Proposed Samurai Adjustments/Fixes

[xxvaynxx]

Saying I'm frustrated when it comes to SE balancing Samurai is a understatement.

I'm not going to say anything about the dev's because we all love Yoshi-p and the team but I just want to show them how I really don't like how they balance Samurai.

As of right now, mnk is basically the best melee in ST which is suppose to go to us.
The melee DPS that offers nothing but dps to our party.

I really don't think its fair to us and what's worst is SE givien their track record is not even going to buff us to where we're comfortably ahead of the other melee Dps like how Black mage is ahead of the other caster.
Why is SE so afraid to buff samurai so high? But enough of that rant.

Some changes/adjustments I would love to see for samurai.

1.Return Hagakure Back to its original Form
Now this might not make much casual samurai's happy but what they don't know is Hagakure actually made samurai one of the most flexible Melee Dps due to resetting your sen and getting a dps gain out of it.
As of right now, Samurai works on a 60sec burst window but what this does is without Hagakure, it made samurai very strict and downtime pretty much hurts samurai pretty bad due to everything fall out of line, you also now need a certain amount of SkS so everything lines up nicely unlike before any sks works.

With what I said, here is a better more clear explanation why we need the old Hagakure back.

Original Hagakure's ultimate purpose was reset and realign without causing a damage loss. By being at 20 Kenki per Sen it allowed the rotation to be flexible at any Skillspeed tier. Just in case you weren't aware Samurai at the moment can only play at 2 different Skillspeed tiers before their rotation falls apart 2.13 second GCD and 2.06 second GCD. Currently Samurai has to use Yukikaze overwrites in order to realign itself with it's own rotation and other team member raid buffs if it experiences any amount of downtime or isn't at 2.13 or 2.06 gcd tier. Hagakure isn't taking away the reward at the end it's saving the job from clunky design.

While this skill is controversial its blatantly obvious that the development team and a large portion of the Samurai community believe there needs to be a way to reset Sens throughout a fight and anything mathematically less potent then Midare just won't be used due to the Sen trade off being too high. Adding it back at orginal Kenki generation would add much needed flexibility when it comes to the Skillspeed builds Samurai can choose from rather then the current builds that only want to be at 2.13 or 2.06 GCD. With the aforementioned change to Midare Kaeshi Hagakure wouldn't conflict with Tsubame Gaeshi or with the new style that Samurai is currently using in fact it would only make it better as more Kenki generation overall would make Shintens far more abundant while the double charge on Tsubame would make the job feel more bursty and coinside with the development teams view on Samurai using more Midare overall.

I also want to point out the 55 seconds to meikyo was VERY pointless, we still treat it as if it was 60sec because Tsubame is still 60sec. With that said.

2.Make Meikyo, Tsubame and Ikishoten 50 seconds.
Making these a shorter cooldown would actually ease up on the strictness of samurai and make the rotation more free flowing and smooth.
If you don't know, you actually have to Yukikaze Twice because too much sks, you'll actually get to these skills too quickly and will still be on CD.
EVERYTHING out of wack and nothing will line up anymore until you reach some downtime, its pretty stressful if you care about min and max.

3.Shoha
You all know it, this skill sucks. Nobody likes it.
But I've already made a whole thread about it and honestly...seeing as TK is still a thing. I have no hope of shoha getting changed but, please Yoshi and the team....we HATE this skill. Please let us use it a different way. Nobody wants this to proc off meditate. Meditate already gives us kenki.

What I really liked about samurai back in 4.x was how flexible and easy it was. SkS, downtime never affected samurai, it was well designed job but 5.x kinda took that away and is pretty much a dragoon now.
We have a fixed rotation and can't do what we want, all because they took away hagakure...well rather...Gutted it to the point we only do it to reset our sen on some downtime such as(E1 and E3) and converting the first yuki we do in our double yuki rotation.

I have a lot more to say but I'll post them later.
If anybody else have suggests that won't break samurai, please list them and I'll add it so the devs can hopefully see it if we all stick to one thread about samurai.
In the meantime, here are some links from other samurai's.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ead-on-Arrival
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...urai-and-Ninja
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ore-consistent.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...the-next-patch.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rai-Lv80-Skill.

Here are some idea's from our peers. All idea's are welcome but of course its up to Yoshi-P and the time to take them into consideration so be respectful.

1. Make Tsubame Gaeshi a charge ability with 2 stacks at 60 seconds that still copys the previous Iaijutsu but allows the Iaijutsu to be stored until the next Iaijutsu is used so that even if I decide to continue on with my next part of my combo I can use that Tsubame Gaeshi Midare/Tenka later without delaying it causing GCD drift. (Example Midare>Hakaze>Jinpu>Midare/Tenka Kaeshi>Gekko) this would eliminate the gcd drift that Tsubame incurs when a Midare/Tenka is not used right away and would give Samurai extra damage during raid buffs ,in their opener ,and after long downtime.

