The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

I appreciate the response. Thank you very much.

It's actually allll me now. lol Kincard hasn't touched anything for a while I think?

Kincard's last node edit was in April 2014, though I'm not sure if he last updated item sets before or after that date.

Looked over the jpwiki entry for Shun; the page was updated with the current attack bonuses about a month and a half after the June 2014 update. Unfortunately, there's no citation and no username attached to that edit. Further testing would be nice for verification purposes.

Yeah, sorry for disappearing off the face of the Earth, real life kills me and I also do translations of dev notes for BG sometimes, which is a lot faster than flipping through unorganized pages of what armor's been added over the last few months then number crunching them.

Really appreciate you keeping it up to date, Langly (feel free to write "Langly rules, Kincard drools" at the top if you want). Back when I added you two to it I was actually planning on doing an update but real life got in the way again, heh.

Let me know if I should open the node up to anyone else.

Ha ha ha, no worries Kincard. I'm just happy to be of some help. Appreciate all you do for us!

From all of us Ninja's, ~あり-!

Sad to say, when I made that comment I was kind of confusing the two of you for some reason... but only because you're both wonderful for your contributions to NIN :)

Not claiming there's an error in the spreadsheet, but anybody got the feeling you get higher HI on the sheet than you actually get in-game, and vice-versa stronger SHUN than what the sheet suggests?

It's likely only bias, just curious if anybody else experienced that :D

It's been fairly consistent for me. Though admittedly I don't think anyone knows for sure what Shun's attack modifiers are.

Anyway, while it might not be the absolute best, I'm surprised by how well Mummu+1 hands/legs/feet work for Blade: Hi.

Guess BiS is still Herc with godlike augments (and WSD) but in those 3 slots Mummu is quite a cheap and easy to obtain option that performs really well.

lolbladehi though, my love for the WS kinda died lately.

Hi always has been so flaky anyway just due to the wild damage fluctuation from crits. Over time I suspect it might perform better than what you see from the inevitable several shitty non-crit Hi that will make you doubt yourself as to why you wasted TP on it... but it has such variance that it's probably not QUITE as bad as your gut feeling.

I also think Hi has traditionally been overvalued just because when it came to prominence, we were in Abyssea with insane crit rate from Atma. Kinda artificially gave people a better impression of the WS than it deserved on its own merits, outside of situations where you don't have the luxury of being an Atma-powered god, and for many people who haven't taken NIN super seriously they just assume Hi must still be really good because they got used to seeing it.

I'm in your boat that I haven't gone insane with ideal augments for Hi either, but I have enough "pretty good" gear for it that my set doesn't suck (for instance, I have some WSD+4%~5% Herc pieces more tailored for COR/RNG magical WS Herc, Hizamaru+1 legs, etc.). I still don't really like Hi other than the occasional utility for SC purposes.

Shun, on the other hand, is very consistent and always good. As a Kikoku user, I tend to use Metsu to keep AM up and for SC purposes (and at least it isn't BAD damage), and otherwise use Shun as much as possible. Or, Metsu>Shun for Light when I can.

I have several questions, Hachiya Hatsuburi +2 how would it compare to a herc head with wsd augments? +3 would be the way to go clearly but ive still got a ways to go on that.
Im assuming the windbuffet +1 in the first page ws sets for blade hi was an error? Should have been fotia belt perhaps?
Without lugra's earring set, or when the time frame is down for the effect of lugra's, what earings should i be using? Mache? How does Ishvara earring stack up with 2% wsd?
Im using an afterglowed Kikoku and offhanding kanaria, right now i have dmg 13 dex 9 acc 21 attack 13 TA 2 augments on it. With all the TA gear i have presently in my tp set, should i perhaps look at another augment like STP or WSD for kanaria? Or generally speaking would staying with TA be the way to go?
Last question, Seki shuriken or happo +1? I have both. Granted theres a higher skill on the seki, is stp +2 that critical?
Thanks.

