SAM out classing all other DPS

[Nominous]

That isn't the whole story, and I'm not letting SE off the hook here.
When AST came out, people said it wasn't strong enough and needed a lot of work in some areas (same for MCH, and there was the BRD thing with WM not being worth jack at first, though I don't remember this so well, so grain of salt with this one).

They tend to wait to change things because it's the right approach, even if they're a bit bullish on their opinion of things (which isn't the right approach). They choose to balance things after the first raid tier for good reasons. They changed AST in 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3, AND 3.4 as well. They never let it sit.

They have been wrong about Job balance before, I think we all can agree. They only overbuff things, however, because people don't react to middling buffs as we saw with AST. And then you get the MCH/BRD counterbalance issue in situations where the buffs might suffice, but you have the DPS jealousy issue. Again, because the community refuses to chill when they think their Job is anything but meta. It won't stop happening, either, unfortunately.

[Galvuu]

They tend to wait to change things because it's the right approach, even if they're a bit bullish on their opinion of things (which isn't the right approach). They choose to balance things after the first raid tier for good reasons. They changed AST in 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3, AND 3.4 as well. They never let it sit.

They have been wrong about Job balance before, I think we all can agree. They only overbuff things, however, because people don't react to middling buffs. Again, because the community refuses to chill when they think their Job is anything but meta.

If the job launches on 3.0 and it's not in a good state and you wait until 3.1 to buff it... people who are learning the new jobs/playing story/progressing into the new raid tier are already invested into something else by the time the buffs start trickling in. You can gather data over a month or two, but you need to strike while the iron is hot. That said, the 3.2 buffs were fairly minimal. Ewer and Spire buffs did not change the fact that they were undesirable cards.

Plus, Gordias was quite unforgiving. I remember that at launch AST had lower potencies than the other two healers. I mean, whomever thought that one out clearly didn't think of AST in a serious raid scenario. Especially when it's "trump card" is so unreliable. They actually kept one of the healers legitimately unviable for a patch- the 3.1 buffs simply made AST usable to begin with. This should've been the starting point... I hope jobs like MCH aren't left in the dumpster for a whole patch :/

[Nominous]

They actually kept one of the healers legitimately unviable for a patch- the 3.1 buffs simply made AST usable to begin with. This should've been the starting point... I hope jobs like MCH aren't left in the dumpster for a whole patch :/

Again, they did the right thing by waiting to change things. Changing things mid-patch give certain teams, running certain comps, a better chance at world-first, while inadvertently making it potentially less approachable for those who don't. Not to mention, people who leveled and practiced a specific Job can't test the Job to it's true potential in content that is worth balancing around. Therefore, they'd have no data for the real performance of a Job to say what is capable of clearing all content in the game, or how easy or difficult they might have it.

"Striking while the iron is hot" in this context is no better than knee-jerk reaction 'balancing', and their patch schedule is to blame for any time wasted there, not balancing issues.

[Black_Starr]

This is true for me as well; nin, monk, and rdm have all out dpsed me on occasion. They don't seem weak at all to me, but that's just my personal experience i guess. every other sam must be god tier in comparison.

[Black_Starr]

It would be great if I could see a post criticizing criticism of SAM that isn't from a 70 SAM whining about how their class is going to be nerfed to the ground, followed by some random anecdote of "but SAM doesn't really outdamage that much and I get beaten sometimes," and it's like yes, every gets their DPS beaten. That's what happens when you run into players that are better than you. Please stop stating the obvious. It has nothing to do with class balance. If someone plays a top tier character in a fighting game and loses a lot and/or loses period, it does not magically change that character's tier.

Except, what he said is relevant unless you assume he is a bad sam player. Is he getting out dpsed because he just isn't a good samurai, or is it because the aforementioned classes might be more competitive than we're letting on.

[Nominous]

Wait, who said losing a lot in a fighting game doesn't magically change a tier?

Commonly, the way that fighting game tiers are decided is by the rate at which a skilled player wins or loses vs. a specific character played by another skilled player. That's why the format for listing tiers is usually X character 10 : Y character 0, or Tager vs. Nu 3-10 matchup. Character popularity can skew how that looks as well. If strong players are using the character, it can definitely skew the results. Which is why you can see a pro, or multiple pros using a character and making the consensus that they're "Top Tier" but others can't find the same success. However, it's still a pretty big apples to oranges comparison to this game.

Ultimately, SAM is popular, which surprises no one. It would have been regardless of how powerful it was. And unless we go out and ask every player why they're on the Job, we can't make the assumption it's because it's too powerful and everyone's jumping to it because of that.

[Kahnom]

SAM,right now,is the "waiting for my main to get proper buffed" job for many main monks and goons.
Me included.

[Vincent_Mateus]

I don't care how much stronger Samurai is or isn't compared to other classes, I just want to enjoy Dragoon again and not feel like a liability to my static.... it's 2.0-2.4 all over again.

[PotatoTree]

From what it looks like right now, SAM and BRD have a gaurenteed spot. What remains to be seen is if 3 SAM 1 BRD will do better than a more varied composition. We may get some add phases where there are like 15 adds at a time or something that may require a caster. Who knows.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

.

BRD/NIN/RDM and either MNK or SAM is what I hear most frequently.