The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

My pet peve with evisceration is that you sacrifice a lot of defensive gear/DT/Meva during the weapon skill to optimize damage.

Whereas you can Savage Blade/Blade Ten in full Nyame and never get caught with your pants down mid swap.

Basically the reason I made a R15 Mandau for RDM.

On the plus side you have Migwari to fall back on NIN.

While not quite as strong defensively as Nyame, the main choices for Evisceration aren't THAT bad. Mpaca has a ton of PDT-, good DEF, and great MDB (though mediocre Meva), and Kendatsuba has good Meva. Plus you have shadows and Migawari.

So, not Nyame... but it's also not as if we're talking about stuff with absolute garbage defensive stats like an Adhemar or worse.

Wow, great commentary.

I'd just like to underline how Snapshot capes are so awesome paired with snapshot/rapidshot gear. This affects shurikens? Any OG players know that if you are lining up a pull and it takes 2 sec to fire, that's time for the other mob to enter agro range. With the gear, you hit your macro/keybind and the mob turns red.

Also! Jobs have options to deal ranged damage and it can be a significant other dimension to a job. I have snapshot/rapidshots for my thief and sam and it's been a huge quality of life improvement over the past like 5 years. I have Arebati ready ranged sets (tp bonus/Ullr etc) for my thief and I even trained up to make Beryllium Arrows through crafting across 3 chars (all one account). The synergy part is a *** though.

If you mean using RA with shurikens, yes it works

Another returning player! I'm mostly a solo player with minimal group help as I'm on a very small server and only know a few people. I'm wondering if Kikoku is still decent enough to warrant making? Also, if anyone could point me in the direction to find the most up to date on gear sets that would be awesome! Or, share your current sets would be great too. I have access to sortie and have Ninja unlocked to +3, but getting muffins is rare for me.

I still use my Kikoku because it's the simplest way to make a 2-step darkness. It's not ultra powerful, but on things that take decent SC damage and I'm just messing around with trust buffs, it's decent.

is it worth it to make? That's a really hard question to answer. I already have one, and I still use it in some instances, but if I had to make one from scratch right now, would I bother? Honestly, I'd probably just get a Heishi Shorinken and call it a day, since that'd be faster and cheaper than upgrading the relic with trials, then 119 III with plutons, then R15 with Swarts. Only you can decide if the money/time/effort is worth it to you since only you will know what you will use it for and how much. I made mine because I loved Ninja, not for the damage, so it didn't matter to me. But you might think it's a waste of time, so you should personally decide that on your own. Nonetheless, it's a good (but not great or fantastic) weapon. Also, it's inferior to a much easier to get weapon in Naegling, and Gokotai might be somewhat close to Kikoku. So there's options next to Kikoku that produce similar results. That might all weigh into your decisions


As far as gear sets, I'm sure one of Logicals pages keeps them up to date. But the wiki has many of the sets still looking somewhat current (I haven't peer reviewed it but it looks close to mine).

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/All_Jobs_Gear_Sets/Ninja

Thanks for the reply! I'd much rather get Heishi, but unfortunately getting an Aeonic done is near impossible for me. The few people I know are "holding until fall or later" to do Aeonics for their group. I'd be happy to buy the clear, but I haven't heard of any mercs on Sylph to take up. That's mainly why I'm considering making Kikoku because it's something I can do on my own.

I'll definitely check out Logical's page to see what info I can pull from there. I just upgraded all Empy gear to 109 yesterday so still gotta get it to 119 and then figure what I can afford with the little muffins I have for an upgrade as I have 51k and a few stones to use.

It sounds like you're in a unique situation where Kikoku may benefit you, but there are other things to consider. Kikoku is relatively inexpensive to make the weapon, but to make it strong, you need upgrades, which require certain event progress. If you're not able to get an aeonic clear done, it is unlikely you will get the Dynamis-D clear done to be able to R15 the Kikoku. I think that would be out of reach for you. In that case, my example of Kikoku's power and usefulness won't get anywhere near its full potential, so going down that path right now without clears/resources might be a waste of time. I would suggest grabbing a Gokotai (Pulse ambu weapon) and work your way from there.

