Hissatsu: Kaiten

[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.

[Faafetai]

the irony of someone not knowing SAM's kit trying to "git gud" over the removal of the most boring part of the kit is hilarious. in ST you use your Kenki on Shinten and Senei, in AoE on Kyuten and Guren

Aye I am speaking from lower levels. I only am at level 60, if you take that away, I will have nothing to do at that level. I know they are balancing around end game but can my leveling experience not be the same thing until I reach end game? I said git gud because they keep saying dumb things at square like people can't play the game so we are removing X. literally every time, and than they go back and say naw brah its cause button bloat.

I think at this point they should just go the whole way and make you push 1 button until your 90, done. No button bloat until 90 everyone because thats how it starts to feel on most classes. Skills keep getting taken or moved to the end so when you are leveling it is painful sometimes. I just want to learn the fundamentals of a class as I go rather than bam here you go here is all of the stuff we took from earlier levels now leveling to 50 is just wow I get to be forced to do a class quest for nothing now and hey look a new skill was added that was similar to the skills I use to have like whm's suspiciously similar water spell. I am just sick of having to wait forever for my skills and constantly being synced down when I finally get them if I didn't actively queue for the later raids or dungeons I would never know how to play any of the classes at anything other than level 50.

There are many buttons that can be combo buttons and many that can turn into other things, why they do not just do that? They have done it with many things already. Why remove it, because at end game it is a boring part of the rotation. Give me some other things early than at 60 right now the only thing I can spend it on are Hissatsu: Gyoten and Hissatsu: Yaten
Hissatsu: Kaiten is literally the only other thing I can spend it on unless for damage at level 60 what I am now going to do is Meditate and literally go in and out of combat like a bafoon I guess? Save it for a rainy day and movement intensive fights? You just over cap your gauge now and learn nothing of later levels. WONDERFUL! At least monk got some love early levels.

[MiaShino]

"Yeah!
1-2-3
Do you love me?
Watch me scream
Burning on the trees
In amazement
'Cause I'm on fire
You know?"

"4-5-6
Show ya all my tricks
Fee Fii Fo
A giant's at the door
In amazement
'Cause I'm on fire"

Song is Soul Wars by Awolnation and many thanks to best friend number one for slaying me by mentioning this.

Plenty of ways to consolidate the job skills without yeeting them. Playing Stepmania every two minutes was never complexity. More unique skill combos (not 1,2,3 obviously) and less oh here is another X00 potency skill with big flashy animation you fit under raid buffs.

Roulettes feel like absolute garbage because 90% of time you are syncing down to levels where your job is boring as heck. So at 60 the only spender you have now is to spam engage? Da heck? You have button bloat problem because you insist on adding duplicate X potency buttons instead of actually interacting with job gauge in unique way. Why not just remove job gauges?

[localareanetwork]

Few things, particularly for when people say it adds complexity:

1. SAM has no gauge management if you do your rotation properly and use third eye. I don't know why people say that it does, I literally never even look at my Kenki bar.
2. You use Kaiten at the exact same time, always, for the same 3 skills. In Stormblood Kaiten + Midare wasn't used nearly as often as it is now; it's a spam button (which was Shinten's job). It's not that interesting and this change allows for more agency with Shinten usage.
3. Experienced SAM players will be more rewarded now if they don't mess up their gauge because of the additional damage with an extra Shinten.

That being said people are entitled to their opinions about how they personally feel about it. I'm indifferent but I understand some just like it for what it is. It doesn't add complexity or depth to the job though, ever since they made it so that you had to use it on 3 buttons on your opener. In Shadowbringers it was a bit more nuanced since positionals gave you Kenki and not raw damage and in Stormblood it was straight up use way less so it felt more satisfying when you did use it. For Endwalker however you just spam it and it doesn't feel that great or impactful (At least IMO).

[AziraSyuren]

I feel like people who make this an issue of job complexity and skill are missing the mark entirely. It doesn't change anything about the skill ceiling of the job, and is only a small change to the skill floor. Resource management hasn't been an important part of Samurai's gameplay since Stormblood, and anyone who thinks that it was meaningfully difficult or complex are just telling on themselves.

It just makes the job less fun. That's it.

[localareanetwork]

@ Above poster; That's what I don't get. Why do people think the job has resource management? It straight up doesn't. It didn't even in Shadowbringers.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Notice how before the perplexing announcement to remove Kaiten, not a single person out there was saying things like “wow kaiten should be removed it’s a useless skill” or “I don’t like doing kaiten they should just bake the damage in”. It was just an accepted part of the job. But now that the devs announced their intention people have come out of the woodwork to defend the choice. I can’t help but question if these come from a place of truly wanting the skill removed or just a need to defend the FFXIV team’s decisions. There was a person in the other thread who was being contrarian and stubborn for literal hours on this issue despite valid points coming their way

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Repose to @localareanetwork

It literally is resource management though, how is anything but? Samurai was the only job where movement, OGCD damage, and a buff were tied to the same meter. The default defense of this change seems to be “well it wasn’t that complex to begin with guise so let’s make the job require even less thought!” It’s not like any job mechanic in this game is rocket science to begin with.

[localareanetwork]

It literally is resource management though, how is anything but? Samurai was the only job where movement, OGCD damage, and a buff were tied to the same meter. The default defense of this change seems to be “well it wasn’t that complex to begin with guise so let’s make the job require even less thought!” It’s not like any job mechanic in this game is rocket science to begin with.

You don't manage it because doing your rotation normally always no matter what just gets you the needed kenki for everything you use it on

[Minarisweet]

Few things, particularly for when people say it adds complexity:

1. SAM has no gauge management if you do your rotation properly and use third eye. I don't know why people say that it does, I literally never even look at my Kenki bar.
2. You use Kaiten at the exact same time, always, for the same 3 skills. In Stormblood Kaiten + Midare wasn't used nearly as often as it is now; it's a spam button (which was Shinten's job). It's not that interesting and this change allows for more agency with Shinten usage.
3. Experienced SAM players will be more rewarded now if they don't mess up their gauge because of the additional damage with an extra Shinten.

That being said people are entitled to their opinions about how they personally feel about it. I'm indifferent but I understand some just like it for what it is. It doesn't add complexity or depth to the job though, ever since they made it so that you had to use it on 3 buttons on your opener. In Shadowbringers it was a bit more nuanced since positionals gave you Kenki and not raw damage and in Stormblood it was straight up use way less so it felt more satisfying when you did use it. For Endwalker however you just spam it and it doesn't feel that great or impactful (At least IMO).

"If you play perfectly it doesn't add complexity" Yeah ok, does anything at all? And im sure you yourself have felt good when learning how to use the skill while leveling, but decide to act like this is the best decision for no reason but to defend SE.