Do Samurai not have any positionals?

[Awarewolf]

I could of sworn they had one or two the last time I played, but I don't see positional requirements on any of their abilities. Is I going crazy?

[Vahlnir]

They do, though it is mostly just for filling your resource bars faster. Still worth doing them though.

[Arkevorkhat]

Your three piece combo endpoints gain positional requirements at level 52 when you get access to the "Kenki Gauge".
Gekko gains "Rear Combo Bonus: Increases Kenki Gauge by 5", and Kasha gains "Flank Combo Bonus: Increases Kenki Gauge by 5"
Those two abilities constitute the sum total of all of your positionals.

[Jeeqbit]

They do have positionals, but they don't increase damage directly, instead they increase your gauge, which you mostly spend on weaving damage and powering up attacks. At early levels you may have no use for it though.

A lot of people say it's easier, perhaps implying the positionals matter less, but they do actually have positionals.

[Ralph2449]

Yeah they do, though the combo bonus appears only after level 52 when you get the kenki gauge, before that the text is hidden, was confused as well when I first changed to samurai and was searching for positionals since i had heard they do have positionals.

[Jin-]

Yeah they do, though the combo bonus appears only after level 52 when you get the kenki gauge, before that the text is hidden, was confused as well when I first changed to samurai and was searching for positionals since i had heard they do have positionals.

Think they did then SHB pruning happened

[Dzian]

A lot of people say it's easier, perhaps implying the positionals matter less, but they do actually have positionals.

They do matter less. The difference they make over time is almost immesaurable.

If a SAM stays behind the the boss and ignores positionals they will typically lose 5 kenki every ~21 seconds, which typically equates to the loss of one 320 potency Shinten every ~105 seconds. That in turn equates to a loss of ~3 potency per second.

In a typical ~21 seconds where you do 3 sen and Midare your output is 3,760 potency (this is bare minimum 8 gcds and Kaiten Midare) 3,760 / 21 = 179 potency per second. losing a positional would drop that to 176.. However by the time you add the dot effect from Higabana, any Shintens you can do in that 21 seconds along with other ogcds. the potency you lost missing that positional ends up being roughly half of 1 percent of your total dps.

Thats typically such a small loss you couldn't even measure it in terms of an actual fight. Any difference you might see would be so small it would typically be put down to the margin of error that people often allow for to accommodate the rng nature of crits, direct hits, latency, etc.

It's realistically possible you could miss positionals and actually get a better parse than if you did them just by landing a couple of extra lucky crits or direct hits thus is the nature of rng.

This is why a lot of people find positionals unrewarding and think they should be scrapped. As on jobs like Samurai and Ninja the difference they make is so little you cant measure it.

[Jeeqbit]

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I don't really play Samurai and just frequently see these vague statements of them not being important.

[Seraphor]

this is why a lot of people find positionals unrewarding and think they should be scrapped. as on jobs like samurai and ninja the difference they make is so little you cant measure it

If they make such little difference, then there's no need to scrap them.
They serve as a bonus challenge for people who do want to optimise their DPS, plus there's Monk who absolutely needs to hit it's positionals because it's 30 potency on every single GCD, and even Ninja gets an additional 60 potency every third GCD for it, which is often enough that you want to try and hit as many positionals as you can.

[Dzian]

If they make such little difference, then there's no need to scrap them.
They serve as a bonus challenge for people who do want to optimise their DPS, plus there's Monk who absolutely needs to hit it's positionals because it's 30 potency on every single GCD, and even Ninja gets an additional 60 potency every third GCD for it, which is often enough that you want to try and hit as many positionals as you can.

Monk perhaps but not Ninja. if a Niinja just ignored positionals and stayed behind the boss they would only lose 60 potency every ~30 seconds on Armor Crush which again is a loss of just 2 potency per second. which again ends up beaing immeasurable in any actual fight as any differences in results would be put down to the rng margin of error for crts, direct hits or even latency.

I'd much rather see them bring something actually rewarding in rather than positionals... Even the age old idea of battle regimens would blow positionals out of the water.