Polearm

[Dowzer]

I've been meriting for the past few weeks and started to tinker with SAM's polearm skill at Greater Colibri. Aside from the abysmal level 240 skill, it's still quite impressive.

Here are my sets:

TP — With Madrigal I parse around 80~85% melee accuracy. Even while hovering at that percent, I am wondering if it would be beneficial to replace Swift belt with Life belt. It's my reasoning that a higher melee accuracy percent will further complement my polearms 5-hit setup. Without Madrigal, I use Life Belt.

Main: Engetsuto (Tomoe)
Sub: Pole Grip
Ammo: Tiphia Sting (Black Tathlum)
Head: Walahra Turban (Ace's Helm)
Neck: Peacock Amulet (Ancient Torque/Love Torque)
Ear1: Brutal Earring
Ear2: Merman's Earring
Body: Haubergeon +1
Hands: Hachiman Kote
Ring1: Rajas Ring
Ring2: Sniper's Ring (+1/Toreador's Ring)
Back: Forager's Mantle (Cuchulain's Mantle)
Waist: Swift Belt (Velocious/Speed Belt)
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Hachiman Sune-Ate (Usukane Sune-Ate)



Penta Thrust — The damage multipliers are small and this WS is comparable to Asuran Fists. After tinkering with high STR/DEX sets, I had a huge difference with replacing those attributes with Accuracy and Attack. I'd like to further push my average of ~850 and highs of ~1300 to a more respectable number. I believe the answer is /WAR.

My reasoning behind /WAR is simple.

62 battles as SAM/DRG with a BRD playing Minuet/Madrigal lead me to:
WS: 121/874.8/1324
Melee: 80.55%

83 battles as SAM/WAR without a BRD:
WS: 187/829.3/1316
Melee: 66.56%

As you can see, the ~1300 are obviously modified by double attack and a higher (550+) Attack rating. Berserk and Warcry supplemented the loss of Minuet, the numbers support this.

I would like an average of ~1200 and highs of ~1800 and more.

Main: Engetsuto (Tomoe)
Sub: Pole Grip
Ammo: Tiphia Sting (Black Tathlum)
Head: Saotome Kabuto (Saotome Kabuto +1/Hissho Hachimaki/Ace's Helm)
Neck: Peacock Amulet (Shadow Gorget)
Ear1: Brutal Earring
Ear2: Merman's Earring
Body: Haubergeon +1
Hands: Noritsune Kote/Ochimusha Kote (Myochin Kote +1/Enkidu's Mittens)
Ring1: Rajas Ring
Ring2: Sniper's Ring (+1/Toreador's Ring)
Back: Forager's Mantle (Cuchulain's Mantle)
Waist: Life Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Saotome Sune-Ate (Usukane Sune-Ate)

I can also dispose that /WAR or /DRG is suicide without melee of your own caliber bouncing hate. Although there was no down time, I parsed 43.44% total damage but took 14733 damage during 62 battles. Without a BRD I parsed 36.47% total damage but took a whopping 22362 damage during 83 battles.

Please don't derail this thread with OMGWTFBBQ /NIN > /Anything for merit parties.

I'd like to know what other players views are on SAM utilizing polearm at the Greater Colibri camp. Melee accuracy and WS averages would be greatly appreciated. Please don't give me eye ball figures, I can bat the ball outa the park if all 5 hits successfully land with a heavily STR/DEX/Attack setup, albeit MUCH LESS frequently and a MUCH LOWER average than ~850.

 

[mdkuser]

The good part about polearm sam is 5 hit build, vs a war that cannot achieve it even /sam, but it requires sacrificing a bit of accuracy. Full usukane is the best you'll get for this, because you'll get your stp on body feet, but still gotta use the rajas ring vs another sniper.

If you dont own full usukane or at least ace's helm, then I'd suggest using sushi or madrigals. You set up uses hachiman feet and hands which scrifices a bit of haste and accuracy. I'd suggest getting the minuet earring or at least fowling ( diabolos earring too) instead of marman's. ALso, swift belt is better than life belt do the math. If your acc is above 60% ( i think that's the inflexion point), even if it has lower accuracy, it will give more hits in a given amount of time. Thats the reason ace's is better than turban for acc < 93% too.


Also yeah for ws I gear up like asuran fist because 240 skill is so low on accuracy and attack: usukane boy, hisshi hachimaki, O.kotes; byakkos usu feet, sniper rajas etc.

