This is a very good concern. Have been through this too.
I ordered my OT for the same reasons. I wanted a central piece of hardware to control my gear during composition and to free me to work with a DAW. It should also support live jamming with the ideas created during composition phases. TBH the OT did not work for the workflow, which I had in mind. But it wasn’t the OT as an instrument, it was step-sequencing. I hadn’t analysed deep enough my workflow vs the sequencing concept. To buy the OT has been a happy accident, because during learning the OT … and realising that this would not be, what I had planned to buy, of course, I loved, what the OT could do for me as an instrument of it’s own right.
This said, I would suggest that you first clarify for yourself, how your workflow will be, or should be. Then have a look at this non exhaustive list of sequencers:
- OT or other sequencers by Elektron (step)
- Social Entropie Engine (step)
- Polyend SEQ (step)
- Synthstrom Deluge (step)
- MPC (old and new) (step/linear)
- Squarp Pyramid (step/linear)
Check out the various concepts for
- pattern (pattern-lengths),
- tracks,
- song-modes,
- monophony,
- polyphony
- polymetric/polyrhythm
- user interface, haptic, editing features
- etc.
It will possibly cost some imagination to match your needs with the descriptions. But the better this is achieved, the better the decision will be later.
My personal recommendation for XoX and linear like sequencing in one box, would be to check out the Pyramid and there the pre-view for the next upcoming OS 3.0.