Secks thy name is /SAM

[Karou Ariyen]

But Samurai was originally developed to be balanced with /war. The /thf thing came because ppl insisted that /thf SATA is the only way to play. At least as far as I know.

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

How I rate the SAM subs.

/WAR, most overall damage, good TP gain.

/RNG, fastest TP gain, good damage. Sharpshot is a grrreat TP builder.

/THF, real handy for getting around town.

After a party as /RNG with my melee kitty, I notice how much more I miss as /WAR. The frustrating thing about /RNG is the lack of people who can do two different SCs in one party. If I can I will set up SCs with all the other melees and the tank. I expect the others to have SCs for when I have no TP, but they don't. 200% TP and no one else is ready, finally I do a SC, Meditate, do another, and there are now two other people with TP and nothing set up.

/sigh

According to the best THF I know, about the late 50s /NIN is superior. For pulling Raptors it is essental.

/SAM will be a fad for a while. After that... IDK.

[Sugami]

Quickie "math" on the two: Sub/nin+suppanomimi = DW2+1 (15% weapon haste or ~21% dps boost) and +1 extra hit on every WS. Sub/war = double attack (10% dps & tp), bezerk, warcry, and +attack JT. TP/nin is 10% lower after the recent floor nerf (it was higher), since DW reduces TP gain by the same amount it speeds attack rate. It's less than 10% if the THF/nin is using off-hand faster than main. Anyway, 10% is just one attack round for THF/nin.

Practically speaking, you need a pretty huge difference in TP gain to matter; 'dunno about you, but there's always something going on that makes WS'ing right at 100 not as nice as waiting a tad (critter about to die, 3 others about to unleash and you can impromptu renkei, tank wants trick+ws opener, etc. etc.). So, unless both are unleashing exactly at 100, chances are pretty good they're actually WS'ing at about the same rate.

Well if you're putting TP gain as vitually identical /WAR still has better stats over /NIN, harder hits and Berserk I believe 3min duration, 5 min recast so 60% of the time it's up. Warcry Attack boost is small in comparison and is only really good for quick hate.

DRG should always go /WAR to TP burns and to most normal exp parties. High Jump and Super Jump shed enough hate after WS.

The thing about SAM is Gekko or Kasha can be anywhere from 300-800 without SA and 800-1300 with. That's practically double the damage, the other thing is that out of all the 2-handed users their standard damage is the weakest. Playing to their strengths would be to make better use of their WSs.
However in burn parties where there aren't enough melees who can tank to some extent you won't be able to get SATA off and without TA you'll probably get yourself killed, ontop of which hate is constantly being pinged around making it harder to land SATA properly.

Think the initial attraction to /RNG was Sidewinder spam but after the nerf you're hard pressed to land them consistantly. Heck my WAR (now 40) has C skill in Marksmanship and 2 merits and my accuracy is something like 25%.

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

The attraction of /RNG for me is the Acc boost and the TP gain under Sharpshot. With the distance modifier now removed while Sharpshot is active, the point blank shoot-shoot-swing gets you to 100% TP in no more than three cycles.

Sidewinder spamage is still possible, but it takes a Soboro now. And that takes getting past Promyvion Holla, something the melee kitty has yet to do.

I swear the Holla boss has the best AI in the game.