LL 70 Kaiten/SAM preview: Pragmatic/constructive ways to adjust the change before 6.1

vague TLDR:

I'm an advocate for design streamlining who often runs afoul of grognards with MMO mice, but even I think that Kaiten is a problematic target for outright-deletion due to cascading effects on visual and play-feel, since Samurai was originally designed with Kaiten as part of its core.

However, long prior precedent indicates that it's basically a done deal in terms of action/key removal by the time it reaches a PowerPoint slide, so I think that it's better to think about how to work within that reality, rather than just railing in frustration in ways that are unlikely to be heard or even transmitted.

Question #1:
Why would the developers think that it's okay to remove "Hissatsu: Kaiten"?

Okay, so first of all — I cannot, and never have been able to, fathom the minds of the FFXIV Job Design Team.

They tend to start with a reasonable idea ("Kaiten is a bit superfluous", "ShB Summoner is a bit ridiculous timing-wise") and then take it to an extreme ("Let's scrub out every single aspect of Kaiten", "Let's make everything SMN does a GCD").

But my speculation about this specific decision would be that the developers noticed that Kaiten is essentially glued to Iaijutsu. There is really no decision involved whatsoever, it's a rote button.

"But once every 3 months when I'm tired I mess up and overspend my Kenki and then I can't Kaiten before Higanbana so it's a test of skill"

Okay, look, objectively, technically, you are literally correct — Samurai without needing to Kaiten is easier to play than Samurai requiring Kaiten.

But being realistic and honest, the difference in actual practice is so miniscule that this is essentially just an exaggeration to try to leverage it as a persuasive tactic.

To be clear, there were times when Kaiten was a much more significant gameplay factor.

For example, leveling Samurai (or being tortured with Roulette downsyncing) during the period before unlocking the "Kenki 2" trait made Kaiten a significant rotational aspect, because you were constantly on "Kenki vapors", and missing even one positional would force you into having to do a dreaded "naked Iaijutsu".

As well, there were times when Kenki was still harder to manage and to generate:

• Kenki still tied to positionals — the fetish that both FFXIV bosses and tanks have for randomly spinning around and changing position could derange Kenki management and throw off your habits for an encounter. This could easily jeopardize tight Kenki plans.

• Lower Kenki generation — The days when Third Eye did not generate Kenki, and Yukikaze still only generated 10 Kenki, again led to lower overall Kenki income and the spending of Kenki being more rationed and harder to "emergency correct".

• Third Eye still triggered Seigan — Seigan's weird Kenki cost could throw off mental math if you were in the habit of thinking of Kenki being spent in multiples of 25, or conversely, if you got distracted/disconnected and Seigan deactivated.

• Senei/Guren still cost 50 Kenki — this was a much bigger drain and, combined with OG Hagakure / Ikishoten, could make for some very tense Kenki management to both avoid drifting cooldowns, and avoid overflowing Kenki. It was comparatively much easier to become "trigger happy" and bleed down too low for Kaiten.

• Stormblood Hagakure in general — Stormblood's SAM design required a truly vile amount of Shinten spam, and again, fatigue could degenerate those habits into over-spending Kenki due to the relative rarity of needing to actually use Iaijutsu vs. just deleting your Sen with Hagakure.

At this point, though? Kaiten has really become little more than a formality that basically extends every Iaijutsu into 2 keypresses.

It's a completely binary decision, because there is never* any circumstance in which you deliberately want to Iaijutsu without Kaiten.

* I'm sure someone can elucidate on some encounter where it's a 3.6 DPS gain to do a naked 2-Sen Iaijutsu during the last 2 seconds of one specific Savage phase, and only if the boss chooses Pattern #3 (Blue Variant), but...

"But Shinten is simple too"

With Shinten you can look at Kenki and think, "Is Ikishoten coming up? Are raid buffs active? How close is gauge to capping? Should I press this now, or wait?"

It's not a very interesting mechanical aspect, but it still has some vague amount of gameplay toothiness to it.

With Kaiten, the decision is essentially made for you: is it time to use Iaijutsu? Use Kaiten. Is it not time to use Iaijutsu? Don't use Kaiten.

It never goes deeper than that, because you absolutely cannot afford to play games with your Sen generation/spending timings in most circumstances, especially post-Shadowbringers/Tsubame-Gaeshi.

Again, the extra dimension to it used to be "Uhhh, wait, did I save enough Kenki for Kaiten?" But this has been stripped back more and more over time, to the point that it's now a very weak afterthought in the SAM gameplay that rarely actually matters.

