Studying The Blade- The SAM DPS Guide

[Nominous]

Curious what kinda numbers Sams are posting in O1-4S. Anyone have any details about their experiences so far?

4.4k at the end of O2S with 39% uptime of nerfed balance, item level 318. For me, anyway.

[PROBOUND]

In a party composition without a Warrior or a Ninja, it's recommended to use the 2-Sen opener.
In a party composition with a Dragoon, it's recommended to use the 1-Sen opener.

What about in a composition without a Warrior or Ninja, but with a Dragoon?

I'm guessing the reason nobody talks about the 2-Sen opener when it comes to damage is because its bad? 1-Sen and 3-Sen seem to be the only openers discussed now.

So TLDR: 2-Sen is the gimped opener that sacrifices personal damage for sub-standard party compositions?

[Adriosh]

2 sen opener is a meme leave it in the trash where is belongs.

[PROBOUND]

2 sen opener is a meme leave it in the trash where is belongs.

So regardless of comp avoid 2 sen like the plague! Gotcha thanks lol

[Yuxiichan]

Anyone make a BiS yet?

[Greyfrost]

2 Sen opener, what's 2 Sen opener? Lol

Anyway, you can't ignore skillspeed on SAM, because instead of just plain GCD increase in a set timeframe, you also get potency increase, from Kenki, and that extra GCD might lead to another midare, right now I try to keep my SKS at 1449, for 2.1 GCD under shifu, I don't know the minimum, just experimenting as I go.

[PROBOUND]

Anyway, you can't ignore skillspeed on SAM, because instead of just plain GCD increase in a set timeframe, you also get potency increase, from Kenki, and that extra GCD might lead to another midare, right now I try to keep my SKS at 1449, for 2.1 GCD under shifu, I don't know the minimum, just experimenting as I go.

I'm interested in testing out the 1780 SS Threshold for 1 Sen opener supremacy! Most of the fights are target dummy which favors SS and i've seen some sets that still had 1400+ DH/DET. Could be worthwhile in the long run. Arthars put up 4.8k on his O4S clear today and he's running about 1300 SS (due to back luck on drops) and still did really well. He messed up alot and would have easily broke 5k.

[ColdGuy]

Skill Speed is good, yes?

Anyways, can someone with less SS test out an opener for me?

I do a very elongated opener, goes like this:

Hakaze -> Shifu -> Kasha -> Hakaze+Potion -> Jinpu+Kaiten -> Higanbana -> Gekko+Meikyo -> Yukikaze -> Kasha+Kaiten -> Midare -> Gekko -> Hakaze -> Yukikaze -> Hakaze -> Shifu -> Kasha+Kaiten -> Midare -> Hakaze+Guren -> Jinpu ...

The reason i ask is because i remember Jinpu falling off before Guren a couple hundred SS ago.

[Yuxiichan]

AYDEN !?!?!?!?!? MY OLD RAID LEADER AYDEN !?!?!?!?!? WTFFF

[Dzian]

Skill Speed is good, yes?

Anyways, can someone with less SS test out an opener for me?

I do a very elongated opener, goes like this:

Hakaze -> Shifu -> Kasha -> Hakaze+Potion -> Jinpu+Kaiten -> Higanbana -> Gekko+Meikyo -> Yukikaze -> Kasha+Kaiten -> Midare -> Gekko -> Hakaze -> Yukikaze -> Hakaze -> Shifu -> Kasha+Kaiten -> Midare -> Hakaze+Guren -> Jinpu ...

The reason i ask is because i remember Jinpu falling off before Guren a couple hundred SS ago.

A lot of interesting stuff in this thread looks like I need to rethink a few things.

Recently I've been opening with enpi while running into melee range. delays the first gcd a touch but extra kenki. and been revolving around using hagakure and shinten where possible.

Kind of going then:
enpi > hakaze > shifu > kasha > hakaza > jinpu > kaiten + higabana > gecko >shinten > hakaze > yuki > hakaze > shinten > shifu > kasha> hagakure> guren > meikyo > kasha > Shinten > yuki > gecko> kaiton + midare.

time wise its curious it seems my midare goes out only slightly later than other sams I get partied with but in that same time frame I've put out 3 shinten's.. also you appear to be conserving kenki for guren and not using hagakure.. is there something i'm missing?

Although I'll be the first to admit it's got a few kinks and is / was a work in progress till I found this thread it's felt quite effective in various farm parties and stuff I've been in at least. even out doing better geared / melded sams. but it's very different in terms of what a lot of people here are suggesting / using. so I can't help but feel i'm missing something..

The theory behind what I've been doing is that I can either spend 20 kenki and 3 sen on a 1080p midare. or I can converet those sen into 60 kenki +20 from kaiten for a total of 80 kenki. this then mean I can do 3 shintens for a total of 900 potency and also puts me 3 seconds ahead of myself cos there is no midare cast time. in that 3 seconds I can do roughly 1/3 of a combo maybe more depending on skill speed and the gcd time.. so lets say 276.6 potency. (a full gecko/kasha combo is 830) so 276+900 now puts me ahead of midare by 96 potency. This is all a work in progress and my numbers are from accurate because I haven't taken into account auto attacks or skill speed to much.

However it looks like a very different angle to what a lot of people in this thread are doing so either way looks like i'll be doing a lot more reading up and experimenting with things...probably something really obvious that just hasn't occurred to me yet.