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

So sounds like Masa isn't worth finishing these days anyway? (Still an amazing GK but better options for less effort by the sounds of it) I read somewhere it's not so hot with yoichi as the aftermath's overwrite or something? (I was always a masa SAM pretty much when I played. Loved Fudo to bits.) Wish SE had made salv and assault soloable when I really smashed ffxi.

You can unlock Fudo via a quest now if you have either the emp at 90 or WoE at 99. So the new GKTs beat the hell out of the 90 Masa. Iirc RME lose out to pretty much everything now unless they are 99'd.

(I could be slightly inaccurate cause I just came back myself, Hi Daff btw :) )

Yoooo :D, yeah I came back for a bit before Christmas and got Fudo unlocked and updated my WHM a little. Was talking Lv119 Masa though as Lv90 masa is even more laughable in this ffxi day and age >.< Still hate the pissing plate trial.

I'm currently building a Masamune out of boredom lol.

Koga's gonna talk a while because I have to redo all those crappy assaults, and kill some ZNMs.

I figure I'd make all the REMs for SAM because you never know and e-peen is everything.

In regards to the Amano/Yoichi combo, it is not nearly as good as people are making it out to be for most people.

Most people playing this game are doing so without the support of a number of good players. You can still win tojil/bee/shark without particularly good players but they won't be creating the conditions that allow Namas Arrow to be consistently worth using.

Yes Namas Arrow spam can be optimal, and for a few players like Keityan it probably happens quite a lot. For most people however, the conditions won't be met and you'd be doing better with Koga or something else.

You really don't need too much buffs depending on content.

For any old content you don't need buffs. Anything less than Difficult SKCNM20s doesn't require buffs, if you can land Ageha and have Dia you're golden.

The Delve bosses are skewed as f*ck since they have weakness modes that make piercing the best regardless.

It really doesn't take much to get Namas to perform incredibly well in many situations, and when it does require a lot of effort, say VD AAs, then you're gonna have a bad time regardless if you're going in without proper buffs/debuffs.


I'm really hoping SE get their sh*t together and fixes Ageha since they mentioned looking into fixing BLU added effect accuracies recently. If they make it so you can land Ageha almost as reliably as you can land Shell crusher, you'll be hard pressed to find a situation where you can't capped Namas damage, unless you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with your support.

People don't make REMs for trash content, though.

And people who make REMs tend not to do so in trash environments.

Unless you're going out to VD AAs or the like without BRDs and CORs and such, I'm hard pressed to think of entire events where Yoichi is useless to a SAM.

That said I can certainly think of situations in events where you could do better than Namas. Killing that sh*tbag turtle in a morimar delve comes to mind. The demons in Kindred Spirits II do not take to Ageha very well, so you might as well save ammo with Kaiten/Fudo for comparable damage unless you're going with a BRD/COR.

So it's either a garbage event and Namas should be capping, or its a garbage setup and you shouldn't be going without support. Having poor judgement shouldn't be a knock on a weapon combo, and I did state before that I was speaking capped buff situations meaning this whole things pointless to debate.

While you may be talking about capped situations you are severely overstating how easy it is to cap.

And hypotheticals about Ageha are just dumb when the discussion is about providing relevant information. Honestly who cares about maximising damage on stuff where it will land, because you'd probably be solo melee in those situations anyway and Koga will destroy everything.

The reality is most people are doing relevant stuff with sub optimal setups and players who aren't that good. Shoha is still extremely relevant to these people and the utility of Namas is FAR from absolute.

I must live in a strange world then, one where SKCNM20 normal runs happen and Ageha sticks, no one does even shout Delve runs without BRDs/CORs/GEOs, and people who do AAs type fights either go with Ranged attackers or BRD/COR buffs.

Kinda makes me glad I'm on this sh*thole Leviathan.

Also where's the logic in that? If the content is garbage enough you don't need real buffs, it's garbage enough to make Namas stomp any other SAM WS.


