SAM/NIN?

I say try it anyways it won't hurt, You can't really say it's awsome or it sucks it really depends on how you play, what ever you enjoy most you can excel best at. Or you can /thf and SA/TA the whm <.<

This is the MOST tired excuse i swear. "Hey guys nothing is better than anything else, just use whatever fits you the best and be happy and pet kittens and all competitions should end in a tie and lets eat heart shaped marshmellows".

If some gimp method of playing "fits your style" then your style is wrong.

It's a game...have fun take it to seriously and act like your the best you tend to look like a loser.

Thanks for enlightening us Ganhdi

I wasn't attacking you directly I was meaning in general, no need to get hostile. I put in my opinion like everyone else as advice so if you need to name call then you more prove my point above.

If dropping your own damage only slightly while improving the performance of the party is fail, then I guess I fail.

I love SAM/WAR, but most parties can't handle that so I found a solution (quite unintentionally) that works very well.

If you don't like it, don't try to tell everyone else they suck because it's not "your way" of doing it. Just don't do it yourself, because you might find you like it, and then where would we be?

I have tried it, and I use it when needed (/dnc /rng /nin /drg /war /thf /rdm). They all have their place, but "w/e best fits you" is not the correct answer to all situations. Certain subs perform better in different situations, this isn't an opinion but a fact. If your in some sort of fail party of epic proportions and need to sub dnc b/c your mages are brain dead, then by all means sub dnc. If you are soloing then sub dnc. If you are doing some sort of lowman event and your healing then of course sub dnc. If your doing pick up nyzul group and don't know the people you are with then sub nin for extra damage reduction. If your tanking a magic mob that you will be eating spells and don't have the support to eat them safetly then sub nin.

I recognize that everything has its place, but there are poor, better, best subs for everything.

Well that's more down to play style and yeah /sam does very well for war using GA, my point was more that war/nin can be full timed and you'd rarly be asked to sub anything else.

On sam going /nin reduces overall dmg output, but on war/nin your going from spike dmg to higher DoT (unless your gear for war/sam is very good and can make GA a high DoT and spike dmg combo). If you only ever go war/nin it's unlikely you'll ever get moaned at, whereas sam/nin gets criticism (like here :P).

Is Sam/Rng good?

War/Sam will blast War/nin in DOT and spike. Its not even close.

Yes it is.

With the haste build and other gear I see you have ... yeah. +19% haste on TP isn't available to all players lol especially newer ones.

Situational of course. It can be fun to mess around with on birds, and clearly is the best sub for Sam in a purely kited fight, or a fight where you want to stay out of AOE range of a mob at all times. Sam/rng was very useful for T3 Vamp ZNM for example.

And don't forget U/O. SAM/RNG spamming Sidewinder is amazing for that, as you get to stay out of range.

SAM/RNG is a lot of fun, but it's very gear (and merit) driven if you want to be effective.

A SAM/RNG with subpar stuff will be almost a complete waste of an alliance member for "serious" fights. It's because SAM, while having the 2nd best Archery Skill, only caps at 230. Even with 8/8 Merits, I'm at 246, so a Hope Torque still would only get me just shy of B+ range.

Like Frobeus said though, for purely kited fights like many Sea fights (Faith, Fortitude, Hope, and Ix'Drk all come to mind) and KS99 Behemoth, it really shines. In addition, fights like KS99 Wyrm where you can deal damage for the entire fight both ground and air, it's a very nice option (although that has a drawback in Wyrm involving fiery death).

Never tried it at merit camps for birds, but I've used it on parties in the late 50s for Lessers and low 60s for Colibri, and it was lethal. You definitely could feel the air around the PLD suck into their butthole when you popped off a Sidewinder, so you need to do it smartly.

It's also insane for fights where you want to lay down massive spike damage very fast. I was SAM/RNG for Airship BC, and I almost single-handedly took Ultima from 50% to 5% in under a minute (followed by my gruesome death). The Mammet portion of the fight involved me exploding a few Mammets.

Snoll Tzar was dead before we even had a chance to use any salts, and in Moblin BC, I leveled the BLM moblin off the start in about 10-15 seconds. Actually, I might be doing Moblins to help a friend tonight, and you can bet your butt I'll be suiting up SAM/RNG.

