The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

MA can explain higher avg, but spikes should be lower. Both setups should be able to get 2x TA proc eventually and lower MA, but higher magic attack/wsd setup should have higher damage on that.

Also Fotia being part of this change is also suspicious. Possibly maybe Fotia fTP is replicated for all physical hits, then added to magic fTP too. At this point I think it needs really controlled tests. Need to find low lv mob that has enough HP to only receive first physical hit (thats easy), then another to only receive 2 physical hits (thats harder). Make bunch of controlled WSs on those at several TP thresholds, then add STR and INT via WHM Boost and repeat. Lots of work. Probably wont have time to do it before next week.

May be worth checking out this thread:

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/49614/blade-chi-damage-formula/2/#3171538

Huff.... Puff.... Wheeze..... that was a lot of parse'ing....

However, it was well worth it as now I have a set that has a 47K Average over 100 WS's on Apex Raptors. Spikes were in the 81-82k Range. 3500 DPS. This WS really is tricky... Magic Attack Bonus gives the biggest boost followed by a tie between MA and WSD...needing a good amount of both but not focusing solely on either. This was the combination I found was best (yes there will be a video going over this soon).

Seething Ammo
Relic Head - No exceptions
Fotia - Clear Winner over JSE in test
Brutal/Moonshade - Lugra and Frimosi weren't far behind
Gyve Doublet - Rawhide, Adhemar, Kendutsaba +1, Herc 10STR/5% WSD all beat by it. Herc with Magic Attack 25 / 5% WSD or MA may beat it. Note both stats must be present.
Herc Hands w/ 47 Magic Attack - Herc 5%WSD, adhemar, kendatusba +1 and Leline Beat by it. Obiovusly this is a specific augment, figure Leline would be good for most and Herc 5%WSD or MA+25Matk is BiS if you can get it. Note it only works if both stats are present.
Gere/Epam - Beat Dignir, Regal, Epona's but all were really close, similar to earrings.
Back: I didn't have a lot of testing options here but the one I have is INT+30 magicdmg+20 WSD10%. Still playing with the distribution of stat bonus's on this and 10% DA would probably be a close second.
Orpheus Sash - No exceptions
Mochizuki Hakama - Beat out Gyve
Adhemar - Beat out Relic and herc 5% WSD. Herc with 5% WSD AND Magic Attack 25 should beat it but both status must be present!

Weapons for test: Heishi/Gokotai but Heishi/Tauret was showing same results.

Tested with Heishi/Hitaki as well. DPS was 3700 so 100 DPS higher (barely noticeable) and my WS Damage went down to 30k per WS. Keep this in mind when considering this combo.

One other thing I noticed... even though the modifier on this is STR and INT... damage really went up a lot more when I added STR... note I couldn't ignore INT entirely but normally I'd strive to keep STR and INT numbers even and I got my best numbers by far with having significantly higher STR in WS Set.

So MagicAtk > Trip Attack > WSD > Double Attack > STR > INT. Magic Damage also helps but really only comes into play on the back and weapon pieces and only when added in very large quantities.

Totally agree, something does seem fishy on the phys portion and if had to guess it's replicated. I've been trying to think of a mob that can live through a ma phys portion but coming up short.


Yeah, the modifiers are pretty low to see a return on. If I had to wager a guess on why you're seeing noticeable/better increase with str, it'd be because you're not attack capped and/or str bumping up the physical damage hit vs the stat modifier bonus itself

The Hybrid WS's were figured out while back, mostly by Bahadir which was linked earlier.

Firstly realize there is no such thing as "physical hit / magical hit", all "hits" are physical. Hybrid's are essentially two separate WS's that have their damage added together. This creates two quirks, first is that WSD is applied to both the first physical hit and again at the very end to the total damage. Second that the total physical damage done is used as the base damage for the magical component, including multi-attack procs, critical's and so forth. Fotia's fTP bonus is not applied for the physical section, all hits are at 1.0, instead Fotia's bonus is applied to the magical's fTP section.

Testing on Fotia's effect, it's on the first hit of the physical section.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/33470/the-sealed-dagger-a-ninja-guide/152/#3421100



That first section [((152 + floor((WeaponLevel-99)*2.45) + WSC)] is what gets replaced by the total physical damage of the first part. Blade: Chi is a two hit WS, on ninja that makes it a three hit WS with 30% STR/INT and it's physical section also gets fSTR which acts like a ~25% WSC mod. This is why STR seems to boost it more then INT as there is no dINT. This is also why the fTP seems really low, a normal magic WS has a base damage of about 201 before WSC while Hybrids will have a base damage of several thousand, even more if you get some MA procs.

Unfortunately in order to maximize their damage you need to first maximize the physical stats via STR/WSD/Attack/Accuracy/MA, then maximize the magical stats via MAB/MACC/WSD. Makes buffing for them super hard, like multiple COR/GEO hard. Fury/Frailty + Acumen/Malaise + Samurai/Fighters, then watch the 80~99K's roll in non-stop.

Thanks, that was very helpful. This confirms much of what I was seeing. So given all of this, I should probably change the INT+30 on my cape to STR+30 wouldn't you say?

A+ way to put that in solid english and makes sense. Do believe I need to peep at my math again since something wasn't looking right w/ftp on phys.

All that isnt anything new. Its a base I used for my calvulation. Except it completely doesnt match with damage they are doing on those apex raptors, unless apex raptors takes more damage from earth.

Also none is saying I think that there is physical hit and magical hit, only physical part and magical part. Also how you call it is semantics.

