Gear Discussion/Help SAM

Great Katana WS receive a MONSTOROUS boost to accuracy. There is no need to even think about ACC when using a GK weapon skill. They do miss, sure. But it's not enough for you to be concerned about. Don't sacrifice STR for accuracy during a GK weapon skill. Take a peek at my Samurai sets. They're not the pinnacle of the job, but they'll get the job done. Keep in mind I also have full Store TP merits, so I only need one piece of Hachiman along with Rajas/Brutal to maintain a 6-hit.

And people, STOP SUGGESTING ASKAR KORAZIN FOR SAMURAI TP PHASE. STOP IT. The only time you should even THINK about using that is if you're using Marinara Pizza +1, along with a full haste build in combination with Askar Korazin+Chivalrous Chain to maintain your 6-hit. Otherwise, it's TERRIBLE. You're losing out on not only the accuracy on Peacock Charm/Justice Torque, but you're also losing out on 16 accuracy from Haubergeon +1. (12 acc plus 4 from the DEX for us two-handers.) That can total up to -21 accuracy, which means about -10.5% hit rate. Do you really think you can sacrifice that without Marinara Pizza +1's accuracy? No. You can't afford it and be effective still. Gimp? Yes. You will be. And you'll be laughed at by every SAM who researched the numbers and know why it's crap. At very best, Askar Korazin is a WS piece for those who don't have Kirin's Osode.

And in regards to AF+1 hands, do NOT use them for GK weapon skill unless you can't afford Pallas' Bracelets. And with the price they've dropped to, there's no excuse to not have them at very minimum, Alkyoneus's if you got lucky or have the money.

Please trust me on this, I reasearched this job every step of the way while levelling it. I got advice from damn good Samurai across other servers, and suggestions contrary to what I've said are just going to get you laughed at by those better SAM's.

One quick edit... Don't merit Ikishoten. It's Shittyshoten if you gear properly. Just no damn excuse to have it. You other Samurai can't tell me there hasn't been a chance you've been waiting to start a fight, or been sitting on some extra TP just because you've already almost died once or twice on the mob. We're not talking about merit parties. We're talking about something that matters. If you're going to only merit on SAM, just don't level it. Say you're about to pop Tinnin, and you're one of a couple SAM's, and there's a couple WAR's, who came /THF to TA the tanks with weapon skills. Don't you think throwing them some extra TP when you can get 140-160 per meditate will help the rest of the alliance? It will help. Immensely. There's also situations where you're going to get your ***pushed in because you don't have another stunning job, and you're about to eat dirt. Oh hey, I've got Blade Bash. Bam! You just saved your own ***, along with the rest of the party like has been listed in this thread in regards to Nyzul Isle.

This job isn't cut and dry, but Ikishoten is NOT an option if you're playing the job right. Stop thinking support or nukers are at your beckon call, and are always going to stun to save your ***. Also stop being selfish, and help the rest of your alliance.

Why do you need to use chiv chain? You should be able to do 6 hit with askar/rajas/brutal on tp, rajas/brutal on ws unless I'm doing the math wrong.

As for askar in general, if you can find something wrong with my math on the last post that's great, otherwise, askar > hauby

As for the other two merit abilties, Shiki's great I guess, it will cut down a whole 30 seconds it would take that other DD to get TP, that's so worth it. And Blade Bash, yeah it's nice to have, I will probably put 1 merit into it, but seriously, if you need it that often that you have to fully merit it, then your LS fails. I play BLM a lot more than SAM so I am one of those said stunners and you know what, I'm never going to be depending on some SAM's blade bash if something really needs to be stunned. We have our jobs, you have yours.

How the hell can you even THINK that Askar Body is better than Haubergeon for any part of the TP phase? And yes, your math is wrong. You gain 16.6 TP per swing with Askar/Rajas/Brutal, which gets you 83TP flat after 5 swings, and only 16.2 TP per hit without Askar Korazin, which will leave you at 99.2 TP. Relying on getting hit is not a great way to try to plan for it.

