The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

I actually know what he means, but I stopped short of writing that in my gear overview because white damage always matters, since more dps is more dps (but not really for NIN), and I knew someone would come in and say "IT DOES MATTER!!". The name of the game with NIN has always been speed-to-tp. How fast can you fire off your WS. The 200 attack trade for 5stp may or may not be hyperbole, but the point he was making is that you're not living enough off of your white damage for it to be a substantial difference, or at least not bothering to specifically gear for it with that in mind, unless you are for some reason using Kannagi AM3 and want to push those numbers higher. Even then, NIN is a WS machine and almost all of your damage will come from WS. I very rarely kill anything from pure white damage alone, even when fully buffed. Idk, it's something I never gear for when it comes to NIN. On a job like THF, I would use a Crit AM3 build with Twashtar and some nice Crit+/dmg pieces and some attack thrown in, but on NIN, it's really all about the WS, lol

(I'm probably going to be misquoted or taken out of context here so let me say): Of course going from a 900 attack round to 1800 attack round "matters" for damage, and it will add up over time (just like the argument can be made for using a Date Shuriken over a Seki Shuriken as better dps, due to the obvious damage increase), but there is something about NIN's white damage that feels real "wyvern-breath"-esque. It's small damage but insignificant in the grander scheme. I don't gear for that either. Some would argue I am leaving damage on the table. Ok. So while I wouldn't write off attack gear in TP phase completely, but also wouldn't overly commit to gearing for it either.

Thanks this is what I had suspected but wanted to ask anyways. Unity gear having augments has been really cool to see since I've been back but like you mentioned it's almost entirely accessory focused.

Not even arguing that it matters, just saying that we don't really have to do guesswork here since this is something that Kastra's sim is really good at.

If we want to ignore the tool, I completely agree and would never gear for white damage outside of like specific jobs using Empyrean weapons. Malignance allows ninja to drop White damage in favor of defensive stats which will be the play most of the time, but it all depends on what you are fighting, how much you want min/max and how many wardrobes you want to pay for.

if weapon skill damage is 90% of your damage, it's absolutely not valid to focus on white damage to eke out an extra 1% damage gain on the white phase because it lowers your WS frequency and you end up losing more than 1% in your most valuable distribution.

A couple comments on capes:

1) Null Shawl - this recent arrival has made it my new go-to NIN TP cape for most situations. STP+7/DA+7 is great, Acc+50 is more than Ambu cape, Racc+50 is a huge additional chunk of Racc (Daken procs), and Meva+50 is a fantastic defensive stat. Try to get this, drop rate on Null accessories isn't bad!

2) Absolutely go with STR+WSD for your first WS cape. Best cape for Savage Blade, Blade: Ten, hybrid WS (Chi/Teki/To).

- DEX+WSD is completely unnecessary unless you're using Kikoku. If using Kikoku, you want it for Blade: Metsu though.

- AGI+WSD is only useful for Blade: Hi, which is kinda niche. It is still a WS that can be used, but that's generally going to be limited to:
(a) NIN's only 2-step self darkness (Hi-Hi), outside of SCs requiring Kikoku/Blade: Metsu,
(b) Other quirky SC situations that call for Hi, but keep in mind that in many cases, you can use Ten or Ku for a Gravitation WS that will do the same thing. Hi's advantage is in being the only katana WS (except for Metsu, which requires Kikoku) with a native lv3 darkness SC property, so has a bit more utility/flexibility for SC purposes.
(c) Kannagi owners will want an AGI/WSD cape, since you'll be using Hi more often to get aftermath (and Kannagi augments pump up the WS's damage, making Hi less of a DPS liability on that weapon)

If you don't regularly run into the above situations, you're probably fine just using the STR+WSD cape (that will still be your second best option) for the occasional Blade: Hi usage.

