A samurai idea : going backwards

[Shurrikhan]

Pretty much what I'd be hoping for, if in more rigid terms.

Any open sequence of moves we can get that build up an attack sounds good to me. No more locked combos, please.

That said, I'd prefer that each move affect all other moves to some degree, not just a specific one. You then pick the one that best fits what you're looking to build at that time. Do you want to try to max out your attack speed so you can quickly build up resource in time for a finisher on a newly spawned add, practically cleaving it in two (e.g. (|+Haste on NEXT| > |Triple Strike| > |Extend buff| > |Wind-aspecting strike| > |Omnislash-esque attack speed causes more total cleaving hits attack| > |Collect spirit -> Wind buff| > Tempest Blade (finisher))? That's just one of many, many options, equally optimal for different intervals of timing of burst/Sustained vs. Burst/AoE vs. ST/Magic vs. Physical/Self buff vs. Debuff vs. Support/Bleed vs. Enfeeble, and so on and so forth.

[Reynhart]

Pretty much what I'd be hoping for, if in more rigid terms.

Any open sequence of moves we can get that build up an attack sounds good to me. No more locked combos, please.

That said, I'd prefer that each move affect all other moves to some degree, not just a specific one.

Now that I think of it, it's a gameplay very close to the Assassin from Diablo 2 with charge skills and finishing moves.

[Shurrikhan]

Now that I think of it, it's a gameplay very close to the Assassin from Diablo 2 with charge skills and finishing moves.

Could that have been the reason for the Ronin class > Assassin / Samurai job ideas in the past.

Joking, but yes, there are similarities, apart from your Samurai here not necessarily having any general stack or charge system that would carry over between different pre-finisher choices (if I recall correctly... maybe that was only WoW's rogue, and then half of all rogue builds since).

That said, I wonder why there aren't more ready examples, as it's still a incredibly general design philosophy to center class gameplay on, and effectively differing from true rotations only in flexibility and greater control of dynamics/output peaks and troughs.

[Reynhart]

That said, I wonder why there aren't more ready examples, as it's still a incredibly general design philosophy to center class gameplay on, and effectively differing from true rotations only in flexibility and greater control of dynamics/output peaks and troughs.

I'd say that they probably want players to be able to discover "easily" the optimal use of skills, and linearity is a fine way to achieve that. Problem is, this is exactly what hinders creativity between players.