Samurai's Journey - 4.0 to 6.1, and my proposed changes.

Let's begin with the assumption that 99.9% of people that consider themselves to be Samurai mains are opposed to all of the 6.1 changes with the exception of the small buff to Third Eye's duration. Too many fundamental aspects of the job were changed simultaneously, causing disruption in the "flow" of Samurai, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics. As a Samurai main since 4.0, a lot of little changes have built up over the years, and now I finally feel compelled make my first forum post since beginning the game in 2010.

Using 6.08 as a starting point, I believe there is much more improvement that can be made without upsetting overall damage calculations too much. My ultimate goal with this post is the desire to restore and even enhance Samurai's identity, while improving gameplay elegance. I believe these changes will not only make Samurai easier for new players, but also more satisfying for veteran players.

At the risk of sounding redundant with other threads on this forum, I want to start off with my personal thoughts on what are probably the three primary issues in 6.1, then I will proceed to my proposed changes using 6.08 as a baseline.

Hissatsu: Kaiten

I've never considered this skill to be bloat. Aside from being a satisfying animation, it was also one of the few things that made conscious Kenki Gauge management an aspect of Samurai. Bring it back, please.

Tenka Goken

The change to a circular AoE with a small radius did not enhance this skill in any aspect:

1. It is frustrating to be forced to dive into a pack of monsters - all of which are already trying to kill you with their own AoE - for the sake of casting a skill just so you can continue your rotation properly. This change makes it more difficult for new and veteran players alike. If I wanted to cast circular AoE skills, I would swap to a Caster DPS. Casted cone AoE skills with long range allow the Samurai to stay safely to the side of a pack and still hit everything.

2. The character's animation strongly implies a wide frontal strike, so now it is disjointed aesthetically.

Iaijutsu skills in general

Having their potency gutted and spread across the rest of the kit just makes them feel anticlimactic considering the amount of buildup needed to access them. Guaranteed criticals are less exciting, especially when they deal similar or less damage than a non-critical, non-direct hit from 6.08. Additionally, having potency from high level skills spread to lower ones will just further increase the power creep at lower levels, removing work that has already been put into alleviating this issue.

The proposed changes will begin below:

Fuga and Fuko

1. Remove Fuga, make Fuko a level 26 skill, or whatever level is deemed appropriate for the first AoE that Samurai acquires. This serves two purposes: Reinforce the "Instant attack: Circle, Casted attack: Cone" gameplay, and will not require the player to suddenly learn a new AoE dance rhythm at level 86.

2. Add Fuga's swirling wind effects onto Fuko. Just a small visual enhancement, but Fuko is rather plain. This will also make it more visually distinct from Total Eclipse on Paladin.

Hissastsu: Guren & Hissatsu: Senei

1. Combine these skills. They share a cooldown, it saves a button, and it also prevents the situation where you get synced down to level 70, and suddenly Guren should replace the slot Senei is in.

2. Potency; 800 for the primary target, 500 for all remaining targets. Slightly higher total, but still nearly identical in large packs when using current numbers. Add falloff as needed if it's still too high.

3. Which animation to keep? My vote is for Guren. In my opinion, Senei's sheath strike has always looked strange, especially if you decide to use one of the katana with a more abstract sheath design, or no sheath at all in the case of the Bokuto.

Shoha & Shoha II

These are a bit trickier. I think both of these skills are mostly fine especially with the awesome animations for both, but having two separate buttons play off of the relatively minor aspect that is the Meditation Gauge seems excessive. I know that there have been proposals in other threads to combine these into one button already so I am offering a different approach.

1. Remove the buttons, keep the skills.

2. When you fill the meditation gauge, replace the Hissatsu: Shinten button with Shoha, and Hissatsu: Kyuten button with Shoha II.

(Problem: I realize this would very briefly lock you out of options for Kenki management. They could additionally be made into 25 Kenki spenders with appropriate potency, as a sort of Super Shinten or Super Kyuten.)

3.The name "Shoha II" is awkward considering the rest of Samurai's skills. I don't know what I would change it to, but something more elegant.

Ikishoten, Ogi Namikiri, & Hissastsu: Kaiten

1. Decouple Ikishoten from Ogi Namikiri. From level 68 to 89, you can use Ikishoten whenever combat starts without thinking about it too much. After 90, you suddenly have to be wary of a tank that may stall or a cutscene. Other than those situations, the 30 second "Ogi Namikiri Ready" buff is completely meaningless; it just becomes a point of frustration.

2. Hissatsu: Kaiten only interacts with Iaijutsu and Ogi Namikiri, instead of all Weaponskills.

3. Hissatsu: Kaiten grants Ogi Namikiri ready simultaneously. Doesn't necessarily have to be a different buff icon, just a level 90 trait that applies to Kaiten. This will also remove the awkwardness of using two different oGCD Abilities in quick succession for one casted Weaponskill.

