The Sealed Dagger: A Ninja Guide

Where else would they put the aspir aug? On hands? That's just silly, bout as silly as putting the avatar magic burst aug on on a piece with no actual mab/macc on it.

Simple fix is to just make ninja relic feet give+36~40 MB and fix san spells. Then we'll start using that for nukes. Nobody is going to use mask for yonin/innin that literally makes zero sense.

But the bigger issue is this: the gear itself doesn't complement to the augments themselves, so you're always going to get left with pieces with miss matched augments or stats because they need to fit it SOMEWHERE. There isn't a tanking or even melee piece of relic gear ninja uses (closest thing is the body and that's occupied by Sange). The best place for it is honestly the legs augment. Mijin Gakure is a horrible augment, even if it breaks lore; just remove it completely. You'll use legs for WS do the innin takes effect. Maybe you could use the legs for tanking if you were underbuffed and need DW (lol). But it is still a better place than head. If they were smart they'd split the innin and Yonin augments. The best place for yonin augment is the feet

My thoughts
Head: macc/mab
Body: Sange
Hands: NTE
Legs: Innin
Feet: Yonin

Personally, I can't be bothered giving too much of a damn because it's still just ninjutsu nuking, which sucks anyway. From a logical perspective, it IS a little irritating simply because they failed to recognize the obvious result that removing the old relic hat augment was a nerf. But whether they fix augments or not, that isn't going to change how I play in the least. And I say this despite maintaining a top end nuke set for whatever obsessive compulsive reason...

At best, NIN nuking is a minor gimmick to do a semi-respectable Futae MB once every 3min. Or a way to one-shot too weak mobs without engaging to melee (which you can still do now, "nerf" or not... and at least now you get all 6 Sans without needing to spend merits on them).

I already knew the update was going to be lame nuke stuff so I prepared to be underwhelmed. So if anything, I guess I'm somewhat pleased that we got SOMETHING (minor as it may be) from the update in new Macc merits (because enfeebles are still actually kinda useful, at least situationally), and the small advantages on Innin (sometimes I do close a SC while in Innin, so I'll take the extra SCD).

I mean like honestly most people don't burst on nin. Or use nukes at all. it's relegated to soloing like... htb avatars and cping.

But... most people don't play nin at all, so, that isn't really saying much.

It's nice to have an option for a melee/magic job that isn't blu. (or rdm, now that enspell damage is gross lol)

This is a thing that affects the 1% of 1% (that doesn't mean it's not worth bitching about, you can't just let them get away with it)

It's not about the fact that nuking on ninja is the nichest of the niche roles in this game. It's the fact that they chose to prioritize that very miniscule and useless role over practically any other possible useful option available to the Ninja class and STILL managed to screw it up.

Not one person suggested or cared about nuking improvements. We would have preferred something to make shadows or magic damage more manageable, or better ways to improve DPS. But fine we'll take it. It doesn't really change much on the Ninja landscape, but god damnit man. You had one job and you still managed to to eff it up. It's the levels of incompetence that just can't be ignored here. I'm not even disappointed in the update, more frustrated with how inept they appear to be with the job updates

There must be a 2hr aug. That's the format.
But why not double up on the "DD" augs. Put Sange and Innin both on the body.

I know it sounds good to keep the lore aspect going, but when your 1hr is killing yourself, it's USELESS to improve that ability unless the improvement is you don't die, or get a free RR, or don't lose buffs. It has to be a practical improvement, otherwise, remove the augment in spite of the lore/format. What good is +50% MIjin Damage If it can't be used as a huge MB or aoe or something potent. Get rid of it completely.

It really is long past due to petition that 2hour change. Mijin is cool. Whatever. But it's not a 2hour for players. It's a warp ring. (it will still say for mobs)

Drg got theirs changed.

Yeah it's neat you can rez with no weakness. That's not really something that needs to be job specific.

to be fair, drgs 2 hr was vital to some aspects of the job back then, not to mention just general boosted dmg centered around a core of the job that was stuck on a 2hr timer. That said yeah, mijin has always been trash though i dont see it changing they could simply move its augment to the body and share it with sange.

I always forget that the augment doesn't do those things.
They also missed the mark with the +2/3 forms with the 2hr augments, they should have added augments for the Lv96 ones.
I suppose if we can get them to change the MAB to the old 25% boost and put it back on the head... Might be able to get them to put autoRR on the Mijin aug too.


