Zanshin? why?

[brayen]

I want to stress how disappointed i am at the recent development given to SAM. the whole development has revolved around improving a trait that relies on missing. It is so wrong and counter productive. What melee would want a trait that promotes missing? that is like promoting being bad, and our Emperian armor is littered with this useless stuff.

It is not so much that sam requires a ton of improvements (abyssea nature with it's improvements to crit hit WS is the only thing hurting the job at the moment) but that was just a disgraceful low blow to sam.

[NotAzure]

The issue lies in the Samurai's place in FFXI's job structure. In my opinion, it seems that SE is having difficulty in developing or determining just how to improve SAM at a pace similar to other jobs without losing what makes it essentially Samurai.

They're attempting, I think, to improve the job's capability in its DD role without losing its flavor. This also explains the addition of another Demon oriented debuff. The rub is that keeping flavor is, in this case, detracting from our ability to function in our party role.

Alternatively, just get a Nanatsusaya.

[Superchicken]

Alternatively, just get a Nanatsusaya.

uh why. thats like telling a galka to level blm and play it as his main role

[NotAzure]

uh why. thats like telling a galka to level blm and play it as his main role

Are you asserting that Galkan BLM are anything but the absolute kings of their role?

[Superchicken]

i'm making a simple statement you suggesting a lvl 72 GK with base dmg of 77 for a level 90 sam. Which doesnt compare to the GKs that are out there appropriate for a lvl 90 sam. The comparison with a galka blm would be to something like a taru.

a lvl 72 GK will not compare to a higher level GK just like a galka blm wont compare to a taru blm. The higher GK gonna out perform the lvl 72 one just like a taru blm gonna out perform the galka

[brayen]

honestly they started off on the right foot with making improvements to skillchains at first but it seems they abandon this idea already before addressing the very basic resist or timing that makes skillchain rarely useful. honestly hope they think of something more acceptable in the coming updates, as if trend continues they might as well turn our resist blind to blind +100 so we can make use of all that "great" zanshin buff

[NotAzure]

i'm making a simple statement you suggesting a lvl 72 GK with base dmg of 77 for a level 90 sam. Which doesnt compare to the GKs that are out there appropriate for a lvl 90 sam. The comparison with a galka blm would be to something like a taru.

a lvl 72 GK will not compare to a higher level GK just like a galka blm wont compare to a taru blm. The higher GK gonna out perform the lvl 72 one just like a taru blm gonna out perform the galka

Pfft. That's crazy talk.

[NotAzure]

honestly they started off on the right foot with making improvements to skillchains at first but it seems they abandon this idea already before addressing the very basic resist or timing that makes skillchain rarely useful. honestly hope they think of something more acceptable in the coming updates, as if trend continues they might as well turn our resist blind to blind +100 so we can make use of all that "great" zanshin buff

True, yeah.
Doesn't it strike you odd that SAM gets but a single tier of Skill Chain Bonus when Dancer gets 4? I suppose Sengikori is there to make up the difference, but still...

Speaking of Sengikori, wouldn't it make sense to have merits spent lowering Meditate's recast to impact Sengikori as well? It seems fairly evident to me that they're meant to be used in tandem.

[Rambus]

True, yeah.
Doesn't it strike you odd that SAM gets but a single tier of Skill Chain Bonus when Dancer gets 4? I suppose Sengikori is there to make up the difference, but still...

Speaking of Sengikori, wouldn't it make sense to have merits spent lowering Meditate's recast to impact Sengikori as well? It seems fairly evident to me that they're meant to be used in tandem.

I would think it would make more sence to have sekkanoki and sengikori at the same recast

[Superchicken]

Pfft. That's crazy talk.

i know shame on me, because a lvl 72 GK with base dmg of 77 is such a good choice in weaponry.

ANd i hope you not serious in thinking a galka blm could hang with a taru.

Put them in the same gear same merits etc who's gonna win?

[Rambus]

i know shame on me, because a lvl 72 GK with base dmg of 77 is such a good choice in weaponry.

ANd i hope you not serious in thinking a galka blm could hang with a taru.

Put them in the same gear same merits etc who's gonna win?

the one that knows how to use thier gear, knows when to rest and hold back, but ya your expecting the answer to be taru if all things even, and thats how it should be.

I am confused about the level 72 weapon however, are you talking about the PW GKT that has Zanshin on it? I herd of people playing around with Zanshin setups because of it but like OP is pointing out gearing to miss is pretty fail

[Rawr]

just make zanshin work on ws. problem solved!

[Mirage]

I'm pretty sure it does. How else would you be able to return 1 TP on a single-hit WS without DA?

[hiko]

because if you're not gimp you have at least brutal?

[Invasion]

1TP return from your WS means that you missed your main WS but the Double Attack kicked in.

[Superchicken]

the one that knows how to use thier gear, knows when to rest and hold back, but ya your expecting the answer to be taru if all things even, and thats how it should be.

I am confused about the level 72 weapon however, are you talking about the PW GKT that has Zanshin on it? I herd of people playing around with Zanshin setups because of it but like OP is pointing out gearing to miss is pretty fail

this is why i said same gear. Same gear of course the taru is gonna win for several reasons, one being higher INT 2 being more MP

[GERM]

i know shame on me, because a lvl 72 GK with base dmg of 77 is such a good choice in weaponry.

ANd i hope you not serious in thinking a galka blm could hang with a taru.

Put them in the same gear same merits etc who's gonna win?

This is a crap statement btw.. You put a taru up against a galka there are a lot more factors in play then just INT and MP.. an enemy that would require min. of 3 nukes to kill would pwn a taru before it would a galka even with stoneskin tarus go down a lot quicker they are squshy.. but anyway this thread kinda got away from topic.. enfeebling and enhancing and dark skills are all the same which is where a taru would get a little more survivability but you basic nuke sleep method works just as well with a galka as it does a taru.. maybe you should think a little more like taru vs galka war both have same enmity generation yet a taru war still gets pwned by a mob as quick as a taru blm .. little squishy things.. *poke poke* oh look it giggles

Zanshin.. WTF are you thinking SqEnix.. I understand you want to help out the other jobs by just gimping a SAM at the later levels but seriously? why not enhance meditate or even enchance 3rd eye and giving it the ability to absorb magic based attacks and not wear off in 5 secs when facing an IT when you need it the most..

[wintermute]

uh why. thats like telling a galka to level blm and play it as his main role


How is that anything like the example you just gave?

I don't see what's wrong with getting a Nanatsusaya and fully meriting Ikishoten. You could have a -accuracy set for when you're trying to TP, and switch sets when doing Weaponskills. Alternatively, if you wore your entire AF3 +2 with as much -acc gear you could find, then you'd be procing Zanshin all the time, occasionally hitting for twice the amount you would normal hit (with Set: Augments Zanshin), and getting buttloads of TP (it would be possible to get 100% TP in four hits if Zanshin proc'd ATLEAST once with +store TP gear and merits in Ikishoten).

I dunno how bad that sounds. I've been thinking it over and have been a little weary of putting merits into Ikishoten on my 90SAM becasue of all the people on the internet bashing it. Can someone explain to me just how Ikishoten isn't worth it? I mean, look at your other options: Blade Bash and Shikikoyo.

