Bushido - The Way Of The Samurai (A Guide) V. 2.0

Hi all, on-again-off-again returnee here, playing catch up with SAM sets now. Do we still aim for +100 Zanshin (so a total of +35 from gear) for the 25% zanhasso proc chance, or does the low multiattack priority of that (and the plethora of newer gear since with a greater focus on survivability etc.) make it less desirable now?
Essentially just trying to determine if Moonlight Nodowa is still relevant at all. Thanks!

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Whats your thought process with those hands and feet.

What's your thought process on the earring location? /s

I would also argue that Schere Earring (assuming augments, which I think is pretty reasonable) > Crep Earring and Moonlight Nodowa > SAM+2 neck, given that all options are available.

Someone pointed out in another thread (the one for the new HTBF I think) that the Reive cape is actually better than the ambu cape if you don't need the accuracy from ambu cape which I think is a pretty common occurrence considering how stacked SAM is with accuracy, plus the accuracy buffs typically being handed out.

Granted that getting capped augs can be an intense race, but if all you're after are STP+3 and Zanshin+5, I deem it should be reasonable without 2 billions attempts.

It's basically STP+13/Zanshin+5 vs Ambu which offers either DA+10, STP+10 or Zanshin+10.

The rest of the stats are basically a variable amount of Acc (which in this instance we said it's not necessary) and variable amounts of STR/Attack, or even a small amount of DEX for crit rate from dDEX. All of which I feel are mostly irrelevant in current content. At the rate SAM reaches >1000 STP, it's like 99% of your damage comes from WS and not from the white phase lol


So yeah, I concur that's a very nice idea yet a single factor remains: the (P)DT value from resins.
It's hard to give it up but I guess Empy+3 head/body/legs help giving more space to accept such a compromise.

where are you getting zanshin+10 from on the ambu cape? zanshin isn't an augmentable stat via saps, nor is it on the base cape

The way I see it, there's two schools of thought.

• Sam doesn't wear heavy armor and needs all the help it can get with super tanky TP sets. Get your UNM gear out of my face!

• Sam is a DD and DDs must DD the DDest or it's going to lose a parse to some Naegling bro. Must wear all the +zanshin +storetp evar.

Pick one.

Reive Cape, not Ambu cape

Edit: Just realized the original said zanshin as a possibility from ambu capes, whoops, ignore me ^^;

Or just the middle ground of; I want to be defensive but still make some compromises on meva so ill just use 1 or 2 pieces of UNM gear

Points to the "Get your UNM gear out of my face!" line.

Don't make me get the hose out.

From a brain fart!
My mistake I apologise XD

UNM feet is a great way to get more accuracy in your sets, but I wouldn't have it in there by default. Ryuo is too important

The hands are just the best TPing piece for that slot but defensively pretty weak. You probably just swap them out for Ken or Nyame if you need Meva or Mpaca if you need PDT.

Reive cape appears to still be best TP cape? Ambu cape with 10 STP also appears to sim better than Null shawl? Null Shawl is still a great MEVA swap if you aren't in threat of physical damage.

Lehko's Ring is also fantastic.

That's post edit. Was emp+3 gloves and relic+3 boots

Oh, I am less confused now.

Lehko's ring is trash for SAM.

Warder's Charm, Shadow ring for v20+ or other high end magic spamming mobs.

I personally swap in Nyame hands and feet for max DT/eva but most of the time SAM can roll just fine with the set I posted above.

It's now edited with abyssea earring, so now I am totally lost.

Just stick with the sets on Bippin's/Taint's/All Gear Sets page

Based on? I mean it's the best for TP gain in the ring slot, allows you to use literally any other non-haste belt which is great offensively and defensively. Could use Lehko's / Shadow Ring / Null Belt (carriers) / Warders

In terms of simming (Which I'm aware is not as useful for short term fights where Meditate and SP1 are used) it's ahead in damage of both pdif Ephramad's and Cornelias with Jinpu (exception being like wind weak mobs). The fact that is ahead in long duration fights means it can't be too far behind in short fights.

See what I mean.

10 Sams, how ever many sets, and a whole bunch of UNM or worse gear.

Not one of these sets is exactly like mine btw.

Based on Melee/WS ratio on a SAM. Especially when you factor in SC damage.

Yeah Kastra's sim won't account for skillchain damage and obviously meditate / Sekkanoki / Sp1/ Sp2. Without those considered Lehko's pulls ahead, so I would wager with those considered then Cornelia's will tie it up. That alone means that Lehko's isn't trash for SAM.

Lehko's also uniquely frees up your belt slot which enables better TP gain, higher accuracy or more survivability.

