Samurai 6.1 Critique: The Importance of Class Identity

Hello There, first time posting here!

As of 6.1, many Samurai players, including myself, have been attempting to adjust to the new samurai changes. With the removal of Kaiten, and the addition of guaranteed crits to key abilities, this is my thoughts and review on the change: Samurai feels hollow.

While the idea of getting guaranteed critical hits on Midare/Kaeshi Setsugekka and Ogi/Kaeshi Namikiri sounds neat at first, it is derailed with the problem of their reduced potency and with the removal of Kaiten. Damage wise, the Job suffers as a whole, and reading around the forums and watching Desperius's power test on Samurai, the general calculation is an overall 3% loss with the 6.1 iteration.

Damage is indeed important for Samurai, but that isn't my biggest concern. These are my main points when it comes to DPS Job Design.

1. Engaging Gameplay (doesn't need to be complex, just fun)
2. Visual Appeal
3. Damage capability

Before 6.1, Samurai had a solid Job identity in all of its necessary areas. Gameplay actions made near perfect sense with the Sen Coins, Kenki Meter Management, it just flowed like a river. Kaiten for iaijutsus, Shinten/Kyuten for managing overflow, and Senei/Guren once in a while.

Release of 6.1, Samurai is Hollow. Kenki meter is "Shinten Meter", with Senei/Guren once every 2 minutes. It's as if there is no seasoning to my meat, or if you asked for a Cheeseburger, and there was no cheese. The flavor is missing. Kaiten was the Class flavor, it was the cheese to the burger.

I understand the Dev team needs to find ways to remove button bloat, although i dont agree with this philosophy and how its continuing. With that said, I believe these could be better alternatives if we really need to lessen Samurai buttons.

- Ikishoten transforms into Ogi Namikiri > Kaeshi Namikiri.
- Combine Hissatsu: Guren into Hissatsu: Senei. Visually, have the sword animation of Senei, but add sword beams similar to Guren that travel in a line.
- Iaijutsu becomes Tsubame Gaeshi, let it pop up after you use Hinganbana, Tenka Goken, or Midare Setsugekka. Wondering how many charges you have? create a meter that tells you how many you got, 2 Swallow bird feathers to reference the ability name translation "Swallow Counter".

This would free up 3 hot bar slots

I have read that Shoha should just become Shoha II, and while i can understand the idea, I personally would keep them separate because both animations are beautiful and provide more flavor to the class.

Now, my critique doesn't quite end here, because I have always believed in engaging gameplay to be important for Job identity. Auto crits is not engaging by itself. It's boring, and can mess with class synergy. I have a critique for Hissatsu Senei/Guren. It is a 2 minute CD, 25 Kenki, and its potency is 800 for Senei, 500 aoe with 50% falloff, and thats it. For a 2 minute cooldown, its a straight forward "fire and forget" damage button, whereas Ogi Namikiri adds a meditation stack and has a follow up (and looks incredible!). So how would i change the two hissatsu abilities?

- Upon using Hissatsu Senei/Guren, you inflict a grevious wound on the targets, causing your next iaijustus/tsubames and ogi/kaeshi namikiris to automatically crit for 10 seconds.
- Alternative is you give yourself a buff, causing your next iaijustus/tsubames and ogi/kaeshi namikiris to automatically crit for 10 seconds.
- In return, you could debate to make this 50 kenki again for being a powerful tool

The timer can be adjusted, or can be limited to charges. The point is to let the player have fun! Let this be something they can decide and control during the fight, burst windows will feel like they matter and you will line up with everyone else. Yes, i know there is still the debate of class buff synergy and whatnot. Remember, this is a limited time frame where you can control the crits where it matters.

Class Identity is very important in MMO's. Each Job needs to stand out and appeal to players with engaging gameplay, visual appeal, and of course flashy numbers need to feel good. I'm not asking for Samurai to be overpowered, I am asking for it to be fun and engaging to the players. Kaiten is a beautiful animation and a purposeful action that pieces Samurai together. If samurai gets too strong in the later patch cycles, I trust numbers will get toned down so we don't break the game. Just let us have our fun!

.......

