Samurai Discussion

[yillin]

I didn't see a samurai thread and I don't expect this one to be the main thread but maybe this will kick-start one with any discussion that gets brought up.

As you may or may not know, the actions for samurai were revealed:

Samurai Actions

I was looking through it all trying to figure out what a basic rotation would be and how it all fits together. I've made a couple assumptions in doing this:

1) All Hissatsu abilities (Kenki spenders) are OGCD.
2) The tooltip windows in the link have a GCD of 2.41 but I used 2.5
3) Potency calculations for Slash = pot*(1/.9) and DmgUp = pot*1.15
4) Hissatsu: Kaiten is a poorly written tooltip and should read "to 150%" rather than "by 150%"
5) Despite Midare Setsugekka having a cast time, it won't longer than the recast time to finish it and be able to cast your next GCD.

EDIT: reddit user /u/lenoan created a pretty nice spreadsheet to test out rotations. Linking it below this. To use it just create a copy for yourself from the file menu I believe. All credit to /u/lenoan

Spread sheet planner

Now, something else to consider if assumption '1' is true: Hissatsu Shinten and Kyuten both have a 1.0s recast time so I'm starting to think these are Kenki dump moves to spam if you are getting to much kenki but it also depends on the animation lock of these abilities.

A fun combo, which I listed in my spreadsheet as the last few moves is:

Hissatsu: Yaten (10- yalm disengage; empowers Enbi to 300 potency)
Enbi (20-yalm 300 potency ranged attack)
Hissatsu: Gyoten (Gap closer; gets you back into the action)

You have to have 10 Kenki to use it but it seems like it may be a natural addendum to the basic rotation.

The typical aoe rotation seems like it will utilize

Fuga -> Mangetsu (1 sen) -> Fuga -> Oka (2 sen) -> Iaijutsu (AOE version) and then stick in Hissatsu Guren when you reach 50 Kenki.

I believe the opener will probably utilize Meikyo Shisui since it will let you use your 3 combo enders back to back to stack your buffs up immediately. What direction you go from there is hard to say. You'll be at 30 kenki, with two spenders being 20 and 25 that do.


20 Kenki spender route:

If you use Kaiten (20 kenki; 150% WA) you would probably want to follow up with Midare Setsugekka (720 base potency), especially if you weaved in damage buffs like B4B. You'll be down to 10 kenki at this point so the question becomes is it more beneficial to build more kenki immediately or use the Yaten -> Enbi -> Gyoten combo?

25 Kenki spender route:

This just seems to be use Shinten and then be at 5 kenki. Probably not the best choice but at this point I'm not sure.

The third option becomes keep building kenki with a single target combo until 50 and then use Guren (800 potency is nothing to sneeze at even for single target).

Something to pay attention to is that since the duration of your debuff and buffs is 30s each, you have to reapply them roughly every 12 GCDs since I imagine keeping them up permanently is optimal.

One last thought I have for now is where does Higanbana (1 sen Iaijutsu; 240 potency + (35 potency * 20 ticks) = 940 potency attack) fit into it all?

I welcome any corrections and discussion to this thread. Please be civil, I am not the greatest theory crafter and am trying to spur forth conversation.

Useful Links and Theorycrafting:

A reddit users thoughts on linking kenki to potency and the importance of Hagakure
Daioh's indepth thoughts on potential Samurai openers
Probound turned Daioh's theory into a picture

[mosaicex]

...especially if you weaved in damage buffs like B4B.

Samurai doesn't have any oGCD damage buff. Maybe STR pot, but that's it.

Guren is on 120 seconds cooldown, so it's yet another "use whevener off cd(unless saving for bursting down adds)" skill.

Shinten is less kenki efficient than Kaiten + Midare (300 potency vs 360 potency gain)

Higanbana might be best used after the first Midare since you will already have Jinpu damage up, and it only takes 2 GCD to perform Yukikaze combo for 1 Sen

[yillin]

I see. I assumed b4b got turned into a role action but I guess not. Thanks for the correction.

[Allyrion]

I assume Kaiten + Higanbana is stronger than Kaiten + Midare Setsugekka since Higanbana is the strongest single target move in the kit. Unless you need burst, and also a minute-long dot might not always work well with phase shifts.

Either way, it seems like you can do both since Kaiten has a short cooldown and thus you can buff each Iaijutsu with it and still have some filler Kenki left over.

[Remus]

This is what I have come up with from looking at the samurai skills. I'm not saying its right just what I thought could go together for an opener.

