The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

I know you ask Logical, but...

I think /drg is better, safer and more consistent.


2 whm? Probably for extra safety. NIN is not BLU. You cant start emergency healing if something one shots your healer.
ArkEV has much higher block chance afaik and this helps a lot against some hard hitting physical TP moves.


I would change that to To>Teki>Shun>Shun, unless you fight A or E bosses and cant use Water damage.


I dont think there is any choice here. You need both att and acc, so Grape+1 should be the only right choice.


He is using equipset in the video, so you can just pause and check. All of those pieces are easily recognizable just from icons.

Subjob
Yep I use /war and berserk is pretty much up full time if recast timer is up. I don't really fear any mobs in the run I showed as ArkEV tanks them well and even with an add or two on me I just leave shadows down often and am fine thanks to my healing trust. I've tried /drg a few times and I don't find it's boost to my hybrid weaponskills enough to warrant it's use, especially since I have berserk up as often as I do. I also often times pull with provoke (especially the Flan at the start of Zone E) and /war just works better for that. All that being said, there is nothing really stopping you from using /drg, I've used it several times and it works fine, just not what I prefer.

Trusts
So lets split trust into two groups. One with Yoran and one with Sylvie because I bounce back and forth and both work great.

With Yoran-Oran, main focus is haste cap and I find Koru+Joachim works best on Ninja. For tanking I almost always use ArkEV as I just find she holds hate better then the rest. In regards to valanerial specifically, I get lots of adds and links in my runs as I don't pull mobs away and just fight them. This allows me to easily have those adds on me while ArkEV tanks our current enemy that is using TP moves. If I use Val he uses his darn AoE WS ability and the mobs overwhelm him and he often dies which slows down the run. So after this happened a time or two I just stopped trying to use him in there. Those adds I speak of are also the reason for the double healing. I often will leave shadows down for a bit to finish a skillchain and dual magic burst and the trust ensure I get healed through that. I have used Qultada at times in Monberaux's slot to boost my Damage but find he messes with my skillchains too often as in the majority of the run a lot of damage comes from my dual magic burst so if he's messing with that it really slows kills down. I find using Starsibyl in that final slot works better as she doesn't mess with skillchains and boost your hybird and mb damage. In regards to the setup you see with me NOT using ArkEV. I always get rid of ArkEV toward the end of the run when we get to farming Zone A. I do this for two reasons 1. To make the 6 leech kills go quickly and without interruption to my skillchains as I normally only have 2 minutes or so to get these kills in. 2. I'm always afraid ArkEV will use the wrong weaponskill or skillchain and trigger nasty mode on Ghatjot so I make sure to not use any trust that will skillchain with me when fighting him.

Now lets talk about Sylvie, this is a stronger damage setup I find but at the lack of a bit of healing. On the plus side I've found it's not such a hit to healing that it puts you in danger in this run. Sylvie of course haste caps you. ArkEV as tank for previously described reasons. I then use Ygnas and Monberaux for healing which I find not nearly as useful as Yoran-Oran and Monberaux combo but thankfully Sylvie is here to help with healing so it makes up for it. For that last slot I throw in StarSibyl for extra hybrid ws and MB damage. I also like StarSibyl as it's one less person for your trust to keep alive and not someone who will mess with your skillchains. Again, Qultada does work in this final slot but I find he slows you down more than anything due to him messing with your SC's.

I also like how Monberaux continually gives me buffs that will help with my hybirds such as elemental power and samson's strength. I admit it's a lot of healing and all of it isn't exactly necessary, especially if you take some care with adds and pulls, but I haven't found any other trust that I find more useful then the ones spoken of. Even matsui-p which I had previously been in love with the last time we had him slows my runs down.

Skillchains
I use Blade:To to Blade: Chi with dual raiton magic burst for the flan, slime and slugs. Going to multistep on those I found slows my runs down dramatically.

