Hissatsu: Kaiten

A lot of people don't want this skill gone and just trying to invalidate why they like it is insulting, please stop doing this.

I've already posted in another thread but since this one seems to be gaining traction, I will just post mainly what I've already said.

Minus the obvious alternatives like consolidating the other skills such as Shoha/Shoha II, Ikishoten/Ogi Namikri, there are reasons why I would like kaiten to stay besides it being a cool animation and actually fun to press (which is a totally valid reason as to why it should stay).

For me, kaiten is a skill that helps tie the kenki gauge and the sen gauge together. By removing kaiten, you're removing the major link between the two resources essentially and basically making the kenki bar separated and making it mostly tied to one spammable skill. Now you can pretty much remove the kenki bar from your UI and don't even have to worry about overcapping kenki because you can just spam shinten as soon as you can. I don't want that. That's very mind numbingly boring and I'd argue that kaiten is a more interesting button than shinten. With kaiten, you at least had to actively do some kenki math before each burst window especially the 2nd window to make sure you have kaiten for all the iaijutsu and ogi namikiri + senei in the 2nd window. Not having enough would mean you could lose out a kaiten-buffed higanbana, drifting Senei out of raid windows, or even drifting Ogi Namikiri out of raid windows. To me, it just felt rewarding to me when you are able to execute that burst window correctly because of how busy that 2 minute window could feel.

And let's say 'action bloat' was lost in translation, and they removed kaiten because it made the job feel busy with high APM. It still wouldn't make sense because the kenki you no longer spend on kaiten will have to be used for shinten anyways which is more boring. You're pressing one less button per like minute. Doesn't help all that much. Instead you're just mind numbingly spending it on shinten.

I hope that the development team reconsider the removal of kaiten. I very much would like it to stay. I was generally in a happy state with EW's iteration of Samurai so seeing this proposed felt like a betrayal from the development team.

https://youtu.be/W1ZtBCpo0eU?t=50

I am ready for the difficulty options to be implemented soon. Never forget my mom doing the 'That Old Familiar Feeling' gladiator level 15 class quest on normal, sitting down on a table during the fight and leaving to go to the bathroom. When she came back Aldis won the fight for her. She literally did nothing. I know this is a bit off topic, but this change leaves me feeling similarly. It is only the beginning...or well actually the continuation. Unsure when the beginning of The Great Simplification™ truly began.

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Originally Posted by Faafetai

https://youtu.be/W1ZtBCpo0eU?t=50

I am ready for the difficulty options to be implemented soon. Never forget my mom doing the 'That Old Familiar Feeling' gladiator level 15 class quest on normal, sitting down on a table during the fight and leaving to go to the bathroom. When she came back Aldis won the fight for her. She literally did nothing. I know this is a bit off topic, but this change leaves me feeling similarly. It is only the beginning...or well actually the continuation. Unsure when the beginning of The Great Simplification™ truly began.

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2.2ish when they made warrior easier because it was too hard to play well

I'm going to preface this by saying the earliest SAM I know is Shadowbringers SAM. So whatever use Kaiten has seen before then, to me, is irrelevant. This also goes for other abilities that may have been removed in the past that acted like Kaiten. It doesn't matter to how SAM is today.

Today, Kaiten is a skill that serves a purpose unlike any other in the game. The closest abilities I can think of is DRG's Life Surge and MCH's Reassemble, but even those are different because there is no gauge cost associated with them. The design of using such a skill then, an oGCD to power up a GCD by spending a resource, is one that has become fairly iconic and job defining. This is especially the case when it's used as much as it is on a SAM.

By concept, Kaiten is the power-up to unleash a devastating blow.
By sight, Kaiten is the masterful flourish of your blade before landing a precise strike.
By feeling, Kaiten is the pumping of a shotgun before firing it.

It is our second most used button. Now, it's gone. And with it, a piece of the job's identity.

