Samurai 5.0 changes, feedback/suggestions

I can agree with Hagakure. I don't mind the change to Ikishoten. I actually prefer it for the damage window we now get, but I miss the ability to get rid of Sen after a fight.

Hopefully, they could add Hagakure back but it could only be used outside combat as a Sen dump.

Hopefully? They need to, SAM feels so clumsy without it.

So far, not having Hagakure hasn't been bad or difficult. I'm having fun still.

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Originally Posted by Leonus

So far, not having Hagakure hasn't been bad or difficult. I'm having fun still.

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I agree. It's not the end of the world, but it would be a good QOL change to be able to dump Sen after a fight. I'd be fine if it didn't give anything in return either, no Kenki. It would be nice of them ;), but I would understand.

As far as the other abilities, I can agree that Shoha feels too situational for such an awesome animation.

I know this is not popular opinion, but to me, Third Eye is SAM's best ability. The problem with Third Eye is that the abilities it procs are not that great. Seigan is a minor DPS gain and Merciful eyes is a heal which is clearly a copy somewhat of Monk and the Chakra system.

IMHO, the changes they should make are this:

Make Shoha be an upgrade from Seigan and make the potency worth it like around 750-800. We get an OGCD with a great animation that we can use during raid wide damage.

Change merciful eyes to some other name and make it a buff off of meditation. The meditation stacks would determine how much the buff is and give it a decent timer like 15 seconds. The buff could be dmg, crit, or direct hit. That way when you got to Shinten spam or Senei after meditation downtime, your getting that worthwhile burst of DPS to catch you back up.

If SE is really generous, give us a AOE ability after procing Third Eye to complete the set.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Many new player playing SAM didn't understand the use of Hagakure because in their eyes, Shinten < Midare.
In other words, they don't see how strong the fact that it was an ogcd is. This lead to many SAM under performing (yes, I agree, they could read a guide).
From my experience with virtually everyone who attempted SAM casually (like, not as a main job), nearly everyone didn't get the point of that CD and were always "but isn't it better to do Midare?"

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I'm not a new player playing SAM, but I am a new SAM. I literally got my SAM to 70 about a week before early access and got to play around with Hagakure before the change. I can't speak for all new SAMs, but I can say Shinten is godsend since SAM doesn't have a whole lot of offensive ogcds to weave between weaponskills. I don't run parsers or anything like that, but I could just feel my DPS suffering if I held onto Kenki for the sake of boosting Madare. So hopefully that let's you know that not all new SAMs see Madare as the end all be all of SAM. Especially after acquiring skills like Guren.

What I didn't like about Hagakure was that it ate whatever amount of Sen you had built up, where I would have preferred that the ability was proc based and available so long as you had a Sen to eat, and would only consume one. That was the update I was hoping for before all the information was released, and was perfectly fine if the amount of Kenki generated was reduced as a result of this change. Instead we get free 50 Kenki every 60 seconds. It's less than flattering and I feel it was a lazy change, but the gripes end there. What ultimately matters is I have plenty of opportunity to weave in Shinten between skills.

I actually really like the changes for the most part. My two biggest problems with SB SAM was that runing out of TP when doing AoE was very easy and felt horrible, and that it sometimes felt like you barely got to use Iaijutsu on some fights due to downtime. I know Ikishoten is somewhat controversial, and I would like a sen wipe just for the utility, but in reality you had to use it as a DPS cooldown as part of your rotation rather than as a utility skill.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I don't run parsers or anything like that, but I could just feel my DPS suffering if I held onto Kenki for the sake of boosting Madare. So hopefully that let's you know that not all new SAMs see Madare as the end all be all of SAM. Especially after acquiring skills like Guren.

