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

Namas > Apex!

Fixed it for you.

My point is, and has always been, that SC's are random and should not be relied on as a source of damage. Unless the mechanics for the specific fight call for them (Butterfly / Tree) you don't plan around them and instead each DD spams their most powerful WS. If those WS's happen to SC and produce a few K additional damage, great, if not, no worries. This is important because people in this thread argued for using weaker WS's for SC properties on the grounds that the SC effect would great a net positive in damage output. That is incorrect as three DD's in full haste spamming WS's will be getting TP so fast that timing SC's becomes impossible without holding back and / or using a less optimal WS. I do a ridiculous amount of parsing, SC's end up being 1~5% of total damage output.

That is completely illogical thinking, SCs will happen very often if you have 2-3 melee spamming compatible WS and if the target doesn't resist the damage it will be a worthwhile consideration. Especially with SAM but even with other DDs, SC damage will be doing far more than the difference between shoha and fudo at any reasonable attack levels. I frequently use Fudo when Shoha would be better for this very reason, whenever its relevant SC damage is always considerably higher than your fictional 1-5% figure. Obviously I am not about to start using Yuki or Gekko to achieve a skillchain, because there is almost always Light/Dark SC compatibility between a given jobs emp/merit/relic WS.

With a full alliance setup you will probably end up spamming WS too much but every single piece of relevant content, sans DM VD which you don't use melees for anyway, is 6-7man.

Ridiculous amount of parsing? There are plenty of people who parse everything as a matter of course, this is nothing special.

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No .. just stop.

Three average melee's at max haste will be WSing every ~8s, that enough to end up consistently overwriting each other. If they are pimped DDs then knock that number down to ~5s as MA procs will accelerate that rate. Heck a 4 hit SAM should have 100 TP every ~6.5s assuming zero MA procs.

And that 1~5% isn't fictional, I run SB all the time and actually check for these things.

Now quick use more shaming language to harasses someone on an internet forum.

Just because you're WSing every 5 to 8 seconds does not mean there won't frequently be periods of 2~ seconds between weapon skills even with 3 melees present.

I use SB all the time too and I don't actually have to check for it because its shown in the main damage report and is right there unable to be missed.

Shaming language is a common response obstinance.

It seems the discussion has two aspects: "Use a WS that would skillchain" to "You should try to hold for skillchain". This is my take on this:

Waiting: You should never wait to WS to hope for a skillchain if you have max haste in a party >3. There is no hope to time your WS to plan a skillchain because the WS rates are too high. If you try to "time" a WS, you're likely losing 1-2 hits. If you're using a 4 hit build, you lost .25-.5 of a WS, greatly affecting your WS frequency. This is only for a "chance" of skillchaining too, I'd take real WS damage any day. At these speeds, the time between two of your own WS will skillchain, so why bother waiting? SAM is the fastest TP gaining job, you have just as much chance you'd skillchain off yourself by simply spamming.

Using other WS(spamming): Shoha VS Fudo
I like this idea but it really depends on how far Fudo is away from capping. Also to consider is that new mobs have various amounts of absorb of elements. I know for a fact that skillchaining Stellar Fulcrum will heal Kam'lamut sometimes if he's in the right element. Whether Light skillchain will heal him when he's in Thunder mode, I have no idea.

I would guess that Light would heal during Fire Blade only (due to the priority of elements, and assuming no other elemental resist debuffs are present)

Ya but your also running parses without trying to skillchain. Also you can easily build in a skill chain listing with a macro just like stun turns... So if you are successful only have the time lets do the math... Light SC does 100% damage of closing weaponskills so that means if you succeed with 2 equalish weaponskills you will do half the weapon skills damage each time (ignoring how much damage you do bc of regular attacks bc your weaponskill tactics won't effect that damage hardly). So if you succeed half the time you try (which takes into account not really waiting but a split second) you increase damage by 25% of your overall weapon skill damage. Picking a random number of 100 weapon skills done you would then have to weaponskill an extra 25 times... For this to equal out in your arguments favor you would have to miss out on a quarter of the attack rounds bc of weapon skills tp... Also they are saying to just use a certain weapon skill over another due to a potential weapon skill property...

The only thing that would greatly affect this numbers is high chances of triple attack or aftermath that would greatly affect it... So basically that just rules out mythics lol

I would never advocate holding WS for skillchains, thats obviously not going to be beneficial unless skillchains are part of the mechanics of the fight. I also stated that this is only when its relevant, so if you're fighting something that can absorb skillchain damage then you would want to actively avoid it.

Delve is a good example of where swapping to Fudo over Shoha when paired with a MNK or DRK on Tojil/Shark/Wopket. Shoha is still the more powerful WS with a typical 6 man setup, but I do more damage spamming light with myself and the other DD than shohas extra WS damage adds.

Obviously each situation will vary, but this idea that skillchain damage is never more than 5% of the total damage is what I'm contesting.

