Studying The Blade- The SAM DPS Guide

[Nominous]

A lot of people have been asking for a more organized thread for SAM, so here we go! last updated 11/16/2017

Disclaimer: As an ongoing community discussion, and as it is an ever-changing game, not everything posted here will always remain accurate. I will keep a close-eye on discussions forming in the community to update the thread so that it will be a decent source of information, as accurate as possible.

Quick Guide
i. Basics
ii. Kenki
iii. Intermediate
iv. Advanced
v. Openers
vi. Stat Discussion

i.-SAM Basics- Sen, and Kinky Kenki-
This is where you want to start if you're just picking the Job up for the first time, or maybe you're interested in SAM but have no clue what it's main mechanics are.

Let's talk about Sen
Sen is the central mechanic on which Samurai operates. Using Sen allows Samurai to deal massive amounts of damage, and each Sen related ability has a cast time. There is a guide to this in the game, if you'd prefer the official explanation of the system, but I will put it here for reference as well.

You have 3 individual Sen on the Job Gauge, each corresponding to a specific combo ender. When you finish these combos, or execute these skills under Meikyo-Shisui, you will gain the corresponding Sen.
Moon- Gekko combo.
Flower- Kasha combo.
Ice- Yukikaze combo.

As a general rule of thumb, do not overlap Sen. For instance, if you already have Flower active in your Job Gauge, try not to do the Kasha finisher again without spending said Sen in some way. More on that in the Intermediate section.

Now that we've specified what Sen are, let's go over how they are spent. Again, all of these do have a cast time of about 1.5 seconds.
(Keep in mind, for 1-Sen, and 2-Sen abilities, any Sen/Combination will work. This means Flower and Ice will grant the same ability access as Flower and Moon.)
1 Sen- Higanbana (Banana). This is your DoT ability. It has 240 potency on the initial hit, and 35 potency ticks for 60 seconds. You always want this applied to the enemy, unless it's going to jump or die relatively close to application.
2 Sen- Tenka Goken. This is a strong AoE ability. 360 potency with 10% potency falloff for each additional enemy hit. Always use if there's 2 or more enemies.
3 Sen- Midare Setsugekka. This is your, "I want to delete this enemy" single-target ability. 720 potency.

Since this is the basics section, don't worry too much about how this works in conjunction with the rest of the SAM kit. Just understand that our ultimate goal is to gather Sen to use.

ii.-Now, let's get into Kenki territory-
While Sen can be considered the central mechanic for SAM, Kenki is our resource to manage (not unlike TP, or MP for example). We gather Kenki by doing weaponskills, up to a maximum of 100 Kenki. We spend this resource on abilities, each with their own Kenki cost, in efforts to help with our damage output, among other benefits. Do not worry about this gauge until you're 62. Once you're 62, a trait gives you 5 Kenki for every weaponskill used, and positional requirements on Kasha(which becomes a flank positional) and Gekko(which becomes a rear positional). For properly executing the positional requirement on those two skills, you gain 5 bonus Kenki (bringing these two skills to 10 Kenki gained). The following are your Kenki abilities, and their associated costs (all of these are off the global cooldown, for use in-between weaponskills):

20 Kenki- Hissatsu: Kaiten. This is a 50% potency boost on your next weaponskill. Use exclusively on Higanbana, and Midare.
10 Kenki- Hissatsu: Gyoten. This is our gap-closer. Use this in high movement instances, or if you get knocked far back to keep maximum uptime.
10 Kenki- Hissatsu: Yaten. This is a disengage backstep. A small note, though. You will be given "Enhanced Enpi" when using this skill. This buffs Enpi to 300 potency when used, however Enpi will break any combo you had going. Just makes sure that if you're going to use this proc, your combo is finished first.
25 Kenki- Hissatsu: Shinten. A 300 potency ability. This right here is going to be what you spend Kenki on, for the most part.
25 Kenki- Hissatsu: Kyuten. A 150 potency AoE ability WITHOUT falloff. Only use if there's 2 or more enemies that will be hit.
15 Kenki (requires Third Eye>Open Eyes)- Hissatsu: Seigan. Kind of a weird ability. 200 potency, meant for single-target, however it requires being hit during Third-Eye to use. I'll go in depth about this later.
50 Kenki- Hissatsu: Guren. An 800 potency AoE with falloff. Basic rule- You can save Guren for up to 2 minutes (no further) without it hindering your DPS in any major way (other than missing party buffs). You would only want to save it, however, if you're approaching an AoE situation in that time frame.

