SAM as a tank

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Back when the SAM update happened, I was a 63 RNG and got one of those rare JP invites, you don't get them much as an NA melee. Anyway, we had a SAM tank on the lesser colibri and he used Seigan to take evade hits.

I know SAM is considered a DD, but this interested me quite a bit and it worked well. I want to play a tanking role, but also wish to play a job where all my Archery merits don't go to waste, so I may consider exploring this aspect of SAM. I'd like to level NIN, but it may be too cost prohibitive since I'm already COR and RNG. Plus a lot of the endgame gear I'm persuing on RNG would transfer to SAM as well.

I'm told that evasion gear does have an impact on the success rate of Third Eye and Seigan. I'm curious to what degree that would be because regardless of what I plan to level next, evasion gear seems to be the common need between them all.

Additionally, I'm curious just how much DEF a SAM can attain. I'm huge on gear-swapping anyway, so I'd always plan for an attack build, evasion build and a DEF one.

[raidenn]

Yeah colibris are easy when using Seigan.
Well the equipment used at that level would be Haubergeon which has -20 evasion. Perhaps a better alternative is the carapace gear.

[Clever Ninja]

Alot of the SAM AF pieces would also be helpful, due to the +Enmity on it. And also strengthened Rice Balls. It's doable with Seigan as long as the person has enough VIT/DEF/HP to take normal hits when Third Eye goes down.

[Malacite]

I can barely hold out on Colibri as it is on SAM/WAR.


I will say this right now; Seigan is unreliable. Sometimes I take up to 6+ hits and even counter most of them, other times I get only one. I have to admit though I grin like a madman every time I "Anticipate" a Peckling Furry ^^


As for the archery merits, they really do help. SAM has a C+ rating in archery and needs all the +ranged accuracy you can get your hands on. RNG sub is extremely helpful for this, and using a Soboro Sukehiro to spam Sidewinder is insanely fun (albeit suicidal)


Speaking of which, we were fighting puks yesterday and we nearly wiped to one but I laid the smack down in it with 4 (yes FOUR) sidewinders back-to-back courtesy of Meditate and Meikyo Shisui. Too bad only 3 actually landed >. >

Amazing the PLD was able to get hate after that (1200+ dmg in the span of 5 seconds and he gets hate back >. > <. <) but I'm confident we woulda died otherwise as the mages were desperately low on MP as was our PLD.


SAM/RNG FTW

[tdh]

SAM can tank quite well Vs. T or VT mobs. I've done some limited trio & quad work with some LS friends - 2 PUPs, RDM, and myself as SAM. I started out doing some "Accidental" tanking, and then just gave up and went to straight tanking.

I found that Seigan and 3rd Eye served me quite well. A few times I managed to anticipate 5 straight attacks and got 3rd Eye back up before the next volley of attacks. I wasn't able to go a full fight with out taking any damage at all, but I was able to deal enough damage to keep hate and evade enough hits to not be a complete MP sponge for the RDM.

We got agro from an IT mob, and I tried to keep it's attention so the RDM could land Sleep, and took a beating! 3rd Eye anticipated maybe 2 hits, and then I was getting my head bashed until 3rd Eye /recast and RDM could land Sleep. Keeping in mind this is Lv.47, pre-Defender.

For TP Burns, SAM may be able to tank quite nicely, just no Berserk to ramp up their DD, but I so far I wouldn't say that Defender would be required either.

[Malacite]

Unless SE adds category 3 merits or new JSE to improve on some of the new abilites we've seen recently (in this case Seigan) I still wouldn't trust it for much more than a panic button.

[Amele]

adding some more fuel to the fire.

dual tanked successfully with a war/nin backup in garlaige - level 49-51 (vs. bats and beetles - so high VT to IT+) no difficulty holding hate over the other melee, (blackmage gave some issues but mostly because she was AM happy) once I hit 50 and equipped my soboro I actually had to stop 'voking so the warrior could continue to share - ws are good hate generators.

I went with a neutral evasion build (net eva+0) had some agi (around +7) I have capped evasion, parry in the 80's (cap is what.. like 160? ._.) war was using evasion gear but I tanked better (held hate longer and evaded more) I suspect they didn't have capped evasion and/or lower parry.

approximate average number of 'counter/anticipates' was 3-4, rarely 1, occasionally 6+ : it's basically a 30 second equivalent to utsusemi: ichi with a few differences: 1) multihit's/aoe's don't wreck it. 2) magic goes through (a fair trade. just don't try to take a tornado to the face)

tips for maximising seigan: cap parry, cap evasion. they check before it tries to consume a shadow. suspect that maxing agi will help as well (at worst, it improves parry and evasion). counter appears to be a constant (like double attack) not sure if +counter gear affects seigan counter effect, or if the counter trait from /mnk would stack (I certainly don't *need* voke to tank at this level - and I don't even have enmity bonuses yet)

after the experience I'm fairly confident that sam/war is at least as competent a tank as war/nin (pre 74) when using seigan. we were both using sushi (I messed around with squid and sole since I had a few of each to finish up, he mostly used straight sole). There was a bard but we were getting attack and accuracy (standard DD songs)

assuming things don't get drastically worse at the highest levels (and realistically, if you can cap parry they should only get better) this would make sam a serviceable tank for low-mid endgame as well.

