Quote Originally Posted by MomomiMomi View Post
That would be a pretty silly question on your part, since I do know that sneak attack has a front position effect. Not only because, hey, I play with other ninjas, but I have a level 50 NIN myself.

And trying to say that it was only for WS is foolish, since auto-attacks made up about 40% of SAM's dps. It also doesn't explain why they made it work in the front. Why not the back?
I stated why already in that late edit earlier you saw. Risk vs Reward. I pointed out, at least to Shippuu, how prevalent that design philosophy was with that game. Is it worth the risk? Go for it... ooh bad timing, died to the breath attack. Or the better outcome, where you did more damage with your majority damage attack.

To say SAM did 40% of their damage from AA is severely overestimating. That'd be closer to true for MNK and other 2h weapon users (and THF maybe), but WS abilities in that game are practically everything about physical DPS. SAM frequented their abilities to quickly gain TP. Even if it were 40%, that's still ignoring the fact that a majority of your damage is coming from WS output thanks to potential to self-chain or do multiple types of SC's with others. Your argument is literally trying to say that because of that trait and how useful it is, the SAM should be standing in front of the mob at all times... you know, cuz getting one-shot by breath attacks wasn't a thing. You either did not play FFXI (much) or you played it poorly.