The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

If you can maintain at least AM1, Kannagi is a huge dps boost over Kikoku. Kannagi has 30%,40%,50% odd with AM1,AM2,AM3 respectively, as opposed to Kikoku's static otd at about 11-13%.

If you are really serious about NIN, I would put the time in for a Kannagi.

I don't mention Nagi because unless you can maintain AM3, it's not that great.

so, which path for qaaxxo tights for blade shun?

Remember Kikoku is occasionally deals triple damage, 13% chance full time. So AM1 will offer better, but not by much, white damage if maintained full time.

By my calculations, if AM1 is not maintained at least ~86% of the time, the ODT 13% on Kikoku will win.

AM2-3 will clearly increase the gap further, but I can only see a "hugh dps boost" over kikoku if AM3 is maintained at all times, which isn't feasible in most situations

Maybe you considered this, but you also have to factor in Kannagi's ODD from Aftermath can proc on QA/TA/DA procs.

Kikoku has a 13% chance to proc OTD on the "first swing" only.

None, Manibozho are better.

Good point, definitely didn't consider that. Still, with 30% extra attacks from multistrikes you will still need to maintain AM1 65-70% of the time to be competitive with Kikoku - Kikoku is going to win in any situation you are running between mobs or mobs don't last longer than 2 weaponskills.

At what point will AM drop for longer than a few secs. It's maintained by Blade: Hi, the top Katana WS.

Doesn't have wkr katana listed or any the spark earring/rings as possibilitys. Also runes no longer give hate.

Ores speaks the truth. As much as I wish for my Kikoku to beat his Kannagi in pure damage, it won't. There are caveats for that though. The main one being that you will need to be playing aggressively enough to ensure you do not lose aftermath for very long.

Maybe I'm a lazy ninja. :D I like my Kikoku.

Price/time is also a major factor between Kannagi and Kikoku. Current currency prices on my server for a Kikoku from scratch to ilevel 119 buying all currency/marrows/plutons is a little over 100mil (accounting for 30x final stage refund). Current prices for 1500 HMP/60 Riftdross is something in the neighborhood of ~220mil. And that doesn't even include the highly time consuming Abyssea trophies if you're not already starting from a lv90 Kannagi.

Kannagi's good, no question about it. Any time you can keep the AM up with NIN's best WS it's the best, and that's quite a bit of the time. But there's no shame in having "only" Kikoku, which is undeniably no worse than the second best katana with a big drop off between Kannagi & Kikoku and 3rd place.

Personally, I'm not so loaded I can justify paying double the amount of a relic to get Kannagi. Especially when if I'm asked to do something in a group event where maximizing DD power is needed, my group's probably going to ask me to come MNK or RNG anyway. I could do a lot more for my overall character with that 100m+ difference (like get two relics for the price of one empy, take out a big chunk of a mythic, buy a bunch of 119 AF/Relic craft materials or Airlixir+2, etc.)


Yeah, for anything where you're consistently spamming Hi, you're gonna keep AM up. But it's not THAT rare to be fighting stuff where AM drops because your targets don't live long enough or you're running between mobs. Most pre-Adoulin content, solo in Adoulin areas even in the hardest zones, possibly in CP parties with any gap between kills, events with lots of running around like ORK Skirmish (except on NMs): all of these are situations where it's not exactly a given that you'll be able to steadily maintain AM, so Kannagi loses some of its advantage.

That being said, it would be a fair point to say that on stuff that dies that fast (i.e. WS it once and it's dead), max DPS is not quite as important anyway. Kannagi without AM is still going to slice through that kind of stuff quickly, even if Kikoku does win for DPS in those scenarios.

I haven't played NIN seriously in a while and am wanting to pick it back up. I have been looking at other NINs I would assume are good cause they have relic or empy or even mythic katanas, but I have to question the gear they have surrounding it. Last time I looked DW capped at 50%, is this no longer the case? I keep seeing NIN's running around with upwards of 60-70% dw just in gear, and missing haste+ (about 19-20% total).