For Pixies, I bounce back and forth often and find two ways to get damage in and both work about the same in regards to damage. The first is to spam blade: To, Blade: Chi, Blade: To. The second is to do a long 5 step of Shun, Ten, Kamu, Shun, Shun. I often magic burst on the 5 step as mb's often do similar damage to the physical weaponskills on these but tend to not magic burst on the 3 step hybird as the hybirds often do more damage then magic burst so I just keep spamming the 3 step. Also note that at times find that hybirds don't work well on a particular pixie, probably due to the element of the pixie or something, when I see that I quickly switch to the 5 step.

Leeches at the end and the final NM is Blade To to blade Chi with dual Raiton MB to maximize MB damage.

In regards to trust holding up to slimes, I was originally VERY concerned about this when I started using ArkEV to tank instead of doing it myself. Was afraid it was going to lead to LOTS of dead trust. To my surprise I only have ArkEV die to a Fluid Toss maybe once a week and Fluid Spread only kills some trust a few times a week. Normally it only takes a min or two to kill a mob so normally it's a trivial matter and you just finish the mob, resummon the trust and move on when it does happen on slimes.

Food / Buffs
I often dont use food but in the runs you see in the video I did. I used Soy Ramen to boost Attack. Grape Dafiku is also a good option as it boost your attack and matk but only by relatively small amounts of both and I find it's my attack that really needs boosted in my runs (especially with starsibyl and monberaux already boosting my matk) so I use that soy ramen to get over 100 more attack then with dafiku.

For buffs I keep Kakka up 100% of the time and Yain and Myoshu are up 90%+ of the time along with Innin to make sure ArkEV keeps hate. Berserk is also up as often as I can.

Sets
I sadly don't have sets mapped out to link to, they are all in my a guide to ninja video's. I'll link my ninja.lua here so you can get an exact picture of what I use. NextGames Github

In general
For weapons heishi+kuni full time.
TP - Full Malignance
WS - Nyame x3
MB - Nyame x3

I hope this helps! Enjoy the change of pace from Blu!

Thanks for the extensive answer, in general. Mucho apreciated <3
A lot of the choices that appeared somehow bizarre to me, make a lot of sense now that you fully explained them to me, so thanks once more.

Yes but if that happens when you have like 2 more adds on you, it means you won't be able to get heals, you'll soon be without buffs and things could get... nasty. Now I guess NIN can adapt to a still semi-decent TP gain speed thanks to DW builds in TP but... I dunno, it sounds like sort of a risky gamble to me.
Either way I'm really curious and excited so I'm gonna give it a try!

Yeah well, yeaaah, that makes a lot of sense but man, it's over 200k per stack compared to like ~80k of Curry or ~60k of Grape!
I'm a super cheapo!
Guess I'll try to be less scroogey and buy a stack, see how I like it.


Allrighty, you didn't mention the debuffs though. Do you even bother with stuff like Aisha, Yurin, maybe something else?
I wouldn't bother with them on anything but was considering doing it on the slimes though, given how dangerous Fluid Spread can be.

Gear-wise it looks like I'm pretty much where you are, except for my Katana which is R1 instead of R15 (because I'm a cheapo!)

It's a good point and was my original concern as well. But after being in the situation several times now I no longer fear it. In a worst case scenario, all trust die to spread and you lose all your haste. When that happens I simply switch to DW40 gear which allows me to continue to skillchain and magic burst. Ninja's evasion is really good and while I do let shadows drop in the interest of time during a normal run, if I don't want to get hit as ninja when fighting these mobs I can easily do that. So while the occasional wipe of trust to spread does slow you down by a minute or two depending on how many adds you had on you at the time, it's not nearly as dangerous as I originally assumed it would be. Also just to reiterate, I only see a few trust die to it each week, it doesn't happen nearly as often as I had thought it would.


Aye it's not cheap! Know that it's not 100% necessary but you definitely notice the boost to your Hybird ws damage and by the end of the run I'm normally a few minutes ahead of the runs I don't use food by the end so it does speed you up a bit.



