<Samurai>
Feast PvP Guide
Written by <Kisada Exis>
Skills, Abilities, and Your Gauge ➤
Your Role in Feast
As a Melee DPS in Feast your role is to be the backbone DPS of your team. You will often be asked to take the lead in calling out targets (though by no means an exclusive role) and to set the point of attack in each skirmish.
SAM is a job that allows you to execute this role while also providing you a variety of tools for different situations in any given match. You have high mobility, a powerful defensive ability that can even mitigate even LB’s, and a conal AOE pushback skill that can help you peel for your team.
+ Strengths
+ Features a diverse toolkit allowing you to deal with many different scenarios
+ SAM gauge is timerless, meaning you can fight without the pressure of losing your meter
+ Key burst abilities can be cut short allowing you to delay attacks when situations become unfavorable, or feint to throw healers off of your main target
– Weaknesses
– SAM’s biggest hitting ability is a spell that forces you to stand still and cast
– SAM takes a fair amount of time to build gauge for optimal burst, and a lot of TP to build up for a second follow-up burst
– Using your meter for utility delays and reduces the efficacy of your next burst
Skills, Abilities, and Your Gauge
Samurai gameplay revolves around two types of meters. The first is your Kenki gauge which is used for your dashes, OGCD DPS ability, and your defensive shield. The Kenki meter ranges from 0 to 100. The second is your Sen gauge, which is used for your dot, aoe push move, and your big burst DPS spell. Your Sen gauge is comprised of 3 parts – Setsu, Ka, and Getsu.
SAM has three distinct GCD combo chains, each with two separate GCDs. Filling your Sen gauge requires you to complete each of the three different combo chains (one for each of Setsu, Ka, and Getsu).
Additionally, SAM has a GCD shortcut ability called Meikyo Shisui, allowing you to skip any of the openers in those three combo chains which will reduce your GCD step by one. This shortcut becomes your primary method of ramping up burst as well as sustaining it during a combo. So instead of having to hit 6 individual GCDs to complete your three Sen, with Meikyo Shisui you can potentially reduce that to just 3 GCDs.
At the same time you are filling Sen, your Kenki will also naturally rise simply by hitting your targets, as each GCD hit adds Kenki to your meter. It’s important to keep in mind that each combo’s GCD closer generates more Kenki than the GCD opener.
Given the way these job gauges work SAM essentially equates to a DPS that unlocks more varied and stronger abilities the more hits you land, and allows you to pick and choose which tools to use when necessary.
A brief look at the gauges before moving on to the abilities:
Kenki gauges
Sen gauges
GCDs
Hakaze and Yukikaze – Your setup combo. This GCD combo is lower potency than the others, but Yukikaze applies a melee debuff increasing your damage to that target by 15%. Generates the Setsu for your Sen gauge.
Hakaze
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Combo Potency: 750
Additional Effect: Increases Kenki gauge by 5
Yukikaze
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Combo Action: Hakaze
Combo Potency: 1,250
Additional Effect: Increases damage you deal to this target by 15%
Duration: 18s
Combo Bonus: Increases Kenki Gauge by 10 and grants Setsu
Shifu and Kasha – Your second GCD combo. Greater overall potency than Hakaze/Yukikaze. Tied for same potency as Jinpu/Gekko. Generates Ka for your Sen gauge.
Shifu
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Combo Potency: 1000
Additional Effect: Increases Kenki gauge by 5
Kasha
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Combo Action: Shifu
Combo Potency: 1,500
Combo Bonus: Increases Kenki Gauge by 10 and grants Ka
Jinpu and Gekko – Your third GCD combo. Greater overall potency than Hakaze/Yukikaze. Tied for same potency as Shifu/Kasha. Generates Getsu for your Sen gauge.
Jinpu
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Combo Potency: 1000
Additional Effect: Increases Kenki gauge by 5
Gekko
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Combo Action: Jinpu
Combo Potency: 1,500
Combo Bonus: Increases Kenki Gauge by 10 and grants Getsu
Enpi – Your ranged attack. Gives you some Kenki but uses a fair bit of TP. Generally not cost effective but a good way to generate Kenki when you’re bound or on the run and wanting to build some meter.