I'm gonna make it easy for you. In a typical fight, you'll only be touching Kaiten, Shinten, and Guren with regularity. With Guren on a 2 minute cooldown, you're going to want to mostly get familiar with how to use Kaiten, and Shinten, and managing your gauge efficiently around those two abilities. Why?

For Kaiten, it's simple. Out of your whole kit, what ability would benefit most from 50% extra potency? Higanbana, despite it's low initial hit potency. The ticks are affected as well, meaning each tick is a base potency of over 50. Midare is the next highest, at over 1000 (base, with Kaiten) potency. Kaiten is the lowest cost, highest reward Kenki ability. Following that, is Shinten (for single target).

Meditate, and Hagakure are an important part of getting more Kenki, as Hagakure gives you 20 Kenki per Sen (1-Sen=20, 2-Sen=40, 3-Sen=60), and Meditate is free Kenki gain as long as you're in-combat, with no enemies to attack. Meditate is used on long boss jumps, basically. More on Hagakure, however, in the Intermediate section.

The Basic Rotation
With knowledge of Sen, and Kenki, we can put together one cohesive line of thought. Our goal is to gain Sen to use on Banana and Midare, while managing Kenki as a resource to gain more damage. What's the main rotation look like, then? Let's start with just weaponskills.

Hakaze>Shifu>Kasha
Hakaze>Jinpu>Gekko
Hakaze>Yukikaze
Midare Setsugekka

Simple stuff! Start there. Go to a striking dummy, and repeat that, get a good feel for it. An easy way to remember this flow, is to look at the Job Gauge and unlock Sen in a clockwise fashion. It won't always work out that way, but it's a starting point for understanding the flow of the Job. This is not the opener, and this is not optimal play, this is just basic Sen gain and use.


iii.-Intermediate SAM-
Now, let's go deeper. We're going to add in the DoT element to the previously mentioned basic rotation, since you'll always want to have that up as a priority. Again, NOT the optimal opener, just understanding the flow of the Job.

Hakaze>Shifu>Kasha
Hakaze>Jinpu>Higanbana>Gekko
Hakaze>Yukikaze
Haaze>Shifu>Kasha
Midare Setsugekka

Notice there, you do NOT break your combo by using Iaijutsu, such as Higanbana. Bringing me to the first of the more in-depth concepts about SAM.

Mid-Combo Iai
Using Iaijutsu in the middle of a combo opens up multiple opportunities, and playing the Job optimally will sometimes call for the use of it. Let's look at some use cases, as it will help you in many scenarios. Mostly, I do this in efforts to not overlap Sen gain.

- You messed up Kenki management, and you don't have enough for Kaiten-Midare, or Kaiten-Higanbana. Well, instead of using the Iai raw, look at your Kenki gauge. If you have 10 Kenki, you can safely use two weaponskills (provided the second isn't Yukikaze), which will bring you to 20 Kenki. At this point, you can use your Kaiten buffed Iai. That would look something like... Hakaze(15 Kenki)>Shifu(20 Kenki)[Kaiten]>Midare>Kasha.
- You had downtime on a boss, which made a buff fall off (let's say your Speed buff). However, for sake of example, you had all 3 Sen active, allowing for a Midare. Well, instead of doing the full Kasha combo, overlapping Sen gain, you could do a Mid-Combo Midare, followed by Kasha.
- You're doing the AoE rotation, and need extra Kenki for the Kaiten buffed Tenka Goken.

Just to name a few scenarios where this is helpful. Mostly, the idea is that you want to do this to minimize Sen overlap, while maximizing all the benefits from the rest of your combo (Sen gain, buffs).

