Tsubame-Gaeshi Should Have Been Removed Instead of Kaiten

[cjbeagle]

I would rather lose neither. I like Tsubame-gaeshi now that it has 2 charges (since that means I don't need to track the cooldown like a hawk anymore).

There are plenty of ways to reduce samurai's button count that would have virtually no effect on the gameplay. Most of them have already been noted all over the forum, but I'll bring up one that I haven't seen elsewhere: merging Kaiten with Iaijutsu.

"It's just a button you have to push every time before you use Iaijutsu." I mean, yeah, if you're doing your rotation correctly - so how about actually merge those two and make that statement literally true. Got your stickers? Use Kaiten, same button turns into Iaijutsu, use Iaijutsu, done. Got Ogi? Use Kaiten, same button turns into Iaijutsu, ignore it, use Ogi, which consumes Kaiten and turns Iaijutsu back into Kaiten. Ideally Kaiten is always paired with Iaijutsu/Ogi - it isn't used with other stuff nor are Iaijutsu/Ogi used without it, so no reason it couldn't "evolve" to Iaijutsu, just like Ogi could evolve from Ikishoten.

Also, another "I'd rather" that I haven't seen elsewhere: keep Kaiten and ditch Shinten. Spamming Shinten is horrible, but imo the idea of weaving Kaiten for Kasha or Gekko now and then actually sounds like an improvement compared to using Shinten as a dump.

[SeverianLyonesse]

There are plenty of ways to reduce samurai's button count that would have virtually no effect on the gameplay. Most of them have already been noted all over the forum, but I'll bring up one that I haven't seen elsewhere: merging Kaiten with Iaijutsu.

"It's just a button you have to push every time before you use Iaijutsu." I mean, yeah, if you're doing your rotation correctly - so how about actually merge those two and make that statement literally true. Got your stickers? Use Kaiten, same button turns into Iaijutsu, use Iaijutsu, done. Got Ogi? Use Kaiten, same button turns into Iaijutsu, ignore it, use Ogi, which consumes Kaiten and turns Iaijutsu back into Kaiten. Ideally Kaiten is always paired with Iaijutsu/Ogi - it isn't used with other stuff nor are Iaijutsu/Ogi used without it, so no reason it couldn't "evolve" to Iaijutsu, just like Ogi could evolve from Ikishoten.

At face value that strikes me as a feel bad mechanic. It locks Iaijutsu behind both Sen stickers *and* a wind-up charge. It's similar to another proposal I saw that suggested making Iai require Kenki as well. It removes some degree of flexibility for SAMs to use charged vs. uncharged Iai, which I think is actually a much needed option in the case of Higanbana. I *guess* it could still work, but I wouldn't like the job flavor as much if SAM suddenly shifted to *mandating* wind-ups as opposed to *encouraging* wind-ups. Makes it feel more like a hammer-swinging job than a swiftblade job.

Also, another "I'd rather" that I haven't seen elsewhere: keep Kaiten and ditch Shinten. Spamming Shinten is horrible, but imo the idea of weaving Kaiten for Kasha or Gekko now and then actually sounds like an improvement compared to using Shinten as a dump.

This I think is a better direction to go.

[cjbeagle]

At face value that strikes me as a feel bad mechanic. It locks Iaijutsu behind both Sen stickers *and* a wind-up charge. It's similar to another proposal I saw that suggested making Iai require Kenki as well. It removes some degree of flexibility for SAMs to use charged vs. uncharged Iai, which I think is actually a much needed option in the case of Higanbana. I *guess* it could still work, but I wouldn't like the job flavor as much if SAM suddenly shifted to *mandating* wind-ups as opposed to *encouraging* wind-ups. Makes it feel more like a hammer-swinging job than a swiftblade job.

100% agree - just offering it as an alternative to losing Kaiten that I haven't seen suggested elsewhere that I thought we could consider.

Personally I never Iaijutsu without Kaiten and I never Kaiten except for Iaijutsu/Ogi, so such a change would have virtually no impact on gameplay for me, but you're absolutely right that it's heavy-handed and that it's better to encourage Kaiten than to mandate Kaiten...but better to mandate Kaiten than lose Kaiten. =P

Regardless, I also think I agree with you that ditching Shinten would be the better direction to go - the more I think about it the more I like the idea of weaving Kaiten for Kasha/Gekko instead of dumping with Shinten.