But also, make Tenka Goken a cone again, but BIGGER. I was fine with it being a cone!
Change it to where it doesnt need a target, it just fires where I am facing!
And bring back Hissatsu Seigan! Just let it transform from Third Eye, or augment Shinten to Transform into Seigan! I'm just saying, class flavor matters to me!

Iaijutsu becoming Tsubame Gaeshi, is not something I would want? but that is the trade off to give us back what we lost, our gameplay style/identify then yes. Many good suggestions, constructively written. And also I agree with Tenka Goken to be turned back into a Cone and but bigger it's also something I wrote in my Feedback. Hissatsu Seigan was also a fun skill. But mainly returning our Kaiten... Gave your posts a Like, I agree with a lot of it, and well written.

To be fair, there really wasn’t much button bloat for Samurai. You can easily have everything on two hot bars. I use a controller, and I’ve never had that issue with it. I did need to make a macro for both versions of Setsugekka, but that isn’t really a big deal since I could have worked around the news for that (I like to have a fourth of my second hot bar to have some mounts and the Chocobo feed, so I could sacrifice one of those easily if I needed).

Now a class that REALLY a suffers from button bloat is Dragoon. Having to keep track of everything on that honestly gives me a headache!

Also I should note that there is more damage loss than you think. When both slashes of my Namikiri (had to look the name up for spelling. Lol) had Kaiten and both crit, they would do a total of around 120k damage. Now, they do about 60k total.

So they do about half the damage now, and does a bit more damage than Setsugekka does, while keeping the SAME COOLDOWN LENGTH. Now if they reduced that by half at least, then it would be better overall I think. Or at least make the changes bearable. Then again, they might not.

Hopefully Yoshi-P keeps his word and keeps a close eye on this, and changes it back. Or at the very least make some very needed changes. Adding only 10 to 20 potency to some attacks (they removed some from others, like Shinten has 30 less Potency, and I think Tenka Goken is weaker too) doesn’t make up for the huge decrease in power for the mainly finishers, especially when the cooldown for one is so long with ‘meh’ results.

Even Tsubame is a tacked on skill. While other job's follow up skills are simply proc'd from the previous skill using the same button, along with an entirely new name and animation for the skill e.g. Ver Holy/Flare>>Scorch>>>Resolution; SAM get's a totally different button to add to their weighted skillset.

The decision making concerning the design of this job has been full of faults since ShB, EW and 6.1 were the tipping points that have led us to where we are now.

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I understand the Dev team needs to find ways to remove button bloat, although i dont agree with this philosophy and how its continuing. With that said, I believe these could be better alternatives if we really need to lessen Samurai buttons.

- Ikishoten transforms into Ogi Namikiri > Kaeshi Namikiri.
- Combine Hissatsu: Guren into Hissatsu: Senei. Visually, have the sword animation of Senei, but add sword beams similar to Guren that travel in a line.
- Iaijutsu becomes Tsubame Gaeshi, let it pop up after you use Hinganbana, Tenka Goken, or Midare Setsugekka. Wondering how many charges you have? create a meter that tells you how many you got, 2 Swallow bird feathers to reference the ability name translation "Swallow Counter".

This would free up 3 hot bar slots

I have read that Shoha should just become Shoha II, and while i can understand the idea, I personally would keep them separate because both animations are beautiful and provide more flavor to the class.

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Stop! Stop! Stop! I'm sorry that I just copy a reply of mine and post it here but it appears many many Samurai Players do not understand the concept of Single Target- and AoE Sitiations so:

Shoha is for Single Target, Shoha 2 is for AoE
Shinten is for Single Target, Kyuten is for AoE
Senei is for Single Target, Guren is for AoE
Gyoten is to Rush to the Enemy, Yaten is to attack while retreat
On Tsubamegaeshi, we agree

imagine you have an add next to you that explodes on hit, now would you stop using you Kenki Burst Skills and lose dps until the add is taken care of or you just press your skills and wipe? there is a reason why we have skills for those 2 situations and not understanding this is what brought us here, the removal of Kaiten is wrong!

also here is a Macro that turns Ikishoten into Ogi Namikiri:
/macroicon "Ikishoten"
/ac "Ikishoten"
/ac "Ogi Namikiri"

additional notes:
1. press this macro 3 times, 1st for Ikishoten, 2nd for Ogi Namikiri, 3rd for Kaeshi Namikiri. I call this Macro: Double Slice Buster
2. use Auto-translation for /macroicon, "Ikishoten" and "Ogi Namikiri" so the Game can read this Macro on all clients
3. did you noticed that Ikishoten has the same cool down as Senei and Guren? perfect to combo Senei into Ogi (for Single Target) or Guren into Ogi (for AoE) depending on the situation.