Managing the Kenki Gauge
This can be made almost too simple by stating thresholds where it's 'safe' to spend Kenki. So far starters let's talk about that, and the mindset behind it.

The 35 Rule
This is as simple as it gets. 35 Kenki is the threshold at which you can use Shinten, and Kyuten in your single-target, and AoE situations respectively. The reason for this, is because we want to prioritize use of Kaiten, which costs 20 Kenki. If we look at all of our combos, the shortest/least Kenki we could possibly gain is the Hakaze>Yukikaze combo at 15 Kenki generated. Therefore, using Shinten at 35 brings us down to 10 Kenki. Hakaze brings us to 15 Kenki. Literally any following combo route will put you at 20 or above, and Kaiten ready. If you want to be safer (due to not being able to hit positionals, or needing to use Kaiten+Iai earlier for a mechanic), you can make that threshold 40. Using the same logic, 70 is the threshold for Guren. Again, Guren CAN be held for up to 2 minutes without any hard DPS loss, outside of obviously missing TA/party buffs.

Hagakure
Pretty simple in theory. If all is going well, in a dummy-fight scenario, use Hagakure to consume 3 Sen ASAP, when it's off cooldown. With a relatively low cooldown, it's easy to under-utilize this ability throughout the course of a longer fight, by delaying it's use. However, you still should not use it mindlessly. Think about if Higanbana needs re-applied. Think about your current Sen, and Kenki count. Here's some scenarios and priorities to think on when approaching Hagakure usage.

-First and foremost, check your Kenki meter. Be wise, be alert. If you're at 40 or above, Hagakure will max your meter, and the following weaponskill will be wasted Kenki gain, unless you double-weave Hagakure with a Kenki-spender. Be mindful of how much Kenki Hagakure will generate, avoid a wasteful scenario.
-If Hagakure IS on cooldown, how many seconds are left, and how many Sen do you have? Let's say you're at 2 Sen, about 9-10 seconds remaining. This is a pretty common occurrence in the rotation (for me anyway). In most situations, you want to save your Sen for the Hagakure consume (at 3 Sen). No matter what combo/priority progression you're at, you're at least doing 2 GCD's (about 4-5 seconds), and potentially 3 (6-7 seconds) to hit your 3rd Sen. Then you have, at maximum, until right before your next combo-finisher to hit Hagakure as an oGCD. That should look like 2-3 GCD's (4-7 seconds) to max Sen, Hagakure comes up right before your 5th GCD (which should be a finisher), and that's where you'd want to pop it, instead of using a Kaiten Midare, for example.
-Hagakure is up, but Higanbana needs reapplied. Probably shouldn't find yourself in this situation often, but if so, use Higanbana first. If not, you're delaying it by an unacceptable amount of time.
-Hagakure and Meikyo up at the same time. Hagakure>Meikyo. A lot of Hagakure's urgency is because of it's low cooldown. Any wasted time will culminate at the end of the fight as wasted potential uses of the ability. Meikyo isn't a terribly long cooldown, but it's long enough to where delaying it a few seconds won't result in lost total use numbers by the end of a fight. Of course, if the planets align, and your Sen count is below 3, you won't max out Kenki, and you can weave them in properly, you could elect to use Meikyo first to generate your 3rd Sen, then Hagakure to consume that, then continue as per usual.
-Boss is jumping, able to potentially land a Kaiten Midare before it does, but Hagakure is also available for use? Kaiten Midare. Unless you think the hit won't register for whatever reason, always go for the damage. Hagakure isn't immediately a benefit to your damage potential. It gives you Kenki, but you need time to actually spend it for that benefit to shine through. That's the only situation in which you should need to weigh the options, though.

Finally, don't be afraid to use it below 3 Sen. If, for whatever reason, holding on to Hagakure would result in lost usages overall, it's not worth it just because you wanted to hit 3 Sen. There are times (few and far between) where an invuln boss jump is long enough to where it was stupid to hold on to it in favor of the 3 Sen dream.

iv.-Advanced Tips-
Now that we've gotten most of the rough stuff out of the way, we can talk about some nitty gritty stuff for tightening up your play, where possible.

Buff and Debuff Priority
I'll keep it nice and simple.

