The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Oh I hear ya. OPTIONS! Sometimes I think that's 90% of why I still play this game ;) And I'm sure that it's not an unrealistic stretch to think we might get a superior DW piece that allows you to make an improvement from DW to non-DW gear in some other slot.

I just wish options meant more than "Yo dawg, I heard you like Dual Wield...", especially when I'm frequently already practically delay capped due to capped magical haste (which actually needs DW+1 in gear, but hey...).

And, you know, when the DW options come in the same damn slots we already have other DW choices. AF and Relic both using body/legs, and Adhemar Jacket already being a great DW choice in body slot, etc.

Sorry if this is the wrong thread to be asking in, but is there any recommended Salvage II that would be best for NIN? I've got COR and a fairly poorly geared BST as well. I can clear it with NIN, but notice most people boasting on about 150+ Alex per run, whereas I only really get what drops from the one guaranteed pouch.

Is an Aeolian Edge build worth investing for to AoE? Thanks in advance.

Honestly? I'd suggest working on gearing your BST for better Salvage farming. It's just a better AoE job, and that's how you really get decent alex farming speed.

If you really wanted to do it on NIN though, yes, working on a good Aeolian Edge set would be the way to go. Try to stick some TH gear in there too (up to the non-THF main cap of TH4): Chaac Belt and/or TH+1~2 augmented Herculean gear.

This is annoying indeed, but I think we already have some good options to cap DW at different haste values.
PRO Ninjas probably have like, I dunno, 4 sets? I'm a noob and I just have 3 thresholds/sets for DW. A "no haste at all" set, a "haste ~30%" set and a capped haste set.
Good DW options we have atm are, iir.

Head: Ryuo Somen (8/9%), Hattori (10%)
Body: Adhemar (5/6%), Mochizuki (7%), Hachiya (8/9/10%)
Hands: Floral Gauntlets (5%)
Legs: Mochizuki (8%), Hachiya (3/4/5%)
Feet: Hizamaru (7/8%), lolRawhide? (4%)
Earrings: Eabani (4%), Suppanomimi (5%)
Waist: Patentia (5%), Reiki Yotai (7%)

Leaving ring aside because lol at that.
I'm not sure which would be the "ideal" combinations of these items to create the "perfect" DW sets by optimizing the best gain-per-slot.
We should also assume and 1% DW increase on Mochizuki +2 and I guess a 2% DW for Mochizuki +3, compared to the +1 version currently available.

I think Adhemar is one of the best pieces despite the low DW amount. Problem is using Adhemar when you DON'T want DW, but I guess one could work around by using a good augmented Herc body for that.
Personally I'm in love with perf Floral. It's free, it has DW, acc, racc and MA. Could we ask for more?
Legs-wise Hachiya is likely better because of the acc it gives. Mochizuki gives lot more DW, it's true, but it gives basically nothing else other than a high (and useless) evasion.

Hey man, don't LOL at my Haverton Ring! Though, yeah, I play a lot of RNG COR too so best in slot Racc/Snapshot is pretty killer and that's my main rationale for having the ring. That being said, DW+5/Racc+20 or DW+6/Racc+23 is actually quite good and one of the better DW swaps I have - especially when not Racc capped for Daken. Not to mention really good Ninjutsu Macc piece. If someone was choosing an Adoulin reward solely for NIN, I'd suggest taking a really serious look at it... and if you also play ranged jobs, it's a very compelling choice!

Your list hits the main highlights, but probably worth adding DW+5 augment Taeon Legs/Boots (still not awful), and I suppose people might have some DW Herculean gear (several pieces could be BiS in some DW builds if you bother with it and have strong augments).

I do have sets for 4 levels of DW, capping delay (or over/under by ~1 DW) for:
DW+38~39: No haste
DW+32: Haste (150/1024)
DW+21: Haste 2 (~300/1024)
DW+0: Capped magical haste (448/1024)

I suppose if you often run with a DNC or /DNC using Haste Samba for JA haste, you might also want to calculate needed DW for your situation and gear accordingly. Personally, I don't run into that a ton when I'm on NIN though so it's not a big concern for me.

Ideal combinations are also going to be dependent on target/buffs (mainly for Acc requirements) and what alternate gear you have available in other slots, so generally needs some fiddling with spreadsheets and may differ by individual. That being said, Adhemar Body is pretty much always my first DW choice thanks to the excellent other stats, and I tend to prioritize adding DW to other slots to cap roughly in the order of:

Adhemar Jacket >
DW belt >
Floral hands >
Ryuo head (maybe higher if I need heavy acc) >
Haverton ring >
Suppa >
Hizamaru feet >
Eabani >
Legs (I don't really use DW legs ever on NIN, but maybe Mochizuki +2 could be worthwhile here and bump this slot up on the priority list)

Ok, first: I know discussion on off-hand Katanas was there was huge was sayn as everything its situational.

So I dont want to rise the whole discussion again, instead I wanted to hear your thoughts on a very specific case:
As Im closing down (slowly but steadily ^.^) on my glowing Kannagi I was planning for the future. So situation is:
Kannagi main hand with the aim to keep AM3 up as much as possible (not easy, I know but lets assume it somehow works). Only melee/WS, no nuking.

