WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

[Celeal]

Does anyone tried WAR/SAM or partied with WAR/SAM?

I have been using this combo from level 64 to 66. The TP-gain is very amazing. Open the battle with Full Break, and have the TP-gain to add a Raging Rush in the same fight is so evil!

For those who enjoy using G.Axe, it is worthed to level up SAM to WAR/SAM.

[NicasinXS]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Sounds awesome.

Heres to innovation among players. ^-^'

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

I partied with a WAR/SAM a couple of months ago. I think I was high 68 or 69, and he was a level or two higher than me. We were exp'ing on Imps and Jnun in the Mire.

Given that with Imps, Amnsesia tends to be on you 50% of the time you're actually fighting, I don't remember seeing him spam WSs.

The usefulness of /SAM probably depends largely on the party type and mob selection. If you only fight one mob every 3 minutes, you can reliably use Meditate to WS twice per fight. But I've been in some TP burns where we've fought 40 mobs in an hour (which boils down to one mob every 1.5 minutes, so Meditate would only kick in every other fight).

Still, Hasso might be useful even in those situations. From what I can gather, Hasso benefits will max out at +5 STR, +5 acc and +5% attack speed for a WAR75/SAM37.

Sounds awesome.

Heres to innovation among players. ^-^'

It's not really innovative. /SAM used to be a powerhouse sub about 3 years ago, before TP return on multi-hit WSs was adjusted. After that, it became less common as an exp sub, but was still a useful sub for skill ups and latent breaking. It recently picked up in popularity as an exp sub when Hasso and Seigan were added.


Edit: I misread wiki regarding Hasso. Only the STR boost of Hasso changes based on level. The acc boost (+10) and increased attack speed (+10%) are static.

[Ziero]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Don't forget about Zanshin, which is now a lvl 20 job trait and subable. I currently have my Sam at 30 and plan to get it to 37 before I take War past 60. I my Gaxe so any excuse I can get to use it I will. That's not to say I don't like /nin sub, as dual wielding *is* fun, I just like to have all my options open.

[Eji Kazuma]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

WAR/SAM is my main on my other character, War 40/Sam 20. I love the combo, I can do some VERY nice damage. I imagine it will get better though once I hit 50 and get Hassao(sp). Just have to find the time to level my other character... LOL

I use Great Swords as opposed to Great Axes, so the extra TP boost really makes for some highly Damaging Power Slashs, or Hard Slashs. Other GS weaponskills seem to be reliant on Int. because even with decent TP I don't do nearly as much damage with them as I do with Hard/Power Slash.

Zanshin is a great addative, and while Third Eye isn't as helpful as Utsusemi... I would definatly say that Samurai Abillities Compliment the Warrior job much better then Ninja or Monk does.

[Lmnop]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

I just got harassed by no less than 6 people last night for being war/sam.

I'll give you my running commentary when I get home tonight.

[Vyuru]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Thanks Lmnop, I'm looking forward to seeing it ^^

[Eji Kazuma]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Man, What I Enjoy is when they harrass me for being War/Rng and then during the first pull I kill the monster by myself. =P That's allways fun cause then you see like 5 "Oh Shit.. WTF?" Then again, My War is only 30 on this character sooo we're still talking Yhoater Jungle here, but yanno it's still cool.

EDIT: I remember when I was out in Yuhtunga Jungle around level 26 and I was subbing Rng, I would tear the mob to peices and I'd have people from other PT's checking me left and right. LOL it was pretty sick stuff.

[Malacite]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

WAR/SAM is my main on my other character, War 40/Sam 20. I love the combo, I can do some VERY nice damage. I

You want nice damage sub THF. It's often a deathwish, but nothing will top SA (or SATA if you can) + Sturmwind. You're not getting anything really worthwhile out of /SAM until 50, by which point /NIN starts to really take off too (I prefer /SAM to /NIN though personally)

[Celeal]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Yea, I understand how you feel too, Lmnop. Remember in the old days NA players used to look down on WAR and MNK as main job (lvl 37+).

At this moment, I believe that with the skill gap difference between G.Axe and Axe after level 60, WAR/SAM has the potential, if someone comes up with a powerful gear setup or tactic for WAR/SAM.

From my brief experience with WAR/SAM (3 parties sessions), Full-Break (opening) + Raging Rush is great for standard parties: IT mobs, chain #5 max. The effect of Full-Break is noticable if the party does not have BRD, COR or SMN buffs.

For a TP-burn parties, I don't know how well a WAR/SAM can perform.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Don't forget about Zanshin, which is now a lvl 20 job trait and subable.

Zanshin is a strange beast. As one player brutally said regarding Zanshin, "The more you suck, the better it works." I prefer to look at it as an indirect accuracy boost.

Zanshin allows you to attack after a miss, and I have to assume that your accuracy on the Zanshin attack will be the same as your overall accuracy (I have seen no information to imply that you will have greater accuracy on the Zanshin follow through). So if you have high accuracy already through your gear/food, you'll make the most of the Zanshin attacks that occur, but they won't occur that often due to your high accuracy. If you have low accuracy to begin with, Zanshin has more of a chance to proc, but your low accuracy means those extra attacks are less likely to connect.

