Samurai 5.0 Changes

[Nominous]

It's free damage, I thought we liked free damage in the dps role.

I can't complain about extra damage, but I don't think many people are? It's nice that we're getting all of our core rotation abilities before cap, for more reasons than one. But... on the other hand, it makes it more exciting to hit cap when your max level ability is a gamechanger, or something you've been looking forward to.

That aside, it's an ability that you'll use what... maybe 3 times an encounter, if you're lucky? That might even be too generous. Nobody'll complain about the extra damage, but I'd wager very few people are going to find themselves stoked to have an ability that doesn't see much use. Not to mention, we've seen them add new skills and abilities to lower level ranges before (think Total Eclipse on Paladin, or how they moved Trick Attack to a lower level). Why not do that with Shoha? Hell, they could have replaced Ageha with it, even. Overall, there's just a lot of different ways they could have done it, and I don't know that they chose the path that was most fun.

[Daralii]

I can't complain about extra damage, but I don't think many people are? It's nice that we're getting all of our core rotation abilities before cap, for more reasons than one. But... on the other hand, it makes it more exciting to hit cap when your max level ability is a gamechanger, or something you've been looking forward to.

That aside, it's an ability that you'll use what... maybe 3 times an encounter, if you're lucky? That might even be too generous. Nobody'll complain about the extra damage, but I'd wager very few people are going to find themselves stoked to have an ability that doesn't see much use. Not to mention, we've seen them add new skills and abilities to lower level ranges before (think Total Eclipse on Paladin, or how they moved Trick Attack to a lower level). Why not do that with Shoha? Hell, they could have replaced Ageha with it, even. Overall, there's just a lot of different ways they could have done it, and I don't know that they chose the path that was most fun.

It depends on fight design, but generally I'd expect one Shoha on an 8-man fight and that's it. You might not even get the full 500 if the boss disables you at some point during their ultimate like Shiva, Zurvan, Lakshmi, etc.

[Eliadil]

There is both great news and bad news with the Sam changes for 5.0

Double Midare can be quite satisfying, I mean... roughly 2400potency in a single GCD can be neat (I expect that the second Midare is meant to be channeled during the GCD of the first one, since it's an ability instead of a Weaponskill. If not it does loose some of its appeal). Single target Guren with 1250Potency is good too, gives us more choice without a huge change.

What does makes me... Curious, to say the least, is the removal of Hagakure (40sec cd) for another one that gives 50kenki and has a 60sec cooldown without the sen removal. Meikyo gets a 60sec cooldown too now, which makes everything line up in theory for raid burst... Or does it ?

I mean, did the old rotation lined up a Midare perfectly every 60 seconds ? I don't recall so. Furthermore, the fact that we're locked without the opportunity to remove extra-Sen does remove a lot of flexibility in the gameplay.

Will it feel really good to line up the whole burst in a trick attack window ? Hell yeah it will.

Will it be almost impossible to do every time if you don't have the exact amount of SkS ? I'm more than certain of it.

Or except if Meikyo's function now is only tied to making sure we get all our Sen at once just for this burst window ? Probably, given its new 60sec cooldown.

I don't really dislike most of the new stuff. Even the new 80 ability (while quite low in potency for what it requires -> A full Meditate) can be usefull sometimes.
Although I'm not sure I like losing a way to perfectly synchronise with your group's burst window even if it means more burst potential on paper.

Sam will not be bad, but it will surely be akward in a lot of group situations now where timing and the ability to sync with your group are really needed.

Also, yeah, 2 or 3 sen opener, even some 1 sen openers will be even more of a pain now because we'll have to use an empty Midare just to "reset" the Sen counter during the start of the fight... Except if they make Sen disappear if we're out of combat for too long. (Meditate could prevent Sen from disappearing, which would make such an amazing use of this ability too).

[Arkenne]

Hopes and wishes for Tsubame-Gaeshi

Sadly, despite being an Ability, Tsubame-Gaeshi cycles along the other Weaponskills.
I was also hopeful to be able to throw it back-to-back altho its true that with a mirrored 1.3s cast that would imply a GCD clipping. But nope, when you use a Weaponskill, Tsubame-Gaeshi cycles too, and when you use Tsubame-Gaeshi, all the Weaponskills cycle along.