Speed Buff>Damage Buff>Slashing. Simple as that. In a situation in which they fall off, this is how you'd want to reapply. I will update this with the comparison to other rotations that prioritize the damage buff, for example. I wouldn't mind someone posting it here too, so I can update the front page. However, until proven otherwise, this would be how you want to prioritize. In the actual opener (I've been running with anyway), which I'll post in this section, it's important to put the speed buff first so that you can fit your heavier skills within party buffs where possible.

Meikyo Shisui Usage
Meikyo Shisui is a fairly simple skill on the surface. Use any 3 weaponskills back to back, with no combo requirement. Let's refer to those 3 weaponskills of choice as "Meikyo Charges". If you use Hakaze under Meikyo, for example, it will take 1 charge. If you use Shifu, 1 charge. However, if you use Midare during Meikyo, it will NOT use a charge. This means you're free to use Iai during Meikyo, and not waste a charge overlapping Sen you've already gained. This concept is the same as the previously mentioned Mid-Combo Iai. This gives you flexibility to use Meikyo no matter how many Sen you've gained, with no overlap.

HOWEVER. If you do a Mid-Meikyo Iai, you have to be wary of the last Sen you choose to generate, as you'll be skipping the corresponding combo. If you're skipping a combo, that means you're skipping a buff reapplication(unless your last Sen was Yukikaze). If the last Sen generated with Meikyo was Gekko for example, and your damage buff was falling off... How will you avoid overlapping the Moon Sen? If you have Hagakure, you're fine. If not, and Higanbana doesn't need reapplication immediately, then you just put yourself in a situation where you've wasted Sen gain.

To avoid the above problem, simply find the buff timer with the most time remaining during your Meikyo skills. The one that has the longest time remaining is the one you'll want to end your Meikyo on (if you're doing a Mid-Meikyo Iai). I will upload a video showing proper usage and improper usage of this slightly more advanced technique.

The AoE Rotation
The Samurai AoE rotation is pretty simple, and utilizes most concepts provided here. Before any of these considerations, keep in mind Guren should always be used first if available, over all other Kenki abilities.

-Jinpu for 4 enemies, and below. Forget it if there's more than that, though.

-9+ Enemies, spend your Kenki at 25 on Kyuten spam.

-Less than 9 enemies, use Kyuten at the proper thresholds (35. 40 if you're going to use Kyuten with 2 Sen unlocked already). Still use Kaiten for Tenka Goken.

Iaijutsu should exclusively be Tenka Goken until you're down to one enemy. That is, unless one of the enemies needs to die like, yesterday. Doubtful that'll be the case, however.

Fuga>Mangetsu>Fuga>Oka[Kaiten]=Tenka-Goken, and that's pretty much all you worry about, as far as GCD's go!

Keep in mind, Jinpu is the only buff that needs kept up, you can forget about Shifu, despite my own ramblings in other pages of the thread.

As your buffs start to wear off, you need to be wary of how you're applying your Sen with the AoE rotation. Let's say your damage buff is falling off. Then your AoE rotation will look like this:

Fuga>Oka>Hakaze[Kyuten]>Jinpu>Gekko[Kaiten]>Tenka Goken.

Third Eye, Seigan, and Merciful Eyes
Honestly, on launch, it seemed like these were some pretty decent abilities. As an update to this entire part of the guide, I'm not so sure that can be said currently. Considering it has a cooldown of 15 seconds, we could use it, if extremely precise, about 4 times per minute. But since the skill is only active for 3 seconds at a time, it's extremely hard to utilize without either cutting into your GCD to properly proc the shield, or flat out impossible to utilize with no outgoing damage. It's unreliable for the DPS gain aspect, and even if it were reliable for those purposes, it'd be a very underwhelming result in relation to the amount of effort put in. I think it's a nice ability if you're able to hit some kind of Kenki threshold that is otherwise impossible with Shinten usage at certain points of a fight... I guess? But even then, I'm of the opinion that managing your Kenki well enough should see you through to that goal well enough. Merciful Eyes? Clutch save move at best. Third Eye can be useful, but mainly for the shield, don't stress about optimizing Seigan.

