The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Buukki's niche reasoning you quoted for Mochizuki hands in a max Macc set is a little outdated now since Empyrean reforge. Empy+3 hands have Macc+62, basically matching Relic+3 without the requirements of 5/5 NTE merits and Yonin up). Empy +2 are not far behind at Macc+52.

We're talking about enfeebling ninjutsu only, because Empy hands are much better for nukes due to the Magic burst damage, elemental ninjutsu damage+, and Futae boost. Personally, I don't see it as worth it to have to give up other merit options for such a super-niche use case.

I just can't see NTE as anything but the worst group 2 NIN merit.

1) You're going to want Ninjutsu MAB merits if you ever nuke with NIN, period.
2) Ninjutsu Macc merits are nice for reducing resists on nukes and helping Macc regardless of gear choices

3-4) Innin/Yonin have their arguments based on use case. Innin for a NIN focused on melee DD and able to get behind the mob (why not take extra SC damage?), or Yonin for a NIN wanting to tank and getting some use out of extra HP (both for survival and enmity purposes).

5) Sange is... not worth it to me for the relatively minor gain over our strong existing Daken rate, and the hassle of needing to pop a JA to burn ~1/3 a stack of shuriken for a very small additional bit of TP gain. I don't care to take the risk of losing an R/E shuriken, or the annoyance of lugging around a bunch of consumable shuriken (probably the 19k/pouch NQ Happo from Curio Vendor Moogle). But at least Sange does SOMETHING.

6) NTE is really just useful for a very niche application of enhancing Relic hands' Macc, which is only slightly better than easily obtained Empy+2 hands, or basically dead even with Empy+3 hands. I can't justify this at all, tbh.

I'm not sure if you're trying to imply the relic gloves are still good, they can be until you get to emp+3 which soundly wins as far as macc goes, loses by 1 macc but has 7 more INT(assuming int matters on nin macc) with no need to invest merits

AFAIK, INT does not matter on Ninjutsu Macc. Just Macc/ninjutsu skill. See: https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Magic_Accuracy

INT does matter on Ninjutsu DAMAGE though.

Fair enough, still only a 1 point difference without having to invest 5 merits into an otherwise very niche trait given the low cost on tools

100% agreed.

I think NTE merits are insane at this point, even if you don't have Empy+3 hands. Empy +2 or Malignance are just fine, a Macc +11~13 difference on such a niche use case is just not worth the hassle or tying up your merits.

And in any case, NTE only even makes sense if you're pairing that WITH Ninjutsu Macc merits. Because if you had NTE + any other merit choice, you would get more overall magic accuracy by going for Ninjutsu accuracy + that other merit choice. So you're locking yourself into ALL of your Group 2 merits for NTE/Macc, just to get maybe a modest boost on macc from Relic+3 hands. Don't do that.

Probably also worth noting that as a practical matter, this is just not going to matter. On lower end stuff where you can stick ninjutsu enfeebles, you'll be able to do it regardless if you have a decent current Macc/skill set. There's just almost nothing in the game where 10 (or hell, 30) Macc is going to make ninjutsu enfeeble proc rate significantly different. And on hard endgame mobs that are actually difficult to proc an enfeeble on, you're probably still going to get resisted regardless of your ninjutsu set (sorry, you're no RDM).

Yep, I was a long time supporter of NTE merits and I had them 5/5 for the longest time.
But that was before they reworked group2 merits for NIN.
I dunno, if you ask me these days it doesn't seem worth it anymore.

5/5 MAB is mandatory imho if you ever find yourself nuking/bursting on NIN.

5/5 Macc is also nice and synergizes well with the previous, but depends what you use NIN for. If you find yourself often using Innin and staying behind the target (proper tank or trust tank?) and using Hybrids a lot, then 5/5 Innin becomes pretty hot as well, because you're gonna use Mochizuki+3 head regardless, and 5/5 Innin adds a nice ~5% WSD to that, making it even better than it already is for Hybrid WSs.
Also gives a small boost to SC and MBB damage, altough I'm not sure if this 5% bonus goes beyond the respective caps, I don't think anybody ever tested that, right?


Sharing out personal experience.
I moved to 5/5 Macc and 5/5 Mab shortly after they reworked the Group2 merits for NIN.
I recently moved to 5/5 Mab and 5/5 Innin though because lately I'm using NIN for occasional solo Sortie runs, where I'm basically behind the target with trust tank 100% of the time, spamming 2 step SCs from hybrid WSs and double bursting on each SC.
This sort of scenario makes this group #2 setup quite effective.

Does anyone know what the characters mean when you cast any ninjitsu in the cast animation?

Translates roughly to:
"You're never getting Jubaku: Ni"

Any reports of a confirmed stat modifier for Zesho Meppo (Prime ws)?

DEX/AGI confirmed.

I think I missed it. Can you link it?

The data proth provided along with my own gives the impression it's 60/60.
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/57318/prime-ws-information-testing-discussion/17/#3670113

This data tells exactly nothing.

The spread is way too low (4.8% without fotia and 3.5% with fotia) and he used Caro and Fotia, which means he had +6 dex without Fotia which compromise whole data anyway if DEX is unknown WSC. Same for +6STR on Caro, because he probably wasnt fSTR capped with only 258 STR.

