So hows SAM doing? Still fun?

Just came back from a year's hiatus, and the first thing I've noticed is how MNK and BLM are now the most OP thing since...well, original BLM. Before i only seriously played Scholar and a bit of Warrior, so i thought i'd give a DPS a proper try.

I'm thinking SAM, but all i've heard so far are differing opinions about how Shadowbringers neutered it and that the level 80 skill is garbage, or its as OP and fun as it was back in Stormblood.

What do you guys think? I'm generally looking to play this one somewhat seriously.

It still plays nearly "the same" but I found it lacking. While they are still powerhouses in the personal dmg-department, ranked by rDPS Monks and Dragoons do more DMG now.

But if the job is fun for you just play it. There is nothing really wrong with it.

If you found it fun before, you'll still find it fun, since not much has changed. Yes, the lvl 80 skill garbage and only situational, it's not what you are looking for in your final and thus supposedly ultimate, skill. In the last live letter they said they plan to do changes in 5.1 (they didn't make it for 5.05) to make it less situational. You need to charge it up using meditation, the skill that gives you kenki but automatically stops if you do ANYTHING (even turning). They said they want to add other ways to charge up the skill.

I am only level 55 on SAM, but this being the first melee DPS that I've gotten into, I absolutely love it. Super fun job IMO. And that's what I'm looking for in a job, how much fun I have playing it. To me, SAM seems to have it all: high dmg single target, aoe, gap closer, range skill, self-sustain. It reminds me of my ESO build that revolved around high dmg and self-sustain, which allowed me to solo A LOT of ESO group content. And while I realize these games are highly different when it comes to group content, I still love what SAM brings to the table. I don't see how someone could not have fun playing this job.

I should point out I never played SAM before now, I'm only going by what other people have said about it.

I'm wondering if the damage it does over most DPS is worth the complete lack of support it provides.

Tsubame Gaeshi is kind of boring, but it's basically the same job from Stormblood. Hagakure just needs a meaningful boon for the Sen reset and it'll be solid. (Cough, Meditate)

Stormblood samurai pretty much.

My opinion, the job is less enjoyable than it was in Stormblood.

It's almost like if you look at Samurai, Dark Knight, and Warrior they looked at them and thought "oooh you like this one big move we gave you? What if you did it like 14 times in a row??"

So they took away Hagakure (and reintroduced it in a much weakened state) to replace it with being able to do two midares back to back sometimes. The job is a lot slower and less engaging than it used to be, and I lost all interest in playing it at all before I even got it to level 80, but finished leveling it anyway to get the extra striking gear out of my armory chest.

Samurai is basically SB but removed the hagakure usage so less shintens while now making it more midares. As for how they are right now well as a pure dps they do less than both MNK/DRG who both have utility but still do more. If you just looking for fun then you will most likely find it fun if not bothered that gonna do less shintens and less sen manipulation than before.

I love the SAM, it's a lot of fun and everything flows together really well. SAM's damage is a little lower than it should be (DRGs and MNKs do as much or more personal DPS but also provide raid utility) but the Devs mentioned buffing it next patch I believe.

I love it but it needs some buffs.

DRG was equal, or better than SAM on expansion release and even after SAM buffs DRG is still around the same. And MNK got HUGE, MASSIVE buffs in the last patch that makes it compete with BLM for top DPS. Which is beyond nuts.

SAM should be getting some love next big patch (5.1) though.

It flows well, after they returned Hagakure as a return to baseline button it basically flows the same as Stormblood Samurai but with more Midare’s.

It should do more damage but it plays well.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

I love it but it needs some buffs.

DRG was equal, or better than SAM on expansion release and even after SAM buffs DRG is still around the same. And MNK got HUGE, MASSIVE buffs in the last patch that makes it compete with BLM for top DPS. Which is beyond nuts.

SAM should be getting some love next big patch (5.1) though.

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I'm not 100% convinced that SAM needs a buff so much as DRG and MNK need nerfs. Those two are absolutely over turned. BLM too.

Also Monk didn't get any actual damage buffs, it got entirely quality of life improvements, but no potency increases. The only possible buff monk got was the change to Riddle of Fire which lost it's increase to the GCD on the monk, but in turn also now buffs the monk's damage less. It's hard to say if the balance evened out or not, but might have been a slight buff? Much less than the buffs samurais got. Monk's changes were quality of life designed to make maintaining greased lightning easier.

That said I will reiterate that monks and dragoons are doing too much damage. Samurais might need a slight buff, and on the note of melee jobs in general, ninjas aren't doing enough. Hopefully the fix this because the melee balance is really bad right now.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

snip.

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The riddle of fire change was a massive buff, the slight loss of damage does not compare the haste down the skill no longer has. Samurai’s “buffs” amounted to shoha giving like 10 more dps. Monk is overtuned, drg is fine, blm is fine, nin is utterly bad and sam is slightly undertuned. They all still need massive QoL changes bar black mage. We will see what happens in 5.08/5.1 but as it stands mnk is about 700 average rdps ahead of sam. Rdm/smn and ranged dps also need to be re examined.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

I'm not 100% convinced that SAM needs a buff so much as DRG and MNK need nerfs. Those two are absolutely over turned. BLM too.

