The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

You're still making strawman arguments.

I have never stated NIN is lacking PDL. I asked you which sets or pieces does NIN have that is more than other jobs. You listed a few, but the other set (Gleti's was mentioned) has HIGHER PDL than the set you mentioned. Then you started comparing Malignance vs Gleti's from a tp phase perspective instead of the PDL difference between the two. ???. Paired with the fact that NIN has a lower base pdl trait than other jobs, that claim you made was incorrect.

Put simply: any other Malignance-wearing job (say DNC or BST) has higher PDL than NIN, because both their +2 earrings+neck slots have the exact same PDL+ as Ninja's, they can wear the same other accessories (Sroda Ring, Crep ammo), and their base PDL is higher. And they both have a +10 PDL empyrean +3 piece, where Ninja did not. Gleti's FURTHER increases the gap between jobs, but even that's not needed to say that NIN has less PDL than other jobs.

Again, your comment that "Ninja probably has higher PDL than all other jobs" was flat out false.

C'mon man, he said Crepuscular Pebble (all jobs). That wasn't enough to convince you? XD

No regrets

I know, I shouldn't have entertained it but I was bored xD

Seeing value in a combo doesn't mean I still don't think it's great, I can see what he's saying and at the same time I don't think counter is any good for nin because of the requirements for counter to go off and the maximum amount you're getting is not very good/high. He has a 38% chance to counter an attack midcast. And everything I said still is true and applies 100% to this situation too. You have 0 other defense if you're countering, or even seeing it be used. Stacking Parry imho is a better use than stacking counter simply because parries save shadows sadly ninja doesn't get any sources of inquartata to really help Parry rates. And yes, I would argue that 5 Parry cape is better defensively than 10 counter ambu resin Aug. The 5 Parry is active at all times and doesn't require your shadows to be down to see benefit from it.

I said that's an interesting use and idea and yes I do see the value in what he said. I do not see tanking enemies in gear with counter being a real thing for ninja because it can't go off unless shadows are down. He's using it midcast for shadows, that's a neat idea and has value. So unless you're tanking without shadows, almost the entire time you're tanking you're getting 0 use from the item. Which btw is why I feel like it's still not a good item: in order for the effect to be useful, you have to not be doing what your job does best, shadow tank.

Edit: This is not claiming he said he tanking is this constantly just that other players might try that and it's not a great idea to me.

Inquarta would have been the obvious choice, counter to me was always just kind of a fun gimmick back in aby when you could atma stack, outside of that its just too unreliable

While at the same time the only actual Emp+3 that NIN could actually find any value in having any PDL placed upon them would be the Boots themselves & while such would had been great to have on that specific piece itself. Emp+3 Boots are alrdy BiS as is in almost everything WS Set wise outside of, I am only assuming, Hybrid WSD Sets themselves.

I still fail to see the severity of loss via NIN not having any PDL on Emp+3 neither.

No, they could have put PDL+10 on the body. I would have actually much preferred that vs the DT-13%. The body is a very good looking piece for certain WS (I think python sets has it as BIS for at least like 3 WS?), but that's really all that it is: a ws swap or a high acc melee piece. PDL could have gotten good use there.

If I had a choice of stats and all I could choose was pdl or dt for head body or legs, I would have chosen to have 1 less dt piece and the extra pdl on the body as it has the highest amount of attack on it which would probably be the best use, the fact that it has crit rate is nice too although I'm unsure how great it would be for hi and Jin but it would have a use. In addition to off spec weapons it would BiS for physical more than likely evis/Savage to name a couple. But that's pipe dreams.

The whole point of what I was saying is ninja isn't getting treated the same as either physical Dd's, Tanks, or Mages, and it's ludicrous because if they got treated like one of those groups multiple pieces would have been gaining function. Every interesting Stat on them was around prior to +2/+3 save for 1 wsd, 1 mbd, and 3 dt.

Both tanks received a piece of SIRD, a piece of fast cast, and 3 pieces of dt. While some would say all of those stats would be meaningless you're probably right.

Both other physical/magic dd's(rdm/blu) received mab on every piece, 1 piece of MBB, 3 pieces of dt, and 1 piece of WSD.

The caster Exclusive dd jobs (blm/sch/geo) received mab on every piece, 1 piece of MBB1, 1 piece of MBB2, and 3 pieces of dt.

The only job in our situation is dark knight who is also a caster but they received no MAB/MBB and got PDL.

