Thread: 6.1 Samurai

I agree with the person above.
If they really wish for samurai's abilities to be guaranteed critical hits, why doesn't Kaiten simply get changed to:
->Makes the next weapon skill do critical damage.

The potency adjustments they worked on so far can be the same since they were adjusting to count for Kaiten's 50% more damage to be removed, but hey we can make everyone happy as Square Enix does listen to feedback right?

And for button bloat, how about removing Shoha 1, and increase the damage on Shoha 2?
Or making Ikishoten turn into Ogi Namikiri when used?

Like many others here, I created this forum account just to speak my mind on the 6.1 SAM changes. As someone who started raiding with SAM and has continued playing SAM ever since, I have been pretty satisfied with SAM's gameplay in EW as a whole. The 6.1 change however feels like a rug's been pulled out from under my feet. I'm not posting to criticize the devs; I think they've done a wonderful job with this game. Just wanted to put some thoughts out there for discussion and possibly consideration.

I have very little to say about kaiten that has not already been said in this thread. Kaiten feels iconic and to me, is an absolutely essential part of SAM's job identity. If button bloat is the identified problem, then there are many other candidates who are more egregious offenders (ie shoha/shoha 2, ikishoten/namikiri, and I would argue senei and guren could potentially be merged into a single button with high potency on single target and dps falloff on subsequent targets a la double down and shadowbringer).

As for the autocrit changes, I understand where the devs were coming from in trying to reduce the crit variance on SAM's heavier hitting skills. This might be motivated by trying to make SAM's dps more independent from stacking crit % raidbuffs and to increase SAM's overall average DPS output.

After some thinking on what could have been done to better address the dev's overall concerns in making these changes, my proposed solution is as such:
1. Keep kaiten, but change its effect to: increase potency of next iaijutsu by 50% and increasing its base crit % to 40-50% - I'm not too minded about removing the potency buff and moving the potency over to iaijutsu potency, but I think having kaiten give a base crit chance which stacks with crit% raidbuffs is a nice balance which achieves the goals of reducing crit % variance while allowing SAM to remain synergistic with raid buff comps + allowing us to continue enjoying kaiten. I also have considered that in order for shinten to remain relevant over kaiten, this effect should be limited to solely iaijutsu;
2. Ditch shoha, keep shoha 2 but change the effect to higher single target potency with aoe potency falloff;
3. Same as 2 for senei and guren; and
4. Ikishoten into namikiri.

I understand that some of the changes might already be set in stone for the 6.1 patch release, but I sincerely hope that our voices in this thread will be seen and considered for a future 6.1x patch. Am interested in seeing what other players might have to say about my suggestions and I'm hoping this thread can be filled with some constructive feedback for the Dev team to possibly work off.

This is the first time I've needed to post in support of reverting proposed changes since I started playing FFXIV. Please don't go down the route Blizzard has done, in slowly simplifying jobs to the point that they're dull and mindless to play. Kaiten is an essential skill; firstly because without it Kenki is pretty much pointless, and secondly since it breaks up downtime between the extremely slow GCD wait period. Removing it lowers the skill threshold of the class. Please don't think less of your players and simplify jobs. I urge a reevaluation of these changes.

I never posted on the official forum but they really need to reconsider the removal of Kaiten. It really is a role defining skill. The idea of removing it is really a terrible idea.

Kaiten is pointless and is only a flavour animation and I've thought this from day one. There isn't a time you don't use it before an iajustu cast and all combos give 20 kenki. This change is nice. But the animation is pretty and I would hope they would make it so you would do the animation during the cast bar of your iajustu. Then you get to do the kaiten in spirit and do more shintens.

Reposting a short version of my main thread.

Instead of bickering about subjective measures such as aesthetics or depths of the skill, let's examine Kaiten with the scope of Action Bloat in mind using CPM as metric.

In 4.x, Samurai use Hagakure to eat Sen and spam more shinten, Kaiten is not action bloat
In 5.x, standard 1 min rotation uses 4 Kaiten per min, no compaints to Kaiten being action bloat.
In 6.0, Meikyo charge adds 1 extra Kaiten on opener, and Ogi 1 extra kaiten every 2 mins.

In ShB E12S P1, top 3 SAM had CPM of 47.6, 47.8, and 47.1
In EW P4S P2, top 3 SAM had CPM of 46.1, 45.3, and 46.1

Top P4S P2 log had 33 cast of Kaiten on 6:43 kill, that's 4.9 CPM. That's equivalent to 660 Kenki or 26.4 Shiten Casts, which is 3.93 CPM. It is barely a change, and EW SAM already has lower CPM than ShB SAM, the action bloat arugment does not stand.

No Action Bloat = No need to remove Kaiten.

Kaiten ain't pointless Undraw is pointless just play the damn card.