Samurai - Kaiten Issue

[Shurrikhan]

True, but can easily be fixed with a trait at 52 instead of Kaiten being introduced to the move set. (lvl 52 trait Iaijutsu is now 50% more potent, but now costs 20 kenki)

I guess many of us players are just as forgetful about the leveling experience as the devs seem to be.

At level 52, you'd be limited to Midare only. Higanbana, generating only 5-10 Kenki over its Sen generation in ST combat, and Tenka Goken, generating only 10-15 Kenki over its Sen generation in ST combat, would be impossible to cast. That or you'd be forced to spam Enpi to make up the difference. And all that's assuming the Samurai lands every positional, else they can't even use Midare until having overridden as many Sen as they missed positionals (or, spam Yukikaze).

You don't get anything like current Kenki play until level 62. The two experiences are worlds apart.

[Jorthak]

hmm good point. guess it would require more trait / ability shuffling... hmm...

[Duskane]

What if Kaiten became a heavy thrust/enochian type of buff

[Shurrikhan]

What if Kaiten became a heavy thrust/enochian type of buff

Then it'd be far less compelling even than now. There's a good reason Enochian is considered bloat and Heavy Thrust, also considered bloat, was removed.

[cactuarzzzz]

Or combine Kenki Mastery 1&2 and give it to SAM at lv.50. Not sure if it's a good idea.

[Shurrikhan]

Or combine Kenki Mastery 1&2 and give it to SAM at lv.50. Not sure if it's a good idea.

The potency implications of such a skill would be massive. And, again, I just don't see the point. Kaiten hasn't been a poorly designed skill and, if they'd just fix the accidental double-tap issue, would in no way be a poorly designed skill now.

I'd agree readily if one wanted to make the claim that Shoha/Meditation, Senei/Guren, or Third Eye/Merciful Eyes/Seigan could use some consolidation. But, Kaiten?

[cactuarzzzz]

The potency implications of such a skill would be massive. And, again, I just don't see the point. Kaiten hasn't been a poorly designed skill and, if they'd just fix the accidental double-tap issue, would in no way be a poorly designed skill now.

I'd agree readily if one wanted to make the claim that Shoha/Meditation, Senei/Guren, or Third Eye/Merciful Eyes/Seigan could use some consolidation. But, Kaiten?

I mean instead of 2 mastery at separate level, make it just 1 skill and move it to lv 50. but I can agree it isn't a good idea.

[Jorthak]

As i thought about it, the DPS for Sam is a bit low at 50 and 60 due to the lack of Kenki anyways.

Why not make it so the Kenki generation rate at level 52 works like the Kenki mastery 2 trait. Then move Kaiten to a trait at 52 to be a 25% damage increase to Iaijutsu, and also add the 20 Kenki cost to Iaijutsu? (This way the Sam DPS gets to be comparable to other DPS at 60 at the very least) Then the level where Kenki Mastery 2 used to be, add in Kaiten Mastery 2 which then increases the value to 50% at the same cost of 20 Kenki?

Also i seen a post about making a mistake and using Kaiten with "Gekko, Kasha, Yukikaze" for example while it has it's 5 second recast timer. The thing is sure it sucks you have to wait 5 second to use Kaiten again, but you can also "Queue up" your next combo before using Kaiten again. Meaning: Hakaze (2 - 2.5 seconds) > Shifu (2 - 2.5 seconds) > Kaiten > Iaijutsu > Kasha without fear of losing your combo too. So while the recast timer can be kind of detrimental, you can still get around it by queueing up another combo while you wait for the recast timer. There is no way to get back lost kenki on accidental button presses. (in the immediate sense) so by having it as a 1 second recast, you hurt yourself even more because now not only could you accidentally use it with "Kasha, Gekko, or Yukikaze" you can also accidentally press it twice causing even more error.

The argument of Heavy Thrust / Enochian for a comparison is kind of a bad one, if Kaiten were to be a 30 second consistent damage bonus, then yes it would be like Heavy Thrust / Enochian, but since it's "consumed" upon the next weapon skill used, it doesn't function the same was as those 2 abilities. Because of that reason it becomes even more of a bloated ability than Heavy Thrust and Enochian ever was.

[SpeckledBurd]

Or combine Kenki Mastery 1&2 and give it to SAM at lv.50. Not sure if it's a good idea.

