6.1 Kaiten Changes

[cjbeagle]

I wouldn't say I ignored variety reduction, more that there isn't much to say.

You ignored the variety reduction in the very first sentence of your very first reply:

No, it'd be like they removed Reassemble, and that's it.

Unless you're saying that removing an OGCD that has a 55s cooldown is comparable to removing Kaiten in terms of OGCD variety.

I'm also not going to tackle that analogy, if you don't mind. The short version is that the premise isn't contestable. They are both food sources. Yes indeed.

The premise that you started arguing wasn't contestable either, so the analogy holds up.

But just to clarify, would you be having more fun if Kyuten / Shinten nullified the other's cost so long as the prior spent Kenki? (AKA they worked just like Richo/Gauss)

If it was optimal to spam both Shinten and Kyuten in both ST and AOE? Yeah, that sounds way better than just spamming the same button (albeit not nearly as good as having Kaiten back).

[Kabooa]

As for whether or not you ignored the reduction of variety, you did that with the very first sentence of your very first reply:

Yes, I'd contest removing core rotational aspects that are not just oGCD based to not be equivalent to just removing Kaiten.

You did not move Hypercharge's effect to Heatblast. You removed Hypercharge, and thus also Heatblast / Auto crossbow.

See the difference?

You heavily altered the entire rotation, instead of just making you press Shinten more.

But I will admit it would have been more correct to say, however, "No, it'd be like only having Gauss Round and that's it".

That's a really good comparison point - MCH has a lot of OGCDs, but the majority of their uses are packed into the Overheat window, in which you tend to alternate between Gauss Round and Ricochet between Heat Blasts, and because this is during Overheat, it's part of your rotation.

Samurai used to have OGCD variety as well, and because of Kaiten, kenki spending used to be part of the rotation too - now neither are true.

In MCH terms it'd be like if they merged Gauss Round and Ricochet into a single OGCD to consolidate the spam into a single button, removed Wildfire and Hypercharge to make OGCD usage independent of the rotation, and removed Reassemble to lower burst, all at once.

Here's your premise by the way.

"Samurai doesn't have OGCD variety anymore."

"Machinist would need to have its entire rotation heavily altered to be comparable to having to press Shinten more often."

Saying that isn't contestable is, well, highly contestable.

[cjbeagle]

You did not move Hypercharge's effect to Heatblast. You removed Hypercharge, and thus also Heatblast / Auto crossbow.

For MCH, to achieve that level of rotation agnosticism, you'd have to be able to spend heat on Heat Blasts whenever you want since that's what enables the OGCD spam - like how you can spam Shinten whenever you want, and to do that, you'd have to remove all mechanical limitations (Hypercharge) as well as mechanical optimizations (Wildfire).

You heavily altered the entire rotation, instead of just making you press Shinten more.

True, and that part is intentional, because that's what the removal of Kaiten did - it isn't just pressing Shinten more, it's about Kaiten being removed from the rotation.

But I will admit it would have been more correct to say, however, "No, it'd be like only having Gauss Round and that's it".

Common ground at last. =P

[Kabooa]

Common ground at last. =P

Alright, you got me :3

[cjbeagle]

Here's your premise by the way.

"Samurai doesn't have OGCD variety anymore."

"Machinist would need to have its entire rotation heavily altered to be comparable to having to press Shinten more often."

Saying that isn't contestable is, well, highly contestable.

The premise was this:
- Samurai doesn't have OGCD variety in their spammable OGCDs anymore and their spammable OGCD usage is now completely independent of their rotation.
- Machinist would need to have its entire rotation heavily altered to be comparable to only having 1 spammable OGCD and to have that spammable OGCD usage be completely independent of their rotation.

It's easy for a premise to be contestable when it's misrepresented.

That said, I've since realized that my analogy for Overheat and Wildfire was overcomplicated - here's v2.0, let's see if we agree:

In terms of spammable OGCD variety and how its expenditure fits into the job's rotation, the removal of Kaiten would be like if they made Gauss Round and Ricochet share charges and made it so Heat Blast didn't reduce their cooldown.

I think that covers both variety and rotation in a much more accurate way.

[Kabooa]

The premise was this:
- Samurai doesn't have OGCD variety in their spammable OGCDs anymore and their spammable OGCD usage is now completely independent of their rotation.
- Machinist would need to have its entire rotation heavily altered to be comparable to only having 1 spammable OGCD and to have that spammable OGCD usage be completely independent of their rotation.

