More Samurai Feedback, after playing

So now that 6.1 is here I guess I'll formalize a proper bit of feedback after playing it like the devs wanted.

Kaiten's removal has made tracking Kenki unnecessary, I can and have put it as close to off screen as possible, as I only need to track whether or not the icon I put up for Shinten in the middle of my screen is glowing, same for Shoha.
The absence of Kaiten has brought us to Scholar levels of resource complexity, two disparate resources that have no bearing on eachother. Stickers and Kenki previously interacted as you would track your stickers and make sure you had enough Kenki to use on Kaiten. Now it's just spam Shinten whenever.

APM hasn't really changed, if that was part of the reasoning for the removal.

Button Bloat could have been solved in so many ways instead of this as well, for example:
- Ikishoten turns into Ogi / Kaeshi Namikiri, just like Gunbreakers got with their Savage Fang combo.
This is 1 button cleared.
- Senei and Guren are removed as assignable actions, and instead can only be used in place of Shinten and Kyuten when you gain a buff from Ikishoten called "Hissatu: Ready" just like "Ogi Namikiri Ready"
This change itself would also reduce drifting in our 2m windows with CD's not aligning properly due to error on the player, thus reducing the skill floor in a way that also presents an enormous QOL by way of removing 2 buttons.
- Shoha could upgrade into Shoha 2 when we learn the action at it's appropriate level, and give it fall off damage similar to what Paladins got with Expacion.
This is 1 button cleared.

There is no reason that these actions should exist as they are currently and the changes would only benefit the job, with no tradeoff to it's gameplay, while also making way for further Samurai additions and changes in the future. It's especially frustrating considering many jobs already have implemented similar solutions at the beginning of Endwalker.

Now if the issue with Kaiten was a crowded 2m window, first I'll say what about Monk, or Gunbreaker, or any other number of jobs? Samurai isn't having problems like many of them are as it's a very low priority for "action bloat".
Secondly I'll say that the only thing that can cause an awkward intersection in our 2m window is needing to REALLY cast Shoha before a Iaijutsu, when you would need to use Kaiten as well.

The solution to this is to give Shoha a cap of 5, while still consuming only 3, it's flexible and only acts as a QOL. You would have to be doing something seriously wrong to run into a situation like that after.

Oh and the trick attack change also removed our 1m window, so saving kenki for that and trying to align Meikyo is a null effort now. We do just get 50 free kenki in our 2m window so pooling is a lot less impactful now.

I don't care about numbers or simulated dps, but care about how my decisions in gameplay are influenced by these changes, and the fact I could and should delete my kenki UI element is an alarming change, especially after how much I was looking forward to Samurai when I started Endwalker. And I know the devs listen (to some extent) after Hagakure's revival in early SHB, so please just bring back kaiten it doesn't have to be as strong as it was, but instead should give me something to manage kenki for.

And please try to communicate idea's that are floated around like removing kaiten well before implementation. Games that I consider nowhere as near as good still communicate thoughts they have about "hey maybe we should get rid of this ability" and discuss it with the community prior to going too far with it. (Warframe did this to some extent)
As it is now I just want to drop Samurai completely, and pick up something that retains complexity and interacts with the various tools in it's kit, like BLM.

i feel the removal of kaiten is more because let's face it, it was bland in terms of gameplay, yes you had to manage the kenki but at the end it was just you press another button before launch your midare/ogi. and i feel they did wanted to make place for more kenki skill since adding more gcd skill for the samurai feel difficult right now.
however, i feel they did goes wrong with the feeling of the jobs in terms of damage and impact of the midare/ogi, without forget the huge nerf of tenka goken.

i admit the idea to make ikishoten become ogi... since day one of endwalker i did feel weird it was not there from the get go.
the idea to make shinten and kyuten becoming seinen and guren when you use ikishoten is an incredible idea! and need to become a thing.

but i'm against the loose of shoha 2 since the two are skill that have 2 different role... one is for mono target and actually hit really hard with the nerf of midare. and the other one is for group fight.

