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

That also depends on buffs. More buffs, the more damage will skew towards WS.

That's true, but the numbers I was getting with Masa hovering around a 25/75 split was with what I feel are fairly typical buffs for a lot of situations with standard BRD COR buffs and Dia II.

Even pumping it up in the sim to mega buffs (+8 Soul Voice HM/VM/Aria/Min5/Herculean Etude, +8 XI Chaos/Samurai, +10 Bolster Fury/Frailty, Dia IV) and a perfect Fudo set (all R30 pieces, max +2 ear, etc.), I still get Masa around a 15%/85% split.

Again, none if this is to refute the clearly correct assertion that WS damage is a substantially higher proportion of your total damage output. But in something like your typical Sheol C run, with buffs you'd expect for such a situation, Masa white damage isn't exactly insigificant. And those strong melee hits do have very practical use in an event like that, regardless of overall damage split on the parse. As in the aforementioned example of: do I need to do another WS to kill this mob or can I just wait another attack round, kill it with a normal melee hit, and save my TP for the next mob.

If we're going to this extreme then (a situation where you're going to be taking advantage of the white damage) then let's think about the ring again...which ring is going to give you a bigger benefit in this exact scenario?

Will wearing Ephramad's Ring allow you to kill it in 1 fewer attack round? If not, I'd argue that getting 1750 TP on those 2 auto-attack rounds to finish it off is better than getting 1675 TP and doing 15 more white damage (that is overkill anyway).

It's just not a good idea to build for white damage, ever, in my opinion. You use it sometimes (very, very rarely) and it provides a benefit, but you shouldn't build your sets around it except in extremely rare scenarios and then they should probably be a toggle, not a default set.


This, but also: you don't need to parse yourself, thousands of SAMs have come before you and parsed THEMSELVES, and you're no different than they are. SAM, like every other job in this entire game, gets most of their damage from their WS. White damage numbers are always significantly lower than WS numbers, unless you choose to play sub-optimally for the memes or to have fun.

If your WSD is 85% of your damage and white damage is 15%, then you need to increase your white by more than 5x as much (as a %, not a raw amount) in order to move the needle as compared to increasing your WSD.

Not sure if you read my post carefully enough to realize I never said anything about TPing in Ephramd’s or gearing specifically for white damage.

The only (minor) white damage ring consideration I mentioned is that giving up one point of STP by swapping Chirich+1 for the STP+5/Atk+25 on Ilabrat in your TP set can be a good trade if not capping attack. But they’re still both high end STP rings.

The discussion about TP/WS damage split was just that - although I completely agree that you pretty much never want to gear specifically for white damage on SAM - Masa’s white damage (in a totally standard TP-focused set) is a little higher than it was getting credit for. Up to maybe 25/75 or so in a not unrealistic scenario with some buffs, and around 15/85 split with crazy buffs.

Again, I’m not saying to gear for white damage. Just that when you’re already gearing for TP gain and focusing on maximizing WS damage, Masa still adds quite a bit more white damage than Kusanagi, Doji, and Shining One. And sometimes that’s handy in an event where you’re running around quickly killing a lot of small mobs, like Sheol or Dyna.

I wasn't trying to imply that you were advocating for Ephramad, though I could see how it comes across that way. All I was trying to do was to take your scenario, which seemed to be the best case for white damage being useful, and then use it to evaluate the discussion which was being had (white damage vs STP for gearing), using the items in question.

Even using Ilabrat in that scenario though...the extra 25 ATK wouldn't do ***for you on that Notros mob so I'd still say the 1 STP is better (though inconsequentially). Ilabrat is an interesting option and I wouldn't fault anyone for picking it for SAM over Chirich. I think the two are so equally matched as to be more-or-less irrelevant, unless SB is a factor.

While I do build 3K TP for AM on Masa in Sheol C, I'm not even sure if it is worth it. Also, if you are not 1 shotting mobs anyway then Doji is better because it TPs faster. Haters gonna hate but Doji is better most the time in Sheol C IMO. Paper math doesn't account for real world nuances.

"Better" than what? Better than Prime? Noway.
Which other options are you factoring? Masa? Because surely you're not considering Koga or Amano relevant, right?

Doji is impressive each time you can exploit Hybrids, which is... quite often I gotta say, but it depends on your luck in the random monster groups each run.
Then there's piercing weak/slash resistant mobs, and for those usually you go with Shining One anyway.

For the other mobs, the ones where you're gonna use Physical WS, i.e. Fudo?
Doji is competitive but Masa is clearly better.
I'm quite confident Masa can oneshot a lot of stuff where with Doji they're left with a bunch of HP left. Small amount, but usually more than what you can kill in a couple of melee hits, alas.
Masa has stronger Fudo hits on average, if shot at the same amount of TP of course, and then even if the mob is left with some HP, usually a couple of Masa melee hits have more chances to kill compared to Doji.

I dunno, just my personal experience on it. I only have Doji on my SAM so I just use that lol.