If you have made any conclusions based on those numbers it's basically pure guessing. Also I see no confirmation that DEX or AGI is WSC at all there.

inb4 I know how hard it is to get good enough data in Sortie. I used 2 KI to test Origin and 5 to test Dagger and still couldn't get close enough data on dagger to make 100% conclusion and my data was way more complete than above one for katana.

CONSPIRACY ALERT! CONSPIRACY ALERT! CONSPIRACY ALERT!

I know I'm not alone in thinking that NIN and RNG got shafted on the Empyrean weapon and WS attribute, perhaps accidentally, and that it SHOULD have been DEX on Kannagi/Blade: Hi and AGI on Gandiva/Jishnu's Radiance. I will go to the grave thinking this.

Well my NIN friends, I now have another FFXI-spiracy that is going to haunt me...

I'm a frequent user of all of the jobs with access to hybrid WS on their primary weapon types (SAM NIN RNG COR), and have been messing with those sets recently, mostly for fun. Also have a friend who has been playing a lot with NIN lately who made a comment about Blade: Ei that has stuck with me, musing about whether it may be better in many situations given its better fTP mods and darkness element. In my experience, the answer is no - presumably because Ei is a pure magical WS and not a hybrid like Teki/To/Chi.

But that got me thinking (and seeing the things THEY don't want us to think about lol). I'm now totally convinced that Ei SHOULD HAVE been a hybrid, and was probably meant to be and something got screwed up. It's just too clean not to be, there would be perfect symmetry between SAM and NIN each covering 4 elements:

• SAM gets the "light side" elements with GK's four hybrid WS: Koki (Light), Jinpu (Wind), Goten (Lightning), and Kagero (Fire).

• NIN gets 3/4 of the "dark side" elements with katana hybrids: Chi (Earth), To (Ice), Teki (Water)... and conveniently also has a darkness based magical WS (Blade: Ei) that would just be SUCH a logical fit to have been hybrid/darkness.

• The GK and Katana WS are even obtained at the same skill levels: 70 skill (Teki and Goten), 100 skill (To and Kagero), 150 skill (Chi and Jinpu), and 175 skill (Ei and Koki)

• SAM and NIN are the "masters" of multiple hybrid WS elements, where the only other hybrids in the game are limited to Fire (Flaming Arrow, Hot Shot, Ifrit BPs)

Ei represents the only missing element for a hybrid, and would fit perfectly so that SAM and NIN would mirror each other in skill requirements and combine for 8/8 element coverage. So I ask you, ladies and degenerates of the FFXIAH jury, did we Ninjas get screwed AGAIN? I think that's the obvious and only reasonable conclusion.


P.S. - Bonus conspiracy theory! The names of the Odin and Alexander BGMs are also obviously backwards, or the songs swapped at the last minute and not corrected like they should have been. Odin is not an "Iron Colossus", but Alexander sure as heck is! And likewise, "Ragnarok" has no good connection to Alex, but it's an obvious fit for a song to play while fighting Odin and his Einherjar (who in Norse mythology are, what do you know, tasked with preparing for the events of Ragnarok!)

Are we sure Ei isn't? Never seen anyone discuss it

(NIN can do them all natively btw) NIN can do every melee hybrid

Fair point, maybe more accurate to say GK and Katana (but as a practical matter, SAM is obviously going to perform better on the GK ones since it gets access to stuff like Aeonic GK and you're much more limited in weapon choices on NIN).

I'm curious about Ei and would be interested to see more discussion/testing. From just using them a bit and purely eyeballing them, it does seem that Ei consistently lags behind in damage when using the same WS sets. Which does feel like it would be explained by Teki/To/Chi being hybrids and taking advantage of physical buffs, but Ei being all magical. But yeah, would be interesting to see more...


Alternately... possible that maybe neither Ei nor Koki are hybrids, and the BGWiki page for Koki is just wrongly identifying that one as a hybrid when it's really just magical/light? I could see SE having only made hybrids for the 6 elements excluding light and dark. So, any Koki testing anyone may be aware of could be relevant.

While I can't explain Iron Colossus, in FFXI Ragnarok was the clash between Alexander and Odin that ruined old Alzadaal, and the final battle against Alexander in ToAU is about you preventing a second Ragnarok from taking place by taking down Alexander before it fully awakens and Odin comes.

That name makes sense, so it doesn't have to be a name swap mistake. Perhaps Iron Colossus was originally designed for Alexander but they decided to give it a different theme, so they repurposed it for Odin without bothering to rename it.

But like... doesn't it make even MORE sense that they might make a Norse mythology related song title for the event that was packed full of Norse Mythology stuff (including STRONG associations between Einherjar and Ragnarok in mythology)?

If the Odin/Einherjar music was called something else entirely that might also be related to them, I might see your argument. But when pairing that with there being no reasonable explanation for how the heck an "Iron Colossus" has anything to do with Odin and his legions, I think it's gotta be a mistake that would be easily explained by just swapping those two songs/titles. Occam's razor.

