Samurai Tanking

Edit: Removed question, compiling information

Subjob

• WAR: this is the subjob of choice, gives Defender, an unconditional Provoke and Double Attack

• MNK: secondary choice, gives more HP, Counter, Dodge and more relevant abilities

• NIN: not very useful, however, some situations could benefit from Utsusemi at the cost of threat

Merits

Group 1

• Store TP: 5/5

• Meditate: 5/5

Group 2

• Overwhelm: 5/5

• Ikishoten: 4/5

• Blade Bash: 1/5

Weapons

• Masamune: if hate is an issue, Masa is the way to go

• Ishikirimaru: if living is an issue or if the petrify is relevant (add encounter)

Gear Sets

• PDT: get as much PDT as possible, swap in for Physical TP moves

• MDT: get 25% MDT, then focus on MDB, swap in for Magical TP moves or high-level spells

• Barfire: get as much Fire resist as possible, swap in for Fire based TP moves

• Enmity: swap in with Provoke macro

• WS: swap in for WS, variable depending on which WS you have access to

• TP: your basic set, get max haste and plenty of Store TP, DA and Accuracy

Strategy

• Hasso: Use this stance when you need to maximize hate

• Seigan: Use this stance and pop Third Eye on cooldown to minimize damage

• Third Eye: if not in Seigan, use to avoid physical TP moves

• Hate Opener: 300 TP > Sekka > Sengi > Konzen > WS > Light > WS > Light

• Information about Hate: http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Enmity

Unanswered Questions

• What Atma's would a SAM tank use?

Good luck with this thread!

I bet there won't be one post saying to change to thf mnk nin or war and tank. No way.

Same as any other Mob, but you have PDT and MDT sets for the appropriate time.














(lol SAM in Abyssea though.)

Feels like I went back in time, SAM tanking used to be a big thing oh... 2-3 years ago? lol

Maybe it'll be big again in the future, who knows?

Rotate Seigan/Utsu as needed, have PDT/MDT/possibly eva swaps including full defensive sets along with sets that maintain some degree of offensive stats. Inside Abyssea, "tanking" is better known as "WHM spams cures while you make the mob dead" for most NMs.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

in other news: you're a year and some late neosatus (op)

Hope you have fudo or 90 kaiten or good luck trying to keep hate.

Even then, lol.

Problem now though, with 5 hit builds being so common, you'd end up sacrificing a lot of store tp when you swap to PDT and MDT.

Subbing NIN on SAM is just about as bad as tanking with BRD, so you *may as well* just change to a different job if you need /NIN.

(had a HUGE section written before i hit the wrong damn button ><)

If your serious about it get a masa, it will literally be near to impossible to do it without it.

Its all situational, if you have crit ws DD's in your party it will be hard to keep hate off them spamming ws, if its just you and your whm you have a little more freedom to what you can wear atma wise and gear wise

make sure to have both PDT and MDT gearsets

merit wise you want to do offensive, so you can keep the damage up to hold hate so gogo meditate + overwhelm 5/5

without a masa itll be impossible, or close to it, if not then ishikirimaru? (the petrify gk) is a decent tank weapon, hell the trial of the magian VIT GK might be good, but in the time you are working on that you COULD be doing a masa

As long as you have a good whm with you, then you should be able to do whatever a mnk/nin/war tank could do, just a little slower

you lack the basic blue procs mnk and war have, but it could still be done

Alot of the posters here are all "MNKNINTHFWAR TANK OR GTFO" type of mentality so i forsee alot of trolling coming this way -.-

SAM is better suited to tanking outside abyssea, inside, it doesn't really stand a chance compared to other jobs.

It's not trolling, it's people who are interested in killing the mob in 2 min instead of 5.

You can tank with samurai for the first 30 seconds if you can get hate in the first place off the primary tanks. When hate gets capped though its pretty much "the job that hits the monster last" will have hate. Last I checked samurai didnt swing fast compared to jobs like monk/nin/thf.

Thats if the monster lives long enough for ppl to get capped hate.

a great man (Zicdeh) once said

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/23165/best-role-for-samurai-in-abyssea/3/#1400289

"as needed"

If he's determined to specifically tank on SAM, I'm not going to explain how to tank on other jobs. He can figure that much out for himself.

BRD tanking used to be the ***by the way.

So is SAM/DNC out of the question as the TP would be needed for WSing to keep hate or would the heals from DNC be a good amount of hate?

I was looking at Nanatsusaya for the 100% Zanshin, thinking that in tank gear I'll have low Accuracy and it would synergize well with Ikishoten for quick TP gain to facilitate healing. I was also looking at Kikugosaku for the Double Attack on Zanshin to boost TP gain, but it would require stacking Zanshin on gear since you wouldn't have the 100% from Nana.

I guess hate is ultimately my problem, not staying alive.

I assume the buff from Nana does not affect Countering with Seigan btw? Also, has it been verified that Counter bonus is ZAR/4 like DA with Hasso?

Note: this will be with a small social LS, not a hardcore endgame group.

Yeah, kinda have to say that it's not that people are trolling, it's just that Abyssea in and of itself isn't balanced and the lack of balance throws other things totally out of whack.

I wish every Dancer in the universe would realize this as quickly as you did.

Cures are mostly VE and thus largely inferior to DDing for hate. On that note, go read this right now, especially the links to Kaeko's LJ page (though the wiki page itself is a good summary). You need to understand how hate works.

Gonna stop you right here. If you're spending the majority of your time in defensive sets, you're probably not doing your job properly. Macro in/out sets as appropriate.

Yea, I am still leveling SAM, just restarted the game two weeks ago or so, so I haven't gotten to the point of EQ switching. I understand what it is and why it is necessary just not used to thinking with it.

So for most of an encounter I would be in my TP gear, switch out for WS's and also switch to PDT/MDT based on what spell/TP ability a boss is using at the moment?

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Correct.

got it right!

I /WAR mostly, /NIN has it's uses however - if you're a Fudo/Kaiten user expect a significant DMG decrease while /NIN.

*PDT
*MDT
*Haste/Fast Cast for Utsusemi
*Evasion - Helpful for Ichi midcast but not essential
*Barfire
*Enmity for provoke
*TP
*WS - Depends on which weapon/weapon skill you have access to

Make sure you have a decent WHM that has their bar spell/sets and potency gear upto date. Single most important thing tbh.

Just got back and

spam tachi: butterflies

you dont need a hardcore endgame group anymore

just get a whm friend, a tank, blm-blu
you can pretty much get seals and +2 done fairly quick with a good setup there

hell you could just party daily, get cruor and brew whatever you need >.>