"But they could have removed or compressed any of the following actions instead: [list that keeps getting recycled and beaten into the ground]"

Yeah, uh, look, I said, 'I cannot, and never have been able to, fathom the minds of the FFXIV Job Design Team'... and I meant it.

However, I think that this is pretty much a separate topic from Kaiten changes, because the XIV Job designers don't operate as hostage negotiators or State Department envoys, so attempts to bargain for a "prisoner exchange" aren't going to work.

What I mean is, the designers decided that they don't see gameplay value in continuing to support Kaiten as a keypress. So, Kaiten is pretty much going to die as a button, and there's probably no changing that.

Arguing that "Shoha 2: The Legend Continues" should have died for Kaiten's sins is a compelling thought, but not actually making any progress because it's not a 1:1 exchange in this situation.

In other words, whether or not anything happened, or happens, to Shoha 2/Guren/etc., is very likely to have no impact at all on the decision regarding Kaiten.

That's why I think that it's better to try to find a way to negotiate keeping the likeable aspects of Kaiten, rather than fixating on arguments that are essentially doomed from the outset.

Question #2:
What do people like so much about Kaiten?

"I like pressing the button because it sets up a satisfying muscle-memory and key rhythm in Samurai's rotation."

Unfortunately, as someone that enjoyed HW Dark Arts, I think that you should probably make peace with this pleasure while you still can. This is not likely to be a negotiable aspect: Kaiten is ~99% certain to remain dead as a separate keypress.

"I like the satisfaction of watching my Samurai twirl their katana before I begin my Iaijutsu."

This is animation-based, and has no affect on anyone's keybinding or controller assignments. It seems reasonable to request that this be preserved.

However, it is more likely that you will be able to purchase a "Flourishing Wakizashi" emote on the MogStation in 6 months for 5.00 USD, complete with intellect-insulting ad copy about dazzling your friends from the Far East with your consummately-practiced skill as a swordsman. Miqo'te in 2B bottoms with UWU Greatswords will then torment you for months with images of your former friend every time you try to use the Market Board.

• "I like the satisfaction of having to budget Kenki to ensure a successful Iaijutsu."
• "I like the satisfaction of having something additional to spend Kenki on."
• "I like the feeling of draining my gauge a little before unloading my Iaijutsu."

This is gauge-based, and has no effect on anyone's keybinding or controller assignments. It seems reasonable to request that this be preserved in some way.

Question #3:
Are there examples of requests for 6.10+ Kaiten that seem more plausible at this point?

Sure, here's one that I spent < 5 minutes thinking about:

• Iaijutsu and Ogi Namikiri now consume up to 20 Kenki to increase their potency by up to 50%.
• If Kenki is consumed, performs Kaiten animation before beginning Iaijutsu animation.
• Duration of Iaijutsu cast is reduced by the amount of time consumed by the Kaiten animation (ie, the total time spent locked in a Iaijutsu GCD is unchanged).

For example, with Midare Setsugekka:

• 0 Kenki — No Kaiten animation, 660 Potency.
• 5 Kenki — very dim Kaiten animation, 742 Potency.
• 10 Kenki — dim Kaiten animation, 825 Potency.
• 15 Kenki — less dim Kaiten animation, 907 Potency.
• 20 Kenki — full/bright Kaiten animation, 990 Potency.

...etc.

Was this necessary?

No.

Is this a meaningful improvement over current Kaiten?

Maybe? Probably not? I don't know.

Does it remove Kaiten as a semi-superfluous button, without removing the animation or gauge gameplay?

Yes.

Is that good?

I... maybe? ...I don't even know any more. I guess?

BONUS Question #4:
"What about the Crit synergy issues?"

Uhhhh, yeah, I'm not even touching this. The numerical aspects of FFXIV's high-end cooperative design are a hot mess, and way beyond my limited thinking skills.

I will say though, that arguing that SAM's big deadly attacks shouldn't autocrit because it will affect log-parsing synergy seems backwards to me.

The real target for exasperated lobbying should be FFXIV's bizarre Crit stat (which has been out-of-control for a loooooooong time) and Crit party buffs that blithely don't synergize at all with autocrit actions (even though it's entirely possible to add that feature).

However, when Dancer was given a large autocrit action as its Level 90 capstone that only becomes usable after Dancer activates its 20% Crit buff, that's a signal to me that there are way deeper and more confused design issues going on, such that I don't even know where to begin.

