SAM- parrying tank???!!!

[Omni]

I dont think having enmity warrants it being a tank. That would mean, war was meant to be the better tank over pld? war has +15 enmity while pld has +8 enmity. I dont think because sam has +7 enmity means it was first thought of as a tank class. It only has enmity on 2 pieces, a large chunk comes from the feet. maybe that has something to do with the history samurai? not sure jsut throwing ideas out.

I do think that possibly it could have meant that if a sam wants to pull hate, to distract the mob away from other members of the party, this was given to help a sam do so. Allowing a sam to protect other members briefly. While giving itself enchanced parry (af hands) and 3rd eye, it can distract a mob for enough time the others can get away in the event that the primary tank couldnt do so.

I think with war its a bit different. I think if you look into the lore behind the job it might provide some answers tehre too. Pld have resist light? war has resist fire? the af set is called Fighter's <armorName>. Has a belligerant conotation to it, someone who is belligerant would probably have more enmity right?

That's my take on it.

I dont think a lot of the first AF set was created soley for the usefulness of the job but more to embody the lore behind the job. This cant be said for af2 and af+1 though. These are more geared to enhancing the job.

[Feba]

While we're pointing out odd stats on gear, one of the higher leveled polearms is DRG Only, yet has +RACC or RATK.

[Grandsummoner_Kairos]

The developers don't add only a stat that you generally need as a job. They look at ever situation in which they;ve seen the job use, then proceed to give its armor stats that can help it in many of these situations. Even though samurai was always meant to be an attacker class, they should always have more enmity than mages. This makes events run very smoothly because usually everything goes better if you can actually pull hate away from a tank if you ever really need to (it happens sometimes).

[Caspian]

Feba, please chill out with the huge fonts.
Samarium, please calm down too.

Now, why does SAM AF have +enmity? Probably for the same reason RNG AF has +INT, the dev who was working on AF stats that day had hit the crackpipe extra hard. I'm pretty sure my job was never expected to sub blm and nuke. (Yes you can make the argument that INT does seem to affect damage on the new elemental arrows, but those just came out and it doesn't do jack on the old ones.)

Anyway kids, just play nice.

[Nodachi]

Enmity in equipment transfers upon trick attack. Most likely reason if SE even thought this far ahead is to help make SAM really good at placing hate. I think someone said this earlier in this thread if not another one

[ikkleste]

I'm of the opinion that sometimes SE just throws a couple of things on there to see what happens. They give a job a bunch of tools and see what we use them for, and then build on that. I think maybe SE wasn't sure how SAM would be used, maybe somewhere between DD/trick partner/tank and it could of gone either way, as it was they became a very clear DD. Just like the new jobs all to a degree have no real direction at the moment. BLU can do everything, Pup can do not a lot. But SE will focus them (maybe not blu so much). I believe this dispite what SE said at FFFF sometimes i belive they just aren't so straight up with us.

The tools of SAM are clearly a DD, but what sort of DD is left up to us. If after they came into the game they were tanking using damage to grab hate, opening with a WS, using third eye as a kind of stun to dodge that screwdriver, we'd of seen more gear built towards this, they may have got more tools to do with tanking as opposed to DD. SE would of flowed with this. And we'd now be getting lines about how "SAM was never a straight up DD," when really it was a choice we made, not the developers who want us to think they're in control and giving us what we want, instead they give us a choice and let us make it. And then make us think they were right.

[lionx]

I echo what Ikkleste says, NIN was not meant to tank at all, WAR was intended to be the 2nd tank to PLD, so why not a SAM tank if someone actually wanted to..? I personally think SAM and MNK could tank if they actually tried hard enough to, just no one wants to, sorta like WAR. If people want it enough, they will get it, NIN is enough to say this.

[ikkleste]

the other thing i'd say is that if people drop down to fighting t/vt a lot more of the melee jobs do become a lot more tankable. i don't know if parry trigger rate is at all linked to any of the mobs stats (in opposition to your parry skill) but it's also possible that if it is then fighting VT would give a high enough parry rate as to seriously reduce the dama ge a pld takes.

[WishMaster3K]

Yeah, good point. But, I think the t/vt problem at lower levels is due to the amount of pts in an area, the distance of pulls, the lack of mp recovery for mages, and another wealth of problems.

Like take Yhoator Jungle- A VT mob takes more time to kill at lvl 31 than a VT mob at 75. Also, With characters getting uber and uber later on in levels, we have concepts such as melee pts.

So the argument of fighting T/VT at lower levels for more exp/hour kinda falls flat anywhere before about 50, I'd argue.

With that established, I agree with you, to an extent, Ikklesta. Regardless of comparisons to higher levels like mine I just made, VTs are killed faster than ITs, no matter the level. Just like Ruic posted about RDM tanking, it's all about the mobs that you target. With a lot of power backing him up and a lot of Hate being placed on them, with their heavy armor, it might be feasable for SAMs to survive long enough to tank maybe a VT or such.

But the fact of the matter is, at 74, WAR/NIN, MNK/NIN, PLDs and NINs do so much better jobs than SAM that it's not even worth the effort. To basically reiterate Alphabet Master, if they can't do it as effective as even a MNK, why bother?

[ikkleste]

but then if people didn't stick strictly to the dunes and used all areas available there'd be a lot more mobs to go around...

I can't draw comparisons to higher levels, not being there myself, these are just the conclusions i've drawn based on my own experience.

I guess i'm a mile off topic now, it just feels as though we underuse so much potential in things like rdm meleeing, SAM tanking, all these stunning exciting zones that go unused, because people in general (although by and large those discussing such thinkgs on a forum are more likely to) aren't willing to step back and try something different.

[samarium]

OK. This isn't going anywhere. I started off with a joke that got blown out of proportion, and stupidly got involved in it instead of just backing down.

Bad day at work, lack of sleep, probably a combination of things; I didn't mean to start a fight in here.

SE does strange things, including lie.

-sam

P.S. To this person: "THF gets Enmity+ EQ too, what's your point? Hell, I think there's even some Enmity+ WHMs can wear..."

THF actually HAS SATA, so +enmity will transfer on TA, but giving stats useful only to a possible subjob isn't something they've done with anything else.

And having equipment available isn't quite the same as putting it on JSE.

[Feba]

Like take Yhoator Jungle- A VT mob takes more time to kill at lvl 31 than a VT mob at 75. Also, With characters getting uber and uber later on in levels, we have concepts such as melee pts.

1- PTing in Yhoat sucks.
2- PTs which go to Yhoat generally suck.
3- At 75 players will work on maxing out their stats [merits], equip, and weapons, so everything will die quicker.

[Murphie]

1- PTing in Yhoat sucks.
2- PTs which go to Yhoat generally suck.
3- At 75 players will work on maxing out their stats [merits], equip, and weapons, so everything will die quicker.

1. True.
2. Not necessarily true.
3. I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

[Taskmage]

This thread is 32 posts too long.

[Murphie]

This thread is 32 posts too long.

33!

I'm all for discussion, although this does seem to be going nowhere except in circles.