And for the accuracy issue, let's take Greater Colibri for example. Keep in mind, this is not my basis as to why askar is worse, because you can't spam Marinara Pizza +1 on them. It's just that the hit rate goes to ***when you lose so much accuracy. We'll use my setup, and maintain a pretend 6-hit with Askar to compare. TP Set here.

Level 82 birds have 339 evasion.

My set has 292 GK skill, with +43 accuracy that puts me at a total of 413 accuracy. Lv82 birds need 407 if I remember correctly to cap. This is also with hasso, so easily capped.

My same set, with Askar Korazin and Chivalrous Chain instead of Haubergeon +1 and PCC gives me 391.5 accuracy with Hasso up, which puts me at a 87.2% hit rate on those same birds. I fail to see how being 8% under accuracy cap is better, even if you hit 3% faster.

I'm using FFXICalc for all my calculations here, if that's somehow become obsolete and proven incorrect, then please let me know and I'll detract all my statements minus standing behind Askar Korazin being poo outside of a capped accuracy situation.

Also keep in mind that Greater Colibri are not the end-all be-all of this game. There's much more evasive mobs you'll swing at, making the difference much more drastic.

Hmm, looks like I rounded instead of rounding down, still getting 16.7 rather than 16.6, though that leaves it short like .3, lol. So I'd probably have to include some extra form of store tp in the WS, I'll deal with that a little later though.

The reason hitting 3% faster is better is because you're not really losing 8% acc. Zanshin makes up for most of that, and then the 3% haste overtakes the gap in accuracy you have left. Once again, LOOK at the calculations before just assuming things. And in general, the more evasive things you fight, the better Iki comes out since you will Zanshin more often and therefore get TP out the wazoo.

Gotta love people like you who just spout crap with terrible math to back it up. Haub > Askar. End of story. Get back to me when you have a relic and it'll be ok^^;

Then prove my math wrong before calling it terrible.

So, you ARE gearing to miss. Relying on a job trait that isn't going to kick in all the time is bullcrap, and you're more often than not going to not get that 6-hit just because you geared improperly. Keep gimping it up though, I always need someone to laugh at. You'd better not be Japanese though... I don't think they'd want something like that associated with them.

Why do you have to gear to miss? Zanshin always has a chance to proc no matter whether I hvae 95% or 10% acc. As for 6 hit, I have a permanent 6 hit, every zanshin chops off a hit so I can get as low as 4 hits between TP. So who's the gimp?

^this. I gear myself to hit. I don't waste merits so that I can gear myself to miss and hope I zanshin.
Also, level SAM then talk to me. /done

Edit:


Ok. Now I know you're an idiot.

Learn a little more about how good zanshin is before you talk.

And I've already lvled SAM, welcome to the joy of multiple chars.

Yeah seriously, try and actually learn what's doable with iki and zanshin before you open your stupid mouth, lol.

Use This and merit Ikishoten to full lol

To OP, I see you have some other 75s but if possible go with Bushinomini/Brutal combo for TP it's amazing! Also Rajas/Ulthalums combo will make those 4 slots look pimp and produce good results.

Lol, it actually seems like a very fun weapon to play with, would never pay the price tag for it though! And you don't need full merits since it's a lower delay weapon then hagun, only need full merits for something like tomoe, hehe.

Minimum Acc is capped at 20% btw lol, and thats such a cool Gkt

Gearing to miss is pretty HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE. If your first hit misses consistently then so will your zanshins. Gear to hit and enjoy the times that it procs when you do happen to miss.

In general I'm kind of indifferent towards Tarowyn's claims as I don't think it's as cut and dry as anyone makes it, nor do I completely understand the math on the previous page so I can't say for certain whether it's legitimate or not.

