Regarding the reaction to 6.1 SAM changes

[Ayche]

Justifying the removal of a core gameplay element for Samurai with a hypothetical skill we may never get is asinine.

I don't have a dog in that race, they could had kept Kaiten in the game until that moment comes.
But Shinten vs Kaiten disparity was always going to limit future actions no matter what.

[CuragaCura]

I don't have a dog in that race, they could had kept Kaiten in the game until that moment comes.
But Shinten vs Kaiten disparity was always going to limit future actions no matter what.

That level of logic is very limiting in of itself.

What is even the use of "disparity" here? What difference is there between these two abilities as far as spending Kenki for potency goes? Why are you assuming things in a vacuum? Why are you trying to say that this limits future actions when the whole premise is to build off the kit of the class? What exactly is the point of spending Kenki if you only have one option for it? What is the point of Kenki then?

Shrek crying Donkey.

[Ayche]

That level of logic is very limiting in of itself.

It is only the truth. On-demand +50% potency is going to limit any kind of weaponskill development.

[CuragaCura]

It is only the truth. On-demand +50% potency is going to limit any kind of weaponskill development.

What kind of single-celled organism did you pull that idea from?

[Ayche]

What kind of single-celled organism did you pull that idea from?

Less attitude okay. Anyway, it is the same reason why Reassemble is probably holding Machinist back on some level, where everything new has to be tuned around either being another Drill to work with it, or is just more Queen abilities that cannot be affected by Reassemble. A general ability keeping Machinist "kit" to speak from changing.

Also if you wanna respond to me, just quote me like a normal person please.

[CuragaCura]

Less attitude okay. Anyway, it is the same reason why Reassemble is probably holding Machinist back on some level, where everything new has to be tuned around either being another Drill to work with it, or is just more Queen abilities that cannot be affected by Reassemble. A general ability keeping Machinist "kit" to speak from changing.

Also if you wanna respond to me, just quote me like a normal person please.

So you went from Kaiten holding Samurai back to Reassemble MAYBE holding Machinist back. No matter how you look at it, you are not resolving the issue of identity loss by saying that it holds back the class because of some inane reason where having an ability block development of the class meant that new abilities cannot be developed for the class. How did Summon Bahamut get created if Summon Carbuncle was holding SMN back? Why can't Carbuncle just be perma-summoned out? Why is Ikishoten used to allow the use of Ogi Namikiri? Why isn't Summon Phoenix something that is created to replace Dreadwyrm Trance? It's an upgrade/replacement to an existing skill right? But shouldn't it block development of the class because the skill somehow... builds... off... the original kit? That's why I wonder if I ended up quoting something out of a single-cell organism. The idea that an ability can block the development of a class is actually so one-dimensional to me that I often times wonder if the experimental hypothesis for the statement was conceived as a harebrained scheme. But please, answer my original question of how then.

[Ayche]

But please, answer my original question of how then.

What was it again, "what if we just remove bahamut?" They already did take a sledgehammer to the summoner job and removed lot more interactions than just Kaiten, I find it funny that you even went with that comparison. Sure, remove Bahamut if that means we could get something more meaningful than the two Dragon/Firebird stances which are more like ruin spamming than anything else.
Now having played the new summoner in EW here and there, I have come to terms with the changes in hopes that this new framework gets developed into something better if the old shadowbringers kit had come to the end of its lifecycle. I still even have fond memories of having summoner's proper killable pets, even if trying to keep them alive was immense pain in the behind.

But let me be honest for a second, do you actually believe Kaiten is the bolt that locks Samurai identity in place? Is that not really Iaijutsu, which is not going anywhere? Kaiten is closer to NIN's Kaisatsu or DRG's Life Surge, they are predetermined prebuffs that you use when applicable. If it is the loss of the animation that stings, then sure cool animations are always a shame to lose. But Kaiten is just a ... buff.

[FrogBiscuit]

It is only the truth. On-demand +50% potency is going to limit any kind of weapon skill development.

You do realize that kaiten was already limited to what moves it could be applied to, don't you?

not to mention that adjusting kaiten, or just disabling it for any new hypothetical move if a problem, would immediately nulify your current argument.

You seem to be making this argument from the position that the solution SE went with, was the only possible solution that could be applied to a future, hypothetical issue.


Do you really support robbing a class of its' enjoyment and identity for just that?

[Roxus]

I don't have a dog in that race, they could had kept Kaiten in the game until that moment comes.
But Shinten vs Kaiten disparity was always going to limit future actions no matter what.

I fail to understand what you are trying to say. Shinten and Kaiten are used in balance of each other. There wasn't a case where you never use one without the other (Besides Hagakure meta, where Kaiten was actually the skill that was ignored). Your argument is flawed.

[Quor]

I don't have a dog in that race, they could had kept Kaiten in the game until that moment comes.
But Shinten vs Kaiten disparity was always going to limit future actions no matter what.

The whole point behind PPK conversions was how Shinten vs. Kaiten has always been managed. Kaiten provided the biggest boost to GCD damage you could get but it wasn't as much as what you'd get from your big 2 minute oGCD's. So you developed a priority system. If Guren/Senei are coming up, then you use them. If they aren't available, you Kaiten every Iaijutsu. If that isn't needed then you are free to use Shinten, unless you need to use Gyoten or Yaten in the near future at which point you need to make sure you reserve 10 Kenki for that.

Whether or not Shinten is better than Kaiten runs entirely on the relative PPK values between the two abilities. As of ShB and 6.0, Shinten was the Kenki dump while Kaiten had priority if Iaijutsu was coming up. You needed to use Shinten regularly though, to avoid Kenki waste, but you couldn't just spam it because you were always thinking ahead to the next Iaijutsu and needed to ensure you would have enough gas in the tank to buff it. Proper balancing of the Kaiten vs. Shinten potencies granted relevance to both abilities without neutering one or the other like we saw in SB, where Shinten was the preferred spender of Kenki (except for when Higanbana needed to be buffed, you were under raid buffs or Hagakure was on CD and you had 3 Sen).

One of the stated reasons for the removal of Kaiten was the "smooth" the SAM damage curve, lowering the peaks and bringing up the valleys. They could have accomplished this without removing anything simply by reducing the base potencies of Midare and Ogi while boosting the oGCD potencies of Senei and Shinten and maybe even our basic GCD attacks. They could keep Midare and Ogi decently high in terms of damage but not so high that they have such an outsized effect on overall SAM dps. They could compensate for any reduction in big hit damage by filling it in elsewhere, either through direct potency increases, boosting Kenki returned when using Hagakure, altering Kenki gains from our GCD's or something along those lines. Perhaps a "Kenki refund" of some sort, where proper usage of Kaiten while Meikyo is active makes the next Shinten free and deal 25% more damage. That creates kit synergy and incentive to put things in the right order without leaning on mega potency moves for too much total dps. And if that's too complex then you can simply trim the potencies on our big hits and boost the potency of the oGCD's and basic GCD combos like I mentioned above.

In short, there are far more elegant ways that this could have been addressed that wouldn't gut the job, but apparently throwing out some half-baked change for a problem that doesn't yet exist - much less needs solving - was the route the dev team decided to take.