Samurai 5.1 thoughts?

I can't seem to find what the census is on this class now. I like that I can use Shoha far more often but I feel they took away some power from this class and gave it to DRG.

I'm progging Hades EX and I feel that despite my best efforts, popping potions and using good food I feel that I'm trailing behind somewhat. Maybe I'm comparing myself to people who do savage raids and have better gear. Granted, my ilvl is 462 and not one piece is below 460. Just don't have the time for savage anymore, EX trials are basically my only endgame now.

My opener I can manage to fit in three midares, shoha, and senei in a single STR infusement (or whatever they're called.) I might get lucky for a second shoha if I'm fast enough. Probably not the most optimal, but it works for me.

Before someone says "just go MNK", I'm a former MNK that switched because I just can't click with the constant changes, so what are your thoughts on the "improved" samurai?

How do you know if you are trailig behind? If you mean that your percentile is low then thats could be because you are undergeared.

It basically feels the exact same but I'm hitting one more button every so often and it's personal damage is now decisively higher than Monk's instead of being marginally higher. Shoha doesn't have much impact in terms of its sound effect or animation compared to basically every skill on Samurai. There's serious oomph in the way an Iaijutsu or even Shinten hits but Shoha is honestly pretty bland by comparison, to the point where I'm not actually sure what it's animation is compared to everything else. Overall I'll do slightly more damage on it than I did before, and the nerfs to the Shifu/Jinpu/Yukikaze are all mild enough that I barely notice them.

Honestly I'd rather they have kept Shoha as it was and buffed something closer to the jobs core concept like Iaijutsu to bring up Samurai's damage. I was also one of the few people who didn't think there was much wrong with Shoha as it was designed because Samurai's kit really didn't have any niche buttons. Having a single niche button devoted to downtime isn't any more of a problem to Samurai as Umbral Ice is to Black Mage when the rest of it's kit is so well put together.

SAM is extremely strong right now, hovering in the top 3 DPS for all savage encounters except E1S, but it's to be expected that SAM would be outperformed by classes with much stronger cleave there. If your concern is with your own DPS, there are up-to-date guides and resources you can use to help improve your gameplay. A 460 weapon will do you no favors if you are comparing yourself to people who are clearing savage, as even small differences in weapon damage translate to huge differences in DPS.

Tsubame-Gaeshi is sitll a very badly designed skill that forces SAM into a rigid rotation when most of its kit is not designed for it. The class is certainly stronger but I can't help but feel Tsubame Gaeshi is a mistake that won't be fixed until the next expansion.

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Originally Posted by RadicalPesto

Tsubame-Gaeshi is sitll a very badly designed skill that forces SAM into a rigid rotation when most of its kit is not designed for it. The class is certainly stronger but I can't help but feel Tsubame Gaeshi is a mistake that won't be fixed until the next expansion.

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I was quite surprised that they didn't reduce tsubames cd to 55 so it would become more flexible

This has been a much delved into topic of discussion on several forums and the general consensus for the most part is that SAM even with the most recent changes to shoha in 5.1 still feels very lack-luster in terms of dps. IMHO (and I cant stress the MY part of that enough) SAM dps is still no where near where it needs to be, now granted that the changes were a step in the right direction but the class itself is still not living up to its potential, the reasoning behind this is that for a class that brings nothing to the table but raw dps it should be towering over the other melee classes.
Its the same issue that the class had in the previous expansion where its more beneficial to recruit a dragoon, monk, nin or black mage to fill dps spots because not only is their dps miles above the samurai but they also bring party/raid utility/buffs with them which makes the sam class seem mediocre. Now, dont get me wrong I love my sam and dont intend to change just to play the flavor of the month but I do believe it needs to have a much stronger presence as a dps class if not in terms of having it do more damage at least give it a utility that makes it desirable for statics but again this is all just personal opinion.

Samurai brings more DPS than any other melee class on the game even if you account for those classes' buffs. It doesn't need even more DPS. Utility classes were overpowered compared to Selfish DPS last expansion, but the solution to that isn't to just buff selfish classes until utility jobs are useless. If you're using fflogs as a measure keep in mind the default statistics already account for synergy buffs in classes that have them, meaning their actual DPS is even lower but fflogs calculates the value of their buffs and adds it to their DPS.

The issue with 5.X Samuraï isn't its damage tbh, but the rotation that feels way too weird because of Tsubame. Tbh, solving the rotation issue would solve every issue that Sam has right now, and would make the class feel more fluid, and you wouldn't be as penalized as you are right now for not using Tsubame perfectly on cd (because you didn't want to greed at a specific part of the fight, meaning you're drifting your entire rotation/burst. Again, you shouldn't be punished as much for doing a mechanic properly).

Atm it is way harder to play Sam at max efficiency than it was before, because the only thing you have to do is get a 100% uptime on every fight for that, which a lot of players do not want to do (you often don't want to risk dying and getting the dead debuff which would result in a greater dps loss) or simply cannot do because of high ping. And that is the huge design flaw of the current Sam.

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Originally Posted by Eliadil

The issue with 5.X Samuraï isn't its damage tbh, but the rotation that feels way too weird because of Tsubame. Tbh, solving the rotation issue would solve every issue that Sam has right now, and would make the class feel more fluid, and you wouldn't be as penalized as you are right now for not using Tsubame perfectly on cd (because you didn't want to greed at a specific part of the fight, meaning you're drifting your entire rotation/burst. Again, you shouldn't be punished as much for doing a mechanic properly).

