Hissatsu: Kaiten

[Gemina]

I absolutely understand where you are coming from, but complexity can make something feel rewarding; like solving a puzzle.

There's nothing complex about Kaiten, and your defense is, "It looks cool." They honestly could [should] bake the animation into Iaijutsu skills to eat up the cast time.

If complexity is your angle, I would be more concerned about how a lot of SAM's skillset feels horrendously tacked on. The job going into ShB played very well, with few but livable drawbacks. I wasn't the biggest fan of Tsubame, particularly due to it being a use it or lose it skill, which drives me bat-S. Same goes for Senei (I won't get into a 120s CD also consuming kenki being lame AF). Now they have x2 charge Meikyo, x2 charge Tsubame, and a follow up to Ogi, which is another use it or lose it. You'd think with all these additional charges, that SAM would be the king of sting, but severe potency adjustments saw to it that this did not happen, so now SAM has to work harder for a damage output that doesn't justify it.

In short, fun was shunned to add complexity to this job. My issue with Kaiten is it isn't even one of the current issues SAM has. Consolidating Guren and Senei and/or Shoha/Shoah II into a single skill would have been a FAR more effective way to reduce the button bloat SAM has. Losing Seigan as a third eye skill also needlessly took away from the more complex/intricate portion of SAMs kit.

In short, it took less than one expansion to turn SAM from one of my favorite jobs, to a bench warmer. That's how it goes with MMOs though, and I find it is better to invest based on a how a job plays rather than what the job is. I know that is probably the worst news for anyone who mains any particular job due to a sentimental value it might have, but that is how the winds blow in FFXIV regardless.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

There's nothing complex about Kaiten, and your defense is, "It looks cool." They honestly could [should] bake the animation into Iaijutsu skills to eat up the cast time.

If complexity is your angle, I would be more concerned about how a lot of SAM's skillset feels horrendously tacked on. The job going into ShB played very well, with few but livable drawbacks. I wasn't the biggest fan of Tsubame, particularly due to it being a use it or lose it skill, which drives me bat-S. Same goes for Senei (I won't get into a 120s CD also consuming kenki being lame AF). Now they have x2 charge Meikyo, x2 charge Tsubame, and a follow up to Ogi, which is another use it or lose it. You'd think with all these additional charges, that SAM would be the king of sting, but severe potency adjustments saw to it that this did not happen, so now SAM has to work harder for a damage output that doesn't justify it.

In short, fun was shunned to add complexity to this job. My issue with Kaiten is it isn't even one of the current issues SAM has. Consolidating Guren and Senei and/or Shoha/Shoah II into a single skill would have been a FAR more effective way to reduce the button bloat SAM has. Losing Seigan as a third eye skill also needlessly took away from the more complex/intricate portion of SAMs kit.

In short, it took less than one expansion to turn SAM from one of my favorite jobs, to a bench warmer. That's how it goes with MMOs though, and I find it is better to invest based on a how a job plays rather than what the job is. I know that is probably the worst news for anyone who mains any particular job due to a sentimental value it might have, but that is how the winds blow in FFXIV regardless.

This is basically my feeling kn it as well. I switched to DRG for the tier, after maiming SAM since it released.

[Enjuden]

There's nothing complex about Kaiten, and your defense is, "It looks cool." They honestly could [should] bake the animation into Iaijutsu skills to eat up the cast time.

If complexity is your angle, I would be more concerned about how a lot of SAM's skillset feels horrendously tacked on. The job going into ShB played very well, with few but livable drawbacks. I wasn't the biggest fan of Tsubame, particularly due to it being a use it or lose it skill, which drives me bat-S. Same goes for Senei (I won't get into a 120s CD also consuming kenki being lame AF). Now they have x2 charge Meikyo, x2 charge Tsubame, and a follow up to Ogi, which is another use it or lose it. You'd think with all these additional charges, that SAM would be the king of sting, but severe potency adjustments saw to it that this did not happen, so now SAM has to work harder for a damage output that doesn't justify it.

