Get rid of SAM Limit break gimmick already (FL)

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Originally Posted by Cidel

Oh my gawd, I remember when NA used to do that. Then somehow the meta became "92-99% of the team run to the 1st wave of drones and maybe, just maybe you have a person or two try to claim an adjacent flag, assuming the other team didn't send an extra person to outnumber you. And then your team proceeds to get less points than 1 actual drone because they're morons that don't know what to actually do at mid. They just know they have to be there for some reason."

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That's why when I played at NA Secure I was like, what kind of barbarian style they do here? Run and forth to each posts...

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Originally Posted by brancinaed

Which change to Zantetsuken do y'all think would be more fair?

A change to, "If target is afflicted with Kuzushi, deals damage equal to 99% of their maximum HP."
Or removing "Ignores the effects of Guard when dealing damage."


Personally I enjoy the one-shot, but I disapprove of the suicide samurai playstyle. Removing 100% health damage pretty much eliminates the suicide samurai and makes it a tool for dueling again. I think Zantetsuken is important for shutting down Battle High V melees who would otherwise never die. Giving Guard counter play to it gives more agency to the person on the receiving end as they could just guard through Kuzushi.

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Make it so Kuzushi doesn't apply off AOEs unless you are the primary target. Example, if I'm on BLM and in my LB casting on your buddy next to you while you have chiten up. I wouldn't get Kuzushi. But if I was casting those Flares ON YOU...then I WOULD get Kuzushi. I'm fine with SAM's whole ignore guard thing. The issue is how braindead easily a SAM can secure a team wipe by just kamikaze running into the enemy team's AOE (Which are for a lot of jobs, either VITAL to their kit OR built into key portions of their kit.) and just turn Zantensuken into a dueling LB. Plain and simple.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

AoE's definitely shouldn't trigger it for sure.

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So the guy gave me shit for 20+ pages just for the sake of being contrarian, and only now finally admits that AoE is a problem? Who hurt you?

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Originally Posted by Valence

So the guy gave me shit for 20+ pages just for the sake of being contrarian, and only now finally admits that AoE is a problem? Who hurt you?

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Me, probably.

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Originally Posted by Valence

So the guy gave me shit for 20+ pages just for the sake of being contrarian, and only now finally admits that AoE is a problem? Who hurt you?

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He finally got killed by it after a year of sitting behind his entire FL alliance.

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Originally Posted by Nikoto

He finally got killed by it after a year of sitting behind his entire FL alliance.

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PFFFT HHHAAHAAHA

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Originally Posted by Valence

So the guy gave me shit for 20+ pages just for the sake of being contrarian, and only now finally admits that AoE is a problem? Who hurt you?

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I have always agree that aoe shouldn't trigger it. Doesn't mean I agree that the LB is a problem overall. Its still easy to avoid and pretty much all of you here are terrible at pvp.

AoE is a problem yet it's easy to avoid?

Sounds logical. Keep digging.

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Originally Posted by Valence

AoE is a problem yet it's easy to avoid?

Sounds logical. Keep digging.

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this is why i ignore him, hes just arguing for the sake of arguing.... hold on... is this not a form of harassment?

EDIT: Nuisance behavior is reportable iirc.

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Originally Posted by Valence

AoE is a problem yet it's easy to avoid?

Sounds logical. Keep digging.

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Never said it was a problem, just agree that AoE shouldn't trigger it. I still have yet to be killed by that LB in FL. Honestly, the only LB that has ever caught me off guard is NIN.

Well, may as well revive this thread since Patch 6.4 has seen the buffing of SAM LB, and the nerfing of NIN LB and nerfing of MCH Chainsaw.

And yes, in FL SAM LB received the same nerf as NIN LB.

What bothers me the most about these kinds of conversations is that it misses the raw Maths of these abilities. None of these abilities are absolute one-shot attacks, they all do dmg based on the state of the target. Let's put the raw numbers onto paper:

SAM LB (Zan): 24k AoE pierces guard or up to 63k if target attacked you in last 3 seconds

NIN LB (Seiton): 10k or up to 31.499k and pierces guard if target below 50%

MCH Chainsaw (Not a LB, part of rotation): 12k or up to 59.850k 3% of the time

Which of these attacks does the most dmg? Which attack hits multiple targets? Which attack ignores guard?

