Samurai: 5-Hit Polearm, 17% Haste

Sorry, figured it was assumed that this was about polearms considering the thread. For reference, it should be obvious to anyone that 5-hit GK builds are half-impossible and incredibly impractical unless for some reason you're getting sam roll and just happen to get relatively close enough so that swapping in Hachi hands or something similar isn't too detrimental.

The point I was trying to make was that while 6-hit is really easy to make with GK with standard gear and rajas, a 5-hit on polearm without usukane feet and rajas is probably not going to perform practically. Without these, you're looking at Askar and for TP that's practically taboo for both GK and Pole. If for some reason your 6-hit GK build equals out to a 5-hit Pole build, you've got some extra baggage on GK that could probably be subtracted out for something better.

Anyhow, I'd say Argettio's build is the most applicable for the majority. Small tweaks can be made from person to person, but the bolded pieces are key because you want to be able to swap out the majority for WS like he said anyway.

GKT 6 hit - Stp pieces I use Brutal +1 / Hachi hands +8 / Rajas +5
This lets me WS in w/e hand piece I want and maintain 6 hit through the tp process off a 1 hit WS.

Same pieces on pole let me 5 hit due to a 5 hit WS. I penta in +6 stp (rajas,brutal)

With 480 delay and +6STP you're looking at a base of 18.3 for WS, with 1-4+ depending on hits landed. Supposing you get all 5 for 22.3TP (or a flat 22, forget if remainder is carried upon added hits) leaving you to makeup 78 between 4 remaining hits. +14STP in TP stage nets 19.3 per hit: 19.3*4 = 77.2 + 22.3 (or 22) = 99.5. I don't think I've made any incorrect calculations here, so between those numbers not even adding up to 100+ and needing to land 5 hits from penta every WS to even come close to making the mark, I'm not sure how credible this is. Unless the whole "eating damage with your face" plan is intended to make up the difference in TP from damage taken, which I can't even buy due to constant sponging sounding practical.

Either way, even with capped accuracy with a polearm (fat chance in most cases) the chance of landing 5/5 on Penta isn't dependable enough to make a build around landing all of the hits. The accuracy gap increases with each consecutive hit, so for 5/5 you're looking at around 60-70% if that, though I don't recall the exact numbers.

Think that's why you should pull out pole when you have a brd in pt =/

or you will join the Drks in wiff wiff wiffing

Now just to be clear here, you are counting 5/5 Stp merits?

Yeppers, without that base of +35STP before gear the numbers would be in the 17-18 region. There's always a chance of mathematical error, especially using a tool like ffxi calc to run the numbers, but everything seems accurate so far.

Then just throw on Hachi feet during Penta, and it should make up any difference. The only way this fails is if you miss the first swing of Penta.

My DRG can beat 99% of sams. Whats your point? I consistently parse almost a 1/3 more dmg than ANY samurai ive ever partied with on birds - and this was with me main healing as a DRG/BLU. Point is that anyone can beat anyone given the right conditions.

This thread has gotten a little off track.

Erroli, your set up looks decent right now, but as others have said polearm sam is usually used on bird merit pts, where you'll get your food eaten often.

If you really want to pursue the polearm route on sam, I'd highly suggest obtaining a rajas ring, Tomoe, 8/8 polearm merits, brutal, and usukane feet.

Also something to consider is Sam/drg, only mentioning this because I saw Frobeus talking alot about Sam/war. While Sam/war is a good job combo for some people. Sam/drg in the right hands can be truly amazing.

Take a look at Rukenshin's SAM/DRG workup for more info. However, do take heed as Rukenshin warns:


Hope this was some help to you, take care!

That only changes the 22.3 to a 22.9 and makes your per hit goal 19.2 instead of 19.3. If you miss even a single hit on Penta, not counting the first hit which kills it altogether, your end goal becomes 19.5 meaning neither your regular build nor the modified build will work anytime a single hit from Penta is missed. Counting on 5/5 Pentas is just impractical for a build based around a sub-grade weapon. ***, even DRGs would be taking a risk in this case with capped acc.

Edit: Just as a note on Blindphleb's sam/drg post, the research on it was done with near perfect sam gear including relic GK and a Wyvern earring. As far as I've seen, there hasn't yet been a strong case for this for anyone without relic. This is definitely for GK and not polearm material, though, just to clarify.

Ruke is also using Amano.

While Sam/Drg is amazing when used correctly, I'm speaking strictly of pole situations and spamming penta @ birds. Since Penta is so heavily reliant on Att, the natural boost from /war along with Serk its going to be difficult to overcome.

Isn't it true also that stat modifiers apply only to the first hit, then the rest are like normal additional hits?

You seriously need to pt with some better Sams then.

I'd like to bring to everyones attention DRGS do 1.25 dmg to birds. That is all.

