SAM out classing all other DPS

[Ryaz]

One thing I will say about this thread... I can definitely see why SE doesn't like parsers. People really do care only about numbers.

[Oscura]

One thing I will say about this thread... I can definitely see why SE doesn't like parsers. People really do care only about numbers.

SE doesn't dislike parsers because people care about numbers. They're afraid of harassment and a certain incident in the JP community also lit that fire.

Also yes, people only care about numbers, because everything in a MMORPG is decided by numbers. Whether or not you get loot is decided by a number. Whether or not you survive an attack is decided by an equation of numbers. How much damage you do is decided by a number. Hell, whether or not you're able to gather something is also decided by a percentage, or a number.

This ridiculous notion that "numbers don't matter," when they decide absolutely everything aside from player skill is getting very annoying.

[GospelVhae]

This ridiculous notion that "numbers don't matter," when they decide absolutely everything aside from player skill is getting very annoying.

I can imagine this guy playing his SAM and shrugging off whatever damage values he gets

"hm, 26k Midare Satsugekka"

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I can imagine this guy playing his SAM and shrugging off whatever damage values he gets

"hm, 26k Midare Satsugekka"

I've seen parses with SAM at 4600, and NIN at 4400. if you add in trick attack, does that not put NIN at the same level as SAM? If we are going off that, then its the other classes that need buffs, not SAM needing a nerf.

and thats 35k setsugekkas thank you. Also, BLM was getting 22k crits at 60 lol. no one complained they were OP.

[Oscura]

I've seen parses with SAM at 4600, and NIN at 4400. if you add in trick attack, does that not put NIN at the same level as SAM? If we are going off that, then its the other classes that need buffs, not SAM needing a nerf.

and thats 35k setsugekkas thank you. Also, BLM was getting 22k crits at 60 lol. no one complained they were OP.

No one complained about Black Mages at 60 because they were substantially harder to play than Samurai is. There was little to no margin for error to get good dps out of BLM. Many people I know have switched to Samurai simply because it's so easy compared to Monk. It's also far more rewarding.

Edit: Also, I do agree that other classes need buffs, rather than SAM getting nerfed. My only problem is I don't trust SE to not overbuff any classes. It's easier to nerf than buff, it's part of why you see nerfs more than buffs in most games period. AST was a good example of what goes wrong with buffing a class in the 3.x series. People shrugged off WHM.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

No one complained about Black Mages at 60 because they were substantially harder to play than Samurai is. There was little to no margin for error to get good dps out of BLM. Many people I know have switched to Samurai simply because it's so easy compared to Monk. It's also far more rewarding.

Edit: Also, I do agree that other classes need buffs, rather than SAM getting nerfed. My only problem is I don't trust SE to not overbuff any classes. It's easier to nerf than buff, it's part of why you see nerfs more than buffs in most games period. AST was a good example of what goes wrong with buffing a class in the 3.x series. People shrugged off WHM.

Yes, but they "nerfed" war and smn/sch, and everyone has thrown fits its now unbalanced, nerfs make everyone unhappy.

[Nominous]

No one complained about Black Mages at 60 because they were substantially harder to play than Samurai is. There was little to no margin for error to get good dps out of BLM. Many people I know have switched to Samurai simply because it's so easy compared to Monk. It's also far more rewarding.

Edit: Also, I do agree that other classes need buffs, rather than SAM getting nerfed. My only problem is I don't trust SE to not overbuff any classes. It's easier to nerf than buff, it's part of why you see nerfs more than buffs in most games period. AST was a good example of what goes wrong with buffing a class in the 3.x series. People shrugged off WHM.

Difficulty is not always an objective concept. Some people might find BLM easy because they're accustomed to casters. Some people might find MNK braindead because they understand it's flow.

Also. People choose to acknowledge the more difficult notions and complexities within the BLM rotation, probably because it's more readily apparent. People choose to ignore the complex notions with SAM, probably because the community at large knows so little about them. As a subjective statement, MNK is hard to pick up, easy to maximize once learned. SAM is easy to pick up, but extremely taxing to maximize with.

Even just on the surface level. What happens when you lose a buff as MNK? Since you have branching combos, you just choose the buff you need to reapply and you're set. On SAM, you have to actively think about which Sen you have active. If you lost your speed buff, which is a part of your Flower Sen combo, but you already have the Flower Sen active, how will you avoid overlapping the Flower Sen with your buff combo? Do you complete it and waste a Sen? Or do you use Hagakure early, and waste the potential 40 Kenki from not finishing your other 2 combos? Or do you want to use your one Sen to reapply your DoT element early instead? Or maybe you want to finish activating all 3 Sen without your buff, and then Hagakure to keep your GCD rolling. Or maybe you want to finish all 3 combos without your buff, and then Midare because there's a mechanic? That's just one aspect of SAM, and it's immediately more difficult concepts than MNK has in their rotation.

As far as nerfs and buffs go... It's all within the aftermath of either, and the mindset that goes behind either action.

Buffing a Job results in restoring the current players' faith in the Job they love. It results in bringing more people to the Job. It is an indirect admission that the Job is underperforming, or otherwise unappealing, and that they want to make them more appealing.

