A week after, and the 6.1 SAM changes are still not good

I posted on the day of 6.1's release about my initial dislike for the kaiten removal and crit/potency adjustment. Obviously there's the initial emotional reaction so I took some time and between doing the new content I focused on what I really did think of the new Samurai changes.

My consensus; Samurai is boring now. Considering previous Samurai, a big mood of the job is build up into big hits. And when those numbers direct crit it feels especially good. It was an rng game, sure, but it still felt really good to land that all crit opener and cement yourself in top dps aggro. With the rng gone, you still see the physically big number but the actual value is much lower. Granted, I still retained my aggro spot in raids, so the potency changes weren't as detrimental as I feared. But the satisfaction of that good pull was gone. There's no motivation to shout out "OGI NAMIKIRI" to encourage that direct crit because it doesn't 'feel' that impactful anyways.

Then there's the removal of Kaiten. The big button issue of the last week for Samurai players. In my opinion, Kaiten's removal is probably the worst thing to hit the job in a long time, if ever. Something that has hit a lot of other jobs is the slow change to making everything linear and controlled. You don't need to think about what to hit next, don't need to especially manage resources. Just hit whatever your specific glowing button is and follow the trail. Kaiten was one of the few deviating paths Samurai did have for mixing up what you spent your meter on, and it was a big one too. It allowed for some creativity in situations that made you feel like you could come up with solutions to random problems mid fight. Now your only solution is "boy I sure hope I'm in range to hit Shinten" because you're almost capped on meter so Enpi isn't looking all that appealing. This is a niche example, but I hope it shines on the fact that a big part of Samurai's feel and identity is it's wind up into big number and at least some flexibility with its meter use.

I implore to the dev team once again, please reapply Kaiten. And while you're considering it, please retweak numbers to make Setsugekkas and Namikiris feel satisfying again. I understand the desire for consistency in damage, but that inconsistency is part of what makes Samurai very satisfying to play. And if you're wanting to lower our button count, there's a few redundant aoe buttons with single-target variants that could be combined into one button. Or turning Ikishoten into Namikiri after initial use. There's much better options than what was put into motion this patch.

Its incredibly boring now. Shinten used to only be like 5-7% of my damage. Its now 12-15% with setsugekka being 17-20% I absolutely hate this shinten spam, especially since its one of the more boring animations on sam with a weird pause because its animation doesn't really line up well with the GCD like kaiten did.

It’s no longer the Kenki gauge it’s the Shinten gauge it makes no sense to remove a kenki skill! Pretty sure with the deletion of Kaiten, that every single gauge skill in the game is more or less only linked to 1 skill and a Aoe

Blood gauge, 1 skill, Kenki, 1 skill, Beast gauge, 1 Skill, Heat, 1 skill, Battery, 1 skill, Fae gauge , 1 skill, Aetherflow, 1 skill, Meditation, 1 skill, Esprit , 1 skill, Soul voice, 1 skill, Ninki, 1 skill. It’s pretty ridiculous how we have these whole gauges but only do 1 thing and how many jobs suffer from it

Indeed. Y'all remember when our gauges actually did something? Sure would be nice to have those back.

The way they've handled new skills in ShB and EW proves we could have everything SAM had without losing space. Just clean up how certain skills are available and we'll have about 4 or 5 empty spaces.

I'll keep suggesting it every thread I can.
Third Eye - Open Eyes
• make Third Eye transform to Merciful Eyes (would be cool if it healed about the same as Second Wind)
• make Shinten transform to Seigan

Ikishoten - Hissatsu/Ogi
• make Ikishoten transform to Ogi/Kaeshi Namikiri
• make Shinten/Kyuten transform into Senei/Guren
(Conversely, they could change the way Meditation and Kenki work and link them together in some way to make Shinten/Kyuten become Shoha 1 and 2 respectively)

So many ways they could alter the existing kit to make room for expansions.

While I'm not happy Kaiten is gone, I would be willing to let it go if something was put in its place for the removal. But as it stands, with nothing to change, we are left with 'press Shinten if available' and that isn't very fun.

I dont even look in my gauge anymore. I mean whats the point? You dont need to manage it anymore. To leave Sam in this state is utterly ridiculous. SE still hasnt even acknowledged the problem..... How many posts will it take SE? HOW MANY

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jirah

It’s no longer the Kenki gauge it’s the Shinten gauge it makes no sense to remove a kenki skill! Pretty sure with the deletion of Kaiten, that every single gauge skill in the game is more or less only linked to 1 skill and a Aoe

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If it's going to be a one-skill gauge I would have rather they delete Shinten and keep Kaiten.

Weaving Kaiten for Kasha and Gekko every now and then as a dump sounds a lot more interesting than spamming Shinten - at least the kenki gauge would still have interplay with stickers that way and be part of your actual rotation instead of just dumping whenever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cjbeagle

If it's going to be a one-skill gauge I would have rather they delete Shinten and keep Kaiten.

Weaving Kaiten for Kasha and Gekko every now and then as a dump sounds a lot more interesting than spamming Shinten - at least the kenki gauge would still have interplay with stickers that way and be part of your actual rotation instead of just dumping whenever.

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That's how I typically played. Kaiten for Gekko and Kasha, Shinten for Yukikaze. But reading all the posts in the forums it seeks I'd been playing 'wrong' by doing that. I have and always will play and learn by feel rather than a guide and SAM felt pretty loose when I first picked it up back in 4.1

But rather than remove a button tied to the gauge, I'd prefer they bring back our other spenders. They were always situational and could easily be brought back with some touch-ups to be in line with how other jobs have buttons transform by status proc.

Shinten and Kyuten can be the base skeleton of these transforming attacks since we have multiple ST and AoE skills, they can replace Shinten and Kyuten under certain procs to resolve any perceived issues with bloat. Senei and Guren would fit nicely there.

Conversely, they could tie Shinten/Kyuten to Meditation as it currently is to turn into Shoha 1 and 2.

Would be nice if they could take that kind direction. Add to the experience, not subtract. That's how changes should be.