[Superchicken]

This is a crap statement btw.. You put a taru up against a galka there are a lot more factors in play then just INT and MP.. an enemy that would require min. of 3 nukes to kill would pwn a taru before it would a galka even with stoneskin tarus go down a lot quicker they are squshy.. but anyway this thread kinda got away from topic.. enfeebling and enhancing and dark skills are all the same which is where a taru would get a little more survivability but you basic nuke sleep method works just as well with a galka as it does a taru.. maybe you should think a little more like taru vs galka war both have same enmity generation yet a taru war still gets pwned by a mob as quick as a taru blm .. little squishy things.. *poke poke* oh look it giggles

Zanshin.. WTF are you thinking SqEnix.. I understand you want to help out the other jobs by just gimping a SAM at the later levels but seriously? why not enhance meditate or even enchance 3rd eye and giving it the ability to absorb magic based attacks and not wear off in 5 secs when facing an IT when you need it the most..

you are simply adding more to the equation thats not in point for the point being made but i'll spell it out for you so its easier to understand

Why would you ever suggest a lvl 72 GK with dmg 77 to a lvl 90 sam?

the taru and galka comparison is not a survive a fight that a mobs gonna be hitting aspect. The point was in dmg and dmg only. And when you have a taru blm vs a galka blm in the same gear nuke for nuke the galka will not nuke harder than a taru. "But what if the taru got a resist, blah blah" Stop trying to add in all the ifs this if that and see the point here.

So nuke for nuke a galka blm would never beat a taru blm. And WS to WS a lvl 72 GK with 77 base dmg would never mathmatically beat any GK that a lvl 90 sam has avaiable to them at that lvl. Come on GKs are reaching base dmg of well over 100 (114 for a lvl 90 masa) and even the non empy / relic gks are over 100 dmg, so why would you ever use the Nana GK. "well of sure it could beat another GK if that person missed their WS and the lvl 72 GK person didn't, blah blah blah" Stop adding in other factors and see the point for the point thats being made.

I'm sorry you didn't see the comparison i was making but hopefully you understand now.

But i'll go even further to make it more easy to understand.

Suggesting a lvl 72 GK to 90 SAM is like suggesting a Byakko's axe/ perdu GA / whatever GA when the cap was 75 to a warrior over something like a perdu voulge at worst, but things like a widowmaker, elephas axe or any other GA that is lvl 90 requirement to use or slightly lower.

[Mirage]

1TP return from your WS means that you missed your main WS but the Double Attack kicked in.


because if you're not gimp you have at least brutal?

It is quite possible to do a single-hit WS before you get access to brutal, and without using war as subjob. For example in a situation where you're trying to test whether or not zanshin can proc on WS.

[Crysten]

How is that anything like the example you just gave?

I don't see what's wrong with getting a Nanatsusaya and fully meriting Ikishoten. You could have a -accuracy set for when you're trying to TP, and switch sets when doing Weaponskills. Alternatively, if you wore your entire AF3 +2 with as much -acc gear you could find, then you'd be procing Zanshin all the time, occasionally hitting for twice the amount you would normal hit (with Set: Augments Zanshin), and getting buttloads of TP (it would be possible to get 100% TP in four hits if Zanshin proc'd ATLEAST once with +store TP gear and merits in Ikishoten).

I dunno how bad that sounds. I've been thinking it over and have been a little weary of putting merits into Ikishoten on my 90SAM becasue of all the people on the internet bashing it. Can someone explain to me just how Ikishoten isn't worth it? I mean, look at your other options: Blade Bash and Shikikoyo.

...you're building a set reliant on missing. I'll let you ponder just how stupid that is. Your Zanshins miss too, btw.

Blade Bash is a far, far, far more useful merit ability, honestly.

[Mirage]

The pros with zanshin is that while non-zanshin jobs cap at 95% accuracy, a zanshin user can get in practice around 97.5% hit rate, making for a more stable TP gain.

Every of those 5% misses you get will have a 50ish percent chance of hitting again, with 95% accuracy. (assuming lv75+ samurai without any zanshin-augmenting gear)

But of course, it is not something to sacrifice haste, DA/TA, acc or attack for, unless you know you're at 95% hit rate, or the gear haste cap, then you can maybe sacrifice those you're at the cap of.

[wintermute]

...you're building a set reliant on missing. I'll let you ponder just how stupid that is. Your Zanshins miss too, btw.

Blade Bash is a far, far, far more useful merit ability, honestly.

"Building a set reliant on missing" sounds bad just by looking at it, and yes... Zanshin can miss too, but Zanshin procs have a +35 Accuracy Bonus. And Blade Bash isn't useful. If you're soloing something you're /DNC and you can use some of your TP that you're getting out the ass on Hobaku's, and if you don't want to waste TP then you can always use Violent Flourish. And in parties or whatever that are fighting enemies that need to be stunned at certain points, well... I've rarely been in party that relies on the Samurai to stun things. That's why we have PLD/DRK/BLU.

[Superchicken]

"Building a set reliant on missing" sounds bad just by looking at it, and yes... Zanshin can miss too, but Zanshin procs have a +35 Accuracy Bonus. And Blade Bash isn't useful. If you're soloing something you're /DNC and you can use some of your TP that you're getting out the ass on Hobaku's, and if you don't want to waste TP then you can always use Violent Flourish. And in parties or whatever that are fighting enemies that need to be stunned at certain points, well... I've rarely been in party that relies on the Samurai to stun things. That's why we have PLD/DRK/BLU.

you are basing blade bash usefulness on parties? On big NM fights that do moves that need to stunned blade bash is very useful, you dont always have plentiful amount of stunners in your pt to cover a good stun rotation and we all know that BLU's headbutt stun doesnt stun all the time and less more than it does on higher end NM's. And the accuracy of violent flourish is not 100% with /dnc and /dnc in in other situation other than being solo on sam is >< imo. And using your TP to stun with Hobaku vs dumping your TP into fudo,gekko,kasha, self scing etc is more useful in many situations. Now i can tell you when using hobaku was nice was during salvage during the 75 cap days to stun the Poroggo nm's frog chorus move. To me meritting zanshin and building your SAM around missing enough to where zanshin would even be a factor and worthwhile ( i dont think its worthwhile at all) hurts your SAM more than it helps if you build your gear and merits to not include zanshin.

i think you'll get better use out of your merits when you put them into meditate recast, store tp, blade bash, shikikoyo (some will say no here cause they dont like to give out the TP but hey in abyssea when the whm's needs some TP for that hexa strike proc, it comes in handy) and overwhelm.

[wintermute]

you are basing blade bash usefulness on parties? On big NM fights that do moves that need to stunned blade bash is very useful, you dont always have plentiful amount of stunners in your pt to cover a good stun rotation and we all know that BLU's headbutt stun doesnt stun all the time and less more than it does on higher end NM's. And the accuracy of violent flourish is not 100% with /dnc and /dnc in in other situation other than being solo on sam is >< imo. And using your TP to stun with Hobaku vs dumping your TP into fudo,gekko,kasha, self scing etc is more useful in many situations. Now i can tell you when using hobaku was nice was during salvage during the 75 cap days to stun the Poroggo nm's frog chorus move. To me meritting zanshin and building your SAM around missing enough to where zanshin would even be a factor and worthwhile ( i dont think its worthwhile at all) hurts your SAM more than it helps if you build your gear and merits to not include zanshin.

i think you'll get better use out of your merits when you put them into meditate recast, store tp, blade bash, shikikoyo (some will say no here cause they dont like to give out the TP but hey in abyssea when the whm's needs some TP for that hexa strike proc, it comes in handy) and overwhelm.

