The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

That's a VERY good solo run for your average player, to the point of probably being unrealistic. I don't get that on my well geared Masa R15 SAM + Idris GEO dualbox. I'm absolutely not the pinnacle of optimal galli farming, I'm sure some people pull in more than me. But I'm also far from a newly returning player in Ambu gear.

1000% agreed with everything else you said.

Empy +2? Sure, soloable without much issue. Empy +3? That's a freaking GRIND for a solo player with the skill level of having difficulty acquiring gil/wins for Mpaca, Ken+1, Malignance, or 3/4 of the Tatenashi +1 set.

You will predictably get this set, so long as you want to do the content as a solo. It's free daily and getting an aurum coffer and running through EFG for non combat objectives isn't hard. Maybe D mini boss could be hard for newer people.

Lilith/Aman - luck, no guarantee. Not as good for WS/better for tp.

Ken+1 probably faster because you can work on it for more than 1 hour a day. No DT, so not great if youre trying to solo things which require acc to hit and DT to not die.

Taten+1 really rough/impossible as a solo for the entire set.
Again no DT.

Mpaca solo means you're segment farming solo also. You don't start getting acc until R16, but i dont think that's an important distinction because even no augments the set is a good comparison. Obviously less acc but at least there is pdt. Not free but also you'll have the money by the time you farm up the segments. But I wouldn't work on augmenting Mpaca if I could work on Nyame instead, and I could be working on Sortie at the same time if I were a solo NIN enthusiast.

Empy +2 is 32dt, capped haste, and enough acc to hit most things. Easy enough to get and it turns into +3 by just predictably grinding more.

Honestly if a person is playing solo, I'd tell then to make a couple pieces of the set as +2 and spend his time elsewhere. Logic tells you if a person is only in a position to solo, they aren't going to make much progress quickly, so it would be better for them to spend whatever time they have grinding for better gear elsewhere. I would not recommend a solo player grind this set out for.... Accuracy and DT. The +2 is sufficient if they can't even beat the lower content for better gear.

I was being generous when I said 10k gallantry a day, but realistically, is still limited to one hour daily. You have more tries to get other gear elsewhere, so you would really get those sets much faster. Lilith is unlimited grind. Mpaca is finite based on Segments. Su3 non hq set and base kunimitsu/mpaca gives you a good enough starting point where you can mix and match pieces until you get Hattori+3. This set just isn't that good enough to make it a goal to get right away.

You are very optimistic about getting Starstone from just non combat objective chests that fast. I'm currently like 3/50 including bosses and red chests which probably has higher rate then blue too. People in my static are like 0/40 atm I think and they bought one in the end (I got mines in off days).

Also E has no non combat objective chests. One is from killing mobs around bitzer and other from killing flans. F has one, but people can't get it with 100% success rate solo so far. G and H have one easy chest each. So it's 2-3 chests and lots of running. Yesterday it took me 10 minutes to do G and H with Bolster roll. If you time your searching well and do at start of dusk, then I would guess F, G and H will still take like 15min on avg and that 900 Galli too. I doubt you would be able to do more than 4k Galli in 45min you will have on farming, so it's more like 14 days per piece doing it daily .

I've been struggling to understand why the ninja empy upgrades feel so bad. And I think I figured it out.

Ninja received: stats, ACC, racc, macc, on every piece just like every other job. It received 1 piece of WSD like every other damage dealer. 1 piece of magic burst damage gear like other offensive caster, and received 3 pieces of dt gear like every other job.

What it didn't receive was:
Magic attack bonus on every piece like every other offensive caster.

A pdl piece like every other physical dd.

Honestly out of the two choices I'm sure everyone would have chosen the first option, and I would too, but it's like they couldn't make up their mind about what they wanted for ninja and instead of choosing one SE chose none.

Comparison pieces:
MBD was added to: BLM Legs, RDM Legs, BLU Feet, SCH Hands, GEO Legs and NIN Hands. The only job that didn't receive MAB was NIN.

