Samurai Thread

This is a thread to discuss various aspects of the job "Samurai".

Were you not just complaining in a different thread here on the DPS board about how JP players have a megathread for NIN and SAM feedback but NA players engage in "1-gil undercutting" instead? What is the purpose of this thread? We have a compilation post of productive threads on this topic practically stickied to our front page here as it is, I don't think we need this one.

Thing that comes to mind is perhaps making kaiten into a trait for samurai somehow.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

Thing that comes to mind is perhaps making kaiten into a trait for samurai somehow.

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True, but it would require getting the right feel for how a trait like that would work.
Closest that comes to my mind, because I play it so much is rdm.
Something akin to rdm's meter and spending when you reach a threshold of 50 white/black for it.
Though this could be too...homogenizy for the job based on its gameplay feel.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

True, but it would require getting the right feel for how a trait like that would work.
Closest that comes to my mind, because I play it so much is rdm.
Something akin to rdm's meter and spending when you reach a threshold of 50 white/black for it.
Though this could be too...homogenizy for the job based on its gameplay feel.

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I can see that being limited to iaijutsus for the sake of simplicity. But I don't main samurai, so I am not very much aware if there is corner cases where a kaiten was useful for non-iaijutsu weaponskills.

I do concur that it might lead to the job feeling a tad samey, which is always a tough thing in development to fix. Seen it happen in other things, such as the digital card game hearthstone, where the people working on it even from the alpha, tried their best to make sure each of the classes didn't have cards that were copypasted versions of each other with minor differences. Although as the game grew older it led to those very same kind of cards they tried to keep out becoming commonplace.

Another thing that popped in my head was merging shoha 1 & shoha 2 together via a trait. Where the upgrade for shoha would be the aoe function of shoha 2. Although with numbers as is, it would be a weird and uneven 208 potency attack. So obviously this would require a bit more specific tweakings to find a happy amount.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

I can see that being limited to iaijutsus for the sake of simplicity. But I don't main samurai, so I am not very much aware if there is corner cases where a kaiten was useful for non-iaijutsu weaponskills.

I do concur that it might lead to the job feeling a tad samey, which is always a tough thing in development to fix. Seen it happen in other things, such as the digital card game hearthstone, where the people working on it even from the alpha, tried their best to make sure each of the classes didn't have cards that were copypasted versions of each other with minor differences. Although as the game grew older it led to those very same kind of cards they tried to keep out becoming commonplace.

Another thing that popped in my head was merging shoha 1 & shoha 2 together via a trait. Where the upgrade for shoha would be the aoe function of shoha 2. Although with numbers as is, it would be a weird and uneven 208 potency attack. So obviously this would require a bit more specific tweakings to find a happy amount.

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Yea that is the worries of homogenization I was talking about.
As it always go back to the whole thing of 'if it works for [x], then surely it can also work for [y] as they share the same design space'.
In theory it could work with the iaijutsu being kenki spenders, though there is also the question of rotation and what other spenders would be normally weaved if such a thing was implemented.
Shoha 2 as a trait could work, if its potency was lowered to 500 when affecting a primary target plus secondary targets for an easy rounded 40%, but still having 520 for when affecting only one total enemy.
However I do wonder if they even have the technology available for an ability to make such a distinction upon activation.

I'm just gonna repost what I had in another thread since it goes over what they could have done instead of removing Kaiten;

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Originally Posted by Edweena

They're especially worse since there's at least 3 things they could have done INSTEAD OF removing Kaiten, nvm the Tenka Goken issue.

Merge Shoha 1 & 2, give it the Spirits Within is upgraded into Expiacion like they did with Paladin at the start of EW. An easy solution that already exists.

Have ikishoten turn into Ogi Namikiri upon execution, like High Jump into Mirage Dive introduced THIS PATCH, or the Gnashing Fang combo introduced at the start of EW. Another easy solution that ALREADY EXISTS.