I disagree with the last two merits you mentioned, still. You bash me for basing Blade Bash's usefulness on party situations (but I list solo situations too) and then you go on to tell me why Blade Bash is good based on a party situation vs NMs. Blade Bash is something you could have, I guess, it wouldn't hurt... but if your group knows wtf they're doing then they'll know what to do before going up against a certain NM. If I was in a group and the leader said "hey, Samurai. you're on stun duty with Blade Bash", I would scoff and drop party. But, I've never had anyone put me on stun duty for any reason, and I've never heard of it happening ever, and I doubt it does. If your group knows what it's getting into then they'll have a strategy. Which means: NM spams harmful TP moves? we need a legit stunner, perhaps RDM/DRK. or even RDM/BLM. Should I invite the Samurai for stuns instead of the Red Mage subbing Dark Knight when we already have filled our quota on DD? Hell no. And the only thing I have to say about your claim that it's useful while soloing is... 5 minute recast when fully merited. Lol. no thanks.

I don't understand why everyone hates on Zanshin. It's there for a reason, and obviously most of the playerbase is not understanding this and still striving to put as much acc+ gear as possible on their Samurais when they could be ignoring that ACC gear for anything else and meriting Ikishoten for 34%TP a swing. Instead, they're spending their merits on Blade Bash. >_>

[Superchicken]

i never said blade bash was useful during soloing, if you took it that way you misread. I also said that using /dnc is only really applicable or for me, i'd only use when soloing things like campaign battle so i could keep myself alive with waltz and what not, for me if i was going to go solo something i'd be on a different job as SAM is not my only job. You were using violent flourish as your stun option and for soloing stuff that you could solo on SAM it would probably work in terms of your stun accuracy, but on higher NM's where you in a group your more likely to miss that stun with violent flourish, and yes in a group setting where stun is required you typically have your blms, drks, rdm/blm, rdm/drk there to stun it but things happen like stun timers get tangleed up, or you have two stunners and they both stun at the same time now neither of them will be ready for the next stun, so that blade bash would come in handy for the next stun required, and most likely if you are in a group situation on SAM you wont be there /dnc. And i'm not bashing you for soloing on SAM either i'm simply stating that for me i have better jobs to go solo stuff with than SAM, if you like soloing on sam, or sam is your only option, so be it, i'm saying you are right or wrong just applying my situation like you are applying yours.

Yes fully meritted it has a 5 minute recast but not meritted it all it has an infinite recast and those few times you needed it to save the day could have been worth the merit or two in blade bash vs zanshin.

Yes i talked about a situation that i was in alot with salvage was using hobaku as my stun on Poroggo frog nms. But i knew this was my role as the two sams for that zone knew they were always stunners for the frog nms and even used soborros for this reason when we got to those NM's as well. Hell, everyone that a had a stun WS was on stun duty even the mnk tank would use shoulder tackle if neither of the sams had tp ready for the next hobaku.

Now this is game where you are free to play and do what you want in it. That's whats good about it. This is a forum, people will state their opinions, doesn't mean you have to agree with it or go by what anyone says. People give their opinions and people take it for what they see it's worth. You may see zanshin as a good thing, others including myself will see it as useless merits for how we play the job. I find blade bash useful for those "OH #%$@#$% STUN" moments, you don't, ok, that's fine.

It is what it is, take if for what you want, by i was not trying to bash you (no pun intended) just throwing some ideas out there.

But i will give you some more stuff from MY experiences as sam and i'll go back to the 75 cap days before abyssea and the reign of the RAzed Ruin atma. SAM is was a major job in my jobs i played the most. So with this i had capped GK merits and Justice Torque for it, and the Byakko's pants, and the usukane gears, etc. Accuracy was never really an issue for me so i even ate meat foods over acc foods MAJORITY of the time. So yes i missed occassional attacks but not enough to see zanshin as worthwhile merit option for me because really you miss an attack round if yo udidnt have certain stuff zanshin activation rate was never 100% so you only had a a chance to have zanshin attack, so again that chance of zanshin occurring wasn't feasable enough to me. Now correct me if i'm wrong but the only thing that had 100% zanshin effect on activation was / is the nana GK from PW. Now i don't know about your server but my server never had any LS kill PW and the only Nana GK that my server ever saw was the one someone brought over to sell on a mule from the Apathy LS who was pretty much the only group around that was killing PW. So even further sacrificing gear spots that were used for haste to cap haste in order to fill with zanshin gear did not appeal to me either. I would much rather be hittign haste cap or as close to as it could then using gear for a zanshin build. Your overall DoT is gonna work out better when you are hittingthat haste cap or close to it than it would if you were rocking a zanshin build. This is can be shown in the thread where a person shows you the effect of haste and explains what it does over time vs not using haste gears. So again take my opinion as you will, but i was never bashing you for you stance on the matter being discussed, just simply applying my opinion to it and giving you reason for it.

And believe me i don't like having shikikoyo with even the one merit it has in it but i did it to help out the whm in abyssea for when the blue proc was hexa strike and the whm needed tp and wasnt feasable for the whm to go tp up on a mob.

/cheers

[wintermute]

i never said blade bash was useful during soloing, if you took it that way you misread. I also said that using /dnc is only really applicable or for me, i'd only use when soloing things like campaign battle so i could keep myself alive with waltz and what not, for me if i was going to go solo something i'd be on a different job as SAM is not my only job. You were using violent flourish as your stun option and for soloing stuff that you could solo on SAM it would probably work in terms of your stun accuracy, but on higher NM's where you in a group your more likely to miss that stun with violent flourish, and yes in a group setting where stun is required you typically have your blms, drks, rdm/blm, rdm/drk there to stun it but things happen like stun timers get tangleed up, or you have two stunners and they both stun at the same time now neither of them will be ready for the next stun, so that blade bash would come in handy for the next stun required, and most likely if you are in a group situation on SAM you wont be there /dnc. And i'm not bashing you for soloing on SAM either i'm simply stating that for me i have better jobs to go solo stuff with than SAM, if you like soloing on sam, or sam is your only option, so be it, i'm saying you are right or wrong just applying my situation like you are applying yours.

Yes fully meritted it has a 5 minute recast but not meritted it all it has an infinite recast and those few times you needed it to save the day could have been worth the merit or two in blade bash vs zanshin.

Yes i talked about a situation that i was in alot with salvage was using hobaku as my stun on Poroggo frog nms. But i knew this was my role as the two sams for that zone knew they were always stunners for the frog nms and even used soborros for this reason when we got to those NM's as well. Hell, everyone that a had a stun WS was on stun duty even the mnk tank would use shoulder tackle if neither of the sams had tp ready for the next hobaku.

Now this is game where you are free to play and do what you want in it. That's whats good about it. This is a forum, people will state their opinions, doesn't mean you have to agree with it or go by what anyone says. People give their opinions and people take it for what they see it's worth. You may see zanshin as a good thing, others including myself will see it as useless merits for how we play the job. I find blade bash useful for those "OH #%$@#$% STUN" moments, you don't, ok, that's fine.

