Disappointment of Shoha/Feedback. Samurai Lv80 Skill.

[xxvaynxx]

I am picking on that particular suggestion because it sucks and this is the only place where our feedback might get heard and god help us if that's what they do to "fix" Shoha. Because I'm not happy with the ability either, just relieved it isn't something terrible like TCJ or Tornado Kick, which you mentioned.

Yeah, I was around for Tornado Kick and this ability isn't remotely near that bad. Shoha has obvious use cases and is always just free damage. sad times 50 potency of damage on occasion, but it's still free and if you've got the ogcd free, why not? Tornado Kick actually hurt your damage to use if you weren't smart about it, and you needed to have really tight fight knowledge to get any mileage out of it (though that's changed recently apparently). If you misuse shoha you aren't crippled for several gcd's like you are with TK. Well, unless you are misusing meditate to begin with anyway, but that's a different problem.

I honestly think this isn't as bad as TCJ. Though I understand the annoyance with rooting you in melee range...

I would say its just about the same as TK... though a bit worse actually, because with TK you can do it when the boss is about to jump or about to die.

With shoha you can only do it on downtime. There is only one time you can do it, with TK you can at least do it on two situations.

[Ryaz]

I can understand where the devs were coming from with this skill. I just don't agree with it's implementation and feel they haven't learned anything from abilities like Tornado Kick. Meditate was fine as it for downtime because Samurai never really suffered from it. We don't lose Kenki like Monk lost GL stacks. The only thing we had to worry about was buffs falling off.

All through SB, people complained of Third Eye and Seigan (as well as Merciful Eyes which is now useless again due to enmity reducer being removed). Seigan is one of the few skills that Samurai has that helps separate good players from great players- namely being able to predict incoming damage and use it for a potency gain. The only issue is that the gain in potency over Shinten is minuscule. This was the perfect opportunity to remedy that by having Seigan potentially become something people actively want to use, like having it combo into Shoha or build stacks that allow you to unleash Shoha later. It would reward skilled play much more and keep the skill relevant throughout the fight instead of being highly situational (and extremely low potency for the amount of times you'll actually use it). It just feels like a missed opportunity to make a somewhat lackluster and situational skill a lot better and instead we now have two lackkuster and situational skills.

Now I'm not saying theres no skill in using Meditate because you have to be good to find those downtime to weave it a stack or two in some fights. But you really are at the mercy of the fight mechanics. If theres no downtime, the skill is useless.

I'm just hoping that they either change it, or if they plan on keeping it the way it is, then the potency is increased quite a bit. Everything is still subjected to change, so I'll keep hoping.

[Daralii]

I can understand where the devs were coming from with this skill. I just don't agree with it's implementation and feel they haven't learned anything from abilities like Tornado Kick. Meditate was fine as it for downtime because Samurai never really suffered from it. We don't lose Kenki like Monk lost GL stacks. The only thing we had to worry about was buffs falling off.

All through SB, people complained of Third Eye and Seigan (as well as Merciful Eyes which is now useless again due to enmity reducer being removed). Seigan is one of the few skills that Samurai has that helps separate good players from great players- namely being able to predict incoming damage and use it for a potency gain. The only issue is that the gain in potency over Shinten is minuscule. This was the perfect opportunity to remedy that by having Seigan potentially become something people actively want to use, like having it combo into Shoha or build stacks that allow you to unleash Shoha later. It would reward skilled play much more and keep the skill relevant throughout the fight instead of being highly situational (and extremely low potency for the amount of times you'll actually use it). It just feels like a missed opportunity to make a somewhat lackluster and situational skill a lot better and instead we now have two lackkuster and situational skills.

Now I'm not saying theres no skill in using Meditate because you have to be good to find those downtime to weave it a stack or two in some fights. But you really are at the mercy of the fight mechanics. If theres no downtime, the skill is useless.

I'm just hoping that they either change it, or if they plan on keeping it the way it is, then the potency is increased quite a bit. Everything is still subjected to change, so I'll keep hoping.

At least with Tornado Kick the GL stacks can be regained fairly quickly every 2 minutes. Considering the Meditation stacks only last for 30 seconds, you'll probably be lucky to get a full strength Shoha on any given boss.

[Arkdra]

I honestly think this isn't as bad as TCJ. Though I understand the annoyance with rooting you in melee range...

I would say its just about the same as TK... though a bit worse actually, because with TK you can do it when the boss is about to jump or about to die.

With shoha you can only do it on downtime. There is only one time you can do it, with TK you can at least do it on two situations.

Eh, I'd rather have an ability rarely used liked Shoha over something that actively feels unfun to use like TCJ. This is really just equivocating though because they definitely should fix Shoha. I am all for the stacks not falling off and increasing with the use of Seigan and Merciful Eyes.

[gintokiygo]

The skill looks amazing but the frequency that it'll be used makes me rather disappointed. My suggestion for how it can be changed is to allow Iaijutsu to give stacks of meditation make the stacks permanent and allow us to use the skill whenever same potencies listed as current Shoha.

[Janhyua]

instead of meditating to get stack, we midare to get stack and the stack stay with us throughout the entire fight until we use it this way it will make Shoha more useable as a OGCD

[xxvaynxx]

I like those idea, you two. I agree.
Gonna list em'

[xxvaynxx]

I can understand where the devs were coming from with this skill. I just don't agree with it's implementation and feel they haven't learned anything from abilities like Tornado Kick. Meditate was fine as it for downtime because Samurai never really suffered from it. We don't lose Kenki like Monk lost GL stacks. The only thing we had to worry about was buffs falling off.

