The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Don't be mad at people for using the Golden Gun, be mad at the people who created the Golden Gun.

With all the jobs we can be rightfully mad about the fact they're on Naegling, why exactely whine about BLU?

They get normally access to Savage Blade and Sword is their primary physical weapon.
I'm not sure why should anyone feel wrong for using Naegling on BLU honestly. It's a pretty solid weapon...

I mean isn't it like the second best main hand for blu?

Because she made a shiny after all these years of not playing BLU and now feels entitled even though Naegling has been a thing for almost 3 years at this point.

If you don't want to play support don't offer it to your LS/PUGs.

I can totally understand NINs thinking wtf am I using a Sword over my Katanas though. SE really has dropped the ball on Katana WSes.

Then why'd you bring it up?

Pretty confident it is.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised to see Naegling pull ahead Tizona in some specific circumstances, because of the Buffs>Att% conversion bonus.


It's particularly sad for NIN.
It's sad for DRG too but that's a specific thing.
Likewise for BRD and THF, sad for those as well but I feel it's less annoying than NIN.

For BRD because it's not a "proper" DPS, for THF because the difference between Naegling and other Dagger options is not really that great. Actually I'm not even sure Naegling is on Top for THF. I only used it on Alexander and situationally when I didn't want SCs and stuff like that.

Why? Gives DRG slashing option and is still kinda within lore. Raw power without self skillchains can rival Polearms if you go /WAR, but Polearm is still overall better imo.


On sheet Dagger is still slightly ahead.
Naegling is again more like a slashing option for THF.

I don't really know how to even fix Naegling on NIN. Buffing :Ten past Savage would probably make :Ten too OP. Nerfing Naegling would be the only way probably, but too many casuals would cry about it at this point I think, so they won't do it.

Don't need to make Blade: Ten stronger than Savage Blade, just competitive enough that the other benefits on REMA katanas make them worth using. Bumping up modifiers to 40% would probably be sufficient without making it overpowered.

Why are you talking about buffing only Blade: Ten when a buff to multiple katana ws would be a more appropriate adjustment? Kamu, Ku, Shun, Hi, and Metsu all getting adjustments like most thf dagger ws got a few years back. Blade: Ten shouldn't be your best ws in the first place.

Yeah, it's all (most?) physical WS that need an adjustment, not just Ten.
Altough I'm not sure... how would you fix it?
You could individually fix 4 or 5 WS, but how? I'd be curious what people are thinking here.


Or they could bump the base damage of all ilevel katanas, but that would be strange for lore reasons. Katanas are meant to be faster and lower damage than Swords (on average), so suddenly having Katanas in a different position would be quite strange.

Yeah I guess the only possible fix is to manually adjust specific WSs.

Blade: Ten
Blade: Ku
Blade: Hi
Blade: Shun

All need adjustments.
These adjustments don't have to be something extreme, I honestly feel just a small bump would be enough, especially for Blade: Ten we're very very close to where it should be.
Hi is the one that probably needs the most work. Not sure how to fix it specifically, for sure a big bump in Crit rate at different TP values is necessary.
Then I dunno, raising the FTP a bit? 5.5? 6.0?

Ideally I would love to see an adjustment for Blade: Kamu too but I don't see it coming.

With the addition of pdl(assuming nin gets more) shuns not in too bad a spot with its tp effect now. Ten only needs a modest change in either mods or ftp to be its SB equivalent. Rest are really just ftp boosts, particularly kamu and Hi, in the case of hi, and/or making it a dex mod finally.

I said about Blade: Ten, because it has the same mechanic and characteristic. Almost all fTP on first hit, similar scaling with TP, so works in similar scenario with similar gear. Crit WSs, utility WSs with massive attack bonus and/or def ignore, multihits etc. are totally harder to compare and should't do as much damage as Ten at high TP threshold. Kamu should be buffed, Metsu should be buffed, Shun should be buffed, but nowhere close to 43k+ damage imo.


Dagger WSs on THF are crap. No idea what are you talking about here. Rudra is only good WS really and Aeolian is ok for AoE. Evisceration is only good with Tauret. Everything else is crap or super mediocre.


