Thread: SAM: anything you would add/remove for 5.0?

Originally Posted by wereotter

: Also, extend the duration of the Third Eye shield. 3 seconds is WAY too short to actually be able to use it to mitigate party-wide damage. Similar skills from other jobs last for 20 seconds.

This is probably the main thing I'd want to change. The duration simply isn't long enough for the most part. Especially with some of the long ass animations on some of those stack mechanics. Where you can't act or press anything for a good 10 seconds so making use of seigan is impossible.

And maybe reduce the Cool down on agatha a bit. Some of those low hp moves have quite lengthy cooldowns. Should be more in line with misery ends cooldown at least makes it more worth a slot on the action bar

I'd also tweak their aoe a little. Make the fuga a conal aoe instead of a circular.
Just because imo it doesn't make much sense having fuga as a circular and the both mangetsu and oka are conal attacks
it just Isn't very fluid

Originally Posted by Dzian

And maybe reduce the Cool down on agatha a bit. Some of those low hp moves have quite lengthy cooldowns. Should be more in line with misery ends cooldown at least makes it more worth a slot on the action bar

Misery's End seems to be the odd one out in this case. Assassinate on ninja has a pretty hefty cooldown by comparison too. I wouldn't mind if all the longer ones got a reduced cooldown, but I would think it would be more balanced, and an easier adjustment, if they just increased the one short one.

Originally Posted by mosaicex

I never have any particular problem with the timing but I understand what you mean. I'm already used to anticipating raid wide aoe damage in general (to deal with using Reprisal, TBN, etc. which has longer duration but much more punishing if you missed), even thing like Gravity Manipulation or Unstable Gravity stack in 2s. Just my opinion but I think 3 seconds is pretty generous considering most raid wide aoes with cast bar usually come in 2.5 or 5 seconds increment.
That said, wouldn't hurt if they increase it to 4 or 5 seconds though, but I think they want to keep that high risk feeling like when you parry/counter from other type of games.

I'm thinking for other times you know you're going to take damage but there is no cast bar to look at, like the stack in O2s, or after the second sword in Susano EX, it becomes guesswork as to when you should pop Third Eye. Whereas other jobs with defensive cool downs get a longer time to take advantage of the mitigation effect, Samurai needs to time it perfectly to not only take less damage, but to proc that move/heal. Only fight without a cast bar I've managed to get it right every time so far is beginning of the second phase in Shinryu EX.

Taking it into comparison, Riddle of Earth has a 30 second duration to get a reduced damage and refresh greased lightning, and Shade Shift has a 20 second duration. I feel like just to make it balanced with other similar DPS actions, it should have a slightly longer duration.

Originally Posted by wereotter

Taking it into comparison, Riddle of Earth has a 30 second duration to get a reduced damage and refresh greased lightning, and Shade Shift has a 20 second duration. I feel like just to make it balanced with other similar DPS actions, it should have a slightly longer duration.

Riddle of Earth is just bandaid fix for monk to keep their grease lighting for certain encounter (O4s comes to mind), it needs to be proc'd by initial hit first for the damage reduction effect to kicks in. It also reduces Monk DPS by at least 5% for the duration they decided to stay in it due to lack of Fist of Fire. Monks generally want to stay away from this skill as far as possible.
As for Shade Shift, yes it lasts 20 second BUT it only works with Physical damage (and thus useless in many cases), and comes with super long cooldown of 120 seconds.
Which is why I think Third Eye sees a lot more use than any of the skill you mentioned. Not only it has super low cd, is pure damage reduction, can be combined with Merciful Eye for free hp, but every proc is also technically a dps gain for SAM.