Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

[Eji Kazuma]

I saw a bit of this discussion on the Blade bash post, but it’s been a month since anything has been posted there sooo… lets see if we can get some opinions on this. I’ve only been 75 SAM for a few months now; I’m still working on my merits and haven’t really gotten into my Tier 1 or Tier 2 Merits yet. I’m an active member in an HNM LS, and I’m planning on eventually using my SAM for off tanking purposes in Salvage and Nyzul.

I’ve already decided, that it will be important to go at least 3/5 Store TP, and for tanking I may want to go 5/5 Third Eye recast. A lot of other SAMs seem to go 5/5 Store TP, and 5/5 Meditate for tier 1. I really don’t understand these choices since it’s only necessary to have 3/5 for a Six Hit setup, and the extra 2 is not enough to push even close to a 5 hit setup without sacrificing important gear. At the same time, 5/5 Meditate only shaves 30 seconds off your recast for Meditate, which I could see as being nice, but I’m not really sure that’s worth it in the long run.

Which brings me to the main point of my post; Why is Zanshin Attack rate, looked at as a bad choice? From what I understand, default Zanshin proc rate is somewhere around 10%, which is the same as Double Attack. Like double attack, there are plenty of pieces of gear which increase the effect, and Zanshin doesn’t just proc on misses either, it procs on defended and partial damage attacks too. If one were to merit 5/5 Zanshin attack rate, and use a Katana strap, they could easily have 20% Zanshin.

I know the goal here isn’t to miss, however I don’t necessarily think it’s easy to stack enough hit rating to ensure you never miss as it is. Also, I understood that the more hit rating you stack the less effective it becomes. Wouldn’t it arguably be smarter to stack better gear, and be prepared for a miss? Apposed to stacking accuracy gear to boost your hit rating past 80-85%?

As honest as I can be, I don’t really understand all the formulas that seem to go into effecting damage and accuracy. I stack a fair amount myself, but I don’t seem to go nearly as far out as some seem to. Ultimately I want to know which path other players think is most effective for a good SAM, and if anyone else believes Zanshin is effective enough, or with the right gear could be effective enough to be worth the effort.

[Armando]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

Full Zanshin merits up your Zanshin rate by 5%. In general that 5% will only activate when you miss (mobs don't keep shadows for long, and you shouldn't be TPing in front of mobs that can guard anyways.) If you're good then that only happens 15% of the time at worst, 5% of the time at best, depending on what you're fighting and your food. 5% of 5% is a very small number: 0.25%.

Same argument applies to Katana Strap VS Pole Grip.

A lot of other SAMs seem to go 5/5 Store TP, and 5/5 Meditate for tier 1. I really don’t understand these choices since it’s only necessary to have 3/5 for a Six Hit setup, and the extra 2 is not enough to push even close to a 5 hit setup without sacrificing important gear.

I'm not a SAM so I don't know the numbers, but 5/5 would let you take off some Store TP gear in favor of something better without losing the 6 hit build.

At the same time, 5/5 Meditate only shaves 30 seconds off your recast for Meditate, which I could see as being nice, but I’m not really sure that’s worth it in the long run.

Going from 3:00 to 2:30 on recast is a 20% boost in frequency if you use it as often as possible.

I know the goal here isn’t to miss, however I don’t necessarily think it’s easy to stack enough hit rating to ensure you never miss as it is. Also, I understood that the more hit rating you stack the less effective it becomes. Wouldn’t it arguably be smarter to stack better gear, and be prepared for a miss? Apposed to stacking accuracy gear to boost your hit rating past 80-85%?

2 Acc always adds 1% to your Hit Rate. E.g. if you hit 80% of the time and you add 2 Acc, you'll hit 81% of the time. And while going from 80% to 81% is a smaller improvement than going from 60% to 61%, since your hit rate is always under 100% then getting, say, +5% hit rate is ALWAYS a bigger improvement in performance than 5%.

On the other hand 1% Zanshin really means 1% out of how often you miss, so 1% Zanshin always improves how often you hit by much less than 1%.

