Wait a minute? Where's that legendary Ninja mask that covers the entire head and face? Like Shadow from FF6? The Ninjas in "The Last Samurai" and almost every Period film, Ninjas hid their identities from everyone.
after looking at the stats, seeing as how it provides chr to help with enmity, ninjutsu skill+5 so that hojo and kurayami dont get resisted so often, and def:21 wich is like wow, and then equiped with a SH that has -20 ice wich makes u a biotch to paralyze, add the +10 from the headgear to give u somewhat of a help on that.
i vote af
emp pin's most impressive trait is eva+10 and it wont help me take hits, it actually has no def and -15hp... i can live w/o it. And eva+10 wont turn a nin into a thief.
For the record CHR does not effect hate whatsoever, All it does for plds and other jobs other then brd and bst is to "Enhance killer effects" Hence why there is a Hrotti and Koenig Gear
Ok so I'm a lvl 45 ninja at the moment in quicksand caves tanking spiders and beetles, so up against double attacks and Sickle Slash. I have the Emp hairpin and notice that i evade a few times each fight which is nice but to be honest i dont think the hairpin is that amazing really (lol shoot me now)I use ninjitsu alot for hate and general massive damage and noticed that when i was 44 i was getting hit virtually all the time with hairpin on and a good evasion set up.
Lvl 44 is a bit low comapred to the beets and spiders so was getting hit like hell and therefore any evasion boost kinda not really noticeable, i can see in this situation this head gear is perfect! loads of def and hp and +5 ninjitsu skill is godly! (ninjitsu earring +3 skill is now 2 million in AH - so i imagine this head gear would sell for alot more than 2 million if allowed!) To boost ninjitsu by +5 is amazing and a must for any nin that uses his tools.
I'm a paladin main and i dont see any problems with a Ninja getting hit once in a while, as long as can get hate back quickly, just look at the AF body with blaze spike effect, guessing SE intended ninjas to get hit a bit.
The way i see it is that shadows were created just so you can cast ninjitsu and not get interrupted!! with all the enfeebles the mobs hardly do anything anyway lol the def and HP boosts that most of the ninja AF have lean to a 'if i get hit a few times its fine' set up, just get ya shadows back as soon as poss.
May sound crazy but i accidently left my goldsmithing shades on against a spider last night and...didnt notice any change in evasion O.o tanked ok, held hate nice damage and looked cool at the same time lmao.
Conclusion: IMO i would use this headgear when entering a new area and Ninjitsu like crazy and then switch to haipin when the time feels right and go DD with katanas and evasion boosted.
Any thoughts on this would be cool as i still learning Ninja, being paladin I have never partied with a Ninja to observe the skills. :)but i lend to a Ni ninjitsu wheel for damage over katanas at the moment and loving it.
Feyne - Hades 63 PLD 45 NIN 34 WAR Windy Rank 6 Goldsmithing 52
I don't blame you for thinking that, most nin's turn into casting nins at 40ish, which isn't a bad idea in my book, but each has their own playing style. I would suggest an Evasion Earring instead of a Ninjutsu Earring, you'll notice more evading there, personally I have a Melody and Evasion (w/ bard song on when fighting of course) for +8Eva Skill w/ song, and +3Eva Skill w/o. In your case, I would just macro in the Hatsuburi, then at the end of the macro, equip the hairpin again, this way when you're waiting for cool down, or just not casting entirely, you'll get the bonus from the pin, and the bonus from the mask.
Note: It's always been *my* personal preference for my Ninja (58 currently) to exp off VT-IT mobs, as IT++ will hit damn near every time, and casting constantly on them gets resists. Try a VT-IT party with skilled players, and you'll get high exp as long as there are enough mobs. Not to mention, you'll contribute to a good portion of damage, keeping better hate, and killing it faster for faster chains, and faster exp. Besides, you'll spend *a lot* less Shihei, and other tools while trying to debuff, and keep shadows up, all in all i think it's a better choice, but then again ^^ to each their own. If you love IT++ fights, then by all means go for them, but I suggest trying it at least once with a good supply of mobs and skilled party.
I like this item not because of its stats, but since it goes with AF set. I'd take a decent piece of gear to fill a Set than a piece that is better in a different way
personally i never liked the way AF head gear piece looks >.>; i rather wear the hairpin with no animation. the Af head piece would look way better if it covers the bottom half of your face (nose down) kind of like the strider look, now that would be HoT
well im a DD nin so Optical hat i would perfer over pin + i go as nin/rng at times SLUG SHOT!!!! lol well +10 eva same as pin but +10 acc and +10 rng acc can help hold hate with all my damage ^^ thats y i would chose OHat than pin
I finally found a use for this. +5 ninjjtsu skill helps against Elemental Ni resists. So, wear it while playing NIN/BLM for nuking, you will not get resists near as much. it is VERY nice.
