6.1 my Samurai feedback

** Hello, I am a Samurai main who only plays SAM. **

A short introduction
Started playing End ShB expansion. Fell in love with SAM playstyle. Finished the 1st raid tier of EW, 1 twine away from BiS.

English isn't my second language, I shared my frustrations on the Balance discord. Though I was advised to share feedback on the forums so here I am, I never read or forum post but I'll try my best. (pls forgive my grammar/spelling errors)


Important Note, what I look for in SAM?
- Playstyle Rotation
- Aesthetics Skill-animation
- Damage numbers

I could care less with how hard I hit over how satisfying it feels to cast my skills ( I am that person yes :/ )

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Pre-6.1 Feedback

My Samurai felt complete. It felt engaging, not too difficult, not too easy. Weaving felt satisfying, meaningful. A tempo that I genuinely loved. Took a bit of adjusting from ShB Lv80 SAM to Lv90 SAM, but I have never felt so in love with a Class before in any other game. I was raiding for up to 6 hours a day and I could not get enough to try and help another group clear.


Post-6.1 Feedback
With the Removal of Kaiten... my class feels " empty ". That might just be me, but all I do is cast Shinten now. My resource bar feels meaningless. The change on my Tenka Goken to be circular AoE feels horrendous. No more pointing my Cone AoE towards the pack, it felt satisfying but that is deleted. The damage portions apparently are less? I could care less, it just feels unsatisfying to cast my enjoyment to play Samurai has been robbed... so I can't help but ask " Why? "


Why the Samurai changes?

According to the Dev's its " Action Bloat ". I do not play other classes, I don't know anything other then Samurai feeling great. Yet I did ask many if Samurai is that difficult and it's not nor is it the most busy class apparently were not at the top at all.

I started testing my rotations and my action bloat is almost the same. It doesn't feel less busy at all. It just feels like it has a lot less substance, a lot less "oomph" no more packing a punch but more of a slap.

So I could only think of a few things
- Their trying to turn SAM more console friendly
- Or more mobile friendly
- Appealing to a more Casual player base

Whatever the reason may be, the changes have been unreasonable without good reason. Casual / non-SAM / SAM Mains did not complain about Samurai playstyle. So Why? I guess time will tell why they did this... atm I do not know why...

Samurai Changes they could have Done?


Regarding Action Bloat, if they were worried about it that much...
Kaiten turned into a 30 second buff, increasing the potency and/or guaranteed crits of certain skills.
Requires SAM's to cast Kaiten less, but creates satisfying complexity layer having to manage an extra buff timer.

Tenka Goken kept as a Cone, but increased range to make it more friendly to use.
I never had an issue with this skill though.

Meditation gauge Increased from 3 to 5 / 6.
Charging for Shoha is made more dynamic and future patches could perhaps utilize more Meditation charges for future new skills.

Shinten Grant a Meditation charge, going in tandem with the previous suggestion.
Keeps the class as busy as a player wants. Casual players can play Casual and players who want optimization can utilize this to their hearts content.


Regarding Button Bloat the following skills could be combined as many stated before

- Shoha and Shoha 2 become one
- Ikishoten and Ogi Namikiri shared button
- Hissatsu: Senei and Hissatsu Guren shared button
Or even have its skills combined completely and potency adjusted.

More Animations being faster.
like the potion cast although I'd think everyone would love that.
Our Meditate charging Kenki faster and/or animation to go into it slightly faster.
Cast animation of Enpi to feel more smooth to give Enhanced Enpi more meaning. It is very niche to use it.


Lets be clear,
Do I want these suggestions/changes or do I think their amazing!? NO !!
Would I prefer it over 6.1 Kaiten removal? YES !!

But what would I and probably many others want over all of this?
Reverting back to how our Samurai was Pre-6.1

Currently I don't feel like raiding or playing, I have to go with my Static of course I can't leave them hanging but this I just depressing.
It doesn't feel the same it doesn't feel satisfying. I feel cheated... and maybe that's just me, and my stubbornness to not want to accept these changes...
but that's how I feel about it.

That's my Feedback.

/easternbow

Good evening Square Enix!

I would like to add my name to the list of people who are dissapointed with the changes to Samurai, the single most aestetically pleasing animation that made the class into what it is, a swordmaster!
It now feels awkward and slow, clumbsy and unsatisfying without the kaiten swings woven in between the animations, it is like you threw a perfectly balanced class out the window for no reason what so ever and i just hope you reverse these changes as soon as possible. It is this type of changes that ruin the unique qualities of a game like yours.

Please reverse the changed, we beg of you!

Just attempted the re-clear of the current Savage Tier. Planning to do P4S on friday. I have never felt this upset about a Class before...


At P1S
I didn't notice much of it, it just felt really empty to spam Shinten so much up until the 2nd Intemperance. No more rushing to catch my rotation with Kaiten it felt, just less excitement. But I mean I practiced this new cursed rotation ona Striking Dummy I know what to expect I should know it.


At P2S
Here I did not expect the emotions to hit me... After Limit Cut I love my pot timing there it's a Melee's dream almost. My Ikishoten up my Ogi Namikiri and my Midare, ready to be used... but not a single thing requires to be buffed with Kaiten... it's at this point I literally teared up because this is ruined... this special unique feeling of skill expression of what I practiced it's just gone...


At P3S...
Static needs clear I still need a Twine I mean just want to get it over with and it got worse... there's a moment during Brand where again the same moment happens where I normally have to Kaiten everything and even a nice slidecasting opportunity of my Midare and/or my Ogi Namikiri in case it is slightly off to get away from the big Blast or the puddle baits. But again nothing requires Kaiten and it feels completely soulless... Even during FoF or FoA nothing is exciting it's all bland.


