I think Sogensara got a little overnerfed. It's essentially a bad deluxe version of Yukijin.
Yukijin has 9 power, 80% accuracy, 0 critical and 10 weight. 60% STR 40% SKI. It's a 7*.
Sogensara has 11 power, 80% accuracy, 0 critical and 15 weight. 60% STR 40% SKI. It's a 9*.
The difference is 5 weight, which "helps" (not really because remains materials and weapon additions) with two-hand, and two power.
These small differences for a world of trouble in finding the weapon if you're farming for it on your own.
To delve further in, lets also compare potentials.
Yukijin's potential changes the damage of sheathe sword to magical, and gives it a specific element instead of being slash damage.
Sogensara's potential targets Doriads and plant monsters (it says enemies, but really..), and lays down ice tiles otherwise.
Sogensara's potential is super situational, but even in the situations where it comes in handy, it's pretty bad. 3m to freeze a boss, or 3m to freeze a Doriad in PvP (when I haven't really even seen Doriads around much).
I have a list of changes that could be made. They're independent of each other.
1. Sogensara's power goes down from 11 to 9, but it's scaling is changed to 60% SKI and 40% STR.
2. Everblue becomes able to target any player, inflicting Frozen lvl 10 and also goes on CD for 3 - 5 rounds. Additionally, it deals damage equal to 75% SWA + Ice ATK as an autohit that procs evasion. It isn't effected by elemental buffs.
Numbers are subject to change, but this is really meant to get the conversation started.
I agree with a change to scaling to 60% skill 40% str to begin with. It seems rather silly to be a higher rarity but same scaling as the other jins and now that it's not 120% scaling anymore I think it's safe to say it can be changed to 60% skill 40% str.
So long as its not 120% Scaling again, or leans on SKI way harder than STR, that was simply too much.
I think a potential that inflicts freeze and damages is too op in general though. Let's step away from the annoying freeze status! But I do think Sogensara needs a buff or a rework or SOMETHING. Yukijin is still just better in my oppinion since you also get that nice +10% ice resist on top of things. My idea would be to make the potential skill able to target nothing, so you can make a big line of ice for 3m. And for the sword itself to also inflict frostbite level UL on hit. So you open up the doorway into some sort of frostbite strategy. At least then it'd be something fairly unique.
It isn't a 10*, so there isn't a way to inflict frostbite UL.
I disagree with making the potential skill able to target nothing, especially for the cost of 3m, just because there are other much better things you could do with 3m that are just worth more. Even with Yukijin, you essentially get free magic damage and force your opponent to reposition and waste 3m in exchange for 3m, or risk catching a free attack. A potential that inflicts freeze and damages isn't too OP, due to the fact that it's locked behind a 3 - 5 round CD, and, now, there's a status immunity for freeze as well as an action that allows you to now reduce the level of said freeze.
This is also a bit of a bump, seeing as this change hasn't been talked about in a while.
I rather see something more unique to it. Sogensaras skill does create ice statues mainly, and thats it.
What I think would be cool:
-Either Make ice statues last longer, or give a talent subpath in cryomancy for it. 3 rounds is just not long enough to even plan anything with them. (preferably I would make them last even longer in general given how little control you have over the statues unless you are a doriad/ranger, but make them attackable in turn)
-As a Potential skill I would like to see a way to make them "Shatter", using them like little ice bombs you can trigger by targeting them, creates a threat potential on the field and maybe make hte explosion inflict frostbite?
-Not needed but I feel like it could atleast deal Ice atk damage on it's path.
These two(three) addons would make it very unique in its playstyle. I would probably make the bombs/shattering stuff decently strong as they are more like traps and if you use it in one turn to damage you waste 6 M.
In regards to the ice statues, there aren't many valid targets to even turn into ice statues.. Unless you're thinking of making it create them, as well as an ice trail towards the selected spot, without needing a target?
Also, I fail to see how sending a trail of ice to an opponent and locking them in the frozen status while applying damage isn't unique? Frozen arrow is similar, but not the same.
I will, however, meet in the middle. I'd like the ice path to do damage equal to 50% - 75% SWA + ice attack.
next to the normal random plant types that can appear on the battlefield there are certain ways to play around with this and actually use it to your liking.
One of them is being a doriad who can "Summon" plants and the other is being an Archer/ranger. Vines and cherryy blossom tree and such all count as plants and can be used for these combos in what I think is pretty unique. Currently the statues are just kinds pointless.
There is also the combo with one of the Ice daggers and Sogensara, to use the ice statue you create on dodge to shatter. Making the punishing game on dodge real.
So there are a lot of targets you can even set up yourself.
I feel that the damage is sorta needed cause the "Ice spread" on Sogensara isn't actually worth 3 M, there are better options for that that cover bigger fields, so it never really finds a use for an Ice user. (not to mention that it won't slow anyone down either as they can just run next to the ice path.)
The normal random plant spawns that aren't reliable enough to make a 9* worth it, as the chances of always having flowers spawn in places isn't that great, especially since there isn't a way for you to have control over moving it.
Summoning a plant just to turn it into ice and have it explode can run 7m, which makes it arguably one of the worst combinations you could probably do as there are many other maneuvers you could perform for more damage/better effects, making it pale compare to Yukijin.
Just to compare, I can sidecut and sheathe sword, which would do more damage (and a better variety of damage) than the proposed combination, and even have the chance of gaining 3M back if my sidecut crits.
1m to summon the plant, 3m to turn it into ice, 3m to shatter it and deal some damage and maybe apply frostbite. Frostbite won't be that useful due to the number of abilities that allow you to move without triggering the ice tiles, or even deal damage without needing to move in the first place.
If creating ice statues with Sogensara cost 1m, and didn't need specific targets but could only be used once per round, I'd be more on board.
However, I think a good baseline idea is if you have to play a specific race and, really, only that race to make the potential of a weapon worth using, then it's a bad idea for a potential.
Another idea I came across, however, could be based on Frostbite.
Sogensara, say, gained damage (flat) based on the amount of Frostbite on the target, and maybe the ice damage has a status inflict chance to give the target Frostbite, and the lvl of Frostbite was able to be increased based on a % of damage dealt by the weapon. It'd be, say, 10% of the damage you deal would be the added lvl of Frostbite, with the duration refreshing if it's actually applied.
That'd be another way to make the potential worth it.