6.1 Samurai: the Kaiten removal was the right choice but it's not enough

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Originally Posted by CapricaLangley

To me Kaiten was unnecessary and Kenki exposed itself as a mediocre resource with underwhelming spenders, nothing more and nothing less than that.

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That's a matter of opinion if
- Yaten
- Enpi
- Gyoten
- Shinten
- Senei / Guren
- Meditation
- Every normal damaging skill that generates Kenki
- Hissatsu: Kyuten
- Hagakure
- Ikishoten

And unless I forgot something... Kaiten? are all mediocre spenders and interactions with the Kenki resource? I can't deduce what in your eyes is good value other then " I want to do less effort, for more Damage " since you want and agree to remove more interactions with the Kenki resource bar, to only then complain about how useless Kenki feels...

Realize please... what you are attempting to state... It is the devaluation of something we highly value... by agreeing to the change that devalued everything about our Class... and you then continue to suggest to devalue it more by removing more interactions... to then complain about its low value... do you not see the paradox of what you're attempting to share?

No, it was in no way the right choice.

Kenki in 4.x was the best resource system, it was designed with the job gauge in mind from the start and forms an integral part of samurai gameplay.

was

There were Gyoten&Yaten, the low damage mobility options costing 10 Kenki
There was Kaiten, the Iaijutsu buffer costing 20 Kenki
There was Shinten, the go-to resource spender costing 25 Kenki
There was Seigan, the small but flavourful optimization option costing 15 Kenki
and there was Guren, the big spender with a 2min cooldown costing 50 Kenki

Kenki was generated from your GCD combos and using Hagakure, converting the Sen from combo enders into 20 Kenki each, this linked Samurai's 2 job gauges together, and offered a good degree of both depth and flexibility to the gameplay.


In 5.x they make Kenki generation a lot easier with Ikishoten, and forced samurai into a rigid 1min rotation with Tsubame gaeshi, which in turn forced more kaiten use. But you still needed to ensure you have 50 Kenki for every Sen'ei/Guren, and that you don't overcap when using Ikishoten.


In 6.08 kenki management became even easier now that Sen'ei/Guren only cost 25 to compensate for increased cooldown of Ikishoten. But there is still an active decision making process to be had between pressing Shiten or Kaiten.


But in 6.1 Kenki has become just a shinten gauge in name. Worse, even gyoten/yaten are the same potency per kenki, there is practically no difference in which skill you press. And when a resource realistically only have one use, it might as well as just be a charged skill on cooldown.


A gauge with a singluar spender is beyond boring, and the same skill spammed back to back without any thought gets stale really fast.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

[B] are all mediocre spenders and interactions with the Kenki resource?

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To me, yes, they don’t need the Kenki resource to work, they could be efficient and functional in a different enviroment.

But please, I implore you, stop putting inside my mouth words that i never pronounced in the first place, trying to emphasize (the made up parts) through underlines and bold text.

Damn bro/sis, it’s a thread on Kaiten and Kenki from FFXIV, not modern politics. You think I’m wrong? Prove your point, like other players are doing in this thread, by talking about Kenki and Kaiten. Don’t try to devalue me or to distort what i say.

Kaiten has, over time, become more "redundant" because kenki itself became far too easy to gain and increasingly trivial to spend. The answer to this is NOT to make it even more useless, or delete it (many have pointed out that if you just delete everything that doesnt have an objective purpose, you wont have any buttons at all), the answer is to make the system BETTER. Decrease Kenki gain or increase the cost of spenders and buff the spenders. Make them valuable. Heck if Kaiten wasnt something you could always pay for and gave an even stronger buff, then when you did use it it would feel even better, if Shinten hit like a truck but you couldnt just spam it with no consequence thatd feel better. Also addresses "action bloat" because you would be using them less frequently but getting more out of them.

The answer to a meh system isnt always to delete it, even if thats the easiest thing to do. The best answer is to improve whats there. Sam DID NOT improve with 6.1 changes.

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Originally Posted by geebster

The answer to a meh system isnt always to delete it, even if thats the easiest thing to do. The best answer is to improve whats there. Sam DID NOT improve with 6.1 changes.

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This is exactly what I meant with this thread.
Kaiten, in it’s current state, was nothing more than flavour. If Kaiten was a 40 Kenki skill which deprived you of 25%HP for an 80% damage increase I’d gladly fight for having it back.

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Originally Posted by CapricaLangley

To me, yes, they don’t need the Kenki resource to work, they could be efficient and functional in a different environment. / You think I’m wrong? Prove your point, like other players are doing in this thread, by talking about Kenki and Kaiten. Don’t try to devalue me or to distort what i say.

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It's not on us to prove your point wrong, we disagree because you want to dismiss what we value highly. Well then prove to us why the removal of Kaiten that many of us enjoyed was indeed the right move, that burden lies on you. So far you only bashed it's existence, now that it's gone it's literally in your thread title, what do you suggest to replace all of it with?

The thread " Balance, Homogenization and Encounter Design: The Problem. " while nice, is the polar opposite of what you're doing here btw. Removal of Kaiten = Homogenization of SAM to be Simplistic.

You joined 2017, this means you been around 4* years longer then me. You'll have I'm sure more Samurai experience then me as well with it in high-end duties since you took the Pov of " Game-Design " and balance quite highly all to help prove your point.

I have made my compromising suggestions in my feedback thread, though I prefer to not have them implemented and rather have the Samurai PRE-6.1 update before the butchering of our class. I am quite interested to have you share your ideas to fill this void that is " the removal of Kaiten ".

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

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Well, what I would like SAM to be is a “flowing” job just like BLM. It’s very difficult to depict a proper melee version of BLM since black mage has arguably the most unique DPS rotation, with long bursts and small build ups in constant flow and circular motion.

IMHO Samurai sacrificed this kind of “flow” and burst nature in exchange for more small ogcd/buffs/spenders to use during a burst phase that was already more than efficient, which inevitably led to this moment.

At hearth Samurai is a big numbers job and I’d like to see the skills go in that direction.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

I am quite interested to have you share your ideas to fill this void that is " the removal of Kaiten ".

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To add onto this, there needs to be something present to fill the void, in order to make the removal of kaiten feel less like a robbery.

Because right now it is both a robbery and a forced lobotomy (gyoten/yaten being same potency per kenki)

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Originally Posted by CapricaLangley

Well, what I would like SAM to be is a “flowing” job just like BLM. It’s very difficult to depict a proper melee version of BLM since black mage has arguably the most unique DPS rotation, with long bursts and small build ups in constant flow and circular motion.

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You just described 4.x samurai.

Essentially a melee BLM where almost all the damage resources came strictly from their GCD.
Just like BLM with spell speed, SKS build on 4.x SAM was also viable, Meikyo Shisui can be likened to triple cast as it "sped up" the GCD rotation.

The preferred play of 4.x samurai was to use Hagakure to convert sen into kenki, trading big Iaijutsu casts for more frequent Shinten casts to smooth out the damage curve, this also avoided the problem of high damage variance from frequent big hits critting or not.
There was a great deal of flexibility in how you do the rotation, when you actually need to settle down and commit to an Iai cast (this is where kaiten came in, an extra commitment to the cast for a big, but infrequent hit).