Thoughts of Samurai Changes

[SaberMaxwell]

In paper, yes.
But in practice, It's not gonna work with PUG, with people who never done it before, might work with static but who knows.
Still looks stupid nonetheless.

Are we talking optimization, or pugging?

Hypothetically if Samurai pulling was optimal, it wouldn't be the first time that an odd pull-habit was used. There were times back in StB where Bards built a sizable aggro lead for the tanks who would then voke off of them, which was possible because of abilities like Cover and TBN. That's all my point is.

[Kahnom]

Are we talking optimization, or pugging?

Hypothetically if Samurai pulling was optimal, it wouldn't be the first time that an odd pull-habit was used. There were times back in StB where Bards built a sizable aggro lead for the tanks who would then voke off of them, which was possible because of abilities like Cover and TBN. That's all my point is.

I can't say for Tank but for DPS, you don't need to make yourself look stupid to do high dps though.
If you do high numbers in the first place, your dps will be high regardless. Even without unmethodical stunts.
The point is " Is the potencies increased worth the trouble ? "
It's only 10 kenki in SAM case, not 50 kenki so it's not worth it for me.
but if the Tank I run with wants me to pull then I don't mind.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Is this accounting for potency-value-in-Kenki not generated over the Enpi GCD (and, of course, the bonus of Kaiten (Midare) potency-per-Kenki over Shinten and Iaijutsu's contribution to Shoha potency)?

This doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...HqQjslrwHd/pub) has the mathematical breakdowns.

It accounts for Kenki potency and Meditation potency, but it doesn't account for, as far as I'm aware, any possible rotational quirks introducing Yaten + Enpi into your rotation might cause (either positively or negatively). I'm not sure how relevant that would even be—in a vacuum—considering the increased rotational flexibility for SAM in Endwalker.

[FerinaHope]

Even putting aside the enpi thing and assuming they "fix" it, I very much dislike the open eyes thing, one more thing to try and keep track of when the boss is going to attack raidwide for every raid. On the other hand if they get rid of the annoying looping rotation that'd be great. I really just miss Stormblood Samurai, that was perfection...

[Naizakane]

I don't know why, but the devs seem hell bent on repeating this mistake, so showing them that it's a mistake by not even using it except in something like an ultimate fight that actually demands it would go a long way towards fixing the problem of unnecessary skill bloat.

Even if I account for Merciful Eyes not being on my hotbar in the first place (good riddance to the most useless button in SAM's kit,) I can easily fit Hyosetsu + Shoha 2 + Ogi on my hotbars. Samurai doesn't have a button bloat problem, and it definitely doesn't have one bad enough to justify refusing to press damage buttons.

That said, I do agree with you that I am extremely tired of "new" abilities that are just aoe or st versions of pre-existing skills. It's lazy, and even as someone that likes button bloat, I find this kind of bloat to be tedious. They never should have made kyuten, Senei or shoha 2. Or Hyosetsu for that matter but it's uniquely bad on it's own.

Never should have made kyuten, senei or shoha 2? Do you have a reason why, or are you just saying words? Kyuten is our AoE kenki dump the same way Shinten in our single target kenki dump. Senei is a better version of Guren for us to use in single target. Shoha 2 is an upgrade in AoE over Shoha. It would be more lazy to not add new abilities, as they come with new animations, sound effects and visual effects. Adding them sounds like a lot of effort for being lazy.

[Arkdra]

Even if I account for Merciful Eyes not being on my hotbar in the first place (good riddance to the most useless button in SAM's kit,) I can easily fit Hyosetsu + Shoha 2 + Ogi on my hotbars. Samurai doesn't have a button bloat problem, and it definitely doesn't have one bad enough to justify refusing to press damage buttons.



Never should have made kyuten, senei or shoha 2? Do you have a reason why, or are you just saying words? Kyuten is our AoE kenki dump the same way Shinten in our single target kenki dump. Senei is a better version of Guren for us to use in single target. Shoha 2 is an upgrade in AoE over Shoha. It would be more lazy to not add new abilities, as they come with new animations, sound effects and visual effects. Adding them sounds like a lot of effort for being lazy.

Dude my whole point is that aoe versions of single target skills are lazy design and add nothing to the job. Why do we have Kyuten when Shinten could have just been, "delivers an attack with 320 potency to 1 target and X% less to all other targets within range" to make the math work out to Kyuten damage. The extra button serves no valuable purpose other than being an extra separate button. Which is not necessarily bad, there is some value to that sort of thing. But not when you're adding buttons to an already bloated job. I redid my sam bar for EW after the Media tour and I've got like 1 free space left on my bars. We did not really need more buttons (other than ogi namakiri which I need for the joy it will bring me) and we especially didn't need something like shoha 2.

