Samurai SJ

[Hitoshura]

Thank you all for the input, looking forward to leveling this job.

[fantasticdan]

TBH I've never had trouble with sam/war, war/sam, drk/sam, etc in any pick-up pt on colibri. Yeah, you will take some hits even with seigan full-time, but your healer has to be pretty damned bad not to be able to handle it. Even in a really lopsided shitty pt where I have hate the vast majority of the time on war/sam or something, never really run into any mp problems.

[VZX]

/DRG for most of my exp life
but often when PT rolled for 30mins, came "I wish I were /THF"
never had chance to /WAR, never... if /DRG can rip hate that easily, /WAR can rip it even faster
Tried /NIN once... good damage mitigation/offensive mode (full time hasso, utsu, TE once shadow gone and recast utsu immediately), but I really want to avoid it like AIDS

[Niiro]

I don't get why people see having hate as a problem.

Seriously.

If the mobs living long enough to kill you then you need to lern 2 seigan and party with better DDs so the mob doesn't live long enough to kill you or at least another DD can rip hate off of you before it kills you.

This isn't 2005 where you need to hold back cause 'the NIN can't keep hate o noes ; ;'

Get some real healers and strong DDs.

[VZX]

Get some real healers and strong DDs.

That's the problem.

It's becoming very rare to find strong DD these days.

[Niiro]

I haven't merited outside of an LS party in.......

Uh......

At least 6 months.

I think that's the difference, there's merit pt with pickup jackasses then there's MERIPO with LS members you know don't suck.

Pickup parties are never the ideal exp session but depending on your LS they may be the norm.

[VZX]

I am talking about exp btw, not meripo. I am, too, very strict about exp/hr on meripo.

[Resin]

Get some real healers and strong DDs.

That's the problem.

It's becoming very rare to find strong DD these days.

QFT. A well-geared SAM paying attention pulls hate non-stop. Especially with Soboro.

[VZX]

If the tank is PLD/WAR and I'm not /THF, I won't start landing any hit before they provoke + flash on it. I just can take the hate on the entire fight.

[Antonidas]

/thf for HNM's, Wyrms, etc.

/nin for certain AoE heavy events/soloing.

/drg for ballista.

/war for everything else.

Subbing /nin in merits is self-defeating. Once you sub /nin, you won't pull enough hate to justify subbing /nin in the first place.

Plus you gotta go through the whole drop hasso/seigan for utsu rigamarole, unless you like ugly cast/recast times. I can't think of many reasons to use Utsusemi anyway, since most of the time it's Agas/Cursed Sphere that's the problem, and Seigan-TE is generally better vs TP moves anyway. I'll pass kthx >.>

If you're sponging on war, do 100% Seigan. Don't Use warcry cause it sucks. Try not to be the first party member to WS. If that all fails, leave the pt, cause your PT's DDs are really sucking. Nothing pisses me off more when PT members hold their TP when I'm trying not to be the first one to go (The first guy generally takes the beatings). Pussy War's do not impress me.

Fact is, Sam is ho-hum in merits unless you have a good/awesome supporting cast. You absolutely cannot be the main target for the party, because you can't do that job well at all. BB mnks, Riddilberk wars, Rangers are great... as long as someone else is pulling hate, Sam is awesome.

Also, consider investing in "OSHIT" gear. Sam has access to all the Arhat's, and you can really cut down on the damage you take with TE down with the right stuff, enough to justify the +enmity at any rate. Definitely worth having.

[RKenshin]

I think most samurai drastically underestimate the usefulness of subbing NIN on SAM.

Yes, it doesn't add anything to your damage, but it does allow you to keep Hasso up more often and decreases the amount of MP you sponge, which is very important when you pull hate almost nonstop. Seigan is simply not enough and is often too slow to use before a mob gets a hit in. It also is wiped by physical AOE/Cones without blocking them and has no effect on magic. In addition, together they give you double the defensive power.

You can't use berserk anyway without leeching a ton of MP, so the only real benefit to /war for a SAM is a couple extra points of STR and Double Attack.

Why oh why would you ever /NIN if you're keeping Hasso on full-time? I'm assuming that's what you're implying because you simply can't tank and still have Hasso on any mentionable amount of time if you don't want to get the recast penalty. And a 60 second recast on Ichi with a 1:30 recast on Ni with a casting time that's twice as long will result in you sponging a LOT more than just having Seigan and Third Eye. Just estimating I'd say I anticipate/counter about 4-5 times on average per Third Eye use (in an exp PT), and using Hasso with Ni/Ichi as your defense you're avoiding 1.5 attacks/30s with Ichi and 1 attack/30s with Ni, for like... 2.5 attacks on average per 30s? With a good 4-6s of casting time?

And, if you're going to list how Third Eye has a lot of disadvantages the only fair thing to do is list the disadvantages that Utsesumi has. All in all they're about even as far as the disadvantages go anyway; Utsesumi has multiple shadows eaten by some TP attacks, can't avoid some TP attacks that Third Eye can, can't be used if silenced, can be interrupted, can be cleared by more AoE attacks than Third Eye can (many AoEs don't effect Third Eye), can't result in damage, etc, and I can go on.

