Katana struggles

So im a katana main and ive been struggling with my mp sustain.I know the basics like dat passive strike thingy and decoy. But what if the boss moves alot? Are we just suppose to give up all tenyru stacks, and gsw just to regain mp again and then reapply everything?

 

Dude, moving bosses is an advantage to katana since you get to dash quite often.

 

*cough cough* Kaikiri Ranshin *cough cough*
but seriously, you are playing as a melee, what would you expect?

 

Simple, draw as much aggro as you can so that you will lure the enemy back to the range of your decoy

 

Shukuchi.

 

kariki ranshin buff + shukichi dash (both level 10) give you +100mp on every auto attack... you are auto attacking in between your tenryus right?

 

If you want to sustain, you have to sacrifice some of your damage by replace it with some ampr xtals (Tapir + Ultimate Machine + Mardula + Zarth), really, Shukuchi + Kaikiri Ranshin is not enough. If you don't have ampr food, you can trade your food with someone else that have ampr.

Or using any skill that have crowd control to shut the boss down a little duration like (Sonic Wave, Magic Javelin, Smash, Bash,....) via stargem.

 

for ktns, it is hard to sacrifice damage for sustain since all the dps xtals are just too good to give up on. hats have bapho+ odel, rings specter+odel. if you want to sacrfice 10% unsheathe (Basically 10% of your damage), for 10 ampr, then its up to you. But the Unsheathe xtals are just too good to pass up on

 

Your total damage output is equal to how continuously you spam skills , especially without Decoy, not how high your current Tenryu Ransei damage (I don't care if your Tenryu Ransei can deal more than 250k on alto), and also late game bosses like Tuscog, Seele, Ornlarf, Pyxtica, Mardula love to move around alot, so basically Unsheathe xtals are trash to them. High damage doesn't mean you can kill the boss quickly, if your ampr is less than 72, you cannot survive to them.

 

shukuchi+maxed mp+ampr food will easily put you near 90ampr. you shouldn't be expecting to spam tenryu on a moving boss anyways

 

For me, i mostly spam shukuchi (Maxed shukuchi)
The trick is, after auto attacking don't dash backward, instead wait for bit then move to back very little then auto atk again.
If it done correctly, you can spam shukuchi auto atk which gives you good amount of mp (especially if kairiki is on)

 

10% unsheathe is not worth 10%damage. If you took godspeed passive, flashblast and have one or two unsheathe xtals, 10% more unsheathe worth less than 10% of actual damage increase, its definitely worth it to have an ampr gear+xtals depends on the situation. Thats why modestia is still relevant due to its ampr.

 

Mine is already 82 without Kaikiri + Shukuchi (182 if they both are on) and believe me, those are not even enough to catchup on nowaday bosses. Just try to do a Tuscog/ Seele run and figure it out.

Spoiler: This is why Suzuki sucks

 

So what should one do? I started a few weeks ago watching youtube videos to find out how people like hivan and exer can solo bosses... and somehow they never seem to run out?
Also can you explain that screen capture? Thanks!

 

They use modestia, and decoy shot, probably some ampr gears as well. And then godspeed wield+kairiki combo.

Idk how you got that 182, kairiki only have 25 and shukuchi for 50 ampr. It should be 157 instead.

 

Watching them doesn't make you to solo well, even though you watch them 100 times, you will hardly ever figure the way to solo unless you practice a lot which will drain both your sustainability and your sanity just like a vampire that suck you dry but the final result is worth for your sanity. If you already have T4 skills, you should getting used to it first (this is the hardest part) and then increase the tempo later.
This is Exer's clip about getting used to T4 skills:

They do die a lot (more than 30 tires) before they can solo that boss well, they are 100% human so they do make mistakes like all of us.

Random record on Seele Ulti, and the timer said that Suzuki is suck at balancing game. That's all.

 

Ah I see. Truly thanks for clarifying!
I have watched exer's video like 3 times from start to finish... he is awesome.
@exer YES I AM ATILL WATCHING.

Also I'm sure a lot of new katana players have this question... do you know if katana experts stick with certain combos? Or do they change them for different bosses? Where can i find these combos? I have searched high and low and even at .5 speed the youtube videos go too fast.
Apologies for my many questions xD

 

They change a lot, some don't even use combo because bosses are pretty much fast. But mostly decoy combo are used a lot and it has a lot of variaties like some of these below:

These combos are just for reference (don't take it too seriously):
(1MP Decoy) Opener (Pulse Blade/ Ad - lib/ Reflex/...) > Decoy Shot (save) > Flash Blast (Smite). (mostly people used it because it has less MP)

• Pros: Less MP to spam
• Cons: Long cast time

(4MP Decoy) Use Decoy Shot manually. (not to common because of its high MP)

• Pros: Short cast time
• Cons: High MP (4MP) and the cast animation is pretty long (0.9s)

(5MP Decoy) Ad-lib > Decoy Shot (Swift) (only some pros used this because to them, cast time and cast animation are everything)

• Pros: Short cast time and the cast animation are extremely fast thanks to the swift tag, (0.9s to 0.45s).
• Cons: Very high MP usage (5MP)

 

This helps so much... I always thought pros used the same combos for different bosses.
Also I *think* it was on a video you made, so does the short cast time of ad lib make up for the skill points it costs to unlock tier 2 minstrel branch?

 

There are some skills has shorter cast animation but it costs too much MP, here is the list of the cast time of some openers, you can check it and choose the opener for yourself:
- Bouncing Blade (0.4s) (100MP) (2m)
- Kaikiri Ranshin (0.75 s) (200 MP)
- Reflex (0.75 s) (100 MP)
- Ad - lib (0.7 s) (100 MP)
- Meikyo Shisui/ Flash Blast (0.5 s) (200 MP)
- Pulse Blade (1.1 s) (100 MP) (12m)
- Issen (0.9 s) (100 MP) (2m)