Making Samurai's Kenki Gauge A Bit More Interesting

Kind of just a fun idea to make samurai kenki gauge more interactive, especially since they removed kaiten.

While I want kaiten back as I feel the majority do, I think the removal of it brought something else up. Kenki gauge is really boring now. In my opinion, it was also a bit boring even with kaiten but at least it had some depth. So a possible suggestion would be to third eye. Basically bringing back seigan without bringing another button. Make third eye cost somewhere around 10 kenki and the reward could be a few things.

1. Give back 20-25 kenki. A boring but standard option.
2. Make the next shinten free. Basically point 1 but different.
3. Give a buff to the next iaijutsu. The fun option. If they bring back kaiten, make it stack.
4. Give you a sticker you don't already have. - A bit hard to balance but an interesting concept

I think this would only bring the up the damage ceiling a bit more but would also be a nice incentive to the newer players to the job to learn how to use third eye.

Relevant repost from another thread

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.

I can't say much about old samurai as I only really learned how to play samurai in endwalker. But 4.x sam does sound fun, sad I didn't play back then. This third eye suggestion is just some changes I thought of to keeping the job the same now and adding some complexity to the gauge by adding a small risk.

I made a feedback thread of my personal experience with Kaiten removal and shared comprising suggestions as ideas that based off of it I'll share here, though it goes beyond just kenki management.

Note: I want Pre-6.1 Samurai over anything else as of now before they removed Kaiten if I had the choice

- Kaiten
Costs 30 Kenki, applies 30 seconds of guaranteed Crits to all Iaijutsu skills and Ogi Namikiri

- Meditation Gauge
Gauge charges increased from Max 3 to Max 9 ( for future changes as they promised )

- Hissatsu: Shinten
Casting Shinten grants 1 Meditation Charge

- Hissatsu: Kyuten
Casting Kyuten grants 1 Meditation Charge

- Hagakure
Converts Setsu, Getsu and Ka into Kenki and Meditation Charges. 10 Kenki and 1 Meditation charge each.

- Hissatsu: Guren removed
- Hissatsu: Senei
Senei keeps its original slashing animation and adds Guren's Line Slash AoE animatio, turning it into a line AoE attack. Keeps Senei potency on first target hit with fall of damage of 50% like Guren.

- Shoha II removed
- Shoha
Shoha changed to be a frontal Cone AoE. Potency of Shoha remains the same as original Shoha. Casting Shoha activates " Hissatsu: Seigan buff "

- Hissatsu: Seigan
While activated, user has 15 seconds to use Seigan to deliver a single target attack potency of ( original potency was 220 ) costing 15 Kenki. Buff is consumed when used. (i.e like say Ogi Namikiri )

- Meditate
Meditate will now charge Kenki and Meditation charges regardless of if you move or stand still. Can be used in combat while casting any other skill. Meditation will allow unlimited usage of Hissatsu: Seigan during Meditate state. Not moving will make the Samurai enter the original Meditate stance animation ( for nostalgia )

- Enhanced Enpi
Animation speed reduced, casts faster then regular Enpi.


So this is to give more interactions with Kenki, more depth, as well as more depth to the Meditation Gauge and combining some buttons to reduce that so called Button Bloat issue. I didn't do math on any potencies or how rotations would possibly be befitting or if this is balanced or not just spit balling ideas.

Note: Not ideal, not exactly great ideas, but if I had to choose between this and Kaiten removal, well i'd have it this way. ULTIMATELY I rather have Pre-6.1 updated SAM before the removed Kaiten however.