The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

fSTR has a cap. STR should only be better until you hit it.

Not necessarily. The Physical bonuses apply two times I think.
30 STR counts two times in the damage formula, well, almost.

The first time directly: STR gives attack, it's a mod, it gives STR tiers, so basically it directly boosts the physical damage part of the hybrid WS.

The second time indirectly: since the base damage of the magic part of the hybrid WS is based on the physical damage, if you boost the physical part you will indirectly boost the magical part as well.

On the other hand, magical stats will affect only the magical part of the WS.


Well I've oversimplified things but I just wanted to make an example.
In light of this I think it could be reasonable for 30STR and 30INT to give similar results.
If it's exactly the same though there might be some error in the sheet though, I dunno °-°

Good catch Logical :) fSTR wasnt included in the calculations (I added cell for it as part of making it cleaner/more accurate but forgot to add it to calculations XD). Fixed (with update notification)

Everything else looks great. Seems to confirm my parser results and that I have another 8k-10k to gain by fixing my three herc pieces which right now have max matk but no wsd. Also interesting to see JSE pulling ahead for neck by so much. Thanks again bud... will be showing this in my Chi/To video due out in the next two weeks.

You're seeing neck+2 pulling ahead of any other option? Clearly only at overcapped att thanks to PDL 10‰? Because if att is barely capped or not capped at all it would surprise me a lot to see it so far ahead of any other option.

Didn't have a chance to mess with the sheet yet, are you finding WSD beating out DA for Herc slots?

Its only at attack cap that allow pdl to work. Pdl is only thing on jse neck that boost hybrid WS, without enough attack it wouldnt add even +1 damage.

WSD Looks to be handily winning.

Thanks for the sheet! Looks like the Ochu is better than I thought, makes me feel not quite so behind after all.

Where are yall pulling enemy defense values from? I'm trying to toy around with it to see how well an extra malaise vs indi fury, different rolls, etc all stack up. I have a couple samples from an old spreadsheet, but curious how to get my own data.

NMs, you would have to trial and error with buffs and debuffs. when you're capped attack there is only a 5% difference between your minimum and maximum damage rolls. you can run a parser for that probably, but make sure all the variables are maintained throughout.

for normal mobs like apex mobs, you can just use /check. if they check low defense, your attack is at least 1.25x their defense, so just add and subtract attack until you get a small enough window. for example, apex crabs are 1259 or less for the 133. but you can do that without ever engaging.

Keep in mind that its only a WS danage calculator, not DPS calculator and while you can change almost whole gear for tp phase, you cant switch weapons. Gokotai and Ochu might win for WS damage here over for example Ternion, but Ternion will have much better tp generation, so it might have overall better dps.

Thanks for the info Austar! That's way simpler to test out than I thought.

And ya I know the TP speed adds more effective DPS, I'm just still on budget NIN status with a lot of stuff to buy so it's nice to know where the bigger gains come from.

Ternion+1 r15 kicks ***

First off - THANK YOU, SIMON! Really nice resource.

Re: my previously noted items, was interesting to see that:

* My pretty beastly DM Herc Helm (WSD+9/MAB+20) does indeed lose out to Mochizuki +3 head with all that MAB/INT.

* My WSD+8/MAB+11 Herc Body is similar (slightly worse) than a capped Samnuha Coat. I have a not-quite-capped Samnuha, so I'll go with Herc Body to err on the side of significantly better Acc. No Gyve for me, maybe will add that the the list of depressing drop rate toys to farm.

* My least impressive looking Herc DM piece, Boots with WSD+7/MAB+11, does beat Logical's good non-Herc suggestion of Adhemar +1 (sneaky good MAB/STR there, solid option). EDIT: Oh, whoops... forgot to check my non-WSD pair with MAB+37 augment, and the MAB+37 one wins based on Simon's spreadsheet.

* Orpheus > Fotia > Sailfi +1 for waist slot. For us non-Orpheus folk, Sailfi gets pretty close to Fotia but can't quite beat it.


Also really interesting to see Nagi performing really well, beating out Heishi for WS damage. I assume that's solely down to Mythic AM3 proc on WS - right? Nagi obviously loses out on some TP Bonus inherent in Heishi, but the faster TP generation means maybe it still ends up with higher total DPS. I'm sorta leaning toward Nagi/Hitaki myself... when I get a chance, I'm gonna go out and tinker with that, Heishi/Hitaki, and Heishi/ambu and see what kind of real world results I get.

EDIT: also trying to think about SC applications. Chi > Retsu > Hi/Ten/Ku does Darkness. But Retsu is... not bestu. Does allow for a beefy Futae MB though.

I'm getting Orpheus > Fotia > Sailfi +1 R15 > Skrymir +1 > NQ Skrymir.

Re: skillchains:
For Nagi users there may be some potential in Chi > Kamu > Chi > Kamu > Chi > Kamu. Solid damage on all the WS, and rapid fire SCs (even if they're level 1 Compression and Transfixions). The transfixions are pretty strong though, and you get a lot of them.

For Heishi, I'm kinda OK with Chi > Retsu > Hi or Ten for a 3-step darkness and a big MB, especially when Futae is up. IDK whether to focus on Hi or Ten... if solo without big buffs, maybe down to whether you have 1250 TP+ or not to get that last SC in (and if under 1250, go Hi since Ten will be more mediocre). I doubt I have an optimal Retsu set, was using my Metsu set for it (two-hit 60% DEX mod WS) to mess around. The Retsu is gonna suck in any case though, you're only using it as a SC linker to get to a really big Darkness/MB.

