Yagyu Darkblade

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Yagyu_Darkblade

Since logging in today is like getting a car on Oprah.

Seems like a decent offhand, but how much does the novelty actually change? Seems like a bunch of HTB will be easier (although many of them already soloable on VD) Makes trusts more survivable and may make it so you don't have to work to position them.

In parties could potentially help mitigate a bunch of dmg.

Any ideas on what it might fundamentally change?

It would be fundamentally nifty for a trust tank to have infinite shadows (at the cost of your dps)

It's the only real thing that comes to mind. Giving your trusties some survivability.

But it doesn't change anything, or make anything better etc
(Crystal Paradise MT)

We have an LS member who has had Darkblade for a couple years now. Occasionally it does help a ton for something like an Ambuscade, it's nice on the occasional Gaol NM, never hurts for stuff like Sheol farming. It's a bit of a novelty/luxury, but it's helpful.

For anything that a NIN can shadow tank, the enmity generation is the real game changer. Yonin/Gekka up, mainhand an Su5/Su4/Mythic katana for its enmity stats, and every Utsusemi cast you make is generating tons of enmity from each shadow applied to yourself AND your party members (e.g., you do a 7-shadow Utsusemi: San on yourself and hit 3 party members with 3 shadows each = you're getting a huge enmity spike with 16 shadows worth of enmity). Of course, big caveat that it's not all that helpful with mobs that wipe or ignore shadows (like so many at endgame), but when it works it REALLY works.

Dont make choices that will change your game

Make choices that will make your game easier

This is cool too, and it's not THAT big of a DPS hit because you only have to give up offhand stats (can offhand the Darkblade).

So compared to a common offhand like Kunimitsu, you're giving up a couple good stats like STP+5/WSD+5% and some attack, some magic stats for ninjutsu or hybrid/magical WS. But Yagyu Darkblade is similar in DMG, same delay, better accuracy (due to higher katana skill), more DEX... it's a pretty fair trade for the benefit of stuff like giving a trust tank shadows. And in that case, you'd probably NOT want to put Yonin up (ride Innin/Yain for enmity- so the tank keeps hate).

But like... you're also regularly choosing to give up those kinds of stats when you use a magian TP Bonus offhand or a Malevolence or something. Making a trade for a big defensive perk isn't that unreasonable.

I don't think he was talking about the katana stats themselves (although that's a factor) but constantly casting utsu. instead of attacking, (which is presumably much more frequent due to said trust tank not having good evasion or extra shadows) which if you have to cast Ichi is likely significant. (a lot less horrible with ni/san)

I'm sort of smitten with the idea of trying some content without a healer (NIN + THF/DNC (for heals) or NIN + DRG/mage) sometimes DD/NIN for shadows only and they could /war or /sam too.

Of course flametongue looks nice for blu too, decisions....

Also keep in mind other people only gets 1 shadow from :ichi, 2 from :ni and 3 from :san, so :ichi might not be worth casting at all if you only want shadows for trust tank.

Ichi definitely doesn't feel worth casting at all for the 1 shadow you're giving and the slow cast time.

San/Ni are fast and give multiple shadows though, so those have some use. If you're really in a situation where giving shadows on the tank is highly meaningful, the additional time spent casting sure seems worth slowing your own DPS down.

Just comes down to, well, does it matter to give shadows to others? If so, your support role becomes more important. Nobody would say a BRD singing or COR rolling is a bad idea because it takes time away from doing damage.

It really should have been Self Enhancing Ninjutsu not just Utsusemi...they dropped the ball big time but this is SE & NIN we are talking about here so surprise surprise.

And then MAKE *clap* NINJUTSU *clap* SCALE *clap* WITH *clap* SKILL. For god sake's man.

An AoE Kakka: Ichi that scales with skill and caps the STP at, say, +40 based on ninjutsu skill rather than a flat +10 is significant. (for reference, rostam C 11 samurai roll is +72). That one thing alone half way fixes ninja. Then you have the enmity+/- spells, sublte blow, and migawari and all of a sudden ninja isn't half bad from a utility stand point.

Sorry I am on another "fix ninja" tirade.....sigh.

I just want Yonin/Innin to be non-dispellable lol

I think it'll only be as a hate tool, with how fast things wipe shadows I really just expect these all to be used for enmity gain. NIN/RUN with Yonin up cycling through Flash, Foil, and Yagu utsusemi spam is a very strong hate magnet. Hopefully Limbus content won't do NIN tanking as wrong as Gaol or Sortie did.

And without the potency decrease over time, pretty please?


Granted there's nothing wrong in making it even better, I don't exactly think that Enmity Generation was NIN's main issue when tanking.
If anything NIN is *** awesome at that even without Yagyu, even without Mythic.
SU5 alone is fantastic for that.

