A Nobody's Thoughts on Samurai's 6.1 Iteration

[UnseveredRevna]

Hello all,

I am one of many who wants to add their voice to the Samurai discussion to echo the points of others, and hopefully contribute some of my own, and will probably fade into the woodwork before the day is out. I don't really know if a single concentrated thread to post this would be better or if sheer volume of threads is the way to get this message across, but here goes. I picked up Samurai during its release in Stormblood, and became seriously invested in the class in Shadowbringers. I played through Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker MSQ as a Samurai. I cleared my first Savage raid tier on Samurai (E5-8S), and went on to clear the succeeding tier as well as the first tier of Endwalker on SAM. About 24 hours before 6.1 went live, I got my first Ultimate clear (UWU) on SAM. So my attachment and loyalty to this job is very pronounced.

I do not like most of these changes.

I feel like the potency changes and the removal of Kaiten should be treated as a singular issue, as my feelings about one directly influence the other. But on the topic of ONLY the removal of the Kaiten button, what I loved about Kaiten was 50% presentation, and 50% stimulation.

What do I mean by presentation? Kaiten-Midare was one of the slickest animation sequences in the job's library. This is subjective, but multiple players in my communities who don't even play SAM have commented on their disappointment that this link is gone. The sound, sword twirl into sheathe, the rev up, and finally the SFX of the Midare slash is an adrenaline rush not only for the SAM player, but for the teammates who can hear and see their teammate pop off. It gives a dopamine rush to a raid team to see their heavy hitter drop a Kaiten Midare during a tight damage check to delete a bird in P3S, or for the Dancer to know that big hit was thanks to their Devilment, or the Dragoon to feel like they're in sync with their buddy from the Dragon Tether.

[UnseveredRevna]

On the stimulation side, Kaiten made me feel as if I am actively enhancing and preparing that devastating blow that Samurai seems to be trying to present. The only other ability in the game that gives this same inflection is Reaper's Communio, which coincidentally shares many parallels with Midare - a cast time, a booming sound effect, a prep/buff sequence to get ready for it, etc. Along the same lines but shifting into Kaiten's effect on gameplay, to me SAM felt like one of the few jobs that had meaningful interaction with its job gauge, and it had that because of Kaiten.

You had to make actual decisions on whether or not to press Shinten to make sure that you had meter left over for Kaiten, especially back in ShB when kenki gain was tied to positionals, so if you messed up you had the extra challenge of making sure you still got that Kaiten on the Iaijutsu. This is enhanced by SAM's history; in its debut of Stormblood SAM was the subject of mockery as a "Shinten bot" because it was actually worth more to eat the Sen coins for more meter to get out more Shintens, and only Midare (their iconic move) when Hagakure was on CD. The change to the job in ShB was made specifically to get away from this stigma. Now thanks to the removal of Kaiten, we have no other use for that meter but pressing Senei every 2m and hitting Shin whenever we get over 25 meter. This doesn't engage me with the meter and actively hampers my performance because i find myself more likely to "zone out" while playing, and the job feels like it's back where it started in Stormblood after being so well tuned in 6.0.

On the slightly more subjective side is that Kaiten was the reason the finishers of the SAM class felt like finishers. This is where the potency changes come in. In 6.0 the vast majority, probably 80% or more, of a SAM's DPS was contained in their 60s and especially 120s burst, and SAM Haga-loop style was devised with the intention of getting their burst under raid buffs. It gave SAM a variable rotation as well since disengages, downtime, etc could make you shift your GCDs or put Higan before Midare, Meikyo could skip GCDs in the combo path, etc. SAM had the unique ability to move their burst around mechanics in ways beyond 'just hold the button,' and was uniquely rewarded for doing so. Now, the SAM DPS is split roughly 50-50 between the buffed GCDs and the nerfed, Kaitenless Iaijutsu, making the Iaijutsu hits 'just another part' of the rotation rather than actual finishers; their impact and the weight of hitting them in raid buffs is gone.

[UnseveredRevna]

I can appreciate that the devs had good intentions and wanted to make SAM "consistently strong," but all these changes have done is make me feel "consistently disappointed." Before the patch went live I was ambivalent to the changes; I wasn't happy to lose Kaiten, but I assumed that the Iaijutsus would have their potencies raised by 15, maybe 25% and the autocrit would preserve Samurai's sensation of 'big hit go boom.' The equalization of their damage between Midare/Namikiri and their combo pieces has swung too far in my opinion; this perceived weakness is so pronounced that the new potency for Namikiri will make it hit for less than a crit Midare would have in 6.0. After going from 5-60k Midares and chasing 88 to 100k Namikiris, seeing Namikiri hit for only 35k at peak feels absolutely awful, and I am left feeling like I have disincentive to even try to play my job well after all the literal years I spent learning how to play it and get the burst under buffs.

My personal wishes/feedback:

1. Bring Kaiten back or not, it isn't as integral to me as I believe it is to others. I preferred having it, but if the removal of Kaiten was truly to make space for future changes, I can accept that.
2. Reshift the potencies again. I would much rather have lower GCD potencies but keep the impact of the burst hits. Surely it is possible to keep SAM's overall DPS in the same ballpark but have it from our now guaranteed crits.
3. My preferred solution to meet both worlds would have been to remove the potency buff from Kaiten, slightly enhance the base potencies of all Iaijutsu (not nerf them as 6.1 has done), and have Kaiten's effect be guaranteeing the crit. This would serve the purpose of insuring SAM's damage output as the devs seem to intend while also preserving Kaiten's role in the SAM rotation and its impact on the 'feel' of our Iaijutsu.
4. Let Tenka Goken have the same crit privilege please. Nerfing Tsubame Tenka's potency just feels bad and feels like kicking SAM while it's down.

I'll probably tough it out and stay on SAM for one more week to finish up my raid team's farming of P4S. But my weapon coffers will not be going to SAM, but rather Reaper, the only job that has any trace of the things I liked about Samurai (active meter management, thrilling presentation, and clearly defined filler and burst phases), and I don't see myself staying on this class for the entirety of 6.1 if it is going to stay in this state. SAM was a lot of "firsts" for me in FFXIV - my first job to beat Extreme trials, Savages and Ultimates with, my first job I felt like I was legitimately good at, the first job I did an EX trial for a glam weapon for, and it is the job I associate with my WoL in their MSQ role. It greatly saddens me that all of the great content 6.1 has added will not be on that list.

Thank you for reading.