More like 50% according to sheet.

In all honesty….. Everything should be NERFED to the ground. We seriously shouldn’t be doing such outrageous WSD when the highest end of ki BCNM can be basically 2 shotted by 2 rounds of WS by a party + Impact. That’s not seriously “VD” if you completed the fight in less than 30s.

Everything is so out of wack nowadays & needs serious Balance Adjustments, assuming SE even cares any longer, but they did break the Subjob Cap. So maybe we will see such I hope.

Is Metsu in such a bad position? Considering like most (all?) Relic WS are kinda bad and they will be addressed separately, if we are to trust what SE said.
Supposing Metsu needs a buffs, surely it's not a huge one?
I mean Kamu needs a huge buff. Even if we are to accept that Mythic WS will never be top knotch, it still needs a huge buff even to just become barely decent when used with Mythic.

Shun and Ten could use a small buff.
Ku could use a small but slightly bigger buff, to make it somewhat pretty nice at least with Gokotai MH.
Hi needs an even larger buff imho but I'm not sure how you would do it. Reverting the Crit Rate nerf would be good but not enough, they would need to also raise the FTP to make it decent to use at least when mainhanding Kannagi.

Speaking of Metsu, it's been a while since they hinted at possibly buffing ALL relic weapon skills, as evidenced by the fact they left out Final Heaven from the H2H update. I wonder if their plans to address that is the dark relics they've teased in the past and just recently shown in the new missions. Because that would be an ideal time to rework all relic WS. Unless of course their "fix" to relic WS is just the improved weapon with like +100% damage.

Significant one for sure. Its at around 26.5k avg now with R15 Kikoku and should be doing 35k minimum to be balanced. So I guess push fTP to 7.0 could do it.

26,5k avg in which scenario? Ultrabuffed with 2000 stats and overcapped attack?
Because in general it seems a pretty good number, my physical WSs are nowhere that high on average unless I'm pumping some serious buffs.
Considering how 98% of Relic WSs suck, it doesn't seem like Metsu is in a particularly bad position, at least compared to other relic weapons.

Using the same scenario you used for Metsu, what are the Averages you're getting for Ku (with Gokotai of course), Hi (with Kannagi), Shun and Ten?

Yes, every statement ever regarding a number that represents damage is under the assumption of 4 full lines of buffs. It shouldn't always need to be repeated because its literally always the case.

Would sooner "fix" magian off-hands to make the 1k values on some relic 1 handers competitive with their scaling alternatives, theyre still at a disadvantage due to natural overflow/non magian tp bonus pieces like mpaca head but its closer to the values of 1.5k tp least in the case of sword/katana/dagger.

But i figure this wont happen if it hasnt already

Thing is, you're talking about garbage PLAYERS doing garbage damage. There's nothing at all wrong with a competent BLU using a Naegling, and they certainly shouldn't be doing poor damage with that (as has been mentioned several times, generally Tizona and Naegling will be your top 2 BLU mainhand options).

That has very little to do with discussing why it's annoying that jobs that aren't traditionally even sword users get better results with Naegling (and proper gear/buffs) than they do with the weapon(s) more closely associated with that job.

Seems like your complaint is more about bandwagon players not knowing how to use a very powerful (and relatively easily obtained) tool. Kinda like when BLU was a popular bandwagon job, you'd see a lot of pretty awful BLUs running around.

Just capped attack with more realistic Metsu capped attack set. We shouldn't talk about uncapped attack damage, because we are talking about damage potential. Also capping attack on Kikoku NIN is least demanding then on most DD jobs. NIN only has pdl I trait and only uses 13%PDL in Metsu set. So ratio cap is set only at 3.785. Metsu could actually go slightly higher, even up to 28k avg, but using Malignance body and hands, both pieces having PDL, but no attack, so much harder to achieve, unless you have lots of def down buffs. On the other hands Kikoku has lots of attack and attack aftermath, so maybe its not as unrealistic.


