Studying The Blade- The SAM DPS Guide

[Nominous]

i wish i can see hagakure usage on other players

You can. You click the player's name, go to the "Casts" tab, click it. Scroll down and you'll see Hagakure. To the far right is the amount of times it was used in the fight. You can't tell the amount of Kenki that was gained from it, but you can get an idea for if you're using it enough, or not enough during a fight. The easy tell for how they used Hagakure, is Shinten usage. They'll usually have more of those if they used Hagakure on 3 Sen, and less if used on 1/2 Sen.

[Nominous]

Will update the thread with tips on fights as I get more accustomed to them! I've got some nice simple stuff for O1S and O2S!

[Tsilyi]

3 sec casting bar.

O.o

even so it is better to use hagakure with 3 sen than midare.

[Jarinolde]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...n_spreadsheet/

So according to this, once you've reached a combined 3500 total of Direct Hit and Crit, Crit starts overtaking Direct Hit in damage increase per point. This threshold goes even lower if you have a BRD, DRG or SCH in the group, down to 3100 if you have all 3.

With this, here is the BiS I came up with: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/1248E

I know some of the accessory melds are not getting the full 40 points from the Grade 6 melds. I stand by that decision with the belief that it would still be better versus melding Hit or Det.

[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.

[Kanzer]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...n_spreadsheet/

So according to this, once you've reached a combined 3500 total of Direct Hit and Crit, Crit starts overtaking Direct Hit in damage increase per point. This threshold goes even lower if you have a BRD, DRG or SCH in the group, down to 3100 if you have all 3.

With this, here is the BiS I came up with: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/1248E

I know some of the accessory melds are not getting the full 40 points from the Grade 6 melds. I stand by that decision with the belief that it would still be better versus melding Hit or Det.

This week I honestly redid all of my melds, sacrificed a lot of det for more crit and then more direct hit as a secondary. And honestly it boosted my DPS a lot. Det seems to be pretty garbage compared to crit and direct hit, but crit still seems to be the king, at least in my experience. I went from not being able to consistently beat the O4S dummy to consistently beating it with 5-10 seconds left over.

Though another interesting thing to note is even with my crit and direct hit at these levels, a skillspeed of at least around 830 boosted my DPS a lot. I do think there is a certain point in SS that we don't want to fall below. At 717 it noticeably hurt my overall output.

[Esoterikk]

Some big streamers were saying SAM won't be taken to any serious speed run because MNK replaces them to easily. Thoughts, wondering if I should continue the SAM

[Greyfrost]

Some big streamers were saying SAM won't be taken to any serious speed run because MNK replaces them to easily. Thoughts, wondering if I should continue the SAM

Are you going on a serious speed run?

Yes? Then Samurai will still have a spot, if we're going for a standard comp on fflogs, it'd be either PLD/WAR/DRK - SAM/MNK/NIN/RDM - WHM or SCH /AST or BRD instead of RDM, might even take BLM if the fight is favorable

No? Then why bother, play what you want.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This was recently posted on reddit. Another spreadsheet, though this one accounts for SkS's impact on your overall damage output.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ge_calculator/

[Nominous]

This was recently posted on reddit. Another spreadsheet, though this one accounts for SkS's impact on your overall damage output.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ge_calculator/

Pretty good tool.