I’ve spent much of Shadowbringers as a Dark Knight main so far, and truth be told, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’ve really taken to tanking with the redesigns for the expansion and finding the role to be more fun than damage dealing overall. However, I’m always going to have a soft spot for Ninja, and I had been anxiously anticipating Patch 5.1’s redesign of the mudra system in the hopes that it would make Alahra’s original main fun to play again. Happily, that’s come to pass, though it took me a little while to unlearn several years of muscle memory (and I’m still fumbling rather often, to be honest).

As I like to do, I wanted to work out a new glamour for Ninja to celebrate. I’ve been working with the same one since more or less the beginning of the expansion, since I got the class to 80 and hadn’t really looked back since. The fates were with me, too, as I got the new YoRHa Type-51 Jacket of Scouting on one of the two runs I did of the new NieR: Automata Alliance Raid, and that gave me something fun to work with. I’ve not yet had any luck picking up the 2B glamour set (and of course I won’t be able to get another Type-51 piece until next lockout), so I struggled for quite a bit to find pieces that worked alongside the Jacket, though.

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Glamour Components (Requirements: NIN 80, Female)
Weapon: (Augmented) Silktones
Head: Reading Glasses
Body: YoRHa Type-51 Jacket of Scouting
Hands: Claws of the Beast (Jet Black)
Legs: Warwolf Kecks of Striking (Jet Black)
Feet: Kirimu Sandals of Scouting (Jet Black)

Working with the Jacket provided a lot of challenges when working with other, non-YoRHa gear. It’s cropped fairly high above the waist, limiting choices for leg gear; its rather slim sleeves don’t work well at all with many of FFXIV‘s bulky gloves; and its fabric doesn’t really match any skirts or shorts for Ninja that I could find. At first, I marked the Jacket off as a lost cause, but at the same time I was determined to make a new glamour and wanted to specifically do something with new gear on top of that, so I kept at it.

The first piece I found that I liked with the Jacket was actually one I eventually discarded: the Molybdenum Armguards of Scouting. They’re thin enough that they blend all right with the sleekness of the body piece, and they’re also a decent match for its fabric when dyed black. From there I started trying to find a good skirt, but none of my staples (namely, the Valentione Skirt and Werewolf Bottoms) matched the Jacket in the slightest. For a little while I considered the Bridesmaid’s Tights, but those just looked like a poor imitation of better options from the NieR raid itself.

Stuck on leg gear, I moved instead to boots, thinking perhaps I could find a good pair that would open up skirt options a bit, but the only ones that fit in terms of color tone were the Augmented Shire Emissary’s Thighboots, and they felt too chunky for the look. Eventually, though, I came around to the discovery of the Warwolf Kecks, which made the Kirimu Sandals the easy choice (though the High House Halfboots or Songbird Boots might also have worked well).

Once I had the core of the look down, I figured the most appropriate thing to use would be the Scion Rogue’s Bandana (or the Head Bandage dyed black), and for a run or two, I ran around with Alahra half blind. That didn’t sit well with me, though, and so I went back to her usual glasses, in their default color since the body piece itself doesn’t have a ton of accent to work with (it does have some slight silver bits, though).

The glasses completed a rather sleek look, though, and after another run I realized even the Molybdenum Armguards were too thick for what I needed. Though I usually don’t do so for melee glamours, I decided to go gloveless this time and highlight the Jacket’s more elegant sleeves. While I did consider using a small pair of gloves, I couldn’t find any that had the right texture, and so the Claws of the Beast ended up being my final choice.

Overall, this look is rather different from my normal Ninja style, but I find that considering Dark Knight my main gives me a little more mental freedom to experiment. For now, I’m quite happy with this one, though I’d imagine once I finally get my hands on the 2B glamour coffer from the raid, Ninja’s going to be the most likely place I put elements of that to use (with 2B’s boots being the thing I’m looking forward to most, of course).