PDL was added to: WAR Legs, MNK Hands, THF Head, DRK Head, BST Feet, RNG Body, SAM Feet, DRG Body, PUP Head, DNC Legs,

Jobs left off of PDL: WHM, BLM, RDM, PLD, BRD, SMN, BLU, COR, SCH, GEO, RUN and ofc NIN. The tanks, I get it(is that where they include NIN? No because the tanks didn't get WSD). The supports, rdm/brd/cor, I could atleast understand it because the hyper buff support meta with naegling is ridiculous. The mages who received MAB, whm/blm/rdm/smn/blu/sch/geo I get it they already got an entire new Stat on evetything. NIN got *** entirely, Second only to the king of the lonely empy club, brd. So if we're gonna complain and get SE to fix anything let's start with add 50 mab to each nin empy piece at +3.

Was stated already but empy at its base was basically SE throwing everything is "supposed" to be together in 1 set, it worked back then because empy was all round amazing, but even at ilvl it was pretty poor, SE did not add much unique to any of the sets but since they still cant decide wtf nin is its probably made worse, as its not a designated nuker so no mab, its a tank so no pdl, but its also not a tank so heres wsd.

Bout the biggest highlight is its a strong meva/hybrid set, which many other jobs git and then some

Not just offensive casters. COR feet

Chasseur's Bottes +3
DEF:99 HP+41 STR+29 DEX+38 VIT+19 AGI+56 MND+26 CHR+38
Accuracy+60 Ranged Accuracy+60 Ranged Attack+60 Magic Accuracy+60 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+50 Evasion+124 Magic Evasion+125 "Magic Def. Bonus"+9 Haste+4%
“Quick Draw”+31 Enhances “Courser's Roll” effect

on their quick draw feet....

But SE doesn't give Ninja MAB on their NUKING Hands. I would have preferred that over MBD+15 personally. If we're being honest, they should have just stat vomited MAB on every piece to round out Ninja as a caster, but whatever.

FWIW, Ninja's JSE earring +2 has a hefty amount of PDL (lol GL getting that).

I was more trying to highlight every single piece on the other caster all got MAB vomited onto each piece. COR got MAB on 1/2 pieces that it really mattered on, which I mean, that's okay if they wanna pick and choose where to throw it, but when blm/rdm/blu/sch/geo all got full sets full of MAB and nin didn't get a single piece, giving cor a piece is kinda a slap in the face.

To top it off rdm got mab on their wsd piece which is the same argument we get thrown at us when we ask for stats, (you already have amazing hybrids why do you need more) rdm has crocea and HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE magic ws's why do they get the full Monty while nin left in the cold.

Edit: Ninja already has to choose between nuking and hybrids with nyame because no other good set exists. The devs basically said with empy, no one chose path C nyame, let's make it unessential for everyone except nin, who's the only one now who desperately needs a good nuke set.

1 — I’m not NextGames but the simple Fact he actually uses Double MB nonstop when my BLM is NOT even allowed to do such minus a Nuke Wall tells me that either NIN does NOT have a Nuke Wall aimed against them. Maybe they do? Idk. Since I don’t pretend I am a BLM on my NIN and if MB is needed I go BLM instead. Maybe they do.
( SE doesn’t want to make NIN a BLM replacement )

2 — NIN is NOT designed any longer to compete vs Heavy DD in the Game
( SE also doesn’t want NIN to Delete DD from the Game neither )

3 — Why does Emp+3 not look so Impressive compared to other Jobs Emp+3?
( I am drenched soaking wet in STP atm on NIN all while in my DT Set )

4 — Can we NOT just appreciate the Emp+3 Boots at the very least…
• I will make Legs+3 cuz I fancy the notion of having Counter on my NIN while Tanking…
• I do NOT fancy myself a BLM while on my NIN so NO thx to those Hands…

NIN is NOT a BLM + NIN is NOT a WAR but w/ Shadows
— SE knows Shadows are OP and Boosted them regardless
— SE just doesn’t want NIN to Rule the World is all which is Why

You want to see a NIN/BLM pseudo BLM/NIN
—> Summon Matsui
✅ Mission Accomplished

Two different things. Other jobs have the same access to Malignance STP in a DT set, besides the point though.