Not only that, but a ternary decision has become a binary one. Binary decisions are rarely fun. We are humans. We are not computers. It does not matter whether the ternary decision was easy. The headline here is now it is even easier. No longer do you have to consider the moments of Shinten use and the timing of your Kaiten-Iaijutsu abilities. No longer even, with the further eradication of buffs occurring outside of 2mins, do you have to consider when you use your gauge outside of the 20s of raid buffs. We don't have meaningful agency on our Shinten use for the majority of a fight. Pooling in anticipation for 2min buffs is all that is left. All this newfound Kenki to be spent on Shinten, and very little mastery to be expressed. Unless, of course, you are given an AST card. Who knows how long that will last, the writing on the wall is plain to see after they called out the "business" of AST. Odds are, the expression of that VERY extreme case of masterful Shinten use will soon be eliminated as well. But I digress.

Point is: Shinten being the only meaningful spender of our gauge for the majority of the fight does not make for fun game-play. I don't want to poke things to death. With this change, Shinten will be our most used ability by far. I don't like that for many reasons. I don't like it for the above reason of it being a very simplistic decision of when to use Shinten. I don't like it conceptually as a SAM who is supposed to be cutting more than poking. I don't like it visually as the flow of animation becomes very spammy and nonsensical, even in the world of Final Fantasy.

All of what I'm trying to say is - on many different view points, the removal of Kaiten is not worth it. It's not worth it for button bloat. It's not worth it for action bloat. It's not worth it for reducing business. It's simply not worth it.

Good news is JP side is very negative on this change too.
There maybe a chance this will not happen, maybe?

It'll probably happen because it's too late to change, but it might be reverted come 6.2.

Just made a forum account to add my dissent to the removal of Hissatsu: Kaiten, for all the many reasons stated in this thread:

• Loss of class fantasy (!!!)
• Loss of aesthetically pleasing animation and sound
• Loss of (mildly) engaging gauge management
• Loss of oGCD variety

As petty as it is, this proposed change has killed my motivation to play the game. I was starting to really enjoy SAM and had been gearing mine up. It was my favorite DPS this expansion. But what I don't enjoy is SAM's gameplay prior to 52. Kaiten's satisfying flourish, the way it flows into the iaijutsu animation, and the class fantasy of focusing energy into our powerful attacks, defines the job in my eyes. Shinten is boring in comparison. I don't want to play SAM without Kaiten. And if I don't want to play my favorite DPS, how do I justify playing the others?

I'll almost certainly unsub until 6.2 or 6.3 if Hissatsu: Kaiten is removed.

Technically off-topic, but I can't say I'm thrilled about the guaranteed crit changes either due to job synergy concerns. A much better idea to address crit variance is to make our larger attacks multiple hits where appropriate. Midare Setsugekka, Kaeshi Setsugekka, and Hissatsu: Senei are perfect candidates to be turned into 2-hit attacks. Shoha can be turned into 5 hits if you're desperate. Ogi Namikiri and Kaeshi Namikiri are problematic, but you can make those two alone guaranteed crits if you want.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I'm not casual, nor am I bad. I just hated what they did to SAM in the last expansion.

And people acting like kaiten is somehow the lynchpin to what SAM is.

The forums are full of people overreacting (as usual).

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It's not just players on the forums that are upset by this change. Players on the subreddit, the chans, and The Balance Discord are upset as well. Not only is the class losing more of its identity in favor of mindless Shinten spam, it's also losing synergy with classes that line up with it during raid buff windows. DRGs, BRDs, and DNCs especially will not want to be in a group with a class that does not help their own DPS contribution.

You say you hated what they did to SAM in SHB, but yet you fail to understand what consequences this is going to have on the class and party makeup as a whole. If you're fine with homogenization, then so be it. However, don't be disingenuous and say our concerns are not important when you yourself seem to know little.

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Originally Posted by YukiB

As petty as it is, this proposed change has killed my motivation to play the game... And if I don't want to play my favorite DPS, how do I justify playing the others?

