SAM buffs warranted? Genuine question

[Shurrikhan]

My personal philosophy is that when you start adding mechanics to extend/maintain other mechanics of the class, you've fundamentally designed the game in such a way as to make that original mechanic at odds with the game itself, and should consider removing those original mechanics instead of adding code to maintain them.

Let's start with the extreme of that more general point, since I don't think the example we were working from before (Meditate) at all meets that description of a self-conflicting mechanic. (If anything, it was the obvious oversights in the later-added Meditation Stacks from Iaijutsu casts that are/have been the problem.)

If you strip away a job's compensatory tools like Meditate/Meditation/Soulsow, designed to narrow the gaps between ideal and non-ideal encounters, you're not just arriving at the same capacities by different means, but instead arriving at altogether different capacities. In that situation, either fight design must be constrained as to prevent advantage from the one type of job over the other (as per further homogeneity of encounters), or you essentially halve the competitive job options available to each fight (reduced diversity in flavors/perspectives per encounter).

Fight has significant downtime? SAM (no Meditate, insignificant CD burst), RPR (no Soulsow), and BLM (no Xeno) can screw off. Fight has no virtually downtime? Drop NIN, SMN, DRK, etc.

Examples of this include Ninja's Huton/Huraijin/Armor Crush, Black Mage's Astral Fire/Umbral Ice/Transpose/Umbral Soul, Samurai's Fugetsu/Fuka/Meikyo Shisui, Bard's DoTs and trap jaws. Dragoon used to have this with eyes and BotD before they finally nipped it in the bud. Monk still has it and it causes some problems with Perfect Balance and Disciplined Fist. Basically, at a certain point, the original mechanic starts to lose its meaning and really grinds on the class as a whole. A lot of players want to maintain these mechanics, and it's understandable why, but it's also important to realize when it's just detracting from the experience and taking too many resources to maintain, especially button slots.

The examples are a mixed bunch to me. I guess, to put it simply, I want each button added to have an outsized impact, and to ultimately offer up more choices and more/deeper considerations than it replaces; else, it's wasteful.

For that reason, I'd agree, for instance, that Huton stopped making sense the moment they introduced Armor Crush and, above all, the Hide resets... while Huraijin seems like a meta-commentary joke. I'd have been happy to just see Huton remain as it was in ARR but with a bit more flexibility on the Suiton timing (such as via a second mudra charge) as to actually offer the choice between an early or late reapplication. Removing Huton outright, on the other hand, I'd only be okay with if we got a similar means of deciding between both timings and burst vs. sustain.

Black Mage's AF/UI was totally fine right up until Umbral Soul. AF/UI's duration now feels a bit long to me relative to the current F4 cast times, and I miss the additional options permitted by ARR's doubled quick-cast (could queue a second fire spell to benefit from UI's haste), but it's otherwise fine. It just needs to see Umbral Soul consolidated... or replaced by a [conditional / secondary-CD-gated] Transpose buff instead, as not to make the other (and more fluid/interesting/responsive) tool largely redundant. I especially don't care for the Umbral Soul spam during extended downtime, and would happily have Enochian/Glossia progress instead just freeze while out of AF/UI and forgo the spam, but that doesn't require axing the whole AF/UI mechanic.

Bard's DoTs, likewise, were fine until Iron Jaws was introduced as something always available (as compared to, say, a dynamic ability with multiple charges, available from a single song, with the songs themselves being far more flexibly timed) and any palpable/gameplay-affecting benefits of multi-DoTing were removed.

Dragoon's original incarnation of BotD wasn't a problem so much as just... not immediately obvious. Heck, it was the most nuance we've seen from that mechanic, even if closely rivaled by back-to-back LotDs for exploiting cleave in certain fights. I'm fine with it as is, too, but I don't see how its former state would be considered an "issue".

There is zero issue between Perfect Balance and Disciplined Fist. Each makes the other more rewarding by having PB set up rotational strings in which DF is better optimized. If anything, the problem with Disciplined Fist is simply that True Strike's bonus over Twin Snakes is so pitiful that one loses former rotational choice. Simply siphon over 20 potency each from Twin Snakes and Dragon Kick to True Strike, though, and that issue would be fixed; we'd have our old rotational flexibility back.

Skills that I do think are problematic, though, would be things that exist just to make a given gauge seem more prominent, without actually producing any greater depth or nuance, such as Barrel Stabilizer, Amplifier, etc. Ikishoten now probably falls into that category, too, though it didn't even just an expansion ago (when it conflicted with banking for the old 50-gauge Guren/Senei and was available frequently enough to make one more mindful of one's Kenki, much like Stormblood Hagakure).