Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

[SlickPaws]

Yoshi-P addressed this while reading patch notes and said they wanted to change up both Samurai and Ninja. They are closely monitoring feedback and may make further changes (or reversions) in 6.2 depending in community feedback.

He also said they were going to make a separate post about their reasoning for the changes, which I'm highly interested in seeing because they really feel out of nowhere, especially when there were several other routes to reducing button bloat than removing Kaiten. He's apparently aware a LOT of people aren't happy.

If anything, this is valid justification for player surveys or public test servers before any proposed changes like this are simply forced into the game while the community is openly up in arms on the forums telling them not to. And now we're going to just have to sit and eat the shit sandwich we were just served up until 6.2 assuming that the feedback is even taken on board. Based on how healers got the "just play ultimate lol" treatment, I genuinely feel like the devs treat player feedback with utter contempt just now and I don't see any of this being walked back in a meaningful way. RIP SAM, 4.0 - 6.1, we knew you well.

To be fair, the Kaeshi only did more damage if you weren't using Kaiten, which you should have been. Kaiten did not buff the Kaeshi versions of the skills because they're not classified as weaponskills. The extra 50% potency on the Kaeshi versions was to make up for that fact, and bring them up to parity with the buffed iaijutsu.

Now that Kaeshi is no longer a thing, their potencies can be reduced to be equal with the iaijutsu.

I do agree with reverting the changes, of course.

By that rationale wouldn't it make more sense to increase the basic potency of the Iaijutsus to make up for the loss of Kaiten and synergise with the auto-crit instead of massively lowering the potencies of the Kaeshi skills?

[YukiB]

By that rationale wouldn't it make more sense to increase the basic potency of the Iaijutsus to make up for the loss of Kaiten and synergise with the auto-crit instead of massively lowering the potencies of the Kaeshi skills?

If they increased them to match the old Kaiten/Kaeshi potencies AND gave them auto-crit our DPS would go through the roof.

Guaranteed crits, not accounting for raid buffs, amount to about 39% extra damage in BiS raid gear with 25% crit and 60% crit magnitude (doing 160% of tooltip damage guaranteed versus doing an average of 115% tooltip damage, 160/115 = 1.3913). If they increased Midare potency to 990 to match Kaeshi, it would be 3168 potency in two hits, compared to what was on average 2277 potency total.

We also don't have to spend kenki on Kaiten anymore to reach that potency, so we have an extra 200 potency worth of kenki to spend on Shinten spam later in the fight.

If they wanted to make Midare hit just as hard on average as in patch 6.0, they should have INCREASED potency to about 710, but this would be a net increase to our DPS because of the extra kenki. If they wanted a Midare+Kaeshi+20 kenki combo to do as much damage as the 6.0 Kaiten+Midare+Kaeshi combo, they should have only reduced potency to 650, or just left it alone. Instead they decided to ALSO nerf the potency of our biggest attacks and redistribute it throughout our combo, reducing our burst damage and synergy with raid buffs even further.

They wanted to address concerns of crit variance, which weren't concerns for anyone not chasing top DPS metrics, and over-corrected so that everyone suffers. And at the same time took away job complexity, identity, and fun.

[SlickPaws]

If they increased them to match the old Kaiten/Kaeshi potencies AND gave them auto-crit our DPS would go through the roof.

Guaranteed crits, not accounting for raid buffs, amount to about 39% extra damage in BiS raid gear with 25% crit and 60% crit magnitude (doing 160% of tooltip damage guaranteed versus doing an average of 115% tooltip damage, 160/115 = 1.3913). If they increased Midare potency to 990 to match Kaeshi, it would be 3168 potency in two hits, compared to what was on average 2277 potency total.

We also don't have to spend kenki on Kaiten anymore to reach that potency, so we have an extra 200 potency worth of kenki to spend on Shinten spam later in the fight.

If they wanted to make Midare hit just as hard on average as in patch 6.0, they should have INCREASED potency to about 710, but this would be a net increase to our DPS because of the extra kenki. If they wanted a Midare+Kaeshi+20 kenki combo to do as much damage as the 6.0 Kaiten+Midare+Kaeshi combo, they should have only reduced potency to 650, or just left it alone. Instead they decided to ALSO nerf the potency of our biggest attacks and redistribute it throughout our combo, reducing our burst damage and synergy with raid buffs even further.

They wanted to address concerns of crit variance, which weren't concerns for anyone not chasing top DPS metrics, and over-corrected so that everyone suffers. And at the same time took away job complexity, identity, and fun.