Edit: I'm a fan of polerarm in einherjar when there are flying mobs ( if my merit pt do birds I try t go mnk or thf), there I get 6 bard songs or 4 songs 2 rolls, and accuracy/attack aren't a problem, it's freaking amazing, you get tp so fast ( my set up gives me 20.1 TP).

 

[Dowzer]

I always forget about Fowling and Minuet earring. Salvage is definitely the biggest boost to these setups. That's the main reason I asked about Life belt, as I don't have as much accuracy that I'd like in my melee setup. I'd love to ditch the Hachiman gear for Usukane body and feet, Ace's helm is a possibility in the near future.

If I party without a BRD again, I'll post the results of melee accuracy with sushi vs kabobs and the difference between total damage.

 

[Caerloc]

Me and Evanos parsed against Alvons SAM/WAR on birds the other day. He spanked us pretty hard. Me and Evanos tied pretty much, but he beat us with something like 8%. He was at about 85% acc, his ws average was 1300. Songs where march and Minuet.

Alvons sam is pretty well geared, but no Usukane or Ace's. Me and Evanos are pretty much identical in merits and gear, and we are both pretty much as good as a mnk can get. But we still couldnt compete.

You really dont need usukane or sushi/madrigals to own with a polearm on birds.
(but im sure it would help)

 

[Dowzer]

I think the biggest upgrades I need are Polearm Merits, Shadow Gorget, Tomoe and Hissho Hachimaki. Aside experimenting with other slots, I'm certain my Penta's average will be 1k+ with Minuet and Berserk.

For some reason, even without Madrigals, I was getting full TP returned a majority of the time. I am unsure of the occasional jump in damage, maybe Dia...Sometimes a full TP return would yeild a ~1k Penta, while most others were ~800. Maybe a DA while another swing missed, I'm not sure.

A few notable TP pieces will help too. I'm just confused how he could maintain 85% without Madrigal. I know Toreador's and Fowling/Minuet Earring will add 5 accuracy, Tomoe will add 3 Accuracy and Cuchulain's 5 accuracy and 4 dex. With 8 Polearms merits ontop of those items, I'll be very happy if it pushes me past 80% without Madrigal, but I'm very skeptical. As a reminder, after 83 battles without Madrigal, I was at an abysmal hit rate of 66.56%.

I'd say a good portion of the reason for my experimenting with polearm comes from the amount of improvement I have to make with it.

Lots of testing to go!

 

[mdkuser]

caerloc can you post thegear of the sam getting 85% acc? I got doubts. you need 400+ total acc to get caped accuracy at birds, and polearm is 45 skill behind gkatana.

With my best Gkatana gear I can get ~425 acc with 17% haste ( that includes full usukane Ancient torque and cuculains, HQ snipers hollow earring etc..) so thats about 380 with polearm, or ~85% acc, and thats with usukane. An average sam w/o usukane or expensive HQs gets about 390 acc naturally with G katana, so 350 with polearm or 70% acc. He subbed drg, or used sushi, or or sacrificed too much haste gear, or doesn't have a 5-hit build.



Edit: Here is the actual maths. There are two types of colibris: lv 81 and lv 82. You need 407 acc exactly to cap on the lv 82 ones, and I think 397 in the lv 81 ones.

My max acc build for 5-hit polearm that I use is:

engetsuto, pole grip, tiphia sting.
Full usukane.
A. torque, brutal, hollwo earring.
Sniper+1, rajas.
Cuchulain's, swift belt.

Total accuracy:
240 base skill: 200+0.9*40=236 accuracy.
78+28 dex ( 106*0.75=79 acc from DEX) I'm mithra
+67 accuracy from gear.
+10 from hasso

=

392 total accuracy, 5-hit build and 17% gear haste.

You need 407 to cap on the lv 82 colibris and 397 on the lv 81 ones.
So I'm geting 93% on half the mobs, and 88% on the other half so it will be ~90% accuracy.

Someone without full usukane will have at least 20-30 less acuracy so your friend can't have 85%.

Squall's gear:
240 skill= 236 acc.
+34 from gear.
DEX hume so 72+26=98; thats 98*0.75=73 acc from dex
hasso +10

total accuracy: 353, 5-hit build and 14% gear haste.

You'll get 73% acc on the lv. 81 and 68% on the lv 82, averaging about 70% acc.