Tons of kparser results and SB results have you wrong. The mechanics have been explained, at three or more melee's with capped haste your accumulating TP faster then the charge windows allow for SCing. Three DD's spamming WS the moment they are at 100 will result in them constantly overwriting each other's SC attributes before the windows opens, any SC's you do get are 100% random. The actual total damage done by those SC's is typically 1~5% of total damage output depending on how compatible your DD's most powerful WS's happened to be. This is on all buffed zerged fights (Delve mostly). The result is that the probability of the WS's aligning is low, it will happen just not enough to justify using a weaker WS.

I'm not even sure if your serious now or just trolling.

And yet I hear no math backing this up... Other than that's what I see happening... Again your parses are irrelevant bc you aren't attempting to sc.

wow you are still here with this business.

you keep missing the point. We dont need to use weaker ws and idk about your group or if your filters are messed up but skillchains happen often on their own. there is a limit to how often they can happen and often that limit is reached. Also when the shift towards 6 man fights skillchaining is more possible then with 8+ dds.

Lets try to keep this thread about advancements in Samurology, and not an argument about whether one person parsing is right or wrong.

Shouldn't you be trying to disprove the norm? I don't see you showing any parses where people trying to skill chain are doing better than the way everyone else plays the game.

Anyone else have an answer?

If you're just trying to be relevant for your LS or something, Apex still works in the same way it always did, accuracy is less of an issue than it was before the new bow/yoichi updates, but now that Yoichi is back, Apex is a sad 2nd again. That said, the new bow is amazing from strictly a melee standpoint, 12 STR and 7STP in a ranged/ammo slot is pretty awesome and opens the door for all kinds of hybrid builds. If you're going to have a bow equipped, you may as well have Apex merited for the piercing weak/slashing resistant mobs.

After having apex for a while I found that it's uses are limited. In older delve content you'll still want to use Shoha or Fudo during the different dmg resistant phases (The exception may be Muwingwa and a multi-song bard or capped attacked situations). In newer delve content, the tier 4 ram in Kamihr, people may find a sam useful when a rng with wildfire isn't available. Although I think the sam would just pull hate and die. For Marjami you're just better off having rngs. But I always find sam inferior to rng when ranged attacks are needed which should be obvious. These are my opinions based on different delve runs with the new 119 delve bow.

Is apex with the new bow really not worth using during piercing weak/slashing strong phases? Was meriting it just to play with, hoped it would situationally be good.

I don't know what you're parsing where SC damage is so pathetic, unless you're not even making miniscule concessions for it. That or you're using garbage Kparser, which is terribad at recording SC damage.

Back when I was spamming ADL with my group, before we all split up, my SC damage alone was competing for third place on the parse. Sure the second DRK should feel great shame, but the numbers were obscene and more than half my parsed damage. On fights where is was just me and one DRK it was skewed more because there wasn't another to interrupt. Kasha > Resolution > Namas.

Since everyone else was just spamming Resolution, I'd throw in a few Kasha and the light SC would usually double the damage of their Resolution, which is generally much stronger than any SAM WS when superbuffed, and I could follow up with a Namas/Kaiten/Fudo, depending on buffs and TP, and sometimes nail the elusive Double light for obscene damage.

The MEVA thing isn't as big a deal as it was back in the day, SC accuracy was boosted and ilvl weapons now come with a large MACC bonus, and since the SCs we usually spam these days are Light or Double Light, the MACC of the SC goes with the element the mob is least resistant to, out of the 4 elemental properties it possesses.

Skillchain Bonus and Sengikori are just icing.

Most of the stuff I do revolves around 2-3 DD total because it's not worth it to bring more than that to sh*t like delve, and most events are capped at 6 man anymore.

I love how people are acting like it's impossible to time something well even without communication in this age of windower. Using a little foresight isn't a magical ability and doesn't require much sacrifice. Get TParty you f*cking scrub, find out what WSes your fellow DD are using, then shuffle in a Shoha instead of a Fudo, or a Fudo instead of a Namas, or whatever instead of whatever whenever it's applicable.

And no sh*t some mobs have gimmicks that make SCing not the best idea, then don't f*cking SC. Coincidentally, knowing your SCs allows you to avoid accidents. Also, the Raptor is not a mob you really need to avoid SCs on.

Scoreboard and it's been consistently 5% or less of total damage.

Here's a hint, the better your melee's are geared and the more aggressive they play, the less SC damage will matter. Melee's will have 100 TP in under 8s, SAM's within 5s. With three DD's spamming their WS at exactly 100 TP and not holding back, your going to be overwriting each others SC attributes more often then not. This makes WS's that close SC's to become the minority. Now factor in TP damage from those other jobs and the fact that the merit WS's tend to be incompatible with each other and it's very easy to understand why 5% or less total damage from SC is common. Look up the SC attributes for Resolution, Stardiver, Drakesbane, Upheaval, Shijin Spiral, Requiescat Shoha, and Apex Arrow it you want to see what your working with. And even when I'm low manning using Bravura WAR spamming MT (or DRK's using Cata) with MNK's doing VS we barely ever get SC damage. Now you pair that down to two and / or take away the double +5 march's and things become more manageable as your no longer stepping on each others toes.

This isn't anything new, this is sh!t we've known about for 6~7 years now. There is nothing that has changed between now and then that would make SC's anymore relevant unless a specific battle mechanic gets involved.