Again, this isn't meant to be a pissing contest and say zomg woe is me. Honestly SE probably couldn't add another Stat since the hybrids got acc/att/macc/mab, and instead of giving nin the same treatment they threw racc on instead of mab, forgetting that all of the gear lacks relevant tp'ing stats like multi attack or stp. Which is also why we got racc instead of racc/ratk. Sketti and all.

Edit: After re-reading this and thibking "honestly SE was doing the best they could and couldn't add another Stat" I checked cor acc/racc/ratk/macc on every piece then check the boots mentioned earlier, acc/racc/ratk/macc/MAB...

*** YOU SE YOU COULD HAVE DONE IT AND CHOSE NOT TO.

I do NOT disagree & agree that I also view Emp+3 on NIN as Underwhelming. I can see that if SE would had at the least placed MAB upon Hands such would generate way more value to that said piece. Idk why SE would not at the very least give such to hands. I wouldn’t expect all 5/5 though having MAB+50 for instance.

I mean the Boots are an obvious upgrade. Legs I wouldn’t even seriously classify as Top Pick on my List to be Upgraded asap. I do indeed agree in some regards.

I understand the points you've made and I appreciate your time and thoughts. It's just hard to look at the jobs that have the most get even more (rdm), and if boots and hands had MAB it would have been such a huge upgrade it probably would have caused more than a few turned heads.

Yeah but did cor get magic burst damage? No? There ya go. I'd love to agree with capu and think the hands ninjutsu line is just broken, as that would at least fix the hands pretty easily, but they've been that way since ilvl109, surely its been brought up by now. Still doesnt address that SE has no idea which direction to take nin though which is the empy's biggest problem.

EDIT: looking back over the progression of the gloves another way they coulda salvaged it was just keep the progression that Iga gloves had, 5 MAB on +1/10 on +2, would be +30 at hattori +3 and that woulda been fine

Just for posterity and insomnia these were the extra stats added to empy.

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of PDL, 1 piece of WSD, ACC/ATK/MACC:
WAR/MNK/THF/DRK/SAM/DNC

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of PDL, 1 piece of WSD, ACC/ATK/MACC/PET:
BST/DRG/PUP

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of PDL, 1 piece of WSD, ACC/RACC/RATK/MACC:
RNG

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of MBB1, 1 Piece of WSD, ACC/ATK/MACC/MAB:
RDM/BLU

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of MBB1, 1 Piece of WSD, ACC/ATK/RACC/MACC:
NIN

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of MBB1, 1 piece of MBB2, ACC/MACC/MAB
BLM/SCH/GEO

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of SIRD, 1 piece of FC, ACC/ATK/MACC:
PLD/RUN

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of FC, 1 piece of Regen, ACC/MACC:
WHM/BRD

3 pieces of DT, 2 pieces of BPD, ACC/MACC/PET:
SMN

3 pieces of DT, 1 piece of WSD, 1 Piece of MAB, ACC/RACC/RATK/MACC:
COR

Interesting.

Edit:
Nariont Quote
I noticed it too when I was going through all of the jobs empy sets, pretty sure 50 MAB would have been alot better than 15 MBB since we have options to cap that. But it would have made the gloves useful at all times, not just during futae.

Also it really feels looking at the list that they didn't spend a whole lot of time making the gear unique since every set received 5 bonuses, some base Stat vomit and up to 4 acc/atk categories(pet jobs got more technically but that's neither here nor there) looks pretty rushed when 22 jobs can be broken down into basically 10 categories. Maybe they spent more time on the stat spread per piece, but honestly throw 3 pieces of DT on everything and we'll figure it out from there.

That was the general take away when emp+2 released, its the most plain of the +2/3 reforge sets which is unfortunate since emp was previously the stand out of the jse sets, suppose technically can be said to be here too since its so high in stats compared to previous non-ody stuff but theres just not much uniqueness to it.

SE felt the need to give every job no less than 3 -DT pieces, probably to help out newer or weaker players a bit even at the +2 level. This left only 2 slots for additional stats from your list above, Vaerix. They had to give NIN WSD, so really there was only one other stat they could have given NIN, since they were sticking with 1 stat each. FC on the feet personally would have been nice. PDL on the body, cool. MAB on the hands would have been sweet as well, but I think SE just split the difference with the hands and said "well, it already has MAB there, so we will double dip and give it MBB". I think SIRD in the hands slot would have been worse than MBB. I would have taken an additional 50MAB over MBB, but whatever, it makes the nuke sets so much easier (when do we nuke hard stuff anyways?)