Its not a good number for sure for WS like Metsu (WS not scaling with TP and not having good utility or strong attack buffs). 26.5k would be a imo a good target number for Kamu, because Kamu has massive attack bonus and 25% def ignore, which mean it could get to that 26.5k underbuffed and be useful WS to use when underbuffed.



You mean on NIN or what job?


why would I compere it to other relic weapon skills? You say it yourself that they are bad. I tho it was obvious Im talking about fix to current overall standards, not current relic standards.


The true question that you should ask is using the same scenario for Savage, what is the avg for that WS, because Savage is physical WS that set standards for NIN now.

Avg for Savage with capped attack (and accuracy) is 43.4k on NIN at 1000TP+ with Hitaki offhand and 32.5k with Gleti's offhand. 35k from Metsu should be around perfect spot, when its better than Naegling/Gleti's without further buffs like Crystal blessing or Warcry from WAR and even with lower ws damage it should have dps to compete with Naegling/Hitaki. I would find such scenario as minimum target for "fixed" R15 Relic.

Hi is doing 22.4k with capped attack/acc (no Innin). I think Hi should ideally do somewhere around 32-33k, since Kannagi provide good white damage too.

Shun can go up to 18k+, but with lots of PDL from Malignance and Mpaca. Native attack bonus on Shun could help with that, but it might still be hard at only 1000+TP with just 500TP bonus.

Imo Shun should be buffed to like 25k in normal set and possibly 28-29k in such full PDL set.

Ten is at 34k with Heishi/Hitaki and 28.5k with Heishi/Gleti's and should be imo buffed to like 43k with Hitaki and 35k with Gleti's to match (/hitaki) or slightly beat (/gleti) Savage/Naegling.

You mentioned another thing that I personally find annoying, even though it's nowhere close to the Naegling mh thing.
I'm talking about offhanding a dagger instead of a bloody *** katana.

We can't even blame Gleti saying it's too good, because it's the third time (at least) it happens. Before Gleti we had R15 ternion +1 and before that we had Tauret.
When this keeps happening you start wondering if the problem isn't maybe intrinsecal with katana weapon category itself.
This is a small thing compared to Naegling, but it still annoys me a lot...

Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing, Sechs. Though, at least they made some effort with the two Odyssey katanas that clearly do have a place in current endgame. Kunimitsu has a variety of useful stats across the board, is the offhand of choice if you're regularly using ninjutsu to MB, and isn't a huge DPS difference versus Gleti's. Tsuru is a great offhand if you want to focus on tanking (assuming no Yagyu...)

Almost feels like they should have just limited the job selections on some of these weapons that ended up being really strong. Why even put 13 jobs on Naegling? Just allowing the jobs that can actually use the trial sword and unlock Savage Blade (WAR RDM PLD DRK BLU COR) kinda would have made more sense, TBH. Same for Gleti's, NIN is sort of the oddball there and maybe would have made sense to not be included and just leave the dagger for the jobs that are more dagger-focused to begin with.

Yes, I know, options for different damage types... But from a lore consistency point of view I honestly wouldn't mind if those "non-standard" options for jobs were on weapons that weren't quite so strong and were really only for super-niche use, to make it easier to balance so each job's "signature" weapon type(s) were their clear best options in a neutral situation.

On the bright side, I'm sorta looking forward to magian weapons becoming less viable on high level Apex mobs and whatever content is to come. Offhanding lv75 TP Bonus weapons is at least as obnoxious to me as some excessively powerful Ambu/Odyssey weapons.

They make two kinds of Katana styles: the smaller Kunai versions with lower delay/dmg but a load more stats (like Shigi, Mijin, Achiuchikapu, and most recently, Tsuru), and the longer, more DPS, higher delay main-hand katanas (like Kunimitsu, Gokotai, Heishi Shorinken). I think when it came to the Odyssey weapons, they decided against giving Ninja two DPS katanas and just split it between Tanking and DPS (though, the Daken augment on Tsuru is strange). Tsuru is definitely designed to be offhanded, just by looking at the delay they included on it. And if you look at the icon for Kikoku, for example, it's actually a Kunai model as well. The problem is, you can't offhand it for it's amazing stats, which would have made sense for a native Dual-Wield job like Ninja. So instead of ninja getting two good katanas to use in both hands that compliment each other offensively like it should be, players just decided to use daggers which are naturally lower delay and usually loaded with a ton of stats (because they are weaker weapons by design), because NIN is so devoid of native offensive firepower. The dagger offhand combo works perfectly for Ninja's attack speed, but I don't think they actually made it that way. Players just are smart enough to tell what's better for the job.