[Mezlo]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

You definitely want 5/5 store tp, this will let you use better gear in slots of Store TP gear. It's also better to max Overwhelm before you go into third eye, etc...

I'm under the mindset of getting your acc capped, thus you won't be missing often, thus you're Zanshin won't really proc often, even fully merited.

[hexx]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

As stated before, 5/5 Store TP will help you reach that 6 hit build while being able to switch out some hachiman gear for haste and such, let me give you an example (by all means this isnt an end all be all setup tho):

TP Set:
Weapon: Hagun
Grip: Mythril Grip +1
Ammo: Tiphia Sting
Head: W. Turban
Neck: Chiv Chain
Earrings: Fowling and Minuet Earring
Body: Hauby
Hands: Hachiman Kote
Rings: Rajas and Woodsmans
Back: Amemet +1
Waist: Potent Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Fuma Sune-Ate

I used to also equip hachiman feet, but thanks to my store tp merits, and my rajas ring, I was able to swap it out for my Fuma's and add a little more haste. Get your hands on a few more pieces of armor and you can switch out the hachiman hands for dusk gloves too ^_^b

[Mezlo]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

For more haste, I use this setup but add dusk gloves and swift belt. I also use Brutal Earring and the + double attack strap.

[hexx]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

For more haste, I use this setup but add dusk gloves and swift belt. I also use Brutal Earring and the + double attack strap.

yeah im workin towards a brutal right now, but unless im /WAR i dont use the Pole Strap since the 2% DA it gives is negligible imo unless youre a WAR or /WAR.

[Armando]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

Placebo. It's the same on both setups. If you want to get really technical, it's actually slightly less of an improvement with /WAR.

[Malacite]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

5/5 Store TP is a must have if you want to maintain 6-hit set up and use the best gear believe me.

I've had SAM @ 75 for 2 years now and it really makes a difference. Once I get my hands on Askar Korazin (that's the body right?) I'll finally be free of Hachiman Kote and can switch those out for more askar. An extra 4 points may seem trivial to you now, but you'll find it's rather difficult to maintain a 6-hit build without sacrificing performance.

As for your remaining points that's up to you. I went with Meditate because I find the extra weaponskills can make or break a timed event such as Nyzul Isle (especially boss floors) but conversely so can knocking off 5 seconds off third eye (with Seigan up) when you're in a squeeze. However, more often than not I find meditate trumps third eye merits.

As for tier 2, I'd get 3/5 Overwhelm then work on either Shikikoyo or Blade Bash (Ikishoten is garbage) depending on what events you do at end game (Blade Bash can be great for Salvage, but so can feeding TP to other DD's and MNK inhibit TP better with Penance anyway)

The reason I say to wait on maxing overwhelm is while it's awesome, 10 merit points for 4% more WS damage just feels like a waste when you could be adding additional utility to your SAM.

[Eji Kazuma]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

Thanks for the input folks; I really appreciate the guidance on this. It would have been very frustrating to misplace merit points and then need to totally re-merit and remove the mistakes. As I said before, I’m still just getting started with my SAM merits, so far I’ve done.

4/8 G-Kat
3/4 Critical Strike +
2/5 STP
1/5 Shikikoyo

[Note: These are only my merits which apply to Samurai]


I think my next focus is a bit torn between 1/5 Overwhelm, or going 3/5 STP (3/5 with current gear will be enough to get me a 6 Hit Setup) both would cost me around the same amount of merit points to do, so it’s really a toss up. At the moment, I feel that my Accuracy gear and G-Kat Merits are sufficient, at least until I have time to build up the rest of my character merits, like STR or DEX Merits.

