Zanshin? why?

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by NotAzure

Alternatively, just get a Nanatsusaya.

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

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by 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

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Pfft. That's crazy talk.

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

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Originally Posted by NotAzure

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.

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

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Originally Posted by NotAzure

Pfft. That's crazy talk.

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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?

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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?

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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

just make zanshin work on ws. problem solved!

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Rambus

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

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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

Quote:

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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?

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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..

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by GERM

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..

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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.

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Originally Posted by Invasion

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

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Originally Posted by hiko

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by wintermute

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.

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...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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Crysten

...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.

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"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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wintermute

"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.

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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.

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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. >_>

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

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.


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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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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.



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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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.

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

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Originally Posted by Kuishen

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

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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

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.

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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

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/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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Superchicken

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.

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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?

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:

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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.

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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.

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.