SAM 2012 Merits?

I've not played SAM since way back before Abyssea, however I got bored and decided to level it again for funsies :D

Now I'm 99 and need to finish off my merits. Back when I last played, Zanshin sucked, Ikishoten was a complete waste of merits, etc. With the update to Zanshin/Hasso, I was curious where to put my merits to get the best out of them.

I can't decide if the 5% higher activation for Zanshin would be better than 30 seconds off Meditate, or whether I should go 5/5 Ikishoten, 3~4/5 Overwhelm and 1/5 Blade Bash.

Any tips would be awesome :D

5/5 overwhelm

always

I was thinking that at first, that was one of the "I don't care what you think, you're 5/5'ing that" merits when I originally levelled SAM.

4/5 ik, 1/5 blade, 5/5 overwhelm is the only correct answer.

edit: oh and group 1 5/5 med/stp

That'll do for me then! :D Much appreciated guys!

5/5 Overwelm
5/5 Iki

5/5 Stp
3 Zanshin (rounding for zanhasso, puts me at 64%)
2 Meditate

But the PLAUUUUUGEEEEEEEEEEE

That reminds me. The zanshin effect during Hasso, how is that calculated vs DA / TA / QA?

After

Basically this. Bash is really useful as a stun and a 5th iki merit doesn't save a hit its just overflow.

I had Bladebash forever. But its a rarely used stun or more damage. I decided to take more damage. Neither is right or wrong but I play DD to DD.

May I ask how you got to 64% with 3 merits? I'd assume you're counting the earring as well, but BG wiki has it listed as 2% at the lowest. Either way, though, I'd probably do 4 merits since I use SAM for Legion and replace that with Belatz.

Edged on the side of caution.

2% Zanshin seems like a *** to test. So if its 1 like a lot of AF3 earrings then I'm safe. Unless you spam med when the timer is up then those merits go to waste and at high haste its probably not worth using Med at all. 2/3, 3/2 is going to work out to virtually the same if the earring is 2%. If its 1% then obviously 3/2 is factor.

Wasn't questioning the use of Zanshin merits. Understandable on being safe with the actual value of the earring, though.

I understand the reasoning behind 5/5 and zanshin over med recast, we lownan a lot of content and i am not always riding double marches/embrava so the ability to have 180tp 30 seconds earlier is worth it to me.

I hope I speak for more than just myself when I say that I ride the Meditate timer religiously during VW ops (more namely PUGs, where mass buffs should never be expected), especially if procs run dry. Med timer comes in handy whenever a fight gets scrappy (yes yes, fights SHOULD never get scrappy but ***happens).

The mainstay merits are 5/5 Overwhelm, Iki and STP, but the rest are probably more stylistic than anything.

I tend to use it if i'm fairly well hasted or have fighters roll if i have to do a gkt stagger. I can basically roll through my ws list half way or more in 10-15 seconds that way. Of course you could do that without med merits.

If a VW fight last long enough to get 2 Meds off you are in the wrong alliance.

But like I said Zan/Med merit spread is all about preference but if you TP in the normal Masa 5hit you should have atleast 2 in Zanshin.

Well, PUGs are almost always the wrong alliance now that all the half decent players have all the gear they need from VW. I'd rather be in the wrong alliance with a shot at some of the gear I need than sit around in jeuno twiddling my thumbs. I'll toy with with the Zanshin stuff more today though.

Thanks for reminding me, I need to rearrange my SAM merits now. Am not tanking low man content anymore.

Other than Mala i have all the vw drops i care about, i go to farm/buy plates and dross.