SAM PVP: How are you supposed to play this class?

[Toffa]

Chiten is an incredible cooldown and getting the most out of it is the most important part of SAM.
You kinda have to play the psychological game to succeed.
People not hitting you is mitigation.
If they waste all their cooldowns getting subpar results while hitting you in chiten and you make them waste more MP by hitting them back with Kuzuchi on them, then you've won.

[AnotherPerson]

Chiten is an incredible cooldown and getting the most out of it is the most important part of SAM.
You kinda have to play the psychological game to succeed.
People not hitting you is mitigation.
If they waste all their cooldowns getting subpar results while hitting you in chiten and you make them waste more MP by hitting them back with Kuzuchi on them, then you've won.

Pretty much this. Samurai can be played to apply "pressure" when done correctly.

Chiten is your bread and butter to deceive and create openings while applying pressure. Having it up means enemies take a loss focusing you, but it also means you're the most dangerous when LB is up. That simultaneously means you can focus them hard when your LB is up because they're less likely to hit you, but it also means they're going to want to burst you down immediately. Figuring out and reading your opponent in these situations to maximize Chiten without dying can greatly change how far you can go as a Samurai. It's a very opportunistic job, but the opportunistic element have a huge payoff when executed properly.

If I were to say Scholar is the calculative pressure that slowly shaves off your opponent's advantages to turn the tide in your favor, Samurai has the ability to play the exact opposite - it aims to apply instantaneous pressure when you can spot the opening. The more skilled your opponents are, the more wary they'll be and that's when the psychological game starts. The less skilled your opponents are, the easier it is to execute the LB for a decisive kill.

Edit: In case this leaves misunderstanding, I want to clarify that the opportunistic element and toolkit as a whole is good on Samurai. It's actually a very unique strength that allows Samurais to play differently from other jobs. Applying pressure on your opponent is another way to CC your opponents, keeping them guessing, and distracting them. Sometimes the reason why matches can be drawn out or end is because one team managed to read their opponents better, someone slipped up and created an opening under the pressure of having to constantly multi-task, or a team managed to capitalize on an small victory that allowed them to snowball. Sometimes it's a combination of all of the above.

In that regard, Samurai has all the tools to create openings and win with coordination with a team, but it can be harder for a team to coordinate with a Samurai if the Samurai's brain circuits is playing 5D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Samurais have to adjust accordingly based on playstyle and how their team + the enemy team is doing. Unlike a Monk who can guarantee 1 person will be shoved into the dirt and CC'd to death, Samurai can do much more, but it's much harder to properly set that up, so it's usually simpler to do a simple trade with Zantetsuken with Chiten up.

Also, since you're referring to Crystalline Conflict in specific, Sam LB isn't weak. People sleep on SAM LB because it's hard to pull off the 1 hit kill on multiple targets, but then people also tend to forget it's 24,000 potency AoE. Again, psychological game. Don't let yourself get trapped into purely hitting the peak goal with one slash kills everyone if you're playing Samurai. You have 4 other party members to help you. If you need to help your team burst your opponents down in Crystalline Conflict, the LB is there. The key for opportunistic jobs is learning how to maximize your toolkit in any given situation without getting caught up in the psychological part of thinking you must specifically do XYZ to win. Tunnel vision over the win conditions is the main reason why most people misunderstand Samurai's core strengths because they focus too heavily on the most notable one, which usually leads to neglect on the rest of the toolkit.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. It's possible that my playstyle is just a little twisted and isn't actually how Samurai is meant to be played. I like to turn any job in PvP into a mental game and built my playstyle around it, and that's how I make the job work for me. Idk. I do a little bit of trolling from time to time. There is definitely a level of opportunistic gameplay available for Samurai, but perhaps you can find a different playstyle for Samurai based on the way you approach opponents and emphasize different parts of your toolkit.

[Jaydarksol]

I 1000% appreciate this point of view, my issue is that applying pressure, while nice makes the class incredibly dependent on a full team to be mediocre.

Slow LB charge makes the class difficult to duel with when every other class including a healer can nearly double the LB generation
Slow attacks, while satisfying aesthetically are all AoE based which make single target lackluster and feel boring on damage.

Our healing attack requires multiple enemies to be mediocre in comparison to their attack and how long it takes to come around to it.

0 Pull out means we are stuck in the fight, and as much as I do love this idea, without meaningful mitigation we are the easiest target to focus. Even adding the ability to leap back from our pve toolkit would do a LOT to help the SAM in a fight.

The class is far too dependent on two things (1) a healer, and (2) a team. The AoE aspect of it is incredible and unique, but a class should still have the ability to duel and have the tools it needs to be that unique role if that is what it was designed to be.

Any of the following would help SAM a LOT:

Hissatsu: Yaten, Attacking disengage

Put Chiten back on the 50% damage reduction.
or
Let stun be 3 seconds/AoE 2 seconds
Let Bind be 3 seconds

increase our 1-2-3- combo by 1k to bring it up to Reaper's basic attack #'s

LB Not limited by proximity, once you are marked you're marked
or
LB Generation increased (Be the executioner so people are pressured by knowing they are on a timelimit)

Double Okra's Healing when hitting a single target

[AnotherPerson]

There's also executing those that are in guard with the LB. However, I personally don't go for that, because I think the interaction between the LB and the Guard ability is bugged.

