[Autumn]

how about armor pierce instead of Crit increase, I feel that results in more damage on a crit, than flat out increasing crit while at the same time keeping its damage lower versus people its not a problem against. Aka people that do not stack armor to high levels.

I feel we often attempt to increase its total damage, which creates new problems with fast basic hitter versus fast basic hitter. While the problem is the laughable damage against tanks which mainly comes from the part of the calculation were armor is calculated before your multi. So why not combat that specific part?

For an extra layer of possible balancing, the armor pierce could only happen on a crit, so building alot of crit evade is still desireable to coutneract this.

I feel this intrudes slightly on Fuuma's territory and could cause some discrepancy following that but its not a bad idea, armor piercing damage is effectively true damage to keep in mind, given how it functions.

[Shujin]

Yeah I can see that part about Fuuma, but to be fair, It would scale Fumma up too, to even greater armor shred heights and if we add the crit condition, fuuma would still do the armor shred on none crits, so it wouldn't entirely steal its identity and just become even more effective against heavy armor.

I just feel, if we keep increasing total damage too hard, squishy people suffer a bit too much for it. I atleast have currently no better solution how to only tune it up against tanks otherwise.

[K Peculier]

Superior Onigan Kensei sword arts, slice through Black Knight heavy armor like butter.

Seems good so far. I also wish Kensei had the newer class treatments of less skill points on the 5 rank skills so they aren't so skill point starved outside of destiny. And also because I refuse to /not/ use hidden cut as a kensei as a rule of cool.

[Balor]

The suggested fix here is fine, as genuinely if you're a squishy basic hitter or squishy getting hit. The difference between getting hit by a Kensei with a basic or a combo... The difference is marginal when death is just the outcome either way. Squishies are already rocket tag situations when fighting one another so heyo.

To fix up tank busting I think that Kpec's suggestion of making skills cost 3 points would be a nice start. Though there are plenty of issues with the general FP costs and benefits of most Kensei combos. Particularly Wazabane is 22 FP for a combo opener. No one puts more than 1 point in it because of that. Or at least people who are informed.

Making it easier to apply Absolute Death, or easier to KEEP it applied would help resolve tank busting to some degree as 25% damage is nothing to scoff at imo.

[Lewdcifer]

I'm of the personal belief that one aspect that really holds Kensei back is the fact that most of the cool stuff is limited behind katanas. I can understand why, but my own two cents would be making Kensei offensive skills like Toiken, Hirazuki, etc. not have an increased momentum cost depending on weapon type, thus adding variety and making the class more fun. Passives could very well keep this aspect as a way to incentivize katana usage with the class.

[Lolzytripd]

I'm still partial to the idea of making sheathsword not 3m but making it like guard, just consuming how much momentum you have left doing different things each rank.

1m preps bonus damage and hit on next attack/riposte.
2m procs hidden cuts
3m prepares quick draw.
4m watchful eye's the closest enemy that proc'd hidden cuts
5m Quickdraw now dashes towards attacker within rank+1 range for ranged attacks.
6m+ IDK quick draw procs on skills/spells

Also....hidden cuts should last more than a turn.

[Balor]

I'm of the personal belief that one aspect that really holds Kensei back is the fact that most of the cool stuff is limited behind katanas. I can understand why, but my own two cents would be making Kensei offensive skills like Toiken, Hirazuki, etc. not have an increased momentum cost depending on weapon type, thus adding variety and making the class more fun. Passives could very well keep this aspect as a way to incentivize katana usage with the class.

I uh. I don't think personally that I want to see a Kensei with a spineleash NGL. I think Kensei conceptually is fun as it is with it's selection of skills. It just needs reworks in terms of skill point costs, perhaps FP costs and tweaks to encourage the use the Absolute skills.

[Snake]

Kensei is a Katana-based class, that was changed because Kensei was being a leeway for basic hitting melee or ranged to benefit from its Kenki bonuses and completely overshadow the class's identity. Hard 'no' against it.

Lolzy's idea is also cool, but I believe Absolute Death should be buffed in some way since well. It's in the letter! A CEL/Critical Hit-based Kensei's ability is to lay down whatever it locks eyes on before it can live enough to outdamage it. They also should have more solid options to be on even grounds with what's just not killing them but also everything before they even reach them. Mages.

ALSO! Entertaining the Sheath Sword idea:
6+M - While on Quick Draw stance, upon being targeted by a skill or spell, you negate its effects then counter-attack by teleporting over the enemy and using Kagekiri.
5+M - Hidden Cut activation heals your HP and FP for 25% of its damage.
4+M - Hidden Cut deals damage over four times (normal damage is divided by 4), but ignores protection and Physical Damage reduction.
3+M - Enter a state of serenity while on Quick Draw. Any attempts to inflict Blind on you are swapped for Far Sight LV10, and Evasion's damage reduction is increased by 15%.
2+M - Hidden Cut's damage can critically hit.
1+M - Hidden Cut deals bonus physical damage equal to 15% of the enemy's maximum HP, if they are under 25%.

[Autumn]

I do think there is merit to Hidden Cut having a longer tracking window, it'd be more useful (and fucking cool) if your goal was to hit all enemies within the span of 2-4 rounds, and then sheath sword to trigger hidden cut on all of them.

Maybe Kensei could use some lingering damage to help them out as well, I do think they should get more critical damage because thats what Katanas should be doing though, that should be implemented somewhere in their kit.

As a whole it needs a minor bump up, it should be a damage focused class, and the absolute skills are not very useful at times, increasing their range or decreasing their momentum cost should help sway the class to actually using them more.

As for absolute pace, its not useful as long as its in its current state, it should grant the buff after a timer runs out too, lasting 2 rounds on an enemy and failing to meet that condition gives you the buff anyways for example.

[Balor]

Absolute Pace isn't useful since it relies on someone missing. Which I think it would be better if it procced on basic attack misses and also evasion procs. Meaning that it creates that idea of setting the pace of the battle in comparison to people just ignoring it.

Crit buff would be lovely. Guile isn't tenable to build ideally for most katana builds, you don't benefit enough flat from it compared to weapon archetypes that scale with it and have already buffered crit modifiers.

Amber I might DM you soon and we can google doc a more focused Kensei rework. Because I think we're of the same mind atm.