But I'm smoking crack at this point thinking that.

It doesn't need an augment unless you're making it Mijin Danage +500% and you can burst it off of any element and is affected by all of your active buffs prior to dying, and it becomes AOE. The time you lose from dying, accepting raise, adding back your buffs is significant compared to the damage you would have been dealing in the same time. They should move that to a 20-minute timer, but at least from the augments.

Man. We already have +60% from Job Points.... Given the degree that those 2hr augs are for most other jobs, they could have easily made it 10% per.
And it still would never be used.

Even at +500% dmg, wouldnt amount to much i dont think just cause its a breath based move and theyve largely always been weak due to players much lower HP pool compared to mobs that can use it, along with whatever magic resistances mobs have now. even at 9.9k hp it wouldnt do enough to even come close to the amount of dmg the games at now to be what could be called a 1hr though a lot of 1hrs hit that description currently.

Can just add scaling player based breath dmg up more to be worthwhile to the list of things SE could do to the game, that wont ever happen, as for mijin, ontop of better dmg in general, just have it work like final sting of sorts and blow you up but leave you at critical HP, still useless but not potentially wasting 2-3 mins of getting back up/back in.

Are you kidding me? There's a TON of stuff they could have done to make meaningful changes to the job, just look back at the last several pages of this topic. Yonin/Innin are big ones, and they DID recognize that those were things they could adjust... they just did it in a massively underwhelming way.

They could have changed Utsusemi mechanics for tanking purposes (i.e., absorbing multiple shadows), perhaps linked to Yonin.

They could have played with Sange/Daken.

They could have given Innin more significant offensive benefits (WSD, TP Bonus, STP, whatever) to address people feeling the job is a little underpowered offensively.

They could have changed the annoying positional requirements for Innin/Yonin, or the decay system.

They could have addressed NIN being one of the few DPS jobs (is it the only one?) with no sources of Subtle Blow II (aside from divergence path B weapons, like every job has)... despite being one of the two jobs that are supposedly masters of Subtle Blow if you go by traits. For instance, that could have been fixed by addressing nearly useless Myoshu: Ichi, or simply change Subtle Blow merits to Subtle Blow II merits.

They could have improved Issekigan by making it work like Inquartata, and/or adjusted that ability's enmity+ properties.

They could have made Futae more usable than a once every 3 minute JA, if they really think ninjutsu nuking should be a thing.

They could have given a :Ni version of one or more of the spells that lack those (despite the lack of creativity that would have shown, it would have been something) - they even have enemies who USE some Ni enfeebles that players don't have.

Saying that the best they could do is to unlock all San nukes (while simultaneously nerfing one of NIN's best nuking JSE pieces) because they couldn't think of any other possibilities? That's just crazy.


After some of the lame updates we've seen other jobs get (RNG sticks out to me), I have adjusted my expectations to believe that they have no desire to make meaningful changes to ANY job.

The way they started off the year with neat little DNC DRG changes (separating Jump and Waltz timers, Presto changes) was somewhat promising for the future - they weren't breaking the game or anything, but small easily implemented changes that were truly helpful. RDM was actually really nice, but now seems to be the anomaly. Everything since has just been lame, adjusting things people didn't care about. PUP got minor increase to automaton DPS, RNG nothingburger, WHM drama, BLM changes that have zero impact on the job, etc. I had no illusions NIN would be any different.

To be fair, this current wave of job adjustments are JUST for making merit spells regular spells.
WHM, BLM, NIN, BRD is probably next month because I think they've been putting off RDM because they have 0 idea of what to do for its G2 merits other than Macc+5 per.
Afterwards, should they deign to give us anything... then we could expect more in tune with the RDM/PUP/RNG/Second WHM change.
Honestly I feel like the jobs who get real adjustments are prioritized by the jobs that the devs like to play. (Like WHM's double update and better G2 replacements. I know Matsui likes to be WHM, so that's probably why it was prioritized for the failed attempt at buffing its status removal.)

Futae should work with debuffing ninjutsu to bump it up a tier. Double potency/duration jubaku with futae. Higher potency aisha or yurin. There's another ability like mijin Gakure that goes largely unused in 99% of scenarios.

they could buff the FTP for Blade:Shun.. I'd be happy with that..

I'm kinda in the same stance. Ninjutsu is hardly relevant, especially Elemental ones, but still a nerf is a nerf and that 25% less damage was totally uncalled for.
Also 25% is quite a big nerf.
It should also be tested if we're really getting 5/5 potency for each spell or just 1/5, nobody tested it, wouldn't take for granted it's working with each spell at 5/5 potency, as it should.


