Zanshin? why?

[wintermute]

you talked about you didnt see whats wrong with getting a nana gk and meritting ikishoten, well the purpose of the nana sword is for the zanshin activation rate, and ikishoten is based off zanshin attacks, so you are talking about zanshin. So with that GK and Ikishoten merits you are setting up your SAM to play off the zanshin trait merits in zanshin or not. There would be no other reason as a lvl 90 SAM to be useing a nana sword and a lvl 90 sam using a nana sword would definitely get more out of higher based GK (could prove this in terms of DoT, cause like you said SAM is a DD, but i dont think its necessary to provide the math of a base dmg 77 GK over the current 114+ GKs as it seems pretty much common sense). But let me throw this out there if you are gonna merit Ikishoten you don't think it makes sense to merit zanshin in group 1 along with it? to me seems they would go hand in hand, but to each his own.



your claiming since its better for you then it should be better for me is what your doing cause your using my merits in your claim. Hence telling me that your merits will suit my needs for where, when, how i use my SAM when i'm on it. I told you i had ikishoten merits and they werent worth it for me as my accuracy was not an issue to where i was even getting enough zanshin attacks to even get anything wortwhile from Ikishoten, so i changed them to something that was more useful and worthwhile for me.

Wut. I'm talking about Zanshin, yes... but I never said to merit Zanshin Activation Rate. Why would you need to merit Zanshin Activation Rate if you're using a Nana? It's 100%.. you can't get 105%. And what I'm saying is that you'd probably be doing more DoT going Overwhelm/Ikishoten instead of your build. Not everyone runs with a low-man Aby crew. Sam is a DD. I'm just trying to explain to you that in any DD situation, SAM would be better off going my way than your way, at least imo. They don't need a Nana, they could use a Masamune and still be doing more DoT than someone who had your merit build with the same exact Masamune. As a DD job, for the most part, we can assume I'm discussing how to optimize your damage output. I'm not talking about "I NEED STUNS FOR SITUATIONAL USE." If you were picked up for a party to straight up DD something you wouldn't be doing as well as a Samurai with Ikishoten. IMO.

Actually, the best bet would probably be to make sure you always have 20 merits stored so you can ask a party that just picked you up if you should change your merits to STUN GUN SAM, aka: fully merited Blade Bash. Kidding, but seriously...

The genius thing about Zanshin is that it's a 45% proc rate even without anything buffing it. You'd do better DoT with a fucking Masamune if you had Ikishoten merited, it has nothing to do with "Zanshin gear" or whatever you're trying to claim that I said. People are claiming Zanshin is useless because they stack ACC gear. Yeah... it's going to be useless if you're hitting all the time. Take off some of that ACC+ gear and you'll see it proc more often... and you'll occasionaly get more than double TP of a normal hit, which would allow you to WS faster, which would increase your DoT over someone who didn't have it. If you're concerned about landing your WSs with less ACC+ gear on (which you shouldn't be because WSs have a big ACC modifier) then go ahead and gear swap some of that ACC+ shit in. It doesn't mater what Great Katana you're using, Ikishoten will increase your DoT compared to Blade Bash and that Share-Bear one. That's why Samurai's have Zanshin, so we can put STR rings on instead of ACC rings and still come out ok, Ikishoten just lets us come out better than OK because you're getting more than double the TP of a normal hit. Please, think before you make assumptions. I never said anything about "Zanshin gear" and I never once mentioned the Nana GK after my first post.

The OP wanted to know wtf was SE thinking when they made Zanshin. I answered.

[Superchicken]

the point i made is that i tp in full haste and ACC is not an issue for me and shouldn't be an issue for anyone at this time in the game where the main focus is around Abyssea, if you are having ACC issues where you need to stack ACC gear your problem lies elsewhere. And you are correct no everyone runs a low man abyssea group that is why MY SAM is tailored merit wise and gear wise that suits me. I don't to change my merits around on my SAM for pickup parties cause i dont do pick up shout parteis on MY SAM.

So again when you are capped ACC which you are in Abyssea at 95% acc theres a 5% chance you are gonna miss. And in that 5% chance you miss with unmerited Zanshin theres a 45% chance you will get a zanshin attack. For me not worth it, for you if you want to bank on missing 5% of the time and having zanshin proc so you get your TP bonus off from your Ikishoten merits well thats you. The original poster ask why zanshin because he is saying for him zanshin is useless and pointless to be the set bonus of zanshin enhancement on the af3 sam gear, which is his opinion and its one i agree with. If you don't ok, you like ikishoten, ok, others don't, others dotn find ikishoten worthwhile, others like blade bash for those times when it comes in handy more than the times they would see a zanshin proc where ikishoten merits could come into play. The records still broke and the cd player is on loop, shall we keep going? I'm done, go ahead and get the last word in if you want. Have fun with your ikishoten merits and zanshin attacks, i'll enjoy my blade bashes and being able to give my whm TP when he needs to go hexa strike for a blue proc to increase our chance and getting the drop we are there for.