Lots of people jump right onto merging Hissatu: Guren / Senei which is good, but....
https://i.imgur.com/wFsE734.jpeg
Is just a better solution (removes 2 buttons instead of 1, while we retain both abilities as well) since Warrior has done exactly this with Fell Cleave into Inner Chaos (the equivalent 1 target spender of shinten / senei) / Decimate into Chaotic Cyclone (another equivalent 3+= target spender that can be compared to kyuten / guren) while under the effects of Nascent Chaos, a buff granted along many other things when using Inner Release. They even have their own fucking Ogi Namikiri tied to the CD, PRIMAL REND.
SE just gave us Inner Release but somehow WORSE since we have the Ogi Namikiri being tied to Ikishoten (Like Primal Rend needing to be tied to Inner Release you see what I mean?) but miss out on saving two buttons as Guren and Senei insist on being their own CD for literally no reason.
It's been designed to be outdated for two expansions now (as someone who started in SHB I assume Inner Release was a SHB ability) and if they somehow decide to merge Guren and Senei instead I'll be frankly dissapointed since it's such a lazy effort, especially when their fellow job designers already have offered a solution to the same problems.

Oh and this Guren and Senei change would actually reduce the skill floor btw, since it removes the possibility for Guren and Senei to drift as CD's, which is ONLY a skill floor issue, and is not going to affect those at the ceiling since well, reducing drifting is not a skill attained at the ceiling.

Also no Kaiten's removal does not reduce APM, the 5 kenki cost difference is negligible, and our opener is not crowded by any means in comparison to many jobs so the only reason to remove Kaiten is for futureproofing job changes we may not see until 7.0 lol and "button bloat" which I have already solved in much better ways.

It's so frustrating looking at other jobs in the same game and how they fixed issues before they even appeared like holy shit.

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There's no need to compromise on Kaiten's removal, it was unnecessary and other solutions exist that aren't outside the realm of possibility especially since they already DO exist in this very game just under other job designers.

Further elaboration on why the over all changes are bad in comparison to other jobs, especially monks rework that rolled out in several patches;

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Originally Posted by Edweena

At this point I'm convinced it's a decision for some out of touch future proofing, that should be saved for 6.5/7.0

If they wanted to remove Kaiten and make larger overall changes, they should have saved Kaiten's removal for 6.5, and give us the new stuff shortly after in 7.0 while introducing real QOL and skill floor solutions (during 6.1-6.4) like the ones I've suggested.
Warm us up to change like they did with QOL changes on Monk throughout SHB, then make real changes at the next expansion. No one would be unhappy for the early patch cycles, and it would build up trust for a change like Kaiten's removal.
As it is currently it's hard to trust the direction of Samurai's design as it clearly offers nothing in place of 6.0 (every "positive" change is contentious from potencies, crit synergy, to tenka goken, nothing offers a pure improvement in place of what we had before).

Going potentially 5 patch cycles without Kaiten (which is unlikely imo due to feedback) aka 2 years after many locked Samurai in as their main during the 6.0 cycle is beyond ridiculous.
Oh and yes please revert 6.1 Samurai changes thank you.

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Kaiten's largest issue with it's removal is that it invalidates kenki management as well, and if a resource is becoming invalidated as it no longer needs to be managed, then it stands to reason that the resource should be removed entirely.

I no longer even keep kenki on screen as I just press shinten when it lights up, pooling has also become less important with trick attacks raid buff removed, and Ikishoten granting us half of our kenki for the only remaining raid buff window now at 2m.
Shoha can't even be pooled in any tangible way since you need to get it out between Iaijutsu / Ogi Namikiri, so just press that sucker as soon as it glows!

Kaiten was the only thing keeping my eyes on managing kenki, and now that it's gone I no longer need kenki as a visual reference.
(It's like having the DRK's Darkside Gauge before obtaining The Blackest Night, I kept asking why the fuck is this job gauge a thing?)
They can change Shinten into a charge based CD similar to Bloodletter / Rain of Death (Shinten / Kyuten) and save on ui bloat while retaining what amounts to the exact same gameplay since we gain the resource statically.
Ikishoten could even grant 2 charges of Shinten / Kyuten and it would be literally the same.

So yeah they can delete kenki now lol.
And hopefully give us a completely new resource? There's no guarantee though. Especially since such an enormous change would likely be saved for 7.0 roughly 2 years from now, of boring boring gameplay.