() Off-Globalcooldown/positionals

Hazake -> Jinpu -> Gekko(rear) -> (Kaiten)Higanbana ->
Hakaze -> Shifu -> Kasha(side) -> Hazake -> (Shinten)Yukikaze ->
Hazake -> Jinpu -> Gekko(rear) -> Hagakure ->
(Meikyo Shisui)Kasha(side) -> (Guren)Gekko(rear) -> Yukikaze ->
(Kaiten)Midare Setsugekka -> Hakaze -> (Shinten)Jinpu -> Gekko(rear) ->
(Shinten)Hakaze -> Shifu -> Kasha(side) -> (Shinten)Hakaze -> Yukikaze ->
(Kaiten)Midare Setsugekka

Back to the top!

Hagakure is a really good skill but people seem to be ignore it. If you have 3 sen you pretty much get 60 kenki to use on off global cooldown skills.

[yillin]

Makes you wonder if Hagakure will only be a dps increase if you have Meikyo Shishui ready to use and something like Hissatsu: Guren to dump Kenki immediately so you don't cap out. I assume the cap is 100 kenki.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

I assume Kaiten + Higanbana is stronger than Kaiten + Midare Setsugekka since Higanbana is the strongest single target move in the kit

According to Very Merri. Kaiten does not affect DoT potencies from Higanbana. Just the initial hit. Like how life surge on drg would only crit the initial hit on chaos thrust but not the dot ticks

[Yorumi]

Makes you wonder if Hagakure will only be a dps increase if you have Meikyo Shishui ready to use and something like Hissatsu: Guren to dump Kenki immediately so you don't cap out. I assume the cap is 100 kenki.

If you're at 40 kenki or below i'm pretty sure it would be a dps increase regardless. You can spend 3 sen on 720 potency. If you want to do everything you can to try to favor that you can use Kaiten to get 1080 potency out of 3 sen and 20 keniki. On the other hand the conversion to 60 keniki you could do Yaten > Enhanced enbi > Gyoten > Shinten > Shinten for a total of 1100 potency. Of course that takes a lot longer to execute than midare but I think it's probably overall better.

According to Very Merri. Kaiten does not affect DoT potencies from Higanbana. Just the initial hit. Like how life surge on drg would only crit the initial hit on chaos thrust but not the dot ticks

I'm not always good with stuff that takes varying amounts of gcds but I don't think Haganbana is ever worth applying. If kaiten doesn't affect dot ticks then Haganbana is 1060 total potency. Midare is 1080 under kaiten.

[Coltvoyance]

Here's my initial thoughts on how SAM should fight, starting with the opener:

Meikyo > Shifu > Jinpu > Yukikaze > Kaiten > Higanbana > Ageha > Yaten > Enbi > Gyoten

(From here on out I'm going to use "YEG Combo" to refer to the Yaten > Enbi > Gyoten sequence)

So I'm not a math wiz, these figures arent exact, but this opener gets all your buffs up and delivers around 2287 immediate potency (3320 "potential" potency, Higanbana needs time) in roughly 12 seconds. EDIT: according to poster above, Kaiten doesn't affect the DoT for Higanbana, these numbers were originally calculated under the assumption that it did, I've readjusted them

After that, you would roll into the normal rotation which is, from what I've been able to piece together, a 30 second affair, (how convenient that it matches the length of your buffs!) In my head it goes like this:

Hakaze > Shifu > Kasha > YEG Combo > Hakaze > Jinpu > Gekko > YEG Combo > Hakaze > Yukikaze > Special > YEG Combo

Then repeat. At the end of the rotation you should have 5 leftover Kenki.

Special #1: The first "Special" when you have all 3 Sen should be to use Hagakure > Kaiten > Guren for ~1500 potency. EDIT: on closer inspection Kaiten tooltip specifies "Weaponskill" for boost, Guren is an ability. It may not apply, so taking Guren out of the equation.

Special #2: Kaiten > Midare.

This is my first pass at what I feel is the optimal sequence for its DPS... Thoughts? Anything I missed or didn't consider? (Gonna work on the AOE rotations next.)

[Tsilyi]

If you're at 40 kenki or below i'm pretty sure it would be a dps increase regardless. You can spend 3 sen on 720 potency. If you want to do everything you can to try to favor that you can use Kaiten to get 1080 potency out of 3 sen and 20 keniki. On the other hand the conversion to 60 keniki you could do Yaten > Enhanced enbi > Gyoten > Shinten > Shinten for a total of 1100 potency. Of course that takes a lot longer to execute than midare but I think it's probably overall better.

I feel like you want to not yaten/gyoten, since staying in would allow you to shinten more via hagakure since you are also generating more kenki through your melee attacks after you dump into shinten. if you jump out and in you are only generating 10 kenki for enbi. but you're spending 5 less i suppose. in addition that's 1 gcd where you are generating both (i believe) 10 kenki less than you would normally and also not comboing toward your next sen.