Please help a SAM lady out. Looking for high DPS Sam who know the job by heart.

[AmaSagahl]

Hey!

So I have a problem, obviously. But first of all, the statistics: I am 330 ilevel, my DH is around 1900, my Crit around 1400 and my Det around 1200. My SKS is around 780.

I cleared O1S 4 times and O2S 2 times but my numbers are devastating. I can't seem to get above 3.6k.

Recently I switched to the 1 sen opener, because I got told my Skillspeed is, since the new build of mine, way too low for 3 sen and it sustains damage better.
It got me 9 seconds more on the O1S dummy, so now I can clear it with 20 seconds left
(I know I should be able with 30 seconds left, but still an improvement).

Since then, I studied the opener and rotation by Fahros and are practicing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrpwPuNB-7Y

I play on PS4 so unfortunately there is no way for me to see my damage during an actual fight and make proper adjustments - I am trying to get people from my FC onboard to do some practice runs with me, telling me when my dps is dropping, but it is a lot to ask for.

I should do a lot of damage. That's what I am constantly being told (not by my static, but I want to be an actual support for them).
I really struggle with applying the ideal rotation of the dummy in boss fights. I keep up my buffs and debuffs, apply the DoT (mostly) in time and use haga instead of spamming Midare - I only use Midare on the haga CD. So in theory, I am doing everything all the high DPS SAM out there are doing.

I love this job and I don't want to give up on it. I am surprised by how it got advertised as 'DPS machine' but when I compare it to the Red Mages in my FC or even Bards, I seem to struggle so much more with this job and the DPS. And it seems a lot more punishing if you mess something up.


All individual help would be appreciated - preferred ingame. I could also upload videos of what I am doing, or playshare with someone who is on PS4 as well.
Please no salty comments...or the standard reddix stuff on rotations... because believe me when I say I have seen them all.

[Llugen]

Howdy

You should edit your post so that all three are in one post (there is a word limit for creation but not for editing)

Also, I'll ask my pal to link me his shiz and post it when he does

[DGladius]

Post some vids of you doing a dummy or raid boss. Maybe we can see where you can improve.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Usually when someone is underperforming, despite doing the rotation "mostly" right, there's some other underlying issue. One of the most common being related to gear.

You say you're i330, and so the only questions I can think to ask are;
(1) is your weapon i330+?
(2) do you use food?
(3) do you use pots?
(4) do you have a NIN, BRD, MCH, or RDM in those parse numbers?

When doing mechanics, are you pushing to do the most dmg, and just "barely" making it to safety/doing mechanics/ or are you making sure you do them, at the cost of losing dps?
(Im usually more the later, and once im used to the fight more, slowly shift to pushing closer to the former.)

[AmaSagahl]

@Gladius

I don't have one of a raid boss as of yet. I will tomorrow.
This was my best try O1S dummy recorded, with 19 sec on the clock. After that I managed one with 20/21 but that is not worth mentioning really.

http://https://youtu.be/47Lr60jkvW4

Some mistakes I noticed after seeing it again:

1) I wasted 10 kenki (0:50) once and once 5. But I don't know how to approach in this case?

2) 1:40 Did not use Meikyo when it came off CD which made everything afterwards a bit awkward

----

I should be able to clear it with 30 seconds left, I think.
But as I said, I struggle so much more with actual boss fights - when they interrupt you, and your Cooldowns barely line up as well as they do in that perfect dummy situation, and you have forced Downtimes (e.g. Susano's Blade Attack, Alte Roite pushing you out, Catastrophe's 100Gs or dps probes).

@Claire

1) Yes it is the Allagan Weapon. Not Augmented yet since we only start training O3S tomorrow.

2) I do use food

3) No I do not use potions

4) We have a RDM in our static. No MCH, NIN and only once we had a backup BRD. Tomorrow there will be a SMN with us.

Relating gear: I do feel like I am missing the DH from the pants and gloves that I have still to replace with 330/340. Maybe my stats are not as balanced too?


At the moment I am making sure I get the mechanics right and screwed up therefore with my rotations a few times. I do get more and more confident with O1S (that's why I was surprised yesterday about my 3.6k, although I did switch a few days ago to 1 sen from 3 sen) but O2S is still a bit hectic for me trying to get everything right at the same time.

For some reason I just really thought SAM wasn't as punishing. Maybe I am getting it wrong, but I thought generally if you put up your buffs and your slashing debuff, don't let them fall off and if you take care of Higanbana and have a fairly well managed Kenki gauge (plus using haga instead of spamming Midare all the time), you can at least put out 4k at that ilevel.
It's so frustrating wanting to get good in your job, training so much and watching other gamers play over and over again and you seem to keep on failing

[DGladius]

I'm leaving work right so I'll watch your video later on. I can link you my vid of O2S from 3 months ago since I don't have a recent one. You can try and compare what I do to you. I have O1s also from a few months ago as well all with mostly pugs. https://youtu.be/ZAekiXGIuFk

[DGladius]

@Gladius

http://https://youtu.be/47Lr60jkvW4

For your Haga usage at about 0:50 you could've used shinten after your yukikaze or so to dump some of your kenki.