3) DEX/DA is still best WS cape for Blade: Shun, and that does have value. Also very good for Blade: Ku, for anyone using Ambuscade katana mainhand. I'd probably make this my second priority Ambu cape, there are lots of times I still use Shun.
- It opens/closes light SC with a lot of popular WS including Savage Blade
- If using Heishi, opens up Shun-Shun self light/radiance SC (and Heishi also pumps up damage of the WS via augments)
- If you're in a situation where you are not getting very good attack buffs, Shun may outperform any other physical WS that you might otherwise prefer with better buffs (Blade: Ten, Savage Blade, etc.)
- Doubles as an excellent TP cape option until you get Null Shawl, and still not a bad choice even with Shawl available (especially if you're making good use of the Resin slot for PDT or DT augment, over Null's Meva)
- Also, augmented Nyame gear really helps a LOT with NIN's hybrid and 1-hit/WSD weapon skills (Ten, Metsu, Hi, Savage, etc.), but until a player gets Nyame with augments at r15+ those WS won't be at their full potential. Using Shun and Ku (where a DEX/DA cape will be great) will still be very good options for those players.


So yeah, my priorities for Ambu capes would be:
1) STR+WSD
2) DEX+DA
3) Nuke cape
And can do a Fast Cast cape with only that augment on it to start, and add other stats as you have time.

That's nice and theoretically sound, but it's not a practical consideration since NIN is not faced with some binary choice between (a) good TP generation and weak white damage and (b) bad TP generation and strong white damage.

Kendatsuba+1 and Mpaca gear provide BOTH strong TP generation and better white damage than Malignance. All of that multi-attack generates a lot of TP too, even if you have considerably less STP. And although you don't lose much in WS frequency, you gain quite a bit in white damage.

Go play with the WS damage simulator yourself and see. Kendatsuba +1 as a TP set provides excellent TP generation that is basically on par with Malignance for WS frequency, as well as a substantial increase in white damage. You don't have to choose, you can have both.

For example, from a few quick simulations using the Kastra FFXI Damage Simulator (Jan 2025 version), results below were obtained using an identical Blade: Ten WS set, identical target/buffs, and ONLY changing between the following TP sets:
(1) 5/5 Kendatsuba +1
(2) 5/5 Malignance
(3) 5/5 Mpaca R20
(4) 5/5 Mpaca R30

The results are interesting (spoiler, 5/5 Malignance is in 4th place from a DPS perspective):
(1) 5/5 Ken+1 TP set: 7.1M white damage (15.1%) / 40.3M WS damage (84.9%). Total Damage ~47.4M
(2) 5/5 Mpaca R30 TP set: 7.9M white damage (16.8%) / 38.8M WS Damage (83.2%). Total Damage ~46.7M
(3) 5/5 Mpaca R20 TP set: 7.7M white damage (16.9%) / 37.7M WS Damage (83.1%). Total Damage ~45.3M
(4) 5/5 Malignance TP set: 4.3M white damage (9.8%) / 40.1M WS damage (90.2%). Total Damage ~44.4M

As you can see, total WS damage for a 2 hour simulation was about the same in both the Ken+1 and Malignance TP sets. Obviously might vary a bit across multiple simulations, but 40.1M and 40.3M are very close, and since we're using an identical WS set for an identical length of time, indicates that WS frequency is about on par for both sets. But look at that TP phase damage - you can almost double your white damage with the Kendatsuba +1 TP set, with no loss to WS damage. If you're focusing primarily on offense, that's a no-brainer.

Mpaca R30 and R20 TP sets generated the most white damage (that extra attack helps), but generated the least total WS damage (due to lower WS frequency via decreased TP generation, probably attributable to less TA and less Racc).

Of course, Malignance DOES have other advantages due to its defensive strength - although for NIN that's mitigated a bit more than some jobs due to Utsusemi/Migawari protecting you in some situations. Or in some situations, you might have a tank keeping the mob's attention and no particularly dangerous or annoying magic attacks/spells. All the Magic Evasion in the world is pretty useless when you're fighting a mob with no magical abilities that could hit you!

IDK, for me I've always had a balance between different TP sets that I use in different situations, which seems completely backed up by the above quick simulations:
- Ken+1: best offense, worst defense (but still solid Meva). Use it when I'm not very worried about taking hits.
- Mpaca: middle ground between total DPS and defensive benefit from PDT/MDB
- Malignance: worst total DPS, but safest from a defensive perspective. Use this if I expect to take some hits, and/or there are dangerous AoE enfeebles I could avoid with high Meva.

I change depending on weapon too. For example, Malignance all the way if I'm using Nagi or Fudo Masamune C and doing some hybrid DD/tanking. But maybe I pull out the Kannagi for some reason, I'm going to want to use a TP set with more crits.