Like... this is a legitimate concern and I'm glad that there's people capable of expressing it correctly and lobbying about it, but, I'm not one of those people and I'm just admitting it right now.

It was removed to combat "action bloat", players have identified other more egregious cases of action bloat in the job. This alone should be reason to reconsider the change for a developer. However, maybe Kaiten should get additional use-cases or functionality if its binary nature is enough to be considered action bloat. It would immediately be much more nuanced if it was an equal potency-per-kenki as Shinten when used on Gekko/Kasha, but having a special effect on any of the Sen generating weapon skills could be fun too. Currently a SAM rotation with enough SKS uses Hagakure to dump a seal from filler to stay aligned, but what if Kaiten on a Gekko for instance didn't generate a seal and instead applied a 10 Kenki discount to your next Shinten or something, anything. There are limitless possibilities, and I think they would be making a mistake removing such a demonstrably beloved action because the scope of the patch restricts any more extensive changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tearagion

It was removed to combat "action bloat", players have identified other more egregious cases of action bloat in the job. This alone should be reason to reconsider the change for a developer. However, maybe Kaiten should get additional use-cases or functionality if its binary nature is enough to be considered action bloat. It would immediately be much more nuanced if it was an equal potency-per-kenki as Shinten when used on Gekko/Kasha, but having a special effect on any of the Sen generating weapon skills could be fun too. Currently a SAM rotation with enough SKS uses Hagakure to dump a seal from filler to stay aligned, but what if Kaiten on a Gekko for instance didn't generate a seal and instead applied a 10 Kenki discount to your next Shinten or something, anything. There are limitless possibilities, and I think they would be making a mistake removing such a demonstrably beloved action because the scope of the patch restricts any more extensive changes.

---

Is the funny thing about all this Kaiten nonsense. If it didn’t have a cool animation no one would care. That alone should let you know that it can be chopped if they are trying to clear up space.

Additionally, the combination of buttons can also be done while taking away Kaiten. However, people have this obsession with a certain number of buttons on their hot bar

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Is the funny thing about all this Kaiten nonsense. If it didn’t have a cool animation no one would care. That alone should let you know that it can be chopped if they are trying to clear up space.

Additionally, the combination of buttons can also be done while taking away Kaiten. However, people have this obsession with a certain number of buttons on their hot bar

---

I would care. I like the thematic of spending gauge to empower a different skill. I like having more than one general use spender. I like spenders that are more than immediate damage. There are plenty of reasons to like Kaiten beyond visuals, the difference between visuals and all those other factors is that visuals are the only dimension that could be considered actually realized.

It's not "nonsense" just because you favour the change.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tearagion

I would care. I like the thematic of spending gauge to empower a different skill. I like having more than one general use spender. I like spenders that are more than immediate damage. There are plenty of reasons to like Kaiten beyond visuals, the difference between visuals and all those other factors is that visuals are the only dimension that could be considered actually realized.

It's not "nonsense" just because you favour the change.

---

I don’t much care for Kaiten, no. I agree with the OP that it’s a rote ability, and that is why I can understand why the devs chose that ability to snip. Having said that, I don’t particularly care if it stays or goes. Samurai has bigger issues than Kaiten, imo. It’s full of useless bloat.

Alright good talk lol

I appreciate the effort, but I really hope they decide to not go through with the removal of kaiten

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tearagion

Alright good talk lol

---

I’m not knocking why you want to keep it. It’s valid, even if I don’t agree with you. I just don’t think they’re going to keep it if they’re trying to snip an ability or two.

While it can interact with any weapon skill, it doesn’t in practical use. It interacts with one. Instead of people screeching to keep it as is, maybe they should provide ways to make it interact with more than just IAI, so that it’s harder to justify losing it. As it stands, all people really have is that it provides some flash before doing IAI.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Toromak

I appreciate the effort, but I really hope they decide to not go through with the removal of kaiten

---

the patch is 10 days away
its all set in stone already with potency adjustments and rework of Iajutsu

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

I don’t much care for Kaiten, no. I agree with the OP that it’s a rote ability, and that is why I can understand why the devs chose that ability to snip. Having said that, I don’t particularly care if it stays or goes. Samurai has bigger issues than Kaiten, imo. It’s full of useless bloat.

---

Ability bloat isn't real.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Is the funny thing about all this Kaiten nonsense. If it didn’t have a cool animation no one would care. That alone should let you know that it can be chopped if they are trying to clear up space.

