Melee DPS

[ForteNightshade]

I sincerely appreciate all the input! I ended up picking up Samurai and already got it to 80 and am thoroughly enjoying it.. can anyone explain what the best amount of skill speed is for the Samurai? Seems they may need a little but after watching a few vids and donning the freebie 430 gear I'm already at 1322 skillspeed

These are the "BiS" builds. Since you aren't doing Savage, I'd aim for something close enough that you feel comfortable with. Personally, I prefer the slow SAM build.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=792573206

[Eliadil]

Sam needs to reach some specific SkS tier in order to perform optimally, I'd recommend going for roughly 685, since it makes you reach a 2.14sec gcd. Tho for now I'd recommend you to not get too carefull about this until you get to ilvl 470, since upgrading gears will usually shift your stats by a lot.

If you want an idea of what to prioritize :
Item Level >>> SKS (to tier) >> DH > CRT = DET

hope that helped

[Seabhacgra]

Sam needs to reach some specific SkS tier in order to perform optimally, I'd recommend going for roughly 685, since it makes you reach a 2.14sec gcd. Tho for now I'd recommend you to not get too carefull about this until you get to ilvl 470, since upgrading gears will usually shift your stats by a lot.

If you want an idea of what to prioritize :
Item Level >>> SKS (to tier) >> DH > CRT = DET

hope that helped

It definitely does! With the weekly reset I should be upgrading to 460 augmented faceted fast and then picking up my Augmented deepshadow weapon as well. My question is this, what is tier 685? If I remove SKS gear to try to lower my SKS number to 685 it then raises the GCD higher, not lower to 2.14.. am I missing something there? Also,,.. DH over Crit till 3k then balance them out right? I always went Crit to 3k then balance them with all my other DPS, so yer saying with sammy you need to go all out SKS till 2.14 then all into DH till 3k

[3ureka]

The 2.14 is with your Shifu buff applied

Combo Bonus: Reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 13%

[Eliadil]

It definitely does! With the weekly reset I should be upgrading to 460 augmented faceted fast and then picking up my Augmented deepshadow weapon as well. My question is this, what is tier 685? If I remove SKS gear to try to lower my SKS number to 685 it then raises the GCD higher, not lower to 2.14.. am I missing something there? Also,,.. DH over Crit till 3k then balance them out right? I always went Crit to 3k then balance them with all my other DPS, so yer saying with sammy you need to go all out SKS till 2.14 then all into DH till 3k

2.14sec is with the Shifu buff, that you should apply right at the start of a fight. The thing with Direct Hit and Crit is that Direct hit chances go up far quicker than Crit when you begin stacking them. Crit is around 3k for sure, but if you're still gearing I would recommend going for Direct Hit first until you reach a little bit less than 3k (as mentionned in the BiS sheet that someone linked above) then go for crit.

You'll have a bigger return to investment by stacking Direct Hit first for now, but in the end, both should reach around 3k to be balanced (you crit fairly often at this point, Crit/DH as well).

When you've reached this threshold for DH/Crit as well as the SkS tier, just dump all the rest into Det.

[Seabhacgra]

I see where you are coming from.. I have a mix of Edengate, Augmented Faceted and my main weapon is now Augmented Deepshadow and I have NO skillspeed materia on anything and still when I pop shifu I push down to about 2.07.. guess that will come up with more deepshadow gear. Sorry for this turning into a Samurai chat but I'm trying to maximize it now and I'm still baffled on how to make my AOE rotation smoother. If shifu and Jinpu drop off due to a slow tank puller I end up spending the first 8-12 seconds of a trash mob renewing those buffs and by then sometimes the pack is half health.. any suggestions?

[Eliadil]

I see where you are coming from.. I have a mix of Edengate, Augmented Faceted and my main weapon is now Augmented Deepshadow and I have NO skillspeed materia on anything and still when I pop shifu I push down to about 2.07.. guess that will come up with more deepshadow gear. Sorry for this turning into a Samurai chat but I'm trying to maximize it now and I'm still baffled on how to make my AOE rotation smoother. If shifu and Jinpu drop off due to a slow tank puller I end up spending the first 8-12 seconds of a trash mob renewing those buffs and by then sometimes the pack is half health.. any suggestions?

For AoE rotation I mainly just apply Shifu then Jinpu, it gives me two sen, that I spend on Tenka followed by the Kaeshi variant, as well as a Guren thrown into the mix and they get a bit under half health at this moment. When you aoe as a sam, things tends to die fast because... Well you hit hard. Don't be surprised by that, it happens a lot ;p Even just a Tenka Goken can deal some heavy damage, I often deal roughly 40k on targets with it, and you get it up really often.
And right now the dungeons are a bit easy for the current ilvl, with the next one it will probably require a bit more time to get through trash packs, because it will actually require higher gear. Things die fast now, but it will change soon with the release of new gear/content.