I went on a celestial nexus fight with one of these NINs who was main-handing kannagi and off handing nagi, and was wearing the DW earrings from delve, Iga head+2(5), reforged af+1 body(8), reforged relic +1(8), nuskus sash(5). unless im mistaken that's 35+5+8+8+5+7(from earrings?) which is 68%.isent that 18% over kill?
did I miss something?

I believe Dual wield only caps because of the delay reduction cap (80% total delay)

but I gotta say, wtf. Off-handing Nagi?

Take out interwebs epeen ruler.

set both katana end to end

measure

/facepalm

Well it really comes down to how serious you are about playing NIN. Theres tons of content nowadays that NIN excels at, especially in the DD slot.

There is an 80% attack speed cap, which DW contributes too. But afaik there isn't a DW cap. Usually, with haste and double marches you wouldn't need any DW to reach that 80% attack speed cap.

You can never judge a player by a relic or mythic, or any piece of armor for that matter. I mean, you have the resources to acquire a Kannagi and a Nagi... Why are you using a Nusku's Sash?

I made kannagi in less time then it took to make a relic starting from base weapon you get in the chest by moogle > trials > helms > skins > horns > hmp's > dross > boulders. I am mostly a solo player so I was able to devote primarily all my time to getting it done as quickly as possible. If you want to talk in terms of hours of gameplay to make, that's a different story entirely.


The first set of trials was somewhere around 60hours. Helms was about 8-10. Skins was about 5. Horns was about 4. [I did get help on these in the form of people holding pops and brewing down 3-4 apademaks per brew/round]. Couple this with constantly buying sysiphus pops off ah to send to self, and constant bazaar shopping for hmps / dross. I did get bent over a bit towards the end buy hmps at 200k a piece and even buying my last 2 dross at 2mil a piece. The last few dross I think were put in someone's bazaar not with the intention to be sold, which is another rant that bothers me tremeandously about people doing it (basically, if you want to make the gear prioritize it and make it, don't be a huge *** tease to those of us actually making them).


So assuming financially you can afford it and you have the time to devote to it you could make kannagi faster than kikoku. I made kannagi because I kept seeing (lol)kikokus around, but never kannagi. It just felt more special. I liked the way it looked more. I already had the goblin npc working on a relic at the time and didnt like the thought of just sitting around waiting more for another relic.


All in all, spent about 250mil (maybe a little bit more). Very happy with it. Very worth. Everyone told me make what would make me happy. After reading comparisons of the two on here I had been skeptical of which to make. Having made it, I am very satisfied.


Side note: what otronif +1 gear augments should I be aiming for? I dumped about 30mil to get +2 crit hit rate on my pieces for a crit build that I have been very happy with (considering I'm a kannagi user it's so nice having consistent crit hit procs for 700-800+).


Edit- crit hit build for those wonder:

Taikogane offhand
Yetashila ammo (need +1 here)
Marjami wildskeeper head (need gessho 2 head)
Asperity neck
Bladeborn / steelflash ears
Juogi +1
Otronif +1 hands
Rajas / epona's rings
Atheling mantle
Winbuffet belt
Otronif +1 legs
Otronif +1 feet

I use this when I have haste / double marches (I have a 4 song brd who statics with me). It's 20% crit currently, so every 5th hit crits.

You want DA+2 for Otronif +1. According to spreadsheet, DA+2 is slightly better DPS than CRIT+2.


edit: I should say I only use Otronif+1 hands & legs. Both when I don't need any accuracy and have Haste+DoubleMarch. Hands only when I need accuracy from legs slot.

With a Ghorn BRD using AF3+2 hands (+5 Marches), this is true. Don't need a single piece of DW gear to cap. Even with double +4 Marches (so Langeleik+hands BRDs) and Haste I spell, you'll hit 79% using no DW gear.

I actually made a pretty nifty delay reduction spreadsheet where you just select buffs and DW gear and it will spit out your total delay reduction. I'll try to clean it up a little more for public consumption (make some fancy pull-down boxes, add all DW gear options) and make it publicly accessible in the next couple days.

