Hissatsu: Kaiten

[MagicalChase]

Besides, I like white mage it's fun.

[MagicalChase]

This has already played out in WoW. People complained about too many buttons, every class got pruned to nothing, it was awful and not fun, years later the devs reversed course. Hopefully the FF14 devs don't make the same mistake. Having a mix of complex jobs and simple jobs is good for the game. If every job gets turned into Summoner I would probably just quit. Yoship saying today that DRG is getting changes because it's "too busy" (lolwut) already has me worried.

Summoner was the canary in the coal mine/

[KokaSokaLoka]

As a SAM main I'd like to add my thoughts to this

1. Hissatsu Kaiten is a fun flavor ability. It's not just a button press that puts the buff on your bar and you press for the sake of pressing it, there's a cool animation to it that adds to the feel of the class. Taking it away is just not fun.

2. Button bloat IS NOT THE SAME as ogcd usage. SAM has a BUTTON BLOAT issue, not an ogcd issue. The fact that they cite getting rid of this due to button bloat does feel tone deaf when Shoha 1 and 2 exist and when Ikishoten and Ogi Namikiri are different buttons. That's already two buttons. If it was really that big of an issue after those two quick fixes you could combine the single target and aoe kenki spenders, or give Jinpu -> Gekko and Shifu -> Kasha the GNB treatment. That's 4 more buttons available. Not sure if it'd be a programming nightmare but combining the Iaijutsus with the Kaeshi charges could also reduce another button. That's 7 buttons in all they could reduce before even taking a look at Kaiten.

3. More on ogcd usage. I like having a lot of ogcds. If I'm not feeling that, I've got a boat load of classes with far easier ogcd management I could play. But to me, the "piano" classes have always been the most fun. People complain about FFXIVs slow GCD speed when they start the game, but that's because they don't realize how much weaving has to be done in end game. If it was ogcd usage that was a problem third eye would be on the chopping block. I like weaving kaiten, shinten, senei, third eye and shoha - it's a big part of why I play the class. If button bloat was the issue, they had ways of resolving that without taking away an ogcd.

[KokaSokaLoka]

4. Resource management. We went from having 3 kenki spenders down to 2, which Senei/Guren is a on 2 minute CD that lines up with Ikishoten so really you had 2 kenki spenders down to 1 now. Having a gauge with only one way to spend the resource is boring. Other classes have that issue. I'm sure some people like it and I'm fine with that, let them have some classes that have that option. But having to balance kenki usage to ensure I didn't dip below Kaiten's cost was part of the fun in resource management. It wasn't just a button for the sake of pressing a button like BLMs Enochian was. Because unlike Enochian where you're going to press it no matter what, floating kenki high so you have enough kenki to do what you need while having the risk of overcapping was a conscious choice with autonomous decision making. On top of that, since Senei only takes 25 kenki it was helpful to be able to weave kaiten and shinten together to eat 45 kenki before ikishoten came up so I could maximize kenki for raid buffs.

5. SAM still puts out good damage even if you don't play it optimally. Forget to Kaiten before midare? Not the end of the world. Never touch third eye? Not a gigantic loss. Overcap your kenki on accident? No big deal. You could play the class as casually as you wanted and still do decent damage. But I like high skill ceilings. You can make the skill floor as low as you want, but don't lower the skill ceiling. Optimizing is a big part of the fun for me, simple classes just leave me kind of bored. Resolving button bloat would do far more in helping more casual players pick up the class.

6. Just to add to this since it's related to kaiten being taken away: I don't like autocrits. I don't like them for WAR and I don't like it for SAM. On top of it being anti-synergetic with crit buffs it's just not a fun philosophy. When every hit is a crit, no hit is a crit. What's the fun of rolling a Nat 20 when there are no other numbers on the dice? If damage variance was the issue the easy answer was to reduce the potency of Ogi Namikiri/Midare and move it into the rest of the kit. If SE is planning on guaranteeing crits more and more then at the very least crit buffs need to move from improving crit chance to improving crit damage.

All in all, I felt like SAM was in an incredibly solid spot at this point and could've gone without ANY changes compared to some of the other classes. I don't really care if this class is the top dps class or the ideal dance partner, I stuck with SAM when RPR came out and MNK was the king of melee damage. I like the class, Kaiten is a big part of the class. So unless there's more changes coming that are going to resolve the issues I've described above I can't imagine that these changes will be fun ones.

[LittleImp]

I've actually been leveling SAM lately, and find this decision pretty baffling. The job has plenty of pretty pointless button-bloat, like Shoha II, Kyuten and Senei.

Why opt to remove something that actually has a distinct impact on the jobs flow and resource management, instead of consolidating one of those skills? It feels like they want to reduce every job to simply button mashing everything on cooldown.

[ShanaShirayuki]

the irony of someone not knowing SAM's kit trying to "git gud" over the removal of the most boring part of the kit is hilarious. in ST you use your Kenki on Shinten and Senei, in AoE on Kyuten and Guren

I can name other abilities they could change or remove instead of removing a core mechanic of the class; nonetheless one that gives it an identity along with the cool sword twirling animation.

I. Shoha II; lazily named ability that could be traited to Shoha for fall-off aoe damage.
II. Senei and Guren; the same could be done to this.
III. Ikishoten and Namikiri

I was proud to play a class that demands high skill to do optimal damage; removing Kaiten to 'combat button bloat' does nothing but remove part of the class' core identity and dumbs it down when there are other areas that could have been addressed. As an addendum if it means anything, SAM Main here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Minarisweet]

Guess I'm in the minority because I think the new SMN is crazy fun to play. In fact, it's in my top three most fun jobs to play in the game.

I play summoner when I wanna go braindead and its worked so far! I fell asleep during ivalice raids atleast 3 times while playing summoner and atleast 5 times while doing extreme trials this job is the best!!!!

[Alpheus]

This sucks it felt good to use, hope they hear enough people complain about this and they revert it, felt good to use and played into the Job Fantasy SAM had imo, they should get rid of SGE's Dark Arts ability if anything* since that will lead to people getting carpal tunnel (try DoT'ing packs of mobs during dungeon pulls).

*Yea I know they'd have to massively rework SGE to do so but that's a bigger offender than Kaiten ever was is my point

[Minarisweet]

To be honest even if the removal of this skill is not the end of the world it does go to show that the devs tend to do irrational decisions that kill the fun of players more and more, kaiten shouldn't had gone just like that there were other skills that since the reveal of the job tooltips for ew has been said they could just be the same button and SE just acts like they couldn't do anything and a lot of people defending this decision by just saying they don't care about it enough, do you even care about the game at this point tho?

[Xuled]

Yeah it’s annoying. It’s not like the player base will get any better. No matter how much the devs try to lift the skill floor, you’ll still have … GCBTWers.