Yagyu Darkblade

The calculation is done for each person it hits, so it's not really a before or after situation. It's just applied to each (though multiplication is commutative anyway).

Without any CE, the VE from hitting a handful of people isn't going to force you to top of hate list without yonin. W/ no enmity modifiers, that's 960 VE for 6 members (barely over half a provoke).

The leetdeeps from innin bonuses will though

straightfacenotajoke.lol

Just curious if anyone picked one up and tried doing some content with it?

Also a bit curious how the overwriting rules work. I'm assuming its per player so If I cast San, I get several shadows and players B and C get 3 each, if B's shadows get wiped and I cast Ni, does it matter if I cancel my shadows? I kinda figure if I do nothing, ni would have no effect on me and player C but get B 2 shadows, but I could see a couple other ways it may work.

90% sure this will be my choice

I'm getting 2 of them to play around with a 2x NIN party with it. It's gonna be a while before my second NIN will be up to snuff, but it sounds like fun to me!

If you have San on and cast Ni, but your party member has no shadows, you have no effect but they get the shadows.

If the party member has their own Ni up (3 shadows) and you cast Ni, it will overwrite their Ni with your Ni (2 shadows).

Seems like it just follows the normal NIN rules: check which instance of Utsusemi each member has up and blocks any lower-tier of Utsusemi from landing.

So, if ninja A has the cape and boots on, and ninja B casts a yagyu-utsu in the same party, does ninja A get a couple more shadows than the rest of the party normally would?

That's why /RUN is such a powerful sub now, ML's really opened up some options. Buddy of mine tried it out and it worked super well, the problem was that the two "current" content types of Gaol / Sortie have meta's that just do not align with NIN tanking.

MDB III, Valiance and Foil got added to the existing list of nice things to have. Valiance is ridiculously nice to have, -30% SDT reduction to a specific element for you and everyone in your party plus a ridiculous amount of enmity (450CE/900VE per person hit).

I doubt it. The Yagyu clearly says Utsusemi -2, and it ignores +Utsusemi gear that you have on yourself for others, so it would be weird if it didn't work on the caster's +Utsusemi pieces to give others extra shadows, but works on another ninja who is wearing +Utsusemi gear to get the extra shadows. You could test it though, but it sounds impractical. I can't think of any situation where you're going to be wearing the feet for the extra shadow, and casting your own San is always going to be better, so that would be an annoyance more than anything.

Yes a lot more shadows. Yagu just gives 1/2/3 shadows to the party for Ich/Ni/San, basically all +shadow effects NIN only and Yagu is -2 shadows to everyone else. It's still a ridiculous amount of enmity to go with a moderate potential reduction in damage.

Nothing about this Katana fundamentally changes anything about NIN. You could tank just fine without it before it was widely released (I have Fudo Masamune C and R29 Tsuru, zero issues holding hate on things I did tank as NIN). It's a cool toy, but there's almost no real-game application to having it that would make "content" more clearable than if you didn't have it.

Hey, I would pick it only give my friends shadows!

Not sure I agree with that assessment. While I think there's limited content where shadows are super relevant anymore. It seems like trusts could be much more survivable for somethings and for lowmanning it could allow for different combinations of jobs/sj than taken previously. If you're doing content that shadows are helpful on could you main heal on NIN/DNC? (my guess is yes)

I'll probably be answering them myself soon, just seeing who's tried. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Well I did pick this up last night, just did a seg farm run in C with a friend and helped her with Kindred Spirits afterwards.

I didn't do any formal testing, but I can report my casual observations.

If you cast a lower tier utsu before shadows get wiped on trusts/party members will show the 'no effect' message.

The hate issues mentioned are very real, so the shadows on party members tend to not matter so much. After a couple casts mobs were pretty well planted on me, August or my friend's pretty decently geared MNK weren't budging them off me at all.

Was kinda neat to have multiple mobs swinging and running around and not really damaging anyone.

Idk...plenty of people have claimed that they can think of all kinds of theoretical place where shadows matter, but nobody has actually given a concrete example yet, just theory and maybes. It's a very neat gimmick, but unfortunately the easy content is already easy, and the hard content takes a fat dump all over NIN shadows.

I'm sure that some people will have a mildly easier time soloing or low Manning some stuff with yagyu. I think the people commenting above are talking about this item opening up the meta for NIN or creating a novel strategy, not about making your healer's life mildly easier.

I also posted the info/testing about shadows overwriting each other on this page.

I picked one up because it's got potential and there will be very few, if any, opportunities to ever see it again. That said, I still think as of right now there are very few, if any, places where it will change the strategy or NIN's role, except by hamfisting it in needlessly.

I ran a couple seg farms with it tonight and it was neat to mess around with, but not particularly groundbreaking. If NIN's damage wasn't so terrible (especially while wielding yagyu and constantly casting utsusemi), it might be a good choice, but ultimately it's in the same place it was before: extreme edge case DD that is almost always outclassed by 5+ other jobs.

