The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Yeah, I have generally had better results in practice with Heishi/Kunimitsu as opposed to Heishi/Hitaki. The TP Bonus does add some damage, but katana hybrids are no Savage Blade in that respect: Chi and Teki have fTP mods of 0.5/1.375/2.25, Blade: To is 0.5/1.5/2.5. Big difference from Savage Blade's 4.0/10.25/13.75, so more TP Bonus is certainly not "just as good" for hybrids as it is for Savage.

Considering you're already WSing in a minimum of +750 effective TP if using Heishi and a Moonshade earring, as a practical matter you WILL waste a whole lot of TP if also using an offhand TP Bonus +1000. Even just getting a triple attack proc can easily push you above 1250tp and cause some of that TP to be wasted.

Kunimitsu's no slouch either, tons of great stats for hybrids: WSD+5%, lot of attack, MAB/Macc/Mdmg. And of course, STP+5 and a lot of Acc for TP purposes, versus non-ilevel offhand that can become a liability on harder targets.

I just haven't found Hitaki worth it for hybrids most of the time. Was a bit better for me with Nagi mainhand, since that means 500 less TP Bonus and less likelihood of inadvertently going over on TP, but even then I think I've settled into preferring Kunimitsu.

Now, Savage Blade is a different animal, so Naegling/Hitaki is pretty good and that's my go-to if no accuracy concerns. But that's really the clear best use case for Hitaki.

Blade: Ten has similarly strong fTP mods as Savage, so Hitaki is pretty strong for that too - but again, there is a significant risk of overkill on TP when you're adding 1500-1750 TP Bonus to each WS. That leads me to tend to go Kunimitsu for Ten as well.

I'm sure they go higher with actual buffers and not just trusts. Alas, I am using 5 trusts only.

seems i'm misremembering, tried to emulate your gear and buffs (used +0 chaos/fighters) and did come out almost exactly at 30k avg. i do remember multi-hit procs hitting closer to 50-60k though, guess it was less often than i thought.

You have to remember that these Hybrid WS are mostly used on Monster that weak to the WS element, and that not calculated by the Emulator.

My gear is a bit different to that but realised I didn't have mantle and dingir ring in. My aeonic is R1, no o sash, dex with wsd , but I'm averaging much higher than that on apex bats now

What you have posted means that TP bonus is BETTER for hybrids than for Savage.

For :Chi and :Teki it's +275% damage from 1000TP to 2000TP and +63% damage from 2000TP to 3000TP. :To scales even better.

Now Savage is +256% from 1000TP to 2000TP and "only" +34% from 2000TP to 3000TP.

Hitaki is only decent and not "omg the best" for hybrids, not because TP bonus works worse for it, but more because that Heishi has 500TP Bonus and Kunimitsu has mab/macc etc. which has much bigger impact for hybrid than for Savage. Hitaki is still bis for Hybrids assuming it doesn't uncap your macc and acc.

OH ***... Simonses is back. Now we are saved from the con-artists and their pseudo-knowledge.

I couldn't resist to nitpick that, but I'm generally still on hiatus (playing Predecessor almost exclusively) with no intention of coming back anytime soon.

KRT bats melt vs. hybrid ws. Bats also have much smaller spawn areas making it faster to get chains. I was able to hit 40k pretty regularly, spiking up to about 86k on those. Fun stuff for NIN.

Sorry in advance if this was super obvious and I missed it.

Do Daken procs give the same TP as a normal melee hit?

They give the same TP as a normal ranged hit, but yeah there's no reduction AFAIK. It will depend on STP on your gear, spells, rolls, traits, etc. but if you throw a shuriken you should get a good idea what it's worth. I'd say 50~100 but I haven't tested it recently. It's pretty significant if you've got it proccing every round and have the racc to hit it.

I must be losing it. The thought of just throwing a shuriken as a /ra never even crossed my mind lol.... Thanks Male!

I want to build a 100% Daken set and see how it compares to standard/risky TP sets.

Thanks!

It means using relic body with its nice chunk of dw and af gloves which doesnt offer much of anything aside from daken.

NP. It's not hard to make a Dakken 100% set btw, Kunimitsu (with augs), JSE neck, AF hands, relic body, done.

That's why I wanted to try, looked easy to build and I'd "only" be sacrificing adhemar hands and tatenashi body to do it.

It gives the TP of a shuriken attack. So whatever the delay of those stars are.

Seki Shuriken actually has a higher delay than Kannagi and Kunimitsu, so that means higher TP return from daken procs than melee swings?

Seki Shuriken has 192 delay, Kannagi has 210 and Kunimitsu has 227. Are you sure you're alright? Lol.

Also please don't use Kannagi, it's terrible.

lol I must be tired, was looking at DMG instead of delay.....

I know, but gdamnit I wish it felt like using Twash on THF ;;;;;;;;;;;

It's still a dope lockstyle though >.>

Seki would give 63 TP per throw, multiplied by Store TP. Ninja can get ridiculous Daken rates and it's proc is completely independent of other multi-attacks. Think of it as free TP.

The question is, is chasing 100% daken worth giving up STP/MA in 2 other slots though?

The body and hands generally aren't worth giving up in most situations. Base + neck is 79% and that's usually good enough.

That's what I intend to find out! I'd like to see actual numbers ideally, but I'll "feel" it out nonetheless to see if I can spam hybrids with heishi faster or not.

Frankly wouldnt go beyond aug'd kunimitsu for additional daken, the body is... okay if you need a dw swap but thats not a common nin concern.

Maybe if you couldnt overcap DW but its basically in the same spot as emp+2/3 hat, da boost mixed with dt/acc/atk is nice buuut 7 DW

He technically isn't wrong anyway. The Katana's delays are both reduced by Dual Wield, shuriken delay is not.

Is there any way to make Blade Shun even 75% of Savage/Chi?

Shun has a hard enough time trying to compete with ten in a high buff scenerio, let alone hybrids

Its atk varies so at some point only way it goes higher is pdl/ma. Not only is hybrids dmg varies but they double dip in wsd, can be boosted by affinity, mdef down/element down debuffs, natural mob ele wraknesses etc.

Its an uphill battle for shun, but atleast its not blade hi

The one thing you have going for you with Shun is that it can be pretty useful for skillchains. In a party with a bunch of Savage Blade users and hybrids aren't effective? Heishi with Shun can open or close Light with all those Savages, and that can make Shun worth using over the higher raw damage of Ten (or Savage). You can even Radiance if for some reason you want to bother spending 3k TP for aftermath. Can also be worth it for the sword bros to tack on a double light with Savage->Shun->CdC.

But yeah, my usual mental flowchart for Heishi:

1) Do hybrids work? Use Chi (default), To (for stuff that resists earth), or Teki (in the rare chance water damage is best)

2) Hybrids bad, but physical/slashing damage is OK (and you don't feel like swapping to Naegling)?
(a) If you have solid buffs and don't care much about SC damage, use Blade: Ten
(b) If you have crappy buffs OR you can use Shun for SCs, use Blade: Shun