Simple Samurai fix that keeps identity

[Alex1337]

Moving away from rng good. Guaranteed mount drops then plz.

[xAFROx]

Also damage variance was super minimal on Samurai, it's only a problem that affects people who want to parse numbers which aren't even officially recognized by SQE, and often against TOS.
(if you want a nice video on the issue of parsing from a disgruntled Samurai main who is also entertaining please check the most recent video from Misshapen Chair)
You can clear the content just fine with the previous "issue" of crit variance, so I'd appreciate if the devs stayed away from feedback focused on unofficial tools that are "technically" against TOS and just lead to changes that make the job feel worse.

That's a fair point to make. I hadn't even thought about the parsers. I play on console, so that never even crosses my mind in general. Also, Misshapen Chair makes some entertaining videos, I second the suggestion of watching it.

[TankHunter678]

I've seen some games solve this problem with the concept of "double-crits", which I like.

For example, let's say a crit deals +60% damage based on their crit rating and they have a 30% chance to crit.

Then, something buffs them with +100% chance to crit, their new crit chance is effectively 130%, but that becomes a 30% chance to double-crit for +120% damage with the remaining 70% chance guaranteed to crit for +60% damage.

It would probably be better that instead of crit chance over 100% leading to double crits just have it get converted into Crit Damage. Double crits can actually result in damage being even more spiky which is what they want to smooth out. Whereas crit damage simply functions as a ordinary damage boost for auto-crits while leaving the increased crit chance for everyone else for flavor.

Though that could just make auto-crit and crit booster party setups to go from being not synergistic to suddenly very synergistic in a single change.

[Edweena]

That's a fair point to make. I hadn't even thought about the parsers. I play on console, so that never even crosses my mind in general. Also, Misshapen Chair makes some entertaining videos, I second the suggestion of watching it.

I played a lot of WoW and parsing is / was a real fucking poison to myself and others, even when I got exceptional parses (rank #2 brackenspore subtley rogue for one week lol) due to that games ridiculous RNG that would make the most unbalanced aspects of FFXIV look BALANCED. I have never looked to install ACT or track logs its just a much less toxic experience and I understand why and how the devs treat them against TOS.

Having that mindset influence my feedback and thus influence developers is less than ideal.

[xAFROx]

I played a lot of WoW and parsing is / was a real fucking poison to myself and others, even when I got exceptional parses (rank #2 brackenspore subtley rogue for one week lol) due to that games ridiculous RNG that would make the most unbalanced aspects of FFXIV look BALANCED. I have never looked to install ACT or track logs its just a much less toxic experience and I understand why and how the devs treat them against TOS.

Having that mindset influence my feedback and thus influence developers is less than ideal.

Yeah, never done any of that. I can see the positive and negative to using such a thing. But it sure seems like the devs use that as a means to rework the jobs. People trying to defend the SAM changes by saying it's only a 3% loss, not even taking into account how we get to that ratio and focusing on the end result like that's all that mattered. By that same logic, there shouldn't be any complaints about any of the changes ever made, but they happen.

If the devs are looking at these, please give us back SAM and only change it when this grand redesign is ready, not before. We aren't your beta testers, we're your customers and we feel cheated and robbed to varying degrees.

[darkdyllon]

Yoshi-P has already acknowledged the crit buff issues and has more or less stated that they are likely going to be redesigning the crit stat up to 7.0. By 7.0 those buffs will likely function in a completely different manner.

This would be fine ... if they stopped doing all of this MID EXPANSION!
nobody would bat an eye if they removed Kaiten, reworked the crit system but then also add 2 new things in it's place, now with the removal of Kaiten and their slow transition to go away from Crit builds just feels like they have no idea what they're doing and just trying to band aid their issues.

Were the sams at savage complaining that they weren't top dog? yeah, but it was better than getting the identity stripped simply because likely in 7.0 there's gonna be a rework of sorts, it's just bad.
keep the job as it is now (some tweaks here and there no problem) but leave the big changes for an expansion.
Remember how underwhelming DRK and SCH felt went their announced the jobs for Endwalker? this would've been fixed for 7.0 in this way.
"look at how these jobs are changing due to the changes we've made for the next expansion!"
You'll see SAM sporting a new ability/gauge/resource/whatever and the world would go wild with speculation.

[darkdyllon]

I played a lot of WoW and parsing is / was a real fucking poison to myself and others, even when I got exceptional parses (rank #2 brackenspore subtley rogue for one week lol) due to that games ridiculous RNG that would make the most unbalanced aspects of FFXIV look BALANCED. I have never looked to install ACT or track logs its just a much less toxic experience and I understand why and how the devs treat them against TOS.

Having that mindset influence my feedback and thus influence developers is less than ideal.

my static parses but we make fun of it more, we'll go for high parses when we're doing reclears, but we're not gonna wipe an pull if someone messes their rotation up.
The only thing with parses is that it made me feel like shit when i started learning RDM in savage content (played it in casual but never to the extend i had to now, enjoying it though)
and now i went from an 0-10 parses to concistently 50-70 parses, so it's nice to see the gradual improvement.

