Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

[IdowhatIwant]

At this rate we won't be hearing anything at all until 6.2 where they will nerf SAM again.

Yeah, but yall didn't really get nerfed but maybe 3% if that. Your rDPS went down, but in that's just from loosing crit synergy, your actual DPS as maybe 5% which honestly isn't that big of deal. You are still the top DPS, just by a smaller margin.

[Roxus]

Good day. I have some time on my hands, so I wish to share something specific more players have started to say.

"For the Future"

At the rate this is going, the future job "adjustments", is it even right to call it that at this point? Well, it will be for the worse.
At that time, they will ask for your understanding stating it is "For the Future".
Of course, everyone is not blind to the fact other jobs are no strangers to this.

I don't believe in a future with a present that is not enjoyable. It doesn't matter how "necessary" it is, or how "It will be the best future and you will be able to enjoy it then".

Many try to point out that they realize that job adjustments are necessary, but how much of this was brute forced on us leaves many questioning why. And the one word they bring up time and again.
"Future"

The timing is also questioned, especially before the Ultimate fight. Even the casual players are saying this.
More speak up about why it was only one job this time, when the goal was to change critical synergy. It should have been the system that changed, rather than the job.

The feedback has been a constant and steady stream. It will probably pick up in the weekend as they continue to give us the silent treatment.

Reminder that similar to Monk, Samurai now has a viable meme rotation. Spam Yukikaze with Hagakure with Shinten. Keep buffs up and only then you will use your Iaijutsu. Ignore the rest of your kit, how very engaging.

Yeah, but yall didn't really get nerfed but maybe 3% if that. Your rDPS went down, but in that's just from loosing crit synergy, your actual DPS as maybe 5% which honestly isn't that big of deal. You are still the top DPS, just by a smaller margin.

Edit: This is just downplaying. You are quoting an average. And this isn't even what most people are concerned about in the first place. The impact of the changes affects how happy people are playing the job. Period. That is pretty much unanimous.

[Ascona]

Hello,

let me preface this by saying that I never posted on the forums but after trying out these changes ingame, I absolutely felt the need to speak up. In general, I’m happy with nearly everything released with the 6.1 update but I’m extremely disappointed with the changes to Samurai. I’ll try my best to cluster my thoughts and overall feedback because most of them seem to correlate to one another:

Job Identity and “feel” of the job

I really liked the buildup that the Job had before the patch, where you collect different Sen with your combos and used Kaiten to prepare for your big casting "finishing Move". For me this set the Job apart from other Melee. The animation of Kaiten and the following Iaijutsu are paramount to the feel of the Job.

Without Kaiten especially all Iaijutsu feel just like any other random button that u press in the Rotation and at that point you are asking yourself why they even have a cast time. For Ogi Namikiri and the Kaeshi-variant this doesn't feel that bad to me because the animation already sells that feeling really well. If you look at the Samurai demonstration in the Stormblood Trailer or Job Action Trailers in general there is almost always heavy emphasis on these slow, heavy hitting Actions, right? Without Kaiten that feeling of the job is greatly diminished.

Tenka Goken suffers the same fate as the other Iaijutsu skills regarding not feeling like a “Finisher” without Kaiten. Changing it from a cone to a circle made this specific problem even worse for me. I was okay with changing Fuko to a circle aoe because u still had to move in and out before using Tenka Goken correctly. After the patch you just plant yourself in the middle of the pack and don’t have to give thought to anything you are doing. I would revert the change to Tenka Goken to underline the difference between your normal circle aoe skills and the Iaijutsu.

[Ascona]

Kenki Management and button/ability bloat

With the Removal of Kaiten there is basically no Kenki Management anymore. Sure, if you played correctly before the patch, you didn’t really have to think about it a lot but right now you can basically press Shinten whenever you can and forget about the gauge altogether. This also feels more spammy and a lot less satisfying. Even if the total usage on Kenki spending abilities is a few casts lower per fight it doesn’t feel like that because you repeatedly press the same button.

If the target was to remove either button or ability bloat, there are bigger offenders like Shoha 1/2 or Ikishoten and Ogi that have already been discussed in large by the community. I also think that the argument that Kaiten is a useless necessity because you must press it before every Iaijustu just doesn’t hold any ground in a game that massively relies on Combo Actions.

If Kaiten is problematic or a hindrance for future updates to the job, then I am sure there are ways to combat this other than completely removing it (e. g. reducing the effect and adjusting potencies or changing the effect in other ways). If you are absolutely keen on removing Kaiten I would at least wish for three things: consider upping the frequency of Ogi Namikiri and its Kaeshi-counterpart to one minute and try to make all the Iaijutsu animations more flashy (I think the Ogi animations look really cool and are a great example) to make up for losing Kaiten. Very slightly reduce Shinten usage and up the potency to counteract, so each shinten feels more meaningful and deliberate.