Shadows were cool at 75 because monster auto attacks could do like 40% of your HP in damage and their TP moves did more damage (but honestly not that much more) and the combination of a bad auto attack round and a TP move could maybe kill a DD. If you eliminated auto attack damage and most physical TP moves, the MP pressure on your healers went way way down. As long as you could hold hate, it was a way simpler way to play.

In Abyssea, we got Ochain (a PLD option for basically negating physical damage), Eber's Pantaloons +2, which made HP healed functionally free, and a lot more sources of Refresh. Adoulin got us Epeolatry and even more refresh. The whole time, the % damage a monster does with its auto attacks has continued to drop and now is closer to 10% than 40%. Also, AoE magic and shadow-stripping TP moves have become more common and the damage dealt by TP moves is a lot more relative to melee hits. Even small changes like making it possible to get an 10-hit Aquaveil eroded the advantages of shadows.

This has all eased us away from shadows as a necessary part of tanking, and has also eased us away from tanks.

I still think Yagyu is cool, though!

Spittin straight fax

This is really the issue IMO. NIN's damage esp in segfarms shouldn't be terrible if you go in with someone that knows when to use what, but the moment you start casting shadows constantly it all goes down the drain. It takes away from the one good use of the job right now by killing hybrid damage and forcing you to constantly cast shadows instead of gaining TP, combined with bringing not much else to the table. There's also not enough other utility to really benefit from the job esp in content like segfarms

In addition to what you said, from a Game Design point of view it's really difficult to balance out game difficulty when you have an element of gameplay that completely removes damage.
Suddenly that element becomes "necessary" and once you have it, content becomes too easy.
And if you don't, it could be too hard.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's clearly very hard to balance something like Utsusemi, which is why SE for many years has quite clearly driven into the direction of making Utsusemi not particularly relevant, for tanking, in all the relevant content we've been receiving for, what, the last 10 years? More?
With a few secondary exceptions thrown here and there.

But yeah, I think they did that on purpose because they couldn't find a way to balance utsusemi without breaking the game.

Of all of the things to lean in on when it comes to Ninja, SE really picked the wrong thing. Infuriates me that they really just don't know what to do with this staple job.

Edit: in fact, they should have done the exact opposite. I am beating a dead horse and repeating myself, I know, but Yagyu should have been all self-enhancing ninjutsu EXCEPT utsusemi is AoE. Other changes would still be needed but it's a step in the right direction.

I really like your idea Luna, which you described in a more articulated way in another thread.
Granted that "fixing" a job through a Mog Bonanza weapon ain't exactly what I would call the ideal way to fix it, but let's leave it aside.

Would Subtle Blow+10 and STP+10 granted AoE be really that desirable? Because, I mean... it sounds pretty meh to me.
Now Enmity-20% and Migawari maybe look more attractive, but still not what I would call something extremely hot.


Let's face it, NIN isn't really that bad of a DD these days. Especially when you can exploit hybrids, but even without them, it's surely behind other DDs but it's not on the bottom.
Clearly at this point we have to accept it's not forgetfullness from SE, they are doing it on purpose.
And I'd dare to say they are (rightfully?) afraid that even a small bump in NIN's efficiency, could make it too attractive.

NIN can already reach ~50% less enmity generated by himself without external buffs and has the already mentioned bane of Utsusemi, which is rarely useful in current content, but when it is... it's arguably too useful, for the reasons we explained a few posts above. SE failed to find an acceptable solution between the extremes of useless / mandatory and are very afraid to touch it.
This paired with the THEORETICAL multi purpose/role NIN could fit, makes them very wary of touching it.

Which is a shame... given how they haven't shown the same waryness for other jobs who can theoretically fulfill multiple roles (RDM comes to mind).
I can acknowledge how challenging it would be to make NIN more interesting instead of the secondary ghetto DD that is today, but they sure didn't even remotely attempt to tackle this challenge over these past few years, many years.

I still think that the "solution" to balance NIN and making it a slightly better DD but also alternatively a more viable tank, would be to completely rework how Innin and Yonin work, but they don't seem to share this idea.

I agree that a bonanza weapon is not the way to fix the job. My more fleshed-out thought was to change Yonin and Innin completely and make one of them the "Enhancing Ninjutsu (except Utsusemi) is now AoE" stance, or just add a new stance for the same effect - i.e Ninja's version of majesty. Leave Yagyu as is in this case, let it be the Utsusemi AoE weapon. ***, doesn't even have to be an AoE stance. Just let enhancing ninjutsu be party target-able.

And to your point about SB10/STP10 - I completely agree, underwhelming. Which leads to part two of the change: Enhancing (and enfeebling, honestly) Ninjutsu needs to scale with skill. 100% needs to happen and the fact that it hasn't is actually really dumb.

I feel like those two things alone would go a long way. Now if they really go crazy and add a dia-esque ninjutsu that is dark aligned......

I digress. This isn't the thread for this discussion, I just really hope they throw Ninja a meaningful bone at some point. Being able to give your party some meaningful level of SB+, STP+, and Enmity- can be very strong and opens up other jobs to tinker with different buffs (samurai roll can come out, monk's roll if you're using it for some reason, no dirge in fights where you may use it, etc.).