I'll almost certainly unsub until 6.2 or 6.3 if Hissatsu: Kaiten is removed

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Nothing's petty about it and hey, more power to you. If they can say 'Oh your favourite job got gutted? Tough luck, play another job', what's stopping us to say 'Oh my favourite job got gutted? Time to stop playing this game'

You're not alone here, we're all here because we love SAM and the fun of playing it, not just because we have to play a job or any job in this game.

They say the harshest thing you can do to a comedian is to not laugh at their joke. The harshest thing you can do towards this change is to not play this game when the change is applied (which let's be honest, it's already set in stone for now)

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

it only exists to punish if you mis-count your Kenki and use one too many of the oGCDs, as it's only useful before an Iaijutsu or Ogi Namikiri.

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It's only being removed to further simplify another class...
The reasoning was due to DPS fluctuation from crits so they also guaranteed crits on your Iaijustu.
May as well remove crit from the game as well and make everything crit right? No more RNG dps as it makes things to complex.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

That sounds like a pretty good future to be honest. Complexity for the sake of complexity doesn't add anything of value to the game and new summoner is some of the most fun I've had in a while.

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Class complexity exists so there is a skill ceiling and a skill floor for players. So players that want to spend time to understand a class more can perform better and are rewarded for there efforts. Taking this away makes there no point in caring about learning a class at all. So it does add value to the game.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Hissatsu: Kaiten is also known as Dark Arts. That is probably why.

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Them what do you call Sages Eukrasia?

Eukrasia is a GCD its only vaguely similar to DRK arts with its effect change,
but its no where near as spammable nor does it cost any resources.

also gurren is cool don't merge it with senei

shoha should just turn into an AOE
merge Tsubame and Iajutsu
third eye might aswell be deleted
and i don't think Yaten is necessary

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Originally Posted by Duskane

Eukrasia is a GCD its only vaguely similar to DRK arts with its effect change,
but its no where near as spammable nor does it cost any resources.

also gurren is cool don't merge it with senei

shoha should just turn into an AOE
merge Tsubame and Iajutsu
third eye might aswell be deleted
and i don't think Yaten is necessary

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too much gutting/simplifying I hate your idea as much as devs idea, leave third eye alone already made it easier to use.

The problem is that there are just so many other ways to get rid of button bloat. Kaiten was _FUN_ to press, because you know that you're buffing that big hit that is coming, you watch your character twirl its sword. It was fun, regardless of whether it was "only there to punish you if you miscounted kenki."

They could have instead (I'm not suggesting they actually do any of these, I'm just listing "better", IMO, ways of cleaning it up):

Combine Tsubame-gaeshi and Iajutsu so you just press Iajutsu again to repeat
Combine Shoha and Shoha II into a single attack that does X damage to target + AE fall off damage
Combine Guren and Senei into a single attack that does X damage to target + AE fall off damage
Combine Shinten and Kyuten into a single attack that does X damage to target + AE fall off damage
Combine Gyoten and Yaten into a single ability that takes you to an enemy/friendly (I'm not sure how often these are really used in more difficult content though, admittedly)

Hell, even changing the 3/3/2 combos to 3/2/2 would have felt better than this change.

It was just another version of OG Dark Arts thats all. We knew it was coming. Just like next expansion they are going to go after Sage Eukrasia

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Originally Posted by Derio

It was just another version of OG Dark Arts thats all. We knew it was coming. Just like next expansion they are going to go after Sage Eukrasia

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I find it funny when people compare Kaiten to Dark Arts as if that's an excuse to remove it.

As if Dark Knight isn't currently having the biggest identity crisis of any job at the moment, because they no longer have a job-defining skill like Dark Arts.

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Originally Posted by YukiB

I find it funny when people compare Kaiten to Dark Arts as if that's an excuse to remove it.

As if Dark Knight isn't currently having the biggest identity crisis of any job at the moment, because they no longer have a job-defining skill like Dark Arts.

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I don't think it was the removal of dark arts that left DRK without a job identity. It was the removal of... Everything else.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

That sounds like a pretty good future to be honest. Complexity for the sake of complexity doesn't add anything of value to the game and new summoner is some of the most fun I've had in a while.