It's easy for a premise to be contestable when it's misrepresented.

I don't see why the whole rotation has to be altered to get that.

You just axe the hypercharge synergy and remove Richochet. You don't have to remove hypercharge, or heat, or heatblast, or any of that.

(So I guess I can easily contest this without misrepresenting it too.) The OGCDs are already largely independent of the rest of the rotation, and basically the only pressure that exists for them is that hypercharge can cause you to overcap. The rest of it not only isn't necessary. Just kind of comes across as kicking a job lower on the tierlist when it's been down for a few years already.

[cjbeagle]

I don't see why the whole rotation has to be altered to get that.

You just axe the hypercharge synergy and remove Richochet. You don't have to remove hypercharge, or heat, or heatblast, or any of that.

(So I guess I can easily contest this without misrepresenting it too.) The OGCDs are already largely independent of the rest of the rotation, and basically the only pressure that exists for them is that hypercharge can cause you to overcap.

Removing Hypercharge as a requirement to use Heat Blast was to remove the influx of OGCD availability as part of the rotation, because, as you yourself just said, the only pressure that exists for them is that Hypercharge can cause you to overcap.

Similarly, removing Wildfire would remove any benefit from using Heat Blast successively, which would make heat expenditure and thereby OGCD availability completely freeform.

The goal was to make the OGCD usage completely independent of the rotation.

That said, the OGCD availability and that pressure during Overheat only exists if Heat Blast reduces the cooldown of the OGCDs - simply having Heat Blast not do that is a much cleaner analogy in terms of the impact on rotation.

I think I misunderstood what you meant by "Hypercharge synergy" earlier - if you meant Heat Blast reducing the cooldown of the OGCDs, then you're absolutely right, I just didn't understand what you meant, and concede that removing that synergy is absolutely a better comparison.

[Kabooa]

I think I misunderstood what you meant by "Hypercharge synergy" earlier - if you meant Heat Blast reducing the cooldown of the OGCDs, then you're absolutely right, I just didn't understand what you meant, and concede that removing that synergy is absolutely a better comparison.

Speaking personally, I think it's also fairly spot on. Mechanically it doesn't mean a whole lot to be quite honest, but it does make Hypercharge windows significantly slower, and while I have little positive to say about Machinist as a whole, hypercharge feeling like "Fast Ammo" limit breaks from Irvine is certainly an appeal to me. Losing that and having the job be rebalanced but not retooled would be a definite loss.

So, looking at Samurai and OGCD variety, I personally would trace a route back to the start of Shadowbringers and Samurai's expansions there, not necessarily as the problem, but as something to look at and see about retooling. The emphasis on "This is the single tool and this is the AoE tool" isn't unique to Samurai but it is infesting it and other jobs more notably, and I think we can alleviate some variety concerns by tackling this.

Kyuten and Shinten are fine to keep exclusive, as they have no cooldown, but I would advocate that Senei and Guren shouldn't be. They have long cooldowns, so they should both be usable without exclusivity. Increase their Kenki costs to exert pressure on the resource.

I personally don't care for the Meditation resource, but if people like that, the bare minimum to expand it should be having Shoha in turn interact with another action type. Iaijutsu -> Meditate -> Kenki. Have it give you a buff that increases the cost and potency of your next Kenki ability. More pressure on the gauge is good in resource systems IMO.

This is all assuming kaiten's return. If for some reason Kaiten stays gone, then obviously there needs to be another situational use Kenki skill to slot into where it used to be. Senei/Guren as long CDs means they don't fill this niche. Frankly though, I have no real suggestion for a comparable replacement. Kenki is ultimately a potency gauge, so if anything repalces Kaiten it has to be a variable potency skill. Like Kaiten.

[cjbeagle]

Speaking personally, I think it's also fairly spot on. Mechanically it doesn't mean a whole lot to be quite honest, but it does make Hypercharge windows significantly slower, and while I have little positive to say about Machinist as a whole, hypercharge feeling like "Fast Ammo" limit breaks from Irvine is certainly an appeal to me. Losing that and having the job be rebalanced but not retooled would be a definite loss.

100% agree - MCH is one of my least favorite jobs, but the Hypercharge window is one of the few things it does have going for it (I'm a sucker for Reassemble + Drill too).