With koga, yes it can have use; without koga and with yoichi, it's not worth it.

I think if you read a little more in his post you will see that he is talking about the new bow.

Apex will perform better under low buff situations and yes with the new bow it is not a bad thing to have it merited. Decently geared for the ws it will do well during times where slashing isnt so good.

2 points. first, gear has anything to do with whether or not a player is aggressive. They are either pushing the limit or they are haphazard.

Second, oh you are using wars and drk. I understand now.

I think we cannot reach a resolution at this point. The thread has been derailed to the point to where all is just an argument. Feel free to use the below generic thread to continue this and lets leave the SAM specific talk here.

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/42679/skillchain-damage-and-benefits/#2589455

If you're underbuffed it will miss; and he has koga that's why I mentionned koga.

If we're talking 6 man old delve, racc will be bad on shark; att will be too low on tojil for it to beat gkt, If you have yoichi I still don't see a use for apex.

right and he doesnt have yoichi, hence the comment about the new bow.

There are very few uses for Apex Arrow because its damage is contingent on so many factors. Working with DPS spreadsheets, I find that when attack is uncapped, Apex(Cibi) = Namas(Yoichi). The reason why apex has such a small "effective" range is because:

1. Low attack situations: G.kat > Apex(Cibi)=Namas(Yoichi)
2. Medium Attack range: Apex(Cibi) = Namas(Yoichi)
3. High Attack Range: G.kat < Apex(Cibi) < Namas

This considered, Apex will never (by itself) be a winner. You must also be aware there is another dimension to this as well: Apex arrow has much less r.acc than Namas. You need to stack r.acc on your WS set for Shark Delve. Without it, you're going to only have a ~70% Apex Arrow hit rate using a similar Namas set. This R.acc stacking will usually cause Apex to underperform (No Phorcy, no acc Rings, need Thall, etc). In my case, Koga aftermath 4-hit isn't justifiable versus a Tsuru 3 hit in Shark Delve (Alliance setting).

Generally, it really has these following 2 roles:

1. Player does not have Yoichi: It really is a good option
2. Players with Yoichi: Maintaining an aftermath.

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For players that have Yoichi, the only mob that fits the bill in current content is the multiple damage resistance mode Ram in Kamihr Drifts. This allows to maintain AM3 Koga but at the same time, it changes to piercing every so often. The evasion on the ram is low enough that, I am capping r.acc with Apex averages of ~8k.

This can work for players (without aftermath) that utilize the Cibi bow with very specific hit build sets that don't want to make extra calculation/macros for other gear sets with Yoichi. Bow use on SAM is generally much less prevalent than the last 3 Delves.

basically, yoichi if you want to shoot, cibi(c) if you don't.

Well considering Keef was probably the best DD period on Leviathan at the time, and very likely better than anyone you've ever played with, and while Kyushujangara was slow he was extremely well geared. I'm going to say I wasn't going to find many players with better gear.

These were on zergs too, We were SAM, DRK, and DRK and rotated in BRD, COR, SMN, and SCH buffs. We've had runs were as much as 22% of the total damage was from SCs.


You can use more than merit WSes to SC, and if you're the one making the SCs, it's on your to be flexible in WSes, which SAM very much is.

Common SCs with MNK:
Shoha <> Shijin > Fudo/Kaiten/Namas
Namas > Shijin > Shoha > Fudo/Kaiten/Namas
Smite <> Kasha > Fudo/Kaiten/Namas

I was going to list all of them for MNK/WAR/THF/DRK, your most common melee partners, but the list is too damn long for all lvl2-4 SCs.

SAM has access to powerful Fragmentation and Distortion property WSs, then a step down it has passable Gravitation properties with Stardiver and Rana with Koga, and it's least damaging WS property is currently Fusion with Kasha, but you could just settle for a tier 2 SC and make Distortion if your melee are spamming Fragmentation property.

I'm pretty sure you just refuse to hold back in the slightest in order to time WSes, or even swap a WS to find a more beneficial property. Either that or you suck because I and several others have not a single issue reeling off SCs fairly consistently, obviously not 100% of the time but enough to be worth it, in 6 man groups. Variability in misses, multi-attacks, JA useage, etc. should be enough to spread out the other 2 DD's WS windows enough to pop in with SCs if you're paying a modicum of attention to TParty.


Between now and 7 years ago:

Skillchains were modified a couple times to be significantly more accurate.
Skillchain Bonus and Sengikori were added.
Rapid TP gain became the norm, even in pickup events.
ilvl gear added tons of accuracy to skillchains.

Most importantly:
Relic and Empyrean WSes flooded the playerbase with 3/2 properties, and all merit WSes have at least a tier 2 property. Almost none of the old school tier 1 property WSes are used outside of procing.

Just finished steamrolling tons of 6-man delve Tojils and even a Shark. Combinations of MNK, DRK, RUN and BLU and the highest we had was 4.8% SC damage, typically was under 2%.

I'll get my groups SC damage when I do delve later today, ours is significantly higher. Also thanks for the apex info, was pretty much looking for koga+bow info, I don't have a yoichi and I don't really care enough to make one.