Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

[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.