4-hit polearm buildFollow

So, I've been working through a bit of a discussion regarding Footwork on mnk with the new shoes available, and the issue of the validity of Sam Roll from a Cor with a Sam in the party, on birds, was brought up.

Now, on birds a sam will generally use polarm, which from standard thought seems to mean "go ahead and get a 5-hit, but don't bother using Sam Roll". Except maybe not. I don't know, and I'd like a broader opinion and comparative examples, if possible.

So, consider:

480 delay polearm (not considering Love Halberd), and trying to determine what rolls a Corsair should give.

Sam Roll with a sam in party has a minimum of +26 Store TP on all stop rolls, and +30 on all except the lowest one.

Store TP requirement chart:

True 5-hit: +54
Fake 4-hit (5-hit penta): +81 {23.5 per hit}
Fake 4-hit (4-hit penta): +83 (23.7 per hit}
Fake 4-hit (3-hit penta): +86 {24.1 per hit}
Fake 4-hit (2-hit penta): +90 {24.7 per hit}
True 4-hit: +93

This assumes that you have the same total Store TP during weaponskills as during TP phase.

With traits, merits, and the bottom two rolls (26 and 30) you'd have 61 to 65 Store TP. To reach the 4/4 and 4/3 4-hit tiers you'd need another 22 Store TP in gear (so you'd be at 4/4 on the lowest Sam Roll, 4/3 on all other stop rolls).

Basic gear:
Rajas (5)
Rose Grip (4)
Brutal (1)

And you need another 12, which can be managed with:

Usukane feet + Usukane body
Usukane feet + Askar body
Usukane feet + Hachiman hands (gives 4/3 always)
Hachiman hands + Askar body
Hachiman hands + Hachiman feet
Hachiman hands + AF+1 legs
Usukane feet + AF+1 legs + Engetsuto
Usukane feet + AF+1 legs + Ecphoria ring/Chivalrous Chain

Obviously if you have Byakko's Haidate you don't want to use AF+1 legs. If you have usukane feet and/or body, obviously you'll use those. Aside from that, it's a choice between 3% haste and 14 accuracy in amongst body/hands/feet slots.

If you did have usukane body & feet, you could add a white tathlum to have 4/3 even on the lowest stop roll.

Aside:

+14 acc on hauby, given a starting hit rate of 75% and allowing for Zanshin, is about +6.1% connected hits (assuming 15% DA from /war and Brutal). 3% haste yields a 6.1% return when you have 48% haste before adding it. 48% haste would be achieved with: 15% spell, 20% march, 13% gear [turban, haidate, swift belt = 14%]. So without Hasso they're pretty much the same; with Hasso the haste option looks a bit better. After that it's 2% DA + 7 att vs 4 str (or 5 str + 3 acc with hauby +1).

On the other hand, penta gets more from the straight accuracy of a hauby since (presumably) Zanshin isn't going to help you there. On the askar build you could swap in acc hands in place of dusk (usukane hands, noritsune kote, af+1 hands, etc) to make up for most of the deficit, though. On the hauby build you need to keep hachiman hands on. OHat and gorget for both.

In all honesty, it's close enough that it probably doesn't matter which you use, unless you also have a dnc for Haste Samba, in which case the Askar + Dusk looks like it would be better.

/Aside


So the minimum Sam Roll result gives you the fake 4/4, and any above the minimum give you the fake 4/3 (unless you went usukane feet + hachiman kote, in which case all stop rolls are 4/3). Lucky roll and 11's give you a true 4-hit.

The reason this became a consideration is because of accuracy, and particularly getting an outside buff for it. Namely, polearm sam gains significant benefit from accuracy and attack buffs, where GK does not. Attack buffs are generally useful across many jobs, but accuracy less so. For normal one-handers and mnks, an accuracy buff is often still useful. However for many others (war, drg, rng, etc) it's a wasted roll.

Total accuracy with crab sushi (estimated): (236 + 27 (gear) + 66 (dex)) * 1.13 = 371 ~~ 77%-81% hit rate. About 8% of the 19%-23% of missed hits will get a Zanshin followup that connects, so you should connect on a normal, DA or Zanshin hit on ~90% of all rounds. A 4-hit build should give you roughly 20% more total damage than a 5-hit build, assuming no significant sacrifices.

Getting an outside accuracy boost and eating mithkabobs, the kabobs should also increase damage by around 20% (rough estimate based on cRatio increase). But since the accuracy boosts of Madrigal and Hunter's Roll will be roughly +30, that means you have ~12-15 less accuracy than while using sushi, and the accuracy sacrifice of using Askar instead of Hauby while eating sushi is the same as the accuracy sacrifice of using meat with hauby instead of sushi.

In other words, you should end up with ~20% increase in damage either way.

So, does it seem to make sense to use sushi plus Sam Roll for a 4-hit build when in a party which doesn't need extra accuracy boosts (ie: with other 2-handers which can also benefit from Sam's Roll), and meat + 5-hit build when the party is getting Hunter's Roll?

Well, first, Engetsuto +1 isn't very useful outside of this situation, so I doubt many people have one, and wouldn't expect someone to keep one around just for this scenario.

Second, it's completely impractical to try for a 4-hit with the E+1, so you're -only- going to be going for 5-hit.

For a 5-hit you nee +64 Store TP. 25 traits, 10 merits, 2 from weapon and 26 from minimum stop value for Sam Roll would be 63. Add a Brutal Earring and you're at a 5-hit.

That gets you +1 base damage, +1 accuracy, and 4% faster swing rate (separate from haste) for maybe 5% more damage overall.

Hauby + dusk rather than Askar + dusk or hauby + hachiman should give 6%+ more damage (up to 10% at extreme haste levels compared to hauby/hachiman). If you'd been using Hauby you'd gain back the 2% DA in the Pole Grip; if you'd been using Askar that wouldn't change.

Beyond that I can't see much that would be geared differently. Pairing the two modifications above, you're looking at a 11%-18% improvement. Since moving to a 4-hit build is a ~20% gain, it doesn't seem like the best choice.