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Please, for the love of all things decent, don't say that. Summoner went from the most complex DPS in the game that was adored by endgame players to something so simple you can't mess up unless you refuse to press buttons. There's nothing wrong with being a casual but "flashy lights and big monsters make me happy" is a terrible defense for it.

Random aside:

I like how Sage plays, but flavorfully *why* did it need to be the Dark Arts job? Why tf do we need to Eukrasia (lit. "good health") abilities that are already laser-charged with healing medicine? I guess a "laser-charging" gimmick is fine, I just don't think it is communicated especially well in the job's flavor.

On topic: I am sad to see Kaiten go. SAM and RDM are absolutely the Mystic Knight and Rune Fencer of the jobs (since DRK lost Dark Arts), and I don't want the devs to chip away their identities just to throw in a third? fourth? half-baked attempt at a Spellblade job. There are so many other jobs I would prefer over a sixth sword-magey job (seventh if you count NIN).

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Originally Posted by Derio

It was just another version of OG Dark Arts thats all. We knew it was coming. Just like next expansion they are going to go after Sage Eukrasia

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Sounds like someone has no idea what they are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

Eukrasia is a GCD its only vaguely similar to DRK arts with its effect change,
but its no where near as spammable nor does it cost any resources.

also gurren is cool don't merge it with senei

shoha should just turn into an AOE
merge Tsubame and Iajutsu
third eye might aswell be deleted
and i don't think Yaten is necessary

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I'm going to address point by point:
- shoha merge is nice, I don't get why paladin spirit's within / expiacion got this treatment and shoha didn't
- merging tsubame and iaijutsu isn't nice, learning how to not drift tsubame requires a lot of discipline which for me is core to what the samurai fantasy is, not a mindless brute swinging it's sword, and the same can be said about kaiten (requires some decision making alongside shinten so you have enough for your burst without overcapping it)
- if you're not using third eye then you're not ready to reach the skill ceiling of the job. it mitigates damage and gives you kenki back so you can do even more damage which is your goal by the end of the day. be smart and be rewarded.
- every melee needs movement options, a gtfo button is more than appreciated so you don't have to disengage too early from the target.

EDIT: forgot some points so...
- yeah don't merge guren with senei, I actually like senei's animation a lot more
- eukrasia cost one resource, which is time, the most important one because it's tied to the gcd. dark arts and kaiten don't make you lose a cast of something because of it.

Reposting a short version of my main thread.

Instead of bickering about subjective measures such as aesthetics or depths of the skill, let's examine Kaiten with the scope of Action Bloat in mind using CPM as metric.

In 4.x, Samurai use Hagakure to eat Sen and spam more shinten, Kaiten is not action bloat
In 5.x, standard 1 min rotation uses 4 Kaiten per min, no compaints to Kaiten being action bloat.
In 6.0, Meikyo charge adds 1 extra Kaiten on opener, and Ogi 1 extra kaiten every 2 mins.

In ShB E12S P1, top 3 SAM had CPM of 47.6, 47.8, and 47.1
In EW P4S P2, top 3 SAM had CPM of 46.1, 45.3, and 46.1

Top P4S P2 log had 33 cast of Kaiten on 6:43 kill, that's 4.9 CPM. That's equivalent to 660 Kenki or 26.4 Shiten Casts, which is 3.93 CPM. It is barely a change, and EW SAM already has lower CPM than ShB SAM, the action bloat arugment does not stand.

No Action Bloat = No need to remove Kaiten.

Hi, I've cleared all raid content in the game barring DR Savage (cause no interest in corralling 48 people originally) and I believe that we should reduce all jobs to 1 button.

Ultimate Power (level 1):
Deals an unaspected potency attack of 99k potency every 60 seconds for 12 minutes.
Heals all players in the party by 10k potency every 10s for 12 minutes.
Causes the player to suffer 10% of incoming damage for the next 12 minutes.

With the ultimate QoL change occurring at the harrowing level 10 (to help alleviate anxiety when using duty finder) a trait.

