Studying The Blade- The SAM DPS Guide

Why wouldn't the rotation of Hakaze>Shifu>Kasha>[Potion]>Kaiten>Higanbana>Meijyo Shisui>Gekko>Kasha>Yukikaze>Hagakure>Guren work? An 800 potency attack every 2 minutes seems worth it to use in any boss fight, no?

Does anyone have the 3 Sen Opener? I wanna give that a shot.

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Originally Posted by Phobia89

So something interesting I have stumbled on with AoE tonight while spamming dungeons.

I started opening AoEing with Gekko>Kasha>Kaiten+Tenka and then swaping to Gekko>Yukikaze>Kaiten+Tenka and then switching to Kasha>Yukikaze>Kaiten+Tenka and repeating this rotation of changing between Gekko and Kasha, keeping both buffs rolling with out any problems, spending extra Kenki on Kyuten and this rotation is actually providing a massive DPS increase over the standard rotation and I can't really put a finger on why that is.

About the only thing I can think of is i'm getting a much larger potency with Gekko and Kasha combos on single target and still getting Tenka+Kyuten AoE potency and combined is giving a bigger DPS gain then a strictly AoE rotation.

I've tested this with about 4 more dungeons tonight and i'm consistently out DPSing the strictly AoE rotation by a good 400-500 DPS.

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It's going to depend on how many enemies there are.

The less there are, the better the single-target+Kaiten-Tenka will be. Which will be (most) typical pulls of 3-4 enemies. This is largely because of the AoE degradation of Tenka. At a certain point (more than 5 enemies) Kaiten gives you less potency gained than a Kyuten would, as Kyuten has no degradation.

When you get into big pull territory, that is where pure AoE+Kyuten+raw Tenka wins out.

For the buff-cycling AoE rotation, every time you do Hakaze, you could be doing Fuga, every time you hit Shifu, you could be hitting Oka/Mangetsu. When you're hitting Kasha, the pure AoE rotation is back on Fuga already. If you're putting up the damage buff, your next GCD would be Hakaze, while the pure AoE rotation would be on another Oka/Mangetsu. When you're hitting Jinpu, they're hitting Tenka, etc etc. The more enemies there are, the more each single-target GCD will lose you. You have to then work at making up that discrepancy- which can be done, but it takes a while. If you're in a pull for a god awful amount of time, yes, buff-cycling can win out because Shifu's started to gain you GCD's over non-shifu. But you probably don't hope for those situations.

It's hard to come back from if there's 5+ enemies, is the point. If you're putting up buffs, it should be in a small pull scenario, or your pull better take a while so you can benefit from Shifu. Though, again, you have to keep renewing the buff, so I'm not so sure how effective that ends up being. I'd love to be proven wrong with hard numbers though! Always open to it.

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Originally Posted by Nominous

important AoE thoughts

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All right, so I should basically play by ear and react accordingly depending on the amount of enemies. Sounds good to me. One thing I love about Kyuten is that it doesn't degrade depending on the enemy number (and it's also flashy) but buffed Tenka just does so much damage I almost feel like a caster.

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Originally Posted by Nominous

It's going to depend on how many enemies there are

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Ah okay. That makes sense. So would 6+ be classified as a pure AoE pull then?

What about using Meikyo to go shifu > jinpu > Mangatsu/oka as your AE opener?

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Originally Posted by Arkdra

What about using Meikyo to go shifu > jinpu > Mangatsu/oka as your AE opener?

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I don't see any reason not to do that. As long as you know it'll be up for the boss, it's probably a great idea to use it on AoE.

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Originally Posted by Arkdra

What about using Meikyo to go shifu > jinpu > Mangatsu/oka as your AE opener?

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I've been doing this with just Jinpu -> Oka -> Mangetsu but I think it might be worth it to add it Shifu as you said. But it is nice to go straight into a Tenka Goten afterwards.

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

Does anyone have the 3 Sen Opener? I wanna give that a shot.

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I can't really even see this being viable since throwing out Meikyo Shisui out the gate makes you absent through Shifu and Jinpu buffs. Thus, Higanbana/Midare/Guren will suffer DPS losses as well. The only one that I even remember seeing is Shifu > Gekko > Kaiten(Higabana) > Meikyo(Hagakure) > Guren. But that ended up being lower DPS in the end.

