Roles for Samurai, Red Mage, Dancer

[Welsper59]

You just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper. I'm not sure how long you played, or as what job, but you might as well just stop trying to pretend you know how SAM and Overwhelm worked. Your statements here would make career SAM's in FFXI cringe.

Just to address a few of your points though: No one stood in front of Kirin during RotZ days, because not even a tank stood in front of Kirin. Kirin was kited by a tank, not tanked in place. I suppose you could technically argue that the kiting tank was in front of Kirin but, regardless, Kirin was FAR from a typical situation. And, anyway, Overwhelm was not even available in those early Kirin days. I can't remember exactly when limit point skills and traits were added, but I think it wasn't until well after Chains of Promathia.

For most, if not all of the other monsters you named, TP abilities had a charge time, and there was plenty of time for a SAM to move out of the way to avoid them. Tanks could not do the same, of course, since mobs in that game turned to face their targets, but for anyone but the hate target, dodging was still a thing. And, for the very rare mob where it was simply too dangerous to stand in front - SAMs didn't stand in front. Simple as that. They were less effective against such mobs, but job balance was never a strong concern in that game, and such mobs were few and far between anyway.

At any rate, I never claimed that SAMs spend ALL their time in front of the mob. Just that that is where they did the best damage. As you said, TP was typically generated from the side, and then weaponskills performed up front. Which still meant that SAMs spent a lot of time up front, since weaponskilling often was kind of their schtick. Like everyone else, they avoided damage where they could, but that risky zone in front of the mob was still their place, something which is practically never true in this game.

I'm also amused at what you assume you know about my performance in that game. I played for fourteen years, studied the meta extensively, and was a respected and trusted player. Your insinuations are frankly hilarious. XD

The bottom line is that, however little you feel I know about FFXI's SAM, you clearly know even less. It's not a fertile ground for supporting the points you're trying to make.

In the case of Kirin, that's not entirely true. It was a common strategy to kite, especially at first, but some JP groups straight up tanked it when people learned about the potency of melee better (and obviously their gear got a little better) in combination with BRD buffs + Soul Voice to just burn him down ASAP. SAM still didn't stand in front of it though if they could avoid it, even then lol. Maybe we were a little more advanced than some groups, although we did do the kiting for a while. If you could evade most/all of the abilities I mentioned all the time, you had some perfect connection or lightning reflexes. Some abilities took time, others did not and the game registered you in front as a result. I'm not sure on when Merits were added neither, I want to say end of Zilart, but you might be right on CoP.

As far as your not claiming to stand in front at all times, you jumped in and claimed I was wrong about what I was saying, which admittedly applies to my comment on the trait being useless, but not the other parts, though that was more aimed at being useless for the reason it was brought up. I was replying to someone that used that as evidence to say SAM was designed as tank... in other words, that justified them being in front of the mob at all times. So get defensive all you want, you jumped in without even knowing what you were engaging yourself with.

Factually incorrect. You really don't know much about FFXI's SAM so I don't know why you brought it up in the first place.

Seigan is literally a tanking stance that you can keep up full-time.

All right, fine, I concede to that. "Once" wasn't accurate in combination of Seigan, which is what you meant, though it could still wipe out from one AoE or multihit abilities. Seigan was a stance, but it didn't guarantee anything. You could still lose Third Eye after 1 normal hit lol. Likewise, the counter wasn't even guaranteed nor as high as MNK.

So I have to ask again, if your points about SAM justify it being a tank, are you saying the same for MNK? MNK had better consistent output, better evasion, higher HP, more tools to use to mitigate damage, and default Guard and Counter skills. THF even tanked better than SAM at later points.