The Blessing Of Light (level 10):
The Ultimate Power will be automatically activated upon entering the Duty Finder and duration removed.


This will effectively remove all of that nasty button bloat so I can be focused on more important things when playing FFXIV like activating gpose, chatting with friends in the duty and in my countless Lalafel and Hrothgar love advocacy linkshells, and of course letting me relax and watch television to help ease my crippling anxiety I feel when I am perceived by other living beings.

edit: I have a feeling the 12 minute duration on the initial action might be too short for balance so the devs might need to increase or remove the duration on the base skill.

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Originally Posted by Hyuinn

I'm going to address point by point:
[...]
- merging tsubame and iaijutsu isn't nice, learning how to not drift tsubame requires a lot of discipline which for me is core to what the samurai fantasy is, not a mindless brute swinging it's sword, and the same can be said about kaiten (requires some decision making alongside shinten so you have enough for your burst without overcapping it)
- if you're not using third eye then you're not ready to reach the skill ceiling of the job. it mitigates damage and gives you kenki back so you can do even more damage which is your goal by the end of the day. be smart and be rewarded.
[...]

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I'm definitely missing something with your point on drift and Tsubame that makes you think that combining them wouldn't be nice. Doesn't Tsubame reset if you use any other GCD after your Iaijustu? Not sure I understand why you would need them to be separate buttons. Do you mean that it's more difficult to hit the other button after Iaijutsu, that there is skill expression in the fact that you have to hit 2 buttons instead of just slamming 1 until both go off?

IMO, Third Eye is bad design right now. It essentially gives you extra DPS if you take damage (I realize it's a minuscule amount, but it's still an overall bad design) which means you're rewarded for getting hit. You shouldn't be rewarding people for taking damage, and anything that increases damage is more likely to just be used "on cooldown" rather than being used at the "best" time. I know there are caveats with Third Eye in particular (and I know that most SAMs are using it for raid wides, not to stand in telegraphed/avoidable AEs), and the main effect is good for SAM, but I don't think it should give Kenki unless it's similar to TBN where it uses it and then gives it back if you "use it correctly." It should never be a DPS gain to get hit by something. That's just my opinion though, one that I'm sure SAM mains will hate me for saying.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

If there were an instance of raidwide damage, I'd simply avoid it.

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I couldn't agree more, taking damage is a sign of weakness and puts you at risk of death; why should we reward players for doing this? Also how am I even supposed to know when to hit "Third Eye"??? The duration is so short and there's no way I could possibly know when an instance of unavoidable damage is coming out. It's extremely unfair and unfun to create skill gaps in a game via this unnecessary button bloat that Yoshida seems to have a hardon for.

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Originally Posted by RezPls

I couldn't agree more, taking damage is a sign of weakness and puts you at risk of death; why should we reward players for doing this? Also how am I even supposed to know when to hit "Third Eye"??? The duration is so short and there's no way I could possibly know when an instance of unavoidable damage is coming out. It's extremely unfair and unfun to create skill gaps in a game via this unnecessary button bloat that Yoshida seems to have a hardon for.

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I hope this is sarcasm...

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Originally Posted by Ransu

I hope this is sarcasm...

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It is, because they're incapable of coming up with an objective way of disagreeing with it.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

It is, because they're incapable of coming up with an objective way of disagreeing with it.

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No, I agree that we should remove all points of a skill check via inputs for the game. It's a product you're paying for, why should you be barred from access or have to feel like your doing labor or try-harding in a videogame. That just isn't fun and I agree that we should be flattening the curb completely on skill/output for all jobs.

There are raid wide attacks that you can't avoid....That's generally when you pop third eye.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

There are raid wide attacks that you can't avoid....That's generally when you pop third eye.

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Yep, and that's where the proper use of Third Eye is. We're all on the same page there.

