Samurai AoE

[TaleraRistain]

DRG over in the corner crying at no AoE until 40

[ForsakenRoe]

Once again I find myself having to ask the question: If Kaiten had to go because it added no depth, should we not also remove Bunshin from NIN? Or Gluttony from RPR? After all, there's no thought to those skills, you just make sure you have 50 gauge for them and use them on CD, right?

The reason Kaiten added depth is because without it, the only thing we spend the gauge on now is Shinten. Senei lines up with Ikishoten, you will ALWAYS have gauge for Senei because of this. So the only thing we have left to do with the gauge is press Shinten in place of Kaiten. In fact, since we generate the same amount of Kenki as Kaiten-days, we have not decreased the 'casts per minute' total at all, we've just swapped every Kaiten to another Shinten. So if we removed Gluttony from RPR, we'd just use another Blood Stalk in it's place. Nothing about the class is improved by that hypothetical change, but it removes the skill-expression of 'remember to save 50 gauge for Gluttony'. And some people might argue 'oh that doesn't count as skill because it's so autopilot to do it right' but there's plenty of people in this game who have a two button rotation (healers) and they can't even do that right.

'It's not hard to react to getting a Refulgent Arrow proc, it even lights up on your hotbars, so we should just remove Refulgent and buff Burst Shot a bit to rebalance potencies'
'It's not hard to match the Simon Says colors for DNC dances, so we should just make Tech/Standard Step into regular GCDs, it'll make them faster to execute and that means buffs will be aligned better'

DRK kinda did it right, and wrong at the same time. People complained Dark Arts was an RSI inducing 'just a modifier to next skill', just like Kaiten. So SE removed it and replaced it with all the OGCD spam we have at the 2min window now. It's STILL RSI inducing in it's own way, but the fact it's different buttons now is slightly better, apparently? Though DA was replaced by Edge, so they took 'buffs next GCD by 140p' and made it a standalone blast of damage. Which feels more responsive in one sense, but in another, there's argument to be made about the 'feel' of a skill that imbues your strikes with an effect to make them do more damage. There were other ways to solve the Dark Arts issue, and SE threw out the baby with the bathwater. And when it was SAM's turn, they threw out not just the baby and the bathwater, but the bath too. Because they removed the gameplay decisionmaking Kaiten offered (small as it was) and replaced it with nothing. If they had added a new spender with a CD (maybe a 1min CD) then it'd at least be something, a trade of sorts. Instead we got 'no we are removing this thing that some players are messing up'.

Should we also remove Higanbana because I'm really bad at managing DOTs? Should we remove Third Eye because so many people don't ever actually press it? What's the line in the sand of 'this is brainless and adds no depth to the class' that Kaiten fell on the wrong side of, that other things in the class's design don't fall foul of? Because while I'm bad at keeping Bana up, I can still see why it's an important part of the class's kit. Same as I can see how Kaiten was. I was excited to try Kaitenless SAM when it launched. I did Aldazaal my first time as SAM with Trusts. After one single boss, I was convinced: 'This design choice is absolute trash, revert immediately'.

[AmiableApkallu]

Should we also remove Higanbana because I'm really bad at managing DOTs? Should we remove Third Eye because so many people don't ever actually press it? What's the line in the sand of 'this is brainless and adds no depth to the class' that Kaiten fell on the wrong side of, that other things in the class's design don't fall foul of?

My hot take: The line in the sand is, generally speaking (I didn't play SAM when Kaiten was around): "Is this something I simply need to remember to do, or is this something where I have to make a real choice moment to moment?" Every job needs a healthy balance of both these things.

[CelestiCer]

My hot take: The line in the sand is, generally speaking (I didn't play SAM when Kaiten was around): "Is this something I simply need to remember to do, or is this something where I have to make a real choice moment to moment?" Every job needs a healthy balance of both these things.

My Lukewarm Take: Shinten / Kyuten spamming gameplay doesn't add anymore meaningful decision making or depth then " Kaiten ". The argument point of " Is this something I simply need to remember to do " is equal to " It's a button you press every time " argument phrased differently. Every button you need to remember to press is a button you press every-time, I can apply this logic to every button not just Kaiten... it's an overused debunked argument point =u=;

[Ransu]

Once again I find myself having to ask the question: If Kaiten had to go because it added no depth, should we not also remove Bunshin from NIN? Or Gluttony from RPR? After all, there's no thought to those skills, you just make sure you have 50 gauge for them and use them on CD, right?

