I find this item extremely underpowered, and the fact you can use it on the niiro female is very pointless. by using this item, you are practically killing yourself. either the character you equip it to already takes enough self inflicted damage, has mid health and is already an imediate target, or just a barely used and often needless skill that makes you invuln and you take damage anyway. so whats the point.
lowers cost-yes, this is very good. if you actually got to use it more often, before you die from self infliction on top of enemy damage. I think either a) the affliction damage is reduced by 5, or b) the skills lose the skills deal 5 more damage as well. just a couple of ideas. i dont perticuly like it so would LOVE a rework, but doubt it will happen.

what do you guys think?

Try building a team around the katana? I don't find much use for it on Hana or Jun, but on Yuudai it can be useful. For example, having Yuudai, another Strength user, and a healer on your team? You don't need to devote strength energy to Yuudai for his primary attacking skill, you can save intelligence for his Demon Vision, and you can just heal him up when his health gets below the average level.

A Warbanner of Healing might be a good option on another teammate as well, to aid in mitigating the affliction damage of the katana.

lol it's not that bad of an item with Jun either.
You can stack, stack, stack and not worry about needing to have a red when you blind spot.

on Hana though, the item is completely useless, yes.

Yeah, that's true. I just make it a habit with Jun to save 1 red just incase I need to use blind spot a little early.. so it's of little use to me since it's already a habit.

ah, i guess you guys are right, but i think it could still do with a slight tweak/boost? =S

Its a double edged sword, but sometimes its pretty useful, i mean sometimes an energy might decide an outcome

Its a double edged sword, but sometimes its pretty useful, i mean sometimes an energy might decide an outcome

Agreed.
Also yes, using the katana with hana is pointless, it might be wierd, but a lot of ppl use it with yuudai.

Its a double edged sword, but sometimes its pretty useful, i mean sometimes an energy might decide an outcome

I have to disagree on this. This is not NA wher your chakra is priceless, here you can easily exchange energy and the whole won is different.

Using katana on Hana is pointless, but i used her even with Katana in 1 or 2 situations maybe.

Using on Yuudai is stupid since he already bleeding form demon rage, and if u dont have healer he is heavily up.

Im using Katana on Jun, and its okay. This way, he needs only 1 random energy on every skill.

My version of katana

Increases damage dealth by demon rage by 10, decreases the cost of blind spot by one strenght energy and decreases cooldown of intercept by 1. Affect the holder with bleeding affliction dealing 15 affliction damage the following turn. This item can only be equipped by the Nirro clan.

PS - Instead of dealing extra 10 damage on demon rage, it can also decrease cooldown by 1. (no cooldown)

see, what i find is, even if you have a heavy healer, they are first target, and killed off right away. again-hana is useless. jun is good. so if its made for 1 character, then it seems pointless??
princes boost seems ok-but i hink it needs to target them as a whole, not individually.
so my suggestion would be to make it something like this.

*first turn-increases damage of ____,"accupuncture; pain" and ____ by 10 for 2 turns. holder takes 5 affliction
*third turn-decreases cooldown of ___, "accupuncture" and ___ by 1 for 4 turns. holder takes 10 affliction
*fith turn-permenantly makes the cost 0 and causes the holder to take 15 affliction.
still similar, but more useful for ALL characters

The use I've found with it is simply Yuudai, it makes his attack free a 20dmg with 10 affliction that is free is very powerful, have this with two others that can easy attack for 3 energy and you got a really fast, spiky team, say.... the Jinsei 30ranged for 2random and maybe something like Takeo that can do 20melee for 1 random, now if you go secound you can do:

30 + 20 + 20 (+10) = 80 damage no matter what energy you get, and then after that even if they go invurnable you can kill with either Yuudai (if they have 30 or less hp (at that point you have done 70damage so if they have 100 or less hp they are dead). OR you can use Takeo and do 15damage that ignore invurnability if they have 95 or less hp.

Very fast kill, sure Yuudai takes 25 damage from it but that is ok, if you are really worried about that then get a bandage on some of the other ninjas, since if you use that before he takes damage from demon rage and the sword the bandage will also remove the bleeding.

I think it's a very strong item on Yuudai and very weak on the other two. Might work on Jun.

I think it's really effective with Jun, since, if you use it on Jun, he will now be a random energy using character, which means, you have room for another strength character. Plus, Jun only uses blind spot rarely, so the 15 affliction wouldn't hurt so much.

Same reason goes for Hana.

The point of the Katana is to lower the cost of Hana's intercept, Jun's blind spot, and Yuudai's demon rage. Why would it be useless for Hana, but not useless for Yuudai? Demon rage and intercept would both cost nothing with the katana.

Most people see it alright to stick the katana with Jun or Yuudai, but not with Hana? Anyhow, I think the katana is actually underpowered. Basically, you're sacrificing 15 hp for one strength energy. The katana is completely exclusive to the Niiro and only affects three skills. 15 hp for one strength energy is a decent deal... if this wasn't an item.

Items are typically BETTER than a normal skill. You can deal 10 damage with a kunai for absolutely no cost. You can stun ranged skills for 2 turns for no cost. All sorts of stuff, and then you have a katana like this.

Yuudai can deal 20 physical damage and 10 affliction damage with demon rage. With the katana, demon rage would cost no energy. Sounds like a good deal, eh? Except the net damage you get would be only 5. You deal a total of 30 damage to one target, and a total of 25 damage to yourself. Only if you're trying to spike, would you want to do that. Otherwise, the kunai's net damage of 10 would be better. And demon rage isn't a full 30 damage anyway. It's 20 physical damage the first round and 10 affliction damage the next.

Want to counteract the Katana's bleeding side effect by healing? You can counteract it if you want, but you'll be using up energy or an item, so you're not really "counteracting" it so much as you're changing what you're losing. And the turn you spent healing could've been used for attacking.

The katana is underpowered, but it isn't weak enough for everyone to think that it's weak. I suggest lowering the affliction damage to 10 or granting the character with 5 points of protection when demon rage, blind spot, or intercept is used.

all 3 of you make valid points, but you all still admit, it is not as good as it can be. after all this, i definately think a boost is MUCH needed.

I'm thinking affliction damage should be reduced to 10. It's not too much, but it's definitely a boost. What do you guys think?

yeah, i think so, but i think it still needs an extra something to compensate for it lacking with certain character. i mean, look at the cloak. its perfect. the katana definately is not.