You want to use a nana gk while your capped on acc and play off those 5% times you miss so you can your TP bonus from your ikishoten merits for it, but watch your WS dmg suffer big time from that 77 DMG gk vs those gks in the 100+ dmg area. Even with the 100% activation and the times you do get your ikishoten bonus you DoT is not gonna keep up with a SAM who is in haste capped gear, capped acc using a way better GK. So it comes to the dmg factor, remember you are a DD, your suppose to being dealing dmg to your max potential and a nana gk and ikishoten merits are not gonna do that. Then lets throw out this, lets say you are using a different GK we can use masamune if you want and your getting those zanshin attacks without zanshin merits, and you do have those ikishoten merits and are getting that extra tp from zanshinrounds. Is it feasable to always drop your tp as soon as you get 100% tp? If you want to end up dead and then sit in the back doing nothing go ahead then you're even losing out on Dot even more.

[Kuishen]

Then lets throw out this, lets say you are using a different GK we can use masamune if you want and your getting those zanshin attacks without zanshin merits, and you do have those ikishoten merits and are getting that extra tp from zanshinrounds. Is it feasable to always drop your tp as soon as you get 100% tp? If you want to end up dead and then sit in the back doing nothing go ahead then you're even losing out on Dot even more.

Get better mages, stop failing and merit blade bash, Ikishoten is fucking worthless. Stop being stupid.

[Superchicken]

Get better mages, stop failing and merit blade bash, Ikishoten is fucking worthless. Stop being stupid.

If you are talking to me think you are misreading my stance here as i'm in agreeance with what you are saying. I dont have ikishoten merits, i too think it is not worth it and think the zanshin trait focusing on missing is pointless as well

[kaht]

Is it just me, or has anyone else enjoyed getting to listen to samurais complain for the last few months. When a job sits atop the food chain for so long, it gets hard to take any of their complaints seriously.

It's like listening to a rich white woman complain about how hard her life is.

[Kuishen]

If you are talking to me think you are misreading my stance here as i'm in agreeance with what you are saying. I dont have ikishoten merits, i too think it is not worth it and think the zanshin trait focusing on missing is pointless as well

/shrug General response to anything said in this thread.

EDIT: Also to the above poster, way to drop a random racist bomb for no reason.

[Superchicken]

Is it just me, or has anyone else enjoyed getting to listen to samurais complain for the last few months. When a job sits atop the food chain for so long, it gets hard to take any of their complaints seriously.

It's like listening to a rich white woman complain about how hard her life is.

i'm not complaining. I agree with you for the longest time SAM was ontop of the foodchain, then abyssea came and well, other jobs prevail with their crit hits WS's and the use of RR atma. Everything runs a cycle in this game. goes something like this

X job is overpowered because of Y > something happens > now XX job is overpowered because of YY > etc.

Doesn't even really bother me that the set bonus on af3 is zanshin, do i think / wish it was something different, yes, do i cry ever night that it aint, no. Do i think zanshin is stupid, yes, do i think ikishoten merits are worth it for MY SAM, no, etc. MY opinions on SAM. I'm i complaining about anything no, simply stating my opinion on the matters. There's a difference in stating an opinion and complaining.

[wintermute]

Then lets throw out this, lets say you are using a different GK we can use masamune if you want and your getting those zanshin attacks without zanshin merits, and you do have those ikishoten merits and are getting that extra tp from zanshinrounds. Is it feasable to always drop your tp as soon as you get 100% tp? If you want to end up dead and then sit in the back doing nothing go ahead then you're even losing out on Dot even more.

So, in this statement you're pretty much saying that Ikishoten is effective at building TP. Ok. What are we arguing about then? That's what a Samurai is supposed to do: build TP quickly. That's why they have Store TP traits and Meditate. Then you go on to imply that getting TP faster is bad because you'll pull more hate. Wut? So all those discussions and debates about certain gear and getting the fastest TP build possible are worthless? You want to get LESS TP in MORE TIME now? What is this? Bizzaro world?

[Riko]

Instead of arguing amongst yourselves about what merits you should have or not, you should be looking at possible alternatives to changing this job ability based on its meaning.

This description is taken from Wikipedia:

Zanshin
In the context of kendō, zanshin is the continued state of spirit, mental alertness and physical readiness to meet the situation (such as an opposing attack) that must be maintained when one returns to kamae after attacking. It is one of the essential elements that define a good attack.