If the tank pulls each small pack individually tho I often don't bother with the AoE rotation, as 3 targets are often dead quicker by using your single target rotation. A usefull tip that I cannot recommend enough is to be sure you're always starting by applying the Shifu buff first. Speed is more important than damage, and by having Shifu up first you'll get to Jinpu faster

As for the 2.07 GCD... Yeah, sam gear has a lot of trash SkS stat, but it does disappear when getting to higher ilvl, although you need a lot of edengrace gear to completely get rid of it, so unless you do a bit of savage you won't be able to obtain the desired SkS cap I think. Don't fret too much over it tho, invest in DH and Crit like I said, you should be good to go anyway for dungeons/alliance raid/EX primals where BiS doesn't matter as much.

[Yandere-chan]

I see where you are coming from.. I have a mix of Edengate, Augmented Faceted and my main weapon is now Augmented Deepshadow and I have NO skillspeed materia on anything and still when I pop shifu I push down to about 2.07.. guess that will come up with more deepshadow gear. Sorry for this turning into a Samurai chat but I'm trying to maximize it now and I'm still baffled on how to make my AOE rotation smoother. If shifu and Jinpu drop off due to a slow tank puller I end up spending the first 8-12 seconds of a trash mob renewing those buffs and by then sometimes the pack is half health.. any suggestions?

You should always be trying to either be at one of the SKS breakpoints or .01 gcd faster to allow for errors, latency, or mechanic wiggle room. What SKS tier you go for is personal preference, but it's always better to be at a proper tier. 2.07 is a proper tier to be at though so you should be fine. The faster you get, the more optimal it will be to freestyle as needed so long as you have a strong understanding of how Samurai operates. This starts being more relevant at speeds around 2.00 gcd though. At 2.07 you mostly want to stick to rotations, going for 2.06 if you want more wiggle room.

To keep your abilities aligned, assuming you haven't had to make adjustments due to phase shifts or mechanics (I prefer to ad hoc til it falls back into realignment since it's the most natural for me), you can use a Gekko combo into Hagakure for 2.07~2.06 after your first two Midare rotations following the standard opener. For 2.14~2.13, you would do a Yukikaze combo into Hagkure instead. If you are using a non default opener via having sen pre-charged, you'll have to adjust accordingly or opt to trade them into kenki with Hagakure. If I have full sens, meditate stacks, and kenki pre-available, I actually like going into Jinpu first to have all my pre-available ogcds + Midare hit with the extra 13% dmg since the ogcd abilities don't benefit from Shifu and allows you to have a greater number of Ikishotens (and possibly Guren/Sensei), perhaps leading in with Gyoten or Shinten to avoid wasting kenki generated from your initial two gcds (although if you could ever lead in with Seigan, this would be the most ideal).

[purgatori]

If the tank pulls each small pack individually tho I often don't bother with the AoE rotation, as 3 targets are often dead quicker by using your single target rotation. A usefull tip that I cannot recommend enough is to be sure you're always starting by applying the Shifu buff first. Speed is more important than damage, and by having Shifu up first you'll get to Jinpu faster

Does this apply to all (melee) DPS, or just SAM? I have always adhered to the < 2 = single target, > 2 = AoE rule, but I have lately noticed that my DRG seems to eat through 3 enemies quicker with her single-target rotation (in fact, in some dungeons I'm not even able to get through he full rotation before they're all dead) than her AoE.

[Eliadil]

Does this apply to all (melee) DPS, or just SAM? I have always adhered to the < 2 = single target, > 2 = AoE rule, but I have lately noticed that my DRG seems to eat through 3 enemies quicker with her single-target rotation (in fact, in some dungeons I'm not even able to get through he full rotation before they're all dead) than her AoE.

This depends on the job I think, not every melee has the same power when it comes to AoE rotation. I remember back in Stormblood you basically never used AoE as a Sam because of the falloff damage as well as the heavy PT cost. Now, using AoE on 3/more targets is good, although if you're fully geared, I think it's generally quicker to use the mono rotation on three enemies.

iirc Monk needs a lot more mobs in order to deal optimal damage when using AoE. I remember on the Balance Discord there's often optimization discussions for AoE tools. I recall that on Eden 1 Savage as a Sam there's a moment where it's better to use a Tenka Goken rather than using Midare on a meteor.

It's all very situationnal and you just have to know how much damage your single target rotation deals, as well as your AoE one. For Dragoon I think it depends if you're in BotD or LotD. LotD seems to be the moment where you'll AoE on three targets, BotD seems better to use single target. Although if your autocrit is available it might change calculations, getting an autocrit on your last AoE spell (coerthas thing... Can't remember the name) can be really powerfull.

I think tho that it's pretty similar, you don't use your AoE rotation when there's only two mobs, three depends on your class, more is always AoE.