Bring Back Kaiten

[Carighan]

But you describe precisely why it wasn't a useful ability. It was a rote use, it had no meaningful interaction with anything, it was just a semi-fixed drain on the gauge for a semi-fixed gain in potency.

It wasn't like you had a mechanic that'd suddenly leave you flooded in gauge and you'd be using Kaiten on ~every GCD to not overcap it, the way Dancers semi-spam Sabre during burst. You might as well just fold the potency into the skills and remove Kaiten, you leave the amount of brain required to play at the exact same level but reduce RSI inducing mechanics in your players.

If Kaiten had an interesting interaction with the kit, again, sure. But it didn't. I'm not saying plenty other skills don't also lack interesting interactions (in fact that is the primary problem of FFXIV's job setups, they're all extremely boring static-rotation jobs with no flexibility, interactivity or challenge because 100% of that has all been pushed into the fight design instead of the characters). But Kaiten surely wasn't one, either. There's no loss from it being removed. At all.

[Shurrikhan]

But you describe precisely why it wasn't a useful ability.

I also described why being rote use doesn't necessarily mean that a skill isn't useful as an addition to the gameplay of a given kit:

In itself, it doesn't enhance "agency", no. The better way to look at it is that it accentuates skill expression among other, surrounding parts of the kit, helping to tie the Kenki gauge together (alongside the old varied Kenki costs, likewise removed).

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It was a rote use, it had no meaningful interaction with anything, it was just a semi-fixed drain on the gauge for a semi-fixed gain in potency.

Effectively, not semi-fixed, but simply... fixed. Each skill had its own fixed ppk via Kaiten. Kaiten-Midare is, for all intents and purposes, not Kaiten-Higanbana or Kaiten-Tenka, just as Life Surge-Heavens' Thrust is not Life Surge-Raiden Thrust.

But let's consider:

Shinten is likewise "rote use". It is objectively a fixed drain for a fixed gain in potency. You use it when you would otherwise overcap Kenki, including over the 2 GCDs before Ikishoten, and during raid burst, as SAM's lowest priority oGCD outside of a preemptive utility buffs needed for less than their whole duration (Third Eye, Arm's Length, Bloodbath) and True North.

Kaiten was SAM's highest priority oGCD except where able to double-weave (in which case driftables took the lead, especially if a fight would go over 7 minutes). It was therefore a fair bit less lenient about when it could be hit and therefore about preemptively reserving weave space. It also meant that Kenki amounted to more than just 4-generic-spender-charges a la DRK MP if TBN's MP cost were removed.

There objectively was loss to SAM's depth of resource it being removed, just as there was from Senei being 50 gauge while on a separate CD-interval from Ikishoten. Whether the single button saved (a bit laughable an excuse at the time, though, when Ogi Namikiri remained separate from Ikishoten) was worth the loss in complexity or not is debatable, but there was a loss.

It wasn't like you had a mechanic that'd suddenly leave you flooded in gauge and you'd be using Kaiten on ~every GCD to not overcap it, the way Dancers semi-spam Sabre during burst. You might as well just fold the potency into the skills and remove Kaiten, you leave the amount of brain required to play at the exact same level but reduce RSI inducing mechanics in your players.

Again, see Shinten. In fact, see APM existing for so long as there are rote rotations.

If Kaiten had an interesting interaction with the kit, again, sure.

It had, by consequence of its requirements, kit-interaction more interesting than some 80% of extant Samurai skills and a good two-thirds of skills in any other job kit more broadly. It wasn't great individually, but virtually nothing in this game (or arguably any game) is. Such is scarcely possible, after all.

Now, to be clear: I don't hugely care whether Kaiten had stayed, as I still mostly enjoy Samurai so long as a fight gives me things to Gyoten and Yaten and occasionally Ogi-cleave, but let's not ignore how kit synergy actually works. It has at least as much to do with what constraints they impel upon the other kit and what cognitive load that introduces (potentially an "anti-synergy" in ease of output but a synergy in gameplay produced) as, say, how it removes a challenge in order to "shore up" a weakness (a synergy in ease of output but potentially an anti-synergy in gameplay produced). I just find the reasoning typically given for its removal rather ludicrous given what all else would then fall under the same warrants.

If skills can generally be described introducing directly or indirectly...

• a fair bit a depth (see Flare in the context of double-quickenings, pre-ShB MP costs, or Despair/Flare among nonstandard lines despite being very simple in itself),
• a little bit of depth (Fuma Shuriken in the era of oGCD mudras and DoT management to perfectly no-clip if its tuning had been even a sliver higher; Fracture among HW or ARR Monk when usable to avoid positional requirements while maintaining rhythm),
• a sliver of depth (e.g., Fracture on HW Warrior),
• or virtually no depth (Ikishoten / Ogi Namikiri / Namikiri-Gaeshi; etc.)

...Kaiten would have still been solidly in the upper half.