Samurai's Journey - 4.0 to 6.1, and my proposed changes.

[NotReallyMistral]

I'd have to disagree with guren and senei. There was another sam thread (two of them actually) that proposed a much better and simpler solution that keeps it working as is while reducing button bloat and wouldn't be as hard for devs to even implent. It was to use ikishoten to trigger a buff that would change kyuten/shinten to guren/senei respectively. We already get ikishoten before guren/senei plus all these skills have the same cd.

Using this line of thought, it would make even more sense to have ogi namikiri require ikishoten to activate but instead of its own button, have ikishoten change into ogi namikiri instead. This is a common request from many threads I've read though personally, I think it's a bad idea to have ikishoten and ogi as same button for the fact that ikishoten cd won't start until ogi namikiri and kaeshi namikiri were used.

With shoha, i think it would be better if it just got upgraded into shoha 2 instead of having separate button but make it have degrading damage the farther they are like how guren already works.

Also, tenka goken, it's universally hatred. Even funnier is that apparently JP players mock the skill since tenka goken means five swords and were apparently shooting it out of our ass now lol.

[silentwindfr]

I'd have to disagree with guren and senei. There was another sam thread (two of them actually) that proposed a much better and simpler solution that keeps it working as is while reducing button bloat and wouldn't be as hard for devs to even implent. It was to use ikishoten to trigger a buff that would change kyuten/shinten to guren/senei respectively. We already get ikishoten before guren/senei plus all these skills have the same cd.

Using this line of thought, it would make even more sense to have ogi namikiri require ikishoten to activate but instead of its own button, have ikishoten change into ogi namikiri instead. This is a common request from many threads I've read though personally, I think it's a bad idea to have ikishoten and ogi as same button for the fact that ikishoten cd won't start until ogi namikiri and kaeshi namikiri were used.

With shoha, i think it would be better if it just got upgraded into shoha 2 instead of having separate button but make it have degrading damage the farther they are like how guren already works.

Also, tenka goken, it's universally hatred. Even funnier is that apparently JP players mock the skill since tenka goken means five swords and were apparently shooting it out of our ass now lol.

the trouble of tenka is the animation that don't make sense mostly. if the sam had jumped for make the attack hit the ground before split into a circle it will look less stupid.

for guren/seinen like said in the other post, make it when you use ikishoten shinten and kyuten become seinen and guren will be smarter and feel better.
for shoha honestly i prefer keep them different one for aoe and one for mono target i feel better to have the choice.

that said most of the change was surely means to come sooner but was delayed and decided to arrive there while not finishing the stuff needed for make it better.

change needed:
- switch the increase of potency from the combo to the iaijutsu for make them the true goal of our sam and the main tool, the combo are a means to reach the iaijutsu. it must feel rewarding to use it....
- ikishoten become ogi when used + shinten and kyuten become seinen and guren. reducing reducing 3 button. woot!
- kaiten, honestly i can understand why people complain but i feel they need to work more on this skill... i know why they did remove it, mostly because it something that can be replaced by a balance of potency! the skill by itself outside of the animation don't bring this much in terms of gameplay. however i feel it was an error to remove it without giving something else... and the removal was not needed before the next expansion, because right now we spam shinten to the point where it become a bother and break the flow of the job.

right now the jobs have trouble with the rythm and the identity. they need to adress this before do anything else or they will make people really quit the jobs and not because it weak but because it feel bad and underwhelming to play it!

[Theodric_Thorne]

the trouble of tenka is the animation that don't make sense mostly. if the sam had jumped for make the attack hit the ground before split into a circle it will look less stupid.

I don't think this would solve the problem with Tenka. Firstly, we're not dragoons. I don't want to jump in the air and shoot an AoE at the floor, that's not a samurai thing. It works for them because they're practically Gundams, flying all over the place in heavy armor. The lance makes a certain kind of sense as a weapon that is used in an aerial dive-bomb melee attack, because it's a thrusting weapon. Channeling dragonfire through a lance and then diving from the sky and impaling a target with a huge AoE explosion is totally their thing.

Secondly, Tenka should remain a cone as it was before because it's a cast-time AoE. I don't want the cast removed. It's an iconic part of SAM design, our Iaijutsu skills should feel impactful because they take time to build up and take time to unleash. It gives some variation to the AoE rotation so it's not just "run to the center of the pack of mobs, and spin to win." Replacing Fuga with Fuko is a good idea to keep the instant-cast parts of the AoE rotation consistent, they're all circles. But with Tenka Goken and the column attacks, they are used less often but often chained together, so it gives two distinct "phases" to the AoE rotation that work well together.

If SE wants to cut a skill so badly, cut Shinten. It was degenerate gameplay in 4.0 because it was spammed frequently, and once again it's become optimal to dump Sen with Hagakure and spam Shinten, because the big hitters got flattened so badly that they're no longer big hitters, just visually stunning. What's the point of having a skill that looks really cool but does middling damage? That's basically Templar's Verdict from WoW. The Retribution-spec paladin channels Holy Light through their whole body and sprouts wings from their back for the duration of the swing, ripping the target in half with a giant anime slash. But you build Holy Power constantly (kinda like Sen, but smaller/shorter intervals between uses) so Templar's Verdict feels like a wet noodle because such a frequently-used ability cannot have high damage.

I've been saying for years that I wish Ret paladin played like SAM, because having a lengthier rotation that built up to amazing finishers would make the spec feel more powerful. Instead, 6.1 came out and SE turned SAM into a Ret paladin, without any of the emergency heals or minor party utility.