The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

It was more of a "i need a ton of decent enmity stuff that isn't exclusive" and the choices are pretty slim

***I can trade after each account gets enough hallmarks so I don't have to do a ton of unity. lazy.

I suspect Utusemi under Yonin enmity is quite miniscule, supposing that's even working and/or it wasn't a mistranslation thing.

Honestly they should just revamp Yonin/Innin. Well... Yonin mostly, Innin is annoying in its nature but it's okaysh.

I think they need to make AGI adjustments similar to the recent DEX and STR changes. Something like 1 AGI = 1 evasion / 1 magic evasion. What stat is magic evasion even tied to? INT?

-edit- MND = magic evasion?

I think you are very wrong on utsusemi enmity under yonin. The bonus is rather big. Rua commented in his guide, that for him hate generated by utsusemi under yonin felt on par with foil on run.

It's learning to play under Yonin and spamming all of your Utsusemi spells for hate rather than just defense. Learn to shadow cancel better and forget about your damage out put as your job as the tank is to hold hate. It's still not enough though because of Yonin's diminishing effect with time (so you have to look to recast Yonin as soon as you can). You also need to maintain Gekka and Migawari. The problem is you can't survive multiple targets. Would have to test if Yonin Utsusemi generates hate across multiple enemies in a similar manner to Foil (I don't see why not as they're both self-cast spells, but spaghetti code). A ninjutsu Foil equivalent would make NIN great again. You still need an AoE to grab the attention of a hoard, so /blu would be near a must even though it comes with a shallow MP pool to manage.

If you use Yonin and are cycling your utsusemi spells in an enmity set, it becomes near impossible to rip spike hate off of a Ninja with it up if you've been building good hate. The only time it may not work as well is if you put Yonin up after someone takes hate, or you lose hate momentarily and then you lose the enm+ effect since i believe you still need to be face to face with the opponent. In any case, Yonin enmity bonus is significant. I have seen max DPS have a hard time pulling hate from an Omen boss when I was NIN, spamming all the things NIN.

"max DPS"

As a Nagi wielder, I disagree. If they go HAM from the start in a zerg scenario (say fully buffed Mighty Strikes WAR) and you haven't had time to build some hate, they will rip it off you.

What fight / content Buuki? Omen? lol. MNK can tank that. Dynamis D? lol ok. You don't have the strong JA's as say a RUN to grab hate off someone that's already established hate, or to grab hate back.

Its not terrible tanking and to be honest is about as easy to tank multiple mobs or just one on /run or /blu. Your midcast for utsu should have as much enmity in it as possible anyway or make a mode cycle for enmity + tanking enmity -.
If you open w/ yonin, gekka jettatura and you're actually hitting the mob that sets you up pretty nice. Just have to be weary of your mp and constantly spamming shadows. But as mho said, if you're trying to pull hate off someone who's already capped/near cap its going to take some assistance from thf or sch

Assuming all Yonin does to utsu is +30 enmity. Utsu Ni 300VE +60%(gekka+yonin) which is still pretty big. If you had Nagi and Fudo (+170% w/ 7 shadows) just with yonin and gekka up.

@Sechs Nin also gets plenty of enmity gear
ItemSet 361429
and thats no weapons and no enmity ammo

Could switch the belt to goading but I just stuck that in there for interrupt -

Fudo augments don't work in offhand so the set Capuchin posted is the best two tanking weapons you can use, assuming path c. I never said ninja has hate generation tools like a rune fencer. But for all the tools ninja has it is no slouch for keeping hate and mitigating damage. It's just you will constantly be busy spamming shadows and such to keep your hate steady. Obviously for a fight like WOC you aren't going to build hate anywhere near as fast to keep it off of a serious DD. Perhaps something like halphas or quadav where your DD have to be damage frugal with dt sets. I only used Omen as the example I've tested, I'm sure someone with fudo has done it on something stronger.

Ten still a go to weaponskill?

Also: I know a good 5 step shun-Hi-Kamu_Shun-Shun but is there a decent 4-5 step for when I have relic or empy on?