Mabe bumping NIN's MAB on the hands felt like less of an upgrade to them than MBB +10-15 was.

Honestly I can see that as what SE's thought process was but I guess that's the disconnect between dev and the game. I think I narrowed down the real shame to the acc block, the other hybrids don't have any use for racc so they got mab, because nin has so many outlets we get racc and lose out on the mab on every piece. Not a fair exchange imho.

I don't know about this one. A Ninja is going to benefit more from Ranged Accuracy on nearly all of your melee strikes, due to Daken (or Sange for lower Daken values) vs MAB which is only going to be useful when you are bursting (primary reason, due to Nyame being a thing) OR during magical/hybrid WS. I think SE recognized that RACC is a superior trait than MAB for Ninja's primary purpose, which is fast attack speed. I would have been far more dissatisfied with them not including Ranged accuracy on every piece in favor of MAB. I already feel that way about Mpaca's set for Ninja. In fact, I don't wear any of it for TP under any circumstances.

So since this is what you'd want I'll ask, how much of nin empy+2/+3 are you tp'ing in because idk how much I see it being that great vs just full timing malignance, which is why I would say racc isn't as worthwhile. Because the empy set lacks all of the tp stats aside from having racc, and at -15ish racc per piece malignance comes with STP, other than turtling up what pieces are you using for tp?

Edit: By tp stats I mean: any form of multi attack(aside from 1 piece with innin DA and the set bonus offhand da) or stp. I acknowledge the set will probably never have acc/racc issues but I haven't really seen enemies that malignance has issues on so that's pretty much a given. And if the point of the set is white damage I guess it should easily be the best but is that a thing? Like ninja white damage build?

If NIN is your only job and scenario requires it, then maybe. Otherwise there is several DD jobs that are better for it.

Questions like these are irrelevant because SE doesn't make gear choices based on who already has what. They make gear decisions of what stats to put on them based on what they feel that job needs and makes sense. I have malignance, I wouldn't tp in empy+3 unless I needed acc, but SE designs the gear flat so a wide variety of players benefit from it. They don't say "there's already malignance, so THIS new set doesn't need ranged accuracy". Those are two different things.

I can see SE's decision to put Racc on this set over MAB because Daken is a big part of of Ninja's TP gain, which is what Ninja does well. Nuking is an off-role, so I wouldn't expect 54mab on 5 pieces, but 1 would have been nice. Don't conflate the fact that another stat one the set that would have been nicer (mab) means the stat they did put on their (racc) is useless, because another piece of gear already has it.

OK. So I am going to backtrack my actual words a little bit here since I admit I flippantly dismissed Emp+3 via 1st Impressions as being bland & boring at 1st glance.

I added everything on NIN via Emp+3 to the SS and stopped being dismissive + lazy about it.

Blade: Shun —> IF SE would have given PDL 10% to ANY if those pieces they became BiS for ALL slots meaning Head, Body, Hands, Legs while Feet is alrdy BiS as is.

The Greatest increase towards Shun WSD, by a large margin, would had been if SE would had just placed PDL 10% upon the Boots themselves

I didn’t bother to look at Blade: Ten but I am convinced that such would had been the same scenario too for that WS as well included.

EDIT : Looked into Blade: Ten and such is indeed the same exact scenario where PDL even beats out all pieces including Nyame R20 itself & also R25 as well.

Much Respect for all your Diligence checking ALL those Jobs compared to NIN btw. As I stated I dismissed NIN Emp+3 all together upon 1st seeing such added to BGwiki list of NEW Gear.

After re-examining Emp+3 Hands I am under the impression that NIN is given another Multiplier outside of Futae itself via using those Hands.

NIN Emp+3 Hands should be giving NIN
— Magic burst damage +15
— Elemental ninjutsu damage +18%
Even without using Futae those Hands should be BiS due to the 2nd Multiplier to Dmg Bonus listed I would imagine.
— "Futae"+28 —> 78% Bonus to Dmg

Basically those Hands give 3 Multipliers which makes them Unique much like SCH Emp+3 Boots giving its own Multiplier to SCH. Meaning those Hands should be amazing even w/o Futae + w/o any MAB whatsoever.

• SCH gains 25% Multiplier via Storms II w/ MB Bonus II +5%
• NIN gains an Additional 18% Multiplier outside of Futae or MB Bonus w/ MB Bonus +15%
— That’s not all that bad of a deal tbh. Sure MAB+50 would had been nice but those should be Amazing for NIN regardless. At least that’s my assumption outside of actually Testing those Hands personally myself.