I wouldn't be opposed to it. Right now Kenki Mastery 1 is frankly really low impact and results in you being starved for using Gyoten when you'd normally want to use a gap closer and not always being able to Kaiten your Iaijutsu. The problem is Kenki Mastery 2 is designed around having Shinten as a dump, so it'd either create bad habits where you'd Kaiten combo finishers, waste gauge, or they'd have to move Shinten down to 52 and make Samurai super busted at those levels (not that the devs care about low level job functionality).

The alternative would be to add a trait at level 52 when you get Kenki mastery 2 called "Enhanced Iaijutsu" that adds the Kenki cost to Iaijutsu in exchange for boosting the potency of all the Kenki actions. That ends up being a slight nerf to Samurai at 50-61, but again the devs don't balance around Job feel or damage output at anything but the top level.

My issue with Kaiten isn't even the potential multiple misuses. Though I won't deny that a misused Kaiten basically costs you two gcds, and that stings. As was pointed out earlier, Kaiten will ALWAYS be paired with iaijutsu. This makes iaijutsu rely on multiple resources, and few things in this game piss me off more than skills that require multiple resources to use. Guren and Senei suffer the same as well. As does Third Eye.

Many things can be done to trim SAMs hedges that is for sure.

I hadn't considered it before now because Samurai as a job has basically nothing in the way of oGCDs to weave, but this exact interaction was one of the things I hated so much about Power Surge on Dragoon in Heavensward. You literally just used it on every other Jump and there was no more thought to it than that, and they changed it just by increasing the potency of Jump by 50 which evened out. So just folding the cost of Kaiten onto Iaijutsu just saves a button press and doesn't buff the job or effect the kenki economy in any way, it's a good change.

[Shurrikhan]

I hadn't considered it before now because Samurai as a job has basically nothing in the way of oGCDs to weave, but this exact interaction was one of the things I hated so much about Power Surge on Dragoon in Heavensward. You literally just used it on every other Jump and there was no more thought to it than that, and they changed it just by increasing the potency of Jump by 50 which evened out. So just folding the cost of Kaiten onto Iaijutsu just saves a button press and doesn't buff the job or effect the kenki economy in any way, it's a good change.

The only way to make a mistake when using Power Surge, however, was to outright forget it exists. That's not quite the case for Kaiten. Heck, Kaiten is more like Geirskogul back in Heavensward, when it came at cost of Blood of the Dragon duration, than it is to Power Surge; it's a shared-resource interaction -- an obligatory one, but an interaction nonetheless that must be accounted for in advance.

And what's the next step, then? If Kaiten is bloat because it's used only at a specific time, then what about Shinten, which is used only as a last resort and thus "complicated" only by however many prior layers of greater efficiency come before it (Senei > Kaiten > Seigan)? Heck, what about Senei/Guren, since it's already simply used once every 2 minutes and spends the rest of the time as bar bloat and is only complicated by Kaiten and Ikishoten... or, literally just Ikishoten, which would already be paired to its use and therefore would only remove the 50-gauge complication outright? Where do we drawn the line here? Every block you pull from the fundamentals of Samurai's gauge system will have a toppling effect on its more advanced components. Kaiten, at least, requires foresight where Shinten requires none. Due to Ikishoten, Guren (and ofc Senei) now require even less than they used to -- arguably no more, now, than Kaiten.

If anything, shouldn't we be considering how we can make Kaiten have other situations for its usefulness rather than gutting what little complexity remains to the job? For instance, what if Ikishoten allowed for compounding (non-Iajutsu) weaponskill potency rather than granting a Guren/Senei of gauge? Or what if you tossed in an Art of Sword/Swell/Storm mechanic that similarly gave other circumstances by which Kaiten would be more efficient on a non-Iajutsu weaponskill than Shinten -- something situational that you could work towards and exploit? And consider -- Kaiten will always be used with Iajutsu, true, but not every Iajutsu, especially given a mistake or an incoming, unfortunately-timed jump, will be used with a Kaiten.

:: There are enough situations in which I might prefer to conserve gauge over buffing an Iajutsu that I'd rather Kaiten remain manual in its interaction with Iajutsu. And I certainly don't want to see Samurai's complexity gutted even further.