It is what it is, take if for what you want, by i was not trying to bash you (no pun intended) just throwing some ideas out there.

But i will give you some more stuff from MY experiences as sam and i'll go back to the 75 cap days before abyssea and the reign of the RAzed Ruin atma. SAM is was a major job in my jobs i played the most. So with this i had capped GK merits and Justice Torque for it, and the Byakko's pants, and the usukane gears, etc. Accuracy was never really an issue for me so i even ate meat foods over acc foods MAJORITY of the time. So yes i missed occassional attacks but not enough to see zanshin as worthwhile merit option for me because really you miss an attack round if yo udidnt have certain stuff zanshin activation rate was never 100% so you only had a a chance to have zanshin attack, so again that chance of zanshin occurring wasn't feasable enough to me. Now correct me if i'm wrong but the only thing that had 100% zanshin effect on activation was / is the nana GK from PW. Now i don't know about your server but my server never had any LS kill PW and the only Nana GK that my server ever saw was the one someone brought over to sell on a mule from the Apathy LS who was pretty much the only group around that was killing PW. So even further sacrificing gear spots that were used for haste to cap haste in order to fill with zanshin gear did not appeal to me either. I would much rather be hittign haste cap or as close to as it could then using gear for a zanshin build. Your overall DoT is gonna work out better when you are hittingthat haste cap or close to it than it would if you were rocking a zanshin build. This is can be shown in the thread where a person shows you the effect of haste and explains what it does over time vs not using haste gears. So again take my opinion as you will, but i was never bashing you for you stance on the matter being discussed, just simply applying my opinion to it and giving you reason for it.

And believe me i don't like having shikikoyo with even the one merit it has in it but i did it to help out the whm in abyssea for when the blue proc was hexa strike and the whm needed tp and wasnt feasable for the whm to go tp up on a mob.

/cheers

I know what haste does and you don't have to lecture me on how internet forums work. I've been around enough forums, believe me. xD

You say you don't solo things on Samurai because you have jobs that can solo things better than Samurai. Ok, I'm going to apply your same logic here and go ahead and ask: then why did you merit Blade Bash if there are other jobs that can stun better than Samurai? So you can get your one stun off every 5 minutes on an NM that has a huge regain status effect and that your party is feeding TP to? If anything, you just delayed it's deadly TP move by a few seconds, because the NM will use it again, and most of the really dangerous NMs are the ones that spam a deadly TP move. When, you could have skipped Blade Bash entirely and not wasted 5 merit points, and put your full 10 points for that category into Overwhelm and Ikishoten. Maybe you've forgotten, but you're a DD.

[Superchicken]

um because the job i was doing abyssea as was SAM not as BLM, or RDM/blm, or RDM/DRK, or DNC. the abyssea group i ran with was run on as few members as needed. We didnt go running through abyssea with full alliances like most did when abyssea first came about, we always ran with small numbers typically 7-8. So mostly our one BLM was enough stun most of the time, but guess what, there's times when he's stun was done and he needed me cover the next stun of say Bukhis doom move or w/e move that we wanted to stun. And even all i'm doing is delaying his tp move its enough delay that the blm has his stun timer ready to stun the next time. And who says in my group that all the dd's are always in there feeding tp to an NM? Your assuming things here. Sometimes its just the tank (mnk) in there dding and the dd's are building tp on other mobs and running in to dump TP only. And i dont have 5 merits in bash anyway and definitely not 5 in Ikishoten but seems like you are bashing me here now for not having Ikishoten merits. If you want to know my group 2 merits i'll tell you, Overwhelm 5, bash 4, shikikoyo 1. You dont like those i'm sure, so go ahead tell me their worthless, wont bother me, but again like a stated this is a game where people can do what they want that suits their play style and their needs of what they need or want to do with a certain job. I never told you how to merit your sam simply stated why i would never base my SAM around zanshin and then offered MY OPINION on why i wouldnt and what i did / others could if they wanted to.

If zanshin is what you want and ikishoten go for it, your playing your SAM not me. This whole matter is just like RDM for example. Theres RDM's who will say max your bio III and dia III others will say Para II and Slow II others will say dont matter bio III or dia III at all unless you are gonna max them cause they aint worth it otherwise.

You are getting all hostile saying i said you should merit your SAM like i did, when i never said that, i gave my opinion on zanshin and why i wouldnt merit it, you don't like it ok, you don't have to. You think my merits are stupid, thats fine, your opinion. I at least told you why I (me, myself,) didn't merit zanshin, why i dont think its useful, what i think is more useful and why, etc. Theres other SAMs who will say they dont think zanshin is worth it either, and theres those who will say why it is worth it why blade bash is pointless and why shikikoyo is pointless and why this sucks and that is better and blah blah. I tailor my SAM to what i need it to do for what i use my SAM for, you tailor your SAM for your needs, etc. and thats pretty much it. I at least said why i did my SAM like i did and why i don't think zanshin is worth it and why I would never base my merits around it either.


EDIT:

I'll even add this, at one point and for a long time i had Ikishoten merits 4 to be exact and after a long period of time with them never saw them to be that worthwhile, so i dumped them and put them in blade bash instead which was more useful to ME and my group i play with for what WE did in OUR events and events where i was on SAM vs another one of my jobs

[wintermute]

um because the job i was doing abyssea as was SAM not as BLM, or RDM/blm, or RDM/DRK, or DNC. the abyssea group i ran with was run on as few members as needed. We didnt go running through abyssea with full alliances like most did when abyssea first came about, we always ran with small numbers typically 7-8. So mostly our one BLM was enough stun most of the time, but guess what, there's times when he's stun was done and he needed me cover the next stun of say Bukhis doom move or w/e move that we wanted to stun. And even all i'm doing is delaying his tp move its enough delay that the blm has his stun timer ready to stun the next time. And who says in my group that all the dd's are always in there feeding tp to an NM? Your assuming things here. Sometimes its just the tank (mnk) in there dding and the dd's are building tp on other mobs and running in to dump TP only. And i dont have 5 merits in bash anyway and definitely not 5 in Ikishoten but seems like you are bashing me here now for not having Ikishoten merits. If you want to know my group 2 merits i'll tell you, Overwhelm 5, bash 4, shikikoyo 1. You dont like those i'm sure, so go ahead tell me their worthless, wont bother me, but again like a stated this is a game where people can do what they want that suits their play style and their needs of what they need or want to do with a certain job. I never told you how to merit your sam simply stated why i would never base my SAM around zanshin and then offered MY OPINION on why i wouldnt and what i did / others could if they wanted to.

If zanshin is what you want and ikishoten go for it, your playing your SAM not me. This whole matter is just like RDM for example. Theres RDM's who will say max your bio III and dia III others will say Para II and Slow II others will say dont matter bio III or dia III at all unless you are gonna max them cause they aint worth it otherwise.

You are getting all hostile saying i said you should merit your SAM like i did, when i never said that, i gave my opinion on zanshin and why i wouldnt merit it, you don't like it ok, you don't have to. You think my merits are stupid, thats fine, your opinion. I at least told you why I (me, myself,) didn't merit zanshin, why i dont think its useful, what i think is more useful and why, etc. Theres other SAMs who will say they dont think zanshin is worth it either, and theres those who will say why it is worth it why blade bash is pointless and why shikikoyo is pointless and why this sucks and that is better and blah blah. I tailor my SAM to what i need it to do for what i use my SAM for, you tailor your SAM for your needs, etc. and thats pretty much it. I at least said why i did my SAM like i did and why i don't think zanshin is worth it and why I would never base my merits around it either.