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Originally Posted by M_Red

To be fair, there really wasn’t much button bloat for Samurai. You can easily have everything on two hot bars. I use a controller, and I’ve never had that issue with it.

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This is my Hotbar HuD setup regarding the " Button Bloat " I suffer from so badly...

https://i.postimg.cc/5tT8LBmw/Hud.png

The idea was to not focus on chat, on my quest journal, my Gil, my inventory etc... a minimalistic take to not distract me on anything that doesn't help me survive or deal damage in the moment of the fight and forcing myself to stop fighting the hotbar and instead fight the fight.

As you can see... I almost pre-solved button bloat for myself, I don't need to see Hakaze . I combined many buttons myself visually since using Senei means I put Guren on cooldown as well. I don't need to see Ogi Namikiri button, I have the Ogi Namikiri buff anyways as I cast Ikishoten. Even AoE-ing doesn't require anyone to bat an eye to their hotbar. And by no means does this make me impressive, I am just showcasing that Button Bloat and for the reasoning to do the changes they did is utterly a joke.

Action Bloat I find not even a problem, Action bloat or Weaving honestly is the joy of Samurai. We don't even need to do Triple or Double Weaves, but removing this? you might as well delete my character at that point

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Originally Posted by RyuuZero

also here is a Macro that turns Ikishoten into Ogi Namikiri:
/macroicon "Ikishoten"
/ac "Ikishoten"
/ac "Ogi Namikiri"

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I just want to bring up that while convenient, assigning GCDs to macros is a bad idea. The reason being unlike normal GCD button pushes, macros do not get buffered properly, which could cause clipping your GCD or even worse, your attack or ability not coming out at all. While not a real issue for casual players, it isn't suggested for those going for rotation optimization.

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Originally Posted by Warpup

Before 6.1, Samurai had a solid Job identity in all of its necessary areas. Gameplay actions made near perfect sense with the Sen Coins, Kenki Meter Management, it just flowed like a river. Kaiten for iaijutsus, Shinten/Kyuten for managing overflow, and Senei/Guren once in a while.

Release of 6.1, Samurai is Hollow. Kenki meter is "Shinten Meter", with Senei/Guren once every 2 minutes. It's as if there is no seasoning to my meat, or if you asked for a Cheeseburger, and there was no cheese. The flavor is missing. Kaiten was the Class flavor, it was the cheese to the burger.

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Well written and aptly put, though you are making me hungry now.

revert 6.1

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Iaijutsu becoming Tsubame Gaeshi, is not something I would want? but that is the trade off to give us back what we lost, our gameplay style/identify then yes. Many good suggestions, constructively written. And also I agree with Tenka Goken to be turned back into a Cone and but bigger it's also something I wrote in my Feedback. Hissatsu Seigan was also a fun skill. But mainly returning our Kaiten... Gave your posts a Like, I agree with a lot of it, and well written.

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Thank you! I also read your feedback and appreciate how yours is constructive, doesn't try attacking any developers, and focuses on alternatives so that Kaiten can be brought back. I personally like Tsubame as a separate button too, but I feel this alternative would work out since you can choose to press it again or not based on the iaijutsu (meaning if its hinganbana, you don't need to use a Tsubame Charge). Definitely an idea that came from playing other jobs like Red Mage with scorch and Resolution, so I feel they can pull it off for Samurai as well.

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Originally Posted by M_Red

To be fair, there really wasn’t much button bloat for Samurai. You can easily have everything on two hot bars. I use a controller, and I’ve never had that issue with it. I did need to make a macro for both versions of Setsugekka, but that isn’t really a big deal since I could have worked around the news for that (I like to have a fourth of my second hot bar to have some mounts and the Chocobo feed, so I could sacrifice one of those easily if I needed).