Before I left back in 2022 I was able to get with a Dynamis group and get all zones cleared. I also do have one Aeonic, but the journey to get to the finish line was anything but fun. If I was going to R15 I'd have to choose between Twashtar, Trishula, Apoc, Guttler (I love Bst!), and a fresh Masamune (Sam has less than 200 JP).

I took a look at the Ambu katana, and I didn't realize its base damage was higher than Kikoku. I suppose I could do that one and offhand Kunimitsu. I'd need to farm a pulse as I've already used what koupons I could.

In the end I'm weighing the option of the relic more so because I'm not really sure how much time I'd save getting the ambu katana. However, I need the pulse one way or the other because I do not have Shining One done.

Oh, well if you have the Relic zone clear, that would be a huge plus, since you'd be able to R15 it. Personally, I am not a fan of Gokotai and I never use it outside of just nuking situations or a rare event where I need to abuse the DW>>TP effect, so I would default to Kikoku anyways. I only backtracked and mentioned it when it sounded like you might have had trouble getting those clears for R15, figuring Gokotai was an easy option you can get in an hour or so farming a T3 ZiTah NM.

gokotai is worth getting for lockstyle

After getting several other stage 4 weapons I still have this irrational desire to make Dokoku. Anyone messing with it outside of sortie on various things? Any change in the “wow this is underwhelming” initial reactions? Chances are I would never ever bring ninja into sortie because I’m on dnc for life in there.

Does anyone have any data on that parrying rate+ value for Issekigan? I know its considered relatively substantial... but was wondering if there were actual numbers out there.

No hard numbers beyond the 1200 VE/300 CE per parry afaik, best ive seen is jp saying it "seems" like a 50% increase on enemies of a similar level, always just assumed it was similar to run/plds parry/shield boost and just raised your rate 30~50%~ regardless of what your current base was, which matters more for pld where their rate can go below the floor though that's only with aegis these days

I have been trying to do harder and harder challenges. I have seen on youtube a few solo dharkot fights. I tried it on NIN a couple of times with less success than I hoped.

My trusts were good but i just simply couldn't get enough acc to consistently hit to be able to spam ws and eventually we just ran out of dmg and died. Anyone have a "this is crazy" level of ACC build that would be useful in this fight? I'm currently using the sets from the python build but that aims for ~1350 on the "high acc" set from what I read I need closer to 1550-1600 for this fool.

Isn't empy+3 all the accuracy you'll need? That should be the highest you can get in those slots. Kuyin trust and Cornelia add some too, then there's sushi. Even with Malignance you shouldn't have a problem hitting.

I think dhartok is closer to 1600 ACC, maybe even 1650, not sure. When I tried him melee on BLU TP gain wasn't exactly fantastic either, but you have to mind you're sacrificing STP and multi attack for those levels of ACC.
Did you remember to pull him out of his miasma? They cause drown (-STR) and I think he gains a regen while standing in those which can hamper DDing quite a bit.

The true beauty of Kikoku is not it's dmg, because Heishi, Kannagi, and even Gokotai stomp it, the beauty of Kikoku, is it's low delay, aftermath of Atk+10% (The SB+10 is.. eh) again Atk+10% and that it is the closest we will ever get to having Jubaku: Ni and San. I have R15 Heishi, and there are still some fights I default to Kikoku

Ehr...

I'm not even convinced Gokotai "stomps" Kikoku. I get it's not great but it's consistent and self SCs an easy darkness that can be burst with tier 3. I just used my Kikoku a few minutes ago. Still a decent weapon.

Yeah that's an insane statement unless someone is only talking about R0/unaugmented REMAs.

Kikoku is a solid weapon, and Blade: Metsu (which you'd generally want to be using with it) is a pretty good 1000tp WS with great SC properties (Darkness/Fragmentation). Notably one of only two katana Fragmentation WS, along with Kamu. Big caveat that if you don't R15 it (or at least R10+), don't bother using it - the Metsu dmg augment is required to keep up in DPS.