Who said merit Zanshin? I certainly didn't.

If you're going to take the position that it's a game that you can play whatever way you want then nothing else can be said about anything in the game. No discussions on what's better or worse or anything like that. I don't care what you put your merits into. I'm just claiming that Meditate and Store TP in the first category and Overwhelm and Ikishoten in the second is better than Meditate/Store TP and Overwhelm/Skikikoyo/Blade Bash.

[Superchicken]

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.


I'm just claiming that Meditate and Store TP in the first category and Overwhelm and Ikishoten in the second is better than Meditate/Store TP and Overwhelm/Skikikoyo/Blade Bash.

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.

[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.

[Superchicken]

I want to stress how disappointed i am at the recent development given to SAM. the whole development has revolved around improving a trait that relies on missing. It is so wrong and counter productive. What melee would want a trait that promotes missing? that is like promoting being bad, and our Emperian armor is littered with this useless stuff.

It is not so much that sam requires a ton of improvements (abyssea nature with it's improvements to crit hit WS is the only thing hurting the job at the moment) but that was just a disgraceful low blow to sam.

but lets go back to the OP.

I too i'm disappointed around improving a trait that relies on missing because with the current state of the game (abyssea and RR atma and being able to cap accuracy so easily) where missing is very few. I'm i complaining about it the set bonus on af3 of zanshin no, do i think it could have been something different yes. Can i deal with it, yes, but imo for the very few times zanshin comes into play having the set bonus evolve around it was meh for ME, but maybe not for others. Now i can go into my opinion about the stats placed on SAM af3 hands as well but its really irelevant to the OP.

[Zenpachi]

your still forgetting about the whole set bonus thing, if your zanshin is going off 100% of the time and you have full af3 (which isnt nice to tp in full af3) you'll have 25% chance of doing double damage zanshins which are sexy, ive done one with my masamune for 1966, but superchicken you have this suggestion all wrong wintermute was just trying to toss out ideas on how to turn zanshin into a useful situation, using Nanatsusaya would be the best way to take advantage of the Af3 set bonus to get some awesome numbers, but you would have to sacrifice ws damage, but the problem that most sams have today is using their store tp, i see tons of people stuck at 6 hit builds because they want that extra 1 or 2% haste when they could just toss on some extra stp and get a 5 hit build, hell with Kikugosaku you can have a 4 hit build (off topic but needed to be said) but zanshin isnt a complete waste it can activate on stoneskin and blink and i know everyone gets a kick endlessly swinging at mobs that perfect dodge,

WHEN SE GIVES YOU LEMONS, JUST MAKE LEMONADE AND STFU

[johnblk73]

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

lol Just thinking about meriting Ikishoten makes me cringe>.<

[Invasion]

Samurai's AF3 should have had a Haste set bonus and some Haste on either Hands or Feet as it's one of the few jobs that cannot cap Haste while maintaining a 5-hit build. WAR is an insane DD and the fact that they can easily reach Haste cap while having a 5-hit and a incredible WS is mind blowing @.@

[chrism]

Ok so this is a thread for Samurais and the job trait Zanshin and here is what I think about Zanshin: Its nice to have a trait that allows me a chance to hit again after missing... But I think that when we miss that first hit zanshin should activate and give us a 99% chance to hit again instead of just having a normal attack swing aimlessly and miss twice in a row.... which sucks ass if you ask me.. excuse the language but anyways it seems like a lot of you are bashing on how zanshin is not a good thing, I say anything is better than nothing.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Samurai's AF3 should have had a Haste set bonus and some Haste on either Hands or Feet as it's one of the few jobs that cannot cap Haste while maintaining a 5-hit build. WAR is an insane DD and the fact that they can easily reach Haste cap while having a 5-hit and a incredible WS is mind blowing @.@

Sam can 5 hit Masamune and keep capped haste if you fulltime hasso with emp+2 pants (easier if you WS in them or eat carbonara but not needed), not impossible but annoying if you have to maintain seigan for some odd reason.

[Invasion]

The Enhanced Hasso effect goes towards the Magic Haste cap, not gear fyi.

[Neisan_Quetz]

EDIT: mistake on my part actually, it is magic haste, but that only matters if you have x2 marches anyway. While not exactly capped haste in the same sense of other melee capping gear haste Sam still gets close and pseudo caps it unless you're getting marches, in which case Sam lags unless they can swap it out for bustle dirs and maintain xhit (would probably need carbonara).

[Een]

I found Zanshin VERY useful when I leveled from 75-90 when I couldn't hit anything!

Other than that....it's poop. Not gonna build anything around 'missing' for tp.

That is why Sams can meditate, that's why you merit store tp. That's why you can set yourself up with a 4 hit build and WS pretty much non-stop.

Zanshin was just a bonus...cause back in the day...Samurai had the worst acc of any job almost. Now...if you miss that much, sacrifice some STP for some ACC. But Hasso takes care of that. Hell, I could 'accidentally' leave my WS gear on and still not miss the mob. And that has NO ACC that is speakable...lol

Meriting Zanshin...I don't think so. Back when you only engaged the mobs, ie Gods, to WS, guess what everyone came as? Samurai, cause they didn't need to feed the mob TP to gain TP and could Land WS's like crazy. Besides Overwhelm..the other category is basically a toy. Either give TP to another pt member to open a crazy magic burstable SC at start, or merit blade bash to where you can stun a mob...but then again Hobaku does a pretty good job of that to.

I couldn't imagine needing to merit Zanshin or Ikishoten.

Here: Zanshin Activation rate is 45% on 75SAM main, and about 25% on /SAM.
SAM merit Zanshin Attack Rate increases activation rate by 1% per upgrade. 1%...come on...no way would someone do that?!?!?! Without gear..50% is capped.

Ikisho: Game Description: Increases amount of TP gained with a Zanshin attack
Adds 3 TP per upgrade to the base weapon TP (before Store TP is applied) gained from a Zanshin attack.

I just don't see why.....do you honestly miss that much?!?!?!?!?!? Maybe carry a couple sniper rings with you if you do? Lol

A 4 hit build is best...with food and just a little bit of accuracy it just outweighs the amount of WS's you can produce with a STP build. Even on something you can barely hit....meditate and stick with the 45%, STP adds to Zanshin attacks to! Okay...Thread Closed please. lol

[Ryozen]

By "4 hit" do you mean WS + 4 hits, or WS + 3 hits? The former is pretty typical, but the latter can only really be accomplished with a 480-delay weapon, and it makes huge gear sacrifices. I wouldn't recommend it.

Post gear setups, if you would.