Ok Im really sorry everyone. From the start I had the feeling I am missing something obvious. It finally came to me... I forgot to add damage from weapon to physical part of the WS lol...

I blame it on preparation to my sister's wedding that is today and mindless Token/Einherjar grind I did this week XD

Now everything is accurate. Im getting 48.9k avg for Kitfoxtrot set posted earlier (at attack cap).

I will release this sheet once I come back after weekend.

Awesome. Really curious how it will compare to my parse results. Enjoy the wedding!

Very interested in checking Simon's sheet for Chi testing. I have some rather interesting DM WSD augs on a few pieces of Herc gear that should be pretty damn good for hybrids, but this is tricky and I don't really trust my intuition on such a weird WS. Specifically, I'm working with:

Herculean Helm: WSD+9% Acc+14 Atk+15 Macc/MAB+20 (but maybe the massive MAB and better attributes on Mochizuki win anyway?)
Herculean Vest: WSD+8% DEX+14 Acc+17 Atk+27 Macc/MAB+11
Herculean Boots: WSD+7% MND+6 Acc/Atk+6 Macc/MAB+11

Also curious about what's next best waist option behind Orpheus's (which I don't have). Fotia? Sailfi +1?

Jesus Christ. *cries in metsu*

Still can't out dps a fly with all that DM gear

am i the only 1 that thinks Square should add a new version of evasion just for ninja's since evasion is only used for ILVL Stats, and is no longer really evasion just lowering physical damage?, They really need to add a new dodge mechanic to nin or add a DMT II -20% when Shadows are up to survive ga's, Spaming migawari is annoying at times.

It's tough for the way the game shifted to basically 100% aoe everything. They didn't really think it through for ninjas.

Shield parry and counter keep getting better and better, but evasion is still mediocre. Without sacrificing everything for it. (guard is still extremely low too) And basically everything wipes or ignores shadows, and all the worst bad stuff specifically ignores migawari.

I suppose that giving a third utsu was the answer to shadows being stripped so fast: just give them another source of shadow, but giving 7 shadows accomplishes nothing when poisonga strips them all. You spend too much time re-upping.

My new toy for Ei, and non MB nuking, nothing amazing but hey it beats a Gyve, Might even be a good option for Chi idk yet.

inquarta was a great way to get parry to be relevant, and honestly should extend that style of trait to guard/evasion so that their base rates are atleast decent on higher stuff, since changing the formula might break 5 other things somehow

I don't have anything fancy to add, but yall did me a solid with all this Blade: Chi talk. My nin is kinda cheeks, mostly just recycled gear from cor/mnk + some unity/SR katanas, so trying to JP with Shun/Hi/Ten was all kinda miserable. With frailty/malaise tho, Chi was hitting ~55k avg @ 3k on apex jagils/leeches and can even make distortion with Retsu. Yall saved my JP farms.

Now I'm really jonesing to finish the aeonic and get the dyna clears... Anyway, thanks :D!

Blade ten is no joke tho with max attack buffs really enjoy it at the new ambuscade

Just want to thank the community for the Blade: Chi build. I've hit 99k with it while doing Eschan Zi'tah clear. This is with full buffs.

Share your set!
Curious what you came up with in the end :-)

Here ya go

What main/OH are you using?

Heishi Shorinken(R0)/Ternion Dagger +1 (R15)

Updated above as well

The comparison to shield (very recently buffed), parry, and counter is really interesting to me, and Eiryl pretty much nails the concern for NIN being the AoE making more shadows an insufficient response. Really does look like something SE could address - if they wanted to go in a NIN-specific direction, perhaps some sort of "perfect evasion" trait that has a chance of making AoE moves strip only a single shadow if you pass an evasion check. THFs would scream bloody murder, but hey...

That being said, some people do sorta sleep on evasion's potential utility for niche purposes like lowman stuff. Now that we have some major evasion stats on Malignance gear, you might be surprised how much evasion you can stack if you actually bother with it.

I have an alt/dual box BRD, and on lower tier current endgame content where I'm acc capped without songs (say, Omen farming), sometimes I replace the "standard" Madrigal with a Mambo just to see what I can dodge. You can really pump NIN's evasion up to rather insane levels this way. 5/5 Malignance = 477 Evasion; tack on a Dragonfoe Mambo for another 129~136 (song +8/+9), which can be increased to goofy levels with 1.5x potency from Marcato or 2x from Soul Voice.

You can even get some decent extra evasion from weapon slots that still do good damage. Kannagi R15/Ternion +1 R15 = Evasion +67~69 when you account for AGI.

Yes, evasion is definitely super niche - but it occasionally comes in useful. Glazemane is a fun example. I kinda want to mess with it in places like Odyssey and see whether I can get any use out of an evasion build.

Took more time, because I tried to make it cleaner and also decided to add Gear to make it easier, then decided to automate attack etc.

Let me know if you find errors.

NIN Katana Hybrid WS Calculator

Nice Simon!

One quick minor thing...in that instructions box, it is saying to manually adjust the TP value in H18 for Heishi/Hitaki but it is actually I18. H18 is the MAB value. May confuse some people.

Fixed. It was H18, but I added column for Accuracy after I wrote it and it was pushed to I18 :P

Awesome job my man. So much to play with today. Really appreciate your work on this!

Something I'm noticing. If I swap the 30 STR for 30 INT in the cape... the total damage stays the same. Would expect STR to be more powerful then INT from my test even though they have the same modifier. Is this right?