Nuking is a big part of what NIN does. It's a pretty stanard cycle of self SC + MB1-2x for a good amount of damage, but it's not outrageously high numbers like what a BLM can put out. Just a fun little touch to the end of damage.

Nobody is asking to turn NIN into BLM, you're straw manning that point. The fact is, even SE recognizes NIN can contribute respectable damage via Ninjutsu, based on several of their JSE options and even merits categories. They even have native bursting job traits, and all of their modern weapons are coming with flat MAB/MBB damage attached to it. Clearly, SE wants players nuking on Ninja.

People aren't asking for OP pieces of nuking gear, just for SE to pick a side and allow for an (actually, one would have been fine, the hands) MAB+ option on their empyrean, given the fact they gave other nuking jobs the full stat vomit (including MAB) on 5 JSE pieces, and even COR as I mentioned above got MAB on their feet (when their Relic already has MAB on it. Remember when people said they didn't want to overlap stats on same JSE pieces? Yeah right...). It was a clear miss on their part.


Most modern bosses wipes shadows anyways, so you're not really at any inherent advantage on Ninja often unless it's something like Odyssey Seg farming or soloing Sortie trash or whatever. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that SE boosted them regardless. I hope you're not talking about the lottery weapon that next to nobody can actually get, cuz that would be disingenuous.

I'm making no ask that ninja replace black mage. What I'm saying is the job with it's own version of magic should have a set to utilize to use that magic effectively. This whole "you aren't this" and "you aren't that" isn't changing the fact that ninja didn't get, and isn't getting any JSE to define what they are.

NIN is the only job with Ninjutsu, so we ask, what can ninjutsu do, it can buff, debuff, and nuke... Hmmmmm that sounds an awful lot like rdm. What did rdm get? Oh yeah everything that a dd caster hybrid should.

OH that sounds like Blue mage with Blue magic. What did Blu get? Oh yeah everything that a dd caster hybrid should.

What I'm trying to get at, is the only equipment that ninja gets that's good, is shared Jon equipment. Period. The only JSE NIN even had prior to the empy update were a few pieces of relic that could even keep a spot on gear lists and empy boots for utsu.

It's not too much to ask to be able to effectively use each aspect of your job.

Also bringing up STP is kinda funny when nin has 1/15 pieces of JSE with STP.

"Malignance/Mpaca Exists so NIN doesn't need any items for tp",

"Nyame exists so NIN doesn't need any items for Nuking"

"NIN isn't BLM stop trying to be",

"NIN isn't a physical DD, stop asking them to fix physical katana ws's"

This is all ignorant. The job deserves to be treated like every other job. To have its abilities showcased and utilized. That's the point of Job Specific Gear. Instead, NIN got 3 pieces of DT, and 1 piece of WSD, and 1 piece with MBD added to it. The fact that Magic Burst Damage was added to a JSE piece shows SE knows NIN nukes, and is a part of the job. Also SE hasn't buffed shadows in years, the bonanza katana is unobtainable in the game outside of bonanza which means it's unobtainable for 99% of the community. This is not a boost to an ability, it's a piece of equipment that breaks an ability.

NGL, i have contemplated more than once at least swapping out Nyame Legs B for C. I would have to cross reference all of my jobs and see which ones would lose out the most from not having that WSD slot. Kind of sucks having to choose like that.

Would be quite silly if you thought about it

Even if you could freely change B to C and back whenever you wanted it'd be fun once to test then you'd never bother.

NIN wasn't gonna change Relic+3 head/feet for nuking anyway unless there was something so wildly OP that it wouldn't have ever been a realistic hope in the first place. So we're REALLY talking about the other 3 slots:

* Hands was definitely a missed opportunity, but that's really due to the Elemental Ninjutsu Damage+ stat being either weird or broken (giving only MAB instead of a percentage increase). TBH, I think it's actually broken and if it did work like the item description seems to imply, we'd love this piece for all nukes.

