Bushido - The Way Of The Samurai (A Guide) V. 2.0

Yeah I took his argument as a typical Masa vs Amano fight which this wasn't about. If someone has an 119 Amano then Kaiten should be their GKT WS of choice. Obviously if they are using a JA boost or had accumulated TP prior to the fight they should open with Fudo, that's just common SAM knowledge. Maybe he doesn't realize that you can get Fudo without needing Masa?

I probably could’ve been a little more specific in that I was curious on a DPS standpoint with just menial buffing- believe me, I WANT to use Amano when I’m relying on GK weapon skills, I didn't bother making it to sit it on the bench, but if using it is going to hurt my damage output I don't see as though I have any other choice… in fully buffed situations I’m generally spamming Namas making the Fudo/Kaiten argument moot in that respect.

It takes quite a bit more attack to cap pdif for namas (or make it beneficial for that matter) than most people portray here. Even on ADL minuets are not enough to cap alone. You need berserk dia II or chaos roll too. While chaos roll is a lot more likely in something like delve, those mobs also have a ***load more defense than ADL. As in to make namas better than kaiten/fudo you probably need a good chaos roll, augmented dia II/diaIII 2 Minuets and Geo defense down or berserk. And if one of those things isn't present(which it probably isn't for at least a good portion of each NM, Namas is no bueno.

If you're using Amano and not going with Namas, you should be using Kaiten over Fudo whenever TP is less than 128, assuming you have a Moonshade, or if there's a more beneficial SC opportunity, such as a MNK spamming Shijin.

128 is the magic number assuming you're using Gorget/Belt, and disregarding multihit. Kaiten Benefits more from multihit procs because if I remember correctly, all hits receive the 40% boost, meaning each additional hit adds 1.4 ftp instead of 1.0. Also negligible is the 2-3% more DA from not sporting the moonshade.

I usually stick to Kaiten unless my TP goes over 140, because the numbers are blurry and Kaiten looks cooler.


Something else I'd like to bring up is the unwillingness to sacrifice numbers are parse positions to do more damage through SCs. When I was doing ADL with friends, I had a hard time explaining that even though my SAM was taking a hit on the parser, it was benefiting the group more because of the SC Damage. I would often throw out a Kasha before the last Resolution, then Namas off of that light for obscene damage, but trying to explain a simple concept like that to some people is like pulling teeth.

I know setting up SCs like the old days are dead and all, but if you're going to play SAM and have all these WSes and SCs available to you, you should educate yourself about the simple Light/Dark SC properties and take advantage of it when the opportunity arises.

Yeah let me amend my statement by saying to use Kaiten only if for some reason or other they are using GKT WS's.

This so much... A person who is good at their job understands what it adds to the whole more than what it is by itself. Being also that many of SAM's abilities can be used by other jobs, Konzen-Ittai for example, using them in a way that increases the efficacy of the party is invaluable. Everyone wants to gawk at parses and dmg shots without considering what that low dmg ws you opened with or the added effect of slapping silence on an NM during chainspell will add to the party.

There will be times you want to throw out a Kaiten regardless of your TP, I wouldn't bother with a restrictive rule like that. It's not really that hard to pay attention when you hit your WS macro.

1Make it tp >128 and AM down and you're good with that gearswap.
Can always turn it off/make 2 similar gearswap for time when you really wanna skillchain with kaiten.

It's not an issue of people not understanding but rather that SC's are useless for damage once you have more then a few DD's. At full haste a good DD can WS every 8~10s, sometimes even less. When you have three DD's WSing every 8~10s, SC's become impossible because you'll end up overwriting each others affinity effect. Sometimes you get lucky, but it's exactly that, luck. Attempting to organize them during that period results in a large decrease in total damage output. Reduce the haste amounts or lower the number of DD's while providing some form of real time instant communication (voice chat) and the value of SC's goes up as it becomes realistically possible to time them.

I SC all the time when I'm with with a few guys doing random stuff, it's not hard as damn near every WS we use has multiple affinities. I'm not going to tell five other melee's beating at Tojil (or even two others) to wait or try to SC, not when they have capped haste.

You don't need to tell people to wait, you just have people change ws to skillchain when mobs don't flat out resist. If you've parsed with blinkmenot or used scoreboard, you'll see some major amounts of damage on certain mobs just coming from skiklchains, more than you'll gain from a different ws.
It's not unlikely to have sc from two or more 2-handers deal more than 15-20% of the total damage on non-resistant mobs.

You can make it easy. Kaiten/Fudo can skill chain with any Victory smite which can skill chain with itself. So just keep the normal setup of mnks and sams.

Throw in rngs and you just need to use Kaiten for light still, unless they are using coronach.

pld using CDC is ok, using requiescat will only sc with fudo.

skill chaining is easy and depending on the mob can account for a 30% damage increase at least.

