Samurai LB and frontlines

[Spiffer]

thats prob what it is, well ill retract my statement. i coulda sworn it didn't take into count bh but it says on skill 100% of targets hp if applied.

[Sinstrel]

thats prob what it is, well ill retract my statement. i coulda sworn it didn't take into count bh but it says on skill 100% of targets hp if applied.

Your BH also affects healing done which, ergo, increases your shielding done. There are very few jobs that don't have a shield and, of the jobs that do, there are fewer still that don't passively gain the shield as part of their standard rotation (as opposed to solely through limit break as in the case of DRG).

[Lydia77]

Red mage is pretty good, you can engage and disengage fights independently.
The White Magic Melee combo comes with a baked in shield that gets even more potent if you use Engagement/Magicked Barrier, this is ontop if its superior % damage reduction making it tankier than other ranged classes.
It has a dual function heal + DMG LB, Ranged AoE CC (bind/silence) that can prevent engagements.

Samurai is a minor threat to anything that can create a self shield near instantly, being max health and having any substance of barrier will prevent you from dying from their LB so some classes like WAR,RDM,NIN,MNK don't have to respect a SAM's Chiten, since it's just a knowledge check.

OP is not wrong though, Samurai's playstyle in FL is like an irritating fly buzzing around the enemy hoping that they fall for the trap and retaliate against them.

If RDM is so good why noone plays it in FL? Maybe because the moment you rush into an enemy with caster defence you will be a red GOO on the grass / snow?
What about bard? Sage?
Some jobs are dead in that mode and the fact thet they CAN preform good in the right hands and even top score when pigs fly it doesnt mean we should consider this ballanced
Why bother with red mage dancing around, planing 5 steps ahead, risking being literally 1 shot when you can play black mage who is squishy too but can do so much more damage. Heal? Even pure healers cant do such a diffirence.
Why play warrior to pull away 1 player when you can play DRK and pull 1-500000 of them and be literally unkillable. Even ignoring LB DRK got shields toping them on heal charts and dmage reductions.
And yes. both SAM and ninja LB are a joke making cheap kills when conditions are met. But when i can trick ninja into using LB while using recuperate to deny them, i get 1 shot by sam no matter what, even if i didnt know they were in that pile of 20 enemies and billion of reduced SFXs. Machinist snipe command is designed to pick up low HP enemy from a great distance and its job fantasy. All samurais do are fishing for a debuff applied by a stray AOE to take a chep unfair and nigh-denyable kill. My astro has no shields. Expecting machinist to have one to prevent it.... Well its the same story that you can deny DRK premade of 4 by punhichng one back with monk skill.
PVP needs a full rework. And we all know those discord mafia will alwys find some cheap tactic to stack up on, but the system we have now is broken and unplayable as soon as semi-decent premade shows up.

[Cidel]

You can't convince me that the person responsible for designing SAM's LB didn't main Hakumen or at least played Blazblue...











...That is all. Everything else pertaining to SAM's LB has been discussed into the ground.

[Valence]

SGE in FLs can get incredible value if you're facing a premade or two. Completely nullifies DRK kitchen sinks if you plop it on your team... But it will only shield your team... Then you need to get the heck out.

[LeoBertolaso]

It doesn't sound like most of the first posters have given SAM a try, OP isn't saying "Yeah SAM is OP" OP is saying the kit is a meme. It does 100% of your HP as damage, can be (to an extent) cc'd, and is relatively strong to make up for the rest of the kit. If it does 100% of HP as damage, you only need some barrier (like MNK's 6k dash barrier) to survive. You have one thing to worry about fighting a sam, and thats the kuzushi proc. Outside of that, I ignore SAM trying to whack away at me and just walk away. If they fail to get a decent proc on anyone they're dead amongst a crowd.

What else is there to deter mindless AoE spam in a DRK + AoE meta, that most players have access to? SGE shields, MCH LB is a good one for targeting backline squishies, what else? MNK picks/LBing a barrier, WAR pulls, ninja mobility/shuriken/executes, and SAM LB, etc. etc. I'm glad it happens.
The last thing I need to see is another 8 man premade, 6 AST's with BH5 sitting in the back being able to get away with it. SAM LB is a decent deterrent in situations where those protected, high BH backliners can just sit pretty. SAM can be fun, give it a try.

