Samurai - Kaiten Issue

[SpeckledBurd]

SAM is a 40+ Action-Per-Minute class with half of those actions being oGCDs. You are simply wrong.

Depends on how you look at it. In terms of Raw Number of actions it doesn't really have a whole lot, especially compared to Dragoon/Ninja which have tons of oGCD actions. The thing that inflates Samurai's oGCD numbers is Shinten which while it is an oGCD is ultimately just a skill you use to prevent capping on gauge. Unlike Dragoon's Jumps or anything Ninja's Mudra's/everything else, there's rarely an opportunity cost to sitting on a Shinten unless you're about to cap on Kenki because by design it can't drift.

Because Samurai has a lot of freedom in how it uses it's oGCDs I failed to consider how Kaiten only really interacted with a single other button in all but the most Niche of circumstances.

And what's the next step, then? If Kaiten is bloat because it's used only at a specific time, then what about Shinten, which is used only as a last resort and thus "complicated" only by however many prior layers of greater efficiency come before it (Senei > Kaiten > Seigan)? Heck, what about Senei/Guren, since it's already simply used once every 2 minutes and spends the rest of the time as bar bloat and is only complicated by Kaiten and Ikishoten... or, literally just Ikishoten, which would already be paired to its use and therefore would only remove the 50-gauge complication outright? Where do we drawn the line here? Every block you pull from the fundamentals of Samurai's gauge system will have a toppling effect on its more advanced components. Kaiten, at least, requires foresight where Shinten requires none. Due to Ikishoten, Guren (and ofc Senei) now require even less than they used to -- arguably no more, now, than Kaiten.

If anything, shouldn't we be considering how we can make Kaiten have other situations for its usefulness rather than gutting what little complexity remains to the job? For instance, what if Ikishoten allowed for compounding (non-Iajutsu) weaponskill potency rather than granting a Guren/Senei of gauge? Or what if you tossed in an Art of Sword/Swell/Storm mechanic that similarly gave other circumstances by which Kaiten would be more efficient on a non-Iajutsu weaponskill than Shinten -- something situational that you could work towards and exploit? And consider -- Kaiten will always be used with Iajutsu, true, but not every Iajutsu, especially given a mistake or an incoming, unfortunately-timed jump, will be used with a Kaiten.

:: There are enough situations in which I might prefer to conserve gauge over buffing an Iajutsu that I'd rather Kaiten remain manual in its interaction with Iajutsu. And I certainly don't want to see Samurai's complexity gutted even further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope