I'm just not getting the Samurai hype, what am I missing?

[Chronons]

Its difficult to know why it is you are not liking SAM. Without seeing your play we dont know if there is something you are missing. It could be the case that it just doesn't click with you. I love tanking and have leveled them all at various points, but PLD has just never meshed with my play style. Sometimes that just happens.

That being said at a high level of play SAM becomes more difficult than some of these posts seem to suggest. At a base level you can play the class slow and passively and pretend to do big dps because you Midare occasionally, but that is not how the class is optimally played. The Kenki management is arguably one of the most dynamic job gauges available, Sen must be generated and spent appropriately, positional requirements for dps, and you must maintain proper timing on 3 buffs and a DoT. SAM has moments where it slowy builds it resources and moments where it builds them in burst, that has to be managed so as to not overfill resources or lose buffs. Downtime is punishing because SAM requires all of their buffs to maintain their high dps and while you do have mobile abilities to help with this, they come at a steep cost to your dps.

[Esoterikk]

That being said at a high level of play SAM becomes more difficult than some of these posts seem to suggest.

See this is my thing, I'm kind of banking on having Hagakure so I can control kenki and sen for a more dynamic rotation.

I don't dislike the class right now but without hagakure it feels like 1 dot 123 hit 123 hit rinse and repeat

[DJMau]

Honestly, it sounds like you're trying to force yourself to like SAM because it's the new hot thing or how people are talking it up. If it's not clicking ya don't have to force it. Hell I prefer Summoner over BLM and the 11 darling Red Mage cause of reasons I won't get in to here, meta be damned.
The quickest way to kill how you feel about something is trying to force it when it's not enjoyable

[Chronons]

I don't dislike the class right now but without hagakure it feels like 1 dot 123 hit 123 hit rinse and repeat

I mean, until you get Hagakure your not really wrong about that^

Once you get Hagakure the rotation becomes much more dynamic. The reason for that is that using Hagakure on 3 Sen is actually worth more potency than a Kaiten Midare. So you have a rotation where you prioritize Buffs >Kaiten DoT > 3 Sen Hagakure > Kaiten Midare > Shinten. That helps break up the feeling of repetition quite a bit, because every 3 Sen is no longer a Midare. Doing the correct positionals as well as using Hagakure on the three Sen will give you a huge number of Kenki to spend on Shinten. You will weave these in as you re-build your Sen.

Whenever people ask my how the job plays I describe it as playing WAR at NIN speed. However, it is obvious that SAM is finely tuned for lvl 70. It didnt feel right to me either until 68-70.

[usalia]

I'm sitting on my 62 Samurai and thinking I might have to go level up a monk or something else as it's just "popping" for me, EVERYONE seems to be enjoying it though and I feel like I'm missing something.

I leveled it all the way to 62 because I was told the 2 abilities at 62 change the class dramatically but once I got there I was dissapointed.

The rotation seems incredibly slow still with the long GCD and ramp up compared to something like NIN. I want to like it because it's aesthetics appeal to me but it just feels so slow and methodical with little to know decision making.

AGAIN I am only 62 on mine but Im feeling a wave of disappointment so I am switching back to NIN for now, maybe MNK, I bought into the SAM hype and don't really have any back up mains.

What am I missing?

you need to get to 68-70 and it the most fast ans fun thing in the game

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Positional only affect Kenki gain, and are thus not a high priority.

I gagged. Hard. Kenki is where the bulk of your dps lies.

I've read that above 45 Kenki, you should be using the attack, but I just don't feel the power behind that attack. Feels like it's a wet noodle hitting the mob. I get more oomph using it on those last two skills.

If you're kaitening Gekka+Kesho, you're actually losing a lot of damage. Nearly enough to cancel out the positional entirely, in fact, at 40 potency lost per hit.

[ChrisBabaganoosh]

Because hitting 30k direct crit Midares gives me a shattering orgasm.

[Sylvina]

Hagakure does change things up a little bit. I find myself in constant decision-making mode when playing it at 70, as while it's very free-flowing and somewhat forgiving because of that - it also means it's very adaptable which forces a lot of on the fly decisions. Even your openers have to be very loose and malleable depending on potential early downtime. I see many people on here boast about it being super easy, but I couldn't disagree more - it has a huge level of finesse that's hard to attain.

Easy to play to a satisfactory degree but hard to really master and be excellent is the hallmark of a well designed class though.

[KrenianKandos]

If you're kaitening Gekka+Kesho, you're actually losing a lot of damage. Nearly enough to cancel out the positional entirely, in fact, at 40 potency lost per hit.

Curious. How come?

Gekka + Kesho at 40 Kenki with Kaiten equals 600x2 attacks.

Shiten x2 for 300 Potency x2 at 50 Kenki worth ...just doesn't seem to add up being more damage.

More than happy to hear the basis of this theory as I'm still relatively new to SAM and working out the kinks.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Curious. How come?

Gekka + Kesho at 40 Kenki with Kaiten equals 600x2 attacks.

Shiten x2 for 300 Potency x2 at 50 Kenki worth ...just doesn't seem to add up being more damage.

More than happy to hear the basis of this theory as I'm still relatively new to SAM and working out the kinks.

Simply put, each kenki you have has a specific potency to it. Five kenki is 60 potency. Multiply that times 4, and that means to plus on Kaiten, you need to gain at least 240 potency worth of damage. Both Gekko +Kasha, when Kaiten'd, only do 200 extra potency. Shinten, while 300 potency for 25 kenki, is still cashing in each kenki for, at worst, a break even effect. This is also why proccing Seigan via 3rd Eye is typically a DPS gain, because you're trading 180 potency worth of Kenki for a 200 pot attack.

Kaiten is only a gain if you can use it for a GCD that gains more than 240 potency, or to put it another way, it only does more damage when used with Iaijutsu; Higan, Midare, and Tekka.