Oh woops, no debuffs at all. I will often use slow and paralyze on Ghatjot while he's slowly moving to me against the wall after the pull but those are normally the only two I use all run. I did originally use Yurin on Slimes to try to cut down on the amount of tp moves but after many runs of not really having an issue with spread I slowly stopped using it to speed up my run and haven't had any issues.

Ok so... Let's talk Mochizuki Kyahan +3
Noticed this is currently missing in Simonses' hybrid WS calculator and I'm wondering if and when it beats Nyame.
Does it beat R20? R25? R30?

I'm not sure where in the formula that +25% MAB is added, being that it's a % and not a static value, not affinity either, I dunno this feels strange.

Where is the source of this aug being so incredibly strong? So much more than the base merit category.

It doesn't work on ws's at all.

It wouldn't beat Nyame, as the +25% MAB is applied to Ninjutsu only.

Aaah right, so that's why I wasn't using it in my WS sets then.
Thanks everyone!

So Logical, I finally had a chance to test your run! Did only basement objectives because I'm literally swimming in Sapphires and I'm not too interested in getting like 2500 more Galli from upstairs objectives.

Used AarkEV, Sylvie, Ygnas, Monberaux, Starsibyl.
Soy Ramen +1
Over 1 stack of Inoshinofuda (lol)
Kept Subtle Blow, StoreTP, Innin, Pax up, Berserk, Utsusan situationally.

ML30 Ninja, capped skills
Used 5/5 Malignance in TP
Mochi+3 head/4NyameR25 in WS
R1 Heishi / R20 Kuni

Nuke set was the following
WS dmg average was... I dunno I didn't parse, I'd say ~25k?
Was spiking much higher, up to 50/60k with Berserk up (maybe I also had entrusted frailty during those spikes, I dunno)

Raiton: San was going up to >90k with Futae, but without that damage was much lower, like 20/30k depending on target and Innin's strength I guess.

Tried to go for multistep (Chi > Teki > To > Teki = Frag) but... I dunno, didn't seem worth it and more risks for the SC to be interrupted by Ark EV.

On the toughest mobs (without berserk and without futae) it was taking me one To>Chi + double burst, then another To>Chi + double burst, then either one or two more WSs.

With Futae and Berserk things were much faster but I don't think I've ever killed any mob with a single set of To>Chi+doubleburst.
ArkEv got killed a couple of times by Fluid Toss but nobody else died to Fluid Spread, I dunno it was way less dangerous than I expected.
Bit slower in the kill-time but it was my first attempt and I have room to improve I suppose.
Was fun!



Tip: Summon Sylvie first otherwise on some mobs you'll be out of range from her Indi-Haste >_>

Good stuff! One thing I didn't mention on the Hybrids that may be contributing to your slightly lower numbers. I normally hold my blade: Chi until the last possible second to skillchain with the highest amount of TP possible. It normally will boost my average ws from that 25k range that it's normally in when I just spam to-chi to the 30-33k range. You may already be doing it but thought I'd mention it just in case. Doing this also helps to make sure your Raiton timers are ready for your double MB after Chi.

I've got two questions about Innin

1) Merit category +5% MBB/SC, does this bonus go beyond the gear cap or not?

2) 5% WSD (with Mochizuki Hatsuburi), is this a "normal" gear WSD, i.e. applying only to the first hit, or is it "special" (like the one from DRG) and applies to all hits?


Wonder if anybody ever tested this.

SE did updated NIN merits during the last round of Job Adjustments, turning all merit spells into proper spells and adding more categories.
I think there is no obvious setup with merits on Ninja and it all boils down to personal preference but this is what I can say:


Group 1
Subtle Blow => If you're interested in having SB in your set (and why wouldn't you?) this can be a nice gain of +5SB, allowing slightly more freedom in your gear.

Elemental Ninjutsu => You can try to focus and give a full bonus to a single element that you find out you use more, or spread the points into a smaller gain but for all (or close to) elements.