Instant Cast
Recast: 2.3s
Potency: 750
Additional Effect: Increases Kenki Gauge by 10
TP Cost: 150
Kenki abilities – Each of these abilities uses your Kenki gauge.
Hissatsu: Shinten – Your primary OGCD DPS ability. Really low cooldown and is fast and spammable. Uses Kenki, so the more meter you have the more you get to use this.
Instant Cast
Recast: 1s
Potency: 1500
Kenki Gauge Cost: 20
Hissatsu: Soten – Your dash ability. Fairly low cooldown and allows you to target any place on the map. You’ll want to be using this to gap close to targets and escape from bad situations. Keep in mind that this doesn’t allow you to escape binds or sleeps.
Instant Cast
Recast: 10s
Potency: 1000 to all enemies in the path from you and your targeted location.
Kenki Gauge Cost: 20
Hissatsu: Chiten – Your defensive ability. Puts up a shield that mitigates the next 3 attacks on you by 50% each and deals counter damage. Works on LB’s so with practice you can effectively negate a LB without even needing Safeguard.
Instant Cast
Recast: 30s
Counter Potency: 1000
Counter Bonus: Increases Kenki gauge by 5 for up to 3 attacks.
Kenki Gauge Cost: 20
Reduces damage dealt to you by 50% for up to 3 attacks.
Iaijutsu abilities – Each of these abilities uses between 1 to 3 Sen. As you build Sen the Iaijutsu ability changes from one spell to the next.
Higanbana – Your first Sen skill. A dot skill that gives you a big bonus of Kenki if a target dies while this is still applied. Can be a little awkward to use because using this means you’re delaying your Midare by 1 GCD, which possibly means delaying bursts. Works on boxes, however, and is highly recommended if you can get to them in time.
Requires any 1 Sen.
Cast time 1.3s
Recast: 2.3s
Potency: 1000 with 300 potency dot for 30s.
Additional Effect: Increases your Kenki gauge by 50 if a target dies while dotted.
Tenka Goten – Your second Sen skill. A conal AOE pushback move. Can very useful in helping keep the enemy team off of their main targets. More recommended for when your healer is in a very difficult jam and can’t get out of it without some assistance. As with Higanbana, using this skill eats up Sen so you’ll be delaying your burst doing so.
Requires any 2 Sen.
Cast time 1.3s
Recast: 2.3s
Potency: Deals 2000 potency to the first enemy, 25% less for the second, 50% less for the third and 75% less to any remaining targets hit. Knocks enemies back by 10 yalms.
Midare Setsugekka – Your third Sen skill. The hardest hitting part of your burst combo. Keep in mind that this is a spell (along with the other Iaijutsu) so you will need to be standing still to initiate it. With some practice you will be able to move at the tail end of the cast to reduce how long you’re inert. Additionally, you can hit escape and cancel the spell as a way to feint opponents into using abilities too soon.
Requires all 3 Sen.
Cast time 1.3s
Recast: 2.3s
Potency: 3500
Meikyo Shisui – Your accelerant. Requires 150 TP. As mentioned above, allows you to shortcut your GCDs and build Sen much more quickly, as MS has a very quick usage time and is an OGCD. Typically in order to build the 3 Sen for Midare you would need to hit all your GCDs in order:
Normal GCD steps to build 3 Sen over 6 GCDs:
Hakaze + Yukikaze for Setsu
Shifu + Kasha for Ka
Jinpu + Gekko for Getsu
With Meikyo, however, you can shortcut straight to the second step of each GCD combo. Supposing you had enough TP to do 3 Meikyos, you could do this instead:
Steps with Meikyo to build 3 Sen over 3 GCDs:
Meikyo + Yukikaze for Setsu
Meikyo + Kasha for Ka
Meikyo + Gekko for Getsu
As such, Meikyo is the crux of quick burst and re-burst. So you’ll want to be efficient with your TP in order to maximize burst windows.
