Comprehensive Guide to the Kaiten and 6.1 SAM rework

[Post]

This is what I was trying to get at. I liked SB DRK, once they did some much needed changes to it in 4.3, even if the majority of players thought 'its trash no damage' (they were incorrect). Why were people mad about DA spam, but are seemingly fine with Edge spam?...

I think can answer that one. I didn't like StB DA spam compared to edge spam because of the doubled (relative) consumption of DA in StB when compared with its consumption in HW. Edge doesn't compete for any of the rest of DRK'S toolkit other than TBN, and it's much easier to hang onto 3kmp for that than working with DA was on the whole in StB.

Often in StB DRK you could get locked out of applying DA to an oGCD because they not only reworked the only GCD combo finisher that did not consume DA (Delirium), but applied the same flat DA bonus to a second hit in the combo (Syphon Strike), which you also HAD to press to generate MP given the constant drain from Darkside if you were between Blood Prices and Weapons.

Because of this, it actually exacerbated the floor of using MP for mitigation when they threw in TBN and more double weaving required so you didn't eat your DA on a flat 140 potency buff to your next GCD if it wasn't Hard Slash. Not to mention, TBN, DA and Dark Passenger all costed the same, so that was like 60% of your MP bar if you used two in conjunction, and saving that amount meant overcapping was not so hard to do when you were in Blood Price/Weapon.

DA went from "enhances your strong actions" to "applies 140 potency to probably your next action" and became more like a chore at best or a hindrance to using my enhanced dark mind or passenger at worst. It had the same treatment as AST cards got going into ShB, and the fewer amount of free time to use it (no scourge, no pre-syphon strike oGCD, more time spent in blood weapon with new Delirium) and less MP to work with (no Blood Price out of Grit, higher cost on all spells and TBN competing for MP now) just made it feel more like filler than a feature.

Not to say I don't miss DA. I just think it worked a lot better in HW when its cost was lower and it wasn't consumed by 2/3 of your basic GCDs. Maybe if they untethered DA consumption from one of the only actions always available to build MP, and used, I dunno, THE MP BAR for DRK's gauge in StB instead of Blood it woulda been received better. That's basically how it works today, except it has WAR fell cleaves slapped on there cuz everyone loves Fell Cleave. Bloodspiller could just have been a high MP cost big attack, maybe costing "up to" like Flare, or like Eventide does in PvP.

[Valence]

I think edge is just a lot more mindless than DA since you can use them a lot more freely, where DA was literally constrained to immediately come before the skill it needed to enhance most of the time, and on top of it it also enhanced a lot of oGCDs (like Carve and Spit), because it was HW/SB after all, which were oGCD wonderland.

But I don't disagree at all mind you. I don't even disagree with the general mind behind the thread/OP, they just delete things whenever something doesn't prove satisfying (?), but offer nothing in counterpart. It's been the literal litany of the battle system since the start of ShB. They just don't care anymore about RPG mechanics, they want to focus on hectic encounters ala XVI.

[CelestiCer]

in fact, even the most rabid Kaiten advocate around here continues to play Samurai. / So I'm not trying to antagonise you —

" Rabid Kaiten advocate... " ( that's a new one... )

If it was aimed at me? Firstly, you're to kind... Secondly, PVE Samurai made me fall in love with XIV's combat of which I now do 100x less of after the 6.1 changes cause shocker? I like it a lot less. What was the Nr.1 reason to play for me? became the 5th after now Housing / Gposing / Community-Service / Hanging-out. Speak of not antagonizing, yet you're throwing wild assumptions in your posts, written with lies as the supposedly popular opinion... with little to nothing to back it up. Whole paragraphs of essentially boiling down to " I am talking out of my *biep* ", all the offense, I'm just being blunt...

Back on Topic, " Kaiten removal " fixed absolutely nothing, improved absolutely nothing, tackled absolutely zero issues while making the gameplay absolutely dumber and replaced its removal with absolutely nothing - That's it.

Dio and many others already debunked the crap out of everything through the ground... But when it comes to the arguments of what Dev's need to handle... newsflash? they are paid a salary, thus the caring for the Dev's of a billion dollar company argument is so honorable ( if you even actually cared... ) Yet, who cares? I care about gameplay. We don't pay a sub to feel sorry for the Dev's... Just keep my Job fun or don't make it worse, that's it. And all I see are excuses on how a Job should be less fun for the most stupid reasons that makes absolutely no sense. Anything that makes gameplay worse? makes the game worse - it's that simple. ( It's not rocket science btw... )

Also, for the hundredth time? is anyone defending Shinten spamming yet as in-depth/amazingly/improving/complex/satisfying gameplay over Kaiten execution? Cause that would be the day... Every time its someone trying to reason Kaiten's removal, never ever is Shinten spamming ever taken into question on how terrible that is now in comparison... Has anyone ever noticed that pattern? ( Crazy observation, I know... mhm... )

[Shurrikhan]

Pipedream Adjustments (Spitball-ish) Wishlist Incoming...


