Samurai Feedback Post

[Kabooa]

Honestly, the piercing debuff is the reason DRG is a mandatory slot in raids, and it's a failure of design when you look at another job, monk in this case, who's blunt damage resistance does absolutely nothing to contribute to party damage. This is where rather than advocate for SAM to get a piercing debuff, maybe we just have magic resistance down and physical resistance down. Divide the melee jobs into two groups so maybe MNK/DRG give physical resist down and NIN/SAM give magic resistance down.

You give it to the tanks. Giving DPS permanent vulnerabilities enforces more party compositions, where as giving it to tanks does not. It wouldn't even have to be different vulnerabilities among them, just each tank job is capable of applying a stack, at 3/6% increased damage taken. Let it go up to 9% if you want to triple tank something.

[wereotter]

You give it to the tanks. Giving DPS permanent vulnerabilities enforces more party compositions, where as giving it to tanks does not. It wouldn't even have to be different vulnerabilities among them, just each tank job is capable of applying a stack, at 3/6% increased damage taken. Let it go up to 9% if you want to triple tank something.

Give it to the tanks and you might as well remove it entirely as there will always be a tank in party content. Split magic and physical resistance between the 4 melee, and you get a situation where one slot needs to be one of two melee and the other needs to be one of the other two. This would then work closer to the idea that groups might have for the other two DPS one BRD/MCH and one BLM/RDM/SMN and you'll have a melee DPS in charge of buffing the damage of each.

NIN I would think would be on the magic end only because it also does magic damage with its ninjutsu, the other three can sort as needed from there, though might be smarter, in retrospect, to make DRG the other magic DPS if only to shake up the current existing meta and force SAM/MNK into the physical slots.

[Kabooa]

Give it to the tanks and you might as well remove it entirely as there will always be a tank in party content..

Give it to the DPS and you might as well remove it entirely. If the point isn't to hard-lock classes into compositions, it makes even less sense to keep them on DPS. Permanent vulnerabilities have traditionally been the realm of tanks in these style of games because it cements them as the primary Assist target, it gives them meaningful damage contribution without letting them encroach on the DPS, and it prevents forced party compositions / exclusion based solely on who brings the Vulnerability.

You get the ability to pick and choose your composition without having to juggle which vulnerabilities are present for you to take advantage of. It's on the tanks, you're solid, grab what you want / play what you want, instead of going "We have a machinist, we need a dragoon"

[wereotter]

It's on the tanks, you're solid, grab what you want / play what you want, instead of going "We have a machinist, we need a dragoon"

Which is why my suggestion is eliminate piercing, slashing, and blunt as separate debuffs and just make it "physical"

Separating the 4 melee DPS into two categories, one that boosts physical damage and one that boosts magical, will mean that you'll have your choice of two melee DPS for each slot as you will ultimately want one of each. As it is now, the DRG/NIN comp is practically mandatory because of enmity and piercing, but if you gave the two jobs both the same magic resist down debuff then gave monk and samurai the physical down debuff, you then want one of those both to boost tank damage, but also to boost the damage of any ranged physical and your other melee, but would still want a dragoon or ninja to boost healer and caster DPS.

[Ryaz]

You give it to the tanks. Giving DPS permanent vulnerabilities enforces more party compositions, where as giving it to tanks does not. It wouldn't even have to be different vulnerabilities among them, just each tank job is capable of applying a stack, at 3/6% increased damage taken. Let it go up to 9% if you want to triple tank something.

Exactly. When I played The Secret World, tanks were responsible for debuffing enemies- Expose and Debilitate, which increased damage taken by enemies and decreased damage done by them. DPS was responsible for damage and party buffs. It was simple and efficient and allowed for various DPS to be played without worry.

I honestly think that's the best way to handle it.