I agree with you. The guy was throwing around the "white damage build" term, which I hate, and in 99% of instances "white damage builds" are dumb.

My main point, with such a heavy distribution towards WS, it does not, and never will, make sense to sacrifice speed to WS in favor of TP damage. Speed to WS for nin specifically is paramount.

Edit: I'll admit, the Mpaca set is surprising just due to the fact that it has no racc, so I would assume that it would affect the WS frequency more just due to less accurate daken procs. Probably all the TA makes up for it?

May not be relevant but I believe Daken has like +100 rAcc bonus which probably allows for some varying gearing options.

I get your point, and it's good general advice that NINs should usually be focusing more on speed to WS. But that's clearly not ALWAYS true.

Just look at the numbers in my previous post. Both of the Mpaca-based TP sets resulted in significantly lower WS damage over time (i.e., slower speed to WS) versus the Malignance set. But both Mpaca sets also ended up with more total damage, due entirely to the increase in white damage.

IDK about you, but from a purely offensive perspective, I'm absolutely willing to give up 1.3M in WS damage in exchange for adding 3.4M in white damage. And that's exactly what is illustrated in the above comparison between 5/5 Malignance TP set and 5/5 Mpaca R30.

EDIT: And another consideration... WS damage in a simulator is often inflated, since it isn't accounting for overkilling mobs (e.g., killing a Sheol mob that has 30k HP left with an 80k Blade: Chi). But essentially all of the white damage you see in a sim is damage that is actually being inflicted on a mob and benefiting you in-game.

I like the example of the excruciating feeling of being on WAR in Sheol with a Naegling, and a mob doesn't die. Even if it's at like 10% HP, you basically KNOW you're going to need another WS. But compare to when I'm using a Chango on my WAR, or my Masa SAM... no big deal, swing the weapon and the mob dies in the next 1-2 attack rounds without needing to WS again (and I have TP for the next mob to boot).

100% agree with you.

You’re not making this argument from the typical white damage build mindset though. You’re acknowledging that that build has higher white damage and generates enough tp the also have higher overall damage

Most of the people I see proposing white damage builds are like… gotta see those 12k crits

Yeah, I see your point there. Important to keep sight of the fact that generating TP is really vital - and anything that slows your TP gain (and WS frequency) down had better be adding enough damage to be worth the hit to your total WS damage.

On the other side of that coin, I'm equally frustrated when I see people disregarding time to WS in favor of just looking for big WS numbers. People who are like "gotta see those big weaponskills", and they're talking about building 1750tp to hit a 75k Savage Blade when I'm over here on SAM doing two 40k Fudos + several AM3-enhanced attack rounds + a light self-SC in the same amount of time.

Interesting results, thanks for bringing them to the table. I think another factor that doesn't show up in the sim though, is what's the target?

For the white damage to matter, you need to generate enough of it for the target to die in (at least) 1 fewer WS in order for the white damage to have saved you time.

For a tp-focused set, you don't have such considerations. The mob will die faster (on average) if you get tp faster and ws sooner.

I think Sims are very valuable but you have to try applying it to a real situation and thinking about how, in this specific scenario, it will go faster.

I don't think on an apex mob, for example, white damage will ever lower your time to kill. Ditto seg farm. Ditto dynamis d trash.

POSSIBLY on long, single target fights like dynamis d wave bosses or a longer ambu, but even then, your WSD is likely to be bonkers high so...probably not...

edit to add: most of the time IMO the "you just overkill it with a huge WS" cuts both ways. If the mob died to a massive overkill WS then...all your white damage helped exactly 0, because it was going to die to massive overkill from that WS anyway...Your white damage could've been 3x as high, it still was gonna die to that WS and not the one before it.

My logic has always gone something like this, using the example #s above:

If your WSD is 84% and white is 16%, that's a 1:5.25 ratio. This means that in order for a WS to be saved, your white damage needs to do 5.25x the work. So you need to count up ALL the damage from 5 WS windows to "save" a total of one WS. This means, at minimum, your target needs to survive for 6 or more WS.

Except it's even worse for this case, because you're not "gaining" 16% of your damage, you already had 2/3 of it, you're only "gaining" the difference between what you had and what you're adding with the white damage swaps.