Nerfing a Job results in almost nothing positive. You're almost always taking away one of potentially multiple 'fun', 'exciting' or 'unique' aspects of the Job (in quotes for a reason). You're taking a Job that people may have enjoyed, and lessened their enjoyment with it, unless it's a nerf that brings them up in other ways. It's almost specifically a means of making the Job less appealing, in efforts to make others... more appealing by comparison? It will result in people dropping the Job, even if it's a 'fair' nerf, because nobody wants to perform the same, but be rewarded less for it. If you nerf something, it just creates reasons to buff it in the future. 9 times out of 10, nerfing is the wrong decision.

It's not surprising they'd rather buff things. And even then, it becomes an argument of what's more important to the community. Performing at or slightly above the expected standard, and having their Job feel like it's fun, with an exciting playstyle? Or performing similar amounts of DPS as another Job, even though it's a part of said Job's identity as opposed to their own Job's identity?

Right now, at least in this thread, people are far too concerned with SAM's identity, as if it's competing with their own Job's identity. Spoilers- It's not, unless you're maybe a DRG, MNK, or BLM. And at least 1, if not 2 of those (hint: not DRG) are competing just fine.

[Oscura]

wall of text

It is not always an objective concept, that is correct. However, the consistently high numbers and constant evidence of the massive difference in DPS numbers is staggering. The fact of the matter is that if Samurai is constantly outperforming other classes, it's either really easy, or too strong. The average player can't even manage playing this game very well and I've seen players with weaker skill-sets perform well with Samurai. A BLM's difficulty has nothing to do with "being accustomed to casters," there were plenty of people who played SMN and/or healers who specifically avoided it because the skill ceiling for that class was so high in Heavensward. Also, Monk is hard to pick up and easy to maximize? I greatly disagree. Edit: (I just realized you stated that subjectively, but regardless.)

You say Samurai taxing, and your reasoning for this is...decision making? That's the hard part about it? A bunch of what-if scenarios of mostly meaningless conjecture that only happen at certain moments? The whole reason Monk is so difficult is because unlike Samurai if you lose your greased lightning stacks your damage takes a massive hit. You have to regain your stacks all over again. Right now Monk only has two buttons to properly restore their stacks, one of them being on a 60 second cooldown (which requires you to get hit AND take yourself out of DPS stance, a DPS loss) and another on a 3 minute one. You are arguing from a sheer dummy standpoint. Managing mechanics on a Monk and keeping your stacks up, while keeping your buffs up, in order to keep doing the most damaging parts of your combos, is the optimal way to play. If you keep having to constantly apply Twin Snakes and Demolish more than you're doing Snap Punch and True Strike, you're doing poorly. Being able to weave Forbidden Chakras at any point in your combo if you get lucky with crits or brotherhood, a function that purely relies on RNG. Fact of the matter is, Monk play is more reactionary, and Samurai play is based around decision-making. Like you said, the difficult is dependent on the user, but I don't really see that many strong Monk parses, do you?

The worst thing that can happen to a Samurai is that they have to decide positives and negatives. That means people who have a calmer thinking process can play it easier. A lot of people cannot play on reaction either because they're simply not good at it, or they may find it too difficult for their own reaction times. It's partially why some people play FFXIV, the GCD and combat speed is very slow in this game. Monks directly contradict that, having the fastest GCD casting in the game and having a mechanic that requires you to have as much uptime as possible. If it was so easy to master I would see far more advanced monks in any portion of this game's lifespan, and I haven't. Meanwhile I've seen more Samurai than I've ever seen Monks performing very strong DPS and high levels.

As for buffing vs nerfing, I agree with this yet again. I just don't trust Square Enix. I'm always an advocate for buffing other classes over nerfing specific ones. I just don't trust SE to do it properly. I would rather not read in a few months complaints from Samurai players about how DRG, MNK or MCH was overbuffed and they bring more utility + damage than them.

As for SAM's identity vs my job's, I couldn't care less. My only 70 class is Red Mage. I just personally think SAM is too strong compared to the other classes with very little risk involved. Nothing SAM does influences my class' position in any sort of hierarchy, and my class works well with it. I didn't like WAR in 3.0 either.

[Erys]

Also, BLM was getting 22k crits at 60 lol.

You said it yourself. Critical hit.
If I'm not mistaken a 22k midare setsugekka should be a non crit-non direct hit midare. Since dragoon full boosted Full Thrust direct crit is 16k, and midare setsugekka without any buffs is almost double the potency of a normal non buffed Full Thrust, I'd assume that a crit midare should round 35k and a direct crit around 40k.
So yeah... they are op.

[Leonus]

You said it yourself. Critical hit.
If I'm not mistaken a 22k midare setsugekka should be a non crit-non direct hit midare. Since dragoon full boosted Full Thrust direct crit is 16k, and midare setsugekka without any buffs is almost double the potency of a normal non buffed Full Thrust, I'd assume that a crit midare should round 35k and a direct crit around 40k.
So yeah... they are op.

Not true, at all. I 314 with crit/det/direct hit melds I hit midare's not crit for 15-18k. Crits put me in the 20's and harder crit are high 20s to low 30s. 40k Midare is rare. Just because someone links it in a video does not mean they happen that often. Do they happen? Yea, but not anything close to what most people believe.