Even though we cleared without much effort, it's so ruined... idk how else to describe it it's not fun. It's utterly upsetting... and I want to still clear for the static member to help him get a weapon, but its utter torture to see my class, just me playing it and I am looking at in action - how butchered our gameplay has become


I cannot believe people support this...
there are people that support this gameplay change...
I am speechless...

This is a wonderful breakdown of how awful these changes feel. Thank you for your writeup, totally agree it has hollowed out the flow of the class.

not a SAM main anymore but it used to be my 2nd job (back then PLD now RDM, wanted to main SAM but my new static needed an magical DPS, so RDM it was)
When i heard they were gonna remove Kaiten because of "action bloat" i was dumbfounded, it was always so satisfying twirling your blade straight into your sheeth and unleash an midare or ogi.

Played a bit around and when i switched my job to SAM and saw Kaiten was removed i felt sad, sure we spam that button a lot, but then again, it's suppose to be a windup.
Played a few trials and it just felt off, not really that my muscle memory was yelling at me to use Kaiten, but just felt off.
as you described, it was stupidly satisfying to start your midare/ogi cast when you technically have to move ... but you can get it off and still get to safety. (kinda what i like about RDM, can still do that and have full movement afterwards)
but now, you start your midare/ogi cast without winding it up and it's just ... bad.

As you described, if this was for action/button bloat, why is shoha still split, or the 2 kenki spenders still being split (or the worst offender, Iki and Ogi being split concidering Ogi can't even be used without Iki) and it just baffles me, especially when the SAM community demanded that the person who came up with this to explain himself on why this was needed and Yoshi is like "his answer is mine and the responsibility is mine" (why is Yoshi deciding over an job he doesn't know? sometimes i wonder if the people in charge even play their assigned job)

wonder how your p4s reclear goes, i'm expecting more of the p1-3s sadness, but it's amazing how they made an job all about feel and the excitement of hitting hard just feel like bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by darkdyllon

wonder how your p4s reclear goes, i'm expecting more of the p1-3s sadness, but it's amazing how they made an job all about feel and the excitement of hitting hard just feel like bad.

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We attempted our P4S reclear, but we're missing static healers due to real life.

Through PF we attempted to fill the healer slots, but we could not clear P4S P2. Just like the P3S birds, the P4S P1 enrage damage check felt tighter. I could notice my DPS took a hit, and I am not one to dwindle on numbers I just felt like I wanted to help but felt like I hurt the party by just being a Samurai.

The fight now is awful with the amount of Shinten casts I need to spam, and I fill the pot opener with 2x Gyoten dash casts and it's... horrible. Specially during Act2 where I want to catch my Tsubame on time, it feels effortless now. In Act3 I feel like I had to dump so much Kenki into Shinten it becomes laughable. And Act4 I just said it in my brain " that's gone be another 4 more Shinten's yup.

Lastly Curtain Call it isn't the hardest mechanic it's just...normally an exciting moment to catch my pot timing since I don't want to rush my second pot timing... I want to align everything for it a feel good kitchen sink moment to throw everything at the boss there while dodging the AoE's and paying attention to the debuff. 12 seconds on the Tether for me as DPS but... it just felt really empty ...it's utterly upsetting.


The static I am part of wants to do new Content, but I reminded them that I will not partake in any of it. Anything that tells Square that Samurai activity goes up cause their update change to SAM was so well done, I am not supporting that. Any Extreme, any Fate, any Savage even if its community service to help clear random parties to give up for that I love doing, new Alliance Raid I do not care. I won't do them. Not cause I want to not do them? It's cause there's no motivation with Samurai in it's current state. Not going to ask anyone to do so as well, it's just that I lack passion now to want to do any of it.

Doing any activity now as Samurai is just too depressing.

6.11 updated, and all we get are potency increases? really? Is that the auto response to our feedback...

The removal of Kaiten changed our core gameplay. Damage numbers be damned, performance numbers can always be tweaked or adjusted. Changes to how Job gameplay isn't as easily fixed as changing damage numbers. Square changed a big part of Samurai Gameplay, essentially destroying Kenki Management, and making it a lot less enjoyable to play. You could give me 1300+ Potency on Midare and I still wouldnt be happy with how braindead you made the job feel.

I'm curious... has Square done this before? players complain about their jobs and Square does a lazy response of " increase damage here and there ", just to throw players a bone? I haven't played long enough nor paid attention to patch notes really to notice that pattern? but having come from other MMORPG's who did this? I'm going to not be surprised if that's the case... Unacceptable.

Your lalafel looks adorable! Sorry couldn’t resist xD

On a serious note, I have mixed feelings but I like your approach & welcome to change my mindset on it for the better

Agree with you, what also happened with the removal of Kaiten Samurai went from one of the best Buff feeder class in the entire game to one that doesn't synergize with 1/3 of the raid buffs in it's 2 minute burst.

They should have just kept SAM the way it was and have Shoha turn into Shoha 2 when having 2 Sen Stickers and same thing with Hissatsu: Senei and Hissatsu: Guren

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tonycalrya

Agree with you, what also happened with the removal of Kaiten Samurai went from one of the best Buff feeder class in the entire game to one that doesn't synergize with 1/3 of the raid buffs in it's 2 minute burst.

They should have just kept SAM the way it was and have Shoha turn into Shoha 2 when having 2 Sen Stickers and same thing with Hissatsu: Senei and Hissatsu: Guren

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Unfortunately, being such a strong buff-eating job made Bard and Dancer impossible to balance well, so something had to give. You're not going to get this back, because it makes other job balance bad. So ask for other things, if your job's underperforming.

Made an account just to join in with this. Samurai is just not as fun as it was in 6.0 and definitely needs to be reverted.