Eh, I generally Meditate while running between mobs/floors, so I'm not really waiting around to build TP while I fight. Yeah I know, potentially could use that Meditate during fights to get more WS off (but that's pretty hard to time properly running around in Sheol with mobs dying quickly). So I basically think of that as a nearly "free" way to get a lot of AM3.

But you have a point that the worth of building to 3k while you're fighting stuff is debatable. Part of that is just due to AM1 at 30% already being pretty good, and since you're using Fudo that's nearly always going to be your baseline. I think some people tend to perceive a choice between 0% ODT and AM3/50%, without really thinking about how they're already at least 60% of the way to AM3 by just... using Fudo.

As a practical matter, I don't stress it too much while actually clearing floors in Sheol, and sometimes you'll upgrade to AM2/AM3 just by getting a couple of lucky multiattack rounds, or intentionally holding for a short time before WS (e.g., perhaps trying to knock mob HP down a little bit to better enable a 1-shot and avoid bad TP moves). And I mean, it's SAM - you sneeze and suddendly you have 3000tp. I don't feel the same way about the tedious TP gain on some other jobs.


Personally, I generally do better with Masa R15 than Doji R15 in my actual Sheol runs.

I would like to offer different pov. If you go into extreme buffs scenario, then WSs are very likely doing 99k regardless if you have Chirich ring on or not, so buffing white damage is the only improvement you can get.

Hold on, for a second that made sense to me. But if you're hitting max damage WS, don't you just want to... you know, just hit more of those max damage WS as quickly as possible?

If I can go all out to gain TP and get a couple extra WS off for 99999 each... that's a whole lot of white damage to make up to accept any loss in the speed at which you can TP to 1000+

Between masa and doji. Mythic might be good, again under the same condition that you can't 1 shot a mob. SAM ws really aren't that strong (excluding hybrids). Can anyone share a parse where they even average over 60k with fudo? Or low 50s?

My average is much lower than that, with R15 Doji.
My WS set is very good but not BiS for sure.

The one time where I played a Masa R15 SAM my Fudo average was definitely higher but... I'd say not 60k average, nope.

I have both and have used both extensively in sheol C. Even with masa and 3/5 nyame v25 etc (bis) I don't one shot many sets of mobs. Depends a lot on overwhelm and if mobs are facing you

The problem is, I figure, mostly on Floor 3 and 4, right? Because on Floor 1 and 2 it's tipically not an issue, provided the support buffs you receive don't suck.

Some mobs can be annoying to oneshot regardless though because they can guard/whatever from the front, and you want to be on the front to use Overwhelm so...

For this to happen, that 6stp would need to break your 3hit build with regular non Zanhasso hits, otherwise it wouldn't be more WSs, but just same WSs at slightly lower TP threshold still doing 99k. This is generally very unlikely to happen.

Well also depends on if SV on first floor (some don't) or if there is aria or not. Lots of variables.

Curious what is the mind set behind not using SV on first floor? id assume they want a guaranteed SV on tp floors but you have a pretty good chance at getting a 5/6 on wild card if using the relic feet on cor.

Because it's not necessary. Everything dies to a single WS from most, if not all of the DDs on 1st floor. Hybrids work on pretty much everything with very little resists. The mobs have lower HP, defense, evasion and magic evasion, so they're just easier to kill with standard 5-songs and rolls. Using SV on C2 vs C1 means you have it for all of C2 and most of C3 (the harder floors), rather than wasted on C1 where you don't need it. If you delay SV, you have SV songs for practically the entire run, if you get a 5/6, like you said, rather than wearing off just around C4 when you need it the most.

You can even minmax and sing SV songs on C2 without Nitro, then reapply them just before SV is about to wear off with Nitro for an even longer duration on your first use of SV.

As above, but if you have a BRD puller you can take 2 COR too which much higher chance allows SV throughout. A good COR does more than 80% of pug dds too.

SAM isn't spamming 99999s, stick to your STP rings, please, for the love of God.

Except on tigers, karakul, etc.

By spamming 99999 with extreme buffs I meant like SV with aria, warcry and/or Yaegasumi.

And marids, and Coeurls, and Bugards, and Cockatrices, and Bats, and Birds, and Rams, and Rabbits and plenty of other stuff that easily takes 99k from Hybrids, except maybe on the 4th floor if you don't have SV.
I've seen plenty of easy 99k even on Floor4 tbf and my Nyame is just R25

Tbh segments doesn't matter. Everything in segments that eats 99k hybrids will die anyway, regardless of tp threshold or white damage.

Floor 1 mobs have 70k/80k hp though, and things you can't hybrid won't take 60k+ from Fudo.

Not necessarily, I've had occasional resist or stuff that doesn't die in one hit despite using the "correct" Hybrid.
I would say... I dunno, lower than 10% probably but I don't have solid data to support that lol.
It does happen to me but then again my gear ain't perfect my Nyame is just R25.

Yeah but that resist with 23TP more still wouldn't kill it.

Floor 1 mobs absolutely do not have 70k+ HP, unless you're talking about halo mobs. They're barely over 60k, if even.