Yet Another 6.1 Samurai Thread
Hey all, I don't post on the forums (pls be nice), but I've been reading and I wanted to add to the mass of voices talking about the Samurai changes, since I, as with many SAM players, don't like it very much and I want squenix to know how players like me feel. Tl;Dr below.
First, context: I'm a guild/raid leader. I consider myself a very very average player in terms of my experiences. I have played tank/healer/caster throughout my playtime. I was pushed onto melee DPS this expansion for my static, and it was a very rough transition. I have learning disabilities and get overstimulated by games very easily. I do not do well with busy jobs, and SAM is indeed busy to me. That said, I kept going because I just genuinely really enjoyed SAM and learning the muscle memory was super satisfying. I play the game a lot, so I like a class that has small optimization to do. Samurai was a perfect balance for me!
The opener itself was intimidating, but the rotation quickly followed. It felt amazing for the rotation to become muscle memory and snap into place, like mastering something.
I especially liked balancing getting all my Kaitens with still holding kenki for burst windows without overcapping. I did have issues with it feeling like a lot when I first began playing the class, but it was not with Kaiten or with kenki in general, it was with Shoha II, Guren, and Ogi. I could not find comfortable spaces for them on my bar.
This is to say, as someone who picked up the class very recently and found issue with it, Kaiten added to the satisfaction of the job, motivated me, and that the buttons everyone else has been yelling about were the issue for me, too. I am now levelling DRG to play instead.
I think these changes were made to make SAM more consistent across player skill and crit variance and make it easier to play. However, I don't think Kaiten was hard to understand, and the thing that makes samurai hard to play at first is simply the amount of buttons, which as other posts have established, there were other options for. I also don't think that the raiding samurais who complain about inconsistency wanted this change, and they definitely did not want their numbers to feel so much lower.
I think a happy medium would maybe be to put the autocrit on Kaiten instead, and/or to condense other buttons down. I hope they revert the changes, or at the very least buff the numbers to make it feel less sad. Either way, I will be swapping my sword for a spear. :(
Tl;Dr: I leveled the job this expansion. I am a raid leader/guild leader and raid every week. I have learning disabilities and struggle with jobs that are too complex or are too busy. Theoretically I am who Kaiten was removed for. I do not like that it was removed. These changes did not fix my issues at all. I do not think the people who complained about inconsistency wanted these changes either. Playing the job makes me sad now, so I am levelling DRG to play in the new ultimate.