In short, fun was shunned to add complexity to this job. My issue with Kaiten is it isn't even one of the current issues SAM has. Consolidating Guren and Senei and/or Shoha/Shoah II into a single skill would have been a FAR more effective way to reduce the button bloat SAM has. Losing Seigan as a third eye skill also needlessly took away from the more complex/intricate portion of SAMs kit.

In short, it took less than one expansion to turn SAM from one of my favorite jobs, to a bench warmer. That's how it goes with MMOs though, and I find it is better to invest based on a how a job plays rather than what the job is. I know that is probably the worst news for anyone who mains any particular job due to a sentimental value it might have, but that is how the winds blow in FFXIV regardless.

Here's the thing with Kaiten. It can be something else if developers want to use it for something else. It's little more than a damage buff for the next ogcd, however it's a player decision that is more than just 'dump meter into ogcd action that does damage', which all dps jobs unfortunately have and that is what they do. Kaiten is different in the regard of at least giving a different flavor of meter dump into damage. I guess Machinist has Reassemble as something similar in that regard. Maybe they could make it more interesting by buffing end of combo damage more than Iaijitsu so that there is some more decision making with meter use.

There's a reason JP is livid and letting the 'Ooo, let everything convert to Summoner crowd' be trampled into the dirt this time. It's not even button bloat that's the problem. It's idiotic decisions that are made THIS EXPANSION where they consolidate skills but magically decide Ikishoten shouldn't convert into Ogi Namikiri for..some reason? The 'bloat' is literally SE's fault, and why they choose to remove Kaiten when they can remove nothing is why people are mad.

[Gemina]

Here's the thing with Kaiten. It can be something else if developers want to use it for something else. It's little more than a damage buff for the next ogcd, however it's a player decision that is more than just 'dump meter into ogcd action that does damage', which all dps jobs unfortunately have and that is what they do. Kaiten is different in the regard of at least giving a different flavor of meter dump into damage. I guess Machinist has Reassemble as something similar in that regard. Maybe they could make it more interesting by buffing end of combo damage more than Iaijitsu so that there is some more decision making with meter use.

There's a reason JP is livid and letting the 'Ooo, let everything convert to Summoner crowd' be trampled into the dirt this time. It's not even button bloat that's the problem. It's idiotic decisions that are made THIS EXPANSION where they consolidate skills but magically decide Ikishoten shouldn't convert into Ogi Namikiri for..some reason? The 'bloat' is literally SE's fault, and why they choose to remove Kaiten when they can remove nothing is why people are mad.

I know and understand why players are upset. I'm among them, but have felt SAM has gone awry since 6.0. The downward spiral hit me in the gut with the decision to remove Seigan. I underestimated just how much this would impact how SAM feels in combat. Removing Kaiten will no doubt impact how SAM feels even further.

That's what leads me to my main issues with SAM. They are stripping the job of what wasn't even a problem, and have added what no one was even asking for. The removal of Kaiten by itself is not the issue, it's the decision to fix what wasn't even broken.

[Enjuden]

I know and understand why players are upset. I'm among them, but have felt SAM has gone awry since 6.0. The downward spiral hit me in the gut with the decision to remove Seigan. I underestimated just how much this would impact how SAM feels in combat. Removing Kaiten will no doubt impact how SAM feels even further.

That's what leads me to my main issues with SAM. They are stripping the job of what wasn't even a problem, and have added what no one was even asking for. The removal of Kaiten by itself is not the issue, it's the decision to fix what wasn't even broken.

Come to think of it, I actually miss Seigan a lot. It didn't add much for damage but I liked the feeling of using it even if it was just a contest of how mad you can make your healers in raid. It's not the first time SE decided to randomly remove skills from Samurai, like Hagakure which got added back the patch immediately after. I doubt they'll add Kaiten back in if it's removed though unless JP continues their vocal outcry.

Either way, I misread the intent of your post.