[Malacite]

It can be done, but in my experience Seigan has failed on me far too many times.

You're right about the enmity though, Soboro is just beastly. It gets even worse when you get to point I'm at and can start spamming Sidewinder.

[raidenn]

I dunno but I used that Rasetsu body peice and i did more counters. A lot more than usual. Try it out. Its cheap too.

[IfritnoItazura]

Hmm. Soboro Sukehiro + Dorado Sushi... Maybe on a defense/AGI geared build, SAM/WAR can impressively solo tank VT to IT-?

[Amele]

Hmm. Soboro Sukehiro + Dorado Sushi... Maybe on a defense/AGI geared build, SAM/WAR can impressively solo tank VT to IT-?

I certainly could've solo tanked from a hate holding stand point. Dorado Sushi enmity would be unnecessary (I'd recommend Squid for the +agi, or good old fashioned sole for +str to help do more damage) you could probably get good mileage out of the AF/AF+1 shoes (enmity +5) since foot options are largely underwhelming for samurai (there's.. maybe three pieces that are any good.)

defense isn't going to help you too much but certainly shouldn't be ignored. if this is going to work, sam/war is going to look and feel more like a hybrid of war/nin and nin/war tanks (not unlike how mnk/nin tanks) than a war/mnk where defense and agility support your strong counter,parry,shield,evade.

I'll look into borrowing/buying some +counter gear and see if I can't find/program a parser that handles counters (does dvsparse do these yet?) and report results here.

[Akashimo]

A while back, a few of my social ls friends, one who's a nin was looking at the higher end mnk/nin/sam JSE armor and noted that majority of it seemed best for sam than for nin. Arhats, being great to take less damage and hold enmity are an example. Another was the Rasetsu NQ/HQ pieces, are more for mnk(pre seigan update) but could work well into the sam tanking armor from its counter boosts. Personally, I do think using the riceball effects would be good since they do give you atk/def and/or double attack. Just seeing them in stock is the tough part.

[Malacite]

Shogun Rice Balls with both Myochin Kote and Jinpachi (name?) is just plain sick.

100 attack, 60 Def, +10 Double Attack, on top of the other minor stat boosts. Good luck every finding any though, they're an HQ of a lv 94 Cooking Synth >- <

The ingredients aren't all that common either (ugh Flint Caviar ><)

[IfritnoItazura]

Shogun Rice Balls with both Myochin Kote and Jinpachi (name?) is just plain sick.

100 attack, 60 Def, +10 Double Attack, on top of the other minor stat boosts.

Wasn't this covered not long ago? >_>?

The rice balls don't seem too good to me, honestly. The DEF may help if you're tanking (see above paragraph), but you're losing two powerful slots. O.kotes + <insert head gear choice here> + coruel sub gets you +75 ATK at cap, +20 attack from kotes, and whatever (large) bonus you can get from head gear, like +10 accuracy or +5% haste. The difference gets larger when you use better food too, especially if you have a bard in the group. (I seem to recall the riceball head gear being level 70ish, if it's lower, then you're not really losing much more than the +6(7) attack masks until 70.)

Don't think equipment swaps can cover the weakness, either:

Actually I have tested just using the Roshi Jinpachi, the effects only work while its equip reguardless it was on or not at time of consumption.

Edit:
I guess in the context of tanking, it may be different. I've been drooling at Ochiudo's Kote for a long time now, so maybe the idea of giving it up--even for tanking--seems loathsome to me. >_>;

[Akashimo]

Shogun Rice Balls with both Myochin Kote and Jinpachi (name?) is just plain sick.
100 attack, 60 Def, +10 Double Attack, on top of the other minor stat boosts. Good luck every finding any though, they're an HQ of a lv 94 Cooking Synth >- <
The ingredients aren't all that common either (ugh Flint Caviar ><)

Roshi Jinpachi lvl73. And i just use the NQ version of Shogun because only major difference is HQ = double attack+5, NQ double attack+1

All info about rice balls: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Enhance..._of_Rice_Balls