I was almost in the mood to play FF14 again

[Mithron]

But then I remembered SAM doesn't have Kaiten any more, so the mood disappeared and I played a different game instead.

[Raikai]

But then I remembered SAM doesn't have Kaiten any more, so the mood disappeared and I played a different game instead.

Genuine question, from someone who decided to level SAM just recently in a post-Kaiten world, why exactly people miss it so much? I ask that because right now, the job's rotation feels really good and engaging. Idk, I'd probably join the chorus if I tried it before.

[CKNovel]

Genuine question, from someone who decided to level SAM just recently in a post-Kaiten world, why exactly people miss it so much? I ask that because right now, the job's rotation feels really good and engaging. Idk, I'd probably join the chorus if I tried it before.

Before Kaiten being Taiken away, SAM had 3 spenders.
SQEX just removed one of them and so you just spam shinten and Sen'ei is garanteed with Ikishoten.

Basically most uses of kaiten were simply replaced with uses of Shinten.

I'm not an expert of SAM, but this basically made SAM players spam Shinten during burst phases where before you had kenki used for kaitening every midare.

[Mikey_R]

Genuine question, from someone who decided to level SAM just recently in a post-Kaiten world, why exactly people miss it so much? I ask that because right now, the job's rotation feels really good and engaging. Idk, I'd probably join the chorus if I tried it before.

Whilst I was never someone who loved SAM, I do know of 2 main reasons why people miss it:

The animation. It was just cool using this action to power up your next Iaijutsu.

For the more technical reason, Kaiten was used before all Iaijutsus, so you needed to manage your Kenki so make sure you had enough to power them up. If you also add in Senei also requiring a different amount of Kenki, it just all built into a gauge that wasn't just build and spend in set increments for everything.

[Deo14]

Genuine question, from someone who decided to level SAM just recently in a post-Kaiten world, why exactly people miss it so much? I ask that because right now, the job's rotation feels really good and engaging. Idk, I'd probably join the chorus if I tried it before.

Both reasons above are one of them main ones. 3rd would be probably that all 3 of devs' excuses for removal make no sense, which just leaves us with a bitter taste, since it's removal didn't fix anything at all.

Animation and buildup was satisfying, but if we want to focus more on the gameplay, Shinten spam is terrible game design. Because they removed 2nd most prominent spender of Kenki, Shinten accounts to roughly 20% of all actions you do. This means that on average, every 5th skill you do is Shinten, which is just insane. Especially since Shinten is just very bland and uninteresting oGCD, yet for some reason, you use it more frequently than even Hakaze, which should be the most basic and frequent ability, since it's first part of all 3 combos.

This is some random log from p10s, 78 parse:

[kayll]

Genius, Last thread was pretending to be about Shoha II but it was actually a Kaiten thread..
This time the title doesn't even contain any information hinting at it even being a SAM thread, let alone another Kaiten thread, you guys sure are devious.

[Deo14]

Genius, Last thread was pretending to be about Shoha II but it was actually a Kaiten thread..
This time the title doesn't even contain any information hinting at it even being a SAM thread, let alone another Kaiten thread, you guys sure are devious.

It's been 1.5 years, being straightforward didn't work, now we do all the underhanded tactics. Kinda like jehovah's witness or similar sects, except in our case, we are not a sect, our God and saviour Kaiten is real and he will return once again in full glory.

[Seraphor]

Both reasons above are one of them main ones. 3rd would be probably that all 3 of devs' excuses for removal make no sense, which just leaves us with a bitter taste, since it's removal didn't fix anything at all.

Animation and buildup was satisfying, but if we want to focus more on the gameplay, Shinten spam is terrible game design. Because they removed 2nd most prominent spender of Kenki, Shinten accounts to roughly 20% of all actions you do. This means that on average, every 5th skill you do is Shinten, which is just insane. Especially since Shinten is just very bland and uninteresting oGCD, yet for some reason, you use it more frequently than even Hakaze, which should be the most basic and frequent ability, since it's first part of all 3 combos.

If the issue is just "Shinten is used too much" then what needs to happen is a review of Kenki economy, including how much is gained through combos, and how much is spent via skills.
We already have SIX Kenki spenders, it's too much already.
I would say that Guren and Senei need to have their cooldowns and potencies reduced so that you're replacing more Shintens with Seneis. (halve each for each would be a decent start, still aligns with 2 minute window)
Then reduce some of the Kenki gains on weaponskills so that you're not capping on Kenki so fast. Have all weaponskills provide only 5 Kenki (other than Enpi at 10), then maybe boost Hagakure to 15 Kenki per Sen instead of 10 to compensate, and actually give Hagakure some potential use.

[Deo14]

If the issue is just "Shinten is used too much" then what needs to happen is a review of Kenki economy, including how much is gained through combos, and how much is spent via skills.
We already have SIX Kenki spenders, it's too much already.
I would say that Guren and Senei need to have their cooldowns and potencies reduced so that you're replacing more Shintens with Seneis. (halve each for each would be a decent start, still aligns with 2 minute window)
Then reduce some of the Kenki gains on weaponskills so that you're not capping on Kenki so fast. Have all weaponskills provide only 5 Kenki (other than Enpi at 10), then maybe boost Hagakure to 15 Kenki per Sen instead of 10 to compensate, and actually give Hagakure some potential use.

Kenki economy was already managed by Kaiten. Nerfing Kenki generation is solution, but by far not the best one. This would also need adjustments of the rest of the Kenki spenders, because if you needed to do some 2-3 GCDs to get enough Kenki for single Gyuten/Yaten, then that's a problem. You also generate less Kenki in 52-61, so it's this kind of nice gradual step up, but if you wanted to keep this, then the Kenki you generate in this level range would be abysmally low. This is not where potential complications end, the way you pool Kenki would be affected, you would need to completely recalculate potencies for SAM, if all GCDs only gave 5 Kenki, then it would be boring but also there would be no Yukikaze optimization. Long story short, this would be so much more complicated with worse result then just going back to what we know worked well and was more interesting, which is Kaiten.

Those 6 Kenki spenders are not that much in practice.
Kyuten is just AoE Shinten.
Guren is just AoE Senei. You use this only once every 2 minutes, with Kenki generated by Ikishoten.
Gyoten is gap closer, Yaten backstep, they're situational.

So realistically, you spend 90%+ Kenki on Shinten. Probably, I'm not doing the math, but even if it was 70% or similar, that's still way too much.

Senei with 1m CD wouldn't change much, look at the log I sent above, you do over 8 Shintens per minute and 0.5 Senei, so it will just be 7 and 1 instead. With pre-EW 50 Kenki Senei it would be slightly better with 6 and 1, but even that is still terrible.

As for Hagakure - that's possibly one of the most important SAM skills to make your rotation go smooth and makes SAM one of few jobs that can choose between 3 vastly different GCD speed, without any significant modifications to your rotation, I really don't know how did you find out it has no use.

[Seraphor]

As for Hagakure - that's possibly one of the most important SAM skills to make your rotation go smooth and makes SAM one of few jobs that can choose between 3 vastly different GCD speed, without any significant modifications to your rotation, I really don't know how did you find out it has no use.

Why would you ever sacrifice a Midari for another Shinten?
Maybe for a Senei, but there's no shortage of Kenki, is there...