Would you consider Kanaria or Shigi as off-hand?
My thoughts were:
Shigi = higher acc and lower delay so during the time that AM3 is up it should give me more frequent main hand swings to exploit AM.

But Kanaria offers better stats to get AM3 up in the first hand with possible multi hit/stp augs. Lower delay however.

(Kind of ruled Taka out as I dont really have access to it)

I dont have any of them yet (using Ochu so far). So was wondering what I should go for.

You're gonna have to put it through the sheet, different offhands will perform differently under different buffs. Achiuchikapu may even get some work done for you when you are absolutely hulked out on buffs as it has a similar delay, getting you to that next round of main hand hits.

Both ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Shigi is needed for high acc requirement. When you don't need ACC use a Kana that is best suited to your needs.

Thx for the replies. Totally forgot about Achiuchikapu for some reason! Good point. Might get one. Should hopefully not be too hard.

But yea I feared it would make too much sense to get Shigi and Kana.... list of Katanas I have to store somewhere is getting waaay too long *sigh*

For now all boulders I get are going straight into my Kannagi but once its done Ill make a Shigi I guess.

Fair warning: I'm asking this question at work and don't have spreadsheet in front of me.

I was looking at the Metsu sets on front page, which seem to be updated pretty well and it reminded me of a question I had.

The Metsu set uses Lugra +1 (DEX8 DA3) over Ishvara Earring (WSD2), and also uses Herculean Legs (assume DEX15 WSD4 or DEX10 WSD5, whatever and total +ATK on legs as 30). Disregarding Accuracy, I've thought Jokushu Haidate would be a better choice for Metsu over Herculean.

Lugra +1 is a choice of DEX8 DA3 over WSD2
Jokushu over Herculean is a choice of +20/25 DEX over WSD4 ATK30 under ~optimal conditions.

Obviously the DA on Lugra +1 is pretty great, so that's that, but off the top of my head I'm not sure that Jokushu isn't at least ~= a perfect Herc Legs, and > in sub-perfect aug situations.

Thoughts?

I think my Safe2 is about 40+ katanas. I'm ready to open a museum.

I use J. Legs and have found I pull better averages on the mobs I solo, than with my dex/wsd herc (not perfect but 15 dex 3 wsd), so /shrug. I think it comes down to how buffed you are since J. legs offers virtually no acc/attack compared to others. Also I believe it was shown that Mache+1 beats the 2wsd earring anyhow, i just cant remember where I read it now.

It's a good question, under capped ratios jokushu will probably beat out a perfectly augmented herculean legs by a couple hundred points of damage or so if your set resembles the one in the node.

Anytime you do not have those capped ratios you will find Herculean outperforming.

Might have to decide how often you ride capped acc/attk against your targets.

Edit: I admittedly left a single equip-set in the node for WS's and tried to accommodate what I 'felt' was the best performer for the WS. This is a bit different then the notion behind the TP sets, those are simply looking to reduce your cycle time as much as possible.

Would we want to change the way we approach TP/WS sets? I merely left them as they were from Kincard's creation. Perhaps something like the TP collection? Something that assumes no acc/attk checks and looks at pure output (trivial) and something... a bit more arbitrary (/shudders)?

Thanks for the responses! Glad to know my intuition wasn't that far off. For the large majority of places I play NIN I usually have a GEO mule (+/- Idris depending on if actual human or not) and usually < 135 content, so capped ATK/ACC is pretty common for when I'm on NIN.

Mache +1 beating Ishvara is something I hadn't thought of, but makes reasonable sense off the top of my head. Too bad I sold the last one I crafted and don't feel like dropping 100m on one over finishing lolAymur. I'll put that on the list of things to do at some point.

I also use Chiner's Belt +1 and Caro Necklace for capped ATK/ACC situations for Metsu, but that is something I've put off verifying properly in the spreadsheet. I'm trying to get the spreadsheet to work at work at the moment but that's a struggle (btw the dropbox link on the 1st page is broken?). Metsu's fixed 5.0 fTP leaves me fairly ambivalent about 0.1 fTP bonus over 7DEX and 2TA in situations where I am capped ACC/ATK (would even use Grunfeld otherwise I would think).

I think for general purpose use, the sets on the front page are great and a better overall look at how one should gear for, in this case, Metsu, so not meant to be a criticism. If there is a working link to the updated spreadsheet I'd love to try to *** with it while at work.

I'm pretty sure Fotia beats Grunfeld but will probably have a hard time beating something like Artful +1 or anything with DEX > 7~8 (and other stats).

And by all means, please criticize. It's just a method to get to the truth. :)
I appreciate your feedback Sath.

Obviously it would be very nice, but A) I'm not sure any of the other guides go this far and B) you're right in that it would be kinda awful to do.

A limited selection done in the same way the DW/Haste sets are done wouldn't be bad, like capped ATK/ACC, Mid and High ACC requirements, etc. The problem with this for WS is that in creation of these sets we use ideal augments as augmented Herc is almost always the right choice, but as we all know, perfect augments are not common.

