Thread: Samurai 5.0 changes, feedback/suggestions

So far I've been enjoying the changes. Just hit 68 and am starting to settle into a bit of an opener. Double Midare just feels really good and things line up nicely now with Meikyo, Ikishoten, and Tsubame being on 60 sec cooldowns (and Senei/Guren on 120).

Not sure how well it'll all line up at higher skill speeds, though.

Throwing my 2-cents (my 2-sens!) in as someone who started getting serious about sam a week before shadowbringers launch in the small hope that it reaches the ears of the dev team: Please give us back Hagakure!

Hagakure as a cooldown introduced a bit of ebb and flow to the job when it came to kenki management. If Hagakure was still far away from refreshing, you would play conservatively to make sure you have the kenki to boost a midare or higanbana (or both in quick succession). If you knew Hagakure was going to be off cooldown by the time you have your sen, you go nuts spending your kenki, switching from a build up and blow up style play to a frenzied constant-weaving style of play. It created some level of flexibility in how you could play if you understood what gives the most bang for your buck. As others have said, it also lets you dump your sen for phase transitions. You can use it to dump your sen if you want to refresh your higanbana (and gives you the kenki to boost it).

The new ikitoshin is just kind of their, kind of brainless, and doesn't really enhance the gameplay beyond "use this to shinten some more". Or syncing it with the 50-kenki spenders (gurren and the new one) so you can always use those attacks.

The new samurai set-up just seems kind of stiff without Hagakure to me, where we're always building up to Midares (and we can do a second Midare every minute now). No real feeling ebb and flow. I think it was durring a live letter they mentioned the reason for the change was because dumping sen feels bad? I can't agree with that idea at all. I love dumping sen, or that is to say (and I'm probably repeating myself) I love the ebb and flow, the give and take of the job.

Those are my personal feeling as someone who more recently took up the katana before Shadowbringers anyway.

As someone who has been playing sam since the launch of Stormblood, I am little disappointed in the current form that Sam is in. Right now it feels like our overall performance is equal or just a little higher to monk and dragoon without a raid utility. I feel as if Sam's dps doesn't get a boost, they will never be taken for a raid group. Keep in mind I am basing this on current 440 gear.

As far as Shoha (I was able to use it twice in Titania btw) And Mediate goes it's fine as it is, it's an ability to help make up for the loss dps during downtime and the other new abilities are okay, but something is missing, I know I'm doing less Shintens now than I did before. And that might be the issues with the overall DPS, even with the extra Midares. If the damage is going to stay as it, then we need a raid buff or boost to overall dps. (Maybe a slight redesign of a current ability, something similar to what they did to War in Stormblood)

If the job stays the way it is now, Sams will almost be never be taken for a raid group or even pug groups. It's kind of sad, because it's like they never learned from when monk was the selfish dps.

I just hope we don't have to wait until the next expansion for them to fix this. I guess it's time to find another dps I enjoy playing to main in Shadowbringers.

Originally Posted by Mikira

As someone who has been playing sam since the launch of Stormblood, I am little disappointed in the current form that Sam is in. Right now it feels like our overall performance is equal or just a little higher to monk and dragoon without a raid utility. I feel as if Sam's dps doesn't get a boost, they will never be taken for a raid group. Keep in mind I am basing this on current 440 gear.

As far as Shoha (I was able to use it twice in Titania btw) And Mediate goes it's fine as it is, it's an ability to help make up for the loss dps during downtime and the other new abilities are okay, but something is missing, I know I'm doing less Shintens now than I did before. And that might be the issues with the overall DPS, even with the extra Midares. If the damage is going to stay as it, then we need a raid buff or boost to overall dps. (Maybe a slight redesign of a current ability, something similar to what they did to War in Stormblood)

If the job stays the way it is now, Sams will almost be never be taken for a raid group or even pug groups. It's kind of sad, because it's like they never learned from when monk was the selfish dps.

I just hope we don't have to wait until the next expansion for them to fix this. I guess it's time to find another dps I enjoy playing to main in Shadowbringers.

I think Shoha is one of the most garbage thing i ever saw. In my opinion the concept is cool, but it's extremely bad in terms of a dps skill. As you said, in Titania for example you can use two fully stacked Shoha, and that's it. I'd rather prefer a stupid 200 potency ogcd with 30s cooldown, that would have been a better dps increase. Right now sam is quite the trash, being even outdpsed by the ridicolous and broken drg (and he has utility too!) and they also nerfed the senei which was 1250 potency in the media tour, because apparently sam seemed too strong. In truth is garbare, and i hate to say that as a sam main.
The lack of hagakure is garbage aswell, because during downtime it force you to start again hitting the boss with extremely weird and awkward openers.
I'm expecting a potency increase in his combo and nothing more to be honest.

Regarding the SAM changes...

Imo there is a lot of good things :
- Double Iaijutsu does flow nicely, although the fact that it's currently not affected by SkS will probably make it akward at higher ilvl later
- The AoE rotation is way, way better than it used to be. (Getting rid of TP and the buff refresh is amazing)
- The 40sec Shifu/Jinpu are also great because it gives a greater window of opportunity. I found myself being able to refresh Higanbana with Yukikaze a lot more now since refreshing Jinpu or Shifu wasn't an issue.
- Meikyo having a 60cooldown is also one of the biggest improvement, making Sen generation much easier.

However, I did find some issues with Sam as it is too.
The fact that we cannot get rid of our extra Sen makes it really hard sometimes to get back into the fight after downtime. While it wouldn't be that bad if we had an instant way of getting rid of them, the channeled Iaijutsu makes it harder to time it perfectly (and sometimes I regret being forced to use a Tenka Goken just to be able to execute a decent opener when the boss comes back).

Even though Yukikaze does gives more kenki, I found myself using way less kenki-spenders than before. I understand that Ikishôten is there for us to use either a Senei or two shinten, but the longer cooldown than Hagakure makes it so that sam generate less kenki than before, which means we're less likely to spend it on Shinten or Seigan, two oGCD that really powered up our DPS. Less oGCD usage means less damage overall and... It does feel like we're not doing as much as we did before.

Peoples are already saying that Dragoon and Monk are hitting harder than Samuraï, while I'm not certain that this is the case I do feel like we're not hitting as hard as we used to be. Maybe this is just an impression, maybe this will get fixed later.

Regarding Shoha, for the few times I've been able to use it, the highest numbers I've been able to put out with it is 18k damage at 5 stack with a Crit/DH... So just a bit less than a Crit/DH Yukikaze.
Maybe I was just unlucky, but this does seem like a weak ability for such a huge buildup.

TLDR : I don't feel like I'm hitting like a truck anymore, and I want to get rid of these useless Sen sitting there during downtime.