The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Both hands:

-cRatio cap should be 3.625, not 3.25
-High cap field should start with if(Max>3.25... for noncrit and if(Max>4.25... for crit, currently >3.0 for both

Would be nice to see a real test on this if you can think of a way to do it. I know it seems weird to me because using kraken club on ranger I've often had Jishnu's ready to use again before the Jishnu's WS animation finishes. Was capped haste in Reisenjima. Maybe it's different for ranged WS? Would be nice to know for all jobs really. Maybe the animation is just longer than 2 seconds but seems weird.

WS animations are often much longer, but you'll still regain actionability after two seconds. Same for spells with sufficiently long (3+ second) animations. The alternative is pretty ***in ability-driven battle systems; I've seen a few RPGs do that. Gets annoying as hell fast when done poorly, especially if it extends to things like evasion and parry/blocking.

Bumping this post, anybody worked on this lately?

Thanks for the input Nightfyre. Changes have been made, and the sheet is updated:
Ninja Sheet (xlsx)

Where accuracy matters, I'm not too inclined to believe offhanding anything but a 242 skill katana is wise. Only exception being Shigi with full augments. That Shigi is nuts nowadays.

Luckily we're blessed with very customizable offhands. Ochu for bursting in a CP party if you feel like having fun. Shigi for accuracy and WS frequency. Kanaria for a customized offhand, increasing DEX or AGI, Crit Rate or DMG, STP, or whatever you want to emphasize your playstyle. My only real regret about the Kanaria's is that we can't choose magic path like BLU's can on Coladas. :(

I have Shigi behind a Kanaria with 3 Triple Attack in regards to WS frequency in ideal (capped accuracy) circumstances. White damage with Kanaria would be better too. I think the only thing Shigi brings to the table is the accuracy boost.

Have their been any reports of a TA4 Kanaria? People should be bleeding Reisen stones these days, getting a TA3 katana shouldn't be too difficult with at least a few sacrifices to the RNGesus.

Shigi's acc+50 is no small feat, but I'm inclined to believe that what you said (which is what comes naturally to think to me as well) might be just biased way of thinking.

The point is that regardless of how much acc bonus is on Shigi, you're still ending up in the situation I described in the previous page, there's gonna be a ~28 accuracy difference between your MH and your OH. (28 is for when you MH a 269 RME, it's less if you MH a 242 Katana)
Either you:
1) Gear for ~28 over 99% cap in MH, so that OH is gonna be at 95% cap
2) Deal with the fact OH is gonna have ~28 acc under 95% cap
3) Look for a compromise in between 1 and 2

Shigi could have 300 accuracy bonus, but you'd still fall down in one of those 3 situations, there's no other possibility.
Between those 3, I think the one that's gonna hurt your dps less is probably 1), but ***is situational.


So, talking about OH options, I see the following

• Shigi - Baseline OH. Low delay, shitton of acc, +50racc. 228 skill.

• Taka - High base damage, same low delay as Shigi, decent attack, +crit, decent acc, 228 skill

• Kanaria - High base damage, high delay, lots of customizable possibilities for stats. 242 skill

• Perfect Ochu - All-rounder with lots of base stats

• Kannagi - Feels wasted OH, but regardless it gives 269 skill and AGI+50. Mid-delay, high damage.

• Heishi Shorinken - As above, feels a waste. Very high damage, high delay, 269 skill, STP+10

Now, anybody did some math on these?
I feel Shigi/Taka gonna be awesome if you MH a 242 weapon. Shigi for extreme acc situations, Taka for everything else.
But that's just something I'm saying out of my mind with no objective/math testing to support it.


If anybody can provide 2-3 different situations (different targets, different buffs) I don't mind doing some testing myself on the spreadsheet and then share the results.

edit: nevermind, I see what you're saying. The difference is ~16 acc though (27*0.9=24.3, less 8 acc for 99% vs 95% hitrate). Unless you know the exact accuracy needed, it's quite possible you'll have that much extra anyway.

I thought 99>95 difference was ~13 acc, not 8? Might be wrong here.

~28 is something I took out from (269-228)-13.
MH skill - OH skill, -max theoretical cap difference.
Please feel free to fix my errors, I'd love some lectures on this stuff, I suck.

My point is never that of proving I'm right or some other arrogant ***, but rather pure interest to find out which offhands are going to be the best options behind personal biases.

2 acc = +1% hitrate, therefore 95->99 is 8 acc.

At 600+ combat skill +1 skill = 0.9 acc. A difference of 27 skill is thus 24.3 accuracy (24/25 depending on base value). Subtract the original 8 acc and you're at a difference of ~16 acc to cap both hands with 269 vs 242. 242 vs 228 is even less, only 2-3 acc. That's not a lot, and given the variance in targets I would be entirely surprised to find that most "capped acc" sets for any given target will overshoot by about that much or more. This isn't 2008, we're not optimizing an entire group of sets around Greater Colibri. We simply don't spend that much time with any one monster anymore, so we have to base sets on more general criteria.

