Sam rotation question

[Jscagg]

After maining a caster for all of HW and SB, I thought I would give my Sam some love, as its been sitting unused at 70 for a while now. I looked up some rotation guides and switched about my opener a bit from what I was doing (Which let me tell you, was very, very wrong) to this http://cdn1-www.gamerevolution.com/a...06/0qq0ydt.jpg I was just wondering if that is a good opener, or something old and outdated? I'm not a savage raider or anything, so I'm not overly concerned with my opener being the very best. I'm also curious about the general rotation, obviously keep buffs up, but I'm more curious about midare vs Shinten. A lot of guides that I was reading prioritize using Shinten over Midare if you have the kenki for it, and I was just opening for a helpful break down of this rotation.

Mostly what I'm curious about is, if I only have 25 kenki built up and I'm ready for a buffed Midare, do I use shinten and just do a regular midare, or do I use Kaiten to buff midare, and then use a shinten as soon as I can after that?

And I've also seen a lot of video's of players who prioritized a buffed midare over shinten, and just fit a shinten into their rotation wherever they could. So I'm not sure what the best way to go about dpsing as a Sam is.

Does anyone have a decent guide to go off of that makes the rotation and priority easy to understand? So many guides now delve into the little nuances of classes, and they make it seem much more complex then it actually is, especially for someone that's just a casual player.

P.S. I tested out two different rotations on the Phantom Train savage SSS dummy, both used the opener that I listed above. One time I prioritized Shinten over Midare and used it as much as possible, making sure to use Hagakure on CD to turn my sen into Kenki so I could get more Shinten's in. The second time I prioritized a buffed Midare over anything else, and just fit in shinten's where I could when I had extra kenki to spare. Both of these resulted in downing the dummy with two seconds left, so it didn't seem that either way was that much better than the other.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I'm not sure at what skillspeed cutoff that guide you looked at is good. You have to pick one that lines up all of your skills at the right times.

Always kaiten Midare and higanbana. Kaiten is worth 360 potency for midare vs 300 on shinten.

You should be using hagakure on 3sen, not on coo down, unless specified elsewhere in an opener, or to help keep higanbana up.

Remember, kaiten uses less kinki than shinten, so it is higher potency per kinki.

You should also only kaiten midare if hagakure is used, or alternatively if trick attack is up, so I have heard. (my group doesn't have a nin so I can't speak to this personally.

[Jscagg]

I actually don't believe that the guide in question had a sks cutoff, from testing out that opener myself, it seems as if its an all around opener good for any sks.

I always Kaiten my Higanbana's and Midare's, and its good to know that a Kaiten Midare is 360 potency more. I was curious how that 50% worked, I know for some games a 50% buff is half of that moves damage again, but then in other games it is only a quarter. (To double the potency of a move you would need a 200% buff, certain games have weird percentage's) its helpful to know that for here, Kaiten is half again the damage of whatever move its used on.


As for Hagakure, I only use that when I have 3 sen up. Usually after I fit a Midare in, I'll pop Meikyo, get my three sen, Hagakure, and then Shinten until I'm out of Sen. But that's only as long as I have enough time left up on my buffs that I can fit all that into a buff window, and not have Shifu or Jinpu fall off.


I appreciate all of the advice, and I'll definitely have to check about altering my opener into one of the one's mentioned in the picture you posted. I tested out the "3 sen opener" and I have just enough sks to fit everything in and get it right, as long as I don't mess up anything. xD

[whiteblade89]

I've been maining SAM since SB dropped and I'm pretty up-to-date with current SAM techniques, and I have never seen that opener that you're using. The base priority for buffs is generally Shifu > Jinpu > Yukikaze (slashing debuff). But I'm going to leave this here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...t?usp=drivesdk

This is a pretty decent guide for SAM usage and rotations. The math goes over my head, but the general knowledge of Higanbana timings and Hagakure usages really helped me improve. SAM openers are generally dictated by your currennt skill speed, and that guide goes into detail about it. Hope that helps! Have fun!