Zanshin Merits.Follow

Category Two of course... are the single best thing I've merited on Sam.

No, really! Overwhelm is awesome if you are tanking, otherwise in Aby hate jumps so often the mob is usually spinning like a top. I love it but yesterday finally showed me why Zanshin merits are so incredible.
I was fighting Durinn to help some friends get MM atma on my Sam/War. I had VV/Sea Daughter/WBKing on for max TP.
I ran up to melee Durinn with my sword(going for proc) my TP went from 30% to 300% by the time I opened my menu to use WS and I honestly looked like I had a K.Club on instead of a Seiryu's Sword. Even with a little sword, Zanshin seemed to give 25-30TP area per swing. It was amazing.
I also had an instance where I WS'd then Double-Attacked (one hit miss, so I Zanshin'd) and TP was already over 50%(partially due to Regain I would assume).

I know this topic is basically a "duh, everyone knows what Sam does" but honestly, I so rarely get to play Sam in groups that this really made me think about why I have a Bushinomimi and how much I love this job.

We talkin about Ikishoten?

You get +15TP before STP is added in with 5/5 Ikishoten, i'd guess that'd make quite a noticable difference using a sword with a lowish hit rate.

Oh, and the regain.

I meant Category II, Ikishoten, I just didn't know the specific name at the time.

I of course have 5/5 STP 5/5 Meditate :D but I have 4 Ikishoten and it's actually really sweet lol.

what are you saying here? can you zanshin off a DA? i don't believe you can (or at least i don't believe you could back when i played). is that what you are claiming happened? are you sure it's what happened?

I played around with the math some, and assuming you have a 95% hit rate, 45% Zanshin proc rate, and 0 Double Attack or Triple Attack rate, an Ikishoten Zanshin swing should reduce your attack rounds to 100TP in about 6% of all TP build cycles. Rounds which would cause you to go over 100TP are not included in that 6%. That is the best case scenario for it, and any double attack or triple attack gear or atma is going to lower that number down. So yeah, it does help you out, but best case it helps you on like 1/16 TP build cycles to 100.

OK, so hit rate of 95%, and a Zanshin proc rate of 45%: Probability of a Zanshin swing connecting is thus 0.05 * 0.45 * 0.95 = 0.021375 (Probability of Miss * Probability of Zanshin Proc * Probability of Zanshin Hit Landing)

Assuming a 5-hit build, you can either start a build to 100TP with 20TP (WS Hit) or 0TP (WS Miss). Zanshin doesn't proc on a WS miss. Also, if you are on 80TP, an Ikishoten enhanced Zanshin swing won't get you to 100TP any faster than a regular Zanshin hit, so I am going to exclude these cases.

Possibilities (Note: Z=Ikishoten enhanced Zanshin swing):

WS Hit-Z-Hit-Hit = 0.95*0.021375*0.95^2 = 0.018326

Note that there are 3 possible ways to have the scenario of WS Hit, a Zanshin proc, and 2 other Hits, so multiply probability by 3 to give 0.054979.

WS Miss-Z-Hit-Hit-Hit= 0.05*0.021375*0.95^3 = 0.000916

Note that there are 4 possible ways to have the scenario of WS Miss, a Zanshin proc, and 3 other hits, so multiply probability by 4 to give 0.003665.

Add the two together and you get 0.054979 + 0.003665 = 0.058644 which is about 6%. I don't bother with all the other situations where a Zanshin could occur (like WS Hit-Z-Miss-Hit-Hit) because their probability is rather low and I'm just doing a quick estimate. Now remember all that neglects double attack and triple attack. Zanshin can't proc on those, so any double or triple attack would reduce that frequency. So, that is how I got that number. Feel free to pick it apart.

Edit: If you are curious, adding 5 Zanshin merits to bring you to 50% Zanshin activation rate would bring the 0.058644 up to 0.065161, or about 6.5%.

Edit 2: Dustin, rereading what you wrote, the difference between our numbers comes from the fact that you need to consider the WS as part of the hit build. It can hit or miss, but Zanshin cannot proc on those misses. Also, you need to consider that a Zanshin swing can miss. Your numbers seem to be also talking about something slightly different than mine. You are talking about benefiting from Zanshin in general, while I am talking about the odds that having Ikishoten merits will reduce your time to 100TP. The only difference between the two is you have to ignore a Zanshin swing landing if you are sitting on 80TP since the time to 100+TP is the same whether you have Ikishoten merited or not.

Edited, Apr 12th 2011 3:33pm by JaxReborn