I think it's hard to separate the "rather big" bonus granted by Yonin + Gekka (together they give what, 60% more enmity before the decay kicks in?) and the enmity bonus specific to Utsusemi category of spells that only happens with Yonin up.

I think it's really really hard to tell. Would love more tests.
Would love someone to delve into the JP wiki and see if they have more information than us about this all.

In my experience the specific bonus part either doesn't exist or is very very small.
The big part comes from the Yonin+Gekka enmity bonus.
But then again I've never performed specific tests so what do I know? Which is exactly why I said I would love more detailed tests about it.

Yeah, there are less choices without R/E gear, but really that's the case for jobs like PLD and RUN too.

Could get a pretty solid start with pure AH gear like the following though. This set alone would probably be fine for tanking a lot of stuff:
ItemSet 363827

To add some not very hard UNM/High Tier pieces, you could grab an Emet Harness and Macabre Gauntlets from Unity, and maybe do a few Diabolos Prime HTBF for a chance at both a great offhand tanking katana and a Pernicious Ring (Enm+5).

If you're talking about a mule on an account with multiple characters, can always spend the time on actually opening Unity Dial and shuffle the R/E pieces between same account characters. I have SO MANY unity pieces stashed on mules from dial alone. Lots of good UNM enmity gear: Unmoving Collar, Emet Harness, Macabre Gauntlets, Zoar Subligar, etc.


If you're there to tank and you don't care about NIN DPS, there's also no reason you can't cast foe targeting ninjutsu when it's safe, in between Utsu/Migawari/whatever casts.

Brings ya back to the ancient days of spinning the elemental wheel for hate. Or you might even be able to stick enfeebles and still manage to sneak in some enmity gear in some slots (even if only a limited number, like say Relic+2/+3 feet and Moonbeam/Moonlight Necklace which have both good Macc and Enm). And hell, you already get some extra enmity for those actions with just weapons + Gekka + Yonin.

Besides blade retsu, ninjutsu enfeebles probably won't land, or the hate is so miniscule it won't matter. Better off casting shadows and using flash/voke/blu spells for hate

I disagree on the not landing part. I regularly hit enfeebles on current content like Divergence wave 2/3 mobs and bosses, Intense Ambuscade N~VD, etc. with nothing more than a good Macc set and whatever enfeebles are on the mob (Frazzle, Langour, etc.). Not even using Macc food or specific party buffs (Warlock's Roll or GEO Focus or whatever)

Don't get me wrong, I agree that Utsu casting is BETTER for hate, but enfeebles/elemental spells add something, especially when you're using Gekka/Yonin, have katanas like Fudo/Nagi/Shuhansadamune, make a few minor swaps that have both Macc and Enm (the aforementioned relic feet and moonlight neck), etc. This assumes you aren't actively meleeing the mob in between Utsu and such, but sometimes when you're blink tanking it does happen that you might not really care about your melee damage contribution. Spikes, counters (e.g., Halphas), reducing TP feed, etc.

I tend to sometimes have a little time in between my Utsu casts and subjob abilities. I might not want to waste an Utsu: San timer purely for hate if it's important to have it ready again, or drop San shadows to reapply Ni/Ichi and risk disaster. Might as well do something for those in between moments, and I don't mind hitting an Aisha or Yurin that also helps my survival. Or a Hojo/Jubaku/Kurayami if nobody else is applying those debuffs. Or even just an elemental Ninjutsu if I've got nothing better to do.

In particular, I tend to NIN/WAR the vast majority of the time (and much more rarely /RUN), since /WAR works so well for offense in the same events and I can flip to tanking utility with Defender/Voke. So it's not like my subjob abilities take a lot of time when all I have to do is voke when it's up. /BLU would be a different story, but while I appreciate RUN/BLU and PLD/BLU, I find it way less useful on NIN since (a) I usually don't want to NIN tank multiple mobs at once and need /BLU's AoE hate tools, and (b) NIN MP pool is a serious limitation for /BLU.