Additionally, the combination of buttons can also be done while taking away Kaiten. However, people have this obsession with a certain number of buttons on their hot bar

---

It's a decision of Shinten or Kaiten. It's small but a potential potency loss and does requires skill, even if it's muscle memory. If this is insignificant, then all actions are insignificant, and we might as well be watching a cutscene.

It reduces required skill and game feel.

They could have combined certain AoE/ST actions like they have for other jobs instead. The feeling and required skill would be unchanged and keybinds reduced by greater amount.

If we remove Kaiten, then following the same logic (lack of complex decisions, action reduction), Shinten should be removed too. Shinten has even less decisions in its use.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duskane

the patch is 10 days away
its all set in stone already with potency adjustments and rework of Iajutsu

---

Might get lucky and have them bring it back like when Hagakure got removed. Honestly, I wonder if any of the play testers even main SAM or if they just glance over it on a spreadsheet and say "let's change this" before moving on to one of the other 10+ DPS jobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Is the funny thing about all this Kaiten nonsense. If it didn’t have a cool animation no one would care. That alone should let you know that it can be chopped if they are trying to clear up space.

Additionally, the combination of buttons can also be done while taking away Kaiten. However, people have this obsession with a certain number of buttons on their hot bar

---

Life Surge has a relatively boring animation yet I'll be annoyed if the supposed adjustments to how "busy" Dragoon is leads to its removal. While small, Kaiten does have some optimizing quirks beyond just spamming it on Midare. Even without those, I prefer the feel of powering up one of my ability to it just auto-CDH. Not to mention, this change makes Samurai have anti-synergy with several other jobs.

No matter how you slice it, removing Kaiten over far more egregious alternates like Shoha II is rather dumb. Especially with the accompanying CDH change. All they've done is make the job feel worse both to play and to have in your party.

Just because changes are set in stone for a patch less than 2 weeks away doesn't mean the devs won't revert it in the future. Sure we'll have to live without Kaiten for a while but I'm sure the drop in Samurai's and the feedback will correct it eventually.
So maybe until they address the concerns "boycott" the job and keep discussing? I always wanted to get better at monk lol.
I just really wish they told us they were thinking of cutting Kaiten further ahead of time :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edweena

Just because changes are set in stone for a patch less than 2 weeks away doesn't mean the devs won't revert it in the future. Sure we'll have to live without Kaiten for a while but I'm sure the drop in Samurai's and the feedback will correct it eventually.
So maybe until they address the concerns "boycott" the job and keep discussing? I always wanted to get better at monk lol.
I just really wish they told us they were thinking of cutting Kaiten further ahead of time :(

---

I have planned to unsub when this becomes a reality, and get back playing after they revert it. My friend said to me 'It happened to job X, you'll get used to it'. They may be right, but we're also at fault if we keep enabling bad decisions. Ihave said my piece in other thread and dont wanna sound like a broken record but

Bring Kaiten back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leemon

I have planned to unsub when this becomes a reality, and get back playing after they revert it. My friend said to me 'It happened to job X, you'll get used to it'. They may be right, but we're also at fault if we keep enabling bad decisions. Ihave said my piece in other thread and dont wanna sound like a broken record but

Bring Kaiten back.

---

see you in two to four years then.

Removing Kaiten isn't an issue by itself. It becomes an issue when there are more effective ways to reduce the button bloat SAM has such as consolidating Guren/Senei and Shoha/Shoha II. Removing Seigan was also a poor decision in terms of bloat reduction. IOW, they are pruning the wrong skills.

Replying to Quyn: For now and now only I will respond to post like this, knowing I will get a respond of this nature. If that is the case, then so be it. Heck, I'd say good riddance since there's so much games out there that respects its player by not just dumping unwanted/last minute change to a class core gameplay out of nowhere. I hope this is not the case for FF14 and this might still be redeemed, I heard that this game is 'a game that respects your time', but changing a class' core mechanic overnight is not it IMO. I hope we all can find our fun, here or elsewhere.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

Removing Kaiten isn't an issue by itself. It becomes an issue when there are more effective ways to reduce the button bloat SAM has such as consolidating Guren/Senei and Shoha/Shoha II. Removing Seigan was also a poor decision in terms of bloat reduction. IOW, they are pruning the wrong skills.

---

This. Kaiten also fulfills the role of Shinten and Kyuten for what that’s worth. Though I think it’s worth a lot as they’re directly comparable. The only reason those skills exist is to be better than Kaiten most of the time. Their effects could be merged or removed and still preserve the gameplay that Kaiten provides by focusing on it being used on stronger GCDs in general.