That being said I suppose I am overstating the frequency of how often others may find Namas the best. I have a tendency to not accept obvious failures in my groups, or to not go underbuffed even with shout groups. I don't allow myself to be in situations that are subpar for all DD, let alone Namas Spamming SAM.


I'm not bashing on Koga either. It's an amazing weapon that I'll pick up too, though I haven't chosen between it and Liberator for my first Mythic yet, and will strive to use properly when the situation arises.


I will say this though, I encourage every SAM to pick up an Amano/Yoichi 119 combo before getting Koga because it's just far more flexible and has arguably the highest max damage output of any SAM weapon combo.

i have about 6k alex. You guys think i should flip that into a relic bow and do tsuru/namas?

no

if it's koga or yoichi, the only choice is yoichi: you lose a bit of damage potential in some situations, but it allows you to exploit mob weaknesses in delve and gives you a usable weapon for rng for AAs

if you can afford multi weapons, koga should definitely not be overlooked

can't really say amano is worth the gil, it's marginal where useful at all

Meh, I don't agree on the Amano not being worth it. It's the best GK to pair with Yoichi outside of having Ionis+Tsuru, and with content taking a move back towards the middle lands, and the return of ACC being needed, its importance is on the rise.

I concede that it's not always the best, but if you're going to be a SAM main it's an important piece to have.

Whether or not it's worth it is subjective, but you can't argue that it's part of the most powerful combo.

That and people who are going to make a Koga should easily have the patience to get an Amano as well.

These statements would be true if Sam was the only job you had. Anytime accuracy matters RNG is more useful and flexible. Any time accuracy doesn't matter, another DD or koga is going to be better. If you are only willing to play one job at this point in the game frankly I don't know how you accomplish anything.

I haven't personally gone SAM to AA not because I don't think it would work fine but it hasn't worked as well as other DDs for others. All your JA are selfies, with namas as your primary damage source you aren't going to pull hate ever over mnk nin or thf. Meaning they are spending more time either with no shadows(dying potentially) or wasting time with ichi both of which waste a lot of dps for the group.

So this puts Amano currently in a weird niche that isn't particularly useful. Not to say it won't be again or isn't a good weapon but most of its benefit is near sighted making it even less impressive not on paper

The statement that when accuracy is needed, RNG is better isn't exactly true. It's true for VD AA fights because for the most part they will kill your average DD with a move that cannot by Scherzo/EA'd away. Even with less ACC, SAM would be a better DD than RNG if survival wasn't an issue, simply because of how melee attacks and ranged attacks work, and at that point Amano/Yoichi would be your best weapon.

That said, in most cases survival is the limiting factor in the current situations where Amano shines, making it a less than perfect situation.

I don't think hate works the way you're thinking it does either. Once you reach the hate cap, the person to have the last action is the person with hate, regardless of how much enmity the action they do grants. The hate cap is also low enough that you'd get there in relatively short order just from melee damage anyway.

Also, in situations where stats and survival aren't limiting you, Namas is the way to go, and when Namas is the way to go, the only real choices are Tsuru and Amano. Tsuru is obviously better with ionis because you can 4hit. Amano is superior everywhere else.

I'm failing to come up with 1 existing situation where amano beats tsuru and sam is the best job for the spot.

I'm also failing to come up with 1 existing situation where amano adds even 10% DPS over tsuru, with most of the favorable ones below 5%.

I wouldn't consider anything an 'important piece to have' when it's usefulness is dependant on having inadequate party setup or buffs.

Some of us don't have the perfect job set-ups and this is the SAM forum.

When you're on SAM with good buffs outside of Ionis regions, Amano is always better than Tsuru. Be it 1% or 10%.

Also did you get an updated spread sheet or did you have to customize yours?

i don't use spreadsheets, simulations are universally better

(I'm not saying it's useless, I'm saying it's not a practical thing to spend gil on. Given the situations where SAM is the best job choice and the situations where amano is the best weapon choice are mutually exclusive, my recommendation would be putting the gil toward a koga if you really love SAM, or toward gearing the job you should be on if you don't.)