There was quite a few times where you are late to hitting your next GCD weaponskill which overtime will lower your dps quite a bit. The more time you lose from not hitting something is a big loss especially during a boss fight.

You double-weaved shinten and kaiten between a GCD at about 1:50 and at 2:30 you weaved ageha+haga+shinten before your next GCD skill which clipped your GCDs a lot.

These are some points where it really impacted your dps.

[AmaSagahl]

Thanks Gladius, will watch your vid now!

So use at most 2 ogcd between gcds?
And what is the priorities? Haga if it's up>kaiten if going midare/higanbana>shinten>ahega if at the last percentages?

Thank you for that information, I didn't really know about the clipping to be honest.

[DGladius]

Thanks Gladius, will watch your vid now!

So use at most 2 ogcd between gcds?
And what is the priorities? Haga if it's up>kaiten if going midare/higanbana>shinten>ahega if at the last percentages?

Thank you for that information, I didn't really know about the clipping to be honest.

Ideally you don't want to double weave too much except for the opener. Outside of the opener, I only doubleweave haga with meikyo when they line up as they don't clip into my gcd much at all. Just make sure to hit your next gcd skill as soon as possible to not delay it.

Keeping uptime on the boss as high as possible while handling mechanics is also a big factor on how much dps you can do.

[EaMett]

Hey Ama,

I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not an amazing samurai. I actually main healer and play sam for fun. I however did get counseling from a 95+ percentile SAM friend and kept track of his dps/ilvl while I was learning to play mine. I struggled the same as you and now a days even though I don't post parses to fflogs I feel I'm ok at it (judging from fflog statistics I'd be around 80-85 percentile on shin ex based on the most recent parses. I know the real test would be savages but I don't really run those on my sam that often. Besides, I'm content with my level at this point).

I remember my mentor pulling upwards of 5k dps on O3S up to books with ilvl330 when all his stars aligned. Which still has me scratching my head since I was happy enough to hit 4s by the time I was that ilvl, let alone 5s.

Anyways, as for the reason I'm posting. I'm thinking maybe you're encountering the same issues I had.
After I made it passed the "tunnel visioned really badly and running around flailing my arms" phase I found that uptime was my real enemy.

For some reason I just really thought SAM wasn't as punishing. Maybe I am getting it wrong, but I thought generally if you put up your buffs and your slashing debuff, don't let them fall off and if you take care of Higanbana and have a fairly well managed Kenki gauge (plus using haga instead of spamming Midare all the time), you can at least put out 4k at that ilevel.

You're kind of right. Messing up your rotation isn't that bad. Not optimal of course but not that punishing. However, losing a gcd or two to mechanics is really punishing. Especially given how much our auto attacks count towards our overall dps.

I feel like there are three steps here:

1) Feeling comfortable with the class, positionals, and rotation.

Lets face it. In real live situations there's going to be a point where timers don't align anymore, you mess up, etc.. I feel like SAM is very forgiving but it's important to be comfortable with rotational priorities and be flexible enough to adapt. Things like using hagakure on 2 sen because things don't align well and you want to get the higabana refresh right for the encounter instead of waiting another two gcds.
Or ending up in a situation where you don't have enough kenki for kaiten because you messed up and working around that. Do you move forward without kaiten? Will two more gcds give you enough kenki to then use it without being more of a dps loss?
When you Meiko with existing sen, which is the sen that you reapply first because it has the longest timer?
Etc.
A big part of this is also not skipping or overextending GCDs. I have crappy latency so I never double weave because of this.

That's the meat of your dps, it's pretty forgiving though. For me this was just down to experience.

2) Getting as much uptime as possible.
Personally, my biggest dps loss was this one. It also implies some level of coordination with your party members. It's stuff like, in O1s you should try to stay with the boss on bursts (Gyoten and stay in the center.. Need to plan with other melee in your party so you don't overlap levinbolt). In O2S have the tank place the boss so you can continue hitting during probes, or so you can continue hitting it during -100g cast.
Knowing when to use Yaten + Enpi and when not to.
Honestly, now a days 90% of my brain power is spent on trying to do mechanics in between GCDs or figuring timings out.
Part of this is also learning where your auto attack range is and trying to stay within range as much as possible (not always easy for some mechanics if your latency sucks).

3) Getting the fine tuning down.
This is stuff like knowing when to use true north, third eye + seigan, or meditate, etc..
As well as knowing when to modify your priorities because of upcoming mechanics. Maybe a dot refresh is a dps loss because the boss will phase out, etc.
It's also where you change your dps priorities and or rotation to suit your party comp. Using Midare instead of hagakure because trick attack is up, keeping track of party buffs etc.

It's hard to tell which one is a sticking point for you without a video but maybe you'll find something useful in that wall of text.