Basically they don't. It's just mab+18

Then Tested then I assume. Well that changes my opinion then slightly as well ofc.

Incredibly Cheap of SE to replace a Basic common Stat shared on many of Emp+3 pieces simply known as “MAB” via replacing such w/ misleading terminology that equates to equal just basic generic “MAB” itself to begin w/.

Rather surprising tbh such is indeed the case.
No need to even be written as such at all whatsoever.

Should just read as “Magic Attack Bonus +18” like everything else Emp+3 wise does.
Doesn’t make any actual sense at all whatsoever being written as such.

Wasn't trying to conflate it, was trying to draw attention to the fact that we have options for one of these things. And the option is in fact much better than the new one nin was given. The fact that nin's mab options (which effect more than nuking) is so sparse it basically makes every piece we can equip nearly an auto selection vs being able to modify gear based on what you can complete in game. Not saying base level nyame is hard to get, and it's a great set for Nin, saying that the fact that they chose to invest in racc when: kendasuba, malignance, oseem slot machine, af hands/legs, relic body, nyame all exist(23 options), but at the same time our options for MAB are: AF Feet, relic head/feet(BiS), Sinister Reign, Oseem Slot Machine, and nyame(14 options), if you count head and feet (since they are jse and relatively painless to obtain) as locked BiS you have only 9 options. That is without counting the empy set which makes the disparity 28/14 at best. I'm not saying SE added something useless I'm saying they decided to put on racc(because of daken/sange, completely valid) when there are so many levels of racc/tp abilities available at the cost of what would have been the only alternative to nyame for mab.

It is akin to saying but we have racc at home, but honestly we have racc at home. With better secondaries in the gear like daken+(though with jse+2 neck it's kinda superfluous) and augments sange specifically on the pieces for JSE.

But if it read MAB they would have had to increase it like other jobs that had stats already listed in gear to high levels. They got away with short changing the enhance on the stat because it didn't work right to begin with.

Only when you don't need accuracy. The basement Sortie bosses are pretty evasive, even with Master Levels. If they keep pumping out higher tier content, the accuracy becomes even more necessary. So "much better" just depends on what you're fighting.



SE probably sees racc to ninja the same way they see mab to blm/sch/rdm/geo. They just put it on everything NIN gets (look at their recent weapons).

Noticed SE did exactly the same on Relic+3 Head too to allow the MAB to not be perceived as being excessively High. All while they shortchanged Emp+3 instead via the same exact process while making such appear to be something totally unique & unrelated to the basic typical MAB+50 gear.

That’s extremely frustrating having SE toying w/ descriptions simply to twist expectations higher or lower than they should be compared to MAB stats found on the same Gear of other Jobs w/ those same exact stats.

Emp+3 —> Elemental ninjutsu damage +18%
Relic+3 —> Ninjutsu damage +21

No standardized version of descriptions makes everything a mess yet such is nothing NEW for SE.

Latest version of A Guide To Ninja is out going over my new changes to my Ninja lua. Hope some find it helpful if it happens to mesh with your playstyle.

Hi Logical, I've just watched your nice Ninja Starstone solo farming path video (here) and I'm willing to try because I'm getting bored of doing solo runs on BLU and I need a variation.
I've got a plethora of questions for you concerning this video.
Also too late to edit it now, but you spelled Gallimaufry wrong in the video.
Without further ado, let's go to my questions


Subjob
I think you're going /WAR, right? How often do you keep Berserk up and on which targets do you avoid it?
Given how you're using a trust tank, have you considered going /DRG to further increase the chances of the tank to keep hate and also improve your WS (and SC) damage?

Trusts
Skillchains
Which skillchains are you using? I saw you using Ten > Kamu (frag) > Shun (light) > Shun (Radiance)
Blade: To > Blade: Chi (impaction) to burst Raiton.
Anything else?
Which SCs you use on which targets? I guess the first on the Veelas, the second on Flans/Slimes/Slugs?
I'm a bit afraid of slimes, how do you deal with occasional fluid spread slaughtering your trusts with you being unable to re-summon them because you've got aggro from a second target while you were killing the slime?

Food / Buffs
With the trusts setup you posted you're gonna be terribly starved for attack, which food are you using?
Which ninjutsu buffs do you always keep up, and which debuffs do you deploy on which targets, if any at all?

Sets
Can you link the TP sets, WSsets and MBB sets you use for these, so I can get an idea of how far behind my NIN is?



Thanks for your time!