Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

[Quor]

Hello all. A talking point that has picked up has been the Yukikaze/Hagakure rotation vs the normal rotation. Strictly speaking from the opener to 2 minutes, a normal rotation is about 541/GCD and the Yukikaze/Hagakure rotation is around 537/GCD~. Gap closes when you miss positionals approx 4 times to a .5 difference. If you miss a Midare or Kaeshi, the normal rotation becomes automatically worse at around 533.5/GCD~.

The other talking point is the increased hesitation to post due to uncertainty. As always, don't give up.

So if I'm reading this correctly, a Yuki combo spam with complement Hagakure usage into Shinten spam does nearly as much ppGCD as a standard Midare-focused combo? Missing positionals on Kasha and Gekko a total of four times narrows the gap to within .5 ppGCD? Effectively, SE has then made a Dragon Kick rotation for SAM. Is that correct?

Cause if so then that's fucking sad in a way words struggle to describe.

[Roxus]

So if I'm reading this correctly, a Yuki combo spam with complement Hagakure usage into Shinten spam does nearly as much ppGCD as a standard Midare-focused combo? Missing positionals on Kasha and Gekko a total of four times narrows the gap to within .5 ppGCD? Effectively, SE has then made a Dragon Kick rotation for SAM. Is that correct?

Cause if so then that's fucking sad in a way words struggle to describe.

That's correct. You don't completely ignore the rest of your kit, you just ignore it outside the 2 minutes as much as you can.

[Quor]

That's correct. You don't completely ignore the rest of your kit, you just ignore it outside the 2 minutes as much as you can.

Meaning you do two Midare's, two Kaeshi's and one Ogi+Kaeshi every two minutes, as well as (I assume) one Higanbana every minute, since that's still a clear ppGCD gain. Otherwise you're just mindlessly spamming Yuki, mindlessly eating Sen with Hagakure and then mindlessly spamming Shinten. I cannot fathom the thought process the job balance team went through to think that their decisions regarding SAM were going to amount to anything positive. I'm reminded of that time in SB when NIN's ended up using a GCD combo sequence that resulted in more damage than the devs were expecting because they apparently didn't consider that particular combo sequence in their balancing calculations. And here we are again.

[Ruminous]

It's why the question "do you play your own game?" gets asked. Because as much as people say yes they do, there are certain aspects that people don't touch when they play it. I'm no dev, but I don't play magical ranged much beyond getting it to cap and then forgetting it exists. Has to be the same way for anyone else who doesn't have a lot of free time to learn each and every intricate detail.

Of course, that's why you hire a team of playtesters and get them to play your changes. But why hire those people when you can shove them out the door for your playerbase to beta test for you? Works for Blizzard, and the toxicity you get from the playerbase is peanuts compared to what you save on hiring a dedicated team. At least by how anyone higher up would see it.

[Roxus]

I mean I don't know their situation and they may be rushed or something, but it's been pretty clear with all the problems aside job balance that the patch wasn't thoroughly tested in some areas. In ARR Ninja was balanced around their number crunching and players found out a better rotation, making them ridiculously stronger than the developers intended. A test server was brought up several times by the JP community too, I think it's overdue. I've been watching this game get stripped of anything remotely interesting in terms of job balance since feedback from the First coil of Bahamut. There's a lot to like about the game, but encounters aren't one of them aside aesthetics.

[Roxus]

Getting increased reports of party finder excluding Samurai from the party. And it's just for clears.

Also, someone requested I add this so I will do so. The Discords have also been in a frenzy since the change.

Spoiler: Most of the discussion is not saying anything positive about the changes.

[Ruminous]

Maybe one or two people out of the entire sam lounge in The Balance has said something positive about the change. Most of it's just venting/rage. I've already added my share of complaints to it too.

[seraph152]

As a fairly casual player (never done extremes or savages) I REALLY dont like pretty much any of these changes.

The whole feel of the class seems to have shifted, the Iajutsu finishers hit for WAY less than previously, feeling underwhelming.

AOE certainly feels greatly nerfed (did they just forget to give Goken auto crit???)

Even the cone to circular change for Goken is annoying, given it plenty of time to try out.

[Roxus]

Hello all.

I'd like to summarize a couple things. Increasing frustration between all communities, concerns that it is getting less and less productive. JP players start to wonder how the situation is in EN more. More feelings on how the job is "boring" or "not fun". More comments on being a "Pure DPS". At this point we're all waiting for an answer.

The frustration of still not being addressed after they completely skipped over Samurai in the patch note reading, and saying they will further elaborate, and have not. This stems from them deciding to ignore the overwhelming feedback before the changes were implemented. Saying "For the future" is not enough. We can't see the future, and we see what is in the present. The community has given a lot of patience over the years regarding job design. I just want everyone to think about this. Money is one thing yes, but time is your most valuable resource. When they ask you to wait repeatedly, at some point you need to tell them to stop. Some people don't have that time, and we don't live forever. Telling people to take a break is just as insulting, they are here to convey their feelings because they trust you and want you to make the game better. They want to have fun with this game. If people did not care, they wouldn't be here complaining. I am not saying that every change for the better has to be instant, but it's been nothing but delays of completely ignoring the playerbase, an utter lack of transparency in this regard. Look what happens to the jobs that have reworks. Look at how barebones tanks and healers are. Our fight encounters don't even have any engagement besides damage now. Our job wasn't even in a bad spot, it's a forced change. For what? Are we really preparing the game to transition into the mobile market? Who knows at this point.

I want them to fix what they broke.

[SieyaM]

Dark Knight in Stormblood had an ability called Dark Arts. The way it worked is for a portion of MP, it would alter your next weaponskill or ability or spell. From giving a line aoe the added status of Blind to making most of your combos hit much harder. Enough so that it became a meme.

1 - Dark arts - 2 - Dark arts - ogcd - Dark arts - 3 - repeat

That's a simple way to look at it. And before that, Dark Knight actually had to manage their mp pool in a meaningful way. That's not even getting into the fact that DRK used to be best at self-sustain in dungeons thanks to one ability. Abyssal Drain. It wasn't always a 60 second cooldown. It used to be something spammable with enough MP. God, I miss old Abyssal Drain

As an AST you could give a DRK ewer and watch them clean up shop, alas both AST and DRK have changed too much for such a thing