Well, regardless of the communities opinions, SE has kind of made it clear they think Zan is an important part of the SAM class and that NIN is just too powerful. And also any other class having a near one shot attack, even at 3%, is just too powerful.

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Originally Posted by DesdemonaVae

Well, may as well revive this thread since Patch 6.4 has seen the buffing of SAM LB, and the nerfing of NIN LB and nerfing of MCH Chainsaw.

And yes, in FL SAM LB received the same nerf as NIN LB.

What bothers me the most about these kinds of conversations is that it misses the raw Maths of these abilities. None of these abilities are absolute one-shot attacks, they all do dmg based on the state of the target. Let's put the raw numbers onto paper:

SAM LB (Zan): 24k AoE pierces guard or up to 63k if target attacked you in last 3 seconds

NIN LB (Seiton): 10k or up to 31.499k and pierces guard if target below 50%

MCH Chainsaw (Not a LB, part of rotation): 12k or up to 59.850k 3% of the time

Which of these attacks does the most dmg? Which attack hits multiple targets? Which attack ignores guard?

Well, regardless of the communities opinions, SE has kind of made it clear they think Zan is an important part of the SAM class and that NIN is just too powerful. And also any other class having a near one shot attack, even at 3%, is just too powerful.

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of course but i dont see samurai live to use their lb often.

What typically happens is Sam uses its LB, gets yoinked by warrior and dies. Or people see them pop the LB, and they get focused down and die. Or... The samurai LB's someone who is out of line, out fighting in the middle of nowhere, where the person dying to the LB probably benefitted being given the oppurtunity to consider playing with the rest of their team. I consider DRK/SMN/WHM/DRG/SCH to be more of a threat.

Its been 3 years, nothing had change. Id say this, it is not that I cannot counter sam's lb in fl, or that sam'lb is ez to pull off. It is not and It comes with risk.
However : its not FUN to play against it. Sam lb mechanic is anit-fun. I want to lost in the flow of combat without having to pay attention to that one thing that will oneshot me if I keep attacking.
I think the exist of sam lb made fl 50% less fun, because everytime I see a sam, I have to change my mindset. Its like the rules of the game had changed the moment I saw a Sam. It is just not fun to play against a sam.
Tbf I still think that fl is just meme game mod, its not fun and that is fine.

So… are you not ignoring the HG paladins or Living dead dark knights or the viper in snake scales or the gnb with nebula and rampart.

Like, Sam LB should be functionally useless to those paying attention

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

So… are you not ignoring the HG paladins or Living dead dark knights or the viper in snake scales or the gnb with nebula and rampart.

Like, Sam LB should be functionally useless to those paying attention

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to be fair, there is nothing so infuriating as using an AOE in a crowd of 5+ and hitting the SAM on the fringe, at the back, and getting one-shotted. like... WTF I WASN'T EVEN LOOKING AT YOU, RANDOM SAM!

I can aoe them or hit them by accident, doing so will waste my damage output, that is a fair punishment.
You know what I mean, Sam lb is not one of those

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Originally Posted by NevaehQuest

Its been 3 years, nothing had change. Id say this, it is not that I cannot counter sam's lb in fl, or that sam'lb is ez to pull off. It is not and It comes with risk.
However : its not FUN to play against it. Sam lb mechanic is anit-fun. I want to lost in the flow of combat without having to pay attention to that one thing that will oneshot me if I keep attacking.
I think the exist of sam lb made fl 50% less fun, because everytime I see a sam, I have to change my mindset. Its like the rules of the game had changed the moment I saw a Sam. It is just not fun to play against a sam.
Tbf I still think that fl is just meme game mod, its not fun and that is fine.

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I can see your point. Personally I have the same issue vs Seiton or Meteodrive which both feel pretty much like "guess I die" and move on.
On the other hand I find it extremely funny to counter Zantetsuken with shields, but there is no in between.
Also FLs is a gigantic gamble since you have no enemy list to see the Chiten buff, and the SAM also doesn't have one either to see your Kuzushi debuff so it's kind of a dice roll every time.

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Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

to be fair, there is nothing so infuriating as using an AOE in a crowd of 5+ and hitting the SAM on the fringe, at the back, and getting one-shotted. like... WTF I WASN'T EVEN LOOKING AT YOU, RANDOM SAM!

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Even funnier since they changed the hit registration, when the sam conveniently moved or dashed in out of nowhere after you actually used your AoE skill.

Yeah ur so right, let just say , what if you saw like 6 sam on the enemies team at the beginning of the match. Its just an unpleasant feeling to start the match...
I remember inviting a new player to play fl. They got oneshot by a sam cause they hit em with an aoe by accident. He die randomly with full health far away from the enemies group. He was so confused and said this game mod not for him. Now he only do fl for exp, just like everyone.
Because stuff like this made fl looks unpolished and chaotic.
Fl will remain this way sadly.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I can see your point. Personally I have the same issue vs Seiton or Meteodrive which both feel pretty much like "guess I die" and move on.
On the other hand I find it extremely funny to counter Zantetsuken with shields, but there is no in between.
Also FLs is a gigantic gamble since you have no enemy list to see the Chiten buff, and the SAM also doesn't have one either to see your Kuzushi debuff so it's kind of a dice roll every time.



Even funnier since they changed the hit registration, when the sam conveniently moved or dashed in out of nowhere after you actually used your AoE skill.

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And yeah Meteodrive in fl while being marked is also the guess I will die moment... well the thing is that if u have a healer theres a chance u can survive... Sam lb however is way faster... for some job you really have no chance to fight back. Jobs like drg, if you hit a sam with your horrid roar by accident ur just dead , it really is the guess I will just die moment ...since Drg dosent have shield.

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Originally Posted by NevaehQuest

Yeah ur so right, let just say , what if you saw like 6 sam on the enemies team at the beginning of the match. Its just an unpleasant feeling to start the match...
I remember inviting a new player to play fl. They got oneshot by a sam cause they hit em with an aoe by accident. He die randomly with full health far away from the enemies group. He was so confused and said this game mod not for him. Now he only do fl for exp, just like everyone.
Because stuff like this made fl looks unpolished and chaotic.
Fl will remain this way sadly.

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Well, because fl is only good for xp,lol

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

Well, because fl is only good for xp,lol

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Ur right tho hehe

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Originally Posted by NevaehQuest

And yeah Meteodrive in fl while being marked is also the guess I will die moment... well the thing is that if u have a healer theres a chance u can survive... Sam lb however is way faster... for some job you really have no chance to fight back. Jobs like drg, if you hit a sam with your horrid roar by accident ur just dead , it really is the guess I will just die moment ...since Drg dosent have shield.

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You need to be mindful of your debuffs with SAM. If you dive in with LB as a DRG you do run the risk of being deleted.

It is counterplay to AE burst.

I've survived lots of Zanks by running away from the fight where people are clustered or by simply baiting it out by doing a low damage attack.

Dying is going to happen in Frontlines and dying to Samurai LB is gonna happen. Once you understand that dying is going to happen it makes reacting to the crap going on around you a lot easier.

I really dislike Meteodrive myself but MNK's burst has been neutered quite a bit and melees need to have some sort of advantage in a game mode where mass range damage is a thing.

yeah ur not wrong about that, tbh im super ok with dying because im out of position, or being focused. Dying to sam lb just doesn't feel right, because its so random.

Then plan for it, maybe?

no plan for sam lb change, at this point dosen't matter. real fl population is dipping fast... and not enough people care enough to give any opinons, cause everyone just went in for exp... im mostly just playing cc, and tbh sam is ok in cc. Theres more mind game vs sam lb in cc and its more fair. In fl u really just die to their lb randomly. There is no way to counter a sam when you are just throwing aoe into alliances and get randomly one-shot. oh well...

At some point I played a lot of samurai (for about a year), and now that I don't I am hyper aware of their positioning and what they are trying to do, so I rarely get him by them. I am not gloating and saying "skill issue", and I think there are some interesting points in this thread. I personally play with 200% increase on buffs in UI, and I am hyper aware of kuzuchi and throw barriers on myself instantly - saved me quite a lot.