I'm sticking to this - moon landing was staged, Tanaka messed up and swapped the ToAU song titles ;) It's my $12.95 (plus add-on fees) and my conspiracy theory! Maybe I should just mod the game to play the song we know as Iron Colossus during Alex fight, and Ragnarok during Odin/Einherjar fight. I wonder if that was the original intent.

I think Ragnarok being in the fight where Alexander is actively gearing up to cause Ragnarok to be a more suitable location than just "general mythology similarity" like it'd be with Odin, personally.

I also just gave a plausible explanation for Odin using that song too. It's pretty commmon for music tracks in things like games and shows to get named fairly early into development, and then it happens that they never get used in the originally planned place because the people actually placing the songs decided it worked better elsewhere.

My post originally asked about koki/goten/kagero etc

But oldwiki says all 3 will stack with SATA, so I suppose they must be hybrid (it makes no mention on Ei, but lack of answer is not an answer)

Just going to quash this now. There's nothing enigmatic about this. Koki can miss, Ei cannot miss. Hybrid weaponskills can miss, magical weaponskills cannot miss. If we want to ignore this easy answer, then you need only look at damage consistency. A hybrid will not hit the same number 10 times in a row, an elemental ws will (hybrids are still subject to pDIF). Magical weaponskills have a dSTAT, hybrid weaponskills do not. Why this is even a question is beyond me.

It's one thing to claim they "can" miss, it another to know it / have seen them miss.

Without having used any of the 4 in 10 years, no way I would know anymore. I know/remember a lot of trivial ***but can't recall it all.

Are you serious? People have been using Hybrids for years now, Koki included. This isn't a guess. If you want to overturn the basic understanding of how something works, something that we've known now for almost two decades, then the burden of proof lies on you.

Peoples information is incorrect enough to always question.

Nothing wrong with making sure.

Ei's magical, and I'd say it's less about screwing it over and more about thinking that Dark is the odd element out in FFXI lore.

A lot of things that are dark in FFXI don't adhere to normal rules/have greater relation to magic(whether it be resistance or proficiency).

The dark protocrystal is also shattered, so its slumbering god is awake.

Having Ei be totally magical fits in this theme, and it also fits an assassin's weapon. It's like a stab directly at the soul, rather than a cut enhanced by magic.

Nobody was trying to overturn any basic understanding, no need to jump immediately to aggression when no one was picking fights. It was a legitimate enough question - and you provided a very definitive answer with good clear reasoning (which is way more useful than just accepting whatever is on BGwiki as fact, despite it not having any explanation whatsoever). In all seriousness, thank you for the clear explanation.

I know I've also probably forgotten a lot of what I might have known years ago about Koki, just due to rarely ever using it for anything outside of Abyssea procs.

Anyway, my point still stands. I'm salty that we don't have a hybrid darkness WS, and Blade: Ei not being that WS feels like either a mistake or just another 2000s example of getting ripped off by Tanaka-san and his scales of BALANCE.

Magical damage really isn't what NIN, nor katana, is lacking though. A powerful physical WS (even stronger than Zesho Meppo ended up being, even) was what Katana needed.

I would have taken Leaden/Trueflight for my melee weapon even if it isn't needed, of course, but that was never going to happen. I'd say an additional hybrid atop the glut of hybrids we've already got access to would've been boring and not very useful though. Zesho didn't end up being much better, sure; in the end it basically just replaces the current self-light SC on things that don't have a WS wall. Also I guess if everyone else in your party is already doing Savage on an NM with a WS wall. But neither Dokoku nor its WS are strong enough to completely replace Naegling/Savage Blade, and while it does replace Ten as the defacto physical katana WS, it isn't by enough for me to be truly enthused.

Naegling was a mistake, just like letting 1h use magian TP bonus weapons in the offhand. Losing 15~25% ATK on WS from Naegling is already huge on its own for a job whose only way to buff its own ratio is to switch weapons to put Ageha on the mob, which someone else was probably already capable of doing with Armor Break/Shellbuster/etc..

If you're just bringing in Ei, having a pure magic WS mixed among the hybrid ones is a good thing rather than bad. It would be better if Ei was stronger but still, having the option is better than not having it. SAM still has to use Murasamemaru or just not participate at all on things that resist physical damage since a physical damage reduction destroys hybrid damage. NIN can theoretically use Ei or Aeolian in addition to nukes.

You're not wrong. But my annoyance is less for practical reasons than just due the failure to have the tidy balance of 4 elements on katana, 4 on GK, and all elements accounted for.


Yeah, for that particular purpose it's somewhat of a replacement for Shun (which I've gotten a lot of mileage out of when playing with Savage Bladers and being able to make some easy light SCs).


That's totally fair too, and perhaps that more practical use case helps me accept getting a little less annoyed by "the logical place for that 8th element hybrid was RIGHT THERE and they whiffed on making it".

Although, if you're just saying it's nice to have any magic WS for those purposes, katana also has Blade: Yu (not that it's all that great). Would have been nice to see Yu be better. Hell, stick a Def- on THAT instead of lolPoison, at least avoid needing to switch to an otherwise non-optimal weapon type to apply def-.