Goals of Changes:

• Starting from reversion to (imo) better days...
• Smooth out pain-points without reducing skill-ceiling.
• Revitalize the value of managing Fuka & Fugetsu.
• Add opportunities for further nuance to accentuate timing of certain actions beyond just preparing for this or that upcoming positional opportunity (e.g., why might I want to use Shifu in this order over that), and maybe give a bit more to do with Kaiten.
• Give a bit more to do with Kaiten.
• Give more fun stuff to do with Gyoten and Yaten, even if only situationally / as a bonus.
• Generally increase APM / more zoom-zooms.
• A bit more rate-of-actions variance.
• A bit more Kenki interplay.
• More use cases for otherwise less used skills.

The Actual Suggestions:

First, revert to pre-Endwalker, with some small fixes.

• Background Change: Conal and linear AoEs no longer require a target to use. If an enemy is targeted, the game will check both lines of attack and use the one (character facing / camera-facing or to-target facing) that will strike a greater number of effective targets.
• Background Change: A new class of actions called Techniques has been added. These may be used even in the middle of other animations. All pet skills, Sprint, and certain other actions have been moved into this category.
  
• Fuka and Fugetsu reverted to 30s per application. [Given the added 3% Haste given in the same period, the 40s durations were overcorrections to Shoha being on the GCD that were excessive even before Shoha was taken off said GCD; Namikiri is less frequent and though it may act back-to-back, there is still room enough to optimize around that.]
• Most AoE actions now deal 30% (Tenka, Guren) to 50% (Fuga, Mangetsu, Oka) greater damage to their first enemy struck. [Tenka is therefore better made a net gain in 2-target combat and more obviously worth using in single-target before gaining access to Yukikaze, while Mangetsu and Oka main gain some additional use cases.]
• Range of Fuga and Tenka's conal AoEs extended by 2 yalms. [This gives Tenka a bit more leeway on hitting targets moving away from the SAM and giving Fuga a bit more of value during gap-closing.]
  
  
  
• Tsubame-Gaeshi (again) no longer grants Meditation stacks, and Shoha's damage has (again) been buffed accordingly, though to just 540p this time. [The one mostly good Endwalker change; 540 [180p/stack] used instead of 560 [186.67] for divisibility and internal balancing.]
• "Meditation Stacks" renamed to "Honed Blade" or the like, because the prior sounds stupid.
• Meditate now supercharges existing Honed Blade stacks with each tick, causing them to count as two each, if it would otherwise overcap. Its cooldown has also been reduced to 40s, and it now also reverses the drain of Fuka and Fugetsu, causing them instead to gain a second of duration with each second channeled.
• Meditation is again oGCD, but it does not begin to tick until the GCD has cooled, and now ticks per half-GCD's time (thereby more than doubling its rate and improving GCD-sync) but alternates between granting 10 Kenki (odd ticks) and a stack of Honed Blade (even ticks). If within .5s of a tick, it will hold other GCD actions for the tick, thereby keeping GCD-synced and allowing for proper queuing. [This makes Meditate more fluid without being an obligatory weave; every odd tick is worth 120p, every even tick 180p, for a total of 300 ppgcd. Compare against SAM's ~460 ppgcd from weaponskills (not accounting for CDs, including TG and Namikiri), and Meditate's former value of =<217.5 ppgcd.]
  * The buff lingers faintly, allowing oGCD actions not to break Meditation for almost a second, giving it a bit more fluidity; again, though, it can't tick while under the global recast delay, and it makes sense to keep the GCD synced.
  
  
• Base cast time of Iaijutsu reduced from 72% to 60% of a GCD (1.5s baseline); its enhanced version instead allows one to start Iaijutsu at up to 20 yalms' range if possessing at least 10 Kenki and allows Gyoten to be queued as a technique, causing it to automatically be used at the end of Iaijutsu's cast to gap-close and reach the target to complete. [While this does simplify gameplay faintly, the cool factor and the ability to fine-tune GCD sync despite adds and gap-closing should make this worthwhile.]
• Tsubame Gaeshi is now available for 5 seconds after using Iaijutsu -OR- Tsubame Gaeshi replaces Iaijutsu when off cooldown and until a new Sen is generated; while Iaijutsu is shown, a cooldown ring for Tsubame-Gaeshi shows over Iaijutsu without replacing it or greying out its icon (similar to when cooling holding at least one charge but also cooling an additional charge).
  
