SAM out classing all other DPS

[qqmoarploxify]

SAM is the best DPS class, it was also advertised as such. They wont (and cant) go back on that now. Theoretically, other classes were supposed to bring support abilities to make up for their inferiority in comparison to SAM, but judging from what we can test and see right now, at least at item lvl 314 this is not the case.

The problem being also that since SAM is the best DPS class on its own (as designed), it makes better use of most single-target buffs, thus it always is best to buff the SAM until aggro becomes a problem, so you basically require a PLD tank who has better aggro (and is the best tank anyway) right now.

Saying that each class is flat out "The Best" is probably inaccurate, and will change based on a fight to fight basis. Also, it would be dumb to design SAM, or any job, the flat out best in its department, doesn't fit the MMO style of balancing.

[Kabooa]

Generally speaking, the WoW style MMOs aim to have the DPS classes well within a margin of 5% of each other. There will always simply be the best class at any one time, fixed with minute tuning. The classes in these design paradigms usually bring something else or maintain some sort of unique utility that makes them superior in certain situations.

So long as the lowball DPS are capable of clearing the content, then it's fine. The rest is just peen measurement.

Samurai is no more out of place now than it would have been in the early eras of the Themepark MMO. It deals more personal dps but brings very little that bolsters everyone else, while the rest are all well within an acceptable margin while also bringing in utility that far outweighs the amount you lose. If it were a matter of raw numbers, then we'd only ever have melee groups, and while it is still possible that Stormblood raids will allow for this, it's doubtful the paradigm has shifted that much.

[Crewman]

Saying that each class is flat out "The Best" is probably inaccurate, and will change based on a fight to fight basis. Also, it would be dumb to design SAM, or any job, the flat out best in its department, doesn't fit the MMO style of balancing.

SAM was intentionally designed to be the better DPS at the cost of utility. At least that was the goal for the job. Not sure how accurate this is, but there is a thread discussing this.

[Nominous]

I like to think a lot of it comes from a lack of understanding. Every class needs a strength and weakness, and some do not comprehend this. If it isn't that, I'd attribute it to "why can't my class do that much damage it isn't fair".

Yep, I'm thinking it's lack of understanding as well. Instead of flat numbers, which is far too binary (either you're the top of the list or you're just worst than them), what people SHOULD post (in terms of a tier list) should be more detailed. I don't know if I'd go as far as saying it does a disservice to the community to not have more detailed rankings, but these things can be misleading.

[Nominous]

Saying that each class is flat out "The Best" is probably inaccurate, and will change based on a fight to fight basis. Also, it would be dumb to design SAM, or any job, the flat out best in its department, doesn't fit the MMO style of balancing.

There is no game in existence that executes 'perfect' balance. It does not exist. And if anything, it's probably the worst in MMO's, because sometimes content is designed that inadvertently benefits one Job's kit in an insane way compared to others.

Also, designing characters to be "The best at something" is always at the cost of something else, and is a common theme in any game that strives for balance. In a fighting game for example. A grappler like Zangief can execute a move that deals about 20% of your life in one move. They are THE best damage dealt per move/input. That is how they are designed, because their tradeoff is (usually) terrible movement options, and few reversal options. A zoner/keep-away character is given great ranged tools, but terrible health to balance the few times you may get in on them, etc etc.

Translated into our game... SAM was made to be the best at damage output, because it's tradeoff is fair. And actually, SAM is still treading on very thin ice. In the situation where you can't bring out the maximum effectiveness of the rotation, OR you die even once, the benefit of bringing the SAM was entirely lost. You've brought the same amount of DPS as any other Job, but nothing to benefit your party.

[EbonySeraphim]

I don't know that there's reason to be as aggressive in your opinion about it, but yes, that is what's happening.

People just don't understand, or worse, don't care, is all. As I've said, MNK actually HAD forms of party support, AND high damage in 3.xx, and that didn't create a good enough incentive to bring it to parties. The lack of synergy with the party is what kept MNK out, compared to melee WITH it.

We've seen it. We have evidence. SAM is actually worse off, because it doesn't even have a Mantra-esque support skill to offer anyone.

I get why people are bummed. As a DPS, your Job is to bring the pain. The more effective you are with that, the better it feels. We play for the numbers. We're just seeing that people are quite fair-weather when it comes to their playstyle.