Atm it is way harder to play Sam at max efficiency than it was before, because the only thing you have to do is get a 100% uptime on every fight for that, which a lot of players do not want to do (you often don't want to risk dying and getting the dead debuff which would result in a greater dps loss) or simply cannot do because of high ping. And that is the huge design flaw of the current Sam.

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I think you've hit the nail, what hurts me the most is not having much uptime. When doing Hades EX there are a few mechanics that you have to move away from your target (line aoe+meteor in phase 2, orbs, chandeliers, and doors in phase one... worse when the tank keeps moving the target around) sometimes shadow spread when you can't be too close to him or you get hit twice or are too far from a safe gap before the next SS goes off.

It's super solid. Tsubame-gaeshi just needs to be 55 seconds like Gnashing Fang to compensate for varying Skill Speed and It's perfect now, IMO.

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

It's super solid. Tsubame-gaeshi just needs to be 55 seconds like Gnashing Fang to compensate for varying Skill Speed and It's perfect now, IMO.

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And then you'll run the risk of not lining with the raid buff window, which could be really bad, especially since devs told us that Sam worked at its best when using allied buffs.

I think that the best thing possible would be to allow a "Tsubame window" after you used a Iaijutsu, making Tsubame available for a certain time (maybe four or five GCD) which would dramatically reduce the need to get specific SkS tier just to hit Tsubame on cooldown, and would also get rid of this horrible loop rotation (that forces you to overwrite a Yukikaze combo, which doesn't feel good at all imo). Strangely, the Shifu 3% buff seems to be what makes Tsubame not line up right at the end of a Midare, tho I'm not 100% sure about that.

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Originally Posted by Endariel

I was quite surprised that they didn't reduce tsubames cd to 55 so it would become more flexible

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That would probably hurt more than help. Remember, it's not the CD that matters so much as its alignment to (1) when you'd normally have Midare available anyways and to (2) raid buffs. Desyncing the two won't help SAM; quite the opposite.

A grace period of even a mere 5-seconds, however, would do wonders for it, especially now that TG interacts awkwardly with Shoha at high ping when going into Midare-Kaeshi: Midare already at 2 stacks.

As for SAM's performance, it's doing just fine at high levels of play.

If the question is one of the flexibility of SAM's rotation, virtually all problems could be fixed by simply adding a second charge to tsubame. If the devs were worried about SAM having too much damage from gaining an additional use of tsubame over the course of the fight due to having an extra charge, they could simply lower the potency of an ogcd/weaponskill to compensate, e.g. 10 potency off Hakaze or some such.

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Originally Posted by Kelpie

If the question is one of the flexibility of SAM's rotation, virtually all problems could be fixed by simply adding a second charge to tsubame. If the devs were worried about SAM having too much damage from gaining an additional use of tsubame over the course of the fight due to having an extra charge, they could simply lower the potency of an ogcd/weaponskill to compensate, e.g. 10 potency off Hakaze or some such.

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Then you still end up overtuning SAM in short fights and undertuning them in long fights, all without actually fixing any of the issues which would cause the delay in TG usage in the first place.

Unfortunately, unless Hagakure is reverted to its previous form, Sam will never be able to line up properly with buffs without wasting a few GCDs as filler. It's been buffed slightly so using filler doesn't hurt quite as much as pre-5.1 at least, but you still want to make sure you fall into that buff window.

The only really exception to this are high sks speed (~2.00 GCD tier and lower) which are probably better off freestyling because you start to use a lot of filler then, which will really detract from your DPS. That potentially causes a slew of other problems, such as Higanbana possibly falling off or having to delay Tsubame, neither of which is desireable.

Ive seen samurais stacking skill speed at around 1.96, you no longer have an issue with Tsubame, Maybe this is an issue more with gear then design. no matter what you end up clipping it, From the math that i've done you do get extra hits in a rotatation but i wouldn't really call the fillers Negative, remember you are building extra resources which results in flat potency increases, i think this solution will be solved with increased levels of skill speed, it doesn't result in Desyncing, What i find odd about this having tested it, i suggest other samurais test this and you'll start seeing what i mean.

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

I think you've hit the nail, what hurts me the most is not having much uptime. When doing Hades EX there are a few mechanics that you have to move away from your target (line aoe+meteor in phase 2, orbs, chandeliers, and doors in phase one... worse when the tank keeps moving the target around) sometimes shadow spread when you can't be too close to him or you get hit twice or are too far from a safe gap before the next SS goes off.

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Most groups handle Broken Faith by staying in the center and eating vuln stacks. You might see certain casters doing the dance to prevent their spells from getting interrupted but for the most part, you shouldn't need to move as Samurai here.

Nabriales Tethers and Meteors--how far are you moving out? You can aim your tether while staying on the add itself. If your tether is long, you're doing it wrong. Certain tethers can be aimed without leaving melee--you just need to aim it at any meteor besides the second, without hitting another dps--this is easiest when people aren't standing off in the boonies.

Books and orbs are pretty much ez mode for samurai, you yeet yourself out, enpi, yeet back in.

The only other downtime you have is during Ascian Prime.