I totally agree with the 242/228 setup, I was trying to say it above, it feels solid and I think Shigi/Taka are likely the best 2 options there.

But for a 269/228 situation? that's 41 skill, roughly 37acc, minus 8 it's 29.
(good job pointing out the 0.9 > 200 skill, forgot to take that into account)
I'm afraid if you're mainhanding a 269 weapon, then Shiki/Taka might bring too high of a cost with that ~29 acc difference.

Is that ~29 correct in your opinion or did I miscalculate something?

Ugh, I'm not thinking straight at all today. I got all that out and didn't even get back to my point about Shigi.

269 vs 228 is 41 skill, 36.9 acc, 28~29 acc difference. Yes, that is significant. Thing is, the whole point of using Shigi is the fact that it packs a whopping 77 acc for both hands. You might have to fiddle with acc a bit on TP if you really want to optimize, but it's still a tremendous acc boost and for WS it's arguably not as important since there's only the one offhand hit (which is either marginalized by fTP differences a la Ten/Hi/Metsu or buried in a sea of multihits a la Shun). This is not completely ideal, but it's acceptable. It also packs a large amount of racc, which is important for these high acc situations to keep landing Daken procs. Only way you're doing better in that department is with Taka.

Yeah that 77acc might be good in situations where you really need every single point of acc that you can get.
At that point if you can reach 99% hitrate on your mainhand you'd be at ~85% hitrate on offhand.
That kinda falls down to situation number 2 of the 3 I listed above.

Which means in such situations (where every single point of acc matters) Shigi might be the best offhand even if you won't make it to cap your OH hitrate.

At the same time though I think with a 269 MH, Taka is arguably never the best offhand? Unless you're way above the acc cap (but at that point you might consider some OAX weapons though, no?)
Let's define these as "situations where acc matters, but you're not desperate for it".
In these situations something like Perf Ochu or Kanaria might be the weapons to aim for?

But then again you could choose another approach. Like mantaining your lowacc/midacc set even in highacc situations, and simply swap OH for Shigi.
That is another way of handling things, probably more straightforward and more effective.

OAX weapons are all relatively high delay and don't offer much else. The blurred weapon is 222, WKR is 227. Shigi and Taka are two of four properly low delay i119 katanas (both 190), along with Mijin (190) and Achiuchikapu (180). That's significant for several reasons:

-better TP gain with low delay weapons offsets much of the benefit of OAX weaponry
-more Daken procs per unit time, further improving white damage and TP gain
-more mainhand hits (generally equal or better base damage) per unit time boosts white damage slightly, especially for Kikoku/Kannagi (ODX)

Ochu and Kanaria are definitely part of the "which offhand" picture as well due to the volume and quality of stats they bring to the table, but I'm not ruling out Taka just yet.

On certain content where you're not floored on accuracy, and not capped, that Shigi does a helluva job to close that gap. It can represent ~35% hit rate by itself. That alone can do a ton of work.

Also, I just fixed another error Akson noted in a PM. Redownload if you wish to have the corrected sheet.

(Aftermath Kikoku Attk Calculation being applied to WS sets without Kikoku)

NIN Sheet (xlsx)

Oh, speaking of Kanaria: 4% TA should be possible via fern stones given the existence of TA+3 pellucid augments. It'd be fairly rare though.

I think I know where all my future ferns are going..

So to sum up the general consensus we created so far:


242 MH ==> Shigi/Taka likely the best options for majority of situations
269 MH ==> Shigi still has a role in high acc builds, PerfOchu/Kanaria very good options, Taka needs further evaluation (I'm leaning for "no bueno" though)


Night you also reminded me of Achiuchikapu, which used to be pretty nice.
Wonder if some of the new RME with AM up make Achiuchikapu good again, with its Multiattack, STP and low delay values?
Like... Kannagi MH with AM up maybe?

Not at all. There haven't been good enough simulations or math to support those conclusions. If you want to shoot from the hip I'd say Kanaria is the best offhand unless the accuracy from Shigi is direly important. Another consideration is Daken. With a 49% proc rate, it's like worth building around and certainly worth considering. If you end up with loads more accuracy than ranged accuracy it could easily be rendered useless. I think the better approach to both primary and secondary weapons would be to step back and look at the ninja build as a whole and not just single weapons and actually use good simulation or realistic spreadsheets to justify it.

Not sure I'm getting the point of your post, Snaps.
Feels like you're arguing for the sake of arguing? Or are you trying to say something meaningful and useful for the conversation and I just completely missed it?

