Sam atmas

[Invasion]

I'm sorry but I disagree with using VV and Atheling over GC and Tactical, the main thing your choices have is 35atk during TP, which is only slightly beneficial for aftermath proc. Going from 15>23% DA nets you just under 6% due to the diminishing returns. RR/Apoc/A&O I can agree with somewhat, I did overlook that atma.

The fact I carry less DA is why I include Atheling Mantle in my WS set, As I seemingly have 8% less DA than what you have, the gains from 3% DA from the mantle outweigh 5STR, berserk or not.

[Ryozen]

No, staying with VV and using Atheling is 50 STR, 72.5 ATT, and 7% Double Attack.

[ericnuke]

I'm still playing around with my Masamune but so far I like...
Apoc: rr3, triple attack (for aftermath)
VV: regain, str+, double attack (again for aftermath)
RR: dex+, crit+ (again aftermath)
From what I've seen so far Masamune does pretty good ws's 1k up to 4k (depending on mob I'm sure can be more) but my biggest gain I see is keeping the aftermath on and critting like a mad man for 800-1k and see a double attack or triple attack kick in. I'm sure there are better atmas for other situations, but these 3 are most common for my Masamune atm.

[hiko]

playing around with VV/apoc/A&O and demonry ring (increase TA dmg)

[scaevola]

So even if you're holding back to avoid ruby or ganking,

This is really more a general point than SAM-related per se, but you shouldn't generally be trying to avoid ruby in really any situation I can think of.

That said, I'm kind of interested in seeing a TP Bonus Keito/RR/Apoc/Gales build with Jinpu, because from what I've seen it's just behind Y/G/K in Abyssea even without Gales; an easy way to build amber single-target is not the worst niche for SAM to fill in Abyssea.

[hiko]

This is really more a general point than SAM-related per se, but you shouldn't generally be trying to avoid ruby in really any situation I can think of.

That said, I'm kind of interested in seeing a TP Bonus Keito/RR/Apoc/Gales build with Jinpu, because from what I've seen it's just behind Y/G/K in Abyssea even without Gales; an easy way to build amber single-target is not the worst niche for SAM to fill in Abyssea.

jinpu is weird, it's an hybrid WS, doesn't do constant dmg like other ele WS, can fully miss, can do anything from 100 to >3k (with 0 buff for magic)

[scaevola]

It's an ele WS that behaves like a physical WS but does wind damage and is thus modified by Gales. What's not to like?

The biggest problem with amber farming is not that elemental weapon skills are weak; it's that they are weak, difficult to build up without investing atmas and thus limiting the rest of your damage, and most of all require you to land kills with them when they scarcely do more damage than your regular attacks.

Aeolian Edge is curently very popular for amber farming and people assume this is entirely because it's AoE, but the cleave aspect of it would not be enough to recommend a WS that does scarcely 500 damage from jobs that crit regular swings for 250 every half-second or less. The real benefit of Aeolian Edge is that it allows you to disengage when a mob is at 1-3% health and build TP on something else, killing it with the AoE. This prevents accidental death by melee, which is a huge, unavoidable problem for Aeolian and amber farming in general unless you're forgoing crit atma to give yourself more of a "kill window" for Aeolian. And if you do that, well, you're immediately giving up the benefit of any amber accuracy you've gained by tanking your kill speed.

Jinpu, however, is quite strong, and becomes stronger with all the atmas you'd want to set anyway. It can easily get up to 2k damage with a conventional (if above-average) setup and thus enables a SAM to not only build amber quickly and reliably, but with a lot more flexibility than a THF or DNC "cleaving" with Aeolian. I've always wondered why it isn't considered more of a selling point for SAM.

[Ryozen]

Problem with SAM is what to do once you've got lights capped.

Limited AoE farming capability, limited red !! capability, limited blue !! capability, and zero yellow !! capability.

There are much better options for DD-slots in Abyssea groups.

[scaevola]

SAM can solo trash just fine, and being able to cap amber solo in relatively short order opens up the best farming in the game, not to mention KI pop sets you can easily pawn off to Random Ninja Working on Kannagi #425637146 for any drops you might want.

Sobek pop set in maybe two hours tops, hand it to a NIN in the area in return for whatever +2 drops I want (why would he need them?), make 150k in vendor trash in the process as well as maybe 30k? cruor from making a cruor chain, all done alone. I do it all the time on DNC, which is of course a better soloer on SAM but it only matters for the T1s, in which case you just switch to a job that can do it.

[Ryozen]

I like how you argued with me, and then used the last line to take it all back and agree with me instead.