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