Sam atmas

[scaevola]

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

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

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

[hiko]

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

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

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

[scaevola]

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

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

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

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