Samurais - what am i missing?

[Iggzikof]

now we have one sam in trading post for 150dc Akane,, and i have Sakuya already, in all aigis youtube videos i seen noone ever used sam, why? AW sakuya can block 3enemies and simultaneously attack them with ~620att + skill *1,9

noone mention her in my previous post bout who to awaken either

[Nero010]

Thats cause they still have a bad reputation from old times. They are niche units but tbh they actualy are a lot less niche then most niche units. A good samurai can easily take a heavys place in your army in most of the cases or in those where heavy def is needed as second HA. I got shizuka as my thrid shrine plat so i raised her and AWed her (also cause of her synergie with saki) and i did take her in 9 out of 10 times over my AW bernice.

[Unregistered]

The conclusion I usually read is that samurai are:
1. Too expensive to be deployed for rushes of weak mobs early in a battle
2. Not bulky enough to handle blocking multiple big dudes later in a battle

So that narrows the situations where one goes 'Yes, a samurai would be perfect here!' to.... maps where groups of weak to medium strength mobs are a concern late enough that 20 something UP isn't a problem?
Not an impossible situation, but uncommon enough such that it bumps samurai down to niche status, I presume.

[lolix]

pretty much what the unregistered said. There are some samurais that i would point out as being situationally great tho , as the gold Chizuru , who;s skill is great when fighting ranged units. She attracts ranged attacks onto her (including lich attacks/goblin mages/any single target mage) and dodges it with 80% chance. Assuming you awaken her , she is also going to have a massive hp pool (3.6k) and a decently high attack for a samurai (at the expense of being way squishier in terms of defense). She also costs less to deploy then kojuro for example (the other gold samurai) by 2 up.


That could make her a really great mage(lich specifically) killer. She is the sole unit in the game that can dodge magic damage as far as i know.




Other then her , i dunno if i;d actually use any other samurai. I personally use uzume as a samurai with the added bonus that she;s cheaper , and has a great team wide buff. I can see other people using advance guards like shuka to use as weak-medium mob cleaners or gatekeepers , considering they also have a way to buff the rest of the team and being cheaper to deploy

[Nero010]

The conclusion I usually read is that samurai are:
1. Too expensive to be deployed for rushes of weak mobs early in a battle
2. Not bulky enough to handle blocking multiple big dudes later in a battle

So that narrows the situations where one goes 'Yes, a samurai would be perfect here!' to.... maps where groups of weak to medium strength mobs are a concern late enough that 20 something UP isn't a problem?
Not an impossible situation, but uncommon enough such that it bumps samurai down to niche status, I presume.

My personal experience after months of usage of a samurai is: this is plain wrong most of the time, sorry. May look like it on paper but at practical use its a whole different story.
If for some wierd reason one doesnt want to belive my personal long term experience of using a samurai go ahead read the latest opinions of others (comment section) on here http://millenniumwaraigis.wikia.com/wiki/Shizuka
They are not a core class, but they are able to replace a core class in most cases and excelling at thier job bei far... unless the real tanking niche is asked. Which honestly is more a niche then samurais are if you ask me.

[Iggzikof]

It probably depends on more things,, later in game when we have good heals and aw boosts from other units, highest boost from prince then they are surely better, more useable than before...

thanks for replies

[lolix]

As i said before, IMO , samurais are way too expensive in general.

I;d rather use an advance guard for example because while they are weaker on average , they also buff the entire team , can actually be used as gatekeepers and are cheap enough to use in rushes.

In case the UP cost is not an issue , and i still want a blocker that can do aoe damage , and be somewhat tanky , i'd rather take an armor mage. They cost on average 4 more up then samurais (30 up for the plats as oposed to shizuka's 26) , but have better dps....on top of it being magical.




There is no thing in the game that the average samurai can do that another class can;'t do better , which is why a lot of samurais go for some sort of niche ability (like chizuru's foresee , or shizuka's life steal or momiji;s ability to transform into a duelist



I for one have shizuka on my non black account , and i have her resting in my baracks and use jessica instead.

[hchan1]

They're kind of useless? 20+ cost for a unit you want to drop early for swarmers = no thanks. So, too expensive for early game, and by mid-late swarm stops being an issue entirely since you can drop any of the AOE ranged units that deal with swarm far better. Even the black Samurai is pretty underwhelming. And, yeah, Vanguard Tacticians fulfill the same role Samurai do while also being incredibly useful as a ramp unit.

Anya is basically a usable Samurai who also doubles as either a tank or an actually useful AOE clear, so use her instead.

[ZeroZet]

Samurais now are what Heavy Infantry wants to be (when incoming barrage does not actively need their skill to survive). A perfect mid-game blocker who can hold a lane on their own most of time. And even facing heavier opposition, their skills usually give them some tool to increase their survival rate, be it self-heal, dodge or just outright monstrous attack to murderize everything before it can hurt you too much.
Personally, only Heavy I still use is SAW Deine, and even she does not see much fights, and most of the time my go-to blocker is my trusty AW Shizuka. Nobody can stand before her blade!