Which is kind of why Kaiten's removal is such a sore spot for me since it indicates that they have no real plan, unlike Monk which rolled out good and gradual changes over the course of several patches, then saved the final and most challenging changes for 6.0 after introducing loaaaads of welcome changes, IE building trust.

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Originally Posted by Edweena

I'm just gonna repost what I had in another thread since it goes over what they could have done instead of removing Kaiten;

There's no need to compromise on Kaiten's removal, it was unnecessary and other solutions exist that aren't outside the realm of possibility especially since they already DO exist in this very game just under other job designers.

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Originally Posted by Edweena

Further elaboration on why the over all changes are bad in comparison to other jobs, especially monks rework that rolled out in several patches;

Kaiten's largest issue with it's removal is that it invalidates kenki management as well, and if a resource is becoming invalidated as it no longer needs to be managed, then it stands to reason that the resource should be removed entirely.

I no longer even keep kenki on screen as I just press shinten when it lights up, pooling has also become less important with trick attacks raid buff removed, and Ikishoten granting us half of our kenki for the only remaining raid buff window now at 2m.
Shoha can't even be pooled in any tangible way since you need to get it out between Iaijutsu / Ogi Namikiri.
Kaiten was the only thing keeping my eyes on managing kenki, and now that it's gone I no longer need kenki as a visual resource.
They can change Shinten into a charge based CD similar to Bloodletter / Rain of Death (Shinten / Kyuten) and save on ui bloat while retaining what amounts to the exact same gameplay since we gain the resource statically.
Ikishoten could even grant 2 charges of Shinten / Kyuten and it would be literally the same.

So yeah they can delete kenki now lol.

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Those are both very helpful posts you posted.
I do agree with you that it would be in the best interest to merge Guren and Senei and also merging both Shohas together.
I have myself noticed the dragoon change with high jump and mirage dive when playing it here and there and while I found it odd at first I warmed up to it.

If I might inquire, are you fine with various jobs having their buttons becoming morphing buttons?
Also second question would be, relating to morphing buttons for samurai, is this for ease of use on controller or pc gameplay?

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

However I do wonder if they even have the technology available for an ability to make such a distinction upon activation.

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All my proposed ideas include technology and solutions already present in the game btw, so there is no excuse for the current state of samurai over what I and many others propose, don't compromise! :)
You can source it looking at the Warrior Job Guide, as it's where I photoshopped a lot of that text into the example image: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/warrior/
Go to the Paladin from there to look at Spirits Within into Expacion, and check out the Gunbreaker's Gnashing Fang too if you're curious.

The only minor tech issue is Ogi is a weapon skill, while Ikishoten is an ability, and usually they don't chain a weaponskill into an ability...
HOWEVER, Ogi Namikiri goes from being a weaponskill currently into Kaeshi Namikiri, AN ABILITY, SO PSYCHE I GUESS.

Even then, if there was some BIZARRE technical limitation where Kaiten couldn't affect Ogi Namikiri, because the Ikishoten > Ogi / Kaeshi Namikiri chain was all made into abilities, that would still be completelyyyyy fine, I didn't even think of using Kaiten on Ogi Namikiri when I first started EW lol.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

If I might inquire, are you fine with various jobs having their buttons becoming morphing buttons?
Also second question would be, relating to morphing buttons for samurai, is this for ease of use on controller or pc gameplay?

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If you mean combos like the 1 2 3 combos usually found across Melee / Ranged Physical then yeah as long as it's an options it's fantastic, it's just accessibility.

I myself don't have issues with getting around button bloat on Samurai (on PC), but do always get annoyed when they decide to justify an entire keybinding to an action / ability for no reason.
Looking at Draw / Play on Astro for example, also their royal draw / royal play. (which is essentially the Ikishoten / Ogi Namikiri issue currently but even worse poor Astro)
It's absurd especially since they just create more problems for themselves in the future, then resort to this kind of left field change to address vaguely defined "action bloat" which may or may not be a reference to APM (which was no alleviated by the changes) or actual button bloat.

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Originally Posted by Edweena

All my proposed ideas include technology and solutions already present in the game btw, so there is no excuse for the current state of samurai over what I and many others propose, don't compromise! :)
You can source it looking at the Warrior Job Guide, as it's where I photoshopped a lot of that text into the example image: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/warrior/
Go to the Paladin from there to look at Spirits Within into Expacion, and check out the Gunbreaker's Gnashing Fang too if you're curious.