I'm one of the people who's displeased with what Monk is right now, esp compared to Samurai and even as it concerns what I've heard about the meta and my own observations of fights (from dungeons to medium-hard fights). I main WHM but my Monk is already right behind it and usually on par. Perhaps we need to wait until more DPS data comes out with results, and for the new round of raids but I think there is a difference between where monk was then and where Samurai is now. First, while Mantra has now become Monk exclusive and is a great boost for healers, if an AST/SCH combo can manage the highest incoming damage phases of a fight (with mana managed), then Mantra might as well not be there. No one cares that you survived with your HP bars topped off versus below 15% surviving is surviving. DPSers do just as much damage at 1% HP as they do at 100% - if that changes, maybe we'll care more about increasing incoming healing in this game. This goes deeper into the meta as well because even though WHM is still a capable/great healer with a good base kit, ultimately, their ability to heal "better" is worthless of AST/SCH keeps the party just as alive as a WHM while offering something else. So just like that, you have Monk and White Mages just as undesirable to have in your raid composition as before. With the addition of Samurai being a higher DPS job, it actually makes Monk's even less desirable if they are still considered "greedy for personal DPS...but are worse at it..." Other people have noted that there were still situations where Monk would be out DPS'd by other jobs - and we (Monks) were not bent out of shape by this, but for a single target sustained DPS, that was the only space we were on top for and now we're probably 3rd at best.

So what did we get for utility beyond Mantra? Brotherhood's 5% outgoing damage for everyone except the Monk and feed the Monk chakra stacks only when physical weaponskill damage is being dealt gated behind RNG? This just doesn't look like enough. Even if executed perfectly, 3 Forbidden Chakras is 690 potency at most for a single target. And it calls physical DPS heavy compositions that can easily fall out of meta. Does any other job have such a weak utility that also needs such a restriction to be fully effective? Nope. It's also a massive slap in the fact to so obviously provide a party-wide utility that explicitly avoids benefiting the user of that very utility. Does Balance not apply to the AST? Battle Litany from DRG? Trick Attack from the Ninja? All three of those buffs are stronger and affect the user too! WTF?!?!

Deep Meditation is fine in terms of balance, but is simply boring in terms of "this doesn't change how I play...it just adds a random Forbidden Chakra here and there but is less interesting considering how much less potency it got." It should be noted that until a monk has all 5 stacks between pulls or non-attacking phases, it's almost useless to have a few random chakra's loaded up because the break probably gives you the rest best. Maybe it lets me Meditate once, and Form Shift twice or something within 6 seconds if it's a very short pause, but this is extremely trivial.

Riddle of Wind needs to be fixed so Monks can zip away from a target (boss) to another (add), then zip back after they finish the add. This means the need to stay in Fist of Wind must go away. Switching to Fist of Wind should grant you a free cast of Shoulder Tackle without consuming the cooldown every <N> seconds. So yes, switch to wind (knowing you need to move to kill an ADD, Shoulder Tackle the ADD, switch back to Fist of Fire, finish ADD, Should Tackle back to boss and continue. This might be a reasonable sequence with some usage.

Riddle of Earth -> Earth's Reply should be changed to maintain maximum GL3 stacks so we have the ability to use Tornado Kick without consuming the stacks. Perhaps then there's a reason to keep the 5% damage from Fists of Fire off for a short while.

Riddle of Fire -> I don't have it yet. I've read opinions on it, asked some very Monks in game, seen the numbers. To me it looks like maybe it is little under powered (because of the long CD and slowdown), but not worth complaining about. To me it just looks like they gave us Blood for Blood back on a slower cooldown with a different penalty.

I think what was has been forgotten the difficulty of playing the job is that while Monk rotation is static in terms of the skills and order used, it's the execution in a serious, variable, and RNG (for who gets chosen for mechanics) fight that poses the challenge. We all know a Monk not hitting positionals is losing out on a large chunk of potency. We all know that a Monk not constantly attacking and maintaining GL3 is a huge hit too. More serious fights add mechanics that restrict/limit movement putting further pressure against hitting positionals or hitting at all and further risks us dropping GL3, and there are usually mechanics or mechanic phases which guarantee us losing our GL3 in the first place. I've found that late HW content (dungeon bosses) and a number of the Stormblood bosses turn towards random targets a lot. And they turn very quickly making it easy to lose out on the critical Bootshine or rear Demolish unless you literally just hold on using up your GCD until you get back into position (which a gut feeling tells me this is never worth it). In some cases I still have time to react to the turn but sometimes the new shortest path to get into position is now through a mechanics hazard so...well...take extra damage? Probably not. This might be a nit pick but some fights it's also flat out hard to find the turn cursor when it moves so fast under a lot of effects and adds that are sitting on top of your intentional target. True North does not fix this problem because it's only 15s on a 2 minute cooldown and Monk positionals apply to every GCD outside of AoE rotation while mechanics are definitely going on more frequently than that too. True North is for the planned parts of a fight that explicitly call for not attacking from a direction/space, or attacking from only one for a short period of time - not for when things get sloppy/chaotic.

