So you're telling me..

[IruruCece]

Most raid buffs can function selfishly....doesn't change the fact that they are raid buffs and benefit the raid. SAM does not bring any raid buffs or anything that benefits the raid outside of straight DPS. If MNK and RPR can compete with them for the top DPS spot then what's the point of SAM? Back when SAM was introduced it had the highest potency across the board and weas stated by the developers that they intentionally designed SAM to always be the top DPS BECAUSE its a selfish DPS job that brings zero utility.

Hilariously enough, and I discussed this very briefly with Kazimere over Discord, this is exactly the problem that Monk faced exiting Heavensward: no raid buffs (it did have the blunt debuff at one point... but how many jobs did that benefit?), entirely a selfish DPS that was being left behind due to a stacking buff meta that overrode whatever personal contributions to a raid that even the best Monk players could muster. With Stormblood came some form of utility (for limited comps), as well as the introduction of a new selfish DPS job to eat its lunch. Which, ultimately, Samurai did in both terms of design and player population, and still is now.

https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/56364034.html (credit to xou_ from Twintania for linking this in a Ninja thread.)

SE already has an extremely poor record of shifting selfish DPS into being more supportive, it's called Monk. If the "solution" that has been peddled here (give Samurai a raid utility or two beyond just straight up damage) does get implemented, I have zero faith in SE's ability to integrate that into a job that hasn't had such a utility for 90 levels and three expansions without completely screwing it up, because they couldn't do it right for Monk that existed without such things for ARR and HW without ultimately compromising its identity and gameplay.

As I said to Kazimere, I think it's totally acceptable for there to be purely selfish DPS in the game, DPS that provide no 'utility' to a raid beyond their damage. The 'fix' for them isn't to give them utilities, it's to make their damage THE thing that people bring them for. It has to be decisively such, because if not, the job will get left behind. Again, we have Monk as the example for what happens to a selfish DPS when that isn't the case, and we also have everything that's happened to it from Stormblood on as an example of why SE shouldn't be trusted in that regard.