[Snarky Soujo]

I'll just preface that I am an optimizer as far as PVP goes.

I use calculators, I make sure my stat efficiency is as efficient as possible for what I want to do. With that being said, I do not play the best builds outside of test server, testing.

[Prologue]

When talking about the Hayabusa set, you contextually have to look at the classes that will use it, before we get into the specifics of the weapons itself.

Void Assassin/Spellthief is the main combination or the main/subclass you'll be running for obvious reasons. Theres an amount of utility, additive and multiplicative sources of damage which benefit daggers and critical builds. Northern Wind alone is 24 critical while you are in the Northern half of the map, most times all you need to do is Southern Wind -> quick slide -> Northern Wind and your preparation is for the most part done.

Now the largest downsides to dagger builds in general come from: Accuracy, Class abilities such as Steel Aura (this affects critical effects and on-hit effects from weapons, and is very good versus many daggers in general)

I'd consider these the largest downsides. I don't believe you should be struggling with crit in general, 24 from Northern wind, 10 from backstab, at base you run around 100 base crit. Talking about certain subclass options, you can gain more than that obviously.

Poise from Duelist (easy fleur, haunting access, claret stacks, WG, not my favorite but it exists)
Fight as One from Bonder (my personal favorite, gives you 20 crit and hit! Tons of techs and unique playstyle options, defensively strong, you almost bonus evade with FAO and southern wind, with 5 left over from any other effect, and or overcapping for debuffs)
Hexer (pretty self evident, also grants you access to Deathknighting and a lot of great tools, blink etc)(but generally, just 25% for one is a lot for a curse that will last many rounds)

These are just a few options to address critical, at any point not counting items, you should be running effectively in combat 130% and over easily.

[Weaknesses?]

Now lets address some of the problems people have, mainly the big elephant in the room.


Accuracy

At base, just staring at the stat screen I averaged 200%-220% hit, tooled with remains and weapon parts. Now in battle you have flank bonus to add onto that, along with bonuses from your subclass and or mainclass. With full bonus hit you are gaining up to around (give or take) 270% hit, that is pretty reasonable but, how are you reaching that?

Invisible Weapon, 40hit
Fight as One 20hit
Plisfa's Masochism (auto hit)
Brighten 15hit (spellthief surprise!)

Let me be frank that I'm speaking strictly from an optimized perspective, you can run these weapons a few ways. I cannot understate that there are solutions to problems, and you might sacrifice something here and there but if you lose because you're being greedy as you can be, that is on you. You are competing with far shot but that is the bane of all range weapons, surprise. You have to take that gamble if you are willing to toss a dagger with the penalty, or if you are going to wait out buffs, position yourself and or use other creative tools.

Its not my job to give and explain everything, but just to address the strength of these things.

[Class Matchup Problems]

Now you might be saying, what about watchful eye? What about steel aura?

You have answers luckily!

Steal (this one isn't guaranteed but its going to get you two crits and you're back to 6m)
Wash Away (kind of an obvious one)
Obscure

But, lets not just talk about direct skill counters what about playstyle?

Well to be honest, if you are watching someone set up buffs and you plan to go in for attack? That's on you friend, if you are approaching a black knight and giving them value from their buffs without risk assessment, yeah rough stuff buddy. Same thing goes for a boxer match-up, you know they're going to geist you for single target, why give that to them for free? You have tools, things like traps, potentially spells or youkai skills, you have ground targeting skills too.

Or you would hope.

[Conclusions]

All in all this set is pretty busted, makes you stick to people and offers very strong on-hit effects. Dev gave us tools to make them stronger with the mundane enchantment, and made them a cut above every other dagger.

Guile scaling is insane, a sub scaling of vit is also pretty good considering you don't like to fold over and die.

Silence, Burn for defensive shredding, it often gives people only one or two sources of damage reduction

Its one of the largest reasons why I loath how Gear Sets, are represented with the other sets being awful, near unusable or sometimes worse than using the alternatives.

Examples being: Wulf, Neverending Story, Yin/Yang (these don't really need much explanation to why even with mundane being a thing), Dragon King (its sometimes a side grade or straight up worse in a lot of cases, in terms of damage and survivability)

Silence is strong, hurts priest players the most, but I think the burn is a more polarizing part of the combination that are these weapons. The balance previously was slightly there, given one of the weapons has a str scaling, but the enchantment got rid of that problem in turn. There is an issue of, what would you tune down and how would you balance it?

Removing the Burn is probably the easiest change, replacing it with a smaller effect. Adding an internal cooldown to the Silence for a sensible duration that isn't silent prayer's duration.

In honesty, I think its more a class issue of how many multiplicative and additive sources of damage that VA/ST can have together, or other combinations, not even accounting for item onhits and power bumps you can give yourself.

I'll leave what superior choices there are to the reader's discretion, I'm not here to unveil everything. I just am very surprised anyone has the perception that these daggers were anything but the top of the shelf in terms of for their class, and as a build for pvp, and even pve.