I wasn't advocating for Midare to go up to 990, I was more thinking of some kind of happy medium that doesn't feel like it's nerfing my biggest attacks. 710 potency seems like it would've been fine to me. I was quite happy with how the class was already, and if they really want to nerf our damage I'd take the hit provided I got to keep Kaiten and some of the complexity. Thanks for the breakdown though. It's kind of what I was trying to say but with way more maths and knowledge to back it up. :P

[Roxus]

If they wanted to make Midare hit just as hard on average as in patch 6.0, they should have INCREASED potency to about 710, but this would be a net increase to our DPS because of the extra kenki. If they wanted a Midare+Kaeshi+20 kenki combo to do as much damage as the 6.0 Kaiten+Midare+Kaeshi combo, they should have only reduced potency to 650, or just left it alone. Instead they decided to ALSO nerf the potency of our biggest attacks and redistribute it throughout our combo, reducing our burst damage and synergy with raid buffs even further.

They wanted to address concerns of crit variance, which weren't concerns for anyone not chasing top DPS metrics, and over-corrected so that everyone suffers. And at the same time took away job complexity, identity, and fun.

Agree with the math here. I think it's easier if they keep Kaiten as it is (without the crit guarantee on the big skills), nothing was wrong with it in the first place. With these changes we are going back to Stormblood damage numbers (visually). They should honestly have just addressed the crit stat itself and the buffs related.

Gonna have to channel my inner WAR here and say that I actually liked the conal.
Which is strange because I hate Overpower. But Tenka Goken's conal was always interesting to me with having to hop in and hop out to position it correctly. The AOE rotation is now basically just going to be standing still in the middle of the pack with no movement at all, outside of dodging the occasional AOE.

I also liked the conal for positioning and such, but if I had to pick something to dumb down this would have to be my choice.

[silentwindfr]

If they increased them to match the old Kaiten/Kaeshi potencies AND gave them auto-crit our DPS would go through the roof.

Guaranteed crits, not accounting for raid buffs, amount to about 39% extra damage in BiS raid gear with 25% crit and 60% crit magnitude (doing 160% of tooltip damage guaranteed versus doing an average of 115% tooltip damage, 160/115 = 1.3913). If they increased Midare potency to 990 to match Kaeshi, it would be 3168 potency in two hits, compared to what was on average 2277 potency total.

We also don't have to spend kenki on Kaiten anymore to reach that potency, so we have an extra 200 potency worth of kenki to spend on Shinten spam later in the fight.

If they wanted to make Midare hit just as hard on average as in patch 6.0, they should have INCREASED potency to about 710, but this would be a net increase to our DPS because of the extra kenki. If they wanted a Midare+Kaeshi+20 kenki combo to do as much damage as the 6.0 Kaiten+Midare+Kaeshi combo, they should have only reduced potency to 650, or just left it alone. Instead they decided to ALSO nerf the potency of our biggest attacks and redistribute it throughout our combo, reducing our burst damage and synergy with raid buffs even further.

They wanted to address concerns of crit variance, which weren't concerns for anyone not chasing top DPS metrics, and over-corrected so that everyone suffers. And at the same time took away job complexity, identity, and fun.

the trouble is right now outside kaiten complain and number, midare and ogi feel week for something you can't throw often. i have a friend blm that can throw 36k dh/crit with his spamable fire spell... when right now my midare only reach 26k... why? i means even with the best skillspeed (2.0 what no one really use) we still need 8 gcd action for 1 midare... that a whole 16 sec (more 17.12 with 2.14). midare and ogi are means to be our hard hitting tool... but right now when we don't have kaeshi it feel week. yes it's auto critical... but it don't change the fact that it's only 600 potency for midare and 800 potency for ogi! really not enough for have the feeling to hit hard and make the iaijutsu something super strong.

i begin even to question why the 1.3 sec cast time for something soo meaningless.
yeah i know we only did loose (from the balance discord math) something like 3dps... but it don't change that something feel wrong... yes the critical is means to replace the kaiten effect... but... what about the midare and ogi that was critical with kaiten? why tenka goken did get nerfed? why i feel they did decide to change stuff without even think about the impact on the feeling of the job.. i means i feel more a samurai in pvp than in pve. when i launch a ogi or a midare in pvp it's punishement for the enemy... it's impactfull and make us feel powerfull... but in pve... i feel like... i hit with a hammer toy. and i'm sure i'm not the only one to feel this.

ps: by the way don't come tell me they can't make good synergy between skill, the pvp rework have for some jobs some insane synergy that feel really strong and rewarding!

[MellowMink]

I don’t understand why the development team doesn’t think more about combining common melee combos into singular buttons like PVP used to do, or like one of Gunbreaker’s newest quality-of-life updates with its continuation combo did; that makes far more sense for reducing button bloat than removing unique skills without offering sufficient replacements.

