Hello I'm brand new to this game and really want to build a strong samurai. As I'm sure you can imagine the waves of confusion are crashing against me on a daily basis.

My noobish samurai questions are:

What level should I stop to gear up? Do I just powerlevel to 99 in abyssea then work on skills after?

And why am I using great katana over polearm? First I give up 5 hit pentathrust then 4 hit 100% str mod starcaller. All for the sake of a bunch of 2 hitting katana skills? What am I missing?