This is the best possible explanation to the "White damage on NIN doesn't matter" discussion. Very good and simple way of putting it. To coin another player, it's basically "virtual damage". It could have very well been zero and someone hit you with Shikikoyo or something and you just acquired the TP and WS'd. You're never going to deal enough white damage fast enough for it to matter where just using another WS finishes the monster off quickly, thus the white damage is irrelevant.

Imagine a NIN WSing a mob with 100k health for 80k damage. The amount of time you would require to finally chip away that last 20% that would be like 4-5 times longer than just firing another WS. That's a lot different from, say, a Warrior with Ukonvasara or Chango, who might deal 10-25k+ damage in the few attack rounds it takes to get TP to WS again, resulting in the mob dying faster than he could hit his macro. In this case the white damage helps the WAR(and I'm not even adding Retaliation into the equation). This is almost never the case with NIN, so to that point, even sim numbers are kind of flubbed to a degree because unless that white damage provably helps kill the monster without the aid of another WS, it's stat padding. This is important to note, as someone might read those numbers above and say "5/5 Ken beats all other options according to the sims", which it does, but only in an impractical way.

You can also use that 20% to build tp to ws a different mob, twice if that's what it takes to kill them, saving a disengage.

It's not just overkill by 60k or waste 20 seconds. It's not what happens to this one mob, it's the totality of all the mobs you killed effectively.

Or you can face your character towards that second mob, saving a disengage.

If you had autotarget on, if you already pulled it, and if you won't accidentally hit a mob you didn't intend to.

The point is you're not deciding how to kill one mob, you're making best use of remaining hp and distributing damage to multiple targets.
(until it's the last mob, by then you already *** it up anyway so the only answer is ws it)

Yeah that's fair. I do see it all the damn time on seg farms on WAR or SAM or DRK, where the additional 1-2 TP rounds (that provide some significant damage) means the difference between the mob dying or not. Maybe it's a Fudo and the mob isn't dead, then one more attack round kills it. Maybe it's a Torcleaver that barely kills a mob but wouldn't have if not for the white damage from the pre-WS attack rounds. But that's not really the case for NIN, where we gain TP really fast but on weak hits... so good point!

I still think Kendatsuba is pretty great TP gear on NIN though, whether on short fights or long ones. Time to WS is very similar to Malignance, white damage is significantly better, often you get a TA proc on your last hit and have extra TP that converts directly to WS damage. Especially when shadows absorb any nastiness on whatever you're fighting, it is a go-to for me. Just gotta pay attention to when to use which set, I'll certainly change to Malignance if I'm fighting something where there is a substantial risk of taking damage or a nasty enfeeble that puts me out of commission.

Sure, and you're assuming that somehow there's a mob close enough to you to WS it without interrupting your auto-attacks, it's not already been pulled/engaged, and/or you have autotarget off for some reason. It could be argued that running across the field while looking away from your current target to WS a mob that isn't pulled or engaged isn't very efficient either.

We can go back-and-forth making up scenarios where one would be an advantage over the other, I'll just say I very rarely find myself in a situation where I am doing any of the stuff being described here, but 99.95% of the time I am finishing off enemies with WSD. Or doing massive piles of WSD (Dyna [D] 99ks) and my 6k of white damage pales in comparison.

I would be curious to know how those numbers change depending on time and or ws selection. For instance how do the numbers reflect when using hybrids with appropriate buffs or savage blade etc. Is there a point where certain sets pull ahead over time vs shorter duration fights. 3 minutes vs 15 vs 1 hour etc.

Generally speaking our encounters outside of master trials are significantly less than 1 hour and probably range really from 1-15 minutes max. Not including trash mobs etc because as stated above, this theoretically only works if you are talking one mob and smashing it for 2 hours.

What would be more interesting and realistic would be something like Dhartok with NIN solo lets say and time to actually deliver 1.6 million damage and which set actually does so the fastest. Does the sim factor in sc damage? In which case time to ws is a massive difference in overall damage output.

The theory crafting and simulated damage output of various sets is very interesting and I would not have really expected Kenda to be #1, but the conditions set are not realistic for really any encounter aside from say a master trial perhaps.

The sim does not factor in SC damage.

I also don't think there will be much difference in evaluation in a 3minute fight vs. a 2hr one. That should be enough time to see any benefit (if any from white damage). Adding in HP to mobs would be a cool addition to the sim though, showing how many mobs were killed w/ X build.