* NIN is like BLM RDM BLU SCH GEO in that all of them got exactly ONE piece with Magic Burst Damage +15 *and* MAB+MAcc. NIN's was on hands and they did get a bit shortchanged on the MAB portion, but again, that feels more like the piece not working as intended because of the weird % stat. And even so, it's still a very strong burst piece, and far and away the best for Futae (whether free nuking or bursting).

* For the other slots (body+legs for NIN), MAB+MAcc would indeed have been nice for NIN free nukes. But honestly, NIN's nukes are way more focused on MBs anyway (and the job can even easily make its own nearly non-stop SCs to burst), so even base Nyame with it's significant amounts of Magic Burst Bonus paired with very good MAB/Macc is basically on par with a hypothetical Empy+3 with a ton of MAB/Macc but no MBB for most of the nuking a NIN would want to do.

Soooo... I don't really see it as that big of a deal that NIN didn't get the same across the board MAB/Macc stats as the "true mages". I can kinda handle that I already have fairly easily obtained pieces that are more or less equivalent for MBs (the main place where NIN nukes shine anyway), and NIN doesn't get quite as strong of stats for free nuking as the mages. TBH, it feels fair to me since NIN can do a lot more besides just nuking.

I broke down the Reality of NINJA the Best I could to you.
The means by which you decide to cope w/ such Dissappointment that you
—> Cannot have BLM type of MAB on 5/5 Emp+3
—> Cannot have PDL on 1/5 Emp+3 even when we have probably More than every other Job in the Game via Gear

Is all up to you. You must decide for yourself how to come to terms w/ Acceptance

He claims SE never gave NIN anything at all to distinguish itself.
— Untouchable via Shadows
— Least likely to DIE than every other DD
— Almost capable of matching WAR via Hybrid WSD
— Blessed by Malignance STP

NIN is fkn EPIC atm. Idk what you seriously need more to Prove that to you. NIN is incredibly Unique and it’s got a place in the Game that makes Perfect sense.

Dude cannot even see the benefits of a blatantly Obvious Emp+3 that would allow him to Counter on a Job not designed to even do such so easily while giving them more leverage Tanking. w
…but mi nuks cud b boom!
…but mi PDL is inferior to WAR!
SE does NOT seriously want NIN to replace ALL Jobs via DPS nor MBD all while being literally Untouchable thx to San.

NIN is very much viable w/ or w/o Emp+3 or everyone getting 5/5 Emp+3 that put them into a higher stratosphere. What else more do we seriously want or need? Nobody denounces NIN being in setups. That to me. Is exactly the RIGHT position that NIN should be in atm.

NIN wouldn't replace any jobs with their empy being on par with those jobs. You're comparing jobs that have current nuke sets with capped MBB, Options for MBB2 AND MAB on literally everything to ninja with 2 jse burst pieces. Now 3 when futae is up.

As far as counter, EVERY CHECK MUST FAIL IN ORDER TO COUNTER. In case you don't understand what this means. You can't dodge, Parry and you must have 0 shadows. Counter is last. Oh by the way you have to have the enemies' attention, where is ninja getting that enmity? Oh Yonin and shadows. Guess what you're not doing then. COUNTERING.

The reason I said empy set didn't add anything to NIN Worthwhile, and still stand by that, is there were areas outside of MAB that were hugely missed opportunities. Do you want NIN to tank? Give them more valid enmity options. You want NIN to DD? add dd stats relevant to ninja not found elsewhere. Except none of that happened. The whole purpose of Empy+2/+3 for other jobs was this was competitive in slots with Odyssey gear. Look at any caster on Agwu and maxed out augmented Agwu. Now look at all of the casters who would have benefitted from Agwu, somehow they now have a free cast set on par with the best free nuke set in the game.

You're saying that this new set is so much better for ninja but the only piece with enhances eva/meva is the feet (+1 eva/-15 meva). So the usefulness of this entire set hinged on the stats already present and getting something to match or enhance that. Instead all of the stats present got enhanced without any of the support it needed save for the helm receiving attack to go with the innin double attack.