He's saying that there hasn't actually been any solid math done on the subject at this time, and he's right. There are no grounds for any consensus, only the beginnings of an evaluation that might eventually lead to more meaningful results.

Toying with the results in the sheet, close to a perfect Kanaria seems like the best offhand for a majority of 'current' content. Shigi seems to overperform when accuracy is going to be somewhere near 60% or below.

I don't have a ton of target mobs built into that spreadsheet, I have very generic mobs with very unforgiving stats all derived fairly linearly from stat patterns. The only part of those mobs I am confident about are it's evasion totals for the accuracy checks.

If more testing is done or some consensus is reached in regards to mob stats, I'll be happy to change around/add/delete the entries noted.

With the available options out there currently, i'd like to say that you can't really go wrong with a taka/ochu/shigi offhand if you don't have the luck to get a spank on kanaria.

It'll just take a bit more data to be sure about it all.

Been away for a couple days, so jumping back in :)


Great point, thanks for the clarification and I think you're right that it means manually adding atk+110 messes things up thanks to the manually added atk being used with food/buff bonuses. To confirm, Kikoku AM is a static Atk+10% (100/1024) based on base attack before food/buffs.

That being said, scenario I set out with i135 and reasonable buffs still came out with Kikoku/Metsu slightly ahead of Kannagi/Hi with Innin up (removing the accidentally incorrect Relic AM affecting Kannagi/Hi set). The gap widens with Innin down or not in proper position, since Innin extra crit rate helps Hi numbers.

Realistically though, assuming use of one WS is oversimplifying things. A Kikoku user can just use Metsu for AM and then use Hi if Innin is up, for higher damage than just spamming Metsu only. Or, Metsu>Ten for self-Light, or Hi for darkness, or Shun for solid consistent damage and possible SCs, etc...

And again, Kannagi certainly beats Kikoku in some situations and I'm very confident they're comfortably 1-2 in some order in the vast majority of meaningful situations (Nagi sometimes slips in there, but generally in trash situations). I just wanted to illustrate a not terribly unrealistic scenario where Kikoku seems to perform best.


I've done a good bit of spreadsheeting on the options for RMEA offhands and come to the following conclusions:

1) Shigi is easily the winner when you aren't approaching capped acc with other options (I'd have to look into precise percentage, but if you're more than 10% under capped acc with another offhand I'd expect Shigi to win by a solid margin). 228 skill doesn't matter, +77 acc to BOTH hands far outweighs that, and you increase WS frequency with very low delay and +50 Racc for Daken (extra TP).

2) Kanaria is the most significant other option, and will be the best choice when you can still cap acc without needing Shigi. Being realistic with augments matters too, if you're going to assume a Kanaria with theoretical "perfect" stats that's great, but temper expectations here since you could realistically trade stones for days straight and not get "ideal" augments.

• For offhand, If you're using mainly Hi (AGI), Shun (DEX), Metsu (DEX) - I find the WS attribute to be the most vital stat to prioritize, so use Taupe stones and shoot for as close to 15 DEX/AGI as possible. +15 attribute will beat a good DMG augment [edit 5/5 - scaled this back a little bit, I stand by attribute being great but not quite as huge a gap as I was portraying it]. Blade: Ten has a far lower stat mod so isn't affected to the same extent, but DEX still helps.

• Acc is probably next most important augment stat, assuming you're not in a situation where you're already near cap.

• TA+3~4% is a nice stat for sure. Not as important as ensuring you have attribute and some good acc, but a great secondary bonus. Follow that up on the augment priority list with whatever you can manage from stuff like DMG, crit, attack.

• Note that this discussion is about offhands. If you were making a mainhand Kanaria (which is generally the best non-RMEA mainhand katana), DMG as close to max +20 augment as possible is very important.

3) Ochu is OK. It's mostly a niche toy for magic bursting. Otherwise, for physical DD it's competent but beaten by a good Kanaria in most any situation,[EDIT 5/5: I wasn't testing right augments, and a max Ochu does indeed hold up pretty well as a sidegrade to a good Kanaria, some variance for mob/buffs/etc. - see next page for more discussion] and in heavy acc situations it's obviously below Shigi. One other thing that helps Ochu a little bit is the high DEX paired with a good bit AGI, helps its contribution to WS numbers especially if you're mixing both DEX and AGI WS (though this still isn't enough to bump it up in the offhand hierarchy).

4) Aizushintogo has a small niche thanks to the DW+5, where it can be best if you're in a situation lacking good buffs and not capped delay reduction.