Just add to the discussion -- White damage vs. TP generation are not "all-in" decisions. It's like minor changes that maybe reduce your time to WS by .3 but increase your white damage by ~200 avg each round. The segment mob example is kind of a joke because in either set the mob will die in nearly the same amount of time, and I don't think we are really aiming TP sets at single mob/ low hp instances but rather for longer drawn-out fights.

As usual in FFXI "The best" isn't always the best in every scenario and I would think a career ninja would have multiple sets for multiple needs. Most NINs will be in malignance though because defensively its the best we get. This discussion would be more interesting if NIN empy +3 wasn't aggressively mid.

lol aggressively mid is being polite.

I had it looked into, (Thanks again Rooks), and it sounds like changing ownership is a no go.

• We could send some messages to Kincard in hopes he logs in and gifts you access.

Or

• You'd have to start a new one with a new thread we can sticky it and move onto a new guide.

If you want any of the bb code from the current guide I can send the entirety of it to you.

Again, I apologize, for how long it's been since I was regularly updating this guide, I was under the assumption that I had control, not just edit rights. :(

Wiki lists Migawari at 73% hp threshold with 417 skill. Do we know if this still increases further with more skill or is that the hard cap before migawari+ equipment? My assumption is that its capped at some point, just no idea whether that information is still accurate.

It's a bit of a wordsalad but the jpwiki has 65% @400 skill and 55% at 450 Skill

Oldwiki says 50% at 450 skill.

mmmmm I love me a good word salad, thanks!

So because I enjoy being a masochist in this game I tried to do some quasi testing the best I could.

I mitigated an attack that was virtually 50% of my HP. 1296 damage and I had 2626 HP. Used Sabotender geas fete nm, naked aside from weapons to feed tp and empy 109 body(+10) and ambu cape (+5), 517 ninjutsu skill. It's a bit hard to navigate solo with trusts but earlier 2000 needles with only one other in range for ~970 damage did not mitigate, however 4000 needles with 2 in range dealing 1296 damage was mitigated by myself I'll check again after upgrade to see if there is any change with more +migawari.

I realized after that the DT vorseal must have been why it didnt deal ~1334 and 1000.

But as of right now I can say with the above information mitigated damage is ~49-50%(possibly lower) but not ~37-38%.

Update: +1 empy body for two more Migawari+ mitigated 1000 damage with 2659 hp. Circumstances remained the same aside from slight hp boost from 109-119 empy body. 2659 HP suggesting 37.6% threshold with 1000 damage. Rounding to 38% suggests that my previous conditions were likely ~40% so I was likely just shy of 1000 damage mitigation. Also removed DT vorseals for a flat value of 1000 damage.

This lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole because then I was wondering if skill perhaps capped at 50% and I was only receiving the bonus from body and that maybe the empy+cape don't stack. I removed the cape and did not mitigate the 1000 damage. So likely stacks.

So long story short, I did a bunch more testing and played with sets for incremental hp value increses/decreases.

With Empy+3 body and Ambu cape I am mitigating damage equal to ~35% of my hp value.

I experimented with various sets below this as I was expecting 34% and incrementally changed hp values. At 34.37% I did not mitigate the attack however at 34.49% I did. I am assuming this is just probably a numbers game within the system and is rounding somewhere along the lines.

I am done with this little experiment but it appears that Migawari mitigates ~34-35% with empy body + cape. Perhaps suggesting skill alone caps around ~55% as using more skill+ didn't affect my threshold any further at the same hp value when testing. As quoted on wiki page, 73% at 417 skill would put this in line for 55% at ~500 skill.

Hopefully one of the four other people that play ninja in the game will enjoy this information lol.

Hi

In regard to the ambuscade TP cape, is this set up store TP or DA?

Also the Reiki yotai belt, would this be better than windbuffet +1 or not close at all. Thanks

If you are at haste cap, reiki yotai is overcapping your dual wield which is actually reducing your TP/hit. So windbuffet is superior in that scenario. In most all group content you will be haste capped.

TP cape - I personally like store TP because that benefits both your melee swings and your Daken procs, but ymmv.

I was thinking the belt more for the extra acc and store tp though. My cape has been DA for ages, so I’ll make the switch thanks