All through SB, people complained of Third Eye and Seigan (as well as Merciful Eyes which is now useless again due to enmity reducer being removed). Seigan is one of the few skills that Samurai has that helps separate good players from great players- namely being able to predict incoming damage and use it for a potency gain. The only issue is that the gain in potency over Shinten is minuscule. This was the perfect opportunity to remedy that by having Seigan potentially become something people actively want to use, like having it combo into Shoha or build stacks that allow you to unleash Shoha later. It would reward skilled play much more and keep the skill relevant throughout the fight instead of being highly situational (and extremely low potency for the amount of times you'll actually use it). It just feels like a missed opportunity to make a somewhat lackluster and situational skill a lot better and instead we now have two lackkuster and situational skills.

Now I'm not saying theres no skill in using Meditate because you have to be good to find those downtime to weave it a stack or two in some fights. But you really are at the mercy of the fight mechanics. If theres no downtime, the skill is useless.

I'm just hoping that they either change it, or if they plan on keeping it the way it is, then the potency is increased quite a bit. Everything is still subjected to change, so I'll keep hoping.

Just how I feel, I just don't want a skill like this. You can even use seigan more than shoha.

[Shurrikhan]

Ultimately there are only three factors really worth weighing here:

1. Will SAM fall short of the necessary level of entertaining play unless Shoha is replaced?
2. Will SAM fall short of the necessary level of power unless Shoha is replaced?
3. Does Shoha's current implementation just have such obvious improvements that it would bug the hell out of the average player if those opportunities weren't taken up?

I see no reason to believe that any of those are the case. It looks like a small Meditate bonus and seems like it will perform well as such. I'd even guess that Shoha would be just as interesting in its more limited possible form (e.g. if stacks would not survive movement, forcing you to accurately set up where the boss will land rather than... anywhere).

I'm also personally glad that I don't have to wait until level 80 to get something so integral to my kit as, say, the impact that was 70 DRK's The Blackest Night (to the cost of the coherency and satisfaction of its job gauge from 62-69).

I'd welcome improvements to an extent, but I don't think they're anywhere near necessary either. Well, except for making it share a button with Meditate unless the stacks are going to last for a full minute or longer (I'd rather they didn't)...

The thing is... The current implementation of Shoha could literally have just been a trait upgrade to Meditate itself (Allowing you to re-use Meditate to deal some damage based on stacks generated while using it)

Which seems kind of lackluster for a NEW skill to obtain at level 80. What is essentially a minor trait that has minor impact and could easily be one of those mostly forgettable traits you get during leveling.

While having an integral skill such as TBN being a capstone skill can also be bad, it's still nice for a capstone skill to be at least more interesting than a minor trait.

I see where you're coming from there, but I just, again, wouldn't feel too bad just getting a Meditate trait as my level 80 skill, "capstone" or not. My only real complaint -- as in a couple other classes, to be fair -- would be that the Meditate ticks are global ticks instead of player-determined and really, really slow. If Meditate instead did an instant tick and then 9 further 1-second (scaled) ticks of 5 Kenki apiece, and those smaller ticks each gave me a stack towards the maximum of 5, I'd be pretty happy. Or, better, yet, and instant tick of 10 and then another tick of 10 per second, such that it's quite worth using while waiting out an AoE that forces you from melee range... (Assuming again, these stacks would last only until Meditation is again ready -- so, 60 seconds not refreshing with new stacks -- and Shoha could share a hotkey with Meditate...)

Also: while no longer needing to enmity-drop for rDPS when not running a NIN may devalue ME and therefore improve Seigan, Seigan still feels pretty pathetic. I'd like to keep the 15 Kenki cost, but with Hagakure being replaced by a max of 50 Kenki generation at a time (RIP Sen-cleansing) we could maybe go for a 25-Kenki skill that'd make its added damage impact more obvious. Heck, we could turn it into a narrow conal cleave, too, to give it better value vs. Kyuuten...

and 3...I'm actually not sure what you meant by 3, reading is hard.

Does it... trigger the average player's minor OCD?

(For me, for instance, unless the stacks last longer than Meditate's CD, I feel they should share a hotkey and so I'd badly want that one improvement; it's just too obvious not to bother with.)

[Kalise]

Ultimately there are only three factors really worth weighing here:

1. Will SAM fall short of the necessary level of entertaining play unless Shoha is replaced?
2. Will SAM fall short of the necessary level of power unless Shoha is replaced?
3. Does Shoha's current implementation just have such obvious improvements that it would bug the hell out of the average player if those opportunities weren't taken up?

I see no reason to believe that any of those are the case. It looks like a small Meditate bonus and seems like it will perform well as such. I'd even guess that Shoha would be just as interesting in its more limited possible form (e.g. if stacks would not survive movement, forcing you to accurately set up where the boss will land rather than... anywhere).

I'm also personally glad that I don't have to wait until level 80 to get something so integral to my kit as, say, the impact that was 70 DRK's The Blackest Night (to the cost of the coherency and satisfaction of its job gauge from 62-69).

I'd welcome improvements to an extent, but I don't think they're anywhere near necessary either.

The thing is... The current implementation of Shoha could literally have just been a trait upgrade to Meditate itself (Allowing you to re-use Meditate to deal some damage based on stacks generated while using it)

Which seems kind of lackluster for a NEW skill to obtain at level 80. What is essentially a minor trait that has minor impact and could easily be one of those mostly forgettable traits you get during leveling.

While having an integral skill such as TBN being a capstone skill can also be bad, it's still nice for a capstone skill to be at least more interesting than a minor trait.