Lots of good questions Dagmar.

The +2 will not beat a well augmented herc head. What the exact figures are... shouldn't be too hard to eyeball. Was easy to see my WSDMG5 STR10 Herc head was stronger than it. (Until I +3'd the hatsuburi)

Windbuffet +1 has won in all setups I've tried within the spreadsheet. Therefor it's theoretical maximum is higher than fotia. (Though this does not include fotia's 1% TP retention... but not entirely difficult to see the average gained will still favor Windbuffet.)

Depending on WS, Ishvara is a great ear to use in place of a Lugra. Depending on how evasive your target and your current hit rate, a cessance or mache would fit the bill nicely otherwise. Moonshade where appropriate of course.

Your kanaria sounds pretty great as it is. The TA3 would certainly put it as a 'must keep as is' katana. Even with TA2, that's a solid offhand. Round out the selection with a maxed Ochu/Shigi for other situations and you should be pretty happy.

Seki Shuriken will outperform happo where your melee accuracy is capped. And even then when uncapped. To a point. Moral of the story, seki unless you have such terribad accuracy you should really just put on a yamarang, or get on a mage job. :D

1. Head is ok, but yes herc helm with good wugs would win until +3, as which point it will beat herc UNLESS your under acc capped.

2. Doesnt really matter with HI, none uses it with kikoku :D, as forf your Q, winbuffet gives spikes, fotia consistency, pick your poison.

3. Cant give you much advice one ear since it depends on ws. Mache is good for shun/metsu though, Ishvara for metsu, telos/brutal/cessance for all, etc etc.

4.3 TA will be better, ideally you want 15 dex 20 acc/att 3 TA, so your close just a few 10k more taupe to go!

5. Seki is better unless you need the acc. Neither really WOW, so for acc swaps this is a good first place to start.

6. Your welcome :D but your wall of weirdly space texted is hard to decipher, try posting a little more organized and I can help better in the future, space and numbers go a long way.

langly you beat me to it!

Sorry about the lack of spacing. Ill do better next time.

I do use Hi occasionally for sc purposes. So QA and TA can proc on hi? I was under the impression that it was limited to the one hit. Ive been wrong before.

Just a few more 10k taupe stones right? Here i was thinking it was just me that had bad luck on augments.

Thanks for the help guys and the fast responses.

Got you by 7 minutes. ;) You need more haste in that gearset of yours to beat me! Ha ha ha ha.

Edit: I'm such a nerd.

Technically, any non-ranged physical WS used while dual wielding is at least two hits. This means two potential opportunities for non-mythic multi(DA/TA/QA)-attack. Generally, single-hit(ish) WS have a high, non-transferring fTP that gives multiattack a marginalized benefit. Blade:Hi, however, lacks fTP scaling like Blade: Ten and has only a medium-level fTP, making multihit not that bad for it. It's close enough to where you should probably check a spreadsheet with your own gear rather than just look at it on a piece-by-piece basis. Fotia should also probably be one of your first accuracy swaps for Hi.

Questions:

Any testing done on Hachiya Tekko +3?

I've been rocking them for a little while now and I honestly have no idea if they're worth it all.

In terms of shurikens, why does no one give Sasuke Shuriken or Sasuke Shuriken +1 any love? Money aside, I've found them to be pretty convenient to get a lot of simply because I either get lucky in finding them on the auction house or make friends with smithers to make them for me. The most inconvenient part being Bismuth Sheets.

Which brings me to ask, how useful is Daken and Sange? Does AGI effect it? I currently main hand Kannagi. I debate making the other katanas, but wonder how much I may actually be losing just for Throwing. How does Daken interact with attack rounds, I thought it was a max of 8 swings per round, does Daken count for that?

I will say: it is pretty nifty being able to hit things for ranged damage at times; even on some mobs it goes through Perfect Dodge.