more than the loose of kaiten... i feel they need to work on more synergy between gcd and ogcd skill. the pvp rework of the sam is insane for this between the chiten/zantetsuten synergy or even the charge + combo synergy i feel it goes in the right direction.
i have always regret the loose of skill to use after third eyes and now... on one side i'm happy they did remove kaiten because it can open for room for kenki usage and at the same time i feel conflicted with how the whole sam feel right now.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

i feel the removal of kaiten is more because let's face it, it was bland in terms of gameplay, yes you had to manage the kenki but at the end it was just you press another button

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What do you mean let's face it? You're clearly in the very small minority here among SAM players. You can be reductionist and consider anything "just another button." Going by your logic you could just remove Shinten, add its damage to other GCDs in some vague hope that they will introduce something better in some distant future after Shinten is gone.

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Originally Posted by butchersblock

What do you mean let's face it? You're clearly in the very small minority here among SAM players. You can be reductionist and consider anything "just another button." Going by your logic you could just remove Shinten, add its damage to other GCDs in some vague hope that they will introduce something better in some distant future after Shinten is gone.

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i means by this that the effect was good, but the gameplay level was 0 i means if you had added the potency boost of kaiten to midare en ogi without add the auto crit... we will have the same result. my problem with kaiten it's outside give a buff for the next skill it was all it was doing... for make it simple... kaiten was here for articially add gameplay to the sam.
we can argue that ikishoten do something similar but in the end it give us kenki to use too while giving access to ogi.
we can talk of meikyo that give us the capacity to gain sen directly, but at the same time now allows us to get the buff without need to redo the combo.

and kaiten was just adding +50% potency to the next weapon skill... ok nothing more? it was not different of the original dark art of the dark knight.... a redundant action. i'm for the removal of kaiten.... IF it bring more meaningfull action from the kenki to the samurai. what is not the case right now, but can be on the long terms and i said CAN BE!

i'm pragmatic and realitist i know they will try to dumb down the jobs we can't escape this fate... and why? because controller. they have a limited number of button and with the add of new skill with each expansion they need to think at this. do i approve... no! do i can change this reality? no! no one can.

and even if they decide to bring back kaiten... they need to make it more interesting than just buff the next weaponskill...

The removal of Kaiten feels awful. The animation was great, it felt enjoyable to press, and the overall SAM changes are unsatisfying.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

and even if they decide to bring back kaiten... they need to make it more interesting than just buff the next weaponskill...

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Tbh if they didn't removed Hagakure and didn't dumbed all the way down the buff management (hello the x2 duration buff on jinpu/shifu) we would not be here because we would not have to only buff our next weaponskill :/

Ya know, I feel like this was what felt so wrong about it. I was honestly ready to give it a chance, put shinten where kaiten used to be. Played it through the new dungeon and even the new raid but the whole time it just felt...wrong. It came to a point where it didn't feel enjoyable at all that it undermined my whole excitement for the raid. It was an awesome raid, but I didn't feel it at the time. I've been told I need to press Shinten more but it just feels bad and I still can't pinpoint what felt bad about it outside of just not having the smooth transition from a gcd skill to kaiten to charging iajutsu but i feel like that's what's really missing from it.

People been telling me to 'press shinten more' or 'practice more on dummy' or 'play another job' and honestly, I'm gonna run it through again for a day and if it still feels bad, I'm gonna end up just changing jobs.

i think the feeling come from the fact that our iaijutsu and ogi feel weak, our damage have barely changed with the new sam, but since the loose of kaiten dps have spread accross all our skill the combo did gain 140 potency for a 1 cycle of midare when midare did loose 60...
the whole sam identity is based on our goal to unleash iaijutsu extremely powerfull, but here the potency don't say it... here the iaijutsu are only a skill in middle of our cycle not the main burst damage.
they can make it feel better by switching the potency and buffing midare while revert back the combo increase (that wasn't needed!) and i feel this will feel better.

It's incredibly sad that the PvP changes for SAM are far more palatable than the PvE ones.