In-game this could be changed to simply be an increase in the rate of parrying and/or evading an attack directed at you, and then attacking immediately after. Since parry is an A+ skill for Samurai and evasion skill is decent, I think this would fit in well as an alternative to what we have currently. I'd rather have something along the lines of this than having to miss my target, which I rarely do these days. I'd rather they miss me and pay for it.

[Superchicken]

never said it was effective at building tp, you fail to see where i have mentioned about the whole capped accuracy thing and how have a very low chance at missing an attack and then on that miss having zanshin activate.

Its not about building gear sets to get tp faster its about attacker faster and speeding up your DoT. Yes this will translate into also getting tp faster but just cause you have the TP to WS doesn't mean you should WS as soon as you get for things such as pulling hate off your tank when its not a good idea to do it because you will end up dead when the mob turns to you and bust your ass, etc. But if your hasted out you can deal more attacks and DoT to help kill the mob and let your tank tank it vs you spamming WS and pulling hate and becoming the tank when its not senseable for you to be tanking. Yes attacking faster gives the mob more tp faster but at least the mobs spamming his tp moves on the tank and not you. Yes i know some mobs use aoe tp moves, so then maybe the situation calls for you to not be in there dealing dmg and instead tping up on something else to dump your tp on, again in the long run tping up in haste gonna get you tp faster than banking on zanshin effects and ikishoten to get you to that tp. You're not seeing the whole acc thing here. If you have capped accuracy the chance of you hittin on your first attack is very very much higher than missing and getting a zanshin attack and getting your tp bonus from ikishoten. If your accuraccy is at 95% your most likely gonna not miss so zanshin not even gonna play a factor, and it would be better to attack faster.

and yes things like melee burns where your just burning through mobs to farm exp, cruor, w/e, of course you want to be tpign as fast as possible and when your capped on accuracy a haste set is gonna work out better. If you want to merit Ikishoten for your tp bonus so that if you were using a nana sword (which i doubt and if you are your gimping your dmg even worse) (lets remeber DoT here). you get your tp bonus on that so called 5% time you miss your initial first attack of the attack round go for it, but if you can't see where using something like a nana GK at lvl 90 effects your overall DoT especially in your WS damage well ><.

The point here is a lvl 90 sam inside abyssea should be capped on ACC if not should extremely close.

take everything out of the picture gear etc and lets go back to my statement about everything is situational to help clear the point.

SAM A and SAM B

SAM A has ikishoten SAM B doesn't

THey are both at their abyssea event. The tanks tanking the sams are in there DDing. both are in the same gear. Both build 100 tp from initial attack where neither of them missed cause they are both capped on accuracy. Did the ikishoten pay off? No, but wait here comes that hellish TP move from the NM, and oh crap our blm can't stun it cause he's timer down, Blade: Bash pow.

Next scenario. same NM w/e.

SAM A and SAM B are attacking at the same speed round for round both at X tp. SAM A misses and happens to gets a zanshin attack cause he has lvl 72 dmg 77 nana gk, and this pushes him to 100 tp or over cause he has ikishoten and gets his tp bonus. He WS's, oh yuck that was some crap dmg from my 77 dmg GK, 2 attack rounds later SAM B gets his 100 tp and POW with his much much higher base dmg GK destroys SAM A's WS dmg.

Lets add to this scenario. SAM A reaches 100 tp + before SAM B because of his zanshin attack and ikishoten bonus but does taht means its a good time to dump that tp as soon as he got it?

Now the argument you could make here is put SAM A and B with the same GK and then apply the nature of damage depends on TP of sam weaponskills. Yes SAM A may have slightly a bit more TP than SAM B because they then got lucky and zanshin activated on miss (cause now they aren't getting 100% activation cause we took away the nana gk) and because SAM got lucky on zanshin proc and got his ikishoten bonus SAM A now has 140 TP vs sam B's 100 and they both WS sure gear for gear etc SAM A gonna get a little more dmg, but wait before SAM A got to WS NM just did that nasty move and the blm stun was done and because SAM A had ikishoten and said i'm not even gonna put a single merit in blade bash, the group just wiped and lost claim and the NM depopped and now we gotta go refarm our KI's.

Everything is situational, everyone merits to what suits them. But when I think about it ikishoten is not worth it for me. Sure if the game was all about drop ws as soon as youget 100 tp everytime you get it then maybe ikishoten would become somewhat useful to me but even then the rare chance that i'm gonna miss and get my zanshin attack its still not worth it over other meritables imo.

You keep argueing me about this but i'm not gonna change my mind, but i will keep offering you my stance on ikishoten and zanshin and using a nana GK at lvl 90 etc. I know i'm not gonna change your mind about blade bash as i'm not trying to, i'm simply giving you support as to why i dont think ikishoten is worth it for ME and why I'd rather put my merits in Blade Bash, SHikikoyo (really i didnt want to do this at all but i did it for my abyssea groups benefit), and overwhelm.