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

Just someone from wopa days. Did I lie? You used to get a lot of advice on PLD from those two.

Couple minor things:
- Third Eye merit potency is halved when Seigan is up, so it'd be 1 second reduction per merit with Seigan, 2 seconds without (so :25 recast minimum)
- Counter cap is 80%
- Keep in mind Last Resort is 10% less attack than Berserk.

My thoughts on it:

Anytime you're with another DD and attack matters, I'd drop the idea entirely. Giving up Berserk for mobs that will be spamming TP abilities and constantly turning to your partner DD isn't worth the minor amount of Counter opportunities you'll get. However, if you're rolling with enough buffs (ohai GEO) and capping or near-capping attack without Berserk/LR, /DRK using Hasso until a mob warrants the swap to LR+Seigan (TP abilities with Stun effect or other annoying enfeebles, high attack rate, etc.) would certainly be worth considering.

As most would probably expect, solo DD would be where you'd get a lot more use out of /DRK. Mobs would spend a lot more time auto-attacking with only one DD on it, so you'd be seeing a lot more Counters, potentially 1300+ damage from MNK mobs or mobs with Triple Attack in a single attack round. However, remember that your Counter rate isn't 100% and Third Eye won't always be up (still a 12-13% Counter w/o TE, though), nor will mobs always be able to be Countered and you'll be subject to JA delay every 25 seconds.

If you choose to play with the idea, just make sure mobs are free from Elegy/Slow/Paralyze and casters are Silenced to maximize the Counter potential. That said, I'm not sure where I'd use /DRK aside from Yorcia Delve and *maybe* Morimar.

4-hit, no. 5-hit, yes. You'd have to be trying really hard to fall to a 6-hit on SAM.

Incursion came to mind, excluding Gramk himself, it could possibly negate wpn loss if missed stun or even some of the new avatar fights. Thx for the info was looking into koga considering the possibilities beyond /war.

That's conal AoE. Don't think Third Eye would block that. Also, his auto attacks themselves would probably strip Third Eye since they're also AoE. Can't say for sure since I don't remember the last time I used Third Eye. I did think about Incursion and the NM that came to mind where I'd love to have Seigan & capped delay reduction up is the WAR NM; dude hits like a truck with MS up. Losing Aggressor would suck, though, since his eva can also be crazy.

As for avatar fights, I haven't done them yet, but if they're like any other BC they should be zergable with Yaegasumi/PD, thus limiting the use of Third Eye.

btw last resort doesnt give a delay reduction unless you are main drk with merits. keep on eye balling.

Did you miss the Desperate Blows update?

yes I did, usually if its something drk related it goes in one ear and out the other.

if we are going to route of capping ja haste, then dnc could probably do better. steps can account for acc and def down along with bonus tp and capped delay reduction. Specially if there are mobs to build steps on before hand.

If doing that, atleast in Incursion, could rely on thf/dnc to supply such and fulltime seigan keeping /war I suppose. Far as Im aware /dnc gives 10% and ya need 12% to cap delay also?
Edit: Actually nvm /dnc is only 5% ja haste.

Think you're confused. Akson's proposal was to use Seigan and Last resort in combination to obtain a high Counter rate and still maintain capped delay reduction. Haste Samba would not work for this since you'd still be ~7% JA haste short of reaching delay reduction cap. With Hasso you don't need Haste Samba to cap delay reduction either. Hasso and AF119 hands with capped magic haste does the job.

Just asking, any other use for other jobs for Prosilio belt +1?

What is the value of the level 15 DRK Job trait Desperate blows?
If its like the merits, then its only 2% per tier.

Stringing Pummel maybe? Asuran Fists?

I don't recall anyone ever testing it and SE never told us what it starts at, just that the merits are still 2% each and that it varies by level of DRK now. If each merit is 2% and the trait 2 is 15% to reach 25% like before, then the trait 1 is surely less then 15%, but i dont see any testing anywhere.

Some really, really, really quick testing shows that it's probably 15% when DRK is used as a subjob.

48:00 start
51:00 end
LR: 50 swings

54:06 start
57:06 end
no buff: 40 swings

Minor info not totally necessary for testing LR:
Using Byrth's formula:

40*(.75) = 50*(.75 - .15)
30 = 30

Just stuck with 3 mins since I don't know how you'd test something with a 3 min duration but 5 min recast while afk.

That seems really odd if true, if desperate blows varies by level, its better for a 99 DRK then a 15 DRK then at some point 5/5 desperate blows merits are wasted, not sure how many or at what point, but the JA haste cap is 25% and level 15 blows and merits alone is already at the cap.

Are you sure zanshin or something didn't affect this in some way?

Yes. Counted auto attack rounds, not total amount of swings.

I'm not even totally sure what to make of the DB page on BGWiki. Seems to me like it's just guessing a second tier of DB exists. Lv.15 is still "less than or equal to" Lv.99 after all.

That seems almost unbelievable they would intentionally give DRK possibly like 30% JA haste or higher knowing it caps at 25%. I shouldn't be surprised though.

Well the BG page states that it's 15% haste at 99.

I don't think it was ever update or something, these update notes clearly state it increases by level and if your saying its 15% from sub then it either reaches 15% by 49 and stops there or its higher for DRK at 99 then bgwiki says.

So failing Ifrit +1 rings, are the NQs the next best choice for Tsu Fudos? I'm coming from a WHM Background and want to make SAM my DD job.

Completely depends on attack and accuracy. For a capped accuracy/attack build, Ifrit rings are solid if you can't afford HQ, but if you're just starting to gear SAM, Pyrosoul rings are only 1 STR less and lets you spend gil in places where it will make more of a difference.

Hello fellow SAMs! For those of you who use Mote's spreadsheets, I was wondering what you input for the "Target" field lately. Compared to current content, Serac Rabbit seems to be the closest match of the built-in options. I'm sure, though, that for Incursion or any other endgame content, the stats vary considerably. Are there any known evasion, defense, etc. values for Incursion, Delve, high-tier BCs, or anything current endgame (aside from Tojil)?

If not, do people guesstimate the values? I love the utility of Mote's spreadsheets; I'm just trying to figure out how to best use them in today's endgame ^^.

I don't think there is anything in the spreadsheet targets that matches current high end content very well. Stuff like incursion, you can't count on buffs besides geo spells, and even with all the buffs in the world you can't really cap accuracy. General rule of thumb is put on an accuracy set, check your accuracy on parse, if it's capped, take off a little, if it's still capped, take off a little more.

Then it's just a matter of mathing out the evasion based on your accuracy, and playing around with different sets that have that level of accuracy.

you definitely can cap Acc in incursion, at least up to level 133, I can't say about beyond that cuz I'm gimp :(