Thread: 6.1 Samurai thoughts after getting to try them out in-game (please revert asap)

Hi hi sorry for preaching to the choir but I just wanted to make a forum account to voice my (instantly drowned out) opinion on this after playing through the new content as SAM. Sorry for bad and inconsistent grammar lol, it's early.

I really do not like the removal of kaiten and the auto-crit changes to SAM's big moves.

Kaiten

Why I think removing kaiten was a bad call:

* If removing kaiten was about reducing button bloat, there are three easy options right there (turn Ikishoten into Ogi Namikiri (honestly this should have been how it worked from day one, there is literally no reason to not free up a button here), merge Guren and Senei, merge Shoha and Shoha II (even tho I must say I don't like that last one, because I prefer Shoha's animation for single target :P)).
* If removing kaiten was about reducing the amount of different abilities you actually press, I dunno man Guren/Senei are kinda brainless (though removing them would worsen the levelling experience). I'd hate to see it go but third eye? Don't make me choose between my babies but I choose kaiten here.
* If removing kaiten was about reducing APM, the reduction was marginal as you just have to spam shinten nearly just as much. In fact, I've been finding that the requirement to keep a hair trigger on shinten somewhat more difficult to manage than the autopilot 1-2 of kaiten-iai, though that's definitely a me thing.
* If removing kaiten was about making the job easier, it still has cast timers, a vital DoT that requires setup and commitment to refresh, a strict optimal way to use meikyo shishui that new SAMs can struggle to grasp, and the requirement to cram many big abilities into a tight window to benefit from others' buffs (mostly, see below). Its resource management was already one of the, so why start there?
* If removing kaiten was about removing "redundant" actions that are obligatory to press before using other actions, can we please remove no-mercy from GNB? It has the same cooldown as double down, bow shock, and sonic break and you currently always mindlessly press it before those skills. Can you also turn BRD's DoTs into one since you always use one before the other. Blood stalk on reaper is also redundant, you could make it just be gibbet and gallows if you adjust the potency, etc etc... Sorry, I know these examples can come off as sophistry, but I really think this "obligatory buttons action bloat" argument doesn't hold water when you compare it to like, the rest of the game. Sometimes you press a button before another, I really don't see that as a bad thing. You also aren't forced to use kaiten before Iai if you don't have the kenki, you just get a weaker version. It's the same story if say, you use you mistimed use of fight-or-flight on PLD and now you're going to have to apply an unbuffed goring blade. It happens, its not the end of the world. Sometimes there's a way you "should" do things and that's fine.

Part 1/3 I guess, I had more to say than I thought haha.

Why I would like to keep kaiten:

* Meter management. Kenki now exists solely to store up to four shintens for weaving whenever, just don't overfill your bar with ikishoten. As it stands the complete lack of punishment for using your kenki the wrong way and the lack of different ways to choose to spend it is... not fun. Anyway, yes you could say it boils down to an illusion of choice because it's always the best way to use kenki, but then we're back at my point about other classes being much the same. It's strictly better to use fire II when it procs when using basic fire again! and so on and so on. Playing a class "right" is a challenge that we all like to evidently win, and this is just one example of it happening. And since I've seen it said - Yes, you get tons of kenki this patch, I'm aware (in fact, if you want to reduce SAM's apm, hitting them in the kenki economy is a good way to go imo). Some people have said that removing SAM's resource magement is fine since it was already so simple, but if it supposedly so easy already, why make it even easier? Amusingly this also is the opposite of the point from the above post with regards to difficulty, so I like that anti-kaiten arguments actually cancel eachother out.
* Pacing and feel. Iai and Ogi are the only melee abilities in the game with a cast timer, and iirc sans RPR's projectile and self buff the only cast timers a melee class even has. Slowing down and getting glued to your spot for a brief moment are crucial to how sam flows, the quick "1-2" of kaiten-iai flowed excellently, a quick button mash followed by a moment of calm. It was fun! Not to mention how brilliantly the animations flowed into each other, as do all of sam's OGCDs.
* Cramming SAM's damage into small windows was a good thing, actually. Or at least, in my opinion. The class's damage being polarised into a tight spike was just one of its features, something that made it stand out, and something that made it vital to filling its role as a buff-sponge during bursts.

Auto-crits

Whilst I don't pay attention to the fine details of my DPS and don't notice nor care about my crit luck, I understand some people do and I fully understand the crit-conundrum SE has cornered themselves into. If crits are too emphasised, the game will become too rng based. First high-end raiding and speedrunning (via getting the highest DPS) will become uncompetitive (not that I'm too sympathtic, this comes with the territory), then at some point it will grow to have a significant effect of if content is even cleared or not. But, at the same time, crits are part and parcel for an RPG and something they designed. If the implementation of crits doesn't work in the game's current formula, then change the whole formula. Come up with ideas to change how crits work under the hood rather than playing whack-a-mole when crits being a problem rears its head.
(cont.)

part 2/3

cont.
As it stood, samurai was probably the class most affected by crit RNG (and as a result, meta-team building was based on stacking crit buffs on samurais, crucial for both the SAMs and the buffers) and now Samurai is one of if not the class least dependant on crit rng. But now, some other class (probably RPR or BLM?) is now the class most affected by crit RNG. Now it will become meta for them to build around crits. Then what? Communio - Autocrit. Fire III - Autocrit. Fire IV - Autocrit. Starshatter dive - Autocrit. This change is just kicking the can down the road and SAM in the onigiri. As to what this under the hood change could be, I don't know. Give all potencies a shadow nerf after a certain "very lucky" crit threshold is reached? Add "pity" crit chance buffs to certain moves until they crit when they don't? Remove the crit substat? I don't get paid to figure it out!

This is to say nothing of the wider problem that SAM now has negative synergy with any job that buffs crit rate. The devs have already talked about this and are fully aware, but it still bears repeating. Autocrits and crit chance buffs coexisting is a problem in general.

DPS

Uhhh I dunno man. I'm not a number cruncher or optimiser by any means, I'm relatively casual having done extreme and only recently resubbed for 6.1, I've barely scratched P1S but want to try it. All I want for SAM is for this boy to have the highest personal DPS by a not insignificant margin. That's it, that's how this guy works. He makes the MOST of your buffs at the tradeoff of not giving you any in return (unless you're a dancer, bard, dragoon, or scholar, lololol). I'm hearing reports that samurai's dps has been hit really hard and like, that sucks I guess. Please don't do that unless it was a balance outlier or whatever. Idk it's not my highest concern, I just don't want to see RPRs overtaking me on the aggro list while giving heals and damage buffs out to the whole party again, lol.

Enpi

To close out on a high note - enpi no longer using up a stack of Meikyo-Shishui is a bloody brilliant change. Totally in line with the change to make ranged attacks no longer break combos. Makes enpi usable in a very specific but frequent scenario where you were punished for using it, sometimes even blocking you from taking the effect of enhanced enpi. Great job, this was a good change that feels great.

Ok part 3/3 there are my thoughts. Sorry for so many posts I had more to get off my tongue than I thought!