4. Due to the above, Ogi Namikiri now has its own 2 minute cooldown, instead of the cooldown being a consequence of activating Ikishoten.

Third Eye

This skill is fine, but I feel there's opportunity to reintroduce the lost counter-play flavor that Samurai once enjoyed, especially now that we've freed up a few buttons.

1. Third Eye grants Open Eyes once more, or just rename the buff to Seigan Ready.

2. Bring back Hissatsu: Seigan. Same potency and cost as Shinten, but now additionally restores a modest amount of health as well. Keep the same character animation from before, but consider adding slightly flashier effects to the animation to reflect the higher damage as well as healing effect over the old Seigan.

3 (Maybe). To avoid adding back a button, have it replace the Hissatsu: Shinten button temporarily as well. I realize this clashes with the changes proposed with Shoha already, and so the order of precedence should be as follows: Shoha > Seigan > Shinten. This is a big maybe because a triple layered oGCD button seems excessive but it isn't without precedence (Continuation on Gunbreaker.) The other issue is it would lock you out of instant access to Seigan healing if Shoha is ready, but considering the heal doesn't exist at all currently I don't think it would be a huge deal in the long run.

And that concludes my thoughts on the current state of Samurai.

Yoshi-P supposedly wanted us to add fuel to the flames if we were not content with the changes, so here I am. If this post counts towards getting Samurai back to 6.08, I will be happy. If I manage to influence positive change going forward, I'll be even happier.

But please share your own thoughts as well. Did I miss any aspects that you think need changing? Are any of my proposals completely insane? I can only pray the 6.1 changes are reverted sooner rather than later, or I may have to decide what my next main job will be.

I agree with you on these changes. For 6.1, i have to drop Sam and start playing drg, my starter job. If i miss sam, i just pvp
Also, i would like to add. Tsubame gaeshi can be remove and replaced with other skills instead. Repeat midare look weird for me. The new lb for sam look cool and i would like them to move that animation to tsubame gaeghi. After midare, u do 1 more heavy slash cutting through the boss feel way cooler.

I agree about the Tenka Goken changes. While I get having a circle aoe is nice in some ways, I don't feel it works as well for it as we're having to stand still *CASTING* in the middle of a pack. Being on the outskirts to do a targeted cone aoe was safer.
It's understandable they made the change in regards to it now being able to be casted without a target though so ughhh I doubt this will change.
It's like they're realizing they made a fucky wuckey with any aoe that ISN'T a circle, dragoons are some of the only ones exempt from aoe homogenization for good or bad.

The only thing on this list I might change is Third Eye. I didn't really PvP on SAM before now, but Hissatsu: Chiten is a really cool ability. Obviously we can't just directly copy/paste that ability into PvE, otherwise it might be used to cheese boss mechanics by reflecting a ton of damage. But adding a modified PvE-specific version of it would solve the problem Third Eye has now, that it just doesn't feel very engaging to press. The animation is less impressive than Chiten, and since it no longer interacts with anything I almost want to take it off my bars. Blocking 10% of an unavoidable boss hit is great, but since SAM is kinda squishy to begin with, I don't notice much of a difference.

All things being equal, I'd love to have Seigan back, especially if it had a heal component that was actually worth using. Merciful Eyes went off my bars a whole expansion before it was pruned. But if the goal is to reduce button bloat, having a completely different defensive cooldown that automatically countered attacks for me would feel more exciting than just pushing Third Eye and blocking a fraction of one attack. It'd be kind of like Saber Reflect from SWTOR. Outside of instanced content, running a FATE and popping Third Eye only to dodge the next attack and not get hit for the rest of its active window makes me feel like a goober.

I'd have to disagree with guren and senei. There was another sam thread (two of them actually) that proposed a much better and simpler solution that keeps it working as is while reducing button bloat and wouldn't be as hard for devs to even implent. It was to use ikishoten to trigger a buff that would change kyuten/shinten to guren/senei respectively. We already get ikishoten before guren/senei plus all these skills have the same cd.

Using this line of thought, it would make even more sense to have ogi namikiri require ikishoten to activate but instead of its own button, have ikishoten change into ogi namikiri instead. This is a common request from many threads I've read though personally, I think it's a bad idea to have ikishoten and ogi as same button for the fact that ikishoten cd won't start until ogi namikiri and kaeshi namikiri were used.

With shoha, i think it would be better if it just got upgraded into shoha 2 instead of having separate button but make it have degrading damage the farther they are like how guren already works.

Also, tenka goken, it's universally hatred. Even funnier is that apparently JP players mock the skill since tenka goken means five swords and were apparently shooting it out of our ass now lol.

