SAM buffs warranted? Genuine question

[Petite]

I'm not the type of player that gets miffed when my job isn't the best performer in their role. It is what it is and I play what I like to play.

But, I'm genuinely curious as to what warranted SAM's potency buffs with this latest patch. The rest of the Melee cast simply got radius buffs after all, hence my question.

I have to say I haven't been playing much since December so maybe things have changed since then, but I remember SAM being the best Melee RDPS dealer by a little margin last time I took a peek at Savage DPS meters.

Does it have something to do with TOP?

[Wyssahtyn]

least played melee in TOP supposedly so might have something to do with that

[CelestiCer]

Yay " Wyssahtyn " is right. SAM statistically least played Melee in The Omega Protocol Ultimate. BLM also got buffed, guessing to match SAM regardless of it being the least played Job or not.





I just want Kaiten though .__.

[Petite]

Gotcha. I sort of had that hunch. Thanks for the answers!

[Taranok]

Yay " Wyssahtyn " is right. SAM statistically least played Melee in The Omega Protocol Ultimate. BLM also got buffed, guessing to match SAM regardless of it being the least played Job or not.

I just want Kaiten though .__.

You can click the 'Parses' category to organize it in descending/ascending order. Makes it a lot more clear what's going on. Note, the average is about 679, and anything below that should be considered increasingly more broken, especially since that average is a little over half of the most popular class outright, meaning there's some severe disparity going on.

[Alex1337]

Not sure that’s the full story; SAM and BLM tend to be underplayed in ultimates and I can see why. Being a SAM main I swap to NIN for ultimates because SAM struggles to adjust when lots of downtime phases occur. Especially long ones, it can be awkward to the optimal rotation when u have 3 sen and the downtime is greater than 40 sec for example. Also I think it’s a bit cope to assume that buffing a job will make it more popular, BLM is underplayed because it’s alot harder to play well than the other casters, buffing it won’t fix that. SAM I genuinely feel like they may have thought RPR after it’s recent buffs was getting a little too close to it much like on endwalker release.

[Taranok]

Not sure that’s the full story; SAM and BLM tend to be underplayed in ultimates and I can see why. Being a SAM main I swap to NIN for ultimates because SAM struggles to adjust when lots of downtime phases occur. Especially long ones, it can be awkward to the optimal rotation when u have 3 sen and the downtime is greater than 40 sec for example. Also I think it’s a bit cope to assume that buffing a job will make it more popular, BLM is underplayed because it’s alot harder to play well than the other casters, buffing it won’t fix that. SAM I genuinely feel like they may have thought RPR after it’s recent buffs was getting a little too close to it much like on endwalker release.

Eh, you can always just Hagakure to dump sen. Doesn't feel good but works. SAM also just does really bad damage in a lot of ults. Back in SB, it was rather popular for E.G. UCOB. It's just hard to justify a selfish DPS that does bad damage. Especially when it's more of a sustained DPS in a burst meta. Thordan in DSR doesn't even stay up long enough, at all, in phase 2 to justify throwing your DoT up, which says all that needs to be said there about how mismatched SAM is for the fight.

A quick look at fflogs really underscores this point, that SAM simply doesn't do enough damage to justify its existence (in DSR.)

[SerephinaBlossom]

Dancer and bard got nothing in the terms of Pot buffs so relax Melee's You will get your favoured buffs soon. im sure the dev team just want SAM to feel like that glass cannon again and will try and keep the other melee DPS close to it.

[Alex1337]

Eh, you can always just Hagakure to dump sen. Doesn't feel good but works. SAM also just does really bad damage in a lot of ults. Back in SB, it was rather popular for E.G. UCOB. It's just hard to justify a selfish DPS that does bad damage. Especially when it's more of a sustained DPS in a burst meta. Thordan in DSR doesn't even stay up long enough, at all, in phase 2 to justify throwing your DoT up, which says all that needs to be said there about how mismatched SAM is for the fight.

A quick look at fflogs really underscores this point, that SAM simply doesn't do enough damage to justify its existence (in DSR.)

That's my point though, using haga to sack 3 sen means u gain a 1 250 Potency oGCD and another 5 kenki for another at the expense of 8 gcds, where as if the boss hadn't jumped away for a cutscene u could midare for 640, there's more to it such as the calculation between an unbuffed midare and reduced when the boss does become hittable again but having to hagakure for downtime is intrinsically bad when other jobs like NIN can rebuff and get all their mudras back before downtime is over (in that particular 40+ sec downtime example) and, for example BLM can just hold on Xenos indefinitely and umbral soul to remain buffed assuming no cutscene, a point which becomes apparent when u look at aDPS, which SAM tends to lead on when there is sustained uptime and is generally the 1 good thing SAM is good for.

DSR - You can see BLM destroys SAM at the top end due to the aforementioned point of them being able to remained "buffed" and SAM needing a target to do so. Yes for the most part most SAMs will outperform BLM on aDPS but look at the gap for absolute best.






P6S




increasing damage wont increase uptake if the job is awkward to play in a piece of content, people who aren't die hards of the job will just go to a more fluid job.

[Taranok]

That's my point though, using haga to sack 3 sen means u gain a 1 250 Potency oGCD and another 5 kenki for another at the expense of 8 gcds, where as if the boss hadn't jumped away for a cutscene u could midare for 640, there's more to it such as the calculation between an unbuffed midare and reduced when the boss does become hittable again but having to hagakure for downtime is intrinsically bad when other jobs like NIN can rebuff and get all their mudras back before downtime is over (in that particular 40+ sec downtime example) and, for example BLM can just hold on Xenos indefinitely and umbral soul to remain buffed assuming no cutscene, a point which becomes apparent when u look at aDPS, which SAM tends to lead on when there is sustained uptime and is generally the 1 good thing SAM is good for.

DSR - You can see BLM destroys SAM at the top end due to the aforementioned point of them being able to remained "buffed" and SAM needing a target to do so. Yes for the most part most SAMs will outperform BLM on aDPS but look at the gap for absolute best.






P6S




increasing damage wont increase uptake if the job is awkward to play in a piece of content, people who aren't die hards of the job will just go to a more fluid job.

Not quite how opportunity cost works. You're gaining 300 potency worth of kenki (since everything is 10:1, even dashes,) and it's not costing you 8 GCDs. It's costing you your average per-gcd damage and the difference between that 300 potency and your midare at 640+crit+direct hit. Which comes out to, if I did the math correctly, 900 or less, assuming a good 58% crit damage increase, which should be achievable (also depends if that 300 kenki crit/dhits or not, which can reduce it to as little as 600 in theory, but that's still a lot.)

Personally, I'd rather just remove the buffs from SAM's combo. It literally is permanent uptime except on mandatory downtime on e.g. boss cutscenes, and it doesn't meaningfully change your combo most of the time as to render needing to keep the buff rolling as kind of moot. Removing those buffs that are already meaningless and just making them traits wouldn't meaningfully impact the skill floor or ceiling of the class while making the entire affair a lot less impactful. It should also make it less awkward on bad transitions.

I know people complain about over-simplification, but as a non-SAM main taking it into extremes and such, I don't think I've ever been in a single situation where I've felt the need to specifically work around the buffs.

Also, I do agree. As a BLM main, making fights that aren't fun to play BLM in is the number one reason I don't play BLM anymore. It's just not worth it.