In fact, for 60-Cap fights, it would be hard to compare just about any DD to a SAM/RNG for the ability to absolutely destroy stuff.

Pure power DD samurai.. /nin is not even an option.

I don't even like the thought of /nin as Samurai...

My general reaction to /nin is "Go gimp yourself" lol....

Situational yeah. I guess I prefer /thf and /war. /war for land hnm and /thf for ToAU hnm.

I hope you leveled you damn Sub atri

I'd go Rng main before I did any capped fight as Sam/Rng. Sidewinder acc is horrible, and Rng gets much better gear and weapons.

Med x2 when you enter > Food > Sharpshot > Sekkanoki > Sidewinder > Sidewinder > 2hr > Sidewinder > Sidewinder > Sidewinder > Ic Wing > Sidewinder > Sidewinder > Sidewinder > Med > Sidewinder > Barrage > Sidewinder. Sam > Rng :D

Chance of both you and the mob living through all that = 0%

For one fight yes, but you don't just fight Ultima in CoP6-4, Rng would get you past both safely. I've gone Rng and Sam/Rng to 6-4 and would still prefer going Rng hands down. For fights like snoll though, Sam/Rng > all sure, but for times you can't just zerg no.. Even with all those ws under Sharpshot, I highly doubt every one lands. I'm not saying Sam/Rng isn't great, but it isn't the end all be all of capped job options, there is a time and place for everything.

You can check with the Snoll Tzar about that, but he didn't make it past the 6th Sidewinder. RNG just can't lay it down as hard as fast, it's not that RNG is bad. With 200+ TP to start, you can Sekkanoki/Sharpshot/Barrage, Sidewinder, Sidewinder, Fire Barrage, Sidewinder, Meikyo Shisui, Sidewinder, Meditate, Sidewinder, Sidewider, Sidewinder.

For Mammets, I just went bananas on them, but for O/U for Airship, I had to hang back and meditate and ranged attack for TP, and pick my moments, using "mini 2-hours" with Sekkanoki, Barrage, and 3 Sidewinders. It's like anything else, you can't just run in and do that and expect to live, so you have to know how and when. I'm waiting for people atm to start Moblin BC to help a buddy, and I'm sitting here on SAM/RNG getting ready to explode Moblins. The BLM one will be dead before Bugbby makes it up the steps after the kiter... /evillaugh

Rng is still more reliable for CoP 6-4 then Sam/Rng is in my experience. Both own almost any other combo though, and Sam/anythingnotrng usually blows on it in comparison tbh. Sam/Rng has the potential to blow Rng main away, if it didn't have less gear/less archery skill. I landed more ws w/o having to hold back as much on Rng, and did much more DoT and ws damage.

I guess you would have to play both to really see for yourself. I like Sam, it's my 2nd main.. and I don't really like Rng that much(I have 0 plans taking it past 66) but I've had much easier runs on Rng.

As for snoll, as I stated before I agree Sam/Rng > all in that fight. Generally though I've never had time to get all those ws you keep talking about off... Maybe if no one else was trying to zerg you could, but as it usually goes you get 3-4 ws off max and it's dead.

Yeah, on Snoll, I think it died around the 6th Sidewinder, but I was going a lot harder than the other DD. The MNK used Hundred Fists and had about 75 TP when it ended for some indication. The other SAM got off maybe 2 Tachi: Yukikaze, possibly 3.

I had the Paladin run in and hate stack hard, including 2-hour under Sentinel, and I lined up behind him, drilling Snoll from Range until I pulled hate and then tucking in behind the Paladin. We had game-planned it and rehearsed the movements short of using 2-hours, so it went down smooth.

RNG is definitely better DoT than SAM/RNG because they can stack a lot more Ranged Attack and have the higher base skill. Where the SAM/RNG gets the edge is in the ability to deliver a crippling airstrike of missles in a short period of time.

RNG/NIN would probably be as good or better for Airship, but we didn't have it as an option, so we went with what we had. Our dry run took Omega down to 6%, so we knew we'd be ok for the real deal.

As far as SAM/RNG vs SAM/NIN for Airship, I was set to go SAM/NIN (even though I don't really like it much) until one of the other guys said "Wait, you have SAM/RNG, right?"

