Thoughts of Samurai Changes

[Shurrikhan]

You're not losing a whole lot then. I would even wager the QoL gained for players who despise having to do this is greater than the engagement lost from no longer having to do it lv86 onwards.

So the value of losing engagement to those who don't like doing things is greater than the value of engagement lost to those who do? Hrmm. Even if that were the case, I'm not sure that's a design principle we should be favoring.

[Gemina]

So the value of losing engagement to those who don't like doing things is greater than the value of engagement lost to those who do? Hrmm. Even if that were the case, I'm not sure that's a design principle we should be favoring.

You realize you're making a pretty big deal out of something very minor, correct? The negative impact of this change is quite literally next to nothing, and will likely just translate to less damage lost over the long term across the playerbase.

[Shurrikhan]

You realize you're making a pretty big deal out of something very minor, correct? The negative impact of this change is quite literally next to nothing, and will likely just translate to less damage lost over the long term across the playerbase.

Present considerations unique to AoE:

• Remember that combos are only 2 steps long.
• Position radial AoE at center of mob pack.
• Position conal AoE at edge of mob pack
• Aim conal AoE to an enemy who will center the cone around the mob pack.
• Be sure to be positioned within the hitboxes of any enemies at the base of the cone. You will aim at a more distant enemy, but you can still strike any enemies whose hitboxes are intersected by any space between the center and 'frontal' edge of yours.
• Target-swap in order not to lose auto-attack uptime even when casting Tenka on enemies out of range to maximize its coverage.
• Use large mobs(' hitboxes as cone base) to minimize distance that most be moved between optimizing conal and radial AoE.
• Predict tank positioning as not to let more distant centering Tenka targets move out of cone. (Generally, be around 90 degrees from tank, on the side they're more likely to dodge to, such that they cleave you but also don't run mobs through and past Tenka, especially before lv74, or outrange Tenka).

Most of the nuance of our AoE spam was quite strictly because of having those switches between conal and radial AoEs. We retain that partially with Tenka, but that's it; the frequency of that engagement has gone 4 in 5 GCDs to 1 in 5.

Is it a small change? Yes. Is it a bad one? Imo, also yes. And it most definitely perpetuates design concepts I think are damaging to the game.

For context:

Imo, good "QoL" changes: Ten Chi Jin changes; Gnashing Fang combo consolidation (you literally could just swipe your finger over the keys for all three and queue the next usable one); removal of BotD (at least since it stopped having any impact in combat -- i.e., Shadowbringers), etc.
Imo, "QoL" changes arguably good or bad: Buffs from Oka/Mangetsu (assuming accordant rebalance), Enochian being basically just removed rather than turned into a gameplay-affecting trait (wherein losing AF or UI drops progress towards next Foul/Xeno), etc.
Imo, bad "QoL" changes: Shadowfang being turned from a rotational element into Sonic Break v2, then removed; this change to Fuga; etc.