I think SE recognized this and decided, instead of making a katana with amazing offhand stats that only Ninja could use, they made both: katanas with more magical/offensive stats and threw them on daggers as well; otherwise, everyone would complain if they had daggers like Ternion +1 and Gleti's but NIN was not on it. I do admit, using a dagger OH does not feel like Ninja.

I still think Kunimitsu R20 is a fantastic OH anyways, probably the best option all-around for Ninja collectively, so they did do something right with that weapon.

Well... that's one thing for sure, but then again I don't think this aspect alone is the only culprit, it's a conjunction of this aspect plus Savage Blade being incredibly strong by itself, the 15% damage bonus and the Buffs>Att% conversion only make it worse.

The other Ambu weapons fall in a similar position when it comes to unusual job availability but don't suffer from the same issues. (well... we could discuss Shining One but I don't think it's the same thing).

Take Karambit, it offers an unusual H2H option for multiple jobs, it's fun, situationally cool, but does it change the meta? No.
Take Maxentius, take Tauret, take Hachimonji, we could go on.

Then again most Ambu weapons, as wide of a selection as they offer, are not really in the same boat as Naegling. Like Gokotai being NIN only.
Sooo... yeah, I dunno what they were thinking but clearly once again they didn't put too much afterthought in that.



In another game Naegling and Naegling alone would've been patched within months from its release. Now it's been so much time that even if they were to patch it, of course a lot of people would become rightfully sour about it.
I mean jobs like BLU or RDM don't really deserve Naegling to be nerfed, do they?

But we already discussed that even for other jobs who tipically benefit from Naegling (DRG, WAR, THF... etc) have it as a very nice, situational, alternative option. Not THE BiS option, such as is the situation for NIN.
Which to me means that if anything they should do something about NIN's main weapon.
A Trait that activates if you equip Katanas in both hand? A buff to Katana physical WS damage? Whatever.
I'm cool with Naegling being a viable alternative for NIN, but it being by far the best option is preposterous come on.

I could say the same about BRD and I'm notoriously biased about BRD, but being that BRD isn't a "proper" DPS job, I find the Naegling thing less relevant for BRD than it is for NIN.

Tbh Maxentius is potentially as strong or stronger than Naegling. Naegling is just slightly easier to unlock full potential because of that attack bonus. If both are capped, Black Halo is doing as much or more I think.


I think this is another weapon that's a little like Maxentius. The only reason it's not overused is because Naegling is :) Take Naegling away and DRGs and WARs will switch to One :) Ofc that would still be much healthier situation than Naegling used by everyone :P

There is still more offenders here too. Dolichenus? This Axe shits on all other axes. WTF is +120% damage to WS. It's broken too.

Gokotai is probably one of the well balanced Ambu weapons. At least balanced for current Katana situation. It would require buff, if other Katana WSs get fixed.

Only because axe WS äre horribly underpowered too. Mistral Axe is roughly as strong as Blade: Ten, and that's the best one outside of using Dolichenus. Without Dolichenus, Decimation (and Ruinator) do slightly more than Blade: Shun only without the massive attack bonus. Dolichenus only looks strong in comparison to other axe WS, but in the end all jobs that can use it have stronger options, like Naegling, or 2-handed weapons.

That's the point tho. Fix is needed to Axe WSs. Adding weapon with 120% multiplier is plain stupid and clearly shows WS is too weak.


WAR also has stronger options than Naegling. Still using Naegling. So I don't understand that argument. If you could access Doli (and native axe skill) on NIN, THF, RDM etc. it will be as broken as Naegling. Also without Warcry, Doli/Decimation is as strong as Naegling/Savage on WAR, just more limited, because it require dual wield for optimal DPS, while Naegling works in Fencer setup too.