Autocrit, Potencies and Party-Synergy

The fact that Samurai is a “selfish DPS” job and absolutely wants to capitalize on buffs from its party members makes Samurai one of the last jobs that should ever get a change like this. I understand that there might have been a big disparity between good and bad pulls because of crit RNG but I don’t think this makes or breaks a whole job to justify this change. It is good to have classes with different damage profiles, that’s what makes them special and appealing. I think in this regard the reduction to the Iaijutsu skills aswell as Ogi and its Kaeshi-counterparts went a little bit overboard. I would rather have some very big hitting skills instead a broad spread of potencies that don’t really fit with the aesthetics of the job. This again ties into the feel and identity of the job but if it would be one thing where I must make a compromise, this would be it.

Even if the Job is completely fine damage-wise after the patch, the Autocrit change could drastically change community perception and probably lead to people not wanting Samurais in their Party. If you feel like there seems to be a problem or limitation for the whole combat-system, then please bring a solution that targets the root of the cause and not it’s symptoms.

[Ascona]

Positives

Besides all the negativity I think the change to Third Eye is very good. It makes general use of the ability easier and creates more use cases in hectic situations when you want your Third Eye to carry over into your next GCD-window. It also gives players the ability to minmax their damage reduction and Kenki generation in fights where raidwides are frequently used by the boss. I think this is a great change that benefits every Samurai player from casual to hardcore.

General Thoughts and Conclusion

Looking back at the changes I just can’t make any sense of most of it and am left with one too many concerning questions. Why change something that wasn’t broken with changes seemingly no one asked for? Most of the changes didn’t accomplish their goal and some are starting to create even bigger problems than they are trying to solve. I would also argue it’s bad timing because lots of people are still progressing Savage and it’s even worse for players which are preparing for the upcoming Ultimate. Why not make those changes leading up to the next Tier so players can adjust and change jobs if they really don’t like the changes to their job?

I think overall the changes have way too many downsides for trying to solve something that doesn’t need immediate fixing. For now I would revert the changes besides the extra second for Third Eye and plead that you take your time with changes that tackle the whole combat system and job identities until you can confidently present an encompassing solution. If you absolutely have to make a dent in the old Samurai-Kit just because, then reduce or change the effect of Kaiten and shuffle the potencies of the skills again. I would hate to see the Samurai playerbase shrink over these changes but as is, I don’t see any other way – I certainly wont play Samurai in this state.

[Quor]

Loving the feedback folks, keep it up. As an aside to all the new posters, it's a quirk of the official forums that you can edit a post after posting it and extend your post past the normal character limit. So if you would like to make a single post instead of a series, you can just type the whole thing out, cut and paste the part past the "limit," post the amended post and then edit the cut text back into the original for a single full-size response.

It's a weird workaround that's been a part of this place since day 1 for some reason.

[Spiderllama]

I've shelved my SAM until such a time they fix the mess that's been made. I guess it's back to NIN for now.

[cirnobaka]

I completely agree with the community's thoughts on job identity. I've always fell in love with the setup of different sens to unleash a devastating attack, and Kaiten has always been the perfect cherry on the top to meet the fantasy. Now without Kaiten the combo just feels a lot more dull and uninteresting, feels like I'm just doing some insignificant GCDs while spamming Shinten.

I also agree on the discussion regarding the new circle AOE from Tenka Goken. At first I thought I'd be supportive on the changes from cone to circle AOE, but upon some dungeon spam I found that doing my AOE rotation feels a lot more dull. The removal of Kaiten definitely plays a role here, but another factor I'm certain is the fact that I do not have to move around to hit my AOE.

I don't know how others feel, but to me melees has always been interesting in how they managed their AOE rotations. Ninja with Doton and Katon mixed together, Dragoon with their unique line AOEs, and Reaper with their cone AOE OGCD. Samurai was once one of them with the cone on Tenka Goken, requiring me to think where to position and line up for the perfect devastating attack. Now with the change to it being a circle, it feels a lot more dull and boring when doing packs.

I agree with the circle changes to Warrior, as being a tank pulling mobs is a great responsibility, and missing some mobs with the cone AOE makes me feel irritated. However I believe for melee dps more options can be explored when doing their AOEs to make them more active and involving.

This is my first time using this forum. Should any devs or community managers read this comment, I'd like to thank everyone of you for your incredible work and dedication to make this game so wonderful. Thank you, sincerely.

[elioaiko]

Personally SAM fell off for me after the additions of more charges to unnecessary skills so you can get more "booms".

Adding more Meikyos, Tsu charges did nothing for expanding SAM. Removing Kaiten only reinforced more Shinten spam to control your Kenki.

I'm not going to touch on Hagakure vs Ikishoten because clearly one had more thought put into it.

If they didn't know how to expand SAM, they should have just opted for more QoL changes rather than "we know you like a lot of boom so we're adding more of that," and creating more of a messy rotation that isn't satisfying because you see it so often.

[Faulko]

MOOOOOOM! WHY DOES MY MIDARE DO AS MUCH DAMAGE AS A SHINTEN????
I’m so glad we went through that whole hagakure shit show in shadowbringes to get rid of shinten spam only to..... arrive back at shinten spam.

PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO IT.