Samurai: Ultimate Guide by Gregedor



About the Author
 I am in the process of creating my own profile page along with this guide. Please check back for more information about me. In the meantime I am a 75 Samurai on Quetzalcoatl server and have been for some time. 

 My page:User:Gregedor 

About this Guide
 I've used several guides along my path to 75 Samurai, but none of them seemed complete to me and none of them were updated regularly to reflect the changes in the game. I stopped using guides around level 70 and set out on my own for that reason. While it's not uncharted territoy in the least, it is by and large undocumented and just passed through contacts on each server. The main focus for this guide will be on endgame concepts and setups and it will grow from there. So I set out on this on-going project to create the Ultimate Samurai Guide. 

 Obviously there are going to be people that disagree with me throughout the course of this guide. I encourage constructive comments on the discussion pages, but please respect my writing and do not alter this page without my consent. 

Weapons
 Samurai are fairly versatile in their weapon choices. If you can do it, get all your available weapons capped and then you never have to worry. There are really only three primary weapons you will use and two you might consider for special situations 

 Primary Weapons:  Great Katana - your best and most used weapon. <LI> Polearm - can be more powerful on weaker mobs and in special areas such as Limbus, performs decently in Caedarva Mire. <LI> Archery - for those that wish to persue the SAM/RNG combination and to help pulling or getting in a hit as a pull comes into camp. </P>  Secondary Weapons: <LI> Sword - you may be called upon to preform Spirits Within on certain fights. <LI> Dagger - until recently I did dagger just for fun, but some Assaults have gone well with me using Cyclone on those silly Chigoe. </P><BR>

Great Katana
 There are many Great Katanas to choose from out there, but in true Square-Enix style most of them are not even worth considering. Great Katanas that you want to consider and their purposes are outlined below. </P><BR>

Levels 70-75  <LI> Level 72 - Hagun </P>  This will be your best friend from the time you get it to the time you stop playing FFXI. It isn't the most expensive katana, it isn't even that hard to obtain, and it certainly isn't the heaviest hitter either. The one thing this weapon does have is the TP Bonus effect. What this means is when you perform a weaponskill (at which Samurai excel) your weaponskill will perform as if you had an additional 100 TP. 100% TP skills land with the force of 200%, 200% as 300% and 300% stay 300% unfortunately. That extra 100 TP causes this rather drab and lackluster weapon to land harder hitting weaponskills than most other GKT until you approach 300% TP. At 300% TP for certain, since the bonus has no effect, almost any other GKT becomes more powerful. </P>