Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

[badonkadonk]

I play on controller and button bloat, for me, is a issue, even because i'm not very quick with my fingers. That said, i don't like this change and i would have liked more if they had merged ikishoten with ogi-namikiri and kaeshi-namikiri.

[Ransu]

Sam feels horrible now. I had a gekko direct hit crit for more damage than ogi. The auto crits are now wet noodles while also having an awkward pause between them without kaiten. Even filling it with shinten....there is still a weird pause. I hate everything about this and might go back to playing my old drg main that I haven't mained since HW.

[Acece]

Sam feels absolutely barren now during burst phases. it feels horrible. Goodbye my sweet sweet sam, you will be missed.

[StriderZessei]

I genuinely don't understand this uproar.
Kaiten was cool, but it was literally just busywork, a single button used in a singular fashion. It served no function other than to punish players for making a mistake.
Now SAM have more consistent damage that doesn't have to all be tightly aligned with a strict burst window.
Have you all even tried weaving Shinten between your Midare and Kaeshi Stetsugekkas? It's really fun.
I've been a SAM main since SB, and between this and the Tenka Goken change, I can't remember the last time the Job has been this fun.
Could it use a couple potency buffs for the big hits? Sure. But to say that the class identity has been gutted is not hyperbolic and disingenuous.

[KatsukoYashiro]

It served no function other than to punish players for making a mistake.

if you don't like your mistakes having consequences I don't know what to tell you. That's kinda the whole point of mastering a rotation.

[GuillyTheKid]

Just gave new SAM for a spin and I am not a fan. So I'm going to add to the thread so the devs can get that feedback. I'm already echoing a lot of comments people have made before and there are definitely a lot of reasons, both subjective and objective but in the end, for me playing the class just feels off or wrong now. I will try to comment on each of the changes that are impactful in some way.

1. Kaiten. I understand both sides of removing Kaiten. It's just a button you push before every iai anyways so it is arbitrary. It adds some depth with resource management. It ties 2 of your resources together. The animation is cool and the anticipation feels awesome. For me it boils down to one thing after giving 6.1 SAM an honest try. Regardless of the math, removing it from the rotation was a bigger impact than i thought to the SAM identity, feel, and fantasy. The rotation just feels weird. It's hard to understate how Kaiten really added to the SAM flow. It was like a move that really separated the difference between regular GCDs and your Iais. With the removal of it, the Iais lost a lot of luster and impact. It was like you lost a hype-man before you dropped the mic. Now Iais feel less impactful because of this (and another obvious reason). While it may be an arbitrary button push, it was still a fun button to push. Now SAM Kenki is just using Shinten when you have it and saving it to spam in burst. Which brings me to the second point.

2. What burst? It really hardly feels like a burst anymore. I understand the goal in removing wildly fluctuating DPS due to crits but now the damage is so lackluster even when it does crit because of the potency nerfs. I can understand redistributing damage from the burst to the combo GCDs but the net result is a negative feeling. I hardly notice the combo damage buffs even though i know they are there. But I constantly grimace at how pathetic my big attacks now hit for. It feels really bad seeing a blown up Crit Ogi now do barely any more damage than what a non-crit did before the patch. Even worse that my hype-man Kaiten is gone. Part of the skill ceiling for SAMs was aligning your big attacks properly with burst windows. SAM mains understand that we dont bring utility so we work hard to make sure we are doing the one job we have: Dealing as much damage as we can. While this change lowers the skill floor, it feels like punishment for those that put so much time, energy, and love into playing this class. Put the potency back to Midare and Ogi. Let the dopamine flow again.

3. Third Eye. This is a good change. I didn't understand why Tanks got a 4 second window to time a mitigation properly while SAMs got 3 seconds...with a class that already has some difficulty double weaving depending on SkS. So putting it up to 4 is a good standardization given the sometimes wonky activation windows. And if you're going to remove Kaiten, give third eye it's animation.

Part 1

[GuillyTheKid]

Part 2

4. AoEs. Circle AoEs are great. But I feel like you made the wrong attack a circle AoE. Personally I would have rather this stayed a cone and Fuga by default made a circle. My reasoning is simple. Unlike Fuga, Oka, Mangetsu, or any other centered on self circular AoE in the game, Tenka Gokken has A CAST TIME. This means in order to maximize your damage for this you have to put yourself in the center of a mob (where it's dangerous) instead of aligning yourself on the outside (where it's safer). I'm expecting there to be plenty of interrupted Tenka Gokkens just to avoid getting hit with an orange AoE marker.

5. Action bloat. Just to bring it up again in comments that many others have made. Iki into Ogi. Senei + Guren. Shoha + Shoha II. These are simple changes and far more obvious than removing Kaiten.

I'm not active in forums or threads at all but the SAM changes feel so bad that I wanted to make sure I added my voice to the conversation. I am seriously torn between keep playing SAM since I love it so much to boycotting it and quitting it completely because of how unsatisfying and wrong it feels to play now. I'm probably going to still play it because I'm too stubborn but the fact that I am even thinking of giving it up should be indicative of how affecting these changes are.

[StriderZessei]

if you don't like your mistakes having consequences I don't know what to tell you.

I'm okay with suffering the consequences of a mistake if the skill isn't just another hurdle. And that's 90% of what Kaiten was: an oGCD that was only used one way, and only provided a bit more potency on your biggest hit if you did it right, and felt bad if you didn't.
Not saying it wasn't a cool animation, but I'm 100% okay with not having it. I do hope we can get more potency in a buff soon, though.

[StriderZessei]

Circle AoEs are great. But I feel like you made the wrong attack a circle AoE. Personally I would have rather this stayed a cone and Fuga by default made a circle. My reasoning is simple. Unlike Fuga, Oka, Mangetsu, or any other centered on self circular AoE in the game, Tenka Gokken has A CAST TIME. This means in order to maximize your damage for this you have to put yourself in the center of a mob (where it's dangerous) instead of aligning yourself on the outside (where it's safer). I'm expecting there to be plenty of interrupted Tenka Gokkens just to avoid getting hit with an orange AoE marker.

Strongly disagree with this. Having to constantly re-position was a major headache. Moving to dodge an attack (or just tanking one with Third Eye) won't feel nearly as bad.

[Melodream]

I really don't like the changes. without Kaiten there is no kenki management, and it made the job not fun to play anymore. please SE revert the changes.