I can defiantely see the advantages of having a hairpin over this but I do think there are some "overlooked" advtanges of this item. I personally would prefer evasion but as a tanking NiN, I do also notice that alot of time my other melee skills I would love raised don't raise as much (mainly parry and evasion). So I switch to this to initially help my NiN raise his stats in these two areas (it seems to me at least that my parry lvling up is related to eva.). Additionally as a tanking NiN, we don't have as much of an ability to keep hate compared to a pld or drk. While CHR doesn't affect hate, it does affect the potency of provoke, so the +5 chr isn't such a bad thing (and for all of those tanks who think this is BS about CHR, about 13 japanese web sites and 4 NA websites agree about chr affecting provoke's potency so =P). Also the evasion is nice but counting how many times I actually evaded a mob as a hume nin didn't look so promising (it was a pretty low ratio every battle if evading about 2-3 attacks which seems neglible to me). I pretty much wear this item I guess lolz. The other part about +5 to Ninjutsu seems minor but every mage knows that a higher magic lvl = faster casting and harder interuption rate and for a tanking nin, i know every one of us gets interupted every now and then wcasting utsu >.< While I'm sure I'll get flamed for rating this item up XD All I'm saying is that its performed more for me at this 50's lvl range than has emperor hairpin =P I just hate ppl rating down an item without comparing actual performace.. I'm sure it would be a pain to do so but hey, I did and that's my 2 pennies worth on this item lolz!
uhh... are you new? magic skill doesnt mean faster casting... only thing that will affect cast time is Fast Cast, unfortunately for us thats a RDM ability............
anybody think about the ninjutsu + on the helm helping land/stick debuffs? so macro it in when you do kurayami and hojo *the only two i use, as they are the only ni debuffs aside from elemental* and macro emp pin back in
I can't understand how def+21 and Hp+10 is not better than eva+10?? Not that I don't love my Emp Hairpin(done a great job to lv51) but why do people put so much emphasis on that when a def of 21 + hp would seem very good under most circumstances... when I get my AF hat I'm gonna do extensive comparisons.. has anyone done comparisons yet with proof??
I see so many higher level Nin's with phalanx rings on?? So thats +20 def b/w the 2... sounds good? So why wouldn't more def be beneficial... eva doesn't effect utsusemi, just the seconds in between when you may get smashed and "hope" for the mob to miss.. wouldn't you rather have a constant def+21 than a eva+10 that may or may not take effect... (meaning the mob may miss once or never depending on it's acc and stats)... especially once you have enmity+ gear on.. well from what I've been seeing for the first 51 levels.. a mob misses me on avg about 2-4 times a battle... not much.. and I still get smacked on occassion... AND.. utsusemi doesn't work against AOE dmg so at that point Eva hardly helps either...
I hope this generates some good responses as I'm just getting into the mid lv50's with NIN and I'm trying to figure out the best combo of gear thru to 60 at this point... Emp hairpin can buy ALOT of Nin tools and other uber gear in between these levels along with AF.. therefore please don't take this as Emp hairpin bashing more like why have 800K sitting on my head when I can have 800K of gear extra + AF + alot of nin tools + more def + more hp?
I am still a tank no??? Minus the hairpin I'm still pulling eva+11 over a capped eva skill.. so I'm just curious why the big deal?? Is another eva+10 really going to show that much?? Def seems like a better option at 50+ lvs... but please let me know what you have to say...
I have +32 evasion above my lvl cap at lvl 45, there are times when I'm in a party and only have to cast 1-2 utsusemi's during the entire fight. But for the most part, I'm usually able to cast a utsusemi: ni, and sometime after its ready to be casted again, my forth blink will get knocked away.
That's how +evasion helps. On top of that, my provoke macro swaps out my hairpin and a alacrity ring for a cache-nez and a mermaid's ring, and then back. Plus I use a Nikkaraioe (25% spell interuption rate down) in my main. With that katana, even if I get caught miscounting my blinks and somehow get hit while casting utsusemi, 1/4 times, I still finish casting it. I'm a hume as well, but my gear is based for evasion, then agility, then accuracy...all the while eating durado sushi^^
So in my opinion, def gear would be nice to maybe macro in for when you're caught with no blinks on and you need to recast. But why do that if you're able to evade like I have been at my lvl.
What's better, evading a hit with no blinks on? Or taking a hit with more def still, with, no blinks on?
I got this item lastnight. I didn't really need it because I have Emp Pin, but I only wanted it for the claim factor, I did this solo, butI got the coffer key in a party while killing mobs. I ran around the tree for about 45 - 1 hour looking and asking people if they have seen it, and it was for my AF, no go. I went deeper in the place where the demonic ohcu is. Sneak wore off and I aggroed two of the black mandies, lol I mijin galkure and HP, and come back, the second time as soon as I get through to the center of the place a coffer chest was on the banks of the tree center, someone was about to open it so I had to hurry and snatch it, so I did, but as soon as I did I aggroed 3-5 robber crabs and so I ran, unlike most I didn't try to zone them I just ran, well when I got to the second part of the section I only had about 300hp or so, with shadows. Finally I turn around and they have stopped and seem to be going back. I survive and I run back to jueno. this wasnt too hard as long as you can buy about 2 stacks of silence oils.
Of course the emperor's hairpin is better but if you want an alternative to it the ninja helm is great. I'm a tarutaru ninja so any hp+ is good. So if you don't have the af and you haven't compared the two you shouldn't really comment -_-.
It's too bad the ninja hat is not very good at all, it makes Emperor's Hairpin the only real option for ninjas until the highest levels...
QTF!
Out of all the equipment slots in my builds I almost never remove the emp pin <.<
I am going to give the AF hat a go (swapping) to see what type of resists I get now that I have a +5 ninjitsu earring to see how +ninjitsu skill affects resists/ procs.
heh, you're entirely right about it being better, but I'd say that this just attests to the strength of the Hairpin, especially in the hands of a Ninja, who relies on high evasion to get the most out of his Utsusemi. Not that I'm claiming the NIN AF hat is good (it isn't...) but even if it were considerably better the Hairpin would probably still win out.