I am not even sure you'll be able to comfortably use oGCDs after an Iaijutsu, because when it is true that the casting time will become 0.2 seconds faster, you are now a 2% faster as well... which is not necessarily a bad thing...

[Shurrikhan]

It's free damage, I thought we liked free damage in the dps role.

There is no such thing as free damage, especially for one who spends their entire time dealing damage. There is simply damage that must be balanced around the maximum output possible in the least applicable fights, the most applicable fights, or somewhere in between.

The more fight-defined a situational skill is and the more powerful that skill is, the more chance a job has of being undertuned or overtuned for a particular fight. SAM, a high wind-up job with now slower responsiveness due to the loss of Hagakure's Sen-shedding has CD sync as per all jobs, is thus situationally affected by relatively little downtime ppm via lowish CD arsenal value (increased faintly off Ikishouten and Senei, but still well below most other jobs'), Seigan, and Meditation and Shoha. Seigan's efficiency bump is minimum to ensure that SAM won't be overtuned in fights with raid damage every 15 seconds just to compensate for those fights without said raid damage. Shoha, likewise, is a mere 500 potency over 10 seconds of charging. But that's still enough to make Down for the Count a far larger loss for us that for most jobs and prevent Shoha from giving back a bit of our missing downtime potency generation.

Double Midare can be quite satisfying, I mean... roughly 2400potency in a single GCD can be neat.

Abilities are anything that have a recast time not equal to the global recast time. An Ability can also act as a weaponskill, however. We've already seen this with Heavensward's Empyreal Arrow (Speed-scalar) and any iteration of Meditation (non-scalar). It clearly takes an equal cast time to a regular Iajutsu and will trigger the global recast time.

Sam will not be bad, but it will surely be akward in a lot of group situations now where timing and the ability to sync with your group are really needed.

Also, yeah, 2 or 3 sen opener, even some 1 sen openers will be even more of a pain now because we'll have to use an empty Midare just to "reset" the Sen counter during the start of the fight...

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.

[Eliadil]

Abilities are anything that have a recast time not equal to the global recast time. An Ability can also act as a weaponskill, however. We've already seen this with Heavensward's Empyreal Arrow (Speed-scalar). It clearly takes an equal cast time to a regular Iajutsu and will trigger the global recast time.

Okay I didn't knew that, Empyreal Arrow is a Weaponskill now too, so it seems they changed it. And yeah, if the second Iaijutsu triggers the GCD it's not as good as expected then... Too bad.

Also, isn't Meditate 15sec and not 10 ? From what I've seen, we gain a stack of Meditation each time we generate kenki with it. So 5 times in 15sec... Which doesn't make it better, like not at all.

Can't wait for 5.1 for SAM adjustments then... Or maybe not ? We'll see. Maybe we'll be way overtuned at max gear level with full materia, but I somehow doubt it, the whole changes does sound underwhelming for now.

We'll see that soon enough, EA is near now, maybe in a month or two we'll have this whole thing entirely figured out.

[Tracewood]

I'm going to enjoy SAM a whole lot more it seems. I'm a little worried people will insist on other jobs for raiding since I pug and don't have time for statics anymore, but I think at my age I'll step away from raiding and just focus on clearing primals.

The AF looks super great, not really keen on the mask, but love the half-coat thing going on. Like to see more insane katana designs, the default thin blade is starting to feel very same-y.

[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.

[Arkenne]

So... Hagakure was too much brain power...

On that matter, it puzzles me why Senei is like it'll be...
I mean, the 1250 potency is juicy and actually stronger than a Kaiten Midare, but did it have to be shared with Guren?
Wouldn't it have been nicer to just give Guren the 1250 potency on 1st target and a % less on 2nd and on and give Senei another non-recast shared usage? Like a "You deal more damage to the target you hit with this" kind of effect with some 500 potency or so.
Because if we think about it, a shared recast skill where the only difference is the potency and number of targets when they already have this "1st target gets hit for full amount and the rest for much less" thing working... isn't it like reselling something they already had and masking it as "new"? That seems kinda scammy :/