[Lydia77]

It doesn't sound like most of the first posters have given SAM a try, OP isn't saying "Yeah SAM is OP" OP is saying the kit is a meme. It does 100% of your HP as damage, can be (to an extent) cc'd, and is relatively strong to make up for the rest of the kit. If it does 100% of HP as damage, you only need some barrier (like MNK's 6k dash barrier) to survive. You have one thing to worry about fighting a sam, and thats the kuzushi proc. Outside of that, I ignore SAM trying to whack away at me and just walk away. If they fail to get a decent proc on anyone they're dead amongst a crowd.

What else is there to deter mindless AoE spam in a DRK + AoE meta, that most players have access to? SGE shields, MCH LB is a good one for targeting backline squishies, what else? MNK picks/LBing a barrier, WAR pulls, ninja mobility/shuriken/executes, and SAM LB, etc. etc. I'm glad it happens.
The last thing I need to see is another 8 man premade, 6 AST's with BH5 sitting in the back being able to get away with it. SAM LB is a decent deterrent in situations where those protected, high BH backliners can just sit pretty. SAM can be fun, give it a try.

Machinist cant 1 shot (well combo shot) a full HP squish. And to even try the drill+LB combo you have to get close and be pulled by so skillfull DRK. Then you dead. Now add BH 4-5 all those astros will have. And we are talking LB vs short CD baseline abilities.
We are talking about full strat and coordination when DRK shields, pulls in, guards (if needed) and goes back. While his girlfriends have to press 1 or 2 buttons and half of your raid is gone.
As for samurai - its annoying to get 1 shot when you dont even know he is over there. 1V1 you can trick, bait away the deuff etc. In party attack you accidently sneeze in SAM general direction and die next moment. And you sre most likely not 100% HP anyway (thx scholars. we all love you) so these tiny 6k shields will not save you.

[Sunhwapark]

If RDM is so good why noone plays it in FL? Maybe because the moment you rush into an enemy with caster defence you will be a red GOO on the grass / snow?

If you're engaging on your own into a 1v24 then you cannot blame the class for your death.

What about bard? Sage?
Some jobs are dead in that mode and the fact thet they CAN preform good in the right hands and even top score when pigs fly it doesnt mean we should consider this ballanced

What about them? They can fight if you have some general pvp knowledge and understand how to use their kits, and having high damage is just a matter of constantly being in battle, it's why SCH is often top of the leaderboard, it can apply constant damage very easily without having to actively be contributing in combat for a long duration of time. Being high in damage doesn't guarantee victory, BRD and SGE have their own individual ways to contribute to securing kills/areas, of course this will not have the same large scale impact as a 30s vacuum paired with a LB in such context.

Why bother with red mage dancing around, planing 5 steps ahead, risking being literally 1 shot when you can play black mage who is squishy too but can do so much more damage. Heal? Even pure healers cant do such a diffirence.

A red mage doesn't have to do 5 step planning to play though, It is as simple as dashing in using the melee combo and doing a backflip to leave the fight, so I'm not sure what the argument is ?

Why play warrior to pull away 1 player when you can play DRK and pull 1-500000 of them and be literally unkillable. Even ignoring LB DRK got shields toping them on heal charts and dmage reductions.

Because there's more to the game than pulling players?
All PVP mode has objectives, securing those with your respective skills is the endgame goal, topping the damage chart does not entitle you to a free win.

i get 1 shot by sam no matter what,

We've already explained how to deal with those.

Expecting machinist to have one to prevent it..

Turret has a shield but of course it time to deploy and also activate its buff , but on another note if you're just mindlessly spamming AOEs and single target shotting a samurai without knowing if they've used Chiten, then you're pretty much giving them a free bank transfer of 10 BH points. BTW free tip: Samurais often will untarget everything once they use chiten and then press LB after a few seconds - anyone who taps them will get soft targeted by the samurai so it means they can pretty much guarantee a kill if a target gets selected for them, however you can bait it out as a MCH without getting instakilled, tossing out Wildfire will trigger the soft target mechanicfor them and they will more often than not just press LB right after and get no kill or mighty damage. This can also be done with certain targeted skills that deal no damage upon cast like RPR's Death Warrant and also MNK's Thunderclap.