I can see why it's against ToS (and it's been debated many times at this point) but the main issue I personally have with their stance is how they want to say "ACT is against ToS" (while gently nudging to "aslong as you shut up about it, we won't do anything") but then add enrages to fights.
we got that land sea air trial thing, but that's not enough, that'll show you, that YOU are doing enough damage ... sure.
but it doesn't simulate any mechanics, for example with SAM was an perfect example with E10S in Shadowbringers, where you had to disengage the boss, or some strats were designed to screw over melee DPS.
So on the dummy you'll be doing more than enough damage, but in reality, when the boss throws mechanics at you, you might hit much lower.

[Eorzean_username]

Personally, I don't like Shinten. I've never liked Shinten.

In Stormblood's "Shinten Meta" where everything was about feeding more Kenki into Shinten, it felt especially gross to me.

I originally imagined that Samurai would be a visually-ascetic, slow, methodical fighter, a class that would line everything up carefully, then unleash a single big attack. Instead, Samurai was constantly jerking out awkward-looking sword stabs between what felt like every other GCD, and its big "damage windows" were about deleting a Midare to spaz out even more sword stabs. Felt really off-putting and weird to me.

Anyway, so I really enjoyed spending Kenki on Kaiten, not because it was difficult or skillful (in my opinion, it pretty much never was), but because it felt smooth, elegant, and satisfying. And it wasn't Shinten. Because I hate Shinten, because it's spazzy and unattractive and annoying.

So for me, it's not that Kaiten itself is some God Action that I feel deeply-enamored with, it's just that being left with only Shinten feels more gross than ever before to me. And in contrast, Kaiten was pleasant and appealing.

I don't really care about pressing the Kaiten button, I just like banking gauge and seeing it deplete and then power up my next action. It's just a satisfying gameplay tic. Also, it's not Shinten.

So, if Iaijutsu just always cost 20 Kenki to activate, or scaled its damage with Kenki spent up to a maximum of 20 or 25, and also did the little twirly animation when consuming Kenki... I'd still be happy with that.

But anyway, what I really want is for Shinten to just jump off the planet, and get replaced by something that feels bigger, heavier, more elegant, and just... better.

Honestly, I'd even be happy with only having Kaiten and Senei as spenders, and just judiciously choosing where to power-up non-Iai in order to avoid overcapping Kenki. "But that's HW Dark Arts!" Well, I liked HW Dark Arts, so I'm completely okay with that.

But alternatively, I don't know, maybe condense the SAM combo into 1-2 and then it branches into either Gekko or Kasha, and use Kenki to apply and maintain Fugetsu and Fuka as OGCDs. At least that would be pretty. And also, not Shinten.

Or take the cooldown off Senei / Guren and crank the cost back up to 50, so SAM spends Kenki slower, on bigger attacks.

I don't know, I don't really have a huge preference about the exact alternative, I just:

a) hate Shinten, and always have, because it's unattractive, awkward-looking, and spammy, and clashes with the entire vibe I was expecting for "Samurai"

b) liked elegant spenders like Kaiten because they felt pretty, smooth, and satisfying

c) like big heavy spenders like Senei and Guren because they feel more like the kind of attacks that I expected from "Samurai"

[DreadfullyAwful]

Bump so SE can't think that if just ignore the issue, it'll slowly die.

[Ceridwen]

Personally, I don't like Shinten. I've never liked Shinten.

In Stormblood's "Shinten Meta" where everything was about feeding more Kenki into Shinten, it felt especially gross to me.

I originally imagined that Samurai would be a visually-ascetic, slow, methodical fighter, a class that would line everything up carefully, then unleash a single big attack. Instead, Samurai was constantly jerking out awkward-looking sword stabs between what felt like every other GCD, and its big "damage windows" were about deleting a Midare to spaz out even more sword stabs. Felt really off-putting and weird to me.

Anyway, so I really enjoyed spending Kenki on Kaiten, not because it was difficult or skillful (in my opinion, it pretty much never was), but because it felt smooth, elegant, and satisfying. And it wasn't Shinten. Because I hate Shinten, because it's spazzy and unattractive and annoying.



a) hate Shinten, and always have, because it's unattractive, awkward-looking, and spammy, and clashes with the entire vibe I was expecting for "Samurai"

b) liked elegant spenders like Kaiten because they felt pretty, smooth, and satisfying

c) like big heavy spenders like Senei and Guren because they feel more like the kind of attacks that I expected from "Samurai"

I love all this! And exactly as you described the feel of the Samurai - that's what I like about it, too. They were *purposeful* and elegant and methodical. Unemotional and cool. (basically, the opposite of myself, so it was especially fun!) They were never flat, but the class is flat now. It's not unemotional - it's lifeless.