The only minor tech issue is Ogi is a weapon skill, while Ikishoten is an ability, and usually they don't chain a weaponskill into an ability...
HOWEVER, Ogi Namikiri goes from being a weaponskill currently into Kaeshi Namikiri, AN ABILITY, SO PSYCHE I GUESS.

Even then, if there was some BIZARRE technical limitation where Kaiten couldn't affect Ogi Namikiri, because the Ikishoten > Ogi / Kaeshi Namikiri chain was all made into abilities, that would still be completelyyyyy fine, I didn't even think of using Kaiten on Ogi Namikiri when I first started EW lol.

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I'm really glad you have such a well presented idea. I'm even more glad that your idea is just about everything I kept wondering all throughout ShB and EW.

I just want these done so I can have Seigan back and that they put the oomph back into our iaijutsu skills. We want those to be nice and crunchy, not flaccid.

@Edweena: That is good to know the technology already exists.
Not as familiar with the paladin spirits within into expacion, mostly as I don't play that job as much I should, but I am more familiar with how gunbreaker's gnashing fang has changed.
Would something similar to gnashing fang help the feel of samurai when doing rotation?

Yea that is a tad awkward for the job to have a mix of weaponskills and non-weaponskills for dealing damage.
Might result in a similar treatment dancer got where a lot of its buttons were reclassified as weaponskills.
I can imagine certain buttons having alterations to them as they would then be affected by skill speed and might cause some clipping issues.

I assume a 1-2-3 combo that morphs is fine for paladins and gunbreakers from a feedback loop perspective as its not just the same thing happening each time when the button is pushed unlike say whm's and their glarefest.
Also yea there are some weird buttons like draw/play.
I can only assume such buttons still exist as they are, for lack of a better term, relics from an earlier era of the job's design when those same buttons had a bit more importance.

Also to go back and chat about something you chatted about, didn't mean not to include it in a prior post, is that you no longer feel like you need to keep an eye on your kenki gauge.
Would increasing the existing kenki costs help alleviate that, or is this more about having a big spender button/combo of buttons to act as a finisher for meter spending?

The Gnashing fang comparison is a QOL fix and thus retains the feel of the Job, I'm looking to those kinds of solutions that preserve a "if it's not broke don't fix it" as the feel of the job in 6.0 was very excellent especially after the media tour feedback being implemented so quickly.

Regarding Seigan there might be a technical limitation to it, regarding something I heard Yoshi P reference in one of his interviews for the media tour (either Drak Gamestein or Woops I can't remember on youtube) and it was the concept of "animation data" which essentially amounted to abilities being removed as their animations imposed a technical limitation on the game due to trying to trim file sizes, or some other stuff it wasn't really elaborated on.
(servers possibly, just really technical stuff as all data is valuable in optimizing an mmo)
Seigan has a unique animation, but the current iteration of Third Eye just granting kenki saves on animation data instead of allotting it to Seigan and that other one that heals. (thus optimizing the technical limitations of the game)
I can get why Seigan may never come back in it's former due to that.

And in regards to Kenki, it was something that I floated around 50 before spending on excess Shintens, as I needed to make sure that I had enough for Kaiten. (this was some level of management needed to make sure you played properly)
This was also nice because it meant I had to manage / track the two resources in relation to each other. Now that Kaiten is gone, Kenki has no interactions whatsoever with Sen, so just focusing my attention on Sen and only pressing Kenki when it glows simplifies it.

If they increased costs it would just lower APM (thus slowing down the job), and our APM is quite nice as it is right now, I would even enjoy more APM sometimes as a former SHB summoner.
To keep kenki relevant they need to have us think about it, but not be stressed out by it rapidly approaching and needing to be culled constantly. It needs to interact with the other half of our kit, like kaiten bridged the gap with Sen / Kenki, not just be ANOTHER resource which is the issue on jobs like Scholar, which could really do with a complete rework around it's faerie gauge.

