Compiled SAM threads against 6.1 changes / Kaiten removal

[RyuuZero]

I don’t really understand your point. Thematically, sure, the name Kaiten may have some deep connection to the concept of a samurai, but that’s not what I was referencing.

I’m saying that having a button that can massively boost the potency of any GCD action you’ll ever create does push the design of the job in a corner as you have to consider how that influences the jobs rotation from multiple angles every time you add a weapon skill to it. There may be actions the design team wants to add to SAM but can’t because it messes up their rotation considering how it will increase the demand for Kaiten and this increase the amount of Kenki you spend every minute.

But again, even if that’s true, there was no point in sterilizing Kaiten now when those design ideas are not yet being implemented.

that Breath Argument was something I discovered from looking back at my Aikido Training:
I paid attention to breath into my Technique to make them more effective.
now let's look at the Samurai from FFXIV:
The Samurai pays 20 Kenki to use Kaiten for the next Weaponskill to boost the damage.

which for me explains the Reason for Kaiten to exist. About the corner that you mentioned, I'd say it's less a Corner and more a Pillar of the Samurai Gameplay, since why shouldn't be Kenki there to boost weaponskills? Instead of a Corner I see it more like that You're supposed to use Kaiten on Weaponskills and not on Abilities. If you could boost everything with Kaiten, I would see it more as a Corner aswell though currently Kenki is just there to gate Shinten Spam.. yay.. and yeah removing a Skill with no alternative (outside of Auto-Crit.. lol) is sloppy. Rather than removing Kaiten they should've changed Kaiten so the next Weaponskill would've been a guaranteed Direct Hit. That way we would've kept our Skill and Resource Management and the devs got their wish of balance, i guess.

[CelestiCer]

if you need yoshi to tell you the philosophy behind the design of every job instead of being able to piece it together by looking at how the jobs are designed, idk what to tell youthe shohas

Unless Square and Yoshi/Dev and co specifically state so? it's speculations and assumptions. Unlike what you wrote? Everything I wrote is what Square stated.

They announced SAM development being restrictive which is an excuse since SAM didn't need any changes, announcing Kaiten to be removed with Patch 6.1 release. " Give it a try and give us Feedback " Square said. Samurai mains warned Square to not do this, 6.1 became Live and Kaiten removal was met with heavy backlash that made Square respond with " Changes made to Samurai was made due to Button Bloat issues ". Another excuse since no Samurai complained about having Button Bloat issues prior. And if Kaiten was removed for something in the Future? why not keep it since its non-problematic until they have something to show for it to replace it with? We might as well wait until 7.0 to see something... but our Kenki gauge feels lacking in comparison.

They asked for Feedback? We gave our feedback, and Ignored us.
They removed Kaiten to practically fix nothing, only dumbing down the job.

during the course of building stickers you'd get around 60 kenki and kaiten costs 20. so nobody who's even trying to do a somewhat decent rotation would ever see themselves running out of kenki to use kaiten.

also, you don't use your shintens "willy-nilly" because you want to maximize the number of shintens during buff windows

Yes we do use Shinten " willy nilly "... do we play the same Job xD?

The point is to balance Kenki near 100 for maximum damage output yes which you will unleash at " Raid buffs ". Kaiten made this quite interesting, forcing players to at least use 1 braincell to pull off, and it was satisfying. However? majority of the players will Kaiten whenever they please which is still fine and still requires more effort... but now with all of this gone? it has devolved into Shinten spamming. Shinten Shinten Shinten Shinten Shinten Shinten <- you do not manage Kenki thoughtfully anymore its made thoughtless and actually effortless. So yes, it is just casting Shinten willy nilly now vs casting Kaiten during buff windows with Shinten's.

[Albo]

Completely agree with CelestiCer
The deletion of Kaiten was and has been a detriment to the class as a whole.
The new skill doesn't even come close to adding the same layer of depth Kaiten provided.
I did give the new SAM a fair try and so far i'm dissapointed, some players will argue that one skill is not such a big deal, but in the case of Kaiten, it was, if Kaiten doesn't come back then something else needs to be added to the rotation to replace it, otherwise, just rename the Kenki bar to the Shinten bar

[RyuuZero]

The only Way of finding enjoyment in Samurai Gameplay after 6.1 lies in PvP.
Seriously PvP Samurai is so much fun! It even has still Kaiten! Though I sincerely hope we do not get the PvP Kaiten in PvE, since that would be a new low of dumbing down the Game, but for PvP it works just fine now if only the PvP Battle Pass wouldn't be FOMO.. aww well..

[JakkuPM]

Damage is what determines "reward" in this game. Yes, you'll have fun on any job the first few hundred hours you play it simply because it's fresh and new and exciting, but when you have thousands of hours in different jobs, you look for mastery, and the only true metric of mastery in this game as it's designed is damage dealt. I agree that playstyle is much more important than numbers for job design, but both must be addressed for a job to truly feel rewarding after the "fresh" feeling wears off. Otherwise you will always have a nagging feeling of "I could be contributing so much more on a better job, but I choose to suffer because this is the playstyle I like" and that drains your soul over time.

