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?