I'd be really sad if they remove Kaiten, The tactile feel from pressing a button for my class fantasy of 'sheathing' my sword for a big attack along with its animation and sound effect would be really missed by me.

As for suggestions I'd agree with OP on adding some form of Kenki cost on Iaijustu whether it be static or dynamic cost.
Maybe make the Kaiten button turn into Iaijustu when pressed.

Though on second thought having a oGCD button turn into a GCD button is admittedly weird but I'll still put it out there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leemon

I have planned to unsub when this becomes a reality, and get back playing after they revert it. My friend said to me 'It happened to job X, you'll get used to it'. They may be right, but we're also at fault if we keep enabling bad decisions. Ihave said my piece in other thread and dont wanna sound like a broken record but

Bring Kaiten back.

---

If you have other jobs to play I'd recommend that (over unsubbing) since many other jobs are wonderfully designed. If they notice that less people playing Samurai as a result of changes made to it they're likely to change it.
(Monster Hunter did the same with one of it's weapon types / classes, the hunting horn, since no one played the fucking thing. They had the data readily available to see how many people played the various weapon types and I can only assume that FF14 also looks at similar data regarding job distribution)
Job representation is a good enough way to voice concerns about said jobs, as that's the data the developers can immediately see, unsubscribing is fine too but sucks :(
And yeah it may take a while for them to revert it, but hopefully they ADDRESS it at least ASAP. Say something like okay maybe this patch we'll have no kaiten until they fix up another solution that we all know is much better.

Biggest point of Kaiten removal is it invalidates the existence of Kenki. Samurai isn't a job where you pool resources for burst windows as you don't have personal buffs in those windows like Dancer does. So why save it or manage it at all?
If you don't have Kaiten, you should just spend your Kenki ASAP on Shinten. If SHINTEN LIGHTS UP, YOU PRESS IT. Why keep track of a Kenki bar at all when you're supposed to just press the buttons its used on as soon as they light up?
(Shoha is no different they can literally delete the UI element for the entire Kenki bar if you have an icon for Shoha and Shinten somewhere visible on screen.)

Kaiten made it so that you wanted to always pool enough kenki to use Kaiten immediately when needed, animations are cool but that's not the primary purpose of kaiten. Now we don't want to pool any kenki whatsoever so that we have no risk of over capping when activating Ikishoten.

With this change we can just press Shinten between every GCD where we're not using an OGCD already (single weaving) and not have to THINK at all about kenki management (also it glows too lol), and just press Shoha when it lights up / makes a noise.
Why even have Kenki now? Because it's slightly more flexible than a CD? Many classes use CD's in place of cluttered on screen UI elements. The thought process would remain the same in a flow chart kind of way if Kenki was gone and Shinten became a CD instead.

Can you press Shinten?
----> Yes -----> Press Shinten
----> No ------> Wait for Shinten

Literally the same thought process involved in waiting for a CD.

Flow Chart for current Kaiten / Shinten Usage btw:
Can you press Shinten?
---> Yes ---> Will you have enough kenki for Kaiten after? ---> No ---> Wait until you have enough kenki for a Kaiten after
---> No ----> Wait
Already so much more complex to even organize in a forum post lol gimme MS Paint please

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edweena

Samurai isn't a job where you pool resources for burst windows as you don't have personal buffs in those windows like Dancer does. So why save it or manage it at all?

---

Samurai is supposed to burst during other people's damage buffs and pooling Kenki plays a big part in optimizing its damage. It's the reason a lot of people are upset that Midare/Ogi are going to be auto-crits as SAM will not benefit as much from crit buffs anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edweena

Biggest point of Kaiten removal is it invalidates the existence of Kenki. Samurai isn't a job where you pool resources for burst windows as you don't have personal buffs in those windows like Dancer does. So why save it or manage it at all?

---

Eh?

Yes, we do pool for burst windows. Every job has 2minute bursts. Correctly playing SAM involves pooling for 2m raidbuffs like Technical Step/Divination/Battle Litany/etc etc. It's extremely unlikely that your party will have no raidbuffs. SAM's entire identity has always been about abusing raidbuffs (for now, it will lose this come 6.1).

Say you use 4 Shinten. That's 1080 potency. If you use those 4 Shinten under Technical Step though, that's ~1296 potency, or 216 potency gained just by pooling your resource. This adds up over an entire fight.

However, you are still right that removing Kaiten grossly simplifies this pooling and how kenki is spent in raidbuffs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Luin

Eh?