Yaten>Enpi
The glorious disengage combo. Most people who play melee are undoubtedly accustomed to running out of AoE's last minute, and running back to maintain maximum uptime on the boss, losing as little damage as possible. It's all about keeping the GCD rolling. Yaten (Disengage)>Enpi (Ranged attack) is a disengage combo that allows you to maintain uptime without being TOO risky. If there's an AoE to dodge, or a mechanic you need to deal with NOT in melee range, this can be one of the best ways to approach the situation. Ultimately though, running out and using Enpi as you are isn't half bad either.

v. Some Openers [and a Visual Guide- Credit to "Leggerless"]

Visual Guide, again, not mine.

Videos of other openers (Credit to creators, definitely not me)

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0SaUWg9NSQ [Momo's 3 Sen Opener]

I will be adding to this thread as much as possible, but of course, it's a community effort. I just wanted to at least make sure there was a thread that was a bit more organized so that people could add to it, when possible, without the front page never getting updated. So feel free to add your own input and I'll put things in as they become relevant. Especially things like Stat Weight/Priority, math for Hagakure, etc etc.

[Chronons]

snip

Glad to you made this, was debating whether or not to do it myself. If your open to contribution here are some things I have been looking into and was compiling together.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/samurai/
Hands down the best set of tool tips for the job I've seen so far. I'd link this for newbies instead of trying to type this all up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...otation_guide/
This is a link to a reddit post that has an opener/rotation simulator for the job that people have been testing things with.

The opener claimed to be Dervy's early attempt at it was :

Hakaze > Shifu > Kasha > Hagakure
Hakaze > Jinpu > Gekko > H: Kaiten > Haganbana
Meikyo > Yukikaze > Gekko > H: Guren > Kasha > H: Kaiten > Midare

This rotation is pretty close to what the guys in that reddit post came up with. I suspect it is very likely close to what will be considered the most optimal.

[Muppet57]

Yes finally, thank you for this!

*Edit : Maybe we can add Stats weight too?

[Chronons]

*Edit : Maybe we can add Stats weight too?

Im not sure of anyone who is working on the maths of stat weights currently. Determination got buffed and Skill Speed now affects auto attacks I believe. So it may be more complicated than trying to maximize Strength and Crit like we would have in 3.0

[Sawamura]

would be great to The Samurai Bushido Guide or The Samurai way of bushido XD.
Anyways good job.

[Selova]

That looks pretty solid for our opener Chronons. The only thing I'm trying to figure out is kenki management when guren is on cd and Shinten useage. The tricky part I seem to be having is trying to make sure I have 50 kenki ready for when guren comes off cd and how many shintens I can get off in that 2 minute window while at the same time making sure I'm buffing every midare and higanbana with kaiten.

[Nominous]

That looks pretty solid for our opener Chronons. The only thing I'm trying to figure out is kenki management when guren is on cd and Shinten useage. The tricky part I seem to be having is trying to make sure I have 50 kenki ready for when guren comes off cd and how many shintens I can get off in that 2 minute window while at the same time making sure I'm buffing every midare and higanbana with kaiten.

Updated with the threshold for Kenki usage. Enjoy!

[Mordred]

From all this opener I wonder why they opt for 1 sen hagakure? My opener is the same as the op with the difference I use hagakure instead and delay midare.

Is it because of party buff and str pot? Even so it only explain using midare fiirst. Why 1 sen hagakure when you can delay it for 3 sen?

[Mordred]

From all this opener I wonder why they opt for 1 sen hagakure? My opener is the same as the op with the difference I use hagakure instead and delay midare.

Is it because of party buff and str pot? Even so it only explain using midare fiirst. Why 1 sen hagakure when you can delay it for 3 sen?

[Aion]

From all this opener I wonder why they opt for 1 sen hagakure? My opener is the same as the op with the difference I use hagakure instead and delay midare.

Is it because of party buff and str pot? Even so it only explain using midare fiirst. Why 1 sen hagakure when you can delay it for 3 sen?

So we can fit Hissatsu Guren for the party buff I think,and lining up hagakure CD later.