Elemental Trial Katanas

been wondering if i should go for an evasion or attack sekka, suggestions?

Evasion has more usability.

Not that I have even finished mine... but between the two, you will benefit from the eva more.

i would say MAB one would be your best bet. there are plenty of weapons that you can get that will increase you attack. alot of gear you can get that will increase you eva. but in terms of MAB gear that a ninja can wear there isnt much at all.

EDIT please look at bottom of frist page!!!!!!!! there is quite a bit easy to get aswell

Definately evasion. No matter what 'other gear' you may get for eva, +40 is still going to be extremely useful. Not to mention the 18AGI as well.

I'm sure other people will disagree with me, but at this point in the game for NIN evasion is a pretty "Meh" stat to boost. With 26% Haste, Fast Cast gear, and AF3+2 boots you can keep shadows up against pretty much anything fairly easily. I guess you could argue "Well yeah, but you also have to spend more time casting shadows lowering your DoT" which is true... but if you're using eva gear not TP/DD gear then that's probably just as bad.

If I had to choose between Eva or attack I would pick attack just to use till I got a better katana, but honestly Oirandori or Kamome would most likely be better.

If I had to choose out of any of the elemental katanas I would easily go with MaB x2, or Magic Evasion x2.

I can't really find any situation in game where you would really NEED that extra evasion. I've soloed things like Khim, Hydra, Fafnir, Mythril Mouth Monamaq(plus both troll pets), Dark Ixion(100% acc when you have shadows up) and can keep shadows up while I TP in TP gear just fine.

I have 2 Eva katana, i'm not using them anymore, but i'll probably get them back for the next NM once they augment lvl cap (and probably some new augment trial).

MaB is only situational actually, for Brewing or elemental wheel (anyway elemental staff are cheap and nice, and if you're melee in MaB 100% of time to deal more damage you fail).

Kamome has better stats for offhand, and try to catch an oirandori for main hand.



So, dual Evasion katana for solo (if you're in trouble), oirandori(or another main hand)/kamome for anything else.


Note: you can buy to AH a mix of attack/evasion trial katana that give STR + eva if i'm right, it's a good weapon to start until you've got better.

I'd go with eva for sure. The trials really weren't that bad in comparison to some trials, and I feel like it was definitely worth it. However, I spend 90% of my playtime on ninja so it might not be the same for you.

What use dose a mab katana have? none if your going for a pure magic dmg build ... ele staffs. Evasion katana is good for allot of NMs still and allows you to keep a 26% haste build while gearing other slots you wont use for haste for evasion skill / evasion / subtle blow. This kind of build isuseful when low manning or soloing stuff like Indik or NMs that spam 100 fists.

All that stuff is Pre-90 cap, and subject to the Level correction formula skewing their accuracy down, I'm actually fairly certain none of those constitute an enemy much higher than "Tough" Scale, and in the case of Hydra, Decent Challenge.



While the Evasion katanas are overrated, they're very nice to have on hand, they can open a lot of doors, as they're hands-down the single most powerful equipment-based evasion boost. There's already plenty of Magic-Evasion options in the form of direct element resists, since for all intents and purposes they are the same thing, just elemental resist is Evasion Vs. Specific Element For example, Byakko's Haidate is +50 Thunder Magic Evasion.

hands down, 2 eva katanas. I'm now thinking of doing some MDB for those chainspell NMs...

Is there any particular reason the answer isn't "both"? Each is useful in different situations, assuming you have no intention of working on a better DD mainhand.

I am curious, too. It seems like with Ninja, more than most other jobs, an arsenal of trial weapons (if that's your thing) seems the most useful. Just thinking this because nin is pretty versatile, and the stuff to fight is pretty varied. Kinda like your different weapons ARE your different gearsets.

Simply due to the incredible level of effort required to obtain 2 fully upgraded katanas. The lvl 85 Kannagi is easier to get and that will obsolete the STR magian katanas. The eva katanas will still be useful on some situations after obtaining kannagi, which is why I recommend them.

I was assuming Kannagi wasn't under consideration since the OP was asking about a STR katana. There's no reason to upgrade that path atm if you have Kannagi or are working towards it, though that may change next update.

I would say make an evasion katana (first!) due to the fact that fire weather isn't real.

That makes sense. So, barring time to put into it, would you recommend Kannagi and 1 elemental, or Kannagi and say, 4 elementals? Or, another choice?

I suppose that's correct... However Mythril Mouth Monamaq, and Fafnir both wipe shadows extremely fast due to JA/Spells, and the troll babies. As for Dark Ixion that still has 100% Accuracy no matter what when you have shadows up, which I guess doesn't really mean MUCH in this situation since evasion wouldn't help at all vs a mob with 100% accuracy. Idunno I just don't use evasion anymore, if another NIN really thinks that evasion will help them... then go for it.

Exactly! It's a universal resist, if you do two that's +32 resist to all stats. The only thing that comes close to that is the HQ elemental staves at +20, but if you put a staff on you pretty much kill all your damage.

don't mab weapons beat ele staves if your total mab is below a certain point?

I have 1 dex sekka+2 2 agi sekka+2 and 2 int sekka+2... sadly i haven't played in ages, so I haven't exactly gotten around to soloing the crap out of briarius and sobek, so no kannagi and no kamome for me yet lol

....Amen.

A pair of pdt katanas may come in handy against mobs where eva may be moot aswell

I finished one dex katana, one eva katana, and one MAB katana, and in the last 3 months the MAB katana has gotten the most use out of all of them for me. Because I main handed it once to brew Shinryu with Blade: Yu.

STR katana is a waste of time currently.

Hocho/Kamome FTW!

I agree one Magic Eva katana may come in handy on certain NMS.

You can cap PDT on nin w/o using anything in the weapon slot.

edit:

Ahh I see, I was thinking in terms of maintaining your DPS whilst having some form of PDT at the same time.
But yeah, not everyone has a D.ring ;/ yet lol

Yea I do not yet either, but it is much more attainable now than it ever was ^^

Yup, fingers crossed! :)

I've never really felt the need to fulltime any amount of PDT in a situation where I'd default to NIN, though that's in part dependent on situations where I'd be tanking on NIN. Macroing it in for a few seconds isn't going to have a massive impact on your DPS. As for Draugo's set, swapping Shadow Mantle for Metallon Mantle would still allow you to cap PDT without DRing provided you have a 6% PDT Dark Ring to replace it with.

MAB katana x 2 is just plain sexy combined with the right gear and atmas. Fodder mobs don't stand a chance. They still do good for nm's you don't want to feed tp to. Now outside Abyssea may be a different story all together. Iirc, JoF kite fight, NIN caster wasn't really effective. But that was before ToTM was here. I'd like to see it done outside Abyssea now that ToTM katanas are available. I did the STR path for H2H and swore to never do another weather related path again so I can't speak from personal experience but I have seen some pretty impressive damage inside Abyssea with MAB x 2 katana and proper gear/atma choices.

the reason i say MAB is for magic bursting(i know a lost art)and the fact that more MAB gear that ninja can wear makes the finished product work. 2earrings is 11 or 13,katana x2 is 20, Artemis' Medal 1-10 depending on moon phase,demon rings x2 4-6, Denali Kecks 3 and 3mag acc. There is other gear out there but this will get you to about 40-50 while none of it is hard to find or get. With that much MAB your spells should break 1k atleast and i havent seen a ninja hit for 500 per swing yet.
And in the above mention posts where a ninja caster might be usefull you could get 24more from /rdm w/ some extra fast cast.