After reading the patch notes, I guess I won't play SAM anymore

[Cinno]

Honestly, I don't care about potency, or damage numbers. But i've been trying to get the hang of this new samurai since the patch dropped, and even though i'm already overcoming the muscle memory, the new samurai just feels bad to me.

With the removal of Kaiten, we now have nothing to spend our gauge on besides Shinten... yes theres also Senai, but it's on a two minute cooldown along with Ikishoten...

Before, we had to put SOME thought into managing our kenki.. We had to make sure we were properly using Shinten, but making sure that when it was time for Midare or Higanbana, that we had enough kenki in reserve for kaiten. It was very mindless but keeping that balance required even just a little thought... and it kept it interesting.

Now we just press Shinten every time it lights up. Doesnt matter if our gauge stays at zero, the only other thing we use the gauge for is Senai... but we can just use Ikishoten on cooldown with Senai, and that problem solves itself... So dont think, just endlessly weave in Shinten between every single attack. No thought, no skill.... no effort. When it lights up, you hit it... over and over.

I was actually on board with changing Tenka Goken into a circle, until i got into a dungeon and tried it myself. Before We had to stand in the mobs for our circle aoes, and then move to the side and aim our conal, then return for more circles. I THOUGHT that changing it to a circle would be cool... but now i litterally just stand in one spot, zone out, and just press my aoe skills until the pack dies...

Both of these changes took things that required very little thought, and very little effort, and changed them into things that now require zero thought, and zero effort.

Shinten is lit up? Press it. Enemies are gathered? Stand in one spot until they're dead. Don't think. Don't try..

This patch has demoralized me. I've leveled almost all the jobs in game up to at least 80, and gotten a large handful of them up to cap already.. but Samurai has been my favorite. It's been the most fun to play for me, and the one i've put the most effort and time into getting good at playing... And now it feels like a completely different, watered down version of itself. And i'm not sure what to do at this point.

[CelestiCer]

Genuinely upsetting, doing the re-clears of the current Savage tier...

I am not one to dwindle on the DPS/Crit numbers for dopamine either. I just want my class to feel satisfying, my rotation to be rewarding to execute, my resource management to be meaningful... i.e everything we had before this darn update.

Now? It's ruined, our core is mindlessly bashing Shinten without even considering to save up Kaiten for our next big hits. It's soulless, empty...

Of which these changes weren't even requested and for Action Bloat!? Literally having to use Gyoten my Dash like a PLD as a weave filler cause it for some reason has the same potency as my Shinten I have to spam to deplete my new ShintenBar .

Not to mention my AoE Iaijutsu, not being a guaranteed Crit and turned Circular? So even more braindead? This is beyond dumbing it down. It's unacceptable, I don't feel like playing, I don't feel like doing the new content, it's just ruined. And for possible changes in the future that we don't get to see for a while, play 6.1 with a unpolished class? Revert it.

[Jijifli]

They re-added Hagakure after similar backlash during the start of SHB, you never know.

In painful realization, that means they already did us a solid, so it's even more unlikely.

I just want my dopamine back. D:

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

They re-added Hagakure after similar backlash during the start of SHB, you never know.

To be fair, the Hagakure they added back was barely anything like the previous hagakure in terms of how it affected the SAM rotation - the amount of kenki it gave per Sen was so low that it was merely a Sen control button during dungeons and niche scenarios in raids, a far cry from the Sen to kenki management gameplay found in SB it created.

If they repeated that scenario, Kaiten would likely come back as an OGCD that was dps negative compared to Shinten so that way people who like the twirl animation can get their neuron fix for a dps loss, but keeping it out of any optimal SAM rotation. Either that, or they bring it back as a skill that only affected Ogi-Namiki and nothing else so it'd be relegated to niche use.

[Quor]

To be fair, the Hagakure they added back was barely anything like the previous hagakure in terms of how it affected the SAM rotation - the amount of kenki it gave per Sen was so low that it was merely a Sen control button during dungeons and niche scenarios in raids, a far cry from the Sen to kenki management gameplay found in SB it created.

If they repeated that scenario, Kaiten would likely come back as an OGCD that was dps negative compared to Shinten so that way people who like the twirl animation can get their neuron fix for a dps loss, but keeping it out of any optimal SAM rotation. Either that, or they bring it back as a skill that only affected Ogi-Namiki and nothing else so it'd be relegated to niche use.