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You should always hold kenki for booing Iaijutsu. A boosted Midare adds 400 potency for 20 kenki (20p/k) and a boosted Higanbana will give 475 potency for 20 kenki (23.75p/k). Shinten only adds 320 potency for 25 kenki (12.8p/k). The only Hissatsu that ever beats the appropriate Iaijutsu is Senei and Guren for single target and AoE respectively. This means that you should never use Shinten or Kyuten unless you know you'll have enough kenki to both boost every Iaijutsu and to use Senei/Guren on cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Stormblessed9000

I actually really like the changes for the most part. My two biggest problems with SB SAM was that runing out of TP when doing AoE was very easy and felt horrible, and that it sometimes felt like you barely got to use Iaijutsu on some fights due to downtime. I know Ikishoten is somewhat controversial, and I would like a sen wipe just for the utility, but in reality you had to use it as a DPS cooldown as part of your rotation rather than as a utility skill.



You should always hold kenki for booing Iaijutsu. A boosted Midare adds 400 potency for 20 kenki (20p/k) and a boosted Higanbana will give 475 potency for 20 kenki (23.75p/k). Shinten only adds 320 potency for 25 kenki (12.8p/k). The only Hissatsu that ever beats the appropriate Iaijutsu is Senei and Guren for single target and AoE respectively. This means that you should never use Shinten or Kyuten unless you know you'll have enough kenki to both boost every Iaijutsu and to use Senei/Guren on cooldown.

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I should have been more clear. I didn't mean to not boost Midare, I just meant to not hold onto Shenten. The thing is though, you can use it pretty liberally but there are some windows where you shouldn't burn the 25 kenki so Midare's GCD lines up correctly. Post 62, you generate 20 kenki required pretty quickly assuming you're doing your positionals.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I should have been more clear. I didn't mean to not boost Midare, I just meant to not hold onto Shenten. The thing is though, you can use it pretty liberally but there are some windows where you shouldn't burn the 25 kenki so Midare's GCD lines up correctly. Post 62, you generate 20 kenki required pretty quickly assuming you're doing your positionals.

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Even then, holding off on using Shinten is only a DPS loss if you cap your kenki or if you finish the fight with unspent kenki. Ideally you actually want to hold as much as possible for when party buffs are up while not getting capped. It's also not a terrible idea to have enough saved to Yaten and Gyoten since any gained uptime is worth the small potency loss.

So far I've been enjoying the changes. Just hit 68 and am starting to settle into a bit of an opener. Double Midare just feels really good and things line up nicely now with Meikyo, Ikishoten, and Tsubame being on 60 sec cooldowns (and Senei/Guren on 120).

Not sure how well it'll all line up at higher skill speeds, though.

Throwing my 2-cents (my 2-sens!) in as someone who started getting serious about sam a week before shadowbringers launch in the small hope that it reaches the ears of the dev team: Please give us back Hagakure!

Hagakure as a cooldown introduced a bit of ebb and flow to the job when it came to kenki management. If Hagakure was still far away from refreshing, you would play conservatively to make sure you have the kenki to boost a midare or higanbana (or both in quick succession). If you knew Hagakure was going to be off cooldown by the time you have your sen, you go nuts spending your kenki, switching from a build up and blow up style play to a frenzied constant-weaving style of play. It created some level of flexibility in how you could play if you understood what gives the most bang for your buck. As others have said, it also lets you dump your sen for phase transitions. You can use it to dump your sen if you want to refresh your higanbana (and gives you the kenki to boost it).

The new ikitoshin is just kind of their, kind of brainless, and doesn't really enhance the gameplay beyond "use this to shinten some more". Or syncing it with the 50-kenki spenders (gurren and the new one) so you can always use those attacks.

The new samurai set-up just seems kind of stiff without Hagakure to me, where we're always building up to Midares (and we can do a second Midare every minute now). No real feeling ebb and flow. I think it was durring a live letter they mentioned the reason for the change was because dumping sen feels bad? I can't agree with that idea at all. I love dumping sen, or that is to say (and I'm probably repeating myself) I love the ebb and flow, the give and take of the job.

Those are my personal feeling as someone who more recently took up the katana before Shadowbringers anyway.