Again though, it's tricky to buff appropriately for the physical and magical WS to work. If you have a pocket GEO, can do something like Indi-Acumen, entrust Indi-Fury, and GEO-Malaise or Frailty... It's an awful lot of work though to get the setup right, for results that may not be better than just doing like - self Radiance with Shuns with Heishi, Hi/darkness spam and strong white damage with Kannagi, etc.

Of course Heishi isn't going to win when you're already at 3k, lol

Simon's calculator doesn't automatically apply Heishi's TP Bonus. From the spreadsheet:

So yeah, a "3000 TP" WS on the Calculator is really a WS performed at 2500 TP (or 2250 if using Moonshade too). Same deal for TP Bonus offhand, it's something you need to account for manually.

Nagi does perform pretty well, I was just playing with some Apex Bats with it and Heishi. Nagi is obviously less consistent, but the spikes when AM3 procs are pretty strong. And it's better able to SC with Kamu > Chi, versus Heishi being more limited to having to use something crappy like Retsu (or Kamu without Mythic boost that makes that WS worthwhile).

That particular spreadsheet does not measure TP generation rate, so by itself you cannot draw a conclusion like that. And yes, I understand how it does TP bonus operations.

I didn’t make any assertion that one was better total DPS than the other. Just that I didn’t anticipate Nagi to have such good Chi numbers, purely considering the WS themselves. Obviously there are other factors: WS frequency, TP overflow, SCs, white damage, etc.

Nagi does generally get faster TP though. Is it enough to offset Aeonic’s TP Bonus? I’m not sure. The frequency of OAx profs does lead to a lot of overflow, somewhat countering Heishi’s more consistent numbers. Nagi with a TP Bonus offhand seems to perform quite well just spamming ASAP and still getting a lot of effectively ~2500+ TP WS. Also gets some advantages of Mythic AM3 procs on WS, and the added flexibility of potentially better SC options with Kamu & Chi.

Awesome job on the calc- looking forward to goofing around with!

On the talk for skillchains if you have a hybrid ws set, like I was saying esp for heishi use:

To > Tekki > shun > shun if wanna add another step, start w/tekki

I love the optimism of the target MDB field.

You can get most Apex stats here if anyone is looking for numbers to put in: https://w.atwiki.jp/bartlett3/pages/327.html

I don't think it account for Ninja MAB and WS Damage gifts so if you're master can add them in. (can correct me if I'm wrong).

MDB field is not optimistic, its neutral. 0 there means its base 100.

Neutral MDB is 100, Neutral MAB is 100 too. If you have 100 mab in equip calculation is 200/100 = 2

Also gifts are there. You can see +5% in WSD cells and that its 5% more than in sum of gear WSD. In MAB cell you can see +28 too.

Nice page with those Apex mobs. I might add presets for some apex mobs based on that.

What I meant was there are mobs with 500 Magic Defense Bonus. So you'd enter 400 in the magic defense field? Or am I doing it wrong? The upper limit is set to 100.

Yeah, but
1. Whats the point to check damage for mobs with 500mdb? You wont be using hybrid WSs on them anyway
2. If you really want to check the damage on such mobs, you can edit that range to whatever you like in your copy. Its not like its set in stone :P

What mobs has 500mdb btw?

Oh just to see what happened.

A lot of the older high tier BCs go to 400 Magic Defense Bonus on VD, probably to compensate for being level 99.
https://w.atwiki.jp/bartlett3/pages/314.html#14


500 was the highest i saw in a quick browse. It was the soulflayer ambuscade on VD.
https://w.atwiki.jp/bartlett3/pages/317.html#20
https://twitter.com/long_horned/status/1229266332601868288

Not that you'd use hybrids on that.

The JP wiki also seems to say the lowest Magic Defense Bonus a monster can have is 50 (or -50 from neutral).
http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/28429.html

Also, unrelated but interesting, that guy's twitter says Sheol A NMs and mimics have 75% Geomancy resistance, and Sheol B NMs and mimics has 85% https://twitter.com/long_horned/status/1300309271045763073

Also, unrelated but interesting, he says the old area stuff content level stuff takes half potency from defense down debuffs: https://twitter.com/long_horned/status/1292694454906662912

He says malaise and torpor did full potency, but frailty was 1/2 potency. Definitely some interesting reading.

"old area stuff content" would be what, High Tier Battlefields?
Would the new avatars added in Selbina be part of this?
What about Ambuscade content?

Well I changed upper range to 400, because why not XD

Unity NMs in old areas and old BC areas used for high tier bcs (like leviathan) for the most part, where level correction still applies. Maybe a few other things.

Not the Selbina BCs or Ambuscade I think. (Although, Odin VD has 75% Geomancy resistance and Cait Sith has 80%.)

Who knows all the tiny details about small, half or full resistances to Geomancy in various content.
Wish SE could make it clear with a table with all of the details.
Wouldn't cost them more than a couple of hours of work, would it?

It's really frustrating and even irritating we don't even have means to get official data for "important" stuff like that.
Having at least one session per year where players can ask a limited number of game engine related technical things wouldn't really kill their work hours, it's the least they could do, sigh.