Not to mention no regular exp PT mob I can think of has an attack that wipes Third Eye (other than wyvern's dispelling wind, but same applies for Utsesumi). I don't know why you mentioned it. And if you have Seigan already on, there's no issue with having it up when you pull hate, so I don't really understand that point either.

SAM/WAR in merits is a fucking MP expensive whore, and while that is ok for when you know the RDM, doing it in a pickup party is a recipee for losing xp rather than gaining it..

If you're an idiot about it, yes. But I suppose the growing problem is that a lot of SAMs now just aren't smart about it. If you're in a PT where MP is a potential problem just don't use Hasso at all. Unless you're kill-shotting a mob with a WS you shouldn't even use it before a WS, because you can't Seigan+Third Eye before taking damage. It's all common sense.

I really can't imagine how stupid people are with this. I tank more than any DD I PT with in a PT, and more than any average SAM would, and I've never been in a situation where we ran into an MP problem and had to stop killing because of this (or anything of the like). Even with all the crappy pick-up PTs I've joined. It doesn't happen in exp, Dynamis, Einherjar, Salvage, etc... All with me /WAR and doing a lot of tanking.


EDIT: And man, as the previous poster said, invest in some damn defense gear if you still have problems sponging. SAM can reduce damage down to arguably lower numbers than even a NIN tank can, and you can get a large amount of damage reduction for like 50k + an easy rare/ex NM drop. There's no excuse not to, and the number of situations it's useful for alone should warrent the investment regardless.

Just as an example, what we do to save time at Hammerblow now: http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1507/ffxi3457vn3.jpg

And first person to think you can't do these things without/it isn't worth it without a defending ring or all HQ gets a big stupid stamp on the forhead. Half the time when we do this I don't even have all my damage reduction gear, and in other situations it will still be considerably more effective vs getting the shit kicked out of you in normal TP gear.

[Antonidas]

Ryko reminded me of a good point. Sometimes, mages are just really, really lazy, since they generally take parties which somehow never require any work. Oh I'm sorry you had to do your job. Unless you're actually slowing the whole party down with your sponginess (in which case you're doing something really wrong), it's not a big deal (though some people like to make it so.)

Just because you take damage does not automatically label you a sponge. Still, taking damage is not something you should aim for.

[RKenshin]

Feel like that's often true too... A lot of pickup PTs are just ridiculous to the point where someone will want every person in the PT subbing NIN, even with a 3 mage backline. Once it was even including the mages. On top of it all you'll often get mages that will sit at near-full MP the whole PT and still not cast Haste.

I don't know what's worse. The DD who you swear doesn't know Seigan and/or Utsesumi exists, or the mage that hates to use Cure and seems to feel the same way about Haste.

I think the moral of the story is that too many stupid people play FF.

[Swatt]

either he's gotten so used to it he acknowledges it now or he's had a word change filter.

[Judai]

Mages are just lazy as fuck now as ruke said. i miss the good ole days of 3 mage, 3 mnk pts raping KRT. If you have a shitty pt and shitty mages, gimp yourself and sub /nin. If you played with skilled players, sub a real sub.

[Talisien]

As a Soboro SAM since 50, Ive lived and breathed /nin. Now that Im 10k to 75 Ive grouped with one or two merit pts and I still am not sure /war is the way to go.

First of all, :Ni recast is not 90 seconds in a merit pt. If youre /nin youre full timing Hasso and brute forcing your way through the recasts. If you have haste gear (I personally run around at 20% haste, Dusk/Fuma/Swift + Hasso) and youre hasted, I was getting Ni recasts of 50 seconds or something (I dont have the formula handy to confirm). Though this particular PT was not fast enough to maintain chains greater than 7 against G. colibri it still meant that at worst I would use Ni + 3E once per fight. If necessary 3E + Ichi if I thought I was tanking earlier in the fight than a 3E would protect against, or if Ni was still down (which was a rarity).

Again, this might be a Soboro SAM in a non meripo/fully pimped PT talking, but it was my experience that /Nin allowed me to do more damage because the limiting factor was how much tanking I was doing. Certainly /war + Seigan full time is arguable, and probably very close, but to argue that the opposite (/nin + Hasso) is somehow gimp seems misleading. Seigan full time is a hefty loss (10 str 10 atk 10% haste) and Double Attack for soboro users is at best a wash. I found using my Tachi of Trials (lol) that /Nin was *completely* useless in my limited experience with it in a PT (one or two sessions). So far Ive only had one PT to compare myself to Hagun (I was 73 he was 75/thf possibly with merits) and I lost by about 5%, which is arguably more the level difference than anything else.

Once I hit 75 Ill hopefully pickup hagun soon and start parsing the difference, but even if Hagun is equal the way Soboro operates you end up with more hate for a longer period (as a hagun WS is going to end fights a lot faster from completion of WS -> end of fight than a Soboro WS which is often fired off at the start of the fight or first 20%).

cliffs: Haste swaps make :ni :ichi recast timers normal despite the Hasso penalty, Soboru users benefit less from /War than Hagun/etc GKTs, Seigans opportunity cost is very high as compared to Hassos benefits.

