I need SAM advise please

Koutetsu

Limit Breaker
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Feb 10, 2005
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Well i have decided to take a small break from drk soon, and want to level up my second favorite job, Samurai. Its already at 19, but i wanted some advice on what sort of equipment i should focus on, food to use, and such.

Thank you in advance!
 
Accuracy is key early on. Early on it is very difficult to come by so next bext thing would be to go with dex. Attack and strength are also quite good to have, but your primary focus needs to be on hitting to gain tp. At lvl 24 your can get windurst/federation gloves and kyahan which are very useful at that level, and for a long time to come. I'd suggest getting balance rings at your level, but you can also play it by ear. If you find yourself with good accuracy maybe look into adding some strength or attack gear after that.

Now I am a little biased, seeing as I've played all the early levels as a sam/war, but I feel that it is the most useful job combo for those levels. Gives you the ability to partially tank, and adds another provoker to the party. You'd basically be playing as a warrior with a great katana at these levels. Not much to samurai until lvl 30 really, when you get meditate. This is when accuracy becomes a lot more useful, because you job is to gain tp as quickly as you can, so you can skillchain as much as possible. If you don't have a skillchain chart, get one and get to know it well. From my experience it is easier to skillchain twice per fight when opening both skillchains, as you can better time meditate so you can fire a weaponskill the very second you have 100 tp, ensuring no part of it is wasted.

Ranger can also work pretty well early on, if you have capped archery, as Samurai can often be called upon to pull. The accuracy bonus isn't bad either. My biggest piece of advice is to do your best to keep archery capped as you level. I let it fall behind and it wasn't until lvl 58 that I finally caught it up, after much skilling up and it's so much more helpful to have at a decent lvl. Might be helpful to get some rng acc gear to macro in for bow shots.

Food wise you'd be best off using +attack foods, as you are a damage dealing class. Meat kabobs are nice, or whatever alternative that fits at those levels. Check ffxi.somepage.net for a food list. One food I have recently read about is Rice Dumplings, they give str, att, rng, att, some accuracy and a few other things. They would seem like a great choice for early levels.

So to recap, accuracy and dexterity should be number one when you're looking at gear. Should you have acceptable accuracy you might want to try some attack and strength gear as well. Try to keep archery capped, it is a nice tp addition when you can peg the mob with an arrow or two before the fight begins. Warrior is a very good subjob for Samurai throughout it's whole career. Ranger can work well too, though I never tried it until lvl 59 so I can't speak from experience. Theif can also work in certain circumstances, with some nice weaponskill damage. For DoT though, Samurai/warrior is your best option. Later on it's best to have all three at a level to use to make yourself as versatile as possible. That's my project right now, that and getting together all the different sets of gear I need (melee set, SA set, tank set, ranger set, regular ranged attack set)

I tend to ramble on a little :? Any other questions I'd be happy to answer, enjoy your time as a Samurai.
 
For a skillchain chart, I find Aden's chart (www.adennak.com) the easiest one to understand.

As for gear... most of the gear setups you used for DRK work for SAM. There's some armor DRKs get that SAMs don't and vice versa, but look for gear with the same mods. Although, you want to put accuracy a bit higher on the list than you did on DRK.

Food should either be +Attack or +Accuracy, depending on the situation - use +Attack food for mobs with high defense and +Accuracy for high evasion. Mithkabobs will probably be your best bet for +Attack food, and sole sushi's best for +Accuracy.
 
thanks for all the advice,
And Chouzan...ha ha ha, did not know you had a similar avatar....judging by the way you posted, you prolly had it first...

if you want me to change it...i can....
 
LOL. Nah, it's cool. I like running into other people that know wtf Red Dwarf is.
 
+Dex gear is key, Samurai's strength lies in Skillchains, you realy want to have as much acc boosting things as possibale, if you do not hit you do not get TP and are therefore useless. As you get higher and actualy +acc things open up get as many as possibale. In a sence they are fairly similar to THFs gear wise.
 
/poke /poke

Psst Dire, update your sig, it's really behind on your samurai.

My experience is limited for samurai, only 32, but as my thief samurai is a common job I have to work with for skillchain reasons. So I'll give insight from the other end for 40-my current level. Pre 40 isn't much to explain, not much acc gear around, dex gear for tp, str gear for WSs.

I've been with many samurai, some awsome, alot great, some sucked although I tend to find less samurai rockies once the middle levels really set in. I'll give 2 bad examples and the good example in my opinion. Also just for reference I'm a pretty well equipped thief but I'm nothing amazing either, but I hold my end of the DD: Snipers,pin,LL,Best HQ weapon for said level and all other expected goodies minus a scorpion harness and HQ dex+4 rings.

Bad example 1- I've been with samurai's lacking enough acc gear to hit the needed 70-80%(Pretty acceptable amount although more is better of course) of the time. Between snipers,lifebelt, and heavy-armor/eastern gear a samurai can obtain a pretty darn good amount of accuracy. Most of that gear can be obtained at reasonable prices although for some people they find getting 500k X 2 quite difficult. It's worth it though, and you can never be more than an above average melee without them at best. Let people say what they will...But the person with 10 more acc always shows an obvious clear advantage.

This lack of acc resulted in 2 things. Poor DoT, if you have around 50% acc you're obivously going to be hurting your groups potienal for chaining mobs. The other bad thing is you wouldn't be landing hits thus not gaining tp, and the samurai job heavily revolves around tp and making multiple SCs.

Bad example 2-Not enough str/attk gear. Having tons of acc is great and all, but the jobs function isn't just to get tp, a samurai is still a fairly decent damage over time job. If you're hitting 80% of the time or more but you're hitting for 40 damage a hit, and your thief competion is hitting for 15-25 damage a hit, you're getting outdamaged.

This is a true example as well, I can recall it in the tree on crabs in the mid 50s. We were both hitting very often, I was hitting for 15-25 a swing on the robber crabs, the non-taru samurai who was just loaded with acc was hitting for about 40. So in a sense he only doubled the damage of my dagger per hit, that's kind of pathetic, I'd expect that maybe from a good 1handed sword, not a 'Great' Katana.

Good example- Most of the outstanding samurai I have been with were 50ish-my current level. The samurai who can combine not amazing but respectable damage per hit and a good hit rate without really hurting the other have been the best in experience points parties.

The numbers vary from level to level in terms of str,attk,acc,dex and what's available. 40ish acc+10-15 is a good amount, then at lifebelt it's 20-25, then in the mid and later 50s comes heavier armor pieces for reasonable prices that provide good acc overall, so around +35-40( Less can be acceptable but you'll have to eat sole sushi to compensate taking away from a large +% attk increase ) is for a good player once you hit 59 and can equip hauby. If you're at these amounts for these levels you can use attk+ food and not suffer huge acc penalties making you overall more productive. So basiclly, if you have the good acc equips for your level, you can eat a quality attk%/str food without suffering for it.

In regards to 60+ samurai, all the samurai I've been with post 60 that have had hauby have been far more damaging and intelligent players. +10attk,+5str,+10acc are the good stats on it, and let me say it's not a load of BS, it shows really well. Samurai in this have been impressing me lately hitting noticablely harder overall so that'd it make a difference. The players I've encountered with the hauby have also been for more knowledgable and much better working with others for a common goal of good productivity for the xp party.
 
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