Yes, we do pool for burst windows. Every job has 2minute bursts. Correctly playing SAM involves pooling for 2m raidbuffs like Technical Step/Divination/Battle Litany/etc etc. It's extremely unlikely that your party will have no raidbuffs. SAM's entire identity has always been about abusing raidbuffs (for now, it will lose this come 6.1).

Say you use 4 Shinten. That's 1080 potency. If you use those 4 Shinten under Technical Step though, that's ~1296 potency, or 216 potency gained just by pooling your resource. This adds up over an entire fight.

However, you are still right that removing Kaiten grossly simplifies this pooling and how kenki is spent in raidbuffs.

---

In isolation from other jobs and their kits we pool faaaar less. it doesn't help Ikishoten just gives us a load of kenki we would pool anyway, and especially with everything moving to a 2 minute window
(trick attack is now mug on a 2m cd, chain strategem, devilment but rip guaranteed crits anyway, is there even any 1 min cd's that we benefit from?)
So even if we're not pooling we're getting 50 extra kenki every 2 mins, and we're probably at or above 25 kenki anyway, anything close to 40-50 and we risk overcapping and waste on that activation.
It's far less of stressing on pooling kenki than other jobs like Dancer or Machinist that take quite a while to build up their resources.

If we had a larger kenki cap or generated it at a much lower rate it could be considered far more important to pool but as it is currently I barely consider pooling especially when we have an instant 50 kenki button.
Imagine Dancer just got 2 feathers or 50 espirit when they used devilment (they kind of get the espirit generation but still) pooling would barely matter at that point, so much it could be barely considered pooling.

If there were 1 min burst windows still with trick attack then yeah the 1 minute pooling window outside of Ishikoten would be nice but now that trick attack is gone and replaced with mug, the one place we would significantly pool doesn't matter anymore.
I get my definition for "we don't pool" is vague and incorrect but I'm trying to stress that there are so many things that work against the point of pooling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edweena

Biggest point of Kaiten removal is it invalidates the existence of Kenki. Samurai isn't a job where you pool resources for burst windows as you don't have personal buffs in those windows like Dancer does. So why save it or manage it at all?
If you don't have Kaiten, you should just spend your Kenki ASAP on Shinten. If SHINTEN LIGHTS UP, YOU PRESS IT. Why keep track of a Kenki bar at all when you're supposed to just press the buttons its used on as soon as they light up?
(Shoha is no different they can literally delete the UI element for the entire Kenki bar if you have an icon for Shoha and Shinten somewhere visible on screen.)

Kaiten made it so that you wanted to always pool enough kenki to use Kaiten immediately when needed, animations are cool but that's not the primary purpose of kaiten. Now we don't want to pool any kenki whatsoever so that we have no risk of over capping when activating Ikishoten.

With this change we can just press Shinten between every GCD where we're not using an OGCD already (single weaving) and not have to THINK at all about kenki management (also it glows too lol), and just press Shoha when it lights up / makes a noise.
Why even have Kenki now? Because it's slightly more flexible than a CD? Many classes use CD's in place of cluttered on screen UI elements. The thought process would remain the same in a flow chart kind of way if Kenki was gone and Shinten became a CD instead.

Can you press Shinten?
----> Yes -----> Press Shinten
----> No ------> Wait for Shinten

Literally the same thought process involved in waiting for a CD.

---

Please stop saying you’re having to manage kenki. You aren’t. Every combo chain gives you enough kenki for a Kaiten. There is nothing to manage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Please stop saying you’re having to manage kenki. You aren’t. Every combo chain gives you enough kenki for a Kaiten. There is nothing to manage.

---

If you don't have to manage it good for you. It doesn't mean other people don't have to manage it too. You can swing your e-peen freely but don't devalue others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Please stop saying you’re having to manage kenki. You aren’t. Every combo chain gives you enough kenki for a Kaiten. There is nothing to manage.

---

That's not true. Look, let's say you are on 15 kenki, and you have both the Kasha and Gekko combos done and you are doing Hakaze into Yukikaze ). You were at 15 kenki, now you are at 35 ( Yukikaze gives 15, Hakaze gives 5, so 20 gained ).
If at any point when you are doing Hakaze -> Yukikaze you do a Shinten, you will not have enough Kenki for a Kaiten, therefore you do not do Shinten.
You can only do Shinten if you will have enough Kenki for a Kaiten on your next Iaijutsu. In a vacuum, yeah , you will never have to think about it, but in practice you will use plenty of Shintens and may run into this "issue" -> to which the answer should be to get better at playing samurai - learning to manage the resource, instead of removing this from the job and making it worse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Please stop saying you’re having to manage kenki. You aren’t. Every combo chain gives you enough kenki for a Kaiten. There is nothing to manage.

