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

Yeah, I guess I was just asking if they ran just TP calculations or ran the full Sim w/ WS damage. Just wanted to compare on the latest version.

Both belts are more or less equal whenever you begin to factor in white damage, but Sweord+1 has marginally better TP gain.

Yeah, I did the full sim and was looking primarily at overall DPS.

Maletaru's helpful note about the previous Zanhasso fix in the sim might be part of it though. Not sure whether I do have the newest version, so I'm planning to make sure to get the current one and play with it a bit. Maybe that makes things closer/in favor of Sweord.

In any case though, I suppose it doesn't look like any of those belt options is likely to be hugely ahead of the others. Wouldn't really be too surprised if either of the three was "better" situationally. If Hasso is ever down, that's going to hurt Sweord a lot. If you're not using Ryuo shoes (which I don't in some more defensive leaning TP sets), that weakens it a bit. For situations where you need a lot of Acc, maybe Ioskeha gets some extra value, etc.

I usually use Masa (no Prime here), and I do pay attention to giving some value to stats that will improve white damage on an AM3-enhanced swing. That adds up! Not that it's a mega-huge deal for SAM, but white damage especially on an empy isn't something I would call insignificant - so many times I'm in a seg run or something, and an extra 1-2 attack rounds is enough to kill a mob (and easily noticeable that I'm missing that when I'm playing, idk, Naegling WAR in the same situation and know that if the mob is at like 8% I'm still gonna need to do another WS lol).

But saying all of that, probably a non-issue here. I set the correct flags (AM3 up) in the sim so assumed it's properly accounting for all TP and WS phase damage in the overall DPS.

Missing Ikishoten (massive extra TP from all Zanshin hits) makes a huge difference in the value of MA vs STP.

I'm still not sure what the ultimate answer is, but I wouldn't downplay the impact of Ikishoten not being counted when comparing belt options.

This is generally true for most popular build I guess, but I wouldn't agree with statement "Some will lean one way or the other, but not considerably so." Some efficient builds have very significant TP phase damage with Ukonvasara WAR build being probably a prime example where white damage is usually higher than WS damage.

Part of that comes from if the mob has enough HP to illustrate that ratio. For example, in segments on DRG with prime polearm, I can get piercing mobs down to 70% from auto attacking to get tp and the WS more than finishes them off. You could math it poorly that it's a 70:30 split but if that mob had enough hp to take the entire WS then it would put the damage back on the WS.

WAR with DA damage, THF with TA damage, and MNK in general with some crit sprinkled in makes their white damage more significant compared to other jobs.

It also depends on buffs. For example if you solo, you don't have Sam roll from Cor (unless you solo on Cor I guess :D), so you will make more hits between WSs. This not necessarily means, that it's worth to focus on increasing the damage of this phase over tp gain, but it could. Like always in FFXI, it depends ;)

Which back augments do people with Masamune tend to go for on the ambuscade cape? I have the one I made years ago, with DEX30/ACC/ATK/Double Attack, but I never see DA mentioned in any of the somewhat current guides I've seen recently. Is STP the way to go regardless of weapon now?

Nowadays for SAM, I think you'd either got for a Store TP cape if you're a Zanshin believer so the datk interferes with Zanshin rate less.

Or just spam Cloud of Dakrness HTBF on VE and pick up a Null Shawl (50acc 7datk 7stp)

Third option to what Vyre listed is takaha mantle from adoulin. With augments it can have +15 STP and +5 Zanshin. Pretty decent cape for SAM.

STP goes up to 13 but yes, good piece if accuracy is not necessary for the content you do.

You're right, my bad