  
• Shoha II replaced by a trait just causing Shoha I to launch red arcs of energy (a la Guren), dealing additional linear (or narrow-conal) AoE fall-off damage.
• Hissatsu: Senei is now a trait that causes Guren to swap instead to Senei when its line of attack would strike only a single enemy.
• Third Eye's Third Eye Opened proc now replaces your next use of Shinten or Kyuten with Seigan or Soten (new), respectively; Seigan deals an additional 100 AoE potency in a narrow cone and Soten deals an additional 100 potency to its first enemy struck, and both heal for damage dealt. [In this way, we have more animation variety without button bloat.]
  
  
• Enhanced Ikishoten replaced with Art of the Swell II - Tsubame Gaeshi grants a stack of Namikiri, to a maximum of two stacks. Each allows the use of Ogi Namikiri or Kaeshi: Namikiri. (Generally, you'd hold these to save 20 Kenki, since Kaeshi: Namikiri can only be used within 5s of Namikiri and includes Kaiten's modifier for free.) [Because people like their big swishy-thwoom skill, even if it's pretty braindead.]
  
  
• [Very Optional] Shoha can now be spent at any number of stacks and is now an oGCD mobile channel, striking every quarter-GCD so long as you are in range of your target; number of animation steps now varies with number of Honed Blade stacks consumed. (This animation cycles; if using for just 1 stack's worth each across three separate GCDs, you'd see each third of the animation, in order.) [I just want to be able to see the whole animation, without losing fluidity.]

Then some leveling changes...

• Hagakure and Kaiten moved to a far earlier level; base skill potencies can be reduced in compensation to be returned at Kaiten's original level, and Hagakure now grants 15 Kenki per Sen after <some level as early as 58 and as late as 80>, making it less of a trap.
• Gyoten moved to level 40 or so.
• Ikishoten moved to level 58 or so.

And then some new stuff for fun (spitball):

• New Trait: Art of the Storm (lv64) - Every 20 Kenki spent reduces the cooldown of Ikishoten by 1 second. Fuga and Enpi increase your movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds. Iaijutsu reduces the global cooldown incurred by your next Hakaze or Fuga by 33%. [This just adds some pacing variance and decouples Ikishoten from rigid sync.]
  
  
• New Trait: Art of the Swell (lv68) - Ikishoten and Meikyo Shisui now randomly (or based on current Sen count / combo progress / whatever) grant either Swell: High Tide or Swell: Low Tide.
  
  High Tide - The next 3 casts of a random Kenki skill to consume 10 less Kenki and deal 100 more damage to their primary target if AoE or 50 more AoE potency if single-target.
  * If the random skill's recast times are fully consumed, a new skill we be selected.
  
  Low Tide - Your next 3 Sen consumed by Hagakure within the next 10 seconds grant an additional 10 Kenki and automatically grant Kaiten.
  
  
• New Trait (~lv74): Art of the Sword - Gyoten and Yaten gain a third shared charge and their recharge time is reduced by 3 seconds (from 8 to 5). Using Yaten duplicates your latest non-Iaijutsu single-target weaponskill in a cone facing towards you from your target for partial damage to other enemies. Using Gyoten causes your next non-Iaijutsu single-target weaponskill to additionally deal a portion of its effect to other enemies in a line.
  
  
• New Trait (~lv78): Art of the Storm II [replaces Enhanced Fuka and Fugetsu] - The effects of Fuka and Fugetsu are now initially enhanced, beginning at 14% before fading to 10% over their duration. [Drops to 13% at 24s left, 12% at 18s left, 11% at 12s left, 10% at 6s left, thereby averaging 12%.]
  Additionally, using Kaiten on a skill which grants Fuka or Fugetsu will cause it to instead grant Shin Fuka or Shin Fugetsu, which increases its effect to 20%, likewise fading to 10% over its duration.
  Only one or the other may be active at the same time; activating either while the other is active will degrade the other to its normal/unenhanced effect.

[FairyDJ]

Yes Kaiten for me just help me to remember to not overcap on my gauge that was the bulk of it for me. But tbh it's one less button I need to press and I feel no real difference in not having it. Its just more of a manual thing for me to be like hey don't forget to spend your gauge.

[RyuuZero]

Removal of Kaiten, an oGCD ability that did cost 20 Kenki and increased the next Iaijutsu's potency by 50% (technically all weaponskills except Ogi).

Kaiten also boosted Ogi^^ aswell as boosting all Weaponskills, basicly labelling Kenki as Weaponskill Boost Resource

Now it's just the Shinten Gauge. There also is Kyuten for AoE and I'd say without Kaiten the AoE Rotation is more fun than the Single Target Rotation.. The Single Target Rotation is just lvl50+ Shinten and cool stuff every 2 minutes..

There also are Senei and Guren but imo their Kenki Cost are covered by Ikishoten

That Tsubamegaeshi takes up it's own Button but doesn't generate Meditation Stacks anymore is kinda baffling. Tsubamegaeshi should get the Ogi Treatment and be merged with Iaijutsu.