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+---- Thread: An offset regarding the recent Kensei nerf (/showthread.php?tid=10467)
An offset regarding the recent Kensei nerf - Fara Heims - 09-12-2023
So, with three of their effects becoming stances, there's a couple things that I think just looking at it knowing what other classes can do, as well as the already very strong weakness that it has only getting compounded, I've come to decide to post this, as there's things that Kensei does that it could do better without making the stances overbearing. Please note, I don't actually play a Kensei, but know how difficult the weakness that the class is now blatantly going to suffer from is to deal with.
The weakness I speak of is that with
Small tweaks to the stances
- Absolute Death: This stance is in theory good, but the limited levels of classes makes this a very poor way to get Aoe damage into a class with a very heavy focus on single combat. Its damage cap on it's effect is 50 per target as is, while other melee classes that just outright have Aoes that cast, do just about as much damage as the upfront attack to all targets in their Aoes. To address this: Doubling the level scaling and making it so the level of the Absolute Death buff is always added to the damage, taking the damage from 50 to 110, would make it an adequate Aoe option, just add an asterisk that the Aoe damage cannot hit the target if it does not already have that restriction! And this is suddenly an on-par option to the best option Kensei have at this point for their three stances!
- Absolute Fear: While this stance is already stronger than absolute death, being that it imposes fear debuff with an already SWA, Skill, and Celerity focused class, this effect couldn't be better to have! Though for 15 focus per turn, it's more than a little intensive! It contributes to the stated weakness above. To address this: Reducing the FP cost by 5 on this stance particularly would be enough I think. As said above fear is quite a potent effect! It makes it so evasion is only compounded! Adding to the value of celerity on this class. But 15 FP makes it not worth enough to use it over Absolute Pace in most situations in the Kensei's control.
- Absolute Pace: This is the stance that's the caveat and before the nerf probably would be what could arguably justify the nerf to make them stances instead of where they were before. With the passive effect of the stance being an evasion chance equal to it's level at 10, this made it equivalent to an additional 5 Celerity on the Kensei's evade stat, particularly without the drawback of diminishing returns once they hit 50 total. This alone would be enough to put it on par with the current absolute fear. But it also has the proc-based effect of Battle Flow, granting 100% extra strength damage when it procs on the next offensive skill used. Before the shift to these becoming stances, this probably validated the use of Absolute Death, but now that they cannot stack, Absolute death isn't nearly good enough to be even compared to Absolute Fear! Nothing needs addressed for this one! It's a good tool with a perfectly balanced cost.
But the issue that compounds all of this is a lack of sustainability for it, I'd recommend an innate be best to fix that.
That being called Like Water.
"The Kensei is a tranquil swordsman, and those who have learned to weaponize this tranquility grow to be at one with the world just as much as their weapon."
The big suggestion I have for it's effects are as follows:
Upon evading an incoming offensive skill, gain 5 FP. Each rank grants Evade.
Evade per rank: +3 (3 ranks)
Together this will both make the sudden shift to Stances with FP cost instead of passive skills and the fact that Kensei's never had much for options to deal with lower-than average ease of gaining FP reserves be mitigated without outright making Kensei capable of 'dealing with everything' so to speak.
RE: An offset regarding the recent Kensei nerf - Autumn - 09-12-2023
While confused about where the nerf is, the most commonly agreed upon thing is the maintenance cost on the stances is a bit higher than it should be, keep in mind you are not encouraged to stay in 1 stance for any specific benefit except for with Absolute Pace, instead of boosting Kensei's already pretty generous FP Regen, I'd opt in to just make their costs per turn lower, or lower Kensei skills like Kagekiri/wazabane etc. to not be so steep, as their counterparts in other classes are usually half of the cost, even crescent rook is half of the cost of Kagekiri and is better in every single way.
RE: An offset regarding the recent Kensei nerf - Lolzytripd - 09-13-2023
I think the only real nerf is on the single target damage, where you could before drop absolute death on a target and single them down.
Personally what I would like to see would be --more-- offensive skills now
Some kind of Aoe that applies Sakki and Kenki, A movement skill for Touki. and swapping Hirazuki and Wazabane's Ki's.
for Sakki Some kind of small circle aoe, that gets bigger if kensei combo'd, mayble applies acidity/rampage
for Kenki Some kind of 3 tile wide line projectile, look, we've all watched bleach. kensei combo is wider
For Touki the movement skill could do something different, Diagonal line, if it ends adjacent to an enemy you perform an enhanced basic attack. scalable 1-7 line.
Also final idea, Sheathsword's momentum cost reduced by 1m per different Ki applied this turn.