I think it's kind of slept on because people see Ephramad's and immediately think it will be the best, but I am not too sure about that. Aria of passion provides a large amount of PDL and and SAM has access to more with Kasuga Feet and JSE Neck. This is even assuming you are hitting pDIF.


It's like TP sets are variable based on your needs and level of min/maxing. Also what is the issue with the UNM gear? 3 Pieces of Empy +3 and Ambu back put Sam at 45% PDT / 35% MDT. This makes Tatena pretty free defensively outside of the rare cases when MEVA is gunna win out.

I've come to the conclusion that Lehko's is never the best option for anything honestly.

What taint is getting at is that SAM's damage distribution is 90/10. 90% WS damage/10% White Damage. Lehko's is only 4 STP over the next best option, and with the amount of TP you get from Zanshin Procs, it's massive overkill. So 10% WSD from Cornelia's or situationally 10% PDL from Ephramad's will long term result in more damage dealt for a sam.

I agree with your premise and am also not picking up a Lehko's Ring, but I disagree with the phrasing of "massive overkill". A lot of people, not just you, say things like this.

Pointless tirade:
Tirade over, I agree, I think the extra WSD from Cornelia or Ephramad easily outweighs the extra TP gained from Lehko's ring, and I think it's clear that the distribution of damage for every job in the game favor WSD over white damage, so things that increase WS frequency and WSD are much more valuable than those that increase white damage. I don't think 4 STP will give SAM enough TP in the "TP phase" to make up for the WSD lost by not having the other TVR rings. I also believe this for...frankly just about every job in the game, TBH.

As an aside, I've seen a lot of people tout the 10% haste as saving a bunch of TP sets too, but I've never had trouble or felt like I was sacrificing much, if anything, to cap haste. There's at most 1 piece that is slightly sub-optimal, but still strong. BLU and BRD legs come to mind. The alternatives are like...2% behind at worst though.

I agree with your point in general, but stand by my massive overkill comment specifically for samurai.

I generally use doji for the most part, so I've got ~900 TP Bonus baked in to my WSs. It's not uncommon for my SAM specifically to go from < 1000 TP to 2000+ in one melee round if a Zanshin procs. With that being the case, having extra TP from the Lehko's ring is actually massive overkill because with all the TP bonus you're over cap.

EDIT: There was an error in sim

How does the SIM handle Ryou feet? Or Zanhasso in general?

Your set is similar to my MA SAM set (Ryou feet over Tatena) but the set I posted above is my default.

TP sets with the sim are one of my weak points. I've never been very good with that stuff.. :P

Ryuo vs. Tatenashi technically is about break even. A TA proc is roughly equal to a Zanshin hit. Since Zanshin is at most 25% of the time, Ryuo can only really proc ~2.6% of the time. This is vs. 3% TA proc on the Tatenashi Feet. They're going to give you roughly the same amount of TP over time.

Here's what you get with Tatenash Hands + Ryuo feet vs Mpaca's gloves and feet:

Tatenashi/Ryuo: def 192, hp 110, str 45, dex 69, vit 53, attack 52, accuracy 81, meva 112, mdef 3, zanshin 5 + zoat 11, TA 4, TA dmg 0, pdt 0, crit rate 0
Mpaca hands/feet R15: def 243, hp 111, str 48, dex 76, vit 61, attack 110, accuracy 80, meva 155, mdef 23, zanshin 0, TA 6, TA dmg 5, pdt 14, crit rate 8

Using Mpaca vs the other two gives you:

def 51, hp 1, str 3, dex 7, vit 8, attack 58, accuracy -1, meva 43, mdef 20, zanshin -5, zoat -11, TA 2, TA dmg 5, pdt 14, crit rate 8

You get a bunch more def, a ton of mdef, more attack, 14 PDT, 2 TA and 5 TA dmg, 8 crit rate at the cost of 5 zanshin + 11 zoat and one less accuracy. This is at R15.

Use what you want. The person using UNM/ryuo gear to try to get that extra 1-2 zanshin attacks per round is the first to die or get enfeebled and lose any potential DPS they would be getting.

Personally I love not dying while every other Sam drops like a fly.

Your gut feeling was right. Code for Zanhasso is very good, but the method was invoked without True for Zanshin proc :)

Your set is bis (with Tatenashi feet being break even), but swapping in kenda hands/feet and Null Shawl is still only 4.6% DPS loss, so I would go that way personally.


It's actually 35% with gifts. That being said it's still pretty much break even.

If someone want to manually fix the issue in his sim before Izanami will make a fix on the github, then it's in action.py

lines 620 and 631


You need to add ", True" after "stp"