Samurai - Kaiten Issue

[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.

[SpeckledBurd]

SAM is a 40+ Action-Per-Minute class with half of those actions being oGCDs. You are simply wrong.

Depends on how you look at it. In terms of Raw Number of actions it doesn't really have a whole lot, especially compared to Dragoon/Ninja which have tons of oGCD actions. The thing that inflates Samurai's oGCD numbers is Shinten which while it is an oGCD is ultimately just a skill you use to prevent capping on gauge. Unlike Dragoon's Jumps or anything Ninja's Mudra's/everything else, there's rarely an opportunity cost to sitting on a Shinten unless you're about to cap on Kenki because by design it can't drift.

Because Samurai has a lot of freedom in how it uses it's oGCDs I failed to consider how Kaiten only really interacted with a single other button in all but the most Niche of circumstances.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

[Kabooa]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Yeah.

Never hit that slope in this game.

*looks at Tanks*

[Shurrikhan]

Depends on how you look at it. In terms of Raw Number of actions it doesn't really have a whole lot, especially compared to Dragoon/Ninja which have tons of oGCD actions. The thing that inflates Samurai's oGCD numbers is Shinten which while it is an oGCD is ultimately just a skill you use to prevent capping on gauge. Unlike Dragoon's Jumps or anything Ninja's Mudra's/everything else, there's rarely an opportunity cost to sitting on a Shinten unless you're about to cap on Kenki because by design it can't drift.

Because Samurai has a lot of freedom in how it uses it's oGCDs I failed to consider how Kaiten only really interacted with a single other button in all but the most Niche of circumstances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Anyone who has played Heavensward Monk at a high level should know that concern is quite warranted.

Or... you know... ever played a tank...