Machinist cant 1 shot (well combo shot) a full HP squish.

ok

[Lydia77]

First of all.
You can do things with every job. I have seen sage top scoring in kills.
But why playing sage when you can play... i dunno, Anything else? Healers have scholars with their oh so skilled *apply dot and top score damage with 0 kills* or *stack up 4 scholars and have a laugh*, WHM has miracle that even after nerfs has a great CC potential, also LB. Astro is one of DRK girlfriends for a reason. I play as one to heal and buff people but i am doing it wrong apperently.
Second. we discussed samurai and i think we agreed that its not 1 on 1 *oh no i am dead because i didnt react to his slef buff deployment* We are talking about me using macrocosmos on 50 people and then getin 100% to 0 oneshot out of nowhere. That is not fun.
And i think i used proper english to explain why drill + LB combo is not viable against premade. Apperently not. between me and their astro with BH 5 is DRK who pushes 1 button and i am dead. LB has a giant range. Drill does not. Attempting to drill + LB against a premade is a ticket to Stix river. I know turret has shield. BUt i would rather deny the node take for enemy or debuff the target we are trying to kill which is hard in this meta even 1 vs 5 against BH melee/tank. Noone uses turret as a shield in frontlines.
And no. There is nothing more in this game than pulling enemies. Premades do not care about objectives. Especialy on ice licker map. They will just come and kill 10-15 people every 30 sec or so and win. Other maps have potential and can be won if enemy has ONE premade (surprise! It can be more than one!) and focus on one poor team instead of tactical thinking. But in the end its pull-in followed by some bullshit like 5 macrocosmos or maybe guard removal.
Samurai LB in frontlines is a cheap BS skill. That and Ninjas should be reworked. But only after DRK meta removal.
P.S. How high is BH of a shooter against a target on that screenshot?

[Sunhwapark]

First of all.
But why playing sage when you can play... i dunno, Anything else?

People have their own reasons for playing a class and it varies from person to person, some think a class looks cool or feels nice to play and so they will play that of course.
For me, I love the combat flow of RDM and MNK in PvP, so I like to play them often, though fortunately for us in PVP we can swap to any class to try out so there's not really any restrictions to what a person picks.

First of all.
we discussed samurai and i think we agreed that its not 1 on 1 *oh no i am dead because i didnt react to his slef buff deployment* We are talking about me using macrocosmos on 50 people and then getin 100% to 0 oneshot out of nowhere.

As I said before, it's an easy solution to use marks as they will save your life, If you're running in and blindly tossing macrocosmos into a clump of players every 30s with no consideration for your own safety then it's something you need to account for yourself if you want to avoid 'randomly getting oneshot' by a cheeky LB.

And i think i used proper english to explain why drill + LB combo is not viable against premade.

The LB combo is lethal to any healer that often pairup with the DRKS, the damage is lethal and you brought up not being able to 1-shot squishies. If the DRK is diving directly ontop of you in particular and you're a ranged class getting pulled, then you're considered out of position and you have been caught.

Premades do not care about objectives.

Yes they do, that's why they often have incredibly high win rates compared to random players. People often 'lead' alliances and direct them to objectives, or have things like macros counting down when to coordinate burst for groups. And as you described, they engage HARD, sweep up any leftovers and swiftly leave to the next node/point worth contending.

P.S. How high is BH of a shooter against a target on that screenshot?

BH4, but you're basically given BH5 for free because you can do the Drill+LB from BH3 on squishies to secure a kill every 90s ontop of any other assists/kills obtained in skirmishes. Also it's possible to use Wildfire with single shot before using drill+LB for an extra 12k potency ontop of the 58k which becomes overkill at that BH against a ranged target, but it's good against the melee players since the built in damage reduction makes them quite durable compared to ranged classes.

I don't have much else to add going back on topic as LeoBertolaso's post summarises any extra thoughts I may have had regarding Samurai's uses in FL, and yes it's worth giving a go to try at the very least a few times to at least see how it operates.