[VZX]

Just as an example, what we do to save time at Hammerblow now: http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1507/ffxi3457vn3.jpg

What was your total physical damage reduction, VIT, and def?

[OctavoGilgamesh]

cliffs: Haste swaps make :ni :ichi recast timers normal despite the Hasso penalty

20% haste gear + 15% magic haste + 11% brd haste from march = 46%. Close, but not quite equal to the 50% recast penalty. Ok so you can get close to the pre gear recast times. While everyone else in your party either nin main or non-sam /nin will be damn near at the recast cap. You can't tell me you can keep up your damage mitigation with recast timers higher than normal and trying to do as much dot as you can.

If I wasn't so lazy I would go test or search for previous tests on the counter rate using seigan. It's pretty high in my experience using sam as a sub on my drk.

I honestly think the uninterruptable guaranteed 1-6+ attacks anticipated every 30 secs will mitigate more damage than using ni and ichi through hasso. This isn't even taking in account the advantages with berserk as /war along with the counter effect when you take hate.

[Talisien]

I honestly think the uninterruptable guaranteed 1-6+ attacks anticipated every 30 secs will mitigate more damage than using ni and ichi through hasso. This isn\\\'t even taking in account the advantages with berserk as /war along with the counter effect when you take hate.

Full timing Hasso still give you access to 3E, and in the case where both Ni and Ichi are somehow on 10s+ recast timers, you can still switch to Seigan and then 3e. As I mentioned, in my pt I never had to do that, simply relying on 3e to buy me a blink for ichi recast. The only times I took damage were when I got distracted watching tv.

Certainly I think its unfair to say that Seigan + 3E (something Sam/nin obviously has access to) alone will out mitigate Ichi, Ni, 3E, and Seigan(option). Obviously /nin will mitigate more effectively.

So it seems to come down to do you like Berserk, (warcry) and Double Attack over 10str, 10% haste in my mind. With Hagun/relic, etc, yea I probably like Zerk/DA, but with soboro I\\\'d much rather take the str/haste as again, DA is a wash. Of course this is all situational, if I were in a 3 caster pt I think Id go /war regardless, as the occasional unmitigated hits would be washed away in a sea of mp.

[RKenshin]

Fumbling around and trying to balance Hasso, Seigan, and Ni/Ichi shadows in attempt to mitigate damage taken while maximizing damge delt is just silly. The probability of making mistakes is very high (SAM solo'ing you need to stick to one or the other, or you die), and the amount of time you spend casting/activiating abilities will hurt your damage more than Hasso can make up for to begin with. Haste can help make up for the recast timers of Ni/Ichi, but it does not make up for the doubled casting time.

In addition just keeping up Hasso full time you're going to lose so much damage to be any kind of efficient at keeping shadows up with all the casting time you need, that yes I would also argue that not only are you going to probably take more damage in the long run, but you'll do significant less damage even versus a SAM/WAR that doesn't use Berserk, uses Seigan full time, and doesn't wear a brutal earring.

I mean really, the difference in damage output between full-time tanking on WAR/NIN and face-tanking on WAR/NIN are huge (can change output by ~10-25%). You lose a significant amount of swings (and as a result, weapon skills) over the course of a PT all from spending time casting shadows. A SAM/WAR keeping Hasso up would be twice as worse considering you have twice the recast timers.

In addition, I don't know why no one ever mentions this but Provoke is incredibly helpful not only in exp but just about every situation. No one ever seems to list this as a reason to /WAR, but when I'm subbing something other than WAR more than anything I get frustrated with not being able to Provoke (which is why as much as I have fun with /DRG, I just don't use it). In exp I'm using it literally almost every time it's ready to get mobs off the mages, pull mobs, or just to get mobs off of PT members. Often the same applies in places like Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar, Salvage, and even on HNMs if the situation calls for it. Combining this with defense gear, you play the roll of not only a DD but a tank. As a SAM/NIN all you are is a DD and at best as much of a tank as any melee/NIN in exp, which isn't much.

Mages are just lazy as fuck now as ruke said. i miss the good ole days of 3 mage, 3 mnk pts raping KRT. If you have a shitty pt and shitty mages, gimp yourself and sub /nin. If you played with skilled players, sub a real sub.

I think it goes both ways.

Lots of melees now are pretty lazy as well, where they can barely Utsesumi tank nevermind Seigan tank. On top of it many have very little control over their hate management, while usually hate management doesn't matter in exp it does matter if you're getting pummled to the floor. It's like the 2004 DRK that uses every buff at once the second it's up and wonders why he ends up losing more exp than he gains in a PT.

Just as an example, what we do to save time at Hammerblow now: http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1507/ffxi3457vn3.jpg

What was your total physical damage reduction, VIT, and def?

IIRC for that particular screen shot it was -50% damage taken, around 28x defense, 69+5 VIT, and level 1 Phalanx II. I've done the same with the absense of phalanx II and/or falling short of -50% damage taken by a good amount as well, it works fine even if I need an occaisonal cure bomb as long as no one attacks anything other than the same mob at once.