I think a big part of the impact that the removal of Kaiten had, in regards to OGCD variance specifically for samurai, is that with samurai you're basically just doing your GCD rotation, using Third Eye as appropriate, and spamming kenki spenders.

Beyond that you're just using Meikyo Shisui and Tsubame-gaeshi once a minute and Ikishoten once every 2m, so only two cooldown timers to be mindful of (assuming you just hit Third Eye every time there's raidwide AOE without checking its timer).

Conversely, most jobs have a lot more to keep track of in terms of cooldowns, especially MCH, so a lack of OGCD variety isn't as noteworthy because the jobs are much more demanding in other ways.

Taking MCH as an example again:
- Drill / Bioblaster: 20s cd
- Guass / Ricochet: 30s cd
- Air Anchor: 40s cd
- Reassemble: 55s cd
- Flamethrower: 60s cd
- Barrel Stabilizer / Wildfire: 120s cd

Personally, the lack of cooldown tracking is what I love about samurai, but the lack of engagement in that regard needs to be made up for elsewhere.

The sen gauge helps a lot, but so did the OGCD prioritization/variety and the touch of resource management that Kaiten provided.

[cjbeagle]

Kyuten and Shinten are fine to keep exclusive

Agreed.

I would advocate that Senei and Guren shouldn't be. They have long cooldowns, so they should both be usable without exclusivity. Increase their Kenki costs to exert pressure on the resource.

My favorite idea I've heard for this is to just make Shinten/Kyuten evolve into Senei/Guren via Ikishoten - they're used together anyway - keeps some animation and potency spice without fundamentally changing anything and prunes 2 buttons.

Shy of that though, I agree that they should cost more - I'm actually in favor of increasing the cost of Gyoten and Yaten as well, not only for the resource management, but also to break their kenki-to-potency parity with Shinten.

I personally don't care for the Meditation resource, but if people like that, the bare minimum to expand it should be having Shoha in turn interact with another action type. Iaijutsu -> Meditate -> Kenki. Have it give you a buff that increases the cost and potency of your next Kenki ability. More pressure on the gauge is good in resource systems IMO.

Agreed - one of the things I'd like to see is to have Third Eye grant a Meditation stack instead of kenki - hardly interesting, but a lot better than a negligible amount of our most abundant resource.

This is all assuming kaiten's return. If for some reason Kaiten stays gone, then obviously there needs to be another situational use Kenki skill to slot into where it used to be. Senei/Guren as long CDs means they don't fill this niche. Frankly though, I have no real suggestion for a comparable replacement. Kenki is ultimately a potency gauge, so if anything repalces Kaiten it has to be a variable potency skill. Like Kaiten.

Personally I'd love to see both Kaiten and Seigan come back. Seigan wasn't variable, but was only available situationally, while Kaiten was variable, as noted. It's depressing to be talking about nuance in the past tense.



As for a new kenki spender, how about this?

- Tsubame-gaeshi no longer has a cooldown.
- Tsubame-gaeshi now costs ~25 kenki.
- Tsubame-gaeshi's potency is reduced to whatever it needs to be to balance its increased frequency.
- Tsubame-gaeshi now grants a random Sen.
- - If Ka is granted, also refreshes Fuka.
- - If Getsu is granted, also refreshes Fugetsu.
- - If Setsu is granted, also refunds ~15 kenki.
- Tsubame-gaeshi now has 3 different animations, and animates based on the Sen that is granted.
- Ogi Namikiri's potency is increased to whatever it needs to be to balance the removal of Tsubame-gaeshi as a cooldown.



The proposed change would have the following effect on dynamics:

- Kenki consumption would once again be part of the rotation.
- Kenki management would be emphasized.
- Introduces a facet of responsive gameplay to samurai's core rotation.
- Introduces a facet of responsive gameplay to the use of Meikyo Shisui since its optimal use would be after proccing Setsu with Tsubame-gaeshi.
- Iaijutsu would be used much more frequently, which would make its lackluster payoff more palatable.
- Iaijutsu would be used much more frequently, which would make auto-crit even less necessary than it already was since a larger sample size increases normalization (could roll back auto-crit and adjust potencies accordingly).
- Higanbana would effectively become free beyond the first application, making it faster to reapply in ST fights and faster to multi-dot in multi-target encounters.
- Ogi Namikiri would be buffed enough to hopefully merit its 2m cooldown.