

My memory fails me, but I don't ever recall Ninja keeping up with Woodville/Maneater/Ridill in meripos. Maybe Monk when it wasn't exploiting KRT bones, because H2H was bad for a long time (Asuran was pretty good iirc though). Could have been just a result of how rare a good one was back then, because I don't ever remember that meta breaker.

NIN didn't keep up with MNK either. Certainly not after DNC was introduced. MNK was the best DD even on birds with DNC healer.

I also don't think counting relic weapons for merit parties is very honest. It wasn't until they raised the level cap and allowed efficient solo farming of dynamis that relics became even close to reasonable to obtain for 99% of players.

Yes, with an Earth Staff doing Weapon Bash spamming Spells for Hate & the rest of /DRK ja yet doing no Dmg whatsoever.

NIN was merely the Best Job at casting Utsusemi. Now NIN can actually equip Katanas instead doing actual Dmg vs the highest end tier of targets w/o gimmicks. Very big difference.

Tanks didn't do damage in general on worthwhile stuff back then, so NIN wasn't unique in that regard.

Melees didn't do damage to HNMs either unless they were RNG or were doing SA WSs (and the latter was very crappy damage given the delays between WSs). A DRK doing 30 per hit and 200 damage WSs with his scythe on Kirin compared to a NIN doing 15 per hit with 100 damage WSs is not a difference that actually matters. Level correction penalties screwed all melee DDs back then.

The things you're complaining about that supposedly made NIN the worst job applied to 90% of the jobs in the game at that point in the game, and NIN actually being able to tank and solo back then put them far higher than most jobs.

Sky Gods DD could actually do Dmg versus. Kirin we just used kite strat w/ BLM and SMN but we certainly used other methods of Dmg outside of BLM on Sky Gods. NIN was not up to par as a DD. Not even remotely close back then. NIN was just there for Shadows if at all.

I agree NIN as a soloist during 75 cap was extremely good & obviously in merit pt as well & ofc leveling to 75. It just lacked Dmg vs serious targets. I would say that NIN is now played the way everyone wanted NIN to play back in 75 era via doing actual DPS maintaining hate w/ voke.

Ya, it really seems like he’s kinda talking out his *** at this point.

Also, NIN/DRK tanking Omega made that ***easy mode. How can you be the worst job, yet be the best at a good chunk of content?

Lacking damage against serious targets was not a big deal back then.

If you prefer just being there strictly for Utsusemi. NIN certainly wasn’t killing anything any time soon.

I wouldn't really use Kikoku as an example... how many people were around with Kikoku back then? C'mon...
The standard for NIN were Sejuinrikio, Perdu and Fudo if I recall.

Some days I think back fondly to merit parties in sky on weapons. Senji/Unji/Unsho and keeping up with Vorpal or Rampage WARs. It really was what made me fall in love with the job.

Then /BRD tanking was broken as hell. And still hilariously fun. That got nerfed, but /DRK tanking with elemental resist sets on dragons, or as someone said, on Omega, was a riot.

Then so many things changed and SE just put their hands up in the air and said NIN, you stay the same. You're just going to be seriously gear dependent for the rest of your lives.