Valefor.Prothescar said:
»Actually I thought of 2 valid use cases for Yagyu that aren't Crystal Paradise. Halphas and WAR Fomors
I am on board with the general premise that Yagyu is more appealing in theory than in practice.
I am also in the very rare position of having an LS mate who has Yagyu Darkblade. I think the most significant thing it has done for our LS is piss me off due to jealousy that I'm an ACTUAL NIN (4 REMA and everything) and I didn't get it but my friend who doesn't particularly care about NIN did.
It does sometimes have uses, but they really are pretty niche. This past weekend some of the crew did some VD Ambuscades and it was pretty nice there (and made dealing with Excalibur a lot easier). It's kinda cool in like, Dyna[D] to help other DDs avoid losing time to stun/knockback from mob moves like Sweep, Frypan, or Wrath of Gu'Dha (probably increasing group's overall DPS at the expense of NIN giving up a little of its offense due to worse offhand and more time spent casting). Also gives a little cushion for Orcish Counterstance when an NM turns (or a player just walks right up and starts swinging at the Orc's face, which I personally have NEVER done ;P). Halphas is a good use case, but again super niche.
I actually LIKE bringing my NIN to Segment farm runs (even though I also have a good SAM and WAR, but my NIN isn't that far off due to hybrid WS performing very well in there on many mobs, the safety of shadows can be helpful, and I just like playing NIN and don't feel it's SO much of a liability in there to be unable to justify it). But in Sheol C, I'd think pretty hard about whether to offhand Yagyu over a Kunimitsu or Hitaki that significantly pump up my WS damage in exchange for shadows on party members. That's a minor luxury, but generally not the difference between people living or dying. Also worth considering how well you can even keep shadows on multiple people who are moving around a lot. Kinda nice to be able to help protect mages I guess.
Like, if I won the next Bonanza I would 100% get Yagyu. But I'm a Ninja, I'm the kind of person who made Nagi, of course
*I* am gonna pick it. But if I was truly picking the item that was more likely to be consistently helpful for my jobs, TBH it would probably be the Diamond Aspis. Helps PLD keep up very good JAs for longer, WAR can Warcry for longer and help the whole party do significantly more damage for the low cost of the WAR swapping the shield in and losing a little TP once per Warcry, BST Killer Instinct buff to the whole party - those are all much more practical applications than the admittedly very neat parlor trick of NIN being able to (a) apply shadows to party members and (b) generate insane enmity (which does help sometimes, but isn't all that when you're in fights where mobs strip your shadows and you'd rather have a PLD RUN eating hits).