Also Monk didn't get any actual damage buffs, it got entirely quality of life improvements, but no potency increases. The only possible buff monk got was the change to Riddle of Fire which lost it's increase to the GCD on the monk, but in turn also now buffs the monk's damage less. It's hard to say if the balance evened out or not, but might have been a slight buff? Much less than the buffs samurais got. Monk's changes were quality of life designed to make maintaining greased lightning easier.

That said I will reiterate that monks and dragoons are doing too much damage. Samurais might need a slight buff, and on the note of melee jobs in general, ninjas aren't doing enough. Hopefully the fix this because the melee balance is really bad right now.

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Never ask for nerfs.

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Originally Posted by RidiculouslyComplicated

The riddle of fire change was a massive buff, the slight loss of damage does not compare the haste down the skill no longer has. Samurai’s “buffs” amounted to shoha giving like 10 more dps. Monk is overtuned, drg is fine, blm is fine, nin is utterly bad and sam is slightly undertuned. They all still need massive QoL changes bar black mage. We will see what happens in 5.08/5.1 but as it stands mnk is about 700 average rdps ahead of sam. Rdm/smn and ranged dps also need to be re examined.

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I’d have to do the math on it for potencies. But you only get 2 more weapon skills under riddle of Fire now as opposed to before (and that's with a high skill speed build with a lower than 2 second GCD), and don’t get that bigger buff on demolish. It might work out to be a slight buff, but not a massive one. That’s not to say that monk isn’t over performing in general, because it absolutely is. I suspect they didn’t consider how auto attack damage would scale with a fourth stack of greased lightning since that will add up a lot.

Also I agree. Red mage has needed help ever since it was introduced. Embolden isn’t enough support and I think the devs are over valuing vercure and verraise. There’s not really a reason red mages should be lagging so far behind. Summoners they already said are going to be looked at in 5.08 and 5.1

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Originally Posted by wereotter

So they took away Hagakure (and reintroduced it in a much weakened state) to replace it with being able to do two midares back to back sometimes.

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No, they replaced it with Ikishoden, a flat 50 kenki buff. Yes it generates less kenki (50 instead of 60) and on a longer cooldown (60 instead of 40) and leads to more midares (due to not spending sen to get that kenki), but Tsubame-Gaeshi has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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Originally Posted by armandojc3

Stormblood samurai pretty much.

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How? SB SAM had incredibly tight windows when playing at minimum SkS, and even could make use of Yaten-Enpi in SkS-priority builds to perfect their Hagakure timings, with a 3-2-3 repeating Sen count on said Hagakure. What took at least upper-mid SkS for rotational variance before is now available to all as baseline rotational leeway, and then made even more lax via the 13% attack speed at level 78. Add the lack of Hagakure to that and ShB SAM just doesn't have that level of complexity or urgency.

On topic: If you liked spamming Midare before, you'll still definitely like ShB SAM. Otherwise, try it out for yourself because you won't fully know until level 78.

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Originally Posted by armandojc3

Never ask for nerfs.

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So... always ask for power creep and content being made trivial?

when looking at e4s, dont think blm need nerfs..

but mnk might need a sligt nerf, like Smn got a nerf after beeing top dps in ca. 4.1 (top dps with utility is never good)

and sam a buff ofc

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

So... always ask for power creep and content being made trivial?

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You say it like its the only option. It is not, at all.

Sam is still fun, if a bit clunkier to play (having to eat a Sen with a terrible version of Hagakure to line up with buff windows is painful). Damage-wise it needs some buffs. It's very hard to compete with MNK right now, which is just running away with it after their buffs in 5.05. Out of 7 Titania Ex runs tonight, I think I beat out the monk once, maybe twice and that took me playing absolutely perfectly and using food. The damage monks put out, along with being able to ignore most positionals, is just hard to compete with. Downtime especially hurts as you have to realign yourself mid fight to adjust-- ie, if you're off the boss for a few seconds and normally eat a Gekko Sen with Hagakure, you have to predict ahead and adjust on the fly, maybe not eating that Sen or instead eating a Yukikaze Sen.

Just gonna leave this here.

https://streamable.com/ggs6s

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Originally Posted by armandojc3

You say it like its the only option. It is not, at all.

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It is if you refuse to nerf even the jobs which are clearly overpowered at present, pushing everyone else up instead to the same level of overtuning.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It is if you refuse to nerf even the jobs which are clearly overpowered at present, pushing everyone else up instead to the same level of overtuning.

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Finally I read someone else who gets this.

In every post it’s always 101 people saying “no don’t nerf me buff other jobs” this is a indirect nerf to your job reguardless ontop of this damage % wise it comes out identical. Weather u buff class A by 5% or nerf class b by 5% the dps difference is still reduced by 5%

I don’t understand why people seem to freak out at this logic, they’d prefer 3/4s of the job list to be buffed to ensure they aren’t nerfed but ignore the impact this will have on current content.

This is how u get to jobs doing a million dps over time and requiring stat squish’s to fix.