---

Do you even know how the current rotation works? You absolutely can overspend kenki and not have enough for kaiten when re-applying higanbana

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ransu

Do you even know how the current rotation works? You absolutely can overspend kenki and not have enough for kaiten when re-applying higanbana

---

Are you really going to cherry pick a once a minute refresh that is done with Meikyo as your defense that you need to manage resources on Samurai to the degree that you are claiming Kaiten’s presence forces?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

That's not true. Look, let's say you are on 15 kenki, and you have both the Kasha and Gekko combos done and you are doing Hakaze into Yukikaze ). You were at 15 kenki, now you are at 35 ( Yukikaze gives 15, Hakaze gives 5, so 20 gained ).
If at any point when you are doing Hakaze -> Yukikaze you do a Shinten, you will not have enough Kenki for a Kaiten, therefore you do not do Shinten.
You can only do Shinten if you will have enough Kenki for a Kaiten on your next Iaijutsu. In a vacuum, yeah , you will never have to think about it, but in practice you will use plenty of Shintens and may run into this "issue" -> to which the answer should be to get better at playing samurai - learning to manage the resource, instead of removing this from the job and making it worse.

---

No, in practicality you should be sitting on resources instead of just blowing it whenever you hear the noise. Additionally, your example is easily recovered by rolling over and using IAI before you hit your next Sen generator.

If there were times where it would be better to use Kaiten on another weapon skill over Shinten then maybe your argument would hold water. As it stands, you only use Kaiten on IAI and Shinten otherwise. It’s got the same level of involvement as using AoE or ST. You “feeling” like you have to manage doesn’t make it so

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Are you really going to cherry pick a once a minute refresh that is done with Meikyo as your defense that you need to manage resources on Samurai to the degree that you are claiming Kaiten’s presence forces?

---

Its not a cherry pick, its a fact. Regardless of if its "complex" or not, the fact exists that you do have to pay attention and not overspend your kenki else you wont have kaiten available in certain scenarios. As it stands right now with kaiten being removed there's absolutely no point in having kenki as it just turns into spamming shinten, so in terms of "action bloat" nothing friggan changes.

I stick by my previous statement. I don't think you really know how the job plays.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

No, in practicality you should be sitting on resources instead of just blowing it whenever you hear the noise. Additionally, your example is easily recovered by rolling over and using IAI before you hit your next Sen generator.

If there were times where it would be better to use Kaiten on another weapon skill over Shinten then maybe your argument would hold water. As it stands, you only use Kaiten on IAI and Shinten otherwise. It’s got the same level of involvement as using AoE or ST. You “feeling” like you have to manage doesn’t make it so

---

There are moments when you wanna use Kaiten on another weapon skill over Shinten. You use it on Iaijutsu or if the boss dies you use it on a combo finisher. Alternatively, if you are at 25 kenki and you are under raid buffs, if you use a Shinten and you are about to finish a combo ( the Kasha one for example ), there are many moments in which you will run out of Kenki if you are using Shinten too much, and you will not be able to recover enough Kaiten from Hakaze -> Shifu / Jinpu ( 10 in total ), so you can do a Kaiten.
It is objectively a bad practice to dumb every resource on Shinten during raid buffs at the moment exactly because if you end up on 0 or 5 kenki and need to do an Iaijutsu you cannot buff it, even by doing the 2 GCDs you probably meant.
If by rolling over you meant you just use Iaijutsu unbuffed by Kaiten than that's not how the job should work.
I do not know if you even play the job, but I do, and this can happen if you are not paying attention.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ransu

Its not a cherry pick, its a fact. Regardless of if its "complex" or not, the fact exists that you do have to pay attention and not overspend your kenki else you wont have kaiten available in certain scenarios. As it stands right now with kaiten being removed there's absolutely no point in having kenki as it just turns into spamming shinten, so in terms of "action bloat" nothing friggan changes.

I stick by my previous statement. I don't think you really know how the job plays.

---

I likely know how the job plays far better than you. Your notion of paying attention is weak. The management of Kenki is an illusion, and the removal of Kaiten will merely change how to go about “managing” Kenki.