No SAM worth their salt is getting vuln stacks on purpose for a miniscule DPS increase. It's not a problem in savage because you get damage downs, and it's in savage where the defensive matters. It's been the difference between life or death for me on several occassions. Either the SAM is super casual and doesn't press third eye, or super good and doesn't feel the need to get hit on purpose for a third eye proc. It rewards fight knowledge of where unavoidable damage comes in, especially during burst windows. Any SAM getting hit by avoidable aoes on purpose for a third eye proc is actively trolling for a single digit DPS increase in normal content

So how would you change it then? Third eye currently adds another layer to kenki management with not overcapping. Ask any DRK how they feel about TBN and the answer you'll typically get is "unfun"

Third Eye is more akin to short CDs like Divine Benison, which reward the player for proactive gameplay. If you make it dps neutral SAMs will never press it because 1. The game is janky with how it snapshots damage with the third eye proc 2. it'd be a dps loss when it doesn't break. The majority of the time there's no risk of death, so besides it being a "oh no I'm about to die, hope this saves me" button you'd effectively remove it from most SAMs hotbars

Not saying that I would change it and not asking that it would be changed. It's a non-issue.

I'm just saying that it's kind of bad design. It's the only instance where a non-tank is essentially rewarded for taking damage (if you want to be pedantic; Yes SGE's sting charges). I know that it's not enough of a reward for (intelligent) people to purposefully take avoidable damage and I enjoy the idea behind it (i.e. you're rewarding the person for making life easier for the healer).

I don't know. Thinking through it more I actually really like the idea of rewarding DPS for making it easier on the healer. I, honestly, didn't think of that portion of it before I posted, I just looked at it in a vacuum of "Get hit->Get reward" and felt like the damage mitigation should be enough of a reward, but then realized how generally selfish people are and how they wouldn't hit it unless they were rewarded as well. Maybe it's not as bad as I initially though.

Honestly I'm in agreement, I use second wind and bloodbath to help my healers out especially when stuff starts going awry. Though I think having those tools just be there for emergencies is fine otherwise people will just press it for the DPS gain. But I think more players should try to utilize their class to help out others

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Originally Posted by KokaSokaLoka

Honestly I'm in agreement, I use second wind and bloodbath to help my healers out especially when stuff starts going awry. Though I think having those tools just be there for emergencies is fine otherwise people will just press it for the DPS gain. But I think more players should try to utilize their class to help out others

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Agree 100%; I always try to pop Second Wind/Bloodbath especially when I take avoidable damage. Playing as healer though, I rarely see that being done by DPS and I'm sure it's in no small part due to the fact that they don't get anything for it.

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Originally Posted by Xenon_S

Reposting a short version of my main thread.

Instead of bickering about subjective measures such as aesthetics or depths of the skill, let's examine Kaiten with the scope of Action Bloat in mind using CPM as metric.

In 4.x, Samurai use Hagakure to eat Sen and spam more shinten, Kaiten is not action bloat
In 5.x, standard 1 min rotation uses 4 Kaiten per min, no compaints to Kaiten being action bloat.
In 6.0, Meikyo charge adds 1 extra Kaiten on opener, and Ogi 1 extra kaiten every 2 mins.

In ShB E12S P1, top 3 SAM had CPM of 47.6, 47.8, and 47.1
In EW P4S P2, top 3 SAM had CPM of 46.1, 45.3, and 46.1

Top P4S P2 log had 33 cast of Kaiten on 6:43 kill, that's 4.9 CPM. That's equivalent to 660 Kenki or 26.4 Shiten Casts, which is 3.93 CPM. It is barely a change, and EW SAM already has lower CPM than ShB SAM, the action bloat arugment does not stand.

No Action Bloat = No need to remove Kaiten.

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I do think class flavor is an important discussion, lest we just play a game where we tpose and attack an image of a boss. But thank you for putting into hard numbers what I've been thinking. None of the cited reasons from the devs actually solve what they're trying to fix. If CPM is an issue MCH, DRK, GNB, and AST are all sweating. Every person I've talked to who thinks they'll press less buttons has completely forgotten that you'll go from pressing Kaiten to pressing Shinten. The class will be just as busy but without the kenki management because there's no punishment for using it all. It also tells us that they don't plan on adding anything back because that would add more actions, so this is a plain over-simplification of the class.