Any info on stat weights yet?

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

Any info on stat weights yet?

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Not that I've seen anywhere, unfortunately. I know I've seen some rumblings in the other DPS communities of them coming through, but nothing for sure yet. I seem to remember there being a post on reddit in 3.0 roughly when tomes launched that involved stat weights, so maybe by the time Omega normal launches, we'll know.

When messing around with my rotation, I found there was a moment where both Hagakure and Meikyo were off cooldown. When that happens, what do I do?

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

When messing around with my rotation, I found there was a moment where both Hagakure and Meikyo were off cooldown. When that happens, what do I do?

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It's going to depend entirely on what point you are in your rotation, how many Sen you have generated already and how much time there is between the two abilities coming off cooldown. You really only have three choices:

1) Delay your gcds with a backstep -> Enpi -> dash to line things up better
2) Blow your Meikyo, generate three Sen and Hagakure
3) Generate 3 Sen manually, Hagakure followed by Meikyo -> Kaiten -> Midare

You need to be somewhat proactive with your Sen generation and take into account how much cooldown you have left on aformentioned abilities. You also need to get out of the mindset that you can only Meikyo when you have 0 Sen available, it's completely feasible to Meikyo when you already have one or two Sen generated.

Nice guide. I had to figure most of this out the hard way while leveling. Nice to know how potencies compare on AoE abilities and that you don't have to use 3 sen for Hagakure to be effective. I felt like I was losing DPS at times waiting for the build up. Glad to see I can get away with having just 1 or 2 and not completely blowing my DPS.

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

When messing around with my rotation, I found there was a moment where both Hagakure and Meikyo were off cooldown. When that happens, what do I do?

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If you're not going to go over 100 Kenki, you can do Meikyo Shisui to generate 3 Sen, then use Hagakure to consume them. If you're coming up around your DoT, then you want to be careful how you use Hagakure. If you use it on consuming your 3 Sen, and as a result your DoT timing gets all weird, you'll have to find a way to delay it, which might not be easy.

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Originally Posted by Nominous

Not that I've seen anywhere, unfortunately. I know I've seen some rumblings in the other DPS communities of them coming through, but nothing for sure yet. I seem to remember there being a post on reddit in 3.0 roughly when tomes launched that involved stat weights, so maybe by the time Omega normal launches, we'll know.

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Yea, but back then Dervy was still on the forums and we got early iterations of the stat weights as they developed.

I just want to figure out what materia is worth getting for the Susano weapon and Lakshmi accessories. I guess I'll wait till we get more info in.

Thanks for all your work on making the guide and consolidating the information!

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Originally Posted by Nominous

Hakaze>Shifu>Kasha>Hakaze[Potion]>Jinpu[Kaiten]>Higanbana>Gekko[Meikyo]>Yukikaze>Kasha[Kaiten]>Midare>Kasha[Hagakure]>Hakaze[Guren]>Shifu>Kasha------ So on and so forth.
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How about this opener: Hakaze|Shifu|Kasha(Hakagure), Hakaze|Yukikaze, Hakaze|Jinpu|Kaiten/Higanbana|Gekko, Meikyo, Kasha|Gekko|Yukikaze, Kaiten/Setsugekka. Somewhere in this opener you'd do a Guren (not sure when, I'm not in game atm).

The idea behind this is that you'd have a slashing buffed Higanbana. In the opener you suggest, the first Higanbana does not benefit from the slashing buff. Not saying my opener is better or has more potency. I just want to know why we want to apply the first opener without the slashing buff on the target.

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Originally Posted by Chronons

I would advise checking out The Balance Discord. Its a treasure trove of good info.

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Do you have a link to this channel? I've tried looking for it on reddit, but all I get is an error whenever I try to join.

any point in using hissatsu :guren in a single target rotation? seeing it does 800 potency aslo combined with hissatsu: kaiten for a total 70 kenki use. is it worth it?