[Ziggurat8]

I have to agree. The removal of Kaiten feels awful. The finishers are lackluster now. This is not what Samurai players wanted or asked for. Revert to 6.0 Sam.

[Stellarwind]

Im now playing this game for a very long time... since 2014 february and i rarely have something to say.
I started as a Monk, played it in t9 and ohter stuff until ninja release, then i played Ninja in savage raids and in every other content that was available at that moment.
THEN! Stormblood and Samurai got released and i knew for myself im going to play it and i will stay on it to the bitter end, raidgroups take me as sam or leave me be.
Thats what i said all those years, ARR, Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker and all of my raidgroups that i had, had no problem with it. The fact that i enjoyed my class for that long time motivated me and made me having fun to play/learn Samurai and beeing atleast good in my and others opinion.
Samurai felt even more great under my fingers in shadowbringers and endwalker made me felt like i had a time and space shattering killing maschine with up and downs, pros and cons. Sometimes it was frustrating because i saw my midares or ogis not crit once in a fight.. beeing a good dps was never only skill based and i knew that, if you add critchance to a game your character becomes a gambling rollercoaster, but i was fine with that completly. The excitement of pressing kaiten and seeing how heavy and satisfying those skills could hit was amazing as hell, it was the best for me, my entire raidgroup cheered for me to make this midares and Ogi go through the roof for them and now?... look what we have here... a flat and bland, grey, colorless, boring treadmill... the excitment is gone, the feeling of having a actual force under your fingers got deleted entirely. I miss kaiten in my rotation, i still press it out of muscle memory and i get confused because nothing happend, then i remember 'ah.. im kaitenless, i forgot' and then i see that bland, flat number of my midare and ogi and i think.. wow.. that feels horrible, theres no impact anymore.
Playing Samurai now feels like tasting one of gordon ramsays horrible kitchen nightmare dishes that taste awfull and empty, its a straigth line with no up and downs, well... there are still downs because the upper ceiling of that class got flattend to the ground.
My Suggestion would be to bring back Kaiten but change it, if you want us to autocrit more to make us more consistend... give it to kaiten, i guess a bit potency loss has to be there to balance some stuff out, its necessary but not until the players have to question themself ''why does it feels like nothing?''
I appreciate the idea of making us more consistent with our rotation and big htis but this feels completly wrong.. it killed my fun playing the game and Samurai in an instant and i honestly was not able to enjoy the new patch that way either... worst patch experience that i felt in FFXIV actually.. and the last time i felt like this was in WoW Wrath of the lichking at the end of the addon where Blizzard destroyed combat rogue completely for me.

Please Yoshida and the Team adjust it carefully.

[SpartanPawnch]

I severely disliked the SAM changes since the moment the changes were announced in the PLL. Having tried the job in 6.1, I can safely say I hate it even more than I expected. Gameplay is significantly more boring than before and our burst abilities feel like they have very little impact with the numerical changes.
I have seen the math from the Balance Discord and I know that our DPS is about the same when ignoring raid buffs, but this is to be expected when the balance patch was essentially done using a spreadsheet.
This feels like change for change's sake in the worst possible way. My only hope is that the developers actually listen to the overwhelming backlash regarding this and revert SAM back to 6.08. And this shouldn't take until 6.2, there is no reason for us to be stuck with this gutted version of the job for several months, the changes should be walked back ASAP. Thankfully, this isn't completely unrealistic, as they did bring Hagakure back relatively quickly at the beginning of Shadowbringers. Best case scenario would be for the changes to be reverted in today/tomorrow's hotfix, but that might be a bit too optimistic.
At any rate, all of this has been really disappointing, as the new content I've tried so far has been really good and having my main job ruined has really messed with my enjoyment. For the time being, I will be rerolling Monk, ironically enough it feels "burstier" than whatever Samurai is right now.

[geekgirl101]

Personally I found that jobs with complicated rotations like SAM, NIN, MNK and DNC (yes I think DNC is complicated) were outside of my ability to play well and BLM isn't to my liking either. I'm very used to RDM, DRG, BRD and PLD. Does that mean I want the other jobs that aren't to my liking changed so I can play them just as well? Of course not! If other people are able to manage those jobs and prefer them because they are complex then let them enjoy it. I'd rather my preferences were kept to a select few so I can fully focus on optimizing those jobs and having them geared instead of burning myself out gearing every single job at 90 to BiS and learning all their rotations. I don't NEED to be great at every job. And ok I can play SAM a bit better now and warming to it a little bit, but like 80% of the jobs on my character sheet as soon as it's 90 it's being hung to dry until the next expansion. I really feel bad for the players who enjoyed these jobs and played them as their mains and are now giving up on them because they've been changed so much that they're lackluster.