Someone tell me how it's fair for a Monk to lose GL3 for a 330 potency attack that's annoying AF to time, when Samurai has a 720 (1080 potency in practice) that uses 3 Sen but does not remove any inherent buffs to the rest of their autos/weaponskills/abilities so they can(and should) pop it as soon as ready?

For those that really look into optimizing decisions, Monk's Shoulder Tackle during non-moving parts of a fight call for using it immediately as a flat damage increase. However, to optimize, you must know when to not put it on cooldown else you will have a slow walk to the target and risk losing your Form timer -> GL3. Samurai on the other hand has a much simpler design where that skill is only ever used as a gap closer with a minimal cost to their gauge and a super low cooldown, so if necessary it can be used in quite close succession. To make matters more confusing, Steel Peak is still there for the flat damage increase...now even more embarrassingly so as it doesn't stun anymore. How did this skill not get removed given they introduced Leg Sweep as cross-role and gave the (still useless) One Ilm Punch a stun? There's literally no other way to use this skill than "instantly when it's off CD" right now. Remove it, and add the potency back to the other skills because it just isn't doing anything for me.

During times when you cannot attack (need to move between targets maybe, or a boss is briefly unattackable), Monk's still need to consider a few things: What form are you in? What is your GL3 timer? How soon will the boss be back? How many chakra stacks do you have? The answers to these affect whether or not you charge your chakra stacks back to full, form shift back into coeurl, or if you can accomplish both. Make the decision quickly too...else you might lose GL3, or find yourself with 4-odd chakra stacks and Internal Release of CD wondering if you should wait to use it until you can stack it with FC. Not to mention it's likely when the target comes back, it will probably either be missing or will temporarily be missing the blunt resistance debuff or your Twin Snakes buff because the timers are short for both.

I'm going to be clear, my overall issue isn't "Monk isn't top DPS anymore." The issue is that Monks are still annoying AF to use in a hard fights (high skill); Monk's have moved down to only 'OK' DPS while executing very very well; nothing much was added to make them more fun to play; and they are still pretty terrible utility begging the question "what the F am even I doing here?" Square Enix needs to find a cause/purpose and adjust this job accordingly. I'm happy to understand if they don't intend for this job to be like what it once was, but it should be close to very good at something because right now it's not. Or maybe someone else can tell me what situation is a Monk one of the top 3 DPS jobs you should ever have in your composition?

[Vincenti]

I know my opinion doesn't matter much as I'm still seeing more an more as I go, but from what I've gathered I usually manage to come out above SAMs or other jobs it seems but that could just be due to people still learning their class or general laziness. There's only one time I've noticed a SAM do better an that was in Susano Ex, but his gear was also significantly better than what i had so a bit unfair to judge.

From what I've heard an read they're meant to be really good, i would assume they have rotations they have to meet before being able to dish out that amount of dps though.

Like others have said certain classes are meant to put out that kind of dps, and the sam fits the bill. Far as im concerned I'm happy being able to support healers in times of need, an having long range/mobility than potentially putting out the most dps.

every class has positives an negatives learn them an thats when you'll be better than most.

[Crewman]

From what I've heard an read they're meant to be really good, i would assume they have rotations they have to meet before being able to dish out that amount of dps though.

I want to be "that guy" and tell you SAM has an ability that removes rotation requirement for a short time lol.

[HaiHai]

I think most people are fully aware that SAM was designed to be pure damage and out dps other jobs.

The question isn't if SAM should be doing more damage than other jobs, but instead how much more damage should SAM be doing than other jobs?

People need to be asking whether or not it's ok if SAM has around 600 more dps than DRG for example, or 1000 more dps than MCH.

At what point does the "utility" or raid buffs other jobs bring become weak in comparison to the difference in dmg you gain by bringing a SAM.

[Crewman]

@HaiHai

You would be correct. However there are certain variables that need to be taken into account. Even though SAM can bring the pain, it may suffer a bit in raids where the bosses are very AoE heavy and require a lot of movement and dodging, thus reducing your output. In a case of ranged DD, they would likely be able to perform better under those circumstances. I am sure rebalancing will happen eventually, but before that they should focus on the current DPS jobs that appear quite useless right now. All opinion based of course.