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Originally Posted by XgungraveX

any point in using hissatsu :guren in a single target rotation? seeing it does 800 potency aslo combined with hissatsu: kaiten for a total 70 kenki use. is it worth it?

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Kaiten doesn't work with guren cause guren isn't a weaponskill. Use guren on single target if you know there is no AoE coming up soon in the fight.

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Originally Posted by DGladius

Kaiten doesn't work with guren cause guren isn't a weaponskill. Use guren on single target if you know there is no AoE coming up soon in the fight.

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thxs for the info

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Originally Posted by XgungraveX

any point in using hissatsu :guren in a single target rotation? seeing it does 800 potency aslo combined with hissatsu: kaiten for a total 70 kenki use. is it worth it?

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Yes you should use Hissatsu Gurren on a single target, BUT you should NOT use it with hissatsu kaiten because it just won't work. Hissatsu kaiten doesn't buff skills, only weapon skills ie GCDs.

Edit : I didn't notice someone answered before, ignore my comment .. ^^'

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Originally Posted by abzoluut

Do you have a link to this channel? I've tried looking for it on reddit, but all I get is an error whenever I try to join.

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Yes, one of the discord mods posted the link to it back in the old SAM discussion thread but it inevitably got buried.
http://thebalanceffxiv.com/

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

Any info on stat weights yet?

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My understanding via the discord is that Dervy and a team of others are working on it. So far Direct hit and Critical hit seem to be the best options with Direct hit surpassing Crit once you get to a 725 Crit. I believe Skill Speed has been mathed out and deemed sub optimal. All of that is subject to change though, check back with the discord to see the updates.

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

Does anyone have the 3 Sen Opener? I wanna give that a shot.

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Yes, these are both Dervy's openers and they are agreed upon by the theory crafting community over at the discord I linked. The 3 Sen opener is better for burst and the 1 Sen is better for sustained damage. I believe the 1 sen surpasses the 3 at the 1 minute 30 second mark. So 3 sen is better for fights with early phase changes, 1 is better overall. The spreadsheets for these are in the SAM section of the discord pinned in the discussion tab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qCqkgoBkgs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0SaUWg9NSQ

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Originally Posted by abzoluut

The idea behind this is that you'd have a slashing buffed Higanbana. In the opener you suggest, the first Higanbana does not benefit from the slashing buff. Not saying my opener is better or has more potency. I just want to know why we want to apply the first opener without the slashing buff on the target.

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slashing only affects the initial hit of higanbana. if you delay using higan it may not hit the TA window and slashing is the least important of the three buffs for damage purposes. :)

Both 3 sen and 1 sen openers are perfectly viable it all comes down to party comp on which you use, basic rule of thumb at the moment is nin in party do 3 sen drg in party do 1 sen this is all with the purpose of maximizing your potency in buff windows, so as a sam your best best is to learn both 1 sen and 3 sen openers.

Updated the front page with the various opener videos. Will check out the Discord channel after work, and ask if I can borrow the spreadsheets, so I can remove other spreadsheets from the front page.

Also, I'm going to work on the formatting a little bit. Add sections so people can skip to them a little easier! Stat weights when those come through, as well.

Let me know if there's anything else worth adding to the front page!

I don't understand why people are not going for a different opener on fights that last at least a minute and thirty seconds. The opener I usually see floating around is Hakaze>Jinpu>Gekko, apply dot with Hissatsu Kaiten, then do Meikyo Shisui for Midare Setsugekka. Playing optimally, this one seems to do more damage, with a 5-6% improvement on the striking dummy on Susano EX, and enough to clear it below minimum ilvl if lucky enough on direct hit/crit without potions. I do not know when you can throw in potions since I don't use them, but I would imagine it's after Jinpu.

Hakaze > Jinpu > Gekko, then Hissatsu : Kaiten > Higanbana, so you get more DoT damage. Then instead of doing Meikyo Shisui to lead to Midare Setsugekka, I do the following. If no slashing debuff, Yukikaze > Shifu > Kasha, then burn Hagakure and immediately follow it up with Hissatsu : Guren. If Slashing debuff, Replace Yukikaze with Gekko for 60 extra potency. I take down about 5% more on the striking dummy in stone, sky, sea for Susano EX compared to the other openers, and end up outdpsing other Samurai with similar gear following this opener.