You still have my vote if you ever manage to get on the ballot, though.

Thank you lol.

Thanks for answering. I am working on Koga now (about 1/3 finished, it'll be end of February when I turn in alex), but I am going to stick with it despite bow being as good or better. I might do a Yoichi next if it's useful for Delve 2. For me, situations where I use samurai are usually situations where I have full buffs. Otherwise I am on WHM, or solo/duo on DNC or THF.


This is patently incorrect. The reason why RNG is enjoying its 15 minutes of fame right now is not accuracy, but rather consistency. AA fights all have moves where they can drop DDs very quickly, so we use rangers because they are more likely to not be killed.

A dd that is more likely to not be killed and provides a more consistant win is a more useful dd

If I just had Fudo I'd completely see why having the alternative would be a good choice, but I've got Fudo, Kaiten, and Namas to choose from; is there ever going to be a scenario where Shoha will be my go-to WS above those other 3 collectively? I'm just checking here before I dump those (crapload) of merits into another weapon skill.

Fudo, Kaiten, and Namas all lack an attack bonus.

For most situations where Shoha is better than Fudo, it's better than Kaiten and Namas.

RNGs advantage is not only accuracy and survivablility. They also require a lot less buffs to be effective. You don't need marches which means even if you have to deal with a 3 song brd and cor you will be fine on racc and ratt. So it's 3 fold argument, more native accuracy by a landslide, not needing multi attack and haste on gear and requiring less buffs to be effective. The only case where you wouldn't want a rng over sam in AA (I'm restricting this to AA because if you are having accuracy problems in other content the job you are on is irrelevant and you have a lot more work to do) is if you don't have a pld. If you DON'T have a PLD then a namas spamming sam is not going to be helpful for the reasons I previously stated.


And frankly if you want to be safe, DRG is infinitely moreso than sam. A strategy we have employed several times on all AA fights when we don't have the optimal job combos.


As for my "lack of understanding how the enmity system works"
-Yes you can enmity extremely quickly
However a max delay reduction mnk has a delay of roughly 65-75 depending on what weapon you are using

A sam in the same scenario has around 90. MNKs are attacking 20% more frequently and maintaining capped VE with WS where namas is not. This is why in practice MNKs always have hate unless they are taking major dmg which obviously isn't ideal in this situation again for reasons I already explained.

To reassert my points,

There is nothing wrong with amano its a fantastic weapon. It's usefulness currently however is limited due to the content SAM is ideal for.

There are at least 3 jobs that are better situated for these fights than SAM (RNG MNK DRG potentially thf and nin)

So currently I would not suggest starting an amano, or upgrading it from 95. If you have the funds by all means do whatever you want but if that means not making something else which is currently more useful, then I would advise against it.

Not benefiting from Multiattack gear isn't a bonus. Multiattack gear is only worn when it's more beneficial than ATK/ACC in that slot.

Now you could make an argument that RNG's version of Haste gear, Snapshot, doesn't have to be equiped on the attack, which is true, but the proliferation of stats on gear has made it so haste or hybrid pieces have come a long way. The remaining advantage RNG has there has been cut down because they're slower do to lack of auto-attack.

The only advantages RNG has are survival.

If survival wasn't an issue and it were just damage output, SAM would be in a much better place, and RNG would be unnecessary. SAM has 50% Zanshin, and Zanshin swings receive 34 ACC and essentially double TP when they connect if you have Ikishoten merited, essentially they suffer the least from lower accuracy. SAM also has an affinity for single hit WSes that have large ACC bonuses stuck to them, or have at least one viable WS with a large attack boost.

The advantage of RNG on AAs is potentially more significant if their damage reduction is a result of level correction.

I haven't bothered 119ing amano yet since I can't think of a single time I've had cause to use it (and I have 119 yoichi to pair it with). So I would agree it's not worth doing currently.

I believe they did away with level correction at higher levels right?

They did in adoulin, I believe it remains to be seen whether AA are level correction or DT.

Seems like it would defeat the purpose of ilvls and such high stats to have level correction.