Thread: 6.1 Samurai

Hey, All this time I've been watching this forum as a silent reader, especially all things SAM. I'm a SAM main to a fault, and you can consider me as a casual player. Although I've been only playing for 5-6 months, I played quite a lot and most of my time I spend as a SAM.

I appreciate what devs trying to do, I really am. But this feels like a sucker punch out of nowhere. I was about to start my foray into savage raiding but now with our muscle memory literally hijacked, I don't even know what to say anymore. Hopefully 6.1 content will be good enough to justify my sub, because I can already see where this is going, they say they want to reduce button bloat but what they really have in mind is dumbing down all jobs. It just so happens that SAM is taking the L this patch, and I happen to be a SAM main, which gives me a bittersweet feeling when they say they gonna remove Kaiten.

Please, just stop.

I have created a forum account just to feedback publically about this.

Samurai does have button bloat, that in undeniable, and while it's manageable for most right now, it'll get worse later. So efforts to fix that are welcome. But Kaiten is the wrong skill to target to reduce this.

This isn't because Kaiten use is skillful – it's not – and I assume that the numbers will all make sense down the road, but rather because the loop of that flourish of the sword before delivering the key attacks that the entire class is built around just feels good. This is both because the animations work so incredibly well together, in a way that hasn't been topped yet, and also from a purely human perspective: you're taking this short breath before delivering the big hit you've built up to.

In short, while I understand that Kaiten doesn't add much from a purely game system point of view, it is central to the feeling of the class, and will be missed.

Both of these changes are quite tone-deaf. Why not put guaranteed crit on Resolution, Hyosho Ranryu, Double Down then? Feels bad whenever your cool finishers don't crit.
Or maybe it's time to just rethink philosophy behind crit entirely since there's only so much fun to be had with getting double damage on your abilities completely randomly.

In the grand scheme of things it changes very little. That said, its probably my favorite button. The concept of weaving in a charge before your big hit is simply fun and the animation is one of my favorite animations. They could have easily just made Shoha 1 an aoe with potency drop off and removed shoha 2 instead of removing kaiten. I'm not really sure bloat was the reason its being removed and more so has to do with balance and them not knowing what to do with it now that their 3 biggest moves all auto crit.

Originally Posted by Luin

Should we upgrade Shoha1 into Shoha2?

New Shoha 2:
Range 3 -> 5y
Deliver an attack with a potency of 580 to the target and 200 to all other nearby ennemies.

Repeat for every ability sharing a cooldown with an aoe variant.
I solved button bloat.

Kaiten was kinda never exploited, mainly used everytime you are going to spend your stickers.
But I do agree there was better solution than removing Kaiten...

I wish they'd stop blowing smoke into the air when they make job changes to "reduce button bloat". As stated previously, there's many other examples of button bloat in this job that can be baked into other actions. So why then, remove job identity and flavor with the removal of Kaiten? This continuation of the Shadowbringer's job design philosophy is starting to make less sense. Unless, of course, you change the narrative and recognize these changes are to reduce the skill ceiling, and boost the skill floor. You know... it's OK to have, as the devs like to say, "busy" jobs, right?

Kaiten is iconic and flowed nicely with the job's kit. But hey, I guess we have a bunch of extra kenki now to spend on burst windows outside of 2 minutes... oh wait.

Originally Posted by Quyn

I welcome the removal of kaiten. I never felt it was an interesting or valueable part of the flow or rotation but such views are very personal.

I do not seeit as a reduction of skill expression as there never was any decision making or variance involved. A key pressed before every sen finisher and thats all.

I dont see it as being similar to removing shinten or other skills, as i see those holding more meaningful positions in the kit.

I feel sorry for the sam players upset by this removal. Time will tell what the majority thinks.

Skill isn't really what I think people are taking issue with. Kaiten just fit well with the class fantasy and people enjoyed the design of buffing before your big attacks. Personally for me the differences of having it or not makes little difference in actual gameplay, but in terms of enjoyment I definitely wont like it being gone because now there's going to be this awkward hole when doing midare or ogi.