I wouldn't take this for granted either.

First: does the macc category even works?
If it works, does it work on all ninjutsu or just nuke?
If it's just nuke, is it all of them or just san spells?
So many questions, and I don't trust SE.
We could start from checking the JP description of the merit category and check if that too mentions generic ninjutsu (which would hint at the category working on all ninjutsu related stuff) or not, but I wouldn't know where to look for honestly.

share the link guys, keep the attention coming please

Ugh prease dont move old head augs to boots.... we already have af+3 boots with a good chunk macc, ok'ish mattck, and solid mbd.

The ninjutsu augment on the feet seems to provide the "25%" damage increase again at 5/5 (along with the 20 MAB) but it now works on both Ni and Ichi elemental ninjutsu too. (Please note that "Enh. Ninj. Mag. Acc/Cast Time Red." is the current augment description and does not reflect the fact of damage increase.)

However the purported "Enhances Innin effect" augment on the head doesn't provide any damage increase at any level of Innin merits. There's a bug report (JP) on the OF that corroborates this:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/55676-%E6%A5%B5%E6%9C%9B%E6%9C%88%E5%8D%8A%E9%A6%96%E3%81%AE%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B0%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E5%8A%B9%E6%9E%9C%EF%BC%9A%E9%99%B0%E5%BF%8D%E5%8A%B9%E6%9E%9C%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%81%8C%E6%A9%9F%E8%83%BD%E3%81%97%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84?highlight=%E9%99%B0%E5%BF%8D

Basically the effect of the merit category is confirmed for Magic Burst (MBD+7, +8, +12) but the augment on the head does not provide any damage bonus.

So not only did they put the ninjutsu dmg augment on the feet, the Innin augment on the head doesn't provide any direct dmg increase.

So the 25% is based on having the MAB merits, which literally no one will have? Sounds great.

It's like the jokes write themselves at this point. I truly can't be bothered anymore with this.

So... given how there was 0 notice in the notes that their potency or casting time were adjusted.... and some anecdotal testing... and the fact that everyone has been all "wtf where did my damage go!?"...
I've come to the conclusion that they indeed are at 1/5 + 0 augments. The casting time is meh, so whatever with that.
But with my insight into SE's insanity... petty sure they believe that the +Macc and +MAB merits (which make them equal to a single 5/5)... are balanced since they work for 1, 2, AND 3s.............................
So basically: "before you could only have 1 with +20 Macc and +20 MAB, now you can have ALL 6 at +25 Macc and +20 MAB"

Macc is definitely for everything. I haven't had the chance to *** around with the enfeebles in Divergence yet to really feel the difference... but it's definitely for everything, not just nukes.

Also: Yeah... I'm on the "just swap the head and the feet augments" train. It's simple. It's elegant. It restores most things to how it should have always been. (It would be one thing if the artifact feet didn't have MBB... or the relic feet had ANY MAB..... but... no....)

Is NIN new role to try to stay behind mobs and be the second or third WS, allowing a spike DD to close a SC and build off of the enhanced multi-step? And theoretically burst debuffs? Because NIN closing a SC in the current meta means that they are playing solo.

I suppose if you are playing solo it's possible to get one, perhaps two of the SC off before poor AAEV loses control, but that isn't likely. I wish the stances didn't bother with positioning and decay and all that. Berserk doesn't need any qualifications. I also don't think the abilities warrant such a small up time and recast so as to be maintained every few moments, while adjusting to position, while casting and WSing. RDM and SCH, WHM etc. "stances" are for hours. There aren't any bonus points for making it more difficult.

NIN has no new role. Same as it's always been:

Heishi - Blade: Ten spam
KIkoku R15 - Blade: Metsu spam
Getting correct buffs: Blade: Chi spam
no buffs: Use Shun
solo - Multi-step

Unless you can manage to stand behind the monster for every WS, the Innin bonus is mostly negligible in things like zergs, dynamis etc where you don't really have a true tank. And it's entirely useless if you aren't able to close a SC (NINs a weak closer anyways, so the bonus is gahbij)

It's another DD, pretty decent and has low hate buildup. We've been experimenting with dirge lately and the results of -enmity on DDs has been dramatic. Innins built in reduction should let NINs stay behind the boss for extra damage.