I was "dumb" enough to make Dokoku even knowing the shortcomings in hopes that the job would eventually get some sort of update to fix a few of the glaring problems.

What endgame content currently is ninja tank or utsusemi viable?
And is this content passible by just cure bombing a dd so it just won't matter?

A lot of things wipe shadows
Or using ninja and the time limit of the content becomes a factor

Crystal Paradise, that's about it really where its legitimately used.

I told a few people in-game that the weapon is likely going to be the first choice for Newbs, and some didn't like it. But it's true. While playing in lower content/geared groups, those people will salivate over the ability to give others shadows, thinking it's making any difference in the actual fight. Because NIN is a very "fun" and beginner-interesting job. But the katana itself does not move the needle one bit for NIN in any endgame scenario that I can think of.

I've already stated earlier that there's almost nothing worth tanking that you require this weapon for hate purposes, and shadows are practically useless on anything that can wipe them, but people will try very hard to find a use for this. Maybe random ambu. Or a fight against something like Orcs (I mentioned Halphas before) who does Battle Dance, which is a physical AOE and can be absorbed by shadows. Qutrub Ambuscade? Sahagin/Mamool Ja Ambu? Iron Giants? Something where you can save someone momentarily through a shadow or three, but it's still suboptimal

I agree with everything Byrth and Maletaru said above, in that it's a very cool item with a niche ability that will likely not be easy to obtain in the future. I would still encourage people to pick this weapon if you love NIN, because it's so rare and unique, it's worth it. But the fact that my WS damage has to tank while using this means a big dps sacrifice. Again, newbs who don't have to worry about having TP Bonus Offhand or Nyame 20+ for Hybrids will LOVE this weapon, because straight out of the box, it's the best thing they can use. But this is still in the category of meme weapon IMO.

Side note: I think it's pretty cool that NIN gets such fantastic and unique weapons like Gokotai's +100 DW Regain and Yagyu's Shadow-sharing. That's some interesting utility. I only wish they would have this level of creativity when it came to their REMA weapons so that we could enjoy both the power in addition to the utility. It's always one or the other.

I don't know if we still consider Reisenjima to be endgame, but tanking Maju and Onychophora was a thing for a time. Though, I can do both on my RDM, I did do a few runs as NIN. Practically all of Maju's moves are absorbable by shadows, and Onychophora is too slow to mess with NIN's shadow summon rate. But these are weaker NMs that aren't moving the needle much. I suppose you could have NIN tank Dynamis Bosses or whatever, since they mostly have physical moves that can be absorbed. There's a few Atonement NMs that NIN could probably tank fine, but without a sub or damage, they're inferior to the other native tanks. Sgili wipes shadows literally every single TP move, as do most of the T2s. Craklaw Marmorkrebs maybe? I think Migawari could block the one-shot move, but then you'd be giving up Rayke from RUN. You're also solo tanking that with nobody else in range, so the katana isn't even useful for that. NIN does get cool ability to self-SC fast though, so you could use it to do nonstop light spam with Kikoku. Its just that the shift from everything being a magical move really killed any NIN tanking strategies. It's a real bummer

Can see Nin tanking Dyna Wave3 boss quite well with Yagyu, ironically. And sharing shadows would help those fights specifically.

But very niche again.

Sam can tank Dyna W3 boss easily with seigan too.

Ran with a friend in wave 3 dynamis who was using this in the dd party. We also had a drg and drk with stage 4 primes in the group as well. He kept shadows up the whole time and neither of us (drg and drk) pulled hate for more then a fraction of a second and only a few times the entire run. This included the wave 3 boss abd the drk was subbed sam. The enimity grab on that weapon is insane (no fudo only nin has a snow balls chance in hell of keeping hate off a well geared prime drk going full throttle) and the extra protection from shadowskep us from going yellow even once that i can recal.. Nin may not be tanking v25 kalunga anytime soon but this is a valid engane application and it does give the weapon some value.

That's an interesting perspective. NIN basically siphons all the threat away from the harder-hitting DDs as well as providing a layer of protection in the event they do get it. Interesting support role, that could prove useful in some scenarios.

edit: Maybe people are looking at this weapon entirely wrong. I think it's more than likely that, instead of Yagyu Darkblade being a tanking off-hand, it's better served in the capacity that Atrox78 described in his post above, where the NIN supports hate control off of other main DDs and provides additional DPS. Something like a Prime/Yagyu or Heishi/Yagyu and do Hybrid WS. You would still be able to put out respectable numbers with your WS and provide a tanking fall-back, if ever needed. People are never going to invite NIN for pure DPS over a natural DD, and they're never going to invite NIN for tanking over a real tank, but a hate-shifting DD to preserve other party members might be the new look.

Anything not Sortie or Gaol. NIN can tank Sortie but the party composition that it supports would likely be a six to eight NM group and not doing Aminon. Aminon shenanigans are what dictate the current meta. Gaol fights strip your SJ and NIN tank really relies on it's sub.

NIN has access to all the defensive gear required to survive most everything in the game, it's just fight mechanics that end up with us having or use RUN or PLD.