is it just me or is SAM a little too overcomplicated

i'm lookin at samurai's abilities, and trying to figure out how to stick them all on my bar.

gettin a headache just looking at the ability screen O.o

Mhm... it doesn't seem overly complicated to me. You have 2 3-step combos and one 2-step. The rest is more or less Kenki/Sen management.

My main issue is trying to find the right place to put the DoT in the rotation. So far I'm going with Yukikaze for the first Sen, then the Gekko combo up to Jinpou(?) for the 10% damage boost and then release the Iaijutsu before I finish the combo. It's "probably" suboptimal, since it's based on gut feeling rather than cold harsh math, but egh <_<

From what I understand, you're primarily juggling a couple of combos, so it shouldn't be too far off from say... Dragoon or Nin.

I won't play for a minute though - SAM skill names look like a pain to memorize with no means of connecting the term to the skill. Bio, Aero, etc... are easy enough to understand, but I'm not nearly fluent enough in (Sword? Samurai?) terms to be able to predict or anticipate what skills do from their names or icons.

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Originally Posted by GruntCandy

[...] but I'm not nearly fluent enough in (Sword? Samurai?) terms to be able to predict or anticipate what skills do from their names or icons.

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Heh, it wouldn't help you that much either. I know Yukikaze should mean something along the lines of Icy Wind, but it's really just a generic combo skill that doesn't have much to do with ice (except for the animation!). Kasha... all I remember is some mythological fiery chariot that devours corpses (sometimes also depicted as cat?). Gekko seems to simply mean moonlight? Hakaze is a breeze or sth.

Even looking the terms up isn't gonna help you understand it, you just have to learn it by heart. On the bright side: All Hissatsu-labeled skills interact with the kinky gauge, so at least there's some consistency to remember!

I played around with sam a while today. Well i tried to lol. With every job i played so far i was able to put all the important skills from 1-6 + alt+ 1-6 and 4 thumb buttons on my mouse (+ shift+mouse button). But with sam i am really struggeling how to put these abilities in a proper order. For the first time ever i started to mouse-click on abilities O.o That will cost a lot of time when it comes to raid timers.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Snip.

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As you're saying, the skills are not named after sword forms but more romantic language. Some traditional koryu have names like these for techniques but it's not like it would help you with these techniques. It would be more helpful to know Japanese in general than memorized sword terms for this ability set.

But the animation is everything basically. Why wouldn't it be? Aero means wind but it didn't need to be a dot. The names match the animations like Midare Setsugekka is literally a combination of the 3 Sen. Names usually match the aesthetic rather than the game mechanic.


I do think people are more struggling with the terminology than the Job mechanics themselves. Not that it's a simple job, there's clearly a lot of possible min-maxing available. But the basic 50 combo system isn't rocket science, more like basic buff upkeep combos with Iaijutsu to mix it up as a finisher. Kinki adds more depth but they all seem to have their time and place so it's not overwhelming.

Maybe a bigger part is that you can see all the future skills all at once now and we're starting at a later level than we're used to (bar 51-60 POTD grinding).

are you being serious ? Sam may need a bit of "get used to it", but to say it's over complicated...

As a reminder, or for people that never played it, that's how FF XI chart looked for weaponskills, and most people in raids had to know it, I even knew people that had it printed and posted behind their screen for quick reference :

https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net...20151120030752

So saying Sam is overcomplicated... nop, sorry, but it may be a bit more technical that pressing 1-x in succession

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

As you're saying, the skills are not named after sword forms but more romantic language. Some traditional koryu have names like these for techniques but it's not like it would help you with these techniques. It would be more helpful to know Japanese in general than memorized sword terms for this ability set.

But the animation is everything basically. Why wouldn't it be? Aero means wind but it didn't need to be a dot. The names match the animations like Midare Setsugekka is literally a combination of the 3 Sen. Names usually match the aesthetic rather than the game mechanic.

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It's not really that complicated, It will be easier for you to just study the icons of the abilities and what icon corresponds to what effect rather than trying to memorize all of the Japanese names of the abilities.You have your 2 personal buffs Shifu & Jinpu, and your 3 Sen generating abilities that you use iajustu to consume. Just focus on reading the tooltips and the icons and you'll have it in no time.A small tip, the color of the icons that generate the 3 Sens are the same color as the 3 Sens on your Sen gauge, this makes it incredibly easy to be able to know what ability generates what Sen. Good luck and have fun.

Just you. It is easy.

its as easy as mnk for me tbh

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Originally Posted by Nastumi

are you being serious ? Sam may need a bit of "get used to it", but to say it's over complicated...