Group 2
Sange ==> This is the only native DPS cooldown NIN has. Personally I've been a supporter of Sange for the longest time until I finally gave up and removed it. Way too annoying with the Shuriken consumption.

Ninja Tool Expertise ==> Allows you to save NIN tools every now and then. Given how cheap they are, I wouldn't really suggest this.

Yonin ==> Increases your HP when you have Yonin up. I personally don't find this particularly useful

Innin ==> Increases SC and MB bonus when you fulfill Innin's requirements (being behind your current target). I don't know if these numbers go beyond the SCdmg and MBB cap. This also adds up to 5% WSD if you're using Mochizuki Hatsuburi, and you're gonna be using that for Hybrid WSs, so it's a 5% bonus to those if you're able to use Innin.

Ninjutsu Macc ==> Straight gain to Macc, which is furtherly increased if you use Mochizuki Kyahan

Ninjutsu Mab ==> Straignt Mab bonus to elemental ninjutsu. If you use Mochizuki Kyahan this also grants a huge (up to) 25% damage bonus to elemental ninjutsu. Pretty powerful if you ever find yourself out bursting with Ninjutsu.


Personally I went with 5/5 Macc and Mab for the longest time, but I recently swapped out 5/5 Macc for 5/5 Innin since atm I'm using a lot of Hybrid WS from behind.

Happo Shuriken and Sange pair well together. I would at least unlock Sange as its a great tool. I personally went 5/5 Sange (Happo when active) and 5/5 MAB.

I got NIN leveled to 99 last night and have already some +2 ambu gear.

It seems to be hard to get a hold of a vexed/jinxed item for the Ryuo Somen / +1, Are there any alternatives to it for DW set?

Forget about all abjurations tbh
DW gear is not needed for NIN unless you are not haste capped, which should be almost never (use Sylvie Trust or RDM/BRD trusts).

There are still few useful abjurations, but I wouldn't waste gils on them. Just try to get Malignance/R0+ Mpaca/+2or+3 Empy/Kenda.

The main page is super outdated btw.

Gotcha. I'll work on Malignance since I could use that for other jobs too.

I'm still around if anyone wants to have control over the node but I've written off updating it. :D

Unless you put on a tancho like you mentioned, that's your best setup so far as i can tell without giving up more DT via the taeon line, you can compensate some of this by placing DT in the accessory slots but not enough to fully compensate and still a massive loss in DEF

Since it's a mid-cast set and not pre-cast, why not use Staunch Tathlum+1 in place of your Impatiens? Has DT, more SIRD, and resist status ailments

I'm personally a bit unconvinced by sird stat unless you reach the cap. Wouldn't stuff like meva, Def, dt, even parry be better?

For nin sird is largely pointless. Utsu is cast in < 1 second and you aren't tanking multiple mobs.

You should basically never arrive at an instance where it will matter at all.

Anybody knows how the Augment on Mochizuki Hatsuburi +3 works for Innin?
We know it's ~5% WSD when Innin is active with 5/5 merits, but my real question is another.

What is the condition to activate this 5% WSD bonus?
1) Innin active AND being behind the target (i.e. the conditions to activate the majority of Innin bonuses)
2) Innin buff up, period.


I dunno, I feel like some innin bonuses might not require you being behind the target but have never been thoroughfully tested (like the JP bonus)

Matsui said himself it's specifically when behind.

Honestly that means absolutely nothing, but I think if it weren't the case someone would've said so

5 second test with AE/Spirits

How would you test that with Spirits Within?

300% front 300% back
It'll be 5% higher, or it won't.

Yeah just confirmed, only works from behind just like all the Innin stuff.
Shame shame shame! Wish that conal behind wasn't that narrow

Congratulations! I noticed the augments no matter what tier the earring is seem to favor lower end augments over the higher ones. I think the distribution isn't flat like, say, Oseem's evil augmenting system.

Saw this on a previous page: