Monk vs Samurai!

Whats the pros and cons of each job in your opinion? Where they excel? Whats their weakness?

AoE Damage, Single target, Burst, anything!

Who you chose and why? I really can't decide which of the 2 to play and need some inspiration, opinions :P

I´m hardcore samurai during I has some kind of katana fetish.
Well both job is pretty fast pace and strong melee dps.
Samurai Pro:
Strong single and AoE dps, fast pace with kenki, a 20k dps button, easy learn to boss and easy recover from death, you get coolest weapon look.

Con:
no utiliy, weak range attack, casting bar with 20k dps button+dot+AoE, waste dps kenki with dash out n in, hard to join party in PF.
Weakness: Get lock out from PF

Monk Pro:
Strong single and AoE dps, fast pace, utiliy everyone love it, easy to join party in PF.

Con:
a bit more movement then samurai, range attack nope nope, take some time to recover from death but not long!, has to learn timing with boss jumping.
Weakness: God my eyes and mind hurt from watch+countdown GL time remain.

Monk is generally considered the better of the two currently because of it's high personal damage while still bringing party utility in the form of Brotherhood and Mantra, and easily benefits from the classic raid jobs of Dragoon, Bard, and Scholar all providing boosts to critical hit.

Samurai is still in kind of an odd place where they wanted to create a selfish DPS, but they haven't pushed the numbers on the job quite enough to make up for its lack of utility, especially when compared to its monk counterpart. Still a solid job regardless. Also more beginner friendly both given it's higher starting level and simpler rotation.

Monk and Samurai are comparable in the limited time they have on job buffs, greased lightning in the case of monk, shifu and jinpu in the case of Samurai. Monk has more tools to manage maintaining greased lightning, but also a much shorter window in which to execute combos to keep it up, meaning a monk has to know a raid fight more intricately than a samurai in order to maintain maximum damage.

Comparing the types of damage, they both do high single target damage, and I would argue that while samurai is more readily able to deal large AOE, it suffers from TP management. While both jobs can take invigorate, monk has a second built-in TP refresh making it easier for large-pull dungeon scenarios. As far as burst, I could be wrong here, but monk seems the more burst heavy job as you will want to time, as much as possible, hard hitting moves to be executed under the Riddle of Fire window. The closest thing I can think of to a burst window for Samurai is when you start dumping a lot of Kenki after using Hagakure, but it's not massive burst.

Gameplay:

sam=/>mnk

(mnk is so fast and fun to play, but might take imo a tick longer to master than sam; .. sam is overall very smooth and the "more perfect" melee gameplay- wise, meaning: sam has almost no flaws unlike mnk, ... where mnk has useless or wierd moves / abilies... and mnk takes longer to recover from deaths or phase-changes.. but not as bad as pre -patch 4.3)

dps single target:

sam = mnk

(sam might have personal higher dps and has some heavy burst too if needed,.. but mnk is close in + adds dps physical groupbuff; .. atleast sam can usu its slashing debuff if nin or war are missing)

dps aoe:

sam > mnk

(sam just has more aoe damage and is fun to build up.., but can be annoying when adds die during the cast charge of one of the aoe skills, .. still sam is better at aoe, but mnk aoe is not weak either)

Glamour:

sam=/>mnk

(they share the same gear sets mostsly, but the sam sword is imo a tick cooler, most of the time)

getting into parties or statics:

mnk >> sam

(mnk is not the most desired, melee, but mnk is often still welcome in many or most PFs, thanx to its physical dps group buff and thanx to the one but helpful healing utility; .. sam on the otherhans has no utility other than a slashing debuff nin and war already have .. and in general, many just want others in the party that buff them, hence sam has the 2nd hardest time getting into parties and statics,.. only blm having a harder time)

=> imo sam is a tick better to play than mnk, but sam's contribute a tick less to the party than mnk does, and therefore sam's have hard(er) time(s) getting into some parties or statics

(unless you prove to be good at your class and others start to count on you, than it shouldn't be a too big problem, .. but it will probably still be there)

=> master either, than learn the other too as a replacement (they share a lot of gear anyway), .. casters, tanks and healers do that often too, master one class than start to master a 2nd for replacement

SAM is extremely easy to learn and do high DPS with. It's almost effortless to a criminal degree!

However, this all depends on how good a player you are in the first place. The worse you are, the better off you are playing a class that offers something to the party. If you're good (like moi) then it doesn't matter.

If you're a very good samurai, then the damage you offer can most definitely offset the potential damage gained from buffs if you were playing mnk. Certainly, this is more true in the case of joining a party littered with greens and greys, as is common in PF.

Gameplay-wise, SAM beats MNK hand-down.

Assuming optimal play with optimal gear, MNK currently beats SAM, though they get close with perfect use of Trick Attack windows on a Speedy SAM.

Prior to the Riddle of Wind change, a speedier, more flexible, and (imo) far less dull version of Monk play was possible, but it requires an essentially perfect connection.

@ Hierro

agree, sam is easy imo..

sam seemed at first hard, due to it being new and not fully understanding the rota yet (the importance of Shinten / Hagakure yet), but sam is fun to and smooth to play ... and "easy" but not near mindnumbing easy as rdm can be sometimes..

imo mnk is not that much harder either, but fun too, .. mnk just gets punished harder and needs abit more time to master the positionals

when you learn both rotas, both are fun, just prefer Sam over Mnk a tick, mostly due to getting annoyed with mnk more often at like phase changes or boss jumps, when you need to keep GL up.. (though its much better than before thanx to PB CD reduction)

as for pur dps contribution, they are overall very close (taking the mnk group buff into account), imo though mnk could use a slight nerf or sam a slight buff, just so sam gets in PFs better... mnk always had a near meta spot

great info everyone! I think I ll chose samurai who is easier and slowly trying my hands on Monk..

the only pro and cons that matter for the majority of content is how you envision your character playing, do you see it as a punchy punchy character, or a slice and dice type of character. Either will get the job done in the majority of content, and it's only the super narrow smallest dominator amount of content that people start having preferences for who they want in their party make-up, people who argue for utility usually want that utility to help make up for others shortcomings, or they want that extra usually less than a 1 minute amount of time they might get in a clear, but nothing is absolutely a must in this game in terms of party composition outside of the roles of tank and healer. Will 4 bards clear Tsukuyomi Ex? Sure, it might take a little more time but it can be done.

I like simplicity when im doing high end content, mistakes are more forgivable, so i'd prefer samurai for savage content if im not as familiar with it as I would like to be.
However on the flip side I like monks flash, and like using it on content i figure is more forgivable if i don't use a particular move at a particular time.