Once I get through this queue, which is at 874 right now, I'll throw some numbers from the stone, sky, sea calculator and post them here.

Edit: Saw the openers are different. I might as well check those too since I already said I'd compare a possibly outdated opener that was spread around. 476 in queue

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Originally Posted by Tsilyi

slashing only affects the initial hit of higanbana. if you delay using higan it may not hit the TA window and slashing is the least important of the three buffs for damage purposes. :)

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That makes sense. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Chronons

Yes, one of the discord mods posted the link to it back in the old SAM discussion thread but it inevitably got buried.
http://thebalanceffxiv.com/

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Great, thank you!

After some testing, my opener does beat yours, but not by much. Note that there might still be inaccuracies but it should give some idea as to what to expect. According to this site, http://ffxiv.2digitalgames.de/ , I was able to get 4306.76 DPS after when the dummy died, while having 4173.34 DPS with your opener that you posted. I've tested a few other ones, but I've lost time instead of gained any on Stone, Sky, Sea, so I don't think it would help anyone here, or gain 20 dps from your opener, again with that calculator doing the work, which is not enough of a change to bring up discussion.

Overall, it is around a 3% increase with the highest I could have both of them, if DoT is always up and refreshed with 1 second remaining, and Hissatsu : Guren is used as soon as it is up every time. The rule of thumb for me is that if I can chain 3 Hissatsu Shinten or more within 2 GCDs, it is worth more potency than Kaiten'd Midare Setsugekka

Mine hovers around 4200-4500 but it always changes based on crits. As an FC member showed me, Midare crits and direct crits can spike you a ridiculous amount. Most of the reason people don't opt for the Gekko opener, from my experience and knowledge, is because someone using Shifu earlier will fit their opener within party buffs a lot easier. It's up to you as to what works based on your party comp, and what you are comfortable with. As I said on the front page, there's definitely options for you, and any one may potentially benefit you more than the last. Same as Hagakure usage!

Not sure why, but sometimes I have situations where I would end up clipping Higanbana at 10s+ or so. Sen management is a bit weird to me still.

I can't seem to figure out the most optimal AoE opener. Really appreciated if someone would like to post theirs

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Originally Posted by Clover210

I can't seem to figure out the most optimal AoE opener. Really appreciated if someone would like to post theirs

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Most of the info compiled from discussion of the rotation is on the first post. Just follow the guide.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ntial_scaling/

Interesting conversation going on about Stat Weights.

Seems a little less... certain than before, in my opinion. At least, that's what I'm getting from some of the replies.

I have a little trouble with the priorities in the rotation. is it now more important to NOT stack Sen and ignore the Buff u would gain if you were stacking it or gain the buff and stack it ? For example in a dungeon you go into the next bossfight with one or two or even three active Sen but you dont have any of the buffs (talking ofc about the +10% dmg etc.). Now if i have 1 Moon Sen should i just ignore the 10% damage buff for now and go on with the rotation or is it more important to reamply the missing buff but stacking a Sen for it ?

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Originally Posted by Victom

I have a little trouble with the priorities in the rotation. is it now more important to NOT stack Sen and ignore the Buff u would gain if you were stacking it or gain the buff and stack it?

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It gets weird if you have Sen in a dungeon before the boss is pulled. Once you get Hagakure, you can just use that to wipe your Sen clean before the pull. If you don't... It gets stickier.

Once your rotation starts, you want to avoid overlapping any Sen already gained. If you're doing your rotation perfectly, you never will. If you find yourself in an unfortunate situation where you don't have Hagakure, and you have no buffs (but you DO have the corresponding Sen), you have one of two options. Overlap Sen is option one. Or you do Hakaze>buff (insert Shifu or Jinpu)>Iaijutsu>ender. That way, you aren't overlapping Sen, because you're consuming it to cast an Iaijutsu first.

nice guide indeed, for my part im totally agreed with you opinion of hagakure, when i was leveling around 67 the rotation was perfect and easy to predict for any combat change, then when i get hagakure something in my brain do "click" and then find samurai was a damm mess, with time i adapt myself to hagakure but i still find it clunky in someway, i try to use 3 sen hagakure rotation but i find the numbers dance a lot, i will try next days and use hagaruke when i have it independing of the sens and lets see, but i wish the skill was 50 free kenki that dont expend the sen will make it more friendly to use.