I mained SAM in Stormblood when it was one of the "worst" dps in the game, and i also enjoyed it the most out of any job i've played since.

In my opinion, playstlye matters quite a bit more than effectiveness. Mastery of a certain playstyle is all you need for that kind of enjoyment. Playing a job just because it's optimal isn't fun if i don't enjoy how it plays.

The only time it's fair to feel like you're bringing down your group by playing a sub-optimal class, is if you're going for world 1st or a top of the charts speedrun. It really doesn't matter otherwise.

[RyuuZero]

there are 2 things that annoy me about the current Samurai:

of course the Kaiten Removal, they just could make Direct Hit the next Weaponskill thus making Direct Crit Midare/Ogi be the reward because the Player would be responsible due to Kenki Management.
No no no just hammer down your Rotation and Spam Shinten like a Bitch.

and the Circle Goken.. seriously Iaijutsu should require to target the opponent, Throwing Circle Goken willy-nilly just feels unrewarding and scrubby.
Same with Warrior's Overpower because now Warriors fart everytime they use Overpower instead of just switching the Skills: Getting Mythril Tempest at lvl10 and an stronger Cone Overpower at lvl40, no Warriors should fart for enmity now.
So yeah I want Cone Tenka Goken back.

[Rilifane]

I mained SAM in Stormblood when it was one of the "worst" dps in the game, and i also enjoyed it the most out of any job i've played since.

In my opinion, playstlye matters quite a bit more than effectiveness. Mastery of a certain playstyle is all you need for that kind of enjoyment. Playing a job just because it's optimal isn't fun if i don't enjoy how it plays.

The only time it's fair to feel like you're bringing down your group by playing a sub-optimal class, is if you're going for world 1st or a top of the charts speedrun. It really doesn't matter otherwise.

I completely agree.
Picking a class that will result in overall better party performance (and I deliberately say party performance because higher personal damage doesn't mean shit if it drags combined party dps down) is a thing that is completely understandable in world first races and speed runs - or in cases of poor boss HP & class balance very early into the tier, which is why I completely understood any WAR main going DRK for part 2.
But outside that, raw damage in itself isn't a reward. It's not even a reward in the abovementioned scenarios, it's simply a necessity and the reward is the successful clear/ speedrun rank.

Because what would happen if a class had hilariously high damage but accomplished it with a very barebone and repetetive rotation? People would drop it.
Generally, players choose to play a class that's fun for them to play first, something they like the gameplay style of and then look at damage but only if they're noticeable behind and doing content where it matters. They usually don't look at "Oh, but this class is 5% ahead of me, I could be contributing more by just playing that class". You still had a reasonable amount of BLMs in ShB in PF doing Savage even when SMN was so hilariously far ahead it was basically a BLM but better in every single way including raw damage which was supposed to be BLM's defining feature as a selfish DPS.
It's fairly rare for people to pick a class for raw damage, not even after hundreds of hours of gameplay. Gameplay becomes even more important the more you play it which is why so many veteran healers are salty about the lobotomized healer gameplay.

Of course reasonable DPS balance is important but I disagree that raw damage itself is a reward.

[CelestiCer]

I completely agree. / Of course reasonable DPS balance is important but I disagree that raw damage itself is a reward.

Very well said.

Square fixed Auto Crit performance after 6.1 Kaiten removal and with it? our protest increased to wanting Kaiten back. Chunk of the Community actually thought we wanted more DPS, failing to understand that we wanted our permanently lost Gameplay back.

Square silenced our critique by essentially cutting the damage we would deal with Kaiten? and integrated it passively across our entire skill kit, indirectly saying " Take the dumbed down gameplay with buffs and Stfu ".

Quite the contradiction, that the Dev's state " DPS performance is based off of Job difficulty " yet having done the following...

• Seigan removed
• Positionals give DPS bonus not Kenki anymore
• Senei/Guren Kenki cost reduced by half
• Third Eye duration increased by 1 second
• Fuga Cone becomes Fuko Circle AoE
• Tenka Goken Cone made a Circle AoE
• Iaijutsu Range increased
• Enpi cast does not disrupt combo
• Lastly " Kaiten removed "

While not all changes were without rhyme nor reason? plenty good QOL changes? They simplified Samurai's gameplay while making it easy to perform the same amount of DPS or more - contradicting their statement.

I agree with you and somehow it will never sink in with a lot of players. DPS isn't rewarding when it's made shallow. The Execution of doing something " right" constantly... possibly throughout an entire fight lasting minutes... and seeing high DPS? is rewarding. Fk'n it up because I can now indefinitely Fk up for exactly the same or more DPS? will never make it as rewarding as Kaiten did.

[Alice9]

Agreed. Kaiten did a great job at making abilities flow together. The overall changes has made the job feel incredibly clunky for me, and not satisfying at all to play.

[UnseveredRevna]

This is just me posting in solidarity that yes, I do still hate the change even two full patches.

Still waiting for my feedback to be acknowledged, SE. :^ )