This set is in no way competitive with current options for NIN in any phase of normal combat. It has a great amount of racc/macc that Mpaca was missing but no multi attack. It has a great amount of raw attack that malignance is missing but no store tp. Our current options blow it away.

The set literally made no sense that you kinda get treated like a caster but not really. Atleast if it had received MAB 3 pieces would have been "hey omg I should build empy+3 for nin".

I'd love to see nextgames/logical chime in on this because of how much they use ninja because maybe something has been missed but aside from throwing on the gloves during futae, the set doesn't have anything that shines because 2wsd isn't being used over 30 MAB and for the most part nin physical weaponskills are not in a good place to invest the time building the new boots.

I really wanna see a ML50 NIN/RUN tanking stuff, so much potential for them with /NIN.

Which set gives us this large PDL that's higher than most/all other jobs? I'm curious.



So you can Counter off of a Parry (That's what Tactical Parry is), and increase that amount by Issekigan, but any emphasis placed on that small trait is an exaggeration.

NGL I completely forgot about the jp counters on parries. However, I wonder if the 2 are actually conflated in this argument. Tactical Parry, like paladin shield mastery for block or THF SU5 for dodge is about returning tp from the event(based on the fact that tactical parry+ is only increasing tp return not proc rate). I don't know that counter+ increases the jp Parry counter ability because the counter itself (the trait given by armor) takes place after parry/dodge/shadow. If counter+ double dips for ninja that interaction is pretty good with issekigan but I don't know that is the case.

Has anyone done any testing with Parry counter for nin and Counter+?

Edit: I don't think even if counter effected both would be that big of a deal because even if you could cap counter(you can't) the Parry counter itself is limited by your Parry rate. 80% counter+ and 20% from jp would basically mean your Parry counter rate would match floor 5%+issekigan(whatever this parry+ value is) and then the other checks and a 79% final counter rate with the acc check. The Parry already saves the shadows so the counter would only be a white damage increase (and tp gain via tactical Parry) if anything as no matter what it doesn't change the Parry rate meaningfully.

I use a couple of counter+ pieces in my midcast Utsusemi:Ichi set. It's basically a chance at a free spell interruption proc in a way if it's a normal melee physical attack (and not a tp attack). Empyrean+3 legs, Mpaca body and cape. If during Yonin, that's about a 38% counter rate, maybe less with acc check, but i'll take the chance to negate an attack and get my 5 shadows up rather than get hit and interrupted.

I know people think the legs are trash, but I mentioned in my initial thoughts response a few pages earlier that I thought the legs were a fantastic tanking option, and I still stand by that.

One of my minor gripes is that they didn't add Ranged Attack to the empyrean+3 set. I feel like Rattk should be part of the normal stat vomit for Ninja's, even if they aren't true ranged attackers by nature, but it would enhance the damage by Daken, and if you merited it, Sange.

Yeah I can see the value of the legs with 12 dt and the counter it's just sad that it doesn't even beat malignance for Eva. Would have been neat to see the evasion tank receive a set with higher than normal EVA vs every other job and option available. (Another complaint for ninja being an after thought for SE.)

All of Malignance + Mpaca Legs + JSE+2 Neck + JSE+2 Earring + Crep Pebble are just a few NIN can use off the top of my head. NIN ain’t exactly deprived of PDL nor being denied such.

Not having PDL on Emp+3 is not seriously anything holding NIN back at all whatsoever. Instead of finding what we do NOT have. We should instead be looking at which we DO actually have. Which is obviously plenty & probably more than those other Jobs w/ PDL on their Emp+3 have themselves.

In fact almost every WS Set shows NIN JSE+2 Neck / Earring combo BiS which obviously also includes TP Sets as well decked out in Full Malignance. So not only does NIN have plenty of PDL as is but NIN also makes use of such pieces way more often than not.

Is that the case w/ every Job that actually has PDL on Emp+3? Is it BiS for both TP + also WS as well like NIN w/ it’s JSE? I wouldn’t know but honestly wouldn’t even care if whatever Job outclasses NIN in PDL gear. Not having such on any Emp+3 does not seriously make or break NIN. Making a mountain out of an anthill. Basically.