As a reminder, or for people that never played it, that's how FF XI chart looked for weaponskills, and most people in raids had to know it, I even knew people that had it printed and posted behind their screen for quick reference :

https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net...20151120030752

So saying Sam is overcomplicated... nop, sorry, but it may be a bit more technical that pressing 1-x in succession

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:rolleyes:
To perform a skill chain in FFXI you need TP, and that means it only happens a few times a minute at best. Trying to claim it was somehow complicated given the structure of combat in that game is a total joke.

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Originally Posted by Selova

It's not really that complicated, It will be easier for you to just study the icons of the abilities and what icon corresponds to what effect rather than trying to memorize all of the Japanese names of the abilities.You have your 2 personal buffs Shifu & Jinpu, and your 3 Sen generating abilities that you use iajustu to consume. Just focus on reading the tooltips and the icons and you'll have it in no time.A small tip, the color of the icons that generate the 3 Sens are the same color as the 3 Sens on your Sen gauge, this makes it incredibly easy to be able to know what ability generates what Sen. Good luck and have fun.

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I'm just replying to that line of thought that if you know Japanese sword terminology, you might be better off. It's not true. People will remember things mostly by icons and animations as they always would. Most never even care about the actual name or its meaning, confusion in pronunciation is probably the only part that makes it blurry for some. A lot of people like to have a name to things and it solidifies in their mind, if they're not sure on how it say it, it takes more time to place in the rotation.

I'm not saying people should learn Japanese to play a Job, but we are talking about why it has been a pain for some and in what cases it would be easier. I speak Japanese, so the names aren't stranger than the English ones to me, but the RDM abilities are a little harder to grasp till I get more acquainted.

1 hakaze 2 jinpu 3 gekko 4 shipu 5 kasha 6 yukikaze ms1 yaten ms2 gyoten
shift+ 1 kaiten 2 shinten 3 guren 4 merciful eyes 5 seigan ms1 enpi ms2 goad (mouse over macro)
alt+ 1 fuga 2 mangetsu 3 oka 4 kyuten 5 iaijutsu ms1 ageha ms2 leg sweep

ms1 = mouse side button 1

I like to mouse click oGCD buffs, but that's just me, and I do well, not hindering my DPS and rotations.

Just you. Seems overly simplified to me. And I'm not joking or being sarcastic.

go with ninja

123 dmg, 124 (to keep dot and debuff) , 125 (if u need to refresh huton).....profit :/

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Originally Posted by SwarleyMcSwarls

Just you. Seems overly simplified to me. And I'm not joking or being sarcastic.

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It is just the cycling of going through all three combos.

Other DPS Jobs are not this heavy on 3 different combos and most of the time the other Melee DPS will focus on one set with the other combo only used for short moments to refill buffs and debuffs every 30 seconds.

With SAM you can't wait for a buff or debuff to end then use the other combos again but instead must constantly cycle through them to build Sen and Kenki so you can use the Sen and Kenki Skills which are SAM's meat for their DPS.

I was expecting it to be a bit more complicated tbh but I haven't leveled at all so I haven't got to use the oGCD abilities you get later on that make it more complicated so i'll reserve judgement

I wish we had the option to start a new class at level 1 just so we can learn to use the skills like we did for starting classes. Just throwing 20 new skill names at someone and saying figure it out is harsh... This is why I never got good at the last 3 classes they added.

The complexity in SAM is going to come from managing Kenki generation/usage from situation to situation. The base rotation itself is not that difficult.

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Originally Posted by Blindheart

I wish we had the option to start a new class at level 1 just so we can learn to use the skills like we did for starting classes. Just throwing 20 new skill names at someone and saying figure it out is harsh... This is why I never got good at the last 3 classes they added.

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Yeah, I've thought the same thing, but I'm old...and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. :D There's a lot to be said for starting at level 1 and learning from there, which is why I might start off soloing PotD from Floor 1 once I finally get home from work and make it through queue hell and unlock SAM tonight.

The basics are fairly simple, it seems. Rotate through your combos, refresh your one sec DoT when it's about to fall off, and if nothing else, use Midare frequently, at least pre 68. It gets more complicated once you start counting in the oGCD's.

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Originally Posted by Blindheart

I wish we had the option to start a new class at level 1 just so we can learn to use the skills like we did for starting classes. Just throwing 20 new skill names at someone and saying figure it out is harsh... This is why I never got good at the last 3 classes they added.

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Potd starting from 1-10 :) if u are aether capped go solo u will 1shot everything

Did a few fights at 60 (got it 2 hours ago, so not much practice), and its not so difficult to figure out. What IS the problem is maximizing your Kenki gains through positionals and using that in the right spots. Also, you have a few movement tools that you have to judge on whether they are worth the lost DPS through kenki usage or not (for example, if you use the charge or not, since its a 100 potency hit for the expense, whereas a boosted finisher will get more potency, but might cause you to lose one more GCD through normal movement.