 

[mdkuser]

you know squall, you'r accuracy is so low that askar Zuchetto is actually an option. it starts beating turban when the accuracy is below a point that's between 80% and 85 % depending on mobs.

But when one starts considering askar zuchetto, might as well use pizza or sushi, but pizza isn't an option at colibris camps unfortunately, I recommend sushi lol. With 16 more polearm skill from merits you'll have 8% more acc, but will still be stucked at ~78% acc. Add hollow earring ( 2 dex 3 acc= 4-5 acc) and you can break 80% acc, which is still low for a meat build.

Edit: The + accuracy grip will also be better than pole grip in this situation.

 

[evanos]

Alvon's acc was 84.22 + whatever the first couple of fights acc was (I usually don't start the parse until chain 5+ and everyone is in the groove). I'm not sure about his gear, he was lacking things like Usu feet/Hauby +1 though. He would be the best one to ask for that. The only thing I know is that he was using Tomoe as his polearm.

 

[Caerloc]

He has hauby+1, cant remember if he was using it tho.

caerloc can you post thegear of the sam getting 85% acc? I got doubts. you need 400+ total acc to get caped accuracy at birds, and polearm is 45 skill behind gkatana.

With my best Gkatana gear I can get ~425 acc with 17% haste ( that includes full usukane Ancient torque and cuculains, HQ snipers hollow earring etc..) so thats about 380 with polearm, or ~85% acc, and thats with usukane. An average sam w/o usukane or expensive HQs gets about 390 acc naturally with G katana, so 350 with polearm or 70% acc. He subbed drg, or used sushi, or or sacrificed too much haste gear, or doesn't have a 5-hit build.

He subbed war, he didnt use sushi (couerl subs iirc), we did not use madrigals. I dont know if he sacrificed "to much haste" or didnt have a 5 hit build. But i do know it was effective enough to spank both me and Evan.

 

[mdkuser]

well if you were using the gear in your avatar then your accuracy would be far from caped except focus, so its not surprising.

 

[uku]

He subbed war, he didnt use sushi (couerl subs iirc), we did not use madrigals. I dont know if he sacrificed "to much haste" or didnt have a 5 hit build. But i do know it was effective enough to spank both me and Evan.

G.birds, mixed with a few wivres and mamools
/WAR, march/minuet, occasionally Dia II, 5-hit build
Used 6 couerl subs at start then switched to kabobs

 

[Dowzer]

Well, that certainly sets the bar high for me. Thanks for the numbers.

 

[Caerloc]

well if you were using the gear in your avatar then your accuracy would be far from caped except focus, so its not surprising.

I was using a cuchulains mantle, instead of cerb+1, and my acc was close to 92% so i wouldnt say far from.

(I've also re-bought a toreadors to replace raja's, so acc should be capped now.)

 

[mdkuser]

I was using a cuchulains mantle, instead of cerb+1, and my acc was close to 92% so i wouldnt say far from.

(I've also re-bought a toreadors to replace raja's, so acc should be capped now.)

ok makes sense.

 

[evanos]

My acc for this was lower than I'd prefer. I am saving for a Cuch atm (#1 priority) and was using Destro, Black Tathlum, Full Usu, PCC, Hollow, Brutal, Divisor Ring, Sniper NQ, Cerb +1, & Black Belt with Destroyers as weapon. For food I was using NQ mithkabobs (cheap). I dont consider my gear to be perfect by any means. I am working at getting Toreadors for ring2 and cuch still; regardless, Alvon creamed me and Caer both on birds. The gear improvements that he could make surpass those that I could make (no offense to you Alvon); overall I was very impressed with his performance on birds on SAM with a polearm.

 

[mdkuser]

yeah for monk, no need for HS ( +1) on birds if you have cuchu, because the gear your aiming at will cap you during focus ( overkill acc), and on half the mobs outside focus, so 75% of the time 95% acc and 25% of the time, 91%. which gives 94% average.

 

[uku]

Like Evan said, I'm still lacking a few things, like Ace's, Ancient/Love torque, Black Tathlum. Full usukane set would give 9 more ACC, 1% more haste and 5 more ATK, sadly it won't benefit sam as much as it would do for mnk. So if you're lucky enough to have all these things I just mentioned, I won't be surprised if you can get 90%+ accuracy on birds.