2. Give back Hagakure. While this skill is controversial its blatantly obvious that the development team and a large portion of the Samurai community believe there needs to be a way to reset Sens throughout a fight and anything mathematically less potent then Midare just won't be used due to the Sen trade off being too high. Adding it back at orginal Kenki generation would add much needed flexibility when it comes to the Skillspeed builds Samurai can choose from rather then the current builds that only want to be at 2.13 or 2.06 GCD. With the aforementioned change to Midare Kaeshi Hagakure wouldn't conflict with Tsubame Gaeshi or with the new style that Samurai is currently using in fact it would only make it better as more Kenki generation overall would make Shintens far more abundant while the double charge on Tsubame would make the job feel more bursty and coinside with the development teams view on Samurai using more Midare overall.

3.Shoha should become a trait that upon successfully using Third Eye to mitigate damage Seigan and Shinten become Shoha Enhanced for 10 seconds and each gain 150 extra potency. This would actively encourage players to use Third Eye to mitigate damage. The player base may see the idea of taking damage to gain a dps increase as a bad thing however as a Damage Dealer we don't have the liberty to be hit by things that can 1 shot us also the development team has put in all sorts of sneaky ways of keeping us out of AOEs they don't want us to stand in whether that be in the form of damage down, vulnerability up, or just plain death.

I think these changes would make for a great middle ground compromise between players that like to use midare more often and those that like to use Hagakure shinten spam while rewarding players for actively supporting their team by mitigating damage.

Recopying from my QoL suggestions thread:

With the above Hagakure changes, it would now be a QoL buff, but a massive one, and with no potency trap. Shoha would also be far easier, more intuitive, and more reliable to weave into combat.

Edit: If we wanted to bring SAM nearer to MNK and DRG's level, however, rather than bringing MNK and DRG down to everyone else's level (at present, MNK, DRG, BLM, and even SAM create a tier onto themselves in rDPS, above Ranged, Ninja, and the other casters), it might be as simple as reducing their wind-up a bit:

Instead of buffing Shifu and Jinpu at level 78, call the trait The Turning of the Wheel or Turn of the Seasons or the like and give the 3% additional Attack Speed and Damage baseline. If need be, then up the values to 4% for the four seasons of the world, rather than the "three seasons" of life.
Samurai

Meditate now ticks instantly and then once every half of a player GCD, rather than following the server tick. Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds. This better allows Meditate to be woven into combat without fear of it being unavailable for periods of long downtime, which in turn indirectly increases the attractiveness of Shoha.
Hagakure recast time reduced to 30 seconds and now scales with player GCD speed.
Tsubame-Gaeshi condition "Can only be executed immediately following Iaijutsu" has been removed. It now remembers your most recent Iajutsu, not just your most recent GCD, and can be cast for a given Iajutsu at any time until that Iajutsu is replaced by a different one's use, not only in the GCD immediately following your latest Iajutsu.
Shoha potency decreased to Meditation 1 Potency: 80 | Meditation 2 Potency: 170 | Meditation 3 Potency: 270 | Meditation 4 Potency: 380 | Meditation 5 Potency: 500. This allows for smoother generation of Meditation stacks without obliging it to be used at .5 GCDs' length immediately upon CD refresh for a nearly free 300 potency.
Ikishouten revised. The condition reading "Can only be executed while in combat” has been replaced with "When used outside of combat, recast time will not drain over time until having reentered combat.”
Hissatsu: Gyoten animation locked reduced.
Hissatsu: Gyoten potency increased to 120.
Hissatsu: Yaten potency increased to 120.
Third Eye cooldown reduced to 12 seconds.
Kaiten cooldown reduced to 1 seconds. However, Kaiten can no longer be used while the Kaiten buff is already active.
Hagakure buffed from 5 to 15 Kenki for each Sen consumed, but thereby remains such a small potency benefit (roughly 36 potency) that if it should prevent a conflict even half as often as its cooldown, it is better held than spent on cooldown. Any 3-step combo provides roughly 405 potency per GCD (including Kenki generation per Shinten). Kaiten-Midare dewals 1200 while spending 256 Shinten potency, thus exceeding average ppGCD by around 540. To be clear, it does less than half a positional or a tenth of a GCD of uptime bonus damage.
Hagakure given two charges at level 74. Level 74 trait name changed to Art of the Sword.