Additional PvP Actions: Suggestions for Samurai
Safeguard
Instant Cast
Recast: 60s
Reduces damage taken by 25%.
Considered mandatory in the current pvp environment. Even with Chiten, you’ll still need safeguard to mitigate bursts focused on you.
Enliven
Instant Cast
Recast: 60s
Restores 50% of maximum TP
A commonly picked ability for melees. Extra TP allows you to keep up burst pressure and maximize your number burst opportunities.
Bolt
Instant Cast
Recast: 30s
Increases movespeed for 10s.
Not terribly necessary as the current map is fairly close quarters. Sam also has the benefit of a very short recast on the dash so that reduces the need for bolt. Can still be effective if you know how to maximize the overall impact of mobility and can use that mobility to force enemies to misuse their CD’s or disrupt their bursts on you.
Recuperate
Instant Cast
Recast: 45s
Restores 25% of maximum HP.
A really useful tool for SAM. Samurais tend to be very difficult to kill already with Soten and Chiten. Adding a self-heal on top of it helps to take you even further out of reach of danger, considering you can combo it with Chiten and essentially negate a second burst on top of the one you negate with Safeguard.
PvP Traits: Suggestions for Samurai
Increased Damage Dealt – Increases damage dealt by 3%
Generally considered a staple for DPS. Securing kills via burst can be a game of inches so every little bit matters. You’ll probably never want to drop this from your list.
Increased TP regeneration – Increases TP regeneration by 40%
Given the current meta, constant, repeated bursts and pressure is considered mandatory to force out enemy defensive abilities and create vulnerability. Meikyo Shisui is integral to keeping up burst pressure so this is another staple for Sam, and MDPS in general.
Increased HP – Increases max HP by 500.
Augments your already beefy HP pool for a boost to 14000 Max HP.
Works cohesively with Recuperate
Burst to burst phases, extra HP will be extremely valuable
Note: Because of the buffs to Skewer, this is slightly less effective since that buff is essentially a nerf to Recuperate.
Decreased Damage Taken – Decreases damage by 3%
Generally a secondary pick to HP+
Excellent choice to combat persistent attackers and pressure
Good choice coupled with another defensive trait, but not solo
Increased Action Speed – Decreases weaponskill, spellcast, and recast times by 3%
Generally greedier choice, could be used if you felt enemy pressure/damage/threat of burst wasn’t going to be very high.
Resource acquisition expedited via GCD. i.e. the more GCDs you hit, the more resource you generate, and the more bursts you can execute
Higher chance to clip because the GCD’s are shorter. Probably not advised for players with poor latency.
Increased Resistance Duration – Increases duration of resistances by 50%
Grants +5 seconds to the default 10s resistance window
Good vs team comps with high enemy CC potential.
Good vs DRK or PLD when the enemy’s game plan revolves around keeping you stunned.
Would highly consider taking this if you feel that enemy CC is greatly disrupting your match flow and ability to maintain effectiveness. (Would consider this more useful on DRG though as SAM doesn’t have a timer for Kenki or Sen).
“Rotation”
Sam burst is mostly comprised of two components: your Midare and your Shintens. The basic framework of each burst is using your Midare at the start and following up with Shinten spam, or spamming Shinten and ending with Midare. Additionally, Sam burst allows for GCD weaving so you can produce “efficient” bursts that allow you to land another follow up Midare after the first one.
Whatever the case though, the main constants in bursting are having the Yukikaze debuff on your target before you initiate anything and having enough Kenki to Shinten your target down. Beyond that, Sam is very flexible in how you choose to execute a burst and each situation may require you to try something different.