Lecturing then changing your mind 30s later.
LoL meh w/e. You do you.

Get out of here with that nonsense, NIN's access to PDL+ gear is pretty bad compared to almost all other DDs.

1) Malignance is some of the worst PDL+ gear in the game, since it has 0 atk (in slots where high atk gear is plentiful), making it that much harder to actually cap attack in the first place to take advantage of PDL.

2) Other jobs, including most of those that are also on Malignance with NIN, have much better PDL+ sets. Gleti's and Sakpata sets all have strong Atk AND PDL+ (along with good defensive stats). Same goes for Ikenga for ranged attacks on RNG COR. And of course, most other DD jobs got an Empy reforged piece with significant amount of PDL.

3) NIN has it even harder than most other DD jobs to hit capped attack (and actually utilize PDL stat) since it:
(a) Lacks any native tools to give itself Atk+, such as Berserk, Warcry, Last Resort, Chaos Roll, various BST ready moves, BLU self-buffs, DRG Wyvern bonus, Impetus, Hover Shot, True Shot, etc.,
(b) Also lacks any native tools to give the mob Def-, like Angon, Armor Break, Tachi: Ageha, Corrosive Ooze, etc. (aside from significant sacrifices to do stuff like use an Ambu GK to hit Ageha then switch weapons)
(c) No Smite trait from main job, so falls behind DRK WAR MNK DRG in that respect (most likely, best you'll get on NIN is tier I trait from /WAR or /DRG),
(d) Has lower Damage Limit+ trait than several other DDs: DRK MNK RNG DRG WAR SAM BST PUP DNC all get higher levels of that trait

So basically, NIN is 100% relying on other people's buffs/debuffs, or what you can get from your subjob (realistically meaning /WAR Berserk) + food. Other jobs get more tools to cap their attack.

If you're buffed to the moon and have strong debuffs from other players, sure, you might be able to utilize your Malignance PDL. But you're still going to be worse off than basically any OTHER DD job getting the same buffs and better PDL+ gear.

Oh no, its escaping the blm board

You mention Gleti vs Malignance. Fine.

Malignance runs ALL OVER that Set… R25 and all

Even if NIN could Equip such we would NEVER use such over Malignance. Try adding Gleti to NIN Spreadsheet sometime. Ain’t no way Gleti out paces Malignance in actual DPS via TP Sets.

Now if we talking WS Sets? Everyone uses predominantly Nyame which has 0 PDL so is NIN lacking there too as well?

Now you're walking back your comments faster than Homer Simpson into the bushes.

I asked you which pieces of PDL does NIN have that is better than "probably" all other yours (your words). Then you mentioned Malignance set, which has quite low PDL and zero attack. Ninja is an attack starved job, so it gets less use out of Malignance pdl. Capu correctly refuted your claim that NIN has the most PDL (which isn't even usable in most cases) by stating that Gleti's is significantly higher PDL and comes with a huge attack bonus, not to mention NIN's pitiful base PDL trait, compared to the jobs on Gleti's which most have a native way to increase their attack or lower monster defense in some way to make better use of PDL. Then you said "well, for TP phase, Malignance > Gleti's, but hey, NIN uses Nyame for WS, so you don't really need to worry about PDL there either." Dude what? So NIN has all this PDL in gear, by your account, the most of all other jobs probably, but what does it matter, because it uses Nyame anyways? Not only are you wrong that NIN has the most PDL, you're also wrong in that if NIN had a very high PDL piece (like a Gleti's) they would still favor Nyame over it anyways, because jobs on Sakpata and Gleti's also have full access to 5/5 Nyame and most, if not all of them, use some mix of Sakpata/Gleti's pieces for an attack-cap ws set over 5/5 Nyame.

you are to blame

Did you now
NIN has plenty enough PDL. If you want Gleti instead, which we wouldn’t even use on NIN btw even if we could equip such, then well maybe request some Gleti for NIN then instead?

That or some JAs or whatever else you think makes NIN lacking in Attack since we have plenty of PDL to begin w/ as is.