The ability is an extra weave for one weapon skill. It’s an outright requirement and everything about Samurai’s resource generation makes it so easy to “manage” that it’s pointless for the skill to even exist.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

There are moments when you wanna use Kaiten on another weapon skill over Shinten. You use it on Iaijutsu or if the boss dies you use it on a combo finisher. Alternatively, if you are at 25 kenki and you are under raid buffs, if you use a Shinten and you are about to finish a combo ( the Kasha one for example ), there are many moments in which you will run out of Kenki if you are using Shinten too much, and you will not be able to recover enough Kaiten from Hakaze -> Shifu / Jinpu ( 10 in total ), so you can do a Kaiten.
It is objectively a bad practice to dumb every resource on Shinten during raid buffs at the moment exactly because if you end up on 0 or 5 kenki and need to do an Iaijutsu you cannot buff it, even by doing the 2 GCDs you probably meant.
If by rolling over you meant you just use Iaijutsu unbuffed by Kaiten than that's not how the job should work.
I do not know if you even play the job, but I do, and this can happen if you are not paying attention.

---

I don’t main the job any longer, but I did for the entirety of ShB and the job’s resources are even easier to obtain now, while hardly changing. Using it on a combo finisher over Shinten is a loss. For example, using it on Kasha will only net you 185 more potency. Shinten is 270 potency. So, if the boss is going to die before you can use a Iai, you Shinten.

Raid buffs come out at 2 minutes, in which case you get a 50 kenki generator to use. The kenki flows so much for samurai that you’re more likely to over-cap on it than not have enough for a Kaiten. The “management” of Kenki is an illusion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

The ability is an extra weave for one weapon skill. It’s an outright requirement and everything about Samurai’s resource generation makes it so easy to “manage” that it’s pointless for the skill to even exist.

---

You know what else is an outright requirement? Spending kenki on Shinten. Maybe they should just remove kenki and Shinten entirely and bake an extra 54, 108, or 162 potency into our combo GCDs to make up for it. Why would we want to press an extra button?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YukiB

You know what else is an outright requirement? Spending kenki on Shinten. Maybe they should just remove kenki and Shinten entirely and bake an extra 54, 108, or 162 potency into our combo GCDs to make up for it. Why would we want to press an extra button?

---

Then provide a better solution as to why Kaiten should stay. How many times does this have to be explained. Kaiten is used for Iaj and Iaj alone. There is no decision for it 99.9% of the time. The ability to obtain or maintain the resources for it are also a non issue. They want to reduce bloat, and Kaiten is the easiest one to snip. You “feeling” like it is different doesn’t change that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kazimere

Then provide a better solution as to why Kaiten should stay. How many times does this have to be explained. Kaiten is used for Iaj and Iaj alone. There is no decision for it 99.9% of the time. The ability to obtain or maintain the resources for it are also a non issue. They want to reduce bloat, and Kaiten is the easiest one to snip. You “feeling” like it is different doesn’t change that.

---

And without Kaiten, kenki is used for Shinten. Why not remove it, too?

I've seen several people bring this point up with you, and you seem adamant to disregard it no matter how valid it is. EVERYTHING our jobs do is superfluous. What matters at the end of the day is the total damage we do. Anything can be removed, and numbers moved around to achieve that damage. Every job could be auto attacks only, if those auto attacks were scaled appropriately. But that wouldn't be fun. It's the various ways each job deals damage that makes them unique and fun.

I don't need anything but my enjoyment of the skill and its contribution to the SAM fantasy to justify the existence of Kaiten.

You, meanwhile, justify its non-existence because of its superfluous nature. That same argument can be used to justify the non-existence of EVERY skill. Everything is superfluous. Only the numbers matter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YukiB

And without Kaiten, kenki is used for Shinten. Why not remove it, too?

I've seen several people bring this point up with you, and you seem adamant to disregard it no matter how valid it is. EVERYTHING our jobs do is superfluous. What matters at the end of the day is the total damage we do. Anything can be removed, and numbers moved around to achieve that damage. Every job could be auto attacks only, if those auto attacks were scaled appropriately. But that wouldn't be fun. It's the various ways each job deals damage that makes them unique and fun.

I don't need anything but my enjoyment of the skill and its contribution to the SAM fantasy to justify the existence of Kaiten.

You, meanwhile, justify its non-existence because of its superfluous nature. That same argument can be used to justify the non-existence of EVERY skill. Everything is superfluous. Only the numbers matter.

---

Well, it seems your justification is left wanting, but you're still going to try to lean on it as hard as you can. I guess we will see how it works out for you. Additionally, using the "every ability is superfluous" is not a good counter. Clearly there is a hierarchy.