The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

No, the comparison is unevenly disproportionate. If you have Naegling for RDM, you have it for NIN. If you have a TP bonus offhand for RDM, you can easily make one for NIN. You don't look at a simulator and put the strongest weapon you have for one job and weak weapon you have for another job and say "RDM deals twice he damage of the job I have no weapon for". That's a very odd way of comparing jobs. If you want to use NIN, then you need to use a good weapon and compare dps. How are you honestly comparing crocea rdm to pre-ambu nin in good faith? You would either make a stronger weapon like Nariont suggested in Heishi Shorinken or use Naegling.

Thats why I asked for more context, something is off with the comparison. RDM benefits from being a native sword user, and NIN WS sucks, but for the sake of conversation, let's remove Naegling/Savage Blade out of the conversation. Are we sure Kaja Katana/Gokotai or Kunimitsu using Hybrids are weaker than whatever other WS RDM would use? Under magical-appropriate circumstances, I still don't buy it.

Because that's what the OP actually has? And that's what I was responding to. I'm assuming they may not have Aeonics easily accessible either, particularly due to the comment about maybe making a Kikoku as the next easiest "good" option for them. If you want to say top-of-the line NIN versus top-of-the-line RDM, that's not the discussion I was even having.

That said, from personal experience, my alt has mage/buff jobs including a well geared Crocea RDM that was her best DPS job for a long time. I have since gotten her NIN up to par (was initially leveled as an Abyssea proc machine) with Heishi and pretty good gear, though not as geared to the teeth as my main's NIN. And honestly? They're still on a fairly similar level, even if the NIN edges out the RDM by a modest amount on a lot of stuff.

RDM isn't as weak as people seem to think. You REALLY have to consider that massive increase in white damage from Crocea enspells on most targets. And then consider stuff like being able to shut mobs down with RDM enfeebles that make the fights a lot easier to win, even if you get more pure DPS out of a NIN.

You all know I'm a NIN lover, this isn't me slagging off the job. I didn't make 4 REMAs for NIN then gear a second one with Heishi on a different character without liking what the job can do.

But I'm also being realistic here for what you can realistically achieve if you're someone in a situation like the OP and mostly playing solo. For that play style, I'd pick RDM over NIN as a versatile "light DD" type.

I don't think anyone is claiming RDM is weak, I haven't seen anyone say anything close to that. OP mentioned ve1 ambuscade, sounds more like a change of pace kind of job than efficiency. If the bar is that low, don't really think the comparison makes much sense. Obviously their RDM is stronger, it's not like he's asking which one would be better, no brainer. But he also said he wasn't worried about DPS as much. So I only questioned the parameters in the simulator because half the DPS sounds very low even for their use case. I just don't see it which is why I'm curious where those numbers are coming Fein.

Also, my last post question. Are we talking about a weak WS on ninja vs a good one on RDM (Savage blade) or is the simulator including hybrid WS? I still find it hard to believe his NIN is still that comparatively weak with similar WS gear and hybrids in the mix

Goes back to the first line of my first reply: whether the player has access to Nyame r15+ is vital to answer this. If not, your hybrids on NIN, as well as your magical WS on RDM and Savage Blade on both jobs, will suffer. If that's your situation and you're looking at comparing your next best WS options - something like Blade: Shun or Ku versus, say, Chant du Cygne with a RDM? I'll prob take CdC, especially considering it SCs with itself.

Don't underestimate that RDM can pump up Naegling Savage in some other ways too. Gain-STR, and adding tons of buffs to take advantage of the Savage atk bonus based on # of buffs are relevant considerations. I still think Savage is going to be somewhat underwhelming too, if lacking good WSD gear, but all things being relatively equal, that makes up for some of NIN's extra WSD gifts and increased subjob flexibility. And RDM's stronger white damage (Enspells) can more than make up the rest.

And if we aren't "worried about DPS as much", I don't think NIN holds a candle to RDM coming with TEMPER II, Para/Slow/Bind (better than NIN's), Grav, Frazzle, Distract, Dia3, Sleeps, Cures, Barspells, nukes... I'd gladly do a bit less damage to get all those tools if I'm soloing stuff.

(and seriously, Daken for TP generation as a plus on NIN's side? RDM has Temper, that's WAY better)

Don't think OP cares about this, looks like they just want to play NIN and wondering how hard it is to gear for it. Like Nariont said, get Heishi, make a Gokotai (no, it's not that bad, more lies), make a Kikoku, or just use the Naegling you already have. You'll do fine on NIN.


You should read what I wrote in conjunction with each other, not separately.


You have to add it all collectively. I'm not comparing Temper alone to Daken, lol, I'm comparing jobs' attack speed, and NIN literally TPs faster.

What is Temper II TA rate? 38% TA rate (using my own 684 skill), using Malignance gear. 5% DA from Sherida Earring? so 2 extra attacks 38 times, 1 extra attack 5 times. 81/100 MA rate?