[brayen]

iirc u need to give up like 1 or 2 haste for a 4hit with a 480, unkai head/body/legs+2 unkai neck ace's feet goading belt rajas/hoard ring brutal rose and the 480 stp+6 gk should be about enough give or take, can add the regain ear and start to drop some stuff and when u add atma like VV you can add even more haste like dropping goading for bullwhip or dropping unkai legs for bustle dirs etc etc

[Matayo]

Well I'm not aginst zanshin at all I love it really. Don't need to put on all that acc gear other jobs use. My merits is set up 1, 1, 3, 5 no point in fully merit blade bash lol like some1 said if the party/group need a stunner one should be there. But AF3 set bonus suck ass. The main reason I say that is cause when you wear the full set it gives you a nice amount of acc lol feet hands body gives you a shit load then you have dex on legs and head so what's the point. Then think about it with it being a low % of you missing in abyssea then you have the % that the zanshin procs then on top of that there is a super small % your set bonus procs lol. Really that's to much to count on. And on that note I've never seen x2 dmg proc other then my aftermath lol. The set just doesn't do it.

[Riko]

The main reason of this post is so that some change may happen to this ability. To inform SE that it's almost useless now that the game has evolved a lot over the 6 years or so. Other job abilities SE likes to augment and change via gear like Double Attack and Triple Attack have no effect and never will as the game evolves more since they have no negative activation rates. By that I mean you don't need to "fail" to active it. Anyway, since I have high hopes for these forums to be a great in helping make tweaks/changes to Jobs and their abilities, SE should look at my previous post in this thread!

[Zenpachi]

here you go Matayo just so you can say that you have seen it atleast once, cuz its only happened once to me lol

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd205/zenteczuken85/IMG_20110112_225316.jpg

i also played around with the set bonus but i didnt have enough enhance zanshin gear on, just pop a blind potion and there you go, or use a Kawahori Kabuto those things are dirt cheap anyways

[Jomen]

Okay, so let me throw this in. I read the first four pages and kind of decided to skip the last two to make this statement.

If you're meriting blade bash, you're wasting your time!! Seriously, when does anyone expect a sam to stun? If you're in a big group and throwing blade bash in every 10 seconds then you are seriously silly. If you didn't fully merit overwhelm then you're not reaching the full potential of SAM. Now, before you go crazy on this...why?

Blade bash merited once gives you a stun with "plague" every 15 minutes. Fully merited it goes down to ten. Same timing as other useless moves. Bosses do moves way more often then 10-15 minutes. Also, when a boss needs to be stunned...don't you bring a blue mage or black mage with you? Blue mage hasted can usually shoot out a head butt every 3 seconds. Black mage hasted and with fast cast gear, I've seen, can get to around 23 seconds on recast if lucky. Rdm is by far quicker. So why, may I ask, would we want to waste our merits on something that can maybe help out our party or alliance every 10 minutes? We don't. Put them in overwhelm and shikikoyo and get in the mobs face and deal damage. That's our job...that's what we do best.

As for zanshin..and the development of sam. Screw you SE. It seems like they are making our job very equipment based now, more so than any other job. My blu can run through areas in abyssea with just swords and do crazy damage but my sam is dead in a few seconds. Now, I can't say all empyrean armor is bad. The Unkai Kote pack quite a punch with it's enhancements to sekkanoki.

Also, making a Zanshin build, like everyone else here has already said is simply ridiculous. Gearing to miss is like settling to marry someone you aren't in love with. Don't settle for second best! Be the best SAM you can be! Don't. Miss. Ever.

~Jo

[Neisan_Quetz]

Shiki is stupid except at the start of certain fights for opening SC with another DD, which no one does, and most DD can get TP fast enough on their own/ can /sam if 2H and meditate on their own, Ikishoten is lol. Blade Bash has far more utility than both of those. If you can't see why an extra stun is useful, and one that can inflict plague at that, I can't help you.

[Een]

I do recall Samurai being given Tachi: Hobaku. Maybe i'm the only one who got that WS in the FFXI world. Guess I'm special.

That is my 'extra stun'. I won't and will not merit Blade Bash when I have Hobaku. But I guess SE didn't find you worthy of such a powerful WS and just gave it to me. I can even stop Meltdown with Hobaku!

I do see the usefullness of an 'extra stun', but I use my TP, which I'm never in short supply of, to help out with stuns. Hell, I can even Sekkanoki and stun the mob twice! Try doing that with your Blade Bash!

And by the way, fully merited it is 5:00 recast. Not 10:00. Post before last I am referring to.

AND Plague..if it was an actual spell..would be of use. But until they allow "Virus" to be added in for BLM's to inflict this status effect, it isn't useful and shouldn't be considered in your obtaining of this merited JA.

I do see why people like this blade bash. It can be used over a JT like Ikishoten which can't be activated manually. I can see why people would like a usuable Job Ability they can add to their macro list.. But it doesn't really make it more useful than Ikishoten.

Now, I AM NOT saying build around missing, that is just plain stupid, to put it bluntly. But if you did merit Ikishoten, when Zanshin did kick in you would gain a massive amount of TP over a normal hit. And let's be honest, time to time you do miss and Zanshin activates and you land. I see how that could be very useful also. Fully Merited you would get, (3 TP per Merited Level of Ikishoten) 15 TP on a landed Zanshin hit, PLUS tp from whatever Store TP you have.

But you can't outweigh one over the other and say that, "just because you can stun a target and give it plague, Blade Bash is the wiser choice and anyone using Ikishoten is a dummy."

Really, once Overwhelm, Meditate and Store TP also maxed, the last 5 merits in Group 2 is really of personal opinion. You aren't going to turn the tide of battle by having one or the other.

[Javelin]

...before addressing the very basic resist or timing that makes skillchain rarely useful...

agreed with your other stuff, but wth? skillchains are rediculous in and out of abyssea still, I'm a amano90 sam and make at least lvl 2 sc with almost all other ws's. I rarely get sc resisted even on mega's/shinryu/salvage bosses/etc.....

anyway, zanshin and the "zanshin" build have always been trash, we're so far past acc cap in and out of abyssea the vast majority of the time that it doesn't matter at all, its nice on the 5%~ of the time that it does proc because of the tp return and enhancements from af3+2, but you're really missing the mark if you're trying for -100 or more acc to try to make that crap proc more, more zanshin equip=less haste/stp/DA anyway (real DA, not someday my zanshin will proc and it will be a DA).....IF it does proc on ws, which there would really be no way to measure since 2-hand single hit ws have a huge acc bonus, then thats cool....but i would prefer if zanshin was just changed so that it made 100% of all your missed hits hit the target, putting sam at an artificial 100% acc cap.

Blade bash merits vs ikishoten.... personal opinion here, but lessening recast on a move that "may" stun the target isn't going to win you a fight, and if you think that way then your group of pink power rangers and white knights probably takes 18 ppl to kill an nm in the same time that it can be duo'd sam, whm or sam, rdm.... I put 1 in bash, 1 in shikkikoyo, max overwhelm, and rest in ikishoten, just because 1. you can use hobaku in place of lessened bash timer if absolutely necessary, 2. shikkikoyo is really only for long fights(5m+) that you actually prep for and actually have a DD that CAN(read: sometimes, for masamume and amano90 holders lol) out do you on that 1st ws ( e.g. ukon war), 3. overwhelm cus of...duh!, 4. ikishoten+ zanshin, WHEN it does proc is always nice, can end up with 30+ tp from 1 hit(60/90+ from da/ta), nothing replaces that really, you see a miss on mob with high eva and then your chat log lags because you just hit twice and ws'd in 1 sec right after your 1st ws and you hit a sc and you kill that nin mob in dyna that was about to 2hr rape your blm's that were too close(just a random example that has been known to happen)

[Jomen]

Yes, looks like I miscalculated the recast but I have to stand with everyone else saying that if you're using up your merits on blade bash then you're not playing right. Hobaku is good against most mobs, not unbeatable but very good. Shiki is useful in some situations, ukon war, pld with chivalry, and just so you don't get the hate from a 300% tp ws. At full merits on meditate and shikokoyo. You will be able to use meditate - sekkanoki - meditate - shikikoyo - meditate. Giving you the best way to use that extra tp which we really don't use all the time.