I mean, as I said before, nothing wrong making it even better but it's ironic because, if anything, that was NIN's strongest point as a tank (insane enmity generation).

Without sub it's lacking the instant spike hate needed at the start of a fight, something it can easily get from a variety of options (RUN, PLD, DRK or even WAR). The gaol comes around and says "no sub for yuz" and sortie's meta is so screwy that no real space for NIN tank there.

NIN alone only has a weak hate generator. Yonin makes Utsusemi 160CE / 480VE, that's decent CE bad but not great VE. Flash/Stun is 180CE / 1280VE, Foil is 320CE / 880VE, Provoke is 1CE (lol) / 1800VE.

Yagu takes that 160/480 number and multiplies it by every person it hits. Hit a GEO, DPS, COR and BRD, that is 800CE / 2400VE per cast. Run into a fight and do Flash / Provoke / Stun + Utsusemi x 2 or 3 and you'll have hate forever.

It's doubtful that you'll even need Ichi for enmity with this weapon, San/Ni are plenty especially if you're pairing with an Su5/Su4 mainhand. If /RUN and also doing Flash/Foil, yeah, mob is already gonna be stuck to you.

Yeah I was just scrounging for some reason to use Ichi. It's like only something you'd do if everything else was on recast for whatever reason. Otherwise Ni/San are so fast to cast, combined with haste you are spamming Flash/Foil/Ni/San for god tier hate.

SE: let’s give ninja the game’s best hate tool.

Also SE: lol we don’t want ninja to ACTUALLY tank.

Holding hate is (now) easy.

Not dying is the hard part.

NIN might be a good choice for farming Apollyon and Temenos though, that's what I'm waiting to see and will take katana if I can use NIN there... we can hope. They should make mobs take no damage from 2h weapons so thf blu nin dnc get to play more than extremely minor amounts of content. Then I guess everyone would just use Naegling and Onion sword on WAR RDM DRK SAM anyway.

Since you guys stated this was 1/2/3 sharing shadows does this mean that it only shares the base effect, and if you have +1 effects those don't count to others then?

It counts but weapon itself has party shadows -2

Nvm I'm working out. Lacks of oxygen ?

The katana does not count additional shadow effects from gear or anything. So take whatever number of shadows each Utsu gives you and subtract 2

Given how rare the weapon used to be I wouldn't be surprised if SE overlooked the enmity aspect of giving shadows to your party. Now that there will be significantly more of them in circulation I also wouldn't be surprised if they nerf the enmity generated on additional party members.

The amount of people who will successfully be able to tank on Ninja properly will probably be very few. Everything in this game basically is magical-offensive and strips shadows instantly. It's more of a chore thank anything. I have doubts that Ninja tanking will return for most common players.

I don't remember, don't shadows have priority order as in casting Ichi after a Ni or San will be unable to overwrite the shadows, even if less are left than a freshly casted Ichi would provide.

Does the same also count for party members and trusts in conjunction with the bonanza katana?
I assume that would dampen the enmity generation as well as the survivability aspect a bit since you can't cancel you're trusts shadows and your party members most likely don't pay attention to shadow timing when someone else casts them?

Only situation where that'd be controlable would be some multibox setup.

100% of the time when your shadows are gone, their shadows are gone.

Because you all got hit by diaga.

It's also not like 2004 where you ichi tank and ni for emergencies, you have max fast cast and only cast san, san overwrites san.

Higher numbers of utsu will overwrite previous numbers.

San overwites ni, ni overwites ichi.

Ichi Ni San is the overwite order. One two three.

This has been my assumption about it, I would be surprised if they are aware the enmity generated by it. OTOH they put enmity on Fudo and other gear long after NINs tanking days, making Utsusemi AoE is also not something I'd think was a small change.

It just seems strange to do it that way when NIN is such a niche tank, same with Fudo for that matter.


It's so far in the past at this point. When was the last time NIN tanking was actually viable on a wide scale, not in selective/niche fights? 75-cap pre-abyssea?

Wide scale? Not in a long time. I could be wrong, but people tanked Halphas as NIN, or at least I heard some tried. There's some Ambuscades that benefit from Ninja tanking, but there's also just enormous power creep that can brute force more efficiently. Also the play style change in recent years to everything being magical practically killed shadow tanking. The only place recently where shadows have relevancy is in Seg farming, and Ninja doesn't tank multiple targets too well. There'd have to be an event where magical damage wasn't so prevalent (Limbus?) For there to be a return of the king.

If you're not trying to tank and worried about enmity generated by yagyu then it's not hard...


With Innin and Yain, you'd have no problem staying off the top of the enmity list.

You can also sub drg if you need.

Isn't it multiplied by the number of people it hits? Do we know if that occurs before or after the reduction provided by those two?