[Naizakane]

Your suggestion would have been lazier though, you'd only make one animation, one skill effect and one sound effect rather than two. Buttons like Kyuten exist because you can end up not having enough actions and feeling like you don't have much to do, and buttons like Senei exist because they're big damage buttons that you didn't have before. I'll also have 1 free slot on my three hotbars, as I'll be taking Leg Sweep off because it's not really doing anything. Shoha 2 is a welcome addition as well, it gives Meditation stacks a proper use in AoE situations rather than just pressing Shoha and accepting that there's no spender for AoE.

[Shurrikhan]

Shoha 2... gives Meditation stacks a proper use in AoE situations rather than just pressing Shoha and accepting that there's no spender for AoE.

No, Shoha 2 doesn't. Having a Meditation spender that deals AoE damage does (at least, ostensibly).

Do you see the difference?

There is absolutely no need for twice as many buttons just to add the dry-as-dust mechanic of counting whether one's enemy is singular or plural.

There are no focus target damage requirements in this game significant enough to forfeit even 30+% total damage.
________________

But let's get back to that "ostensible" part. Your AoE is going to balanced either with or without Meditation stacks. If you have an AoE Meditation spender, you lose a bit of AoE ppm (in the form of potency-per-use) from somewhere else.

But not having that AoE Meditation spender means that you don't lose that bit of Kyuten/Oka/Mangentsu/HyosetsuGuren ppm, or you only face its cut of the budget proportionate to 1 in n (where n is your nominal "average pull size"), because it mostly falls outside of the domain of those AoE balance decisions.

As such, you get either free or disproportionately useful focus-target damage. If free, that's just gravy by which to make sure that last enemy doesn't die much later than the rest. If it takes some part of your budget, the ability to make up for the difference in the rate of crits and/or direct hits against the luckiest enemy in the enemy pack is still more than worth it for the pack's time-to-kill.

All an AoE-capable Shoha does is trade managing enemy health pools in AoE pulls for the slight preference not to spend Meditation stacks if there's a large AoE pull coming up before your next Meditation stack gained.

:: Personally, I'd prefer a middle-ground: 50% fall-off. Fewer SAMs would complain about being "nerfed" by Shoha in AoE when they're actually not, but I'd still actually have reason to manage on which targets I use it.

[Naizakane]

No, Shoha 2 doesn't. Having a Meditation spender that deals AoE damage does (at least, ostensibly).

So Shoha 2, the Meditation spender that deals AoE damage, does not give Meditation stacks a proper use in AoE situations, but a Meditation spender that deals AoE damage would give Meditation stacks a proper use in AoE situations. I don't really need to read the rest of your post if that's how you start off.

[Arkdra]

Your suggestion would have been lazier though, you'd only make one animation, one skill effect and one sound effect rather than two. Buttons like Kyuten exist because you can end up not having enough actions and feeling like you don't have much to do, and buttons like Senei exist because they're big damage buttons that you didn't have before. I'll also have 1 free slot on my three hotbars, as I'll be taking Leg Sweep off because it's not really doing anything. Shoha 2 is a welcome addition as well, it gives Meditation stacks a proper use in AoE situations rather than just pressing Shoha and accepting that there's no spender for AoE.

-We're talking about mechanical laziness, the art teams work has no bearing. Art teams going to be making the same number of animations and sound effects regardless.

-I already said that the aoe alt skills exist to fill up up space on bars and be uninspired skill design to check off new expansion skill requirements. I also said that this can have value in some cases, but it doesn't for samurai. Samurai already has 35 buttons on their bars counting role actions in endwalker. If they got rid of these pointless aoe skills it would drop to 33 which is still in the top end of button bloated jobs.

-Again, like I already said, senei being big damage is meaningless. They coulda made Gurren do 1200 potency with damage dropoff to mimic gurrens aoe damage on other targets. This is just math to work out.

-shoha could have also been given the above treatment.

These buttons all suck. They aren't exciting. They don't force me to alter my play pattern or consider anything of value other than a binary of being in ST or AOE. It's button bloat. If this were, say, machinist, a job that has about 22 buttons all told, it would be whatever. Mch could probably use more buttons, even poorly designed ones like st/aoe splits. But samurai didn't.