Samurai 5.0 Changes

[Nominous]

[B]This is the main takeaway for me. I don't understand how one can say that Hagakure makes our rotation more complicated without also noting that it makes it more flexible and convenient.

Because it has 3 possible ways to be used (1/2/3 sen consumption), the use of which conflicts directly with the idea of the core rotation before it's gained (which, unless you're going to forums or discords, is limited to in-game tooltips/Job Guides), and while having one 'ideal/optimal' use-case scenario (3 Sen), it won't be used that way 100% of the time. That doesn't even get into the issue of lining it up at different points of the rotation, which varies based on SkS, and encounter. There's a LOT going on with Hagakure, and very little of it can be gleaned through intuition or in-game resources.

When you approach it from a logical standpoint, without theory-crafting, rotation simulations, or outside resources, the ability looks like a flat out loss against Midare, especially with your previous leveling experience with the core rotation. (As a note, you have to consider that not every player has the mind for optimization and theorycraft, and might not know the resources exist for them). Which then, as far as game design is concerned, isn't exactly ideal. At best, the player is confused at how it's useful, compared to what you taught them to be the more intuitive alternative (Midare/immediate damage) and they are forced to do outside research on ONE ability. At worst, the player considers it a 'niche' skill, and uses it only in certain scenarios (which you can see in this thread). None of this to say that the ability is big-galaxy-brain type stuff. A simple explanation is enough to help literally anyone understand it. That doesn't mean you can't appreciate the flexibility it offers. It just means that you appreciate the flexibility, while feeling that there's baggage that comes along with it.

I think that any disagreement about Hagakure comes down to this- You have to understand that it's basically objective that the ability offers flexibility most importantly, but also variety and depth. That's where facts end though, and opinion begins, and that's what I think is lost in the conversation. Some people prefer spamming shinten over Midare. Some people like Midare more. Some people play a Job for the aesthetic first, and rotation/mechanics second. Some people need the mechanics and rotation to be a certain way or they just won't play it, aesthetic and Job fantasy be damned. Ask yourself why, on god's green earth, anyone in their right mind would play SB MCH, with it's mechanics being the way they are. Or NIN with Mudra latency. Probably because they favor the fantasy and/or the aesthetic over all else. Nobody's gonna argue about the fact that Mudra's and their input method gives the Job undeniably a different feel than other Jobs, but you can also have the opinion that it feels like garbage clipping GCD's for some of them. How about people that jumped ship from those Jobs? Probably because they put the mechanics of a Job over all else. Apples to oranges and all, but you get the point.

[Eliadil]

Because it has 3 possible ways to be used (1/2/3 sen consumption), the use of which conflicts directly with the idea of the core rotation before it's gained (which, unless you're going to forums or discords, is limited to in-game tooltips/Job Guides), and while having one 'ideal/optimal' use-case scenario (3 Sen), it won't be used that way 100% of the time. That doesn't even get into the issue of lining it up at different points of the rotation, which varies based on SkS, and encounter. There's a LOT going on with Hagakure, and very little of it can be gleaned through intuition or in-game resources.

This does seem like a strange choice then, especially since the 51 liveletter where they introduced charged actions, that were made to drift away from the concept of "core rotation" if I recall.

Otherwise, their design choice for 5.0 Samuraï was to increase Midare usage, because right now when peoples understood that a 3sen Hagakure was more powerfull than a kaiten Midare, they would simply use way less of the Midare. Imo I think Hagakure, while being an incredible ability, wasn't designed for that purpose initially which is why they got rid of it.

While it does remove a lot of technical optimisations and replace them with some really basic stuffs (finding the perfect SkS will probably be the only difficult thing about optimizing rotation now) it does make the class closer to what it was originally intended.
Tbh I would have been fine if they made Hagakure able to remove just one Sen instead of all available ones, but I'm no game dev so I can't really think of the impact of all these changes, especially without knowing what is going to be the endgame stuff.

[Nominous]

This does seem like a strange choice then, especially since the 51 liveletter where they introduced charged actions, that were made to drift away from the concept of "core rotation" if I recall.

It seems that so far, the lion's share of abilities on charge are gap closers and mobility (while Kassatsu, and True North are the outliers). I don't think they said it was to go further from 'core rotations', but to make it less punishing to hold cooldowns for certain abilities. Mostly the mobility based abilities that have damage tied to them, where holding them for movement utility would result in lost usage (and lower overall DPS) over an entire fight.

That being said, I think Hagakure was designed and intended to be a kenki generator, with a cost. Strictly, and explicitly that. The tooltip indicates that clearly and obviously enough. The fact that it provided flexibility to the rotation was what I'd consider a (beneficial) oversight. And I definitely think the fact that it left you DPS-positive compared to Midare wasn't intended. The fact that we're left with Ikishoten, which retains the kenki generation, but drops the Sen consumption I think speaks to that pretty well.

I also think at some point they'll give us some equivalent to a Sen cleanse in the future, only for use during downtime so we don't have to overwrite Sen on re-openers.