 

[mdkuser]

Like Evan said, I'm still lacking a few things, like Ace's, Ancient/Love torque, Black Tathlum. Full usukane set would give 9 more ACC, 1% more haste and 5 more ATK, sadly it won't benefit sam as much as it would do for mnk. So if you're lucky enough to have all these things I just mentioned, I won't be surprised if you can get 90%+ accuracy on birds.

No, I'ts more haste:

You said you got 5 hit polearm? It *requires* 2 hachimam pieces ( hands feet) for TP AND prolly ws. With full usukane + rajas+brutal+engetsuto I get exactly 20.1 TP per hit. If you dont get more than 20 tp /hit your set up is a partial 5-hit, that will be 5-hit only of X hits land during penta ( X being prolly = 5).

So if you have ace's helm, swift and byakkos, that's 85% acc and 13% haste. Versus full usukane which is 17% haste ( FOUR more haste, 3% if turban) and caped accuracy.

I only realized recently that full usukane was only 2% less haste than the standart turban-dusk-byakkos-usu feet set up, but like 17 more acc, a bit less dex ( so in practice 10-11 more acc) more str and 7 less attack (assuming HQ hauby). Look at the different options for G katana:

Full usukane. 17% haste

Turban set up: turban+ HQ hauby+ dusk+byakkos+usu feet. 19% haste.

Ace set up: replace turban by ace's. 18% haste.


compare the stats... If your accuracy wth turban is...

...less than ~90%, full usukane wins ( trading 2% haste for 10 acc and some str is worth it then).

.... between ~90% and ~93%, ace's helm wins.

... between 93% and 95%, Turban wins.

Full usukane is actually good for sam when you need accuracy, and I do need accuracy since Turban set gives me only 89% accuracy on the non thf nin MMJs. Even someone with full GK merits wont cap acc at MMJ with a turban set up (maybe with ace's, definately in full usu).

 

[uku]

No, I'ts more haste:

You said you got 5 hit polearm? It *requires* 2 hachimam pieces ( hands feet) for TP AND prolly ws. With full usukane + rajas+brutal+engetsuto I get exactly 20.1 TP per hit. If you dont get more than 20 tp /hit your set up is a partial 5-hit, that will be 5-hit only of X hits land during penta ( X being prolly = 5).

So if you have ace's helm, swift and byakkos, that's 85% acc and 13% haste. Versus full usukane which is 17% haste ( FOUR more haste, 3% if turban) and caped accuracy.

I only realized recently that full usukane was only 2% less haste than the standart turban-dusk-byakkos-usu feet set up, but like 17 more acc, a bit less dex ( so in practice 10-11 more acc) more str and 7 less attack (assuming HQ hauby). Look at the different options for G katana:

Full usukane. 17% haste

Turban set up: turban+ HQ hauby+ dusk+byakkos+usu feet. 19% haste.

Ace set up: replace turban by ace's. 18% haste.


compare the stats... If your accuracy wth turban is...

...less than ~90%, full usukane wins ( trading 2% haste for 10 acc and some str is worth it then).

.... between ~90% and ~93%, ace's helm wins.

... between 93% and 95%, Turban wins.

Full usukane is actually good for sam when you need accuracy, and I do need accuracy since Turban set gives me only 89% accuracy on the non thf nin MMJs. Even someone with full GK merits wont cap acc at MMJ with a turban set up (maybe with ace's, definately in full usu).

First of all 5-hit build *doesn't require* two hachiman pieces, there's two solutions, so let me break it down for you:

1. Askar body + Hachiman hands+1, feasible for weaker stuff like nyzul.

2. Hauby+1 + Hachiman hands+1, with my current setup, penta only needs to land 4 hits including the first one to maintain 5-hit build, with my current WS gears(~90% acc during WS on birds) and DA bonus(17%), I'm' confident enough to say that I can achieve it most of time. So what happens when you get feather tickled? Well, that's the time when you have to suck it up and use two Hachiman pieces.

The truth is, it's not always a good idea for you to constantly spamming WS as soon as you reach 100% TP, there's so many things you need to consider when subbing WAR, if you are smart enough you should know what I mean.

On a side note, I TP in Askar head.

 

[mdkuser]

all right so its a partial 5 hit. You ws acc is 90% so 75% of the time its a 5 hit and 25% its a 6 hit, you're losing potential dmg. askar head is acceptable at this accuracy.