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No, just no

SC's account for 1~5% of total damage, at best.

They infrequently happen because players are constantly overwriting each others WS affinity before the SC window opens. Choosing a weaker WS that deals 5~10% less damage for a 1~5% boost is still a net negative in damage. Your choosing to do less damage.

Again this only applies to high haste fights then three or more DD's spamming high powered WS's every 8s.

I dont know what kind of fail group you have been parsing (if you even parse bro).

Intro to how SC's work for those who didn't play the game when they were hammered into our heads.

When player 1 does a WS it applies a set of SC affinities to the target (Impaction, Detonation, Compression, Gravitation, Distortion, Light, Dark, ect.). Some WS's apply one, others two and some even three. Now after these are applied there is a 2~3s charge timer on the server before it will calculate a complete SC. If another set of affinities are applied before that 2~3s charge timer is complete then the original set gets overwritten and the timer restarts. After the timer is done, the next WS that gets done applies it's affinities and based on priority a SC is determined to take effect or not. If a SC is trigger then a an SC effect is applied to the target and after another small charge timer 2~3s any magic damage done is given a bonus Magic Acc / Magic Damage Boost based on the tier and level of the SC effect. If instead of magic damage you apply another set of affinities during the SC effect, it will recalculate the SC and if another SC is determined to take place it will generate another SC effect with bonus damage being applied based on tier and level. Continue and so forth.

If someone applies a Reverberation SC effect, and after the charge timer someone else applies an Induration SC effect, you will get a level 1 ice based Induration effect. If you reverse them and apply the Induration before the Reverberation you get a L2 Thunder/Wind Fragmentation effect instead.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080929165734/ffxi/images/7/75/AdenRenkeiChart.jpg

I had to memorize that chart back in 2003/2004 (the original), it's still imprinted in the back of my eyelids. The exact WS's aren't important as the relationships between the different SC attributes and knowing which attributes link which others.

This is all a long winded way to say that because the SC charge timer is constantly being reset in high haste fights, SC's are random and rare. Overall they account for less then 5% of the damage done, and that's being generous and assuming people are using WS's with compatible SC attributes.

Um duuuurrrrr if all the ws properties is light or fusion/fragmentation then skill changes are going to happen easy.

Back in the age of the old farts that didnt leave this game when they became and adult, yes skill chains were hard. Now they are very easy, especially when you have an alliance of mnks that are... decent and are using only victory smite.

Haha ohh look ... someone on the internet is insulting me, whatever will I do, my life is ruined. /s

And problem solved.

You are kind of over complicating the point. Also seem to be unaware that skill chain damage has been greatly improved over the years and is no longer resisted down to triple digits. On average when I parse, my group adds at least 5-10% of their damage per melee to skill chains. Maybe our timings are just right for them to happen but the schs and geos magic burst almost every other nuke (since you can only mb once per skill chain and t1 nukes can cast 2-3 times in the duration of the actual skill chain)~

a lot of mobs have gimmicks that involve taking reduced or increased magic damage, meva is another factor, still, when increasing total damage is possible, that should be your goal... and it is possible and easy to skillchain on current content with just about any job that is using it's best ws's.

it all depends on mobs you are fighting, the level they are, and if they receive more magical/physical damage, i run parses on everything i do, it is VERY HIGHLY POSSIBLE skillchains can deal a great amount, when competent players know how to time the skillchains correctly they may just shock you, i remember doing Kumahu "maybe bad example but w/e" and working with "myself" and WAR making light skillchains that doubled our ws damage, granted it didn't account for more damage then our ws's and overall dps but when they were going off they reached 10-12k very easily when our ws's were hitting from 2-8k a pop, skillchains are used quite a bit, and it is one of SAM's most vital focus points.....

Its kind of sad that there is a debate on whether a SAM should skill chain or not. I mean its like saying should a whm cure.

Cause if AM is down you should have tp set for it unless you don't have an am up/down set for amano ?

due to the mechanics of current endgame, party setups will be something like insert slashing dd. and nm's like morimar raptor.you don't want to skillchain

tldr: count 1-2-3 close Skillchain.

If you're not Skillchaining on, let's say, Wopket then just go home.
Delve Raptor and Raaz its understandable given the gimmicks.

How in the hell did we end up here?

Raptor dies in like 1-2mins, really no reason to even worry about SC damage.

some groups are still very steadfast on the pre-ilvl strategies, especially less experienced players or pugs.

I'm thinking of getting Xaddi body with stp augment and the new bow with stp augment. My build is more for accuracy for the new delve bosses and I'm think swapping out relic reforged body for xaddi. What do you guys think. Sorry I don't have a set to show but I'm using shark GKT.

Apex Arrow worth getting anymore?