I'd like to bring to your attention, a SAM with a Polearm will do 1.25 (+25%) damage to birds too. That is all.

Penta is also dependent on acc especially if we're talking about an unmerited B- weapon. Even more so if you are relying on hitting 5/5 penta to make your 5 hit polearm build work for you.

Furthermore, the att of /WAR might seem like a big deal on paper but when actually put to the test in the field this is what Rukenshin found:


Those tests Rukenshin did used Amano as a constant, from what we know of scientific tests, constants don't have an impact on the outcome of a test. He could have used Hagun on both the SAM/WAR and SAM/DRG tests and the difference between them would have been similar.

Bump >.>

Anyone know if this is true or false? I haven't looked into it enough to know for sure.

its completely hilarious when you consider your parties saying "samurai is the best" and stuff of that sort.

DRG/BLU
DRG/WHM
DRG/(SAM/WAR)
DRG/(SAM/WAR)
DRG/(SAM/WAR)
BRD/NIN

On colibris i guarantee you that it will beat any party that has a samurai in it since you arnt getting any downtime and are strictly going full attack.

If a samurai says that they can go all out then fine. But can you go all out and not die? go all out and not leech of the healing powers of a dragoon or something?

Whats your prefered setup for your ultimate samurai bird party.

Using an Amano would actually help the /WAR results more. A SAM/DRG gets less benefit from a +20 ACC item as they are already closer to the accuracy cap.



Penta is dependent on accuracy as much, if not moreso, than attack. Subbing DRG allows a constant +10 accuracy to penta thrusts and tp gain, whereas /WAR adds a marginal increase 3/5's of the time to the hits that do land.

I am very aware about the limited impact of Att on WS like Gekko. This is why smi+1 is better than foragers for ex. Gekko and Penta are not the same WS. They are not calculated the same, and anyone can see the difference between serk'd penta's and non serk'd pentas.

Also with top of the line gear and Madrigal your acc on birds should be fine even with B weapon.

So should your attack if you have two BRD's and are eating right.

Hell, if you have two BRD's, the sub jobs wouldn't matter in terms of accuracy and attack since both are likely to be capped.

At that point, /DRG will allow more haste, shed hate, and control your TP gain at will.

omg lol i read this at work and got excited to come home and laugh. the ONLY times we get 2 brds for birds is: 1) theres a gimp brd trying to ding (69-74ish) who we let buff while the other pulls or 2) when we have an awful DD who wants to come merit and we dont wanna gimp our exp.

just yesterday our bard (read: one bard) had to keep putting madrigal on us "to slow you guys down so we dont run out of mobs".

if youre elitest (read : lol) enough to need or demand two bards for every merit party youre taking a brd from another group AND removing your chance to ever learn mob management.

I didn't say one bard pts can't be good, just that 2 brd pts are better.

Also, I learned mob management (lol) long before bird camps even existed.

ALSO, I'm glad I don't have to wait till I get home after reading posts to laugh.

More haste check
Double attck? nope

Shed hate? who cares

Control TP gain? wut

I still have double attack with /DRG.



Me, when I have too much hate for out DDing SAM/WARs.



You can't choose when DA procurs. You can choose when to throw in an extra Jump or High Jump. Self skill chaining is easier with /DRG than /WAR.

You have more DA as /war.

Why do you care who has hate? the mob should be dead within 30 seconds. If you have to worry about hate then something more is wrong than a subjob.

And we're talking about polearm here... self skillchain?

Mother of god. I knew there was a reason why I never discuss in-game mechanics on the FFXIAH forums, I felt like I was on Allakhazam for a second - the lack of common knowledge is staggering.

Rated you down, btw.





Yeah, I'm sure that's what makes people "elitist". Whenever I see that word thrown around, I always know the next few excuses are going to include something in the form of "lol just a game dude" "lol I have a life, so my jobs are gimp and I tp in STR rings and DOMARUUUUUU, that's y u merit str rite?"

Yea this thread hit all kinds of stupid back on the first page.

Let me add to the idiocy:
I've personally outdamaged DRG's and other SAM's on Colibri's with only my GK!!1! But I'm not going to post parse results because those are private/waste of your time/whatever you just don't need to see them.

Everybody knows the above italicized statement is false. Claims of "I've out DD'd 99% of..." are just as equally false, except when qualified with parse results. If you can put numbers down to back up your claim, nobody can argue with you. Otherwise, you're just another one of those "The fish was thiiiiiiiiiis big!!" And before somebody starts into "Well this thread isn't for parse results... I'm not here to derail topic... yada yada yada" please consider why you even posted with such claims in the first place.

Kast and Kyo are both right.

And as far as the above post, who the *** claimed they could outparse Drg's on birds with a GKT?

This is a very silly thread you know.