Samurai mains in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail will have to rework their rotations and best-in-slot substat priorities before heading into the first Savage raiding tier—as of Patch 7.05, Tsubame-gaeshi is no longer tied to casts of Meikyo Shisui.
Accompanied by a sea of potency reductions to nearly every Samurai ability in the FFXIV 7.05 patch notes, released on July 30, this new job change might seem like a devastating nerf at first glance. However, putting the pieces together results in an overall damage buff that may or may not improve your Samurai experience.
Previously, Tsubame-gaeshi could only be executed under the “Tsubame-gaeshi ready” buff granted by using Meikyo Shisui. This meant that players had to manage their Tsubame-gaeshi uses to avoid overcapping while saving as many casts under major damage buff windows as possible.
Starting with Patch 7.05, all casts of Iaijutsu (excluding Higanbana applications) automatically grant “Tsubame-gaeshi ready,” meaning that every Setsugekka and Goken can be followed up by their Kaeshi counterparts.
Effectively, the Samurai rotation now involves two high-potency critical hits after every full combo loop instead of at static one-minute intervals. Not only does this increase overall DPS, but it bumps Samurai up even further as a priority candidate for Dancer’s Closed Position buff due to the increased number of guaranteed crits.
However, this change doesn’t affect the Tendo buff granted by Meikyo Shisui—the super-powerful Tendo versions of every Iaijutsu and Kaeshi cast are still only available after a Meikyo usage.
Thankfully, the central logic to Samurai’s damage rotation remains unchanged, so players hopefully won’t have to make huge changes