I will say, though, that he seems to fully know the consequences of the route he's choosing and has come up with a way he believes works out. The TP gain discrepancy might kill the entire plan as it is, but considering accuracy is a linear gain while haste is an exponential gain, (as far as I understand it, and completely discounting the 2% DA) I can't say for sure what the breaking point is for a boost in haste making up for in a loss of accuracy. I can't do the math myself because I don't fully understand, but surely there is a point where a certain amount of haste will overtake the accuracy lost to get there and without knowing what that is all I can say is Tarowyn might not be completely psychotic for his evil plans. XD

In all honesty, having a 4-merit Ikishoten boost on a Zanshin turning a 6-hit build into a 5-hit would be *** cool and everything, but there's not enough evidence on the matter to convince me one way or another whether it's worth the merit slots required. Tarowyn does seem level-headed, though, so unless someone has numbers and parses to throw around this debate may as well just stop here to prevent name-calling and "no fuk u, pal!"s lol

I thought enemy Acc was capped at 20% and ours was lower, don't recall really. The 10% was just a arbitrarily low number I pulled out, lol.


Dunno how well this is known, but Japanese testing has shown Zanshin's to have a MASSIVE 25% accuracy boost, that's 25 percent not just 25 straight accuracy, lol. It makes a huge difference. I can post the testing, but it's all in Japanese and I got stupid responses last time I posted Japanese testing so not gonna bother unless someone really wants it.


The TP gain thing can be solved just by WSing in hachi feet which is only a loss of 1 STR during WS. That would start requiring including all sorts of other factors to work into it, but I just wanted introduce the general principle here. I kind of picked this set as a general not too hard to obtain standard set, I personally use a slightly different set (listed on pg 3) which is I why I didn't know this one isn't a valid 6-hit. And DA is actually kind of funky for zanshin since you can't zanshin a DA hit, I wasn't quite sure how to include it into the calcultions atm, lol. Adding DA would probably improve the situation for the standard hauby set slightly TP-wise though.

This merit setup is very fun to use, it's a little unusual but yeah, sometimes you just get these instances where you blink and you have TP again. I kind of threw all the numbers together on a whim not sure what to expect, they actually came out better than I expected. I was hoping someone could actually double check my math to make sure it makes sense but so far I've mostly gotten useless replies.

if you don't barely miss...why not askar? lol...if is a monster with high evasion i just can change TP gear macro to Hauby lol i use Hauby on Kirin and on Byakko....you can say askar and hauby are situational imo...i hope i don't offend o.o

i love this thread and how some people's opinions are the end all be all (right or wrong). every job has these kind of people. :3
i'm a newish sam and with that said i use askar body because i enjoy the +2% double attack and i need the 5 sTP for a 6-hit (also 3 haste from feet). if i can ever find hachikote+1 on ah i may switch it out. i don't do salvage or i would look into that to get my extra sTP. i don't have hagun yet, but if I had a rindo with sTP i'd prolly start using haub.
if i need the extra acc i put on my haub/hachifeets combo.
generally, i do not need it (i campaign sam mostly). i also like the extra eva it offers even though sam still get hit a lot capped eva.

Wat

Do you mean the Zanshin hit itself gets a 25% accuracy boost?

Zanshin is pretty awful ...

At 80% accuracy which is low, you have a 1/5 chance of missing a hit. From that 1/5 chance, there is a further 1/10 chance that Zanshin will proc and then it has to land. If I interpret your statement above to mean it has +25% accuracy so the Zanshin hit as 95% chance of landing,

Net accuracy increase through Zanshin at 80% accuracy = 1/5 * 1/10 * 19/20 = +1.9% accuracy from Zanshin if your accuracy really sucks.

If you are at 90% = 1/10 * 1/10 * 19/20 = +0.95% accuracy from Zanshin.

If you are at 95% = 1/20 * 1/10 * 19/20 = +0.475% accuracy from Zanshin.

Zanshin is not impressive in the least.

At 20% = 4/5 * 1/10 * 9/20 [assuming your +25% number] = +3.6% accuracy in case you're curious. It's never gonna be substantial.

As for Askar vs Hauby... if you have Usukane Feet, don't use Askar. If you do not... it's at what point the 3% Haste 2% DA outdoes 8% accuracy +1.5fSTR.