5) Kujaku+1 isn't close to the best for DPS, but is amazing for offhand TP generation if your main consideration is keeping frequent SCs rolling and your acc is otherwise OK. I got one of these as an expensive toy, and it's ridiculously fun for something like a CP party, solo SC starter on something like a lower acc-required UNM or Escha NM with a backline of nukers.

6) Taka isn't really all that impressive compared to the other options. It's like most of the other un-augmentable Escha/Reisen drops, decent but won't compete with the top choices. [EDIT 5/5: might also have undervalued Taka a bit, revisiting spreadsheets. Still loses to Shigi when you need accuracy, but holds up pretty well with Kanaria/Ochu as a good option when you don't need to maximize accuracy]

7) RMEA are never worth offhanding.
Other than the extra acc/atk from higher skill (which other options make up for in their own stats), there's a lack of other benefit - no aftermath in offhand, minimal additional useful stats/attributes (that are active on offhand), higher delay. AGI+50 on Kannagi does help Hi, but not enough to make it worthwhile as an offhand to Kikoku/Nagi. See also first bullet under #2 - the high DMG on Kikoku/Kannagi and especially Heishi is very significant on a mainhand weapon, but not something you take a ton of advantage of from the offhand.

Recently picked NIN up as a new job to focus on. My go to NIN contact has quit the game, so I'm kinda lost as to where to go in regards to gearing it.

I'm pretty good on armor at the moment, but weapons are throwing me for a loop. I don't really have access to a group that can kill Escha NMs anymore, so some of the newer options like Kanaria are out of the picture for now.

Currently using an Izuna with DMG+15, ACC/ATT +11, DA+3 augments and a Jushimatsu. I plan on making a Shigi and augmenting it in the near future, but other than that, are there any other options that are a decent improvement on my current combo? As of right now, I'm mainly focused on grinding out CP but would eventually like to use the job on more important things.

Forgive me if I missed a listing somewhere, the OP seems to be outdated.

Thanks guys for all the opinions and data you provided, really gives some food for thought and inspiration, I'm gonna test some things myself now.


@Capuchin
I'm a bit skeptic on the thing you said about Kanaria offhand. Maybe I'm missing something but you emphasized the importance of Stat+15 according to the main WS you're using.
But if that's the case, wouldn't perf Ochu be a pretty beast for offhand, considering it has STR and DEX +22 and all stats +12?
Would need quite some good augs on Kanaria to be better than that under this perspective, so I'm sure there's gotta be something else that I'm missing if Kanaria is such a better choice according to your tests?

@Langly
Some feedback on the spreadsheet:
- There are two Togakushi Shurikens in list
- It would be cool to have a toggle for Idris/Dunna, so you can give different values to GEO stuff
- Why are Bolster, Blaze of Glory, Ecliptic Attrition, Frailty and Torpor on a single column instead of the typical split one for set1 and set2?
- I didn't check, but are you sure the Spreadsheet is correctly calculating BoG and Ecliptic when Bolster is active? (they don't stack, if Bolster is up BoG and Ecliptic won't produce further increases, not sure if the Spredsheet correctly calculates this)
- Would be cool to have Honor March between songs, with a special field to handle potency (can be either 0 or 1).
- Probably this would be a lot of work and possibly not incredibly useful, but I think it would be cool to have a "Job Points" field in the first page where you put Merits etc. Job Points themselves probably don't have a huge impact, the only one affecting DPS is arguably the Innin category. But Gifts are another story, and being able to factor them in would be really cool.
- Could be useful to have more bubbles in the list. DEX/STR come to mind, maybe AGI too. Also I think you should swap the format of Bubbles in the end. It's not useful to have a single trigger for BoG/Ecliptic, as those can only affect one bubble at a time (two if you have 2 GEOs), not all bubbles. I think each bubble should have independent values. For each set: Bubble name (0/1), Bolster (0/1), BoG (0/1), Ecliptic (0/1), Power (Entrust/Dunna/Idris)


I'll add more stuff if I find anything else.

This thread.

Ok did some small tests, please correct the possible problems in the conditions I created to test.
My intent was to create some generic, almost average situation, and not something optimal/special which I find to be interesting but also not very realistic.

Initial setup

First test: Heishi Shorinken MH (non capped acc)

Second test: Heishi Shorinken MH (capped acc)

Third test: Kanaria TA+ MH (non capped acc)

Fourth test: Kanaria TA+ MH (capped acc)

So, I dunno what you wanna take out of this small test.
I'm sure there are several issues given how I tried to limit the number of variables, but hopefully there's something good we can extrapolate from this?



@Langly
can you doublecheck the Shun formula? I think there's something broken about TP bonus. Shouldn't matter for this test I performed (purpose was deciding best offhand, not best WS to use), but if it's broken it needs to be fixed. I'm afraid we still don't know the details of how the attack bonus from TP works on Shun though? Which might exactely be the issue.