I expect the game to not require you to do more than rotate the 3 combos and 2 finishers to beat any content though.

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Originally Posted by Blindheart

I wish we had the option to start a new class at level 1 just so we can learn to use the skills like we did for starting classes. Just throwing 20 new skill names at someone and saying figure it out is harsh... This is why I never got good at the last 3 classes they added.

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or you could just que into low level dungeons where you don't have access to all your skills since your level is scaled down and work your way up. There is also PoTD where you literally start at level 1 and level up at a quick rate gaining your skills as you level. In other words, the options are there if you want to use them.

Idk it feels easy as to me. Rotate your buffs, keep dot up on target, the positionals are hilariously easy to manage. Maybe it'll jump up in difficulty 60+?

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Originally Posted by GruntCandy

From what I understand, you're primarily juggling a couple of combos, so it shouldn't be too far off from say... Dragoon or Nin.

I won't play for a minute though - SAM skill names look like a pain to memorize with no means of connecting the term to the skill. Bio, Aero, etc... are easy enough to understand, but I'm not nearly fluent enough in (Sword? Samurai?) terms to be able to predict or anticipate what skills do from their names or icons.

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the Sam ws Names are 99% weapon skills from the FF 11 samurai some of which bear vague resemblance to what those weapon skills did

I love it. Doing 2 midare with kaiten in potd... 7k crit burst number... cool.

I've played practically nothing but Monk since closed beta and dabbled a little bit into Ninja, so Samurai feels right at home to me.

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Originally Posted by Kyouki

I played around with sam a while today. Well i tried to lol. With every job i played so far i was able to put all the important skills from 1-6 + alt+ 1-6 and 4 thumb buttons on my mouse (+ shift+mouse button). But with sam i am really struggeling how to put these abilities in a proper order. For the first time ever i started to mouse-click on abilities O.o That will cost a lot of time when it comes to raid timers.

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If you don't have a MMO mouse, I suggest getting the Logitech g600. It's fairly inexpensive and you can bind almost 30 keys all to the mouse itself. :)

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Originally Posted by Nastumi

are you being serious ? Sam may need a bit of "get used to it", but to say it's over complicated...

As a reminder, or for people that never played it, that's how FF XI chart looked for weaponskills, and most people in raids had to know it, I even knew people that had it printed and posted behind their screen for quick reference :

https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net...20151120030752

So saying Sam is overcomplicated... nop, sorry, but it may be a bit more technical that pressing 1-x in succession

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LMAO

I had that chart. Though the one I had printed and by my monitor was a condensed version specifically tailored to SAMs.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

If you don't have a MMO mouse, I suggest getting the Logitech g600. It's fairly inexpensive and you can bind almost 30 keys all to the mouse itself. :)

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I play with the G700s and i don't plan to change that :) 9 keybinds on a mouse is enough for me :)

It's just you.

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Originally Posted by GruntCandy

I won't play for a minute though - SAM skill names look like a pain to memorize with no means of connecting the term to the skill.

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Shifu and Kasha are based on a flower/sakura blossom theme (Ka is the flower Sen icon).

Jinpu and Gekko are based on a darkness/moon theme (Getsu is the moon Sen icon)

Yukikaze is based on an snow/ice theme (Setsu is the snowflake Zen icon).

In the end, the names don't mean a lot, though. The combos are basically the same as other melee classes (1-2-3 or 1-2). Once you match the icon that lights up to a button press, you won't even need to know the names. I know with my set up pressing Q, W, E will give me the flower, Q, R, T will give me the moon, and Q, Y will give me the snowflake. If 1 icon is lit, I use a different combo to light a different icon (unless I use it to put up my DoT).

Is a very easy class: no RNG procs, no resource decay, long duration buff/debuff, short CD, you can recover from mistakes quickly, high mobility and it's easy to perform at a decent level.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

Is a very easy class: no RNG procs, no resource decay, long duration buff/debuff, short CD, you can recover from mistakes quickly, high mobility and it's easy to perform at a decent level.

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Exactly... In the end Kenki management will be what really separates the good players from the great players. But you can still perform well if you're at least decent at that aspect. I think that's what they were going for in this expansion - less of a skill gap between the best and worst, without making combat feel unrewarding to good players.

I think as well, SAM is pretty easy. Not as easy as RDM tough, but still one of the easier Jobs.

Is easy... just love 17k crit now... soon they will nerf it. Enjoy while it last..

Its a super-simple job to play in comparison to the now-inferior other DPS roles, and it puts out the biggest numbers, AND is usually the best recipient for any force multiplier. We are playing the unbalanced golden child of this expansion, and I fully expect either massive nerfs to happen, or everyone and their dog being SAM.