Now a class that REALLY a suffers from button bloat is Dragoon. Having to keep track of everything on that honestly gives me a headache!

Also I should note that there is more damage loss than you think. When both slashes of my Namikiri (had to look the name up for spelling. Lol) had Kaiten and both crit, they would do a total of around 120k damage. Now, they do about 60k total.

So they do about half the damage now, and does a bit more damage than Setsugekka does, while keeping the SAME COOLDOWN LENGTH. Now if they reduced that by half at least, then it would be better overall I think. Or at least make the changes bearable. Then again, they might not.

Hopefully Yoshi-P keeps his word and keeps a close eye on this, and changes it back. Or at the very least make some very needed changes. Adding only 10 to 20 potency to some attacks (they removed some from others, like Shinten has 30 less Potency, and I think Tenka Goken is weaker too) doesn’t make up for the huge decrease in power for the mainly finishers, especially when the cooldown for one is so long with ‘meh’ results.

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That's interesting to hear, I have always wondered what it's like for controller/console players. To hear that this wasn't much of an issue for you with a controller makes one wonder what the real intent is. And oh man, Dragoon button bloat! I hear you on that! But I am no dragoon main, so i should not critique it unless i would play it regularly.

As for the damage loss, I believe you. What I wrote earlier was just a rough number thrown out based on a timed dummy test from Desperius's power test before and after the patch, so its calculating the class's whole kit. Your damage numbers for Namikiri sound about right to me, I would hit for about the same averages, and I am sad with these drastic potency drops. The crits feel meaningless to me, and its not a great feeling. This patch nerfed Samurai in more ways than one.

I hope Yoshi-P hears us all too, I really care about this Job, I just naturally come back to it for its theme and its gameplay loop. Was a near perfect fit for me, and it didn't need to change on a fundamental level.

Just made an account here to throw in with the crowd.

Hi, started playing in 4.1 and have been maining SAM once i unlocked it. Having tried out the changes in a few dungeon runs to give it a whirl, I'm dissatisfied with the changes as they are currently. To my knowledge, this was mainly to future proof the job later down the line and I would like to hear in what way and why but as it is, I wanted to make my own suggestions and opinions known on the topic currently.

Action Bloat: APM hasn't been resolved by removing Kaiten as I just use more Shinten to fill the gaps between my GCDs and Iaijutsu casts.

Button Bloat: I play on console and controller and I don't have an issue with button bloat. Though I would prefer certain abilities be altered to cut down on how many there are for the sake of this 'future proofing' I heard about.
-for instance: Shinten is a very busy button so why not change it under certain times? I've read a lot of the same suggestions overall already about consolidating Shoha 1 and 2 as well as Senei and Guren. I'm in agreement with the majority that Shoha 2 could be turned into an upgrade of Shoha to become aoe with fallout damage in a similar vein to Kyuten and Guren and so many other targeted aoe skills already work.

With that in mind, what about this?
Third Eye grants Open Eyes - Shinten becomes Seigan (for either reduced cost or increased potency) while Open Eyes is active.

Ikishoten grants Ogi Namikiri ready - changes Ikishoten into Ogi Namikiri/Kaeshi Namikiri upon use.

Hagakure (or Ikishoten again) grants Hissatsu ready - change Shinten to Senei and Kyuten to Guren.

Kaiten can be reworked if they really need to, but without hearing what intentions the dev team has in store yet, I can't think of anything but to simply revert the removal and maybe make Kaiten increase next damage by 25% and grant crit to the next skill used?

-cont

-continue

I just really miss having more things to use kenki on. Seigan was a favorite of mine because I really paid attention for when I could use Third Eye. And on the topic of Third Eye and Seigan, while I didn't care for Merciful Eyes, that was because it healed less than Second Wind and wouldn't do anything to save you in a pinch or even to undo the kind of damage we're meant to use Third Eye on, BUT.... if you increased the heal just enough to match Second Wind and changed the Third Eye skill into Merciful Eyes during Open Eyes, then I'd say it isn't too bad.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on the subject of the Iaijutsu themselves as that's another one I'm disappointed with and mostly in agreement with what seems to be the majority.