Just update on the Moblin BC from last night for SAM/RNG performance...

BLM Moblin dead in 2 Sidewinders and the resulting Soboro 3-hit as he ran at me. (About 10 seconds)

WHM Moblin dead in Barrage and 3 Sidewinders. (maybe 45-60 seconds more)

And I'm pretty confident that I accounted for almost half of the damage on Bugbby.

I used a grand total of 14 Demon Arrows and one Squid Sushi for that mayhem. Well worth it for the fun and I helped get my friend done with another part of CoP.

And, later on that night...

Windurst 9-2 win with SAM/DNC x2 and BRD/WHM

It's wasn't a cakewalk, but we handled it pretty well. Animated Flourish and Desperate Flourish came in very handy, and while we were fighting the 2nd half of the BC, the BRD made sure the NPC stayed alive while the SAMs pretty much took care of themselves.

SAM/NIN probably would not have been able to pull it off in that setup, but it's possible they could. Even with 2 SAM/DNC, it had its rough moments, but being able to pull hate off the Bard when needed and cure ourselves and erase statuses was handy. Honestly, the toughest thing was Dispelling Wind because it kept wiping Seigan, Third Eye, and Drain Samba.

We went with Mambo/March, but probably would have been even better off with Mambo x2.

I wanted to take vidcap, but it was dropping my FPS more than I wanted to deal with in what was already going to be a challenging engagement.

Of the last 30+ runs i've done. (winning 31-40 last night) no mage has ever complained to me. whether i made the run or not. if they have any complaints or worries about mp they can take it up with me. whenever i do runs there is 95% of the time 2 mages OR 1 mage and a buffer. mages SCH RDM WHM and maybe BRD for the buffer. then with at least 1 DD other than myself with provoke just for initial vokes or in case something attacks the mages. and whenever his voke is down i will sometimes use it just to hold on to the mob until we're done killing w/e we're attacking at the time.

just because you might have trouble with mp or you happen to get with HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE DD don't tell me how to play my job. if you want to make friendly suggestions i'll gladly listen and take it into account.

I use SAM/DNC for Nyzul also. It works great for my group, so I see no reason to change.

I've seen that be used before and it was very effective. Not for a boss floor though. Idk how that'd go. But I assume it would go well with the enfeebles /DNC has.

It works fine for the boss floor. Usually I just melee and SC with the other DD, and when I pull hate, I pop my Fanatic's and turn it up a notch.

I've learned to not go all-out from the start because a lot of times the mob ends up not being dead and the Fanatic's wears off, then I'm dirtsnorkeling. My static has had a few changes, but for a while we were hitting the bosses with WHM, RDM, BLU, THF, PLD/NIN, SAM/DNC. What we found worked really well was that I'd open and the THF would TA WS on the PLD, who then had full hate for Atonement. We'd just rinse and repeat that.

Would have been great to have another SAM or WAR, but with the group of friends that we put together, I was the only one with either of those at 75. We got our Runic Keys against Cerberus on F100 with no 2-Hours, so I think we did fine. Drops rates frustrating as hell, though.

Basically, /DNC helps the climb a lot, including the 4 floors leading up to the boss. I usually swap from Soboro/Platinum to Onimaru/Pole on the floor before the boss and start building TP.

Might not work for everyone, but it works for us, so why change it.

That sounds fair to me. If I ever find my party low on healing I might have to take that up.

Idk if you have Shikikoyo. But what I like to do is get 300tp. wait til maybe WAR or someone ws's, then I sekkanoki > ws > Shikikoyo (give DD tp, they ws), then ws again myself. Its just a nice way to start out the boss fight without mega hate just on yourself. :)

OP. Sam should learn more towards /Drg is more balanced and very close(or even better depending on your gear) than /War, and offers interesting defensive abilities.

/Nin is handy, and will be necessary, don't try to skip it sooner or later you will need it in 37, I try to refrain myself from /Nin in merit parties but you need to analyze and decide in every situation which is better.

/Nin benefits? Hasso full time.

SETE = Utusemi? No, Wrong; TE doesn't absorb magic is reason enough to prefer Ustusemi, nothing like being elegied or slept in the colibri camp to gimp your party performance.

Ken.