This sorta is where the problem would become difficult imo and one would say "spreadsheet it" because you don't want to be making one for like DEX5 ACC10 WSD2 / DEX10 ACC20 WSD3 / DEX15 ACC30 WSD4 etc for every single piece, that'd be ridiculous. Unfortunately, in a perfect world where making these required 0 effort, that is what would be required as using a DEX3 WSD5 ACC7 Herc hand for Metsu is going to need more accommodation in other slots than a DEX10 ACC30 WSD5 Herc hand would.

Maybe a capped ATK/ACC set and then a single theoretical maximum ACC while preserving modifier/DA/TA/WSD set for each WS with the disclaimer of "swap out your shitty augs with these pieces as needed". The first thing that springs to mind for me as an example is using Hiza. Legs +1/2 over Herc/Jokushu even for Metsu/Hi in situations where you A) need ACC and B) your augments aren't near perfect.

Still would be tedious and subjective based on "how shitty is shitty / how near perfect is good enough" but yeah.

Hmm that is true I still use grunfeld on my belt slott, but lately have been pondering to buy the 10 dex belt.... all are so close but ya, maybe jut stick to fotia for that cool 1% chance.

So, if you're at the point that you are considering Artful Belt +1, is there any reason you aren't considering Chiner's Belt +1? 7 DEX, 2 TA, and TA damage +5%. It's what I use for Metsu, but admittedly I never considered moving to Artful.

I just find the multi hit procs to not add enough dmg, and honestly chiners to me seems like a sidegrade from grunfeld at best, and worse is most situations, so inv+1. artful would be only for max dex set (when everything else is capped).

Previous testing indicated that DA/TA damage likely does not work on WS.

RIP. Oh well, still 2 TA.

Edit:
I'd appreciate a sanity check because the spreadsheet I'm using is out of date so I had to enter most of the gear by hand. Using my gear (doesn't really matter, held all but waist constant across all comparisons) and not fiddling with any buffs aside from just setting mob DEF-50% and level low enough to ensure capped everything I get the following result for belts for Metsu:

Grunfeld: 9008
Artful +1: 9044
Fotia: 9084
Chiner's +1: 9092

I may have simplified too much stuff and I'm not very experienced using the NIN spreadsheet so take it with a grain of salt.

You may want to try downloading the latest one and trying again. But I did end up with a result similar to yours. That triple attack must be doing something really great for metsu's average damage. ;D

thats interesting, in either case if it truly is 8 dps difference, ill get +1 inv and just stay with fotia. I am sure with its extra benefits that a spreedsheet cant pick up that its going to be ahead quite a margin then.

I've been having trouble accessing the new one on the front page. I get the dropbox version of 404 not found when I try to grab it.

Thanks for the heads up, dropbox nixed the "Public" Folder where the sheet resides. So the link had changed and I did not publish the new change! Updated~ Let me know if it's still keeping you out.

Thanks! Unfortunately I won't have time to check today at work.

Thanks for all the work keeping up the spreadsheet!

Oh, one more comment about the DW gear discussion...

Perhaps obvious, but Sechs and I both neglected to mention the possibility of a DW+10 Andartia Mantle. Certainly not your top NIN Ambus-cape priority, but when you're getting to the point of 4th-5th capes it could have its uses!

With all the multiattack NIN has, and the somewhat lesser impact of Store TP on a DW job where our damage isn't skewed quite as heavily to WS where TP overflow is a bigger deal (e.g. THF DNC BLU), using the Sap slot on DW is a pretty decent place to swap in a large chunk.

For instance, with Haste II only (or equivalent, like Haste + Mighty Guard), you're at/near cap with DW+21~22. Plenty of DW possibilities, but Adhemar Jacket (5%), Andartia (10%), and Reiki belt (7%) is a very nice capped delay set without much sacrifice from other slots - and all three of those pieces have pretty strong other DD stats.

I actually never made a DW Andartia's... but now I kinda want to!

Hello all. I'm a returning player and I just got NIN to 99. I'm in no way an elite player or "end game" player and I'm trying to set some goals for gear. The NQ set listed on page 1 is way out of my league for now and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a basic TP set and Shun WS gear set to shoot for? Basically a tier below the NQ set lol.

I'm basically able to get Ambuscade gear, alluvion skirmish, Reforged AF, and gear along that line. I don't have the gil to merc Herculean, etc.

For katanas I'm using the Alluv skirmish and regular +2 skirmish one. I have rajas, brutal, suppa, eponas. Using windbuffet belt and ambuscade cape.

Thanks in advance for the help!!

This is the best starter kit I could find that predates Escha/Reisenjima/Ambuscade equipment.

I noticed you're on Bismarck...
Whenever I'm free (from school and linkshell) I can help you get a few items from Escha/Reisenjima.

If you do see me on feel free to poke me and ask questions.
And Welcome Back~!

That's great, kind of what I was looking for. Definitely some gear on there I never even heard of lol. Thanks a ton!

Also I really appreciate your offer as Id love to do some low end Escha or Unity NMs but no one seems to be doing them much anymore. Also I think I remember you from the old old school Seraph days, were you in equilibrium back in the day??