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Originally Posted by NotReallyMistral

I'd have to disagree with guren and senei. There was another sam thread (two of them actually) that proposed a much better and simpler solution that keeps it working as is while reducing button bloat and wouldn't be as hard for devs to even implent. It was to use ikishoten to trigger a buff that would change kyuten/shinten to guren/senei respectively. We already get ikishoten before guren/senei plus all these skills have the same cd.

Using this line of thought, it would make even more sense to have ogi namikiri require ikishoten to activate but instead of its own button, have ikishoten change into ogi namikiri instead. This is a common request from many threads I've read though personally, I think it's a bad idea to have ikishoten and ogi as same button for the fact that ikishoten cd won't start until ogi namikiri and kaeshi namikiri were used.

With shoha, i think it would be better if it just got upgraded into shoha 2 instead of having separate button but make it have degrading damage the farther they are like how guren already works.

Also, tenka goken, it's universally hatred. Even funnier is that apparently JP players mock the skill since tenka goken means five swords and were apparently shooting it out of our ass now lol.

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the trouble of tenka is the animation that don't make sense mostly. if the sam had jumped for make the attack hit the ground before split into a circle it will look less stupid.

for guren/seinen like said in the other post, make it when you use ikishoten shinten and kyuten become seinen and guren will be smarter and feel better.
for shoha honestly i prefer keep them different one for aoe and one for mono target i feel better to have the choice.

that said most of the change was surely means to come sooner but was delayed and decided to arrive there while not finishing the stuff needed for make it better.

change needed:
- switch the increase of potency from the combo to the iaijutsu for make them the true goal of our sam and the main tool, the combo are a means to reach the iaijutsu. it must feel rewarding to use it....
- ikishoten become ogi when used + shinten and kyuten become seinen and guren. reducing reducing 3 button. woot!
- kaiten, honestly i can understand why people complain but i feel they need to work more on this skill... i know why they did remove it, mostly because it something that can be replaced by a balance of potency! the skill by itself outside of the animation don't bring this much in terms of gameplay. however i feel it was an error to remove it without giving something else... and the removal was not needed before the next expansion, because right now we spam shinten to the point where it become a bother and break the flow of the job.

right now the jobs have trouble with the rythm and the identity. they need to adress this before do anything else or they will make people really quit the jobs and not because it weak but because it feel bad and underwhelming to play it!

I honest to god live the idea of shoha being an empowered shinten/kyuten. Shinten is our most boring ability and trying to minimize the number of shinten casts with sword meditation and shoha usage sounds like something that would move Samurais game play forward and not backwards.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the trouble of tenka is the animation that don't make sense mostly. if the sam had jumped for make the attack hit the ground before split into a circle it will look less stupid.

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I don't think this would solve the problem with Tenka. Firstly, we're not dragoons. I don't want to jump in the air and shoot an AoE at the floor, that's not a samurai thing. It works for them because they're practically Gundams, flying all over the place in heavy armor. The lance makes a certain kind of sense as a weapon that is used in an aerial dive-bomb melee attack, because it's a thrusting weapon. Channeling dragonfire through a lance and then diving from the sky and impaling a target with a huge AoE explosion is totally their thing.

Secondly, Tenka should remain a cone as it was before because it's a cast-time AoE. I don't want the cast removed. It's an iconic part of SAM design, our Iaijutsu skills should feel impactful because they take time to build up and take time to unleash. It gives some variation to the AoE rotation so it's not just "run to the center of the pack of mobs, and spin to win." Replacing Fuga with Fuko is a good idea to keep the instant-cast parts of the AoE rotation consistent, they're all circles. But with Tenka Goken and the column attacks, they are used less often but often chained together, so it gives two distinct "phases" to the AoE rotation that work well together.

If SE wants to cut a skill so badly, cut Shinten. It was degenerate gameplay in 4.0 because it was spammed frequently, and once again it's become optimal to dump Sen with Hagakure and spam Shinten, because the big hitters got flattened so badly that they're no longer big hitters, just visually stunning. What's the point of having a skill that looks really cool but does middling damage? That's basically Templar's Verdict from WoW. The Retribution-spec paladin channels Holy Light through their whole body and sprouts wings from their back for the duration of the swing, ripping the target in half with a giant anime slash. But you build Holy Power constantly (kinda like Sen, but smaller/shorter intervals between uses) so Templar's Verdict feels like a wet noodle because such a frequently-used ability cannot have high damage.

I've been saying for years that I wish Ret paladin played like SAM, because having a lengthier rotation that built up to amazing finishers would make the spec feel more powerful. Instead, 6.1 came out and SE turned SAM into a Ret paladin, without any of the emergency heals or minor party utility.