So yeah as it is currently we're not doing anything with Kenki, our incentive to pool it was weakened with Trick Attacks buff being passed onto the 2m Mug Window, so there isn't a 1m window we pool for (the only window we don't get 1/2 our kenki for free).
The simplest course of action that doesn't result in any real tangible loss is to just simply use shinten ASAP IE when it glows. You can cut out any and all thought regarding how much kenki you have, and focus elsewhere, as long as Shinten is glowing you're fine.
So the kenki bar is just a distraction, IE UI bloat, and this can only really be changed by making us change our thought process around what to do with kenki, not so much speed up the process, or make it as restrictive as soul arrow (an 80 out of 100 spender on bard, that's just really annoying when you have a tight rotation going on).

Honestly, I wish they would find a way go expand on the Meditation stacks. 3 stacks seemed fine with how we build it, but with the addition of Ogi Namikiri being another skill that grants a stack, I think a minimum of 5 would work perfectly. There could be an evolving button based on number of meditation like how iaijutsu changes based on number of Sen.

Maybe meditation could also serve a purpose with regards to kenki through some of the skills. Either affecting Shinten and Kyuten in some way or being something gained by way of Senei and Guren, I don't know. Throwing out more ideas since the whole Meditate/Shoha line of skills has always felt a little tacked on. It certainly became better after initial changes, but I do think it could be expanded and thus open a new method of using skills.

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Originally Posted by Edweena

Regarding Seigan there might be a technical limitation to it, regarding something I heard Yoshi P reference in one of his interviews for the media tour (either Drak Gamestein or Woops I can't remember on youtube) and it was the concept of "animation data" which essentially amounted to abilities being removed as their animations imposed a technical limitation on the game due to trying to trim file sizes, or some other stuff it wasn't really elaborated on.
(servers possibly, just really technical stuff as all data is valuable in optimizing an mmo)
Seigan has a unique animation, but the current iteration of Third Eye just granting kenki saves on animation data instead of allotting it to Seigan and that other one that heals. (thus optimizing the technical limitations of the game)
I can get why Seigan may never come back in it's former due to that.

And in regards to Kenki, it was something that I floated around 50 before spending on excess Shintens, as I needed to make sure that I had enough for Kaiten. (this was some level of management needed to make sure you played properly)
This was also nice because it meant I had to manage / track the two resources in relation to each other. Now that Kaiten is gone, Kenki has no interactions whatsoever with Sen, so just focusing my attention on Sen and only pressing Kenki when it glows simplifies it.

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Oh, is that what the reason was? I thought it was due to the so called bloat. I kept thinking it would make so much sense for Shinten to change into Seigan through Third Eye. It felt like an actual reward for mitigating raid wides as a pure dps meant to solely deal damage. And while I disliked how impotent Merciful Eyes was, I always thought it could be adjusted to at least rival Second Wind from the role actions.

That makes me sad that even I'd we made space through all the suggested consolidations it wouldn't be able to return. 10 kenki barely matters in the grand scheme of things, but I guess it had to be the change to make since positional are no longer tied to kenki generation and only damage. I feel like that was poor decision.

Ah well...


fix SAM please.

it's pvp kit is more fun than any part of playing it's EW iteration

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Those are both very helpful posts you posted.
I do agree with you that it would be in the best interest to merge Guren and Senei and also merging both Shohas together.
I have myself noticed the dragoon change with high jump and mirage dive when playing it here and there and while I found it odd at first I warmed up to it.

If I might inquire, are you fine with various jobs having their buttons becoming morphing buttons?
Also second question would be, relating to morphing buttons for samurai, is this for ease of use on controller or pc gameplay?