Higanbana, the change makes sense. They removed Kaiten and the potency to it now matches the Kaiten increase it got - OK, seems fine.

Midare Setsugekka, the reduction makes sense with the added crit, but while using it I felt it lacked impact still. I rarely look at the numbers on screen to know what it does tbh.

Kaeshi Setsugekka.... ok, so the kaeshi versions were just the kaiten versions of the original, I guess that makes sense to lower it? doesn't feel great.

Ogi Namikiri, new skill, was still getting used to it as I haven't played as frequently as I used to.

Kaeshi Namikiri.... hoo boy, does that feel weak now. I thought the kaeshi versions were supposed to be a reward for using the attacks before but it hardly makes an impact after the potency drop.

Lastly.... Tenka Goken. I do not like the circle on it. I was ok with the aoe starter being changed because that hardly had a situational thought to it between the cone or the circle (though I prefer the cone in that case too) Not only is Tenka Goken weak as hell, no auto-crit like Midare, the range being pulled to fit around me instead of spreading in front of me feels bad, and during my 3 dungeon runs at 90, I got hit multiple times in enemy packs trying to even use it. Guren is a line and you need to position that to hit everything and Tenka Goken should stay a cone/cleave imo. Not only does it allow safer play due to needing to cast, but if there really needs to be a risk for casting a circle aoe in the middle of 3-10 enemies, it should deal more damage than my basic 1-2 combos.

I hope this wasn't too long. First time posting and all. Hope all the suggestions made get some consideration.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

Action Bloat: APM hasn't been resolved by removing Kaiten as I just use more Shinten to fill the gaps between my GCDs and Iaijutsu casts.

Button Bloat: I play on console and controller and I don't have an issue with button bloat. Though I would prefer certain abilities be altered to cut down on how many there are for the sake of this 'future proofing' I heard about.
-for instance: Shinten is a very busy button so why not change it under certain times? I've read a lot of the same suggestions overall already about consolidating Shoha 1 and 2 as well as Senei and Guren. I'm in agreement with the majority that Shoha 2 could be turned into an upgrade of Shoha to become aoe with fallout damage in a similar vein to Kyuten and Guren and so many other targeted aoe skills already work.

With that in mind, what about this?
Third Eye grants Open Eyes - Shinten becomes Seigan (for either reduced cost or increased potency) while Open Eyes is active.

Ikishoten grants Ogi Namikiri ready - changes Ikishoten into Ogi Namikiri/Kaeshi Namikiri upon use.

Hagakure (or Ikishoten again) grants Hissatsu ready - change Shinten to Senei and Kyuten to Guren.

Kaiten can be reworked if they really need to, but without hearing what intentions the dev team has in store yet, I can't think of anything but to simply revert the removal and maybe make Kaiten increase next damage by 25% and grant crit to the next skill used?

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I agree with the action bloat and Shinten. I am just spamming that button, and it doesnt feel great compared to Pre 6.1 Samurai. Also interesting to hear that button bloat isn't an issue for you on console and controller. I also read in a translation from Yoshi-P that (with me paraphrasing) the removal of kaiten was for future proofing the job, in later patch cycles of an expansion it will get harder to balance samurai due to Kaiten's nature? I feel like there is another issue with the game if that was the underlying problem, perhaps overall stat building needs to be looked at.

-I personally would still like it if Shoha and Shoha II stayed separate, but Guren and Senei can fuse into one as I suggested in my post earlier.
-Agreed, Third Eye augmenting Seigen is pretty much what i said in my post at the end, jokingly but also serious at the same time, haha!
-Ikishoten > Namkiri agreed
-Hagakure, I would leave it alone imo, it does what it needs to. The idea of Ikishoten augmenting Shinten > Senei, which could also augment Kyuten > Guren is an interesting idea, especially since they all line up at a 2min timer. That is a possibility!
Also, I feel you on the changes to most of the iaijutsus. Midare/Kaeshi Setsugekka, Ogi/Kaeshi Namikiri do not feel impactful as before. I liked fishing for crits and crit+direct hits, seeing the possible big number gave me an adrenaline rush.

revert 6.1 plz