Current TP Gear looks like this:
Onimaru
Pole Strap
Lightning Bow +1
Demon Arrow
W-Turban
Nuevo Coselete (+10 Acc, +2 DA)
Amemet Mantle +1
Chiv Chain
Hachiman Kote
Swift Belt
Fowling Earring
Brutal Earring
Rajas Ring
Ecphoria Ring
Byakko’s Haidate
Fuma Sune-Ate


WS Gear Varries, but this is my Yuki/Gekko/Kasha Set:
Onimaru
Pole Strap
Lightning Bow +1
Demon Arrow
Shura Zunari Kabuto
Nuevo Coselete (+10 Acc, +2 DA)
Smilodon Mantle +1
Chiv Chain
Myochin Kote +1
Warwolf Belt
Fowling Earring
Brutal Earring
Rajas Ring
Victory Ring
Byakko’s Haidate
Marine M Boots



I’m still working on a few gear things; it’s kinda like pulling teeth to try and get my HNM LS to run some Sky Farming… >_> so Osode and Shura(Body/Legs) are a bit off target. However, they are all pretty keen on Nyzul, so once I’m fully merited Askar shouldn’t be too hard to get my hands on. Of course, Hagun is on my list of Must haves as well. Aside from these any gear suggestions would be great too.

[Mezlo]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

I'd cap store TP first and foremost. Having this capped allows for more haste gear. Capping this will allow you to switch out hachiman kote and full time dusk gloves still having a 6 hit 100 TP setup.

[Eji Kazuma]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

As I said at the beginning of the thread, capping Store TP alone does not give you the ability to swap out Hachiman Kote for Dusk Gloves. Likethe other poster said before, you also must obtain Askar Korazin, and at that point it's better to use Askar Monopolas anyway.

For instance, with my current gear setup, I have STP +16 from gear, and +29 from merits and abilities. This gives me around 16.6 TP per swing and a High 7 hit setup. Essentially I would only need 1 more STP in order to break into a 6 Hit Setup. If I were to put another merit into STP at this point, it would be more then enough to push me to a 6 Hit setup, with a total of 16.9 TP per swing.

If like you said, I were to cap STP merits, it would only take me to 17.3 TP per swing, WITH the kote. If I take the Kote away at that point and sub Dusk Gloves, I would have 16.4 TP Per swing, and I would be back at a 7 Hit setup. In the end, you would need the additional 5 STP from Askar Korazin to jump back up to 17.0 TP per swing, and a full 6 Hit setup again.

Also, if you were to keep Korazin and Dusk Gloves (Or Monopolas) you would only need 4 STP merits to keep you 6 hit setup, leaving you at 16.7 TP per hit.

Essentially, I don’t feel that capping STP merits should be my first and main priority. If all I need is 3/5 to have a 6 Hit Setup right now, then that is what I’ll focus on to start, and once things are better rounded out we can fill in the blanks later.

[Mezlo]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

I use Hachiman Body, using this gives you a 6 hit setup with dusk gloves. With gkt merits capped and my gear, my accuracy is capped, when accuracy is capped + haste is best. My Nyzul static is going through the boss floors since we hit floor 100, and I'm looking forward to using askar body shortly... >:O

+ haste with a 6 hit setup FTW

[Eji Kazuma]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

Doooomarrruuuuuuu

[Malacite]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

I'd cap store TP first and foremost. Having this capped allows for more haste gear. Capping this will allow you to switch out hachiman kote and full time dusk gloves still having a 6 hit 100 TP setup.

That's only if you can get Usukane Body and or Boots though isn't it? As is, I'm literally 1 freaking Store TP away from maintaining 6-hit without Hachiman Kote (using Askar Body + Gloves) but as I currently use Sarutobi Kyahan I'm a little restricted.

>< need more Usukane! (Specifically Feet and Body >.>)

And Haubergeon > Hachiman Body no contest.

[Mezlo]

Re: Zanshin, Usefull or Useless / Tier1 SAM Merit Questions

And Haubergeon > Hachiman Body no contest.

I don't agree. With GKT merits 8/8, and acc not being an issue, I'd rather have more haste gear as long as i have a 6 hit to 100 tp setup. By using Hachiman i can get the 6 hit setup, and dusk gloves gives me the added haste. For TP'ing, as long as ACC is capped, +3% haste is better than the Haub.