Another NIN tanking tip: don't forget Issekigan is really nice to establish hate pretty quickly. It's not like RUN Battuta for becoming downright invincible, but it's a pretty good parry rate and adds enmity with each parry - even moreso with 20/20 Job Points. BGwiki says "Grants a 300 Cumulative Enmity and unknown Volatile Enmity boost upon successful parries", and Job Point category is VE+10 per JP, for +200 total.

Thats why you have your refresh kanaria ready for all situations

I prefer making BRDs hate me by begging them to Pianissimo a Ballad onto me (while being sure not to overwrite my Marches, naturally).

Either way if you're tanking something that you're even going /blu for you'd atleast need a geo, rdm or brd for haste and all 3 of them can refresh you.
I only ever noticed an MP struggle tanking halphas nin/blu but I always was neglecting to refresh III myself.

Makes a great tank for rng burning especially w/ WF or relic rngs. Ask Boshi, he'll tell you kikoku is the best

@simonses also forgot to mention Foil 880VE 320 CE +30%(crusade)
Utsu Ni(since San enmity # isnt listed) w/ +170% is only 810 VE and 170 CE. So it is really close and more easily spammed since you get 3 utsus w/ capped reduction all recasting 10 seconds or under.


And @Bhukki I know they don't work in the offhand, what I meant was Fudo(main) nagi(sub) sorry, just because I'm pretty sure the enmity 40 atleast works in offhand

Someone in here said Nagi doesn't work in offhand in regards to the augments

Enmity is on the weapon itself, not an augment

Offhand the enmity shouldn't work(?) so vague, vajra SA/TA bonuses don't, carn's extended duration doesn't(?), yag's aoe doesn't(?), burtgangs PDTII doesn't(?) you don't get the bonus steps from terp(?)

Yeah, mhomho has Nagi and said the enmity doesn't work in offhand: https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/33470/the-sealed-dagger-a-ninja-guide/129#3394431

I have no reason not to believe that, it's not shocking to see a RMEA stat that looks like a "normal" stat not working when offhanded. Too bad, woulda been a nice offhand tanking weapon. Now it's just a Mijin free Reraise macro piece!

Still making mine though (looks like I won't make it before the end of 2018, so maybe in January!)... if for some reason I find my experience contradicts that report I'll be sure to update.


But seriously, even ignoring any MP concerns, why /BLU? Is it really adding that much for you tanking in Dyna that you couldn't do just as well with /WAR? I'd hate to have to sacrifice the significant offensive benefit from /WAR for the large portions of Dyna where you're not tanking an NM like Halphas and could take advantage of DA, Berserk, Aggressor (wave 1-2 trash mobs, wave 3 fomor, mega boss damage where you're likely having a PLD RUN main tank, etc.)

When I'm playing RUN I love /BLU for the AoE hate tools, but on NIN I tend not to want multiple mobs beating on me (sort of contrary to the main advantage of blink tanking), so that's kinda irrelevant to me. And I just don't find spamming /BLU spells solely for hate on single targets to even be necessary. Cocoon's DEF+50% is prob your best argument for NIN/BLU, but I'm generally pretty comfortable using the weaker DEF buff from Defender.

As for MP, if you don't have RDM in party tossing you Refresh, yeah you COULD make BRD GEO help... but surely there are better things the BRD GEO can be doing than refreshing a Ninja. Hell, if you're wasting a BRD song on Ballading a NIN/BLU, you could switch that song to a Minne (for NIN/WAR with Defender) and end up with better total DEF on the NIN anyway (versus /BLU using Cocoon).


Are you giving up the fight? Kikoku mainhand, Kikoku offhand. Best for every situation right right?

Dont get me wrong Capu, kikoku is BiS in every slot no matter the situation. Just giving alternatives to the non believers

Kikoku is so uncomfortable when worn as pants, but gotta get that extra DPS.

Just tested it with a friend (thanks Negan) and Nagi's enmity + only works on main hand.

Btw, I'm testing a few other enmity things too and I'm getting some unexpected results. The only thing I can say for now is that Utsusemi enmity values on Bg-Wiki are apparently wrong.

Nagi continues to cement itself as worst mythic