Zan is a boon and a curse for Samurai, it's quite easy to whiff and it's quite easy to get killed if you are pushing too much. Making it too obvious that you have your LB up - you get focussed and die. Using it defensively can be better, but it's so easy to get CC'd to death. I don't have an easy solution to zan, and I haven't seen a good one mentioned yet - because I think the whole of sam's kit revolves around peacocking like a major threat. Chiten provides mitigation and increases your damage with lb follow up potential. Remove lb follow up potential and it is just another dps doing damage, and not very well, with bad cast timers. Currently cast timers kind of have a peacocking function, like "LOOK I AM DOING BIG DAMAGE - HIT ME", but without LB follow up potential - it's almost pointless. Basically in my opinion - the whole of sam's kit hinges on it's limit break.

I think the best idea i've seen so far, is giving visible indication when chiten is up - kind of like a glowing black mage for a few seconds. It serves 2 purposes: obvious indication that sam lb is potentially up, so everyone should avoid them; additional peacocking for sam that is trying to just do more damage (get focussed for a moment - get buffs up for extra 25% damage).

The other alternative I can think of is that if you are replacing LB with something less lethal, should make chiten buff stronger; maybe as much as 50% damage up - but I feel like it would throw the dps balance out the window.

p.s.
nerf ninja lb

I genuinely feel sorry for the current state of Samurai.
They’ve gone from being Frontline heroes to pitiful bait, practically begging enemies to hit them while they try to engage.
Their sustained damage output is too low to pose any meaningful threat.
Any ability like Thunderclap that generates a barrier can easily bait out their Limit Break.
And once that Limit Break is wasted, they’re left with nothing—forced to retreat with their tail between their legs.

Samurai LB isn't really busted or overpowered at all. Its not nearly as oppressive as other LBs in frontlines (something something dancer). Does dying to SAM LB just feel worse because you see the debuff pop up on your screen for a second before they kill you? There is counter play if your job has shields or if you can stun the samurai.

Don't get me wrong, I hate samurai LB too but the only thing I'd change on it is its broken hit registration. Nothing like dying to a samurai LB when they use it in the opposite direction of me. Heck, I've seen it kill people when the samurai doesn't even reach them with it.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

I genuinely feel sorry for the current state of Samurai.
They’ve gone from being Frontline heroes to pitiful bait, practically begging enemies to hit them while they try to engage.
Their sustained damage output is too low to pose any meaningful threat.
Any ability like Thunderclap that generates a barrier can easily bait out their Limit Break.
And once that Limit Break is wasted, they’re left with nothing—forced to retreat with their tail between their legs.

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Mhm, agreed. I almost never feel bad for dying to sam lb, as I know they had to wait 2 minutes to get that ability...

I thought about another LB variant that would make the game more refreshing from a perspective of sam. Continuing the thought of making sam like blm.
If you make LB that pierces guard, lets say for 5 attacks, or maybe make it something a touch broken - like 8 attacks, reduces cast times or maybe even removes them (kinda like ew blm) & maybe increases damage output (let's say a 10%-20% buff). Dropping the LB to 60s recharge time would actually make the class a little bit more refreshing to play and could be very strong, but not broken.

It could potentially make chiten baiting scarier, because you wouldn't be able to guard up from the damage and increased in damage output, you would be looking at 35-45% damage up. And if the recast times are fast enough, you could basically unload all your skills on some poor soul.

I actually think people would get killed by sam more with that, than the current lb...

People complain about SAM LB being broken but ignore how NIN can literally get multikills at 50% or lower

Ninja can be annoying but, at the same time, I just don't find it as utterly frustrating as Samurai. And, specifically in FL, when you have a crowd of 8+, you just have no real idea on who is who, especially on the fringes.

I like it, when i die to this bs lb, sam has in 99% of the cases jumped to my ranger ass, surrounded by bunch of alliance buddies.
Who then kill them.

tbh im more annoyed to have a nin on my alliance stealing every kills... hp dose go down fast and if I am below 50% a lot of things can oneshot me like mch lb, most of the time I will try to keep my hp around 90%. And if I die to nin at least i know what happened... most of the time is because i was out of position or we got pinch so everyone is low. Dying to sam lb is just random.

From my stats in 7.2 ninja is the best job in FL at getting kills followed by monk, machinist, reaper and then samurai is in 5th. However samurai dies the second most (likely because they tend to die immediately after LB), is dead last in assists and the 5th worst job in damage. All samurai has going for it is kills from their LB lol. Its annoying to deal with their LB but overall samurai is a pretty bad job in FL. You can also easily counter samurai LB by playing healer with stoneskin or SCH adlo deploy. Or play any job that can stun them after they activate the debuff. I regularly hit samurai with monk LB when I see them prepping it.