If your rate of accuracy is X, and the proc rate of Zanshin is Z, then your new accuracy with Zanshin comes out to...

X + (1 - X) * (X) * (Z)

I arrived at this because Zanshin only kicks in for those attacks you miss (the "1-X"), and only for a certain percentage of those misses, and then you have to factor in your accuracy affecting those extra attacks.

According to wiki, Zanshin procs "about as frequently as Double Attack", and it places the proc rate for Double Attack at 10% (without any gear of food to modify proc rate). So here's a table showing the accuracy boost you get with Zanshin for different accuracy ranges, assuming a 10% Zanshin proc rate:

[code]Base Acc New Acc Acc added
w/ Zanshin by Zanshin
25% 26.88 % 1.88 %
50% 52.5 % 2.5 %
75% 76.88 % 1.88 %
80% 81.6 % 1.6 %
90% 90.9 % 0.9 %
95% 95.48 % 0.48 %
[/code]

Edit: anyone know how to get pre-formatted text to show up in a monospaced font?

[Lunaryn]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

code is the correct bbcode tag. It may not be supported here due to the fact that program source is not normally posted here. The best option I can suggest is to set the font explicitly to Courier New and see if you can put non-breaking spaces in. HTML-style escaped characters are not supported either, so this may take some experimentation.

[Lunaryn]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Base Acc..New Acc........Acc added
..........w/ Zanshin.....by Zanshin
25%........26.88 %.........1.88 %
50%........52.50 %.........2.50 %
75%........76.88 %.........1.88 %
80%........81.60 %.........1.60 %
90%........90.90 %.........0.90 %
95%........95.48 %.........0.48 %

This good enough?

[Armando]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

Still, Hasso might be useful even in those situations. From what I can gather, Hasso benefits will max out at +5 STR, +5 acc and +5% attack speed for a WAR75/SAM37.

Hasso's Accuracy bonus and Attack Speed increase are both fixed at 10/10%. Only the STR fluctuates with level.

I use Great Swords as opposed to Great Axes, so the extra TP boost really makes for some highly Damaging Power Slashs, or Hard Slashs. Other GS weaponskills seem to be reliant on Int. because even with decent TP I don't do nearly as much damage with them as I do with Hard/Power Slash.

I honestly don't mean to harass you, but please, please, please do yourself and your parties a huge favor and use Great Axe. Nothing even comes close to Great Axe from 1-40 simply because Shield Break borders on broken at the low levels, and either way no WS beats out the raw power of Sturmwind. I'd go as far as saying Great Axe is the best weapon from 1-48 in 99% of the situations. -40 Evasion on the mob is just too big to ignore, AND it lets you land Acid Bolts easier.

Also, don't save TP past 100 deliberately. It's a waste.

Lmnop, I'm looking forward to reading about your WAR/SAM experience.

[Lmnop]

Re: WAR/SAM in Exp. Parties

I've fought crawlers in Mt. Zhayolm (level 68 - no Seigan so PLD tank), I've fought Sea Puks in Bhaflau (level 71 -- they're VT high evasion with +50 acc), Greater Colibri from Nyzul Isle (rather evasive, but not bad. Got nothin' on Sea Puks), Gobs/Dhalmal in Bibiki Bay, and raptors/cocks in Kuftal Tunnel. Since I never really party longer than 2 hours, I've had a lot of parties just getting 2 levels.

Gobs in Bibiki were fun -- I had one party (level 70 or 71) where the only real melee were me and a DRK. Since we had so much support, we were super-buffed all the time and both subbing Samurai. both of us @~40-45% haste (not sure how much marches give from a level 70 BRD as opposed to level 75) when you figure Hasso, and a good PLD tank besides. Kill speed was still a wee bit slow, mostly because DRKs are still trained to fear Souleater instead of getting behind PLDs and letting loose.

The other night, I was in a party (Greater Colibri) where Corsair was only Refresh, and I spent most of the night with Evoker's Roll as a result (Pld, Blu, Cor, Whm, Drg, War). I'm not going to go into details, but basically the blu had already made a comment regarding that I couldn't pull as /sam. Later, noting that I always had some form of refresh on me, I said I should've gotten Sanction Refresh so that I could use my Rune Chopper (if Evoker's averages 2 mp/tic, auto refresh would be #3 which would sustain it indefinately and give me +5 acc, +9% haste for a -2 DMG trade off). It wasn't long after that I started getting tells from all of the BLU's HNM LS about how much of a noob I am and how I should be swinging dual axes.

And then some of them started coming out to our camp so they could harass me there.

Funny, I wonder if they realized that that party was 4/6 friends. The Whm, Pld, and Drg are all some of my best friends. I didn't tell them what was going on, because they would've just kicked the BLU. Instead, I went out of my way to be kind to the BLU and try to be the bigger man.

There you have it. Harassment, and when confronted with "Why" they all say "because you can Double Attack both hands" -.- They have no response except Lol's when I point out that happens literally 1% of the time. Even a level 75 MNK didn't seem to notice that double attack usually only proc's on one hand?

I forget that people in-game aren't as clever as most of you.