My NIN (right now) has 29% TA in standard gear using Malignance Feet instead of kenda+1 (dont have em). If I'm subbing WAR, 12% DA, depends on cape (not counting it cuz I use stp) 8 in rest of gear (epona's+sailfi+1). Then I have practically a guaranteed +1 attack to every single round (which I don't know how it factors into the formula so I will just leave it out and add the MA alone). so 2 extra attacks 29 times, one extra attack 20 times, 78/100 MA rate?

I haven't even added in Daken and that's already really close, so what do you mean Temper is "way better"?

edit; i should be fair and include R30 Bunzi's Hat since I was comparing to my gear, so 3% QA, 3 extra hits 3 times, so +9. so rdm is at 90/100, but Daken is going to close that gap anyways so it's still a similar attack speed rate between the two jobs

Malignance will serve you extremely well as a base to your generic hybrid DT set. Gokotai isn't a terrible weapon to be honest, to many people judge it harshly because it simply doesn't compare to something like Naegling... but unfortunately naegling is just disgusting and in a league of its own.

However to answer your question directly, Kenda+1 will serve you well for Shun as it benefits most from multi attack and WSC mods. If you have access to base mpaca, that may serve you better in some slots as it has attack+/tp bonus over kenda+1. Kenda+1 would also serve you well towards Kaja knife and evisceration sets.

If you aren't using Heishi, invest 5/5 merits into Blade: Shun, until you get Heishi.

Multistep skillchains are your friend as a Ninja solo, you can easily do 4-5 steps and burst at the end of it with the right equipment.

Blade: Kamu is trash, but any skillchain that uses Blade: Kamu can be replaced by Savage Blade. I have macros made for this purpose where my weapons swap each time to benefit the most for each specific weapon skill and Ninja still generates tp fast enough to do 4-5 step skillchains.

Big fan of Ten > Savage > Shun > Shun, or even Shun > Ten > Savage > Shun > Shun.

Thanks all, sorry if I didn't add enough info at first but appreciate all the discussions.

I totally don't have nyame r15+ (let alone base r0), I did plan to find a group to get the base gear since I keep reading (and seeing for myself) how potent the WSD on it is.

Anyhow yes I'm afraid I'm a bit behind on that and at most can work on JSE gear for now.

For aeonics I'm working on soloing geas fetes but it seems feasible up until the end where I'll need to find a party.

But yeah so far I've got the following gear:

RDM/NIN (master lv10)
TP/DT: Mostly malignance. DEX/DW Cape. Crocea Path C / Naegling with Kaja Knife or Thibron (depending on SB or CDC or physical vs magical).
CDC WSD: Some pieces of crit but still working on it. Crit DEX cape.
SB/Black Halo WSD: WSD/STR Cape. A few WSD pieces but also working on it. No nyame sadly.
Enhancing: Barely reacing 500 enhancing skill since still working on JSE, but it's decent for now.

With the above I can stay tanky, enfeeble well, spam myself with buffs and even solo enemies. May not be a huge achievement but I can solo mog on easy ambu this month without trusts, though it does take very long.

MNK/WAR (master lv15):
TP/DT: Malignance (or kenda + adhemar if glass cannon) with karambit, DEX/DA cape.
WSD: STR/DA cape for victory smite, otherwise for now I stick with TP set for multihits for most things.
Working on JSE for stronger damage but this is where my interests branch and I began looking at NIN lol.

My monk so far kills things quite fast, though obviously with barely any utility as a pure DD I can't survive if my trusts die, so while I can damage the moogle in E very fast, if my trusts die, I die (naturally). I've had occasions where monk did survive better than RDM purely from shutting down TP moves and mantra for more trust HP.

Anyhow, my NIN's gear is:

NIN/WAR (50 jp only, never practically compared its performance since the others have max jp)
TP: Malignance mostly, DEX cape, since I haven't built anything yet (but am planning to) I only have the DI 200 pt katana, though I use naegling atm for damage since it's obviously better until perhaps the final ambu katana or a REMA.

Don't have a proper WSD set yet, but anyhow as you can see, my NIN is very poorly geared at the moment. I asked the questions because I was very interested in investing in it. I remember enjoying trying it out in lower difficulty content. The aesthetics of the job feel great to me, as well as the shadows / evasion style gameplay (which I'm sure I'll need to also work on for sets to maximise), the multi-attack and rapid TP generation is great too.

Still reading through comments, but thanks so far.

Yes, altough someone could say that if you get a lucky WC refresh you can sport SV HM the whole run and at that point the difference betweeen Haste1 and Haste2 becomes irrelevant.

Personally I can say Refresh3 on PLD and WHM help a bit because it's less annoyance for the BRD which will generate more party DPS thanks to higher DPS from the BRD. But ok, it's a small difference.

With that said, while NIN hybrids are insane when you get the right families, let's not underestimate the WSD a RDM can generate (and 40% TA +50 STR always present in TP and WS is... quite something).
I feel the RDM also has an easier time against piercing weak and blunt weak families.
NIN can do something with those but his performance will be inferior to a RDM with Maxentius and Mpu Gandring, of course.

So yeah, I guess the type of families you get plays a big role here.

You are right, i forgot Hetairoi Ring, it is 40%, not 38%. My mistake.