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Originally Posted by TofuLove

I thought about another LB variant that would make the game more refreshing from a perspective of sam. Continuing the thought of making sam like blm.
If you make LB that pierces guard, lets say for 5 attacks, or maybe make it something a touch broken - like 8 attacks, reduces cast times or maybe even removes them (kinda like ew blm) & maybe increases damage output (let's say a 10%-20% buff). Dropping the LB to 60s recharge time would actually make the class a little bit more refreshing to play and could be very strong, but not broken.

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5 or Twelve forbid 8 attacks would be too much. RPR's ability to deal 36k of unblockable damage (in one gcd and an ogcd) was shot dead with the update that divorced Harvest Moon from Death Warrant, so as an equivalent, it'd be more like 3 attacks, as then that's 12k 12k 10k~ as a rough potential if SAM were given that guard bypass (with instant cast). That is, if you wanted to see it as an LB of 60/45 secs cd.

It's not SAM, but I've long entertained how to make NIN's LB different. (I'm going to spoiler this part to cut down on tl;dr factor just a bit).

I'm not really into the gotcha OHKOs or assassination type moves in here even if I do play those jobs, so I figured something like a poison. At first I thought maybe something that prevents potting temporarily (lame), then... something that freezes the MP bar long term, but is purgeable with full elixir.

Then... I thought, maybe a really weak DoT (or a more innocuous debuff like a very slight increase to cd timers on the target afflicted) that again is only purgeable with full elixir, however on the second use on the same target, it'll knock them to 1% or... maybe 10% (or something other than 1% anyway) if that's too extreme, it's the mechanism I'm trying to present. It'd be a faster cd LB given it'd be a low damage skill that doesn't really do anything much until the second use. Thought maybe it'd be cool to bring in a little of ROG/NIN's old trappings, and also more of an attritional aspect that works(?) Some kind of venom like you see in Guild Wars.

Back to SAM and idk mah goiz. Seeing responses at either extremes; that it's too op and that it's "easily" bypassed. It's neither. When my PC isn't crapping out on me I can easily make dives with Bloodbath and emerge alive. It's only jobs with full action lockout (<cough> MNK) that can stand to do anything, and even then if focus is weak, Bloodbath will passively heal me when cc'd. The toughest part is selecting a target on a dime when it's a big dive (since I don't got one of them fancy forbidden plugin things /smile) sometimes input lag is too much because of stutter. Then the attempt is abandoned if it means conserving BH (if it's FL). Also with Bloodbath I will run at enemies no matter what, so a lot of the time I just get to attack freely because they're too scared and never know when I actually have LB lmao.

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Originally Posted by echo78

From my stats in 7.2 ninja is the best job in FL at getting kills followed by monk, machinist, reaper and then samurai is in 5th. However samurai dies the second most (likely because they tend to die immediately after LB), is dead last in assists and the 5th worst job in damage. All samurai has going for it is kills from their LB lol. Its annoying to deal with their LB but overall samurai is a pretty bad job in FL. You can also easily counter samurai LB by playing healer with stoneskin or SCH adlo deploy. Or play any job that can stun them after they activate the debuff. I regularly hit samurai with monk LB when I see them prepping it.

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A sam with a premade is super annoying, they are really tanky and they will just dive your entire alliance with bloodbath, their pocket healer will keep them alive then they will randomly lb and kill 5 people in one go. Even the sam get kill afterward they will bring down a bunch of people. resin and repeat. its just really cheap. You pretty much cannot counter it because if you want to cc or lb them you risk dying as well because of the pocket healer they can survive that 2 sec cc then lb your entire party.

I've had games when I'm doing everything right and then clip a SAM with AoE at the wrong time and without knowing. Everyone just tells you that the counter play is, don't attack SAMs and don't use AoE. Sounds unreasonably stupid to me.

You can guard agains it once it is togled on you... its like 3 seconds planning.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

You can guard agains it once it is togled on you... its like 3 seconds planning.

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Guard won’t do anything.
This is a common mistake made by new and casual players.
You need an action that creates a damage-absorbing barrier.
Many PvP actions provide this, but players often fail to use them properly.