Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Moreover, this analysis leaves out the thing Kaiten was clearly intended to do: to force gauge margining. [...] it was nonetheless a mechanic that was lost with Kaiten's removal [...] Remember, we started originally with spenders at 10, 15, 20, 25, and 50 Kenki.
This is all true, I just think its overall effect and value is — again — being overexaggerated in hindsight.

And also, that the drop of Senei/Guren to 25 was actually the stranger and more influential change, with regard to the management of Ikishoten and Kenki during burst, and was something that was far more likely to be "reckless" about and "mess up", due to the much tighter "margin" on 50 vs 20 — though this was perhaps more relevant when Ikishoten was still 60s CD.

As for the 15, that applied only to Seigan, and — to be blunt — that was an at-best-trivial component of even the "glory days" of the Samurai rotation, which I think was a good example of "additional complexity without (much) reward". I'm not surprised it got KO'd, though I would have much preferred simply rejuvenating it into something more relevant (just like Kaiten).

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When you really look at Kenki historically, the spread was really:

• 10 — Gap-closers which were previously self-flagellating to use, and avoided as much as feasible. The Celestial Revolution of Kenki spends.

• 15 — Essentially a gimmick.

• 20 — The actual floor of your gauge, essentially always-available, and relatively-easy to recover from mild misplays due to its low cost, unless you really, truly botched something.

• 25 — The vast majority of your Kenki spends, since the Job's inception.

• 50 — Your big hefty burst, which previously made sense to justify banking and building to this extra cost.

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Another thing to consider is that the original "gauge-focused" design and components were released in Stormblood, when Yoshida went "gauge-crazy", and both SAM and RDM were obviously designed around the new Gauge system at their core, and to showcase it heavily.

At that time, SAM had very little else going on — it was basically "Black Mage with a Sword", in the sense of having nearly no real burst window, and most of its damage coming from just pumping out GCDs consistently and steadily.

Kenki thus was central to what system SAM did have, right down to its primary rotation focusing on sacrificing as many Midares as possible into Kenki via Hagakure on-cooldown (and then dumping that gain into — Guess which action).

As Samurai has evolved over time to have a true "rotation", a very definite "burst window", and a more robust and matured system overall, it may well be that the designers feel that the Job no longer needs so much detail involved in, nor devoted to, its Gauge management in-specific — ie, bringing SAM's Gauge more in-line with most other Jobs.

From that perspective, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Shinten eventually ends up becoming a 50 Kenki action.