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the only time i'm really OK with an button morphing into another skill is when it's relevant to it.
for example with Red Mage where VerAero/Thunder (i think) turn into holy and flare and then the 2 combo starters turning into Scorch and then into Resolution, it's relevant to the combo, but you still have your seperate buttons outside of those times, so it doesn't become a mindless "spam 1-1-1"

In a sense SAM already had that morphing button with it's Iaitsu taking on 3 forms depending on the sens you had, so that wouldn't really be new (again it's relevant to the action at hand)
if they decide to make the 1-2-3 into an 1-1-1 morphing button like PvP i wouldn't be very happy, sure 1-2-3 is easy, but 1-1-1 is even more braindead, would save on 2 buttons since they're latetly so obsessed with "action/button bloat" and making everything work with controller (like AST isn't gonna work at a decent level simply because you gotta target specific members really fast, give them the card/heal and then re-target the boss, i play controller, it's possible but not as good as m+k)

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

Oh, is that what the reason was? I thought it was due to the so called bloat. I kept thinking it would make so much sense for Shinten to change into Seigan through Third Eye. It felt like an actual reward for mitigating raid wides as a pure dps meant to solely deal damage. And while I disliked how impotent Merciful Eyes was, I always thought it could be adjusted to at least rival Second Wind from the role actions.

That makes me sad that even I'd we made space through all the suggested consolidations it wouldn't be able to return. 10 kenki barely matters in the grand scheme of things, but I guess it had to be the change to make since positional are no longer tied to kenki generation and only damage. I feel like that was poor decision.

Ah well...


fix SAM please.

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in the grand scheme of things and concidering how often DPS have to take damage in fights?
using merciful eyes as much as possible will net you quite a few extra Shintens (now atleast)

take P1S for example, you got the raid wides obviously, that's 10 in the beginning.
then more raid wides (each gives 10 and there's quite a few through p1s)
then you got the elemental mechanic, which either you take 2 or 3 hits (both 10 kenki each) if you got to switch 3 times you would have 30 kenki from that mechanic (50 kenki meaning 2 shintens)
then another raid AOE after for another 10, then either an TB that you take damage for.

when you just look at the ability it sucks, but put it into perspective howmany times you can press it.
P1S each TB except for 1 variation (the tank swapped TB atleast) does AOE damage.
Even if it's only 3-4 shintens over the course of a fight, that's still 3-4 extra shintens, could save you on an 0.1% wipe.

@darkdyllon

Hmm, true it would be absolutely boring if it morphed too much like that.
Merely a thought experiment but would it feel better or worse if certain other parts of samurai's kit morphed?
Example: What if samurai had Hakaze, Shifu, Yukikaze, and Jinpu as buttons. (Shifu morphed into Kasha if pressed, while Jinpu morphed into Gekko if pressed)

Also true that there is certain perks for mouse+keyboard that, at least in my own experience, make playing a healer feel easier to do.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

@darkdyllon

Hmm, true it would be absolutely boring if it morphed too much like that.
Merely a thought experiment but would it feel better or worse if certain other parts of samurai's kit morphed?
Example: What if samurai had Hakaze, Shifu, Yukikaze, and Jinpu as buttons. (Shifu morphed into Kasha if pressed, while Jinpu morphed into Gekko if pressed

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Honestly, not a horrible idea. While I wouldn't consider it to be the best solution to what's been going on with SAMs kit, it would make total sense given the way Meikyo Shisui works now. Meikyo Shisui already grants the combo finishers the ability to place the respective buff, so if Shifu-Kasha and Jinpu-Gekko was to be a thing, Meikyo Shisui could just shift them from the middle button to always be the finisher.

At least, if we're entertaining the idea of making 2 out of our 3 combo paths into a 2 button press. But at that point, it might as well just be the pvp kit where you just have the finishers only placed in a single button.

While an interesting idea, I personally wouldn't hope for that. But I can see where it might benefit the idea of trimming space.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

Honestly, not a horrible idea. While I wouldn't consider it to be the best solution to what's been going on with SAMs kit, it would make total sense given the way Meikyo Shisui works now. Meikyo Shisui already grants the combo finishers the ability to place the respective buff, so if Shifu-Kasha and Jinpu-Gekko was to be a thing, Meikyo Shisui could just shift them from the middle button to always be the finisher.

At least, if we're entertaining the idea of making 2 out of our 3 combo paths into a 2 button press. But at that point, it might as well just be the pvp kit where you just have the finishers only placed in a single button.

While an interesting idea, I personally wouldn't hope for that. But I can see where it might benefit the idea of trimming space.

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Apologies for the delayed reply.
Anyway that is fair point, while I personally enjoy the simplicity of the new pvp design for various jobs, I fully understand its not for everyone.
Also thank you for your input on the idea I had.