That's actually part of Samurai's strength - the effect is listed in the 3rd line of Samurai's LB. Similar to other LBs that affect the target through Guard (RPR/DNC/NIN/MNK) or MCH's Drill that ignores Guard, certain actions like Samurai's LB directly ignores the effect of Guard during calculation, but only for that attack.

Zantetsuken LB Effect:
1. Swiftly charges forward, dealing damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 24,000.
2. If target is afflicted with Kuzushi, deals damage equal to 100% of their maximum HP.
3. Ignores the effects of Guard when dealing damage.
4. The additional effect of Kuzushi cannot be applied to players riding machina and non-player combatants.
5. Can only be executed when the limit gauge is full.
6. Gauge Charge Time: 120s
7. Cannot be executed while bound.

[Valence]

I 1000% appreciate this point of view, my issue is that applying pressure, while nice makes the class incredibly dependent on a full team to be mediocre.

Slow LB charge makes the class difficult to duel with when every other class including a healer can nearly double the LB generation
Slow attacks, while satisfying aesthetically are all AoE based which make single target lackluster and feel boring on damage.

Our healing attack requires multiple enemies to be mediocre in comparison to their attack and how long it takes to come around to it.

0 Pull out means we are stuck in the fight, and as much as I do love this idea, without meaningful mitigation we are the easiest target to focus. Even adding the ability to leap back from our pve toolkit would do a LOT to help the SAM in a fight.

The class is far too dependent on two things (1) a healer, and (2) a team. The AoE aspect of it is incredible and unique, but a class should still have the ability to duel and have the tools it needs to be that unique role if that is what it was designed to be.

Any of the following would help SAM a LOT:

Hissatsu: Yaten, Attacking disengage

Put Chiten back on the 50% damage reduction.
or
Let stun be 3 seconds/AoE 2 seconds
Let Bind be 3 seconds

increase our 1-2-3- combo by 1k to bring it up to Reaper's basic attack #'s

LB Not limited by proximity, once you are marked you're marked
or
LB Generation increased (Be the executioner so people are pressured by knowing they are on a timelimit)

Double Okra's Healing when hitting a single target

I do think that you're missing an important part of the job, which is identical to PLD and MNK but better: you have an OGCD stun (OGCD being the main thing), which can be applied at will at any time on low HP or struggling targets. You have probably been infuriated when a good PLD or MNK manage to stun you at the worst moment? SAM can do that too, and SAM has the tools to almost instantly punish and deal damage with Midare and Namikiri, while MNK needs either to have PR already built up, or can just follow with Enlightenment, and PLD has... less potent damage tools. So not only you enable and secure a lot of kills that way, but you also have the tools to make sure the kill happen, which also works to your benefit when chasing people down (there is a reason dash into bind to burn a purify and then stun makes this class one of the best at chasing).

Then you have Chiten, while too short on duration to constitute a very potent defensive, can still soak more than ranged jobs can claim, and combined with Meikyo, you can also bait and burn CC while you soak damage. I feel that it shouldn't be underestimated, but it turns the class into a gamble, high risk high reward role. I do think that SAM has the tools to duel but not everything, and it needs to pick targets carefully.

That's actually part of Samurai's strength - the effect is listed in the 3rd line of Samurai's LB. Similar to other LBs that affect the target through Guard (RPR/DNC/NIN/MNK) or MCH's Drill that ignores Guard, certain actions like Samurai's LB directly ignores the effect of Guard during calculation, but only for that attack.

Zantetsuken LB Effect:
1. Swiftly charges forward, dealing damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 24,000.
2. If target is afflicted with Kuzushi, deals damage equal to 100% of their maximum HP.
3. Ignores the effects of Guard when dealing damage.
4. The additional effect of Kuzushi cannot be applied to players riding machina and non-player combatants.
5. Can only be executed when the limit gauge is full.
6. Gauge Charge Time: 120s
7. Cannot be executed while bound.

Note that the tooltip is a little crappy (ikr) because the LB will NOT go through guard if the target doesn't have the kuzushi debuff.

[Jaydarksol]

The stun holds for 2 seconds. and any meaningful damage we can provide is behind a 1.5 second cast time and the only one capable of it is Midare IF you prep it.
This could be my ignorance but i fail to see this as any sort of benefit. Sure 1 target every 20 seconds MIGHT be possible to kill in a team setting. nearly every other, if not every other Dps class can do it themselves.
This whole talk about "SAM can pressure" Mmmm, no they can't. In every encounter i face them or play as them, there is minimum pressure felt.

While some SAM can do well, this STRICLY a team deal. They are pretty impudent on their own and to be quite fair lack the defensive and offensive ability to be considered a real class in this game pvp wise. This is a far cry from what they have been in the past and If i am being honest. The rework to DRG should take a backstage to a rework to SAM