PAL/SAM effective solo?

[Daver]

Has any PAL tried to sub SAM since the SAM improvements (boost to 2H weapons) using a Great Sword? With the bonuses in damage, speed, and acc....not to mention TP.... I would think this would rock for solo/duo PAL stuff. Of course, it's no good in an exp party with no Provoke and no shield.

Just looking for input. My PAL is 39 and my SAM is 19, so I won't have a chance for awhile to try out the new SAM25 ability until PAL50. I'd like to know if it's worth while trying to keep up with the Great Sword level given the SAM improvements.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

PLD/SAM?
I don't know why you'd want to use /SAM...

For offensive use, I don't think Hasso will add enough accuracy to Great Sword for exp level mobs. For defensive use, Seigan will add 50% to your Flash recast... That can't be good.

[Maju]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

No.

[Celeal]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

Hasso is a nice improvement for 2-handed weapons, but it is nothing overpower...

When I am soloing using my PLD, usually I sub mages for sneak, invisible, na-spells, warp, bar-spells, en-spell...

When fighting weaker mobs, 1-handed sword actually does very nice damage, plus the usefulness of shield. I don't see the reason for using G.Sword.

[Raydeus]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

After Spinning Slash great sword actually does enough damage to let you solo EM mobs with a GS... that's lvl 69+ though

Before that, Sword + Shield (or Staff after lvl 63 with Spirit Taker) are far superior in terms of DoT, survivability and less down time.

Great Swords look way cooler, and do nice damage on too weak mobs so you can use it for that, but for xp soloing purposes you are just gonna mpk yourself.

[Daver]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

After Spinning Slash great sword actually does enough damage to let you solo EM mobs with a GS... that's lvl 69+ though

Before that, Sword + Shield (or Staff after lvl 63 with Spirit Taker) are far superior in terms of DoT, survivability and less down time.

Great Swords look way cooler, and do nice damage on too weak mobs so you can use it for that, but for xp soloing purposes you are just gonna mpk yourself.

When I said "solo" I was basically talking about farming and mostly "too weak" mobs, thinking Great Sword might be better. Thanks Raydeus. This is basically the info I was looking for.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

When I said "solo" I was basically talking about farming and mostly "too weak" mobs, thinking Great Sword might be better.

If you're farming, wouldn't /THF be better?

[Aeni]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

After Spinning Slash great sword actually does enough damage to let you solo EM mobs with a GS... that's lvl 69+ though

You forget, SS has horrible accuracy, so like IfritnoItazura said, it makes better sense to use /THF and use SATA+SS as your opening move. Even when farming.

[Raydeus]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

You forget, SS has horrible accuracy, so like IfritnoItazura said, it makes better sense to use /THF and use SATA+SS as your opening move. Even when farming.

About Spinning Slash's accuracy, I've fought level 74-75 mobs both with high and low evasion with only a life belt for +acc on and I rarely miss the WS, this is with B rating skill (240 at lvl 73 PLD). So, so far it's accuracy hasn't been horrible at all, at least for me.

It would help knowing what kind of mobs were you fighting and how much did you miss, so I can consider that when I'm out there playing with my GS. If they were XP mobs then thats a different thing, since a PLD would never pull out a GS against those unless they wanted to ask the mob for a D2.


About THF subjob my post was before knowing the OP was gonna use it for farming and just mass murdering mobs. Even so I agree, for farming purposes alone /THF is way better, but for recreational purposes I can see /SAM being a really fun sub.

But then again this is coming from a Hume that used to spend hours mass murdering Gigas in Delkfutt's just for fun (and no one can say I was farming, unless 40k gil an hour can be considered good gil ).

[Armando]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

About Spinning Slash's accuracy, I've fought level 74-75 mobs both with high and low evasion with only a life belt for +acc on and I rarely miss the WS, this is with B rating skill (240 at lvl 73 PLD). So, so far it's accuracy hasn't been horrible at all, at least for me.

The game screws us over with a relatively hefty accuracy penalty for every level the mob is higher than you, though. That's why if you go up against higher mobs, even if you offset the mob's higher evasion skill with more +Accuracy in gear, your hitting rate will still be noticeably lower. The /check system doesn't take the level difference penalty into account, which is why Lv.74-75 mobs will check High Evasion but you can still hit them fairly well.

But yeah, Great Swords are generally less efficient weapons than our one-handed swords, and you give up damage mitigation and TP gain (loss of Shield Mastery; unless you're actively using Hasso and not Seigan, but Sword still has the upper hand.) Just about the only thing that Great Sword has to offer that sword doesn't is really powerful SAWS.

I could see /SAM being useful for Spirit Taker, though.

[Slip]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

Hmm, I wonder how well it would work in Besieged?

At 71 those mobs are still difficult to hit consistently and you're neither tanking nor farming them. All you really want is Acc and Dmg to go with the backup healing your bringing to the battle.

As a B Class weapon GS might still be less accurate than a one handed sword, but Staff is A rated for us so it might have a slight edge when combined with Sam. Toss in Spirit Taker plus the extra TP gain /Sam brings and it looks worth trying at least.

[Raydeus]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

The game screws us over with a relatively hefty accuracy penalty for every level the mob is higher than you, though. That's why if you go up against higher mobs, even if you offset the mob's higher evasion skill with more +Accuracy in gear, your hitting rate will still be noticeably lower. The /check system doesn't take the level difference penalty into account, which is why Lv.74-75 mobs will check High Evasion but you can still hit them fairly well.

Yep, those mobs were only 1 or 2 levels higher than me so the acc penalty wasn't much .

But in this case the OP is gonna fight Too Weak mobs (maybe EP), so my comment about Spinning Slash's acc was about being able to hit mobs up to T without much trouble (contrary to that comment about how "horrible" it's acc was) so those TW-EP mobs he fights will be easy to hit.

Like I said in that same post, a PLD would never pull out a GS against a xp mob (VT or higher) unless they wanted to ask for a D2.



PS > Now I gotta get SAM to 37 to play with my GS and Staff, it seems like it's gonna be fun. Meditate + Hasso

[Aeni]

Re: PAL/SAM effective solo?

About Spinning Slash's accuracy, I've fought level 74-75 mobs both with high and low evasion with only a life belt for +acc on and I rarely miss the WS, this is with B rating skill (240 at lvl 73 PLD). So, so far it's accuracy hasn't been horrible at all, at least for me.

A rating for a DRK.

-Against mobs 20 levels lower, you can miss 5% of the time.
-Against mobs 10 levels lower, you can miss 10% of the time.
-Against mobs 5 levels lower, this stays the same (10%)
-Against EM mobs, we're talking noticeable misses. On average, we're talking about roughly 15 to around 20% if you're unlucky (No matter if you're using +acc)
-Against 5 levels higher, it skyrockets to about missing 40% of the time. Even higher on high evasion mobs.
-Against 10 levels higher - lol. 70% miss maybe? WHIFF WHIFF WHIFF.

Why SATA? Makes critical of the SS stronger. Adds a lot of damage to it. Makes it so you won't miss.

Plus, subbing THF for farming (Treasure Hunter) makes more sense.