Builds do vary rather wildly depending on buffs. You'll want basically max available DW gear for any situation where you're getting only Haste spell and no BRD buffs (or no haste at all), which you may indeed run into often if you do stuff like Dyna and Salvage. But even by just adding Trust marches/hastes/sambas and some combination of gear, you can hit 80% reduction pretty easily these days in a wide variety of setups.

Another note: at least currently, capping reduction with haste (gear, spells, ability haste) is always preferable to using DW. Lower base delay (which DW modifies) reduces TP gained/hit, haste does not affect TP gain. This is scheduled to change soon (off the top of my head I think S-E noted it as coming in the September update).


Not that most NIN would pass on a Crit+2 augment ;) I'm using Crit+2 Otronif+1 hands myself, and plenty satisfied to give up trying for DA augments.

Ah

What does the spread sheet factor in for builds? I've been very happy with the 20% crit hit build. I don't feed the mobs tons of tp from swingwing excessively and it works to the kannagi's strength. Double dmg is very nice on crits (again 700-800+). My only qualm would be tp generation for spamming blade: hi. So basically, at what amount does the returns of stacking double attack diminish comparative to stacking crit hit. Would there be a hybrid that could work?

Currently I'm only really losing out on 6% double attack from the otronif pieces couple with losing 3 triple attack / 3 quadruple attack (but gaining 2 double attack in this slot). So net -4 double attack, -3 triple attack, -3quadruple attack, for 10% crit hit.

DA+2 and CR+2 are both fine. DA+2 is slightly ahead in spreadsheet when I inputted them.

I'd suggest getting Thaumas Coat, or if you have it, use it. :P

Best in slot unless you need more accuracy.

I have it. I've used it. Maybe I'll just parse them over the course of a few nights and compare. Can I make more then one otronif +1 set?

Yeah

Quick thought about Otronif+1 gear... While either Crit or DA are very nice stats for NIN/MNK/PUP (I love my Crit+2 hands on all three), it's worth noting that DA would seem a much better choice for SAM. I'm not a SAM and not up on most current gear choices, but as I understand it, DA Otronif+1 legs/feet in particular are still really good. So if you play SAM too, might affect your decision.

Or, yeah, make a second set since they aren't Rare tagged. That was a more reasonable possibility to me for NQ Salvage armor, but I don't do nearly enough ORK Salvage to get KIs to accommodate that sort of thing for the 119 gear.

SAM only uses hands for PDT/MDT. SAM uses Wakido Kote +1 for TP unless they reaaaaaaaaaaaally need the ACC.

Also legs are only for Koga users, a Tsur Sam only needs to worry about feet.

Any comment on the 2 new katanas?

So far I haven't seen any augment on my Izuna to convince me it's usable.

Hasn't really changed anything as of yet.

What about Jushi-something, Mugyinwa Katana? Both that and Chidori seem so incredibly similar to Raimitsukane...
Wonder if they're better than R15 STR Isuka as Offhand?
They should, no? (in situations where you're not using Taikogane OAT or Reive Katana, of course!)

Jushimatsu is a better alternative to Raimitsukane than Chidori due to the Hi mods. But Rai is still king outside of RME. I'm disappointed they haven't given us any lower delay katanas outside of Shigi though.

Izuna would need some pretty insane mods augments to beat Raitsumitsu.

EDIT: Offhand-wise, the only time you don't want to use Taikogane is as a last resort for accuracy issues. OAT is too good. Just about any 119 would do the job. Rai, Shigi, and DEX Isuka are probably the best bets though.

Or if you're party is complaining about potential TP gain or whatever, then any 119 will do it. STR Isuka would still be best off-hand in that situation, assuming Rai is main-handed.

Just for claarification:

main: RME > raitsu > jushi > chidori > (rest)
Off: taiko (no acc req)/rai/jushi/chido(acc req)> shigi > isuka(dex)

where would we rate the new skirmish katana? it has a high delay
(237) and no real buffs. Behind isuka as an alternative for people who dont have access to better?