How to Increase DPS?

[whiteblade89]

One last thing to mention, and it's kind of a small thing, but every little bit helps. When Guren has about 20-25 seconds left on CD, stack your kenki up for it so you can use it immediately when it comes off CD. Doing this could actually net you at least one more Guren in a fight before the end. Also note that the damage of Guren is affected by the slashing debuff. Only use it when Jinpu and the slashing debuff are up so you get the max potency out of it. This is something I've had to work on recently because I get caught up in spamming shinten when I should be saving kenki for Guren.

And to give you an idea of why Hagakure is important to use, generally using Haga on 3 sens will net you 4 Shintens if you're keeping up with your positionals. 4 Shintens have a combined potency of 1200 whereas Kaiten + Midare potency is only 1080. So a lot of your potency is being lost on not using Hagakure.

To get a little more in-depth with it, rule of thumb should be to use Haga for 3 sens UNLESS A.) Your DoT is about to fall off. An example of this would be if you're using the 2-sen opener, you will actually use your 2nd Hagakure to consume 2 sen so you refresh your DoT after your next combo. Or B.) Using Haga on 1 or 2 sen will allow you to use Guren as soon as it comes off CD. For example, if Guren has about 5 seconds left on CD and you have 20 kenki and one sen, and you're about to start your second combo, using Hagakure will allow you use Guren within the next two GCDs so you're able to use it immediately when it's up.

SAM is an easy enough job to pick up and play, but it's the little things like these that will allow you to boost your damage by quite a bit. And as always, general knowledge of the encounters will allow you adjust where and when you need to. It's never perfect, we just always have to strive for perfection.