Below are some sample bursts:
| Midare opener – Shinten only, no GCD weaving (Starting with 3 Sen) | |
| Ability 1 | Midare |
| Ability 2 | Shinten |
| Ability 3 | Shinten |
| Ability 4 | Shinten |
| Ability 5 | Shinten |
Notes: Opens with your biggest hit and spams Shinten afterward to follow up the burst. Simple burst and rotation for when you need to just shunt damage through and you think the healer has no way to heal the follow up. Might be preferable for when your target is already in very close proximity and bound/heavied, so you know you can continue without losing melee range.
| Midare ender – Shinten only, no GCD weaving (Starting with 3 Sen) | |
| Ability 1 | Shinten |
| Ability 2 | Shinten |
| Ability 3 | Shinten |
| Ability 4 | Shinten |
| Ability 5 | Midare |
Notes: Whittles down the target before ending with your biggest hit. You might prefer to use this in situations when the target is mobile, has shields you need to break before initiating an effective burst, or the healer reacts perfectly to an up front Midare.
| Midare opener (Starting with 3 Sen) | |
| Ability 1 | Meikyo |
| Ability 2 | Midare |
| Ability 3 | Shinten |
| Ability 4 | GCD (Any one of the 3) |
| Ability 5 | Shinten |
| Ability 6 | Meikyo |
| Ability 7 | GCD (Any one of the remaining 2) |
| Ability 8 | Shinten |
| Ability 9 | Meikyo |
| Ability 10 | Shinten |
| Ability 11 | GCD (last GCD) |
| Ability 12 | Shinten |
| Ability 13 | Midare |
Notes: The full weave GCD burst. Allows you to be efficient damage-wise and not lose GCDs while bursting. Requires a fair bit of TP, however, so you’ll want to make sure you have enough to proceed.
Useful Macros
Ground target macro/mouseover macro for Soten: press it and select anywhere on the ground. However, if you mouse over a target and press it (like a box or enemy) you will dash to them as well.
/micon “Hissatsu: Soten” pvpaction
/merror off
/pvpaction “Hissatsu: Soten” <mo>
/pvpaction “Hissatsu: Soten”
Dash to target macro for Soten: goes straight to the target you have selected
/micon “Hissatsu: Soten” pvpaction
/pvpaction “Hissatsu: Soten” <t>
Extras/Tips/Important Things to Remember
Yukikaze: You’ll want to keep the Yukikaze debuff up on two targets when possible. By doubling your debuff targets a healer will have a harder time telling which target you are prioritizing. Additionally, because Meikyo allows for quick application of this debuff don’t be afraid to MS > Yuki onto a target right before initiating a burst.
Higanbana: As mentioned before Higanbana on enemy targets can be a little awkward because using it delays your Midare by 1 Sen. The current meta is a game of quick switches and frequent bursts, so if you are trying to get the Higa bonus off a player kill then try to make sure that the delayed Midare isn’t going to reduce your chances of a kill.
Higa is extremely useful on boxes to get the bonus Kenki and it’s highly recommended you have it ready to go when boxes spawn, assuming they are uncontested. If the boxes look like they are going to be contested then it’s suggested to have your Midare ready instead to secure these objectives (especially the heart). However, sometimes your team has control of the map and you should absolutely try to get the Kenki bonus from using Higa on an objective.
Tenka Goten: This is a pretty situational ability as it requires you to have 2 Sen at the exact time you need to peel for your team. Additionally you’ll have to gauge whether or not you’d rather have Midare more on your next attack or Tenka right at that moment for something else. Try to think in advance about situations where you need a peel vs burst and that should give you a better idea of how to handle it when those situations arise. Do I need Midare for the next burst or do I need to save my healer? Do I need Midare to secure the boxes or is my team ready to get it if I push the enemy off? Will we win the game if I camp my enemy’s melee LB? These decisions arise frequently in any given match so working your thought processes out beforehand will help you out.
Midare canceling: you can cancel any spell mid-cast by pressing escape, or moving at the right time. Really good healers will watch for your Midare as a cue as to when you are initiating burst. So one feint option for SAM is to cast your Midare and then cancel it to draw out enemy defensives. Then of course once they are drawn out you’ll still have your Midare ready to go on either a different target or the original one once the defensives have expired.