As for Zanshin, i see the use for it, not knocking it, but don't build to miss.

[brayen]

agreed with your other stuff, but wth? skillchains are rediculous in and out of abyssea still, I'm a amano90 sam and make at least lvl 2 sc with almost all other ws's. I rarely get sc resisted even on mega's/shinryu/salvage bosses/etc.....


Skillchains rarely go unresisting on anything worth something, maybe on fodder bait but pull something big at the lvl of say DL back at 75 and any skillchain would do pennies, this why im saying to help the res on them, i mean the times you skillchain for skillchain dmg is usually when it would matter more as opposed to when you are just doing them because the opportunity came about. Mind you rana to gekko + skillchain is practically a wash in most cases as rana sucks and skillchin needs to mirror to be worth the use of a rana..granted all of this is mostly based on pre 80~85 as abyssea has made me mnk or blu fulltime so hard to compare on more recent mobs.

Adding on here, i have no freaking clue why anyone is arguing over tier 2 merits iko is utter waste it contributes nothing blade bash at a 5min recast at least is a stun iko is worthless as you are hoping to miss and on top of it relying on it to gain some extra tp that in 99.9% of cases wont get u to 100% faster. if you want to argue for shiki it has its merit if you have good players and like spreading some tp overflow, personally i like being able to stun random stuff thats nasty like a doom or death etc where in said cases not very likely to be a deciding factor it does help and the extra plague is nice perk. Mind you blade bash IS a reliable stun, cant recall last mob that it didn't stun.

Additionally Javelin i am not sure if i understood that last part on your post but if you are implying that zanshin can proc on DA or TA, this is not the case, it can only proc on single swing if single swing misses > chance of proc if on that first swing you proc a DA or TA zanshin is null

In any case the point of this thread is to hope for some change for zanshin or just outright stop throwing pies at SAM with the 7 slots of zanshin emp armor ~.~ no one is going to miss enough to work around this trait contrary to what some people are posting

[hiko]

Yes, looks like I miscalculated the recast but I have to stand with everyone else saying that if you're using up your merits on blade bash then you're not playing right. Hobaku is good against most mobs, not unbeatable but very good. Shiki is useful in some situations, ukon war, pld with chivalry, and just so you don't get the hate from a 300% tp ws. At full merits on meditate and shikokoyo. You will be able to use meditate - sekkanoki - meditate - shikikoyo - meditate. Giving you the best way to use that extra tp which we really don't use all the time.

As for Zanshin, i see the use for it, not knocking it, but don't build to miss.
if you have a ukon war, a sam and a pld in the same pt you're doing it wrong,
if in this pt you die because you take hate after a 300TP WS, you, your healer, your war are doing it wrong too

agreed with your other stuff, but wth? skillchains are rediculous in and out of abyssea still, I'm a amano90 sam and make at least lvl 2 sc with almost all other ws's. I rarely get sc resisted even on mega's/shinryu/salvage bosses/etc.....

anyway, zanshin and the "zanshin" build have always been trash, we're so far past acc cap in and out of abyssea the vast majority of the time that it doesn't matter at all, its nice on the 5%~ of the time that it does proc because of the tp return and enhancements from af3+2, but you're really missing the mark if you're trying for -100 or more acc to try to make that crap proc more, more zanshin equip=less haste/stp/DA anyway (real DA, not someday my zanshin will proc and it will be a DA).....IF it does proc on ws, which there would really be no way to measure since 2-hand single hit ws have a huge acc bonus, then thats cool....but i would prefer if zanshin was just changed so that it made 100% of all your missed hits hit the target, putting sam at an artificial 100% acc cap.

Blade bash merits vs ikishoten.... personal opinion here, but lessening recast on a move that "may" stun the target isn't going to win you a fight, and if you think that way then your group of pink power rangers and white knights probably takes 18 ppl to kill an nm in the same time that it can be duo'd sam, whm or sam, rdm.... I put 1 in bash, 1 in shikkikoyo, max overwhelm, and rest in ikishoten, just because 1. you can use hobaku in place of lessened bash timer if absolutely necessary, 2. shikkikoyo is really only for long fights(5m+) that you actually prep for and actually have a DD that CAN(read: sometimes, for masamume and amano90 holders lol) out do you on that 1st ws ( e.g. ukon war), 3. overwhelm cus of...duh!, 4. ikishoten+ zanshin, WHEN it does proc is always nice, can end up with 30+ tp from 1 hit(60/90+ from da/ta), nothing replaces that really, you see a miss on mob with high eva and then your chat log lags because you just hit twice and ws'd in 1 sec right after your 1st ws and you hit a sc and you kill that nin mob in dyna that was about to 2hr rape your blm's that were too close(just a random example that has been known to happen)

3 ikishiten merit is totaly stupid, it will add 9(*stp) TP to your hit but wont lower your hit build by one, you just ws with a litle more tp, for it to not be useless it need to add as much TP as one extra hit
and no you cant have da/ta in a zanshin round (without the zanshin:occ double attack gk)

+using blade bash=> gekko instead of hobaku is a bigger dmg gain than you can get from ikishoten,

a blade bash fix so it deals dmg (like weapon bash )is enough to beat dmg boost from ikishoten

[Jomen]

@Hiko, I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying having a war, pld and sam in one party (although totally feesible). I was saying in those specific situations, I enjoy having shiki to help out my comrades in arms get some tp. As for the 300%tp ws hate part, I usually duo with a dnc...and if I get hate....well...I'm usually dead haha.

[Laraul]

I remember when Zanshin was added years ago... It's a perfectly fine job trait. What isn't fine is telling other people how to merit or what to do etc etc. Let people experiment on their own please.

[Neisan_Quetz]

If you're going to use a stun move don't use one that gimps your overall damage thereby making you kill the mob slower. Blade Bash is infinitely more useful than Ikishoten, and more useful than Shikikoyo.

If you're dying from a 300% TP WS with a dnc duo well, both of you are doing things horribly wrong.

[brayen]

Laraul, there is nothing to experiment with on stuff that is several years old, most of the arguments here are results of experimenting and calculations, if you simply wish to ignore facts that is all on you. You are being hypocritical telling others what they can tell others in a discussion.

[chrism]

I remember when Zanshin was added years ago... It's a perfectly fine job trait. What isn't fine is telling other people how to merit or what to do etc etc. Let people experiment on their own please.

Agreed, let other players make their own mistakes to determine what works best for them! Zanshin= usefull , Now lock this thread >.>

[hiko]

Agreed, let other players make their own mistakes to determine what works best for them! Zanshin= usefull , Now lock this thread >.>

agree zanshin is usefull.
enhance zanshin gear is not!