AGI does convert into racc, not sure on the rate but I assume it's the same you get for RNG and COR.

Daken still falls within the 8 attacks per round cap, for instance Mikage falls under the same limit as well. Someone tested both a few months ago in this very same thread, if I recall.


Not sure on Hachiya Tekko +3. It looks nice and I love its "job-specificness", I don't think it beats Abj+1 or Herc Hands with very good augments though.

H+3 seem to be better on anything 135 and below, if the sheets are your thing (I've found a few issues).

Remember the sheets still don't accurately portray the TP gain from a daken hit. (They are currently undervalued).

Any other issues I would be happy to hear of course.

That wasn't a jab at anyone. If it came off that way, sorry. I love the sheets and everyone who has made them possible.

I'm looking at them now, freshly downloaded, and the things I had found are all fixed (Innin was wrong for second set, combat skill was 292, stats didn't line up (both base and gear)). I had gotten them two weeks ago.

It's more of a "be constructive and say what the issues are so they can be fixed". Help us help you and all that.

Ha ha ha, no worries. I don't take offense at all.

That sheet I have linked from the first post was last modified December 14th 2016. And I think the last thing I had corrected was allowing separate def down inputs.

As stated by Nightfyre though, if you see something funky, not even necessarily wrong... don't fear having that discussion. I am more than happy to chat about the sheet and how I've bastardized it. :D

Hi all
I need some enlightenment which has baffled me
Why is any blu cdc ws so much more powerful than my blade shun ?
I am using aeonic katana and most of my gearset take the cue from this guide
Thank you...

CDC:
-Has comparable mods and baseline fTP
-crits
-is more responsive to multiattack

Neither WS scales well with TP, so aeonic katana won't make much difference unless you're starved for attack (which also works well for CDC since crits are a static increase in cRatio).

Am I reading the above convo correctly? For normal use NIN TP we are saying that Daken +10 > TA4 for TP gain?

Interesting if true.

All kinds of possible factors there. At first glance I'm skeptical that Daken+10 alone wins out in the hand slot, but if the racc and throwing skill contribute significantly to Daken hitrate then I could see those hands faring better.

Guy who originally asked, along with myself usually mainhand Kannagi, so I'd imagine well augmented Herc gloves with 6ta is going to be stronger considering the Aftermath.

In a wide range of situations with Aeonic Katana the ws "Blade: Ten" will outperform "Blade: Shun".

The latter performs better in some situations, has the pro of being multihit instead of single hit, and also offers some additional bonuses from the better SC properties.

When neither of these aspects matter, Ten should outperform Shun, with Aeonic.

@Gerrott; They don't know because the spread sheet doesn't account for Daken properly to begin with is what I gathered. I will say I have noticed it throw two shurikens at a time before. I'll have to make sure it wasnt with Sange up and try to get a screenshot, but is Daken or has it ever been able to proc twice in a round? I dont mean swing daken swing daken; I mean swing daken daken swing daken. May also just have been chat log lag.

I really have no idea either as it's hard to find comparable nin's to test with. I've run omen with some Kikoku and Nagi nins. Sadly, it's not super accurate as whoever ends up main tanking has their damage suffer. Very fun though, the Nagi was consistently the closest while still main tanking. I think he could pull farther ahead of me if he wanted. Yet to see a Heishi Shorinken to run with me, oddly enough.

As for the shuriken question?
Seki Shurkien or Happo Shuriken?
No on Sasuke Shuriken? Idk, I've really liked Sasuke Shurikens...

□□Edit□□
Instead of making another post, something I thought to add:
@Gerrott, Kannagi aftermath only procs on the first attack round; as in, it will proc on the first swing of the Kannagi for the attack round. Think of each attack round as a global cooldown with a maximum of 8 swing per attack round. The question is, how does Daken factor into those maximum number of swings. My guess is yes, 6 Triple Attack would win out over Hachiya +3 simply because your katana swings probably do more then your shuriken tosses.