The reason Kaiten added depth is because without it, the only thing we spend the gauge on now is Shinten. Senei lines up with Ikishoten, you will ALWAYS have gauge for Senei because of this. So the only thing we have left to do with the gauge is press Shinten in place of Kaiten. In fact, since we generate the same amount of Kenki as Kaiten-days, we have not decreased the 'casts per minute' total at all, we've just swapped every Kaiten to another Shinten. So if we removed Gluttony from RPR, we'd just use another Blood Stalk in it's place. Nothing about the class is improved by that hypothetical change, but it removes the skill-expression of 'remember to save 50 gauge for Gluttony'. And some people might argue 'oh that doesn't count as skill because it's so autopilot to do it right' but there's plenty of people in this game who have a two button rotation (healers) and they can't even do that right.

'It's not hard to react to getting a Refulgent Arrow proc, it even lights up on your hotbars, so we should just remove Refulgent and buff Burst Shot a bit to rebalance potencies'
'It's not hard to match the Simon Says colors for DNC dances, so we should just make Tech/Standard Step into regular GCDs, it'll make them faster to execute and that means buffs will be aligned better'

DRK kinda did it right, and wrong at the same time. People complained Dark Arts was an RSI inducing 'just a modifier to next skill', just like Kaiten. So SE removed it and replaced it with all the OGCD spam we have at the 2min window now. It's STILL RSI inducing in it's own way, but the fact it's different buttons now is slightly better, apparently? Though DA was replaced by Edge, so they took 'buffs next GCD by 140p' and made it a standalone blast of damage. Which feels more responsive in one sense, but in another, there's argument to be made about the 'feel' of a skill that imbues your strikes with an effect to make them do more damage. There were other ways to solve the Dark Arts issue, and SE threw out the baby with the bathwater. And when it was SAM's turn, they threw out not just the baby and the bathwater, but the bath too. Because they removed the gameplay decisionmaking Kaiten offered (small as it was) and replaced it with nothing. If they had added a new spender with a CD (maybe a 1min CD) then it'd at least be something, a trade of sorts. Instead we got 'no we are removing this thing that some players are messing up'.

Should we also remove Higanbana because I'm really bad at managing DOTs? Should we remove Third Eye because so many people don't ever actually press it? What's the line in the sand of 'this is brainless and adds no depth to the class' that Kaiten fell on the wrong side of, that other things in the class's design don't fall foul of? Because while I'm bad at keeping Bana up, I can still see why it's an important part of the class's kit. Same as I can see how Kaiten was. I was excited to try Kaitenless SAM when it launched. I did Aldazaal my first time as SAM with Trusts. After one single boss, I was convinced: 'This design choice is absolute trash, revert immediately'.

This is hands down the best reply on this subject. Well done.

[Leifei]

Ransu, you're still around? Why don't you kiss Celesti's toes next?

[Ransu]

Ransu, you're still around? Why don't you kiss Celesti's toes next?

I'm not the one that was struggling with "button bloat"

I get it. You got called out and you don't like it, but sometimes the truth hurts.

[Leifei]

I'm not the one that was struggling with "button bloat"

I get it. You got called out and you don't like it, but sometimes the truth hurts.

I'm buttonless and untriggerable. Am I 99th percentile? Nah, but I'm working on it~ You on the other hand can't talk as your logs aren't even posted for everyone to see.

[Ransu]

I don't like logs being public, but here's my sam from last tier.

https://i.imgur.com/Q59GjvM.png

Satisfied?

Anyone who thinks kaiten was button bloat didn't understand how valuable the skill was. Forget the fun factor of the animation and how well it flowed into a GCD for a moment. It gave kenki a purpose outside of spamming shinten. Our APM didn't change at all after removing it as we just started mixing in gyoten along with the shinten spam to dump excess kenki.

We could have gotten rid of shoha ii and guren. We could have merged ogi and ishi into the same button as well as tsubame being on the same button as iajutsu. Getting rid of kaiten and making our casted abilities auto crit was an extremely lazy approach. They didn't care about "action bloat" they just wanted to deal with the crit variant problem.