[Rambus]

so why is our set bonus on zanshin? and i thought it could work on ws ( i think someone said ealier that it didn't)

[Keiyoshi]

Zanshin works well for the weapons that are not primary like Polearm for instance.

Zanshin is an ability based on missing which in some cases may sound cool, but seriously... that's just dumb.. if anything SE should have made it so it works with WS. Like make it to where you at least get 50% of your tp back if you miss a WS...
I hope that SE does some adjustments to sam.. like have Zanshin do something better.... At least if Zanshin activated on WS's and gave a TP bonus, it would at least make Ikishoten worth meriting to max as well no? Because I know a lot of sam's can vouch for missing WS's.. especially in critical moments... In my case.. RvB assault for salvage points... was a dark day for me...

[Jomen]

@Neisan, it was just an example.

@Chrism and others, yeah you are correct. I was/am really proud of my merit build on sam and wanted to give insight as to why not to waste merits on other things but to each his own. Some people get the best performance meriting other stuff and some don't. It isn't my place to push my thoughts onto others. That said, I hope it comes back tomorrow! I want to try out some of the stuff I've learned from this and other threads.

[Ryozen]

Ikishoten can reduce the number of hits to 100% TP, but it has to occur in the same cycle as a Conserve TP proc from Emp+2 feet/Ele-belt. Other than that, it's a very slight damage boost from the TP in excess of 100%. Considering that Zanshin has a chance to proc 5% of the time if you're doing things the right way, and Conserve TP procs maybe 10%(?) of the time, the chance of this situation is so small it might as well be ignored.

That being said, I have 5/5 Overwhelm, 4/5 Blade Bash, and 1/5 Shikikoyo. I find having a stun available for those times when it's needed in a pinch invaluable.

As for those recommending holding TP for Hobaku instead of using Blade Bash, HOLY SHIT are you doing it wrong. If you are in that scenario, you are on the wrong job, or at least someone in your group is.

[Jacs]

You shouldn't really dismiss Ikishoten so easily without at least considering the math. Assuming you use a 450 delay Great Katana and have the gear for a true 5-hit (74 Store TP in merits + gear), an Ikishoten (level 4) hit would give you 40.8 TP [(11.5 + 12)*1.74]. Thus a miss + Zanshin proc and land is in effect worth a little more than 2 regular hits landing. In essence, a landed Ikishoten hit shaves a hit off your build.

Note: I'm neglecting Double Attack for simplicity. Zanshin can't proc on a double or triple attack, so its value is diminished the more of those you have.

If you are talking about a single swing, a landed Zanshin hit will occur about 2.1% of all swings (0.05*0.45*0.95). You can look at it slightly differently though by considering build cycles to 100TP. If you are at accuracy cap for all melee swings and weaponskills, there is a 77.3% chance of landing your WS and 4-hits in a row (0.95^5). There is a 3.9% chance of missing a weaponskill then landing 5 hits in a row (0.05*0.95^5). Thus on 81.2% of all your TP build cycles, you won't have a chance for Zanshin to activate. That means on 18.8% of your TP build cycles, you will have at least one miss of a normal melee swing. 45% of those misses will trigger a Zanshin attack. It ends up having more impact than you might suspect just by considering a 95% accuracy rate. It is somewhere around ~6% of all TP builds to 100TP will see it be "useful" (meaning ignoring build cycles which put you at 120TP).

I personally used to have Blade Bash 4/5 and I did really like it. It was great for small group activities like Nyzul where a stun could stop a painful AOE. I have since switched it out for Ikishoten 4/5. I think the choice comes down to what you do with your SAM. I personally use mine for pure damage. SAM is my "main", but I am on other jobs more than I am on SAM. If I am to tank for a larger group, I will generally be MNK. If I am low manning, I will be NIN or THF. If my LS asks me to bring SAM (which they usually want MNK ;; ), they only want me spamming Fudo's. I just found myself rarely needing Blade Bash anymore so I rolled it back for Ikishoten. Neither is particularly game breaking.

All that said, I agree the set bonus on SAM AF3 sucks. Personally I would have rather seen something like Zanshin being able to proc on a normal landed melee swing, effectively being like double attacking I guess, but it would work with Ikishoten nicely.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Did you account for over TP rounds?

[Jacs]

Regarding my 6% number: I didn't math out every possible scenario, just the simplest ones which coincidentally have the highest probability of happening anyways. For example I didn't bother with a TP build cycle of Miss Miss Miss Hitx5, since that's going to be pretty rare at a 95% hit rate. Remember I left out double attack for the sake simplicity, so in my math, the only way you could have a TP overage is if you had a Ikishoten Zanshin swing proc when you were already sitting on 80%. These TP build cycles are not part of the 6%. The 6% includes only TP cycles in which an Ikishoten Zanshin swing would reduce your rounds to 100TP.

Again though, let me caution that Zanshin cannot proc on a double or triple attack. If you are wearing gear for that or using atmas, that 6% will be reduced.

[Toren]

I couldn't agree more, I myself use the same merit setup I played around with Ikishoten for a while and found out Blade Bash was more useful for the things I do. Ikishoten merits are not bad it just depends on the persons play style I can't count how many times I've prevented something serious from just using Blade Bash on both solo and endgame in groups. I just prefer having that extra stun there whenever its needed for those moments.

Edit: Asking for the Zanshin set effect on the Empryean armor since its almost useless anyone with a good TP setup and even worse to relic samurai's (from the Amanomurakumo's large accuracy bonus) since they should be capped on accuracy against almost all mobs. I personally would like to see a minor buff to Seigan to make it slightly more reliable then it is now.

[Ryozen]

Hmm, somehow I missed that Ikishoten's TP was affected by Store TP gear. For some reason I'd thought it was a flat +3 TP per level. That does make it slightly more useful, as it can shave off a hit on just about any build, depending on the level of merits.

[Gotterdammerung]

ANd i hope you not serious in thinking a galka blm could hang with a taru.

Put them in the same gear same merits etc who's gonna win?



Well considering the galka actually stays alive... the galka wins.

[Sukasaroth]

im a taru sam with close to stage 4 amano :|

DONT SHOOT ME

[Ryozen]

So you're not even half way done?

[Amoklauf]

With all the Zanshin enhancing gear out there I believed (for a very long time) that SOMETHING out there would have a hidden effect of 'augmenting' it to proc on connected hits or WS, making it a type of double attack. Then I remembered the whole core of the job trait was to proc on misses and then I had a sad.

[Mirage]

What if they made zanshin cool by making it bypass shadows and/or perfect dodge?

Also, what if they secretly are making samurai the best job in the game, for when they later add mobs with insane evasion? Now that would be something.

[Habiki]

Zanshin can proc on attacks that are parried, guarded, countered in addition to hits for 0 dmg, hits that are absorbed by shadows and misses so the sets not as usless as people make it out to be, but its definatly not worthy of being put on our unkai set, compared to what other jobs get as their set procs.

[Habiki]

Hmm, somehow I missed that Ikishoten's TP was affected by Store TP gear. For some reason I'd thought it was a flat +3 TP per level. That does make it slightly more useful, as it can shave off a hit on just about any build, depending on the level of merits.

Ikishoten is only 3 tp per merit gear doesn't effect it whoever put that info doesnt have it merited or is horrible at math.