You don't see them much in Common Units runs because, well, Common Units. For the long time Samurais weren't available much, and even now first guaranteed Samurai comes from the Eastern Kingdom map, so core classes what everybody guaranteed to have are used by guide makers over them to make sure most users can replicate the strategies easier.

[lolix]

i guess it;s a matter of preference in the end , but as i said , i don't like them that much.

Between paladins (black knights) , mage armors and advance strategists , i don't see which niche samurais fill. Armored mages are generally heavier on the defense and while their aoe dps is skill dependent , they are straight up better dps during skill use.
Dark knights are very tanky 2 blockers. They don;t clear as fast as samurais , but they can actually tank more then just medium strenght mobs.
And the likes of uzume and shuka can be used easily on the weak mobs that tend to rush and still benefit the team with their skills.

[Nero010]

Youll never see thier use until you use her and thats the problem with people, they dont use them. Thats ok though, i mean... there are so many classes in this game. Just recognize that people who do use them actualy disagree with the common consensus. I have grace and diina, i often do not need to place a tank to tank something as i straight blow it up and if one is needed, diina and grace are already there. But those are shrine blacks. Shizuka for one is cheaper then them and as Zerozet is saying they are straight out better heavys as long as the heavys skill is not requierd.

[kayfabe]

Thats cause they still have a bad reputation from old times.

This is definitely the single biggest issue and it's not even a misconception, really, because samurai haven't even completed their makeover yet. Samurai are decent but had to be power creeped into relevance and they're still not OP so there's been little reason for people to move heaven and earth to level them when they've already had a giant head start on grooming alternatives. Hibari, Shizuka, Kojuro and to a lesser extent Akane and Sakuya are all actually pretty interesting units with their full kit online but it's literally impossible to use any of them to their full potential on Nutaku whereas Bernice has been co-starring in walkthroughs for literal years. In the time it's taken for the class to git gud I've SAW'd Bernice, Gellius and Deine. Hell, I've SAW'd Bernice twice if you count DMM. Samurai are simultaneously better than advertised and mostly irrelevant.

[Unregistered]

Yea, in my case, I've recently rolled Sakuya. I like her design a lot. But I sit back and think about the investment it'd take to get her to the point of providing new functionality. What she could offer that a Bernice I recently awakened and leveled back up to ~59 can't do.
Or what she could offer that would improve my army's capabilities moreso than putting those same resources elsewhere. Maybe level up Chydis more? Or Sera? Maybe level up Chloe more if I want a cheaper melee that can hit multiple dudes at once? Awaken and level up Odette? Awaken and level up Lucille if I want that expensive beefy duelist? Or Lolonee as another duelist option? And if we get any solid/interesting event plats in the near future, that's more competition for plat fairies/tin cans.

[Unregistered]

Oh, I should clarify when I say 'awaken and level' Odette/Lucille; that means they're at max level for CC. The others I've mentioned aren't even at max level for CC.... :/

[lolix]

this is exactly my point : it's not even that samurais are that bad. It's just that most of the niches they fill have already other options that are competitive (or better) then what most samurais would offer


As i was pointing out : mage armors tend to be heavier and still dish dps wich is also aoe and magic. Advance guards are waaay cheaper and can provide gatekeeping options for weak mobs and heavies/black knights are straight up better tanks....

[kayfabe]

Things will flip quite a bit though as SAW rolls out for more units. Out of the Dark Fighters only the gacha black Cornelia is an obviously more compelling wall than the tankier samurai because Yurina and the Dark Knight have issues with their skill timers or durations. Yurina's EHP is so-so and the 50 second Initial Timer on her SAW is really painful on an expensive unit that doesn't bring much offense while the Dark Knight's short skill duration typically leads to people SAWing him and using him as high quality damage support rather than really treat him as a tank. By contrast Kojuro post SAW is stuck with a long Initial Timer like Yurina but actually beats her in both EHP and wave clear despite being a noticeably cheaper gold unit. Meanwhile Hibari--an event unit, might I add--and Shizuka smash Yurina in overall stats during skill activation. As far as mage armors go, again, things get much closer than you might think; Samurai have better attack speed and Magic damage becomes a bit of a double edged sword as high MR eventually becomes pretty common in high end content. Things eventually do reach a point where mage armors stop getting to simultaneously eat and have their cake--e.g., yes, Palfy can out-tank the tanky samurai with her SAW but she can't outdps them that way while Jessica can outdps tanky Samurai versus packs but can't actually outperform them as a road block. So as a general rule you have to start bringing gacha blacks like Cornelia, the Heavy sisters and Grace into the comparison for things to start getting one sided and while Hibari may indeed be weaker than them she's also an event unit and will still often end up getting developed by default.

[lolix]

lucky for me that i actually have cornelia then :)