Same with the crits - if the difference between the highest direct critical hit and the regular hit is so large then the answer was to reduce the potency of midare/ogi namikiri and spread the potency around the kit. Instead they just indirectly nerfed SCH/DRG/DNC and sorta kinda BRD. It feels like they looked at SAM in a vacuum and made changes without thinking about party composition. To be honest, from what I've seen from top logs is that the difference isn't that large. When you see a difference in the amounts of 300-500 dps it's because the higher dps crit an ungodly high amount, like of course the person who crits 70% of their midares and kaeshi setsugekkas is going to do a boatload more damage than the person who crit 20%. That 70% is nigh unattainable, an outlier, and should barely be considered when balancing the class.

I do want to add an extra thought - if people are struggling to play SAM at endgame, it's more than likely because the class is incredibly fractured during the leveling process and you can't really learn it til you hit max level. In my opinion, it doesn't become a playable class til around the level 70 mark. Anything sub 50 is unplayable in terms of class identity, you just hit what gcds you have and hope it's optimal. I don't think a class that starts at level 50 and requires owning stormblood should need as much hand holding in lower levels and it'd be much healthier for the class to include its base combo from the beginning. SAM at its core is a simple class for most of the leveling process: build midare, expend midare, refresh dot. Let SAM have that from level 15, and if that breaks balance then adjust potencies via traits in the leveling process. If they can do it with MCH they can do it with SAM (and just about every other class). MCH has the foundation of its kit throughout the entire leveling process. Then as they get higher levels you can introduce more complex class mechanics such as kenki management, shoha, etc etc

So if SEs concern is that people have a hard time with the class and think removing action bloat will make it more accessible - the better solution is to help people practice the class for longer via the leveling process, because right now that just doesn't accomplish it.

That's definitely fair and isn't the only class that comment could be made for (BLM being the obvious, PLD being on there as well).

I feel like _a lot_ of the feeling of being "hand holding" at those lower levels are for the reason you hit on; balance. It's easier to balance the class by just giving them an anemic kit at lower levels rather than potency adjustments with traits every X levels that increase those potencies.

I think people struggling at endgame is due to the game lacking things that truly foster player skill.

I'm not sure MCH is a good example of something that is "complete" though; <=50, you're using reassemble on your third combo action since Hot Shot is lower potency than it. You don't have Autocrossbow yet, you don't have the big attack CDs that MCH's core identity really is. I'd say maybe if Hotshot was actually higher potency than the third combo action that you might be able to say that the "core" of "Reassemble big cooldown when they're available + Build heat for hypercharge + use battery whenever you have it" would be there, but I'm not sure that first one is really there at lower levels. Again, IMO.

Playing with controller and have had zero issues with kaiten.

What does make me really dislike samurai on the other hand, is the castbar for their finisher.
It just breaks their flow.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Playing with controller and have had zero issues with kaiten.

What does make me really dislike samurai on the other hand, is the castbar for their finisher.
It just breaks their flow.

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It honestly doesn't and they'd have to lower potency significantly if those skills didn't have a cast time.

Cast bar definitely isn't a problem and doesn't at all break up the flow. They don't really have a ton of GCDs they need to get out that you're losing out on from the cast.

It "feels" good for sure.

I, too, play with controller though and Kaiten isn't a problem. I feel like they just see a huge difference between the bottom of the barrel (No Kaiten + No crit Midare) and the best outcome (Kaiten + Crit Midare) and are making 2 separate changes to bring those together. "Fixing" the issue where people don't understand the proper use of Kaiten as well as "fixing" the randomness of the damage.

I also fear, like so many other people, that this is just the newest victim of the tidal wave of simplification (seems like my job, DRG is next) which is seemingly targeting jobs at random given the fact that there are so many "worse" jobs in terms of APM. Maybe they just don't have a good solution for those jobs though.