Studying The Blade- The SAM DPS Guide

[Nominous]

Regarding aoe, is it best to keep both Shifu and Jinpu simply go keep Jinpu going? Been seeing a lot of conflicting theories on it and curious if anyone else has tested the damage difference.

I'll have to check this out more thoroughly, if I can, when friends are able to help me with the tools I need. The threshold I'm sure is going to depend on the amount of enemies. For example, Arm of the Destroyer on MNK used to not really break even until (I think it was like 5+ enemies?), so it was better to do a single-target rotation for buffs and just ending with Rock-Breaker when below 5 enemies.

This is just napkin math until someone can come in with an easier to digest spreadsheet or something, but... For starters, Kenki gain isn't something that will deviate between the two rotations (buffed AoE vs. non-buffed) by a large amount. At certain points, Fuga+Followup spam will be slightly ahead (15 GCD's is like 110 Kenki generated compared to the buffed rotation's 105 Kenki by 15 GCD's, not considering the Iai obviously), but that's about as much as it will fluctuate. Never enough to really get an extra Kenki-spender of worth. However, the way you spend it MIGHT differ.

Then you have to think about each GCD and how much potency it's worth. Let's talk non-Jinpu-buffed values. If you do one Fuga, that one GCD (let's say on 5 enemies hit) is equivalent to 500 potency. Then the followup skill (again on 5 enemies) is 900 potency (includes degradation). 1400 potency for 2 GCD's. 2800 for 4. 5th GCD (Tenka Goken with Kaiten, which is equivalent to 2160 with potency for 5 enemies, including the AoE degradation) puts you at 4960, with no buffs. That puts you at 9920 for 10 GCD's, your last being Kaiten+Tenka Goken. My GCD is at 2.39, so using that is an example, 24 seconds for that potency. (I might be wrong, considering GCD one is basically 0 seconds, but you just offset that by 2.39, easy enough).

One buff combo puts you at 830 for 3 GCD's. Let's assume Shifu first, which reduces your GCD by 10%, but we'll talk about the GCD at the end. Then Jinpu (which modifies Gekko to be 440 potency), making 6 GCD's worth 1700. Add in Tenka Goken, which is 2376 (on 5 enemies, after Jinpu), bringing us to 4076 by the 7th GCD. Fuga+Followup is 1543 after Jinpu, so that's 5619 by the 9th GCD. 6169 on the 10th (Fuga). 11th is the followup putting you at 7162, 12th (Kaiten Tenka Goken) is 9538.

The GCD though. Every GCD past the 2nd is faster when you put up Shifu. So (again with my terrible math), 11 GCD's are 2.15, first being 2.39. With Shifu, that's 26.04 Seconds to reach 9538 potency, compared to 24 seconds for 9920. You're ahead by barely one Fuga as far as potency goes at this juncture, compared to someone who put up Shifu+Jinpu first. At around 36-37 seconds or so (again, maybe adjusted by 2.39 seconds) is when you're going to start seeing the difference in the rotations, if we aren't counting Kenki abilities. However, since the Kenki gain is roughly the same either way, and your first Kenki-spender in both scenarios should still be Kaiten for Tenka Goken, they'll roll out similarly throughout both. It's just that the buffed rotation will have (15 from Jinpu x5 enemies =75) extra potency on your Kyutens.

I guess the TL;DR conclusion is that if you're at 6 or more enemies, no matter how long they take to die, you'll probably wanna spam the pure AoE rotation. If you're at 5 or below, and they'll die quick, you're still better off spamming pure AoE. If they're at 4 and below, you're probably good to do the buffed rotation since AoE degradation isn't hitting you as hard, there's less enemies (the AoE isn't benefiting you as much), and such. I do wonder if a Shifu only buffed rotation would be better, since you save a couple GCD's, and might put you ahead sooner. Again, napkin math, but I'm pretty confident in that.