That's not entirely true. Hagakure had a very important niche in cooldown alignment. Depending on your SkS tier (2.0, 2.07 or 2.14 with Shifu buff up) you would need to use a set number of filler GCD's to ensure that you hit Midare on the GCD before Kaeshi came off CD. This was to minimize CD drift over the course of a fight and keep your big hits under raid buffs. Hagakure was key to this, and part of the challenge in some fights was adjusting on the fly to the GCD demands that were placed upon you. Sometimes you needed to use Yaten to dash out of something and were forced to insert Enpi to keep your GCD rolling, which in turn would change your GCD pattern and when you used Hagakure. It didn't come up often but it was a nice challenge when it did, adding a bit of ad hoc gameplay to a job that was generally more long-term focused.

Spamming ShB Hagakure on CD was a bad idea as the Sen-to-kenki conversion was very low, but the dps gain from keeping cooldowns properly aligned and not drifting Kaeshi made the minor potency loss more than worth it in the long run. Hence, Hagakure had a limited but very useful niche. Which it still has here in EW, just not as pronounced since it's only used once in a two minute cycle instead of twice.

[Vahlnir]

Yeah, I messed with it a bit outside of PvP. In the one or two rotations I attempted to do, it just...didn't feel as rewarding as it did. I mean yeah, I can see the crits, but they don't feel...well, like crits. Now they are just another number to forget about and my brain probably won't be able to help itself by going into auto pilot mode. It really did take away that special feeling of doing big numbers.

[elioaiko]

I just don't understand the auto crit/dhit angle they're going for.

Isn't the point of crit supposed to be random?

Or Chain Stratagem, Litany, Battle Voice, etc....

Like I can understand WAR having it but they're kinda forcing it on other jobs and that may change their Bis and it doesn't feel impactful if one of the two are guaranteed.

Idk they're slowly replacing things that didn't need to be replaced? It's ironic that Kaiten is in PVP and not in PvE. Seems like the PVP team is winning these days.

I remember losing SAM in SB, then the ShB nerf to Hagakure, 5.0 Shoha being absolute trash and now this....

In all honesty, I absolutely hate what they've done to SAM. Adding another Meikyo? I get people want the boom boom faster but really? I hate Meikyo as it is and then they replace the normal combos with this.

Third Eye was niche, but at least Seigen allowed SAMs to time raidwides.

Kaiten was just one of those abilities that felt good to use even if it was "filler". It's like taking off BLM's Convert or MCH's Reassemble. They could totally just add damage to their finishers/skills, but the point is that they're there fill in the blanks so it doesn't feel boring/monotonous.

But I guess this was coming, healers and tanks got the boring dps kit treatments long ago, guess it's time for dps to get the treatment.

[FlareDrachyon]

The biggest change beside the potency nerfs, kaiten removal, one button smash for gauge etc to me is the aoe ability potential of a samurai in dungeons and during big pulls.

*Tenka goken* to me got hit really hard: *It doesn't auto crit* like midare, (neither higanbana auto crits!).
THESE two at least should have been able to auto crit to balance the kaiten changes.

Why? Well in big pulls you often used kaiten before tenka goken to buff it up. Adding on top: *Kaeshi:Goken potency reduce from 420 to 280!* .
That's same as normal aoe and it's not guaranteed to crit so you pretty much gaining NOTHING with Kaeshi but just copy of the spell!! Kaeshi was supposed to give you a damage boost to make it feel more satisfying!
*At least if the ability auto critted* , after 4-5 ability usages you had a reliable high dmg aoe to look forward. *420 to 380* (so Kaeshi increases by 100) would have been an understandable nerf move. Don't think making the spell "circular" makes it do more dmg, just some minor QOL imo.

In addition *Kaeshi:Namikiri reduced from 1350 to 800*; I'm still scratching my head on that. It's literally same as normal Namikiri which at average ~ high median ceiling dps is a drastic loss of damage.
*1350 to 1050* (so Kaeshi increases by 200) would have been an UNDERSTANDABLE nerf move. Or even lower the CD to 80s to accommodate the change!

TLDR *potency change together with Kaeshi dmg nerf on any ability* (literally now being a button to just copy the last ability with no buffs whatsoever) is what killed it for me.

[forsakee]

Day 3, change still sucks please fix devs.

[Syln]

I dread to try it to be honest, i already know how it will feel since i hated not having kaiten on low level stuff :/