+1.5fSTR = ~+1.8% DoT only, multiply by TP/WS damage ratio coefficient (0.4 we'll take here), 1.8 x 0.4 = +0.72% damage.
2% DA is +1.9%~ damage.

8% accuracy assuming it caps you is 8/87 = +9.20% damage.

You can't actually exactly add percentages etc like I'm doing but let's do it anyway!

(9.20 + 0.72) - (1.9) = 8.02%~

What haste is required to beat this?

3/(100 - (x+3)) = 0.0802
3 = 0.0802(100 - x - 3)
3 = 8.02 - 0.0802x - 0.2406
0.0802x = 4.7794
x = 59.5%~

So you need 60% haste BEFORE Dusk Gloves for Askar to win assuming no acc is wasted but that it EXACTLY caps you. If you go from 85%=>93%, you'll need even more Haste for Askar to win.

Basically, Hauby+1 if no accuracy is wasted or if you have Usukane Feet.

Wear Haubergeon (+1)

Don't merit Ikishoten

Quit being shitty at this game.

I'll give you an endless amount of links if need be to prove that Askar Korazin and Ikishoten merits are absolute trash, but the point is, Raen just flat out showed the math behind it: try to disagree to that.

I'll be precise though: I'm positive that yes, Zanshin itself has a process rate of atleast 40% most likely, and probably has an accuracy boost as well of atleast +20 (10% hit rate), but even then, if you're above +90% accuracy (where you should be aiming for 100% of the time), it'll successfully activate, what...

Three out of every one-hundred swings on average? Something like that, and then from there, considering 5/5 Ikishoten shaves off a hit on your -hit build when it does activate... you're getting 50 more TP every one-hundred swings, aka not even a free weapon skill for wasting half your JSM2 SAM merit slots.

Hate to say it, but I think I'll keep my Shikikoyo and ability to stun ***that can kill me. You should see me stun Discoid as well as some other things; pretty freaking sexy in the long run.

Sorry in advance, but like I said I am a new sam. I am not familiar with this math, but I was under the impression that for a 6-hit you needed only +11 sTP in addition to 5/5 sTP merits. Is that not the case or am I just missing something? 16.6 x 6 is not 100.
I'm trying to learn so take it easy on me.

On a 450 delay weapon it does. But then you can't freely swap gear for ws. So a lot of ppl overload stp a little bit during tp phase so they can ws in w/e they want.

lolaskar

you don't need to show me your math play with it as you like its your choice.

Just don't get bumhurt when you start wiffing

Your whole argument is flawed beyond belief. Also, you do realize that the attack triggered by Zanshin can also miss?

He's saying you need to lower your accuracy to proc zanshin more. Then when you do miss, macro in acc for that zanshin proc. Duh.

is it just me or does this whole "lower acc for Zanshin proc" just sound like a TON more work then just gearing to have normal melee hit lands...

Actually as Ironguy himself also admitted, Zanshin proc rate is much closer to 40%, so try redoing the math including that.

What's the +1.5fstr from, hachi hands? Not sure what math you're getting that turns it into 1.9%. And how are you getting 8% acc with hauby? 10acc + 3.75 for dex should cap at 14, hence 7%? Not bringing HQ into the conversation quite yet.

Btw, the accuracy boost isn't 25% of actual accuracy, it's you multiply your current acc by 25%, so if you really were running with 20% acc, you'd go to 25%, not 45%, lol. This actually puts the spot at which you DO need to still be stacking on acc at around 78%, anywhere below that and you're losing out even with zanshin.

As for your haste calculation, one major problem with it, one, you're only talking about dot there, you're not taking into account the fact that zanshin's actually give you double tp. Even if you look at my original post, dot is better with hauby up until around 40%ish haste, but you are ALWAYS getting tp faster using askar. So try rerunning everything with the correct values for zanshin/acc and try taking into account the faster tp gain with zanshins. Or you can use my calculations which already do all that, lol.

Edit:
Whoops, this got moved outta place somehow.
Also, your 9.2% number is skewed because it doesn't take into account the addition acc from zanshin as well as the fact that it shouldn't be 8% in the first place as indicated above.