[Mhurron]

I'm going to go ahead and finish leveling NIN to 37. Currently, I'm 26 and up until now I have simply had the same katana in each hand. However, when I hit 30 for instance, I'm planning on having a Centurion Sword and a Nikkariaoe. Oddly it looks like that after 32 I'll just be back to the same katana in each hand though. However, I still am left wondering if it matters which hand which weapon is in.

As far as I do know, the main hand weapon is what weapon skills you have access to and I believe that in general, you main hand the weapon with the highest damage. Well both the Sword and the katana have a dmg of 19 so that's no help. My first inclination is to main hand the katana for the katana weaponskills as NIN, but is that the most efficient? The Centurion sword has Acc+3 Att+4 and the katana has spell interruption rate down, are these stats (and any other) affected by what hand the weapon is in?

When I sub NIN and have, for instance a Mensur Epee, does it matter what hand it is in considering the hidden effect? Are they influenced by what hand the sword is in?

[ShepardG]

As far as I know M, You'll still get the ACC and Atk bonus in your off hand, so your better off main handing the Katana for Skill ups.
As for Hidden effects, I believe it's a mixed bag, as to if the effect proc's in the off hand. Blau Dolch's hidden effects do appear when you off hand them. Atleast this is what I've seen, if I recall right.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Originally Posted by Mhurron

As far as I do know, the main hand weapon is what weapon skills you have access to and I believe that in general, you main hand the weapon with the highest damage. Well both the Sword and the katana have a dmg of 19 so that's no help. My first inclination is to main hand the katana for the katana weaponskills as NIN, but is that the most efficient?

Both Blade: Retsu and Fast Blade are two hit attacks (plus a hit from the offhand). Fast Blade gets increased damage from higher TP, which will likely give you better average damage than Blade: Retsu.

Originally Posted by Mhurron

The Centurion sword has Acc+3 Att+4 and the katana has spell interruption rate down, are these stats (and any other) affected by what hand the weapon is in?

Those two bonus types will kick in regardless of which hand it comes from. There are very few bonus types that require the weapon to be in a certain hand. "TP bonus" has to be in the main hand. Relic Weapon skill access has to be in the main hand. +Crit rate will only affect the hand that the weapon is in.

Originally Posted by Mhurron

When I sub NIN and have, for instance a Mensur Epee, does it matter what hand it is in considering the hidden effect? Are they influenced by what hand the sword is in?

AFAIK, the way Mensur Epee's base damage changes isn't affected by which hand you have it in.

Originally Posted by ShepardG

As far as I know M, You'll still get the ACC and Atk bonus in your off hand, so your better off main handing the Katana for Skill ups.

You can get skill ups from your offhand. The only advantage your main hand would get is one more swing every time you WS. And since we're talking about levels below 37, it's trivial to keep stuff capped simply through offhanding. In my experience, you can easily keep a weapon capped by offhanding it even at level 60+, when skill levels really climb.

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by LyonheartLakshmi

Both Blade: Retsu and Fast Blade are two hit attacks (plus a hit from the offhand). Fast Blade gets increased damage from higher TP, which will likely give you better average damage than Blade: Retsu.

Any TP Bonus only applies to the first hit, and you can't get a nice Paralyze effect from Fast Blade, either. It's why I love any and all Ninja that use Blade: Retsu. <3

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

Any TP Bonus only applies to the first hit, and you can't get a nice Paralyze effect from Fast Blade, either. It's why I love any and all Ninja that use Blade: Retsu. <3

Ya, that has come in handy soloing.

[Armando]

I preferred to keep a katana in the main hand. All Sword really has to offer damage-wise is Fast Blade, and Retsu can replicate those numbers easily while throwing in the Paralyze effect. Magic WS like Burning Blade are garbage damage-wise compared to what a melee can do with physical WS. Katana's elemental WS are hybrid - they work like melee WS except they also take a % of the melee damage and add it as magic damage. That makes Blade: Teki and Blade: To viable WS for skillchains without killing your WS damage altogether.

[Raydeus]

What Katana would Centurion replace btw?

[Armando]

What Katana would Centurion replace btw?

Nikkariaoe is the strongest Katana at 30, but it's rare, so it would be replacing a Fukuro.

30-40 sucks for NIN weapon selection pretty bad, really. Kodachi/Reppu's DPS advantage over Nikk is very, very small - and even then they just tie with Centurion's Sword's DPS. There's not much else you can get until the AF weapons at 40 so you're pretty much boned for upgrades unless you can nab an HQ at the AH. Bastokan Swords are much more obtainable and have more or less the same DPS as the HQ Reppu/Kodachi, and of course there's Republic Swords for those with deeper pockets.

The possible choices basically depend on budget, the availability of HQ katanas and whether you care about keeping a katana in the main hand for katana WS access.

For this sort of thing I basically do an ffxiah power search for equippable weapons of a certain type within a level range and sort them by DPS. Then I open up Excel, copy the DMGs and Delays, have it spit out the DPS's and compare. That's the quickest way to see what all your options are and weigh them against each other in my opinion. Only catch is that you have to be wary of latent weapons that have gimpy "true" DPSs but amazing DPS in action (Blau Dolch, Perdu Weapons, etc.)

[Raydeus]

I guess it depends what you are killing, back in the day when I was soloing EP-DC I didn't even bother switching off-hand weapon till 32 or so (and kept Nikkariaoe all the way to 37 I think.)

At the time I experimented with a lot of subs but ended up going /rdm for Aquaveil and Fast Cast, which along with Nikkariaoe made me pretty much interruption-proof.

But times have changed so I have no idea what works better nowadays.