How much crit and direct hit do I need to get the 4k result? I am having a hard time to even get 3.5k on Lakshim actual fight

Why does everyone seem to want to start with a shifu opener?

Opening with Yukikaze and then into buffed Higanbane after Jinpu applies a max damage higanbane faster and still stays most of a GCD ahead in the longrun over a shifu opener with http://ffxivrotations.com/sjm . Using an extra GCD to generate a sen for Higanbane with a Kasha combo just delays the entire rotation seemingly unnecessarily.

I also don't understand the insistence on using Hagakure and Meikyo very early for a faster Guren seeing as Guren should be lower priority than Kaiten on your two biggest hits. If you open with Yukikaze Higanbane into Kaiten Midare => Meikyo => Kaiten Midare, you can do another full Kaiten Midare combo before having to apply Higanbane again. Additionally, if you math out the kenki required for this opener, assuming no missed positionals, you can still throw out a Guren in the potion duration if you use it before the first Midare. After the third Midare you can still Hagakure for kenki as Higanbane will fall off otherwise.

The only upside I can see to using Meikyo and Hagakure early is more early shintens and a guren for early burst, but it seems to unnecessarily nerf the rotation that comes afterwards as it gets a rather significant drop in potency/sec if you math it out beyond the first 20-40 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Raelcun

Why does everyone seem to want to start with a shifu opener?

Opening with Yukikaze and then into buffed Higanbane after Jinpu applies a max damage higanbane faster and still stays most of a GCD ahead in the longrun over a shifu opener with http://ffxivrotations.com/sjm . Using an extra GCD to generate a sen for Higanbane with a Kasha combo just delays the entire rotation seemingly unnecessarily.

I also don't understand the insistence on using Hagakure and Meikyo very early for a faster Guren seeing as Guren should be lower priority than Kaiten on your two biggest hits. If you open with Yukikaze Higanbane into Kaiten Midare => Meikyo => Kaiten Midare, you can do another full Kaiten Midare combo before having to apply Higanbane again. Additionally, if you math out the kenki required for this opener, assuming no missed positionals, you can still throw out a Guren in the potion duration if you use it before the first Midare. After the third Midare you can still Hagakure for kenki as Higanbane will fall off otherwise.

The only upside I can see to using Meikyo and Hagakure early is more early shintens and a guren for early burst, but it seems to unnecessarily nerf the rotation that comes afterwards as it gets a rather significant drop in potency/sec if you math it out beyond the first 20-40 seconds.

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I'm sure someone can give a deeper analysis of your opener, but it seems like you're delaying Guren fairly significantly. I'm not sure if it's worth it, but that link didn't show up to when you would actually use Guren to see.

Since Hissatsu: Guren is worth 16 potency per Kenki while Kaiten: Midare Setsugekka is worth 13.5, Guren takes priority over Midare. It actually seems like your rotation sacrifices sustained Kenki damage for burst with Midare in the opener.

Midare is always to first to get delayed since even though it 0.5 potency per Kenki more than Hissatsu: Shinten, it requires a GCD so it's worth less. Once Hagakure is up, Kaiten: Midare Setsugekka is basically spending 80 Kenki for 1080 potency. Counting the GCD it takes, Midare gets pushed down in priority to basically everything else that uses Sen or Kenki.

I believe the Shifu early usage is based on keeping the higher damage abilities within the burst window of external raid cds like Battle Litany or Trick Attack. That point is probably more debatable (using Yukikaze first), but supposed Shifu's buff is simply the most valuable for sustained damage.

I haven't mathed that part out to make too much of an argument for it. But I have seen multiple reports showing Shifu taking priority while delaying results in a dps loss even if there's no other slashing debuff source. Shifu's buff is strong, no doubt. By the time you finish your Gekko, it will have basically given you a free gcd.