SAM rotation | DPS

[Dzian]

I've tried to use Hagakure during a fight, but it never seems to work out well for me, I feel like I'm giving up DPS by losing built-up Sen. I could be wrong.

You pretty much always want to be using hagakure on 3 sen instead of midare.. to pinch from what I said in a thread not so long ago..Hagakure thread

without hagakure
hakaza (150) > shifu (280) > kasha (400) > hakaza (150) > jinpu (280) > gecko (400) > hakaza (150) > yukikaze (340) > kaiten midare (1080)
= 21 seconds (3,230 potency)
hakaza (150) > shifu (280) > kasha (400) > hakaza (150) > jinpu (280) > gecko (400) > hakaza (150) > yukikaze (340) > kaiten midare (1080)
= 21 seconds (3,230 potency)
total 42 seconds. (6,460 potency) (153 potency per second)

With Hagakure @3 sen
hakaza (150) > shifu (280) > kasha (400) > hakaza (150) > jinpu (280) > gecko (400) > hakaza (150) > yukikaze (340) > hagakure
= 18 seconds (2,150 potency)
hakaza (150) > shinten (300) > shifu (280) > shinten (300) > kasha (400) > shinten (300) > hakaza (150) > jinpu (280) > gecko (400) > hakaza (150) > yukikaze (340) > kaiten midare (1080)
= 21 seconds (4,130 potency)
total 39 seconds. (6,280 potency)(161 potency per second)

this is roughly a 5% increase in your potency per second. using hagakure instead of midare.
I say roughly because it's pretty raw. I haven't factored gear, skill speed, buffs or any of that.

First glaring mistake at about a minute in. You have Hagakure available, but use Kaiten-Midare instead. Use Hagakure here, and keep a close eye on your Hagakure cooldown. Sometimes it won't be available right as you hit 3-Sen, but it will be available for use in the middle of an upcoming combo. For example- Yukikaze (in this example, charges your 3rd/final Sen)>Hakaze>Shifu (Hagakure)>Kasha. That gives you about a 2 GCD (depending on your GCD, 4-5 second) buffer to make sure you aren't just sitting on Hagakure. --As a side note, in the average 10 minute fight, you could lose potential overall casts of Hagakure by letting it sit on cooldown for 5 seconds every time it comes up. Lost casts means instead of like, (arbitrary number) 5 Hagakure's total, you may have only managed 4 Hagakure's total because you let it sit too long, too often. That's just lost DPS on the table..

also this isn't exactly true. in most cases sitting on hagakure even for 10-12 seconds while you build 3 sen. will in most cases result in a dps gain. again stolen from the threadi linked near top of this post.

Another point of confusion I've seen argued a lot is whether Hagakure should always be used immediately with at least 1 Sen, or wait until you build 3 Sen.
If we say that Hagakure is worth 720p every 40s when used on cooldown with 3 Sen, that would be 18 PPS.
Let's give the most extreme case, and say the cooldown comes up when you have 1 Sen from Yukikaze, and no Skill Speed.
You should always have Shifu, putting you at 2.25s recast.
It would take 13.5 seconds (2.25x6) to get up to 3 Sen, costing 243p (13.5x18) compared to if you already had 3 Sen.
If you used Hagakure at 1 Sen, it would have had 240p. A net loss of only 3 potency in THE most extreme case.
Let's be more reasonable, and say that you have 2 Sen, and can use Yukikaze.
It would take 4.5 seconds (2.25x2) to reach 3 Sen, costing 81p (4.5x18), but with a gain of 240p on Hagakure. A net gain of 159p.

Even a tiny amount of Skill Speed should cause them to break even on the worst case.
Mathematically, you should always build 3.

The only real time this isn't true is either if building to 3 will interfere with your Higabana management. Or Fight mechanics cause you to change your rotation. in most other cases sitting on hagakure till you have 3 sen is worth it in my experience at least

[Nominous]

in most other cases sitting on hagakure till you have 3 sen is worth it in my experience at least

Losing casts isn't the end of the world (entirely), especially for Hagakure, where there's a variable worth to each cast you do or don't get with it. I could get a 1, 2, or 3 (Sen) charge for each cast, so the loss of a cast that would at best be 1-Sen Hagakure for example, wouldn't hurt that much. So you're right in that regard. I don't think there's a bunch of hard math on that, because it seems like it'd be difficult to properly calculate the worth of lost casts vs. sitting on it earlier in fights to get up to 3-Sen charges.

Generally speaking though, losing potential casts over the course of a fight is not ideal. That's not saying you should hit Hagakure at 2-Sen to avoid this, but it's to say you should avoid holding it so that you can use Midare, for example.

[Acebris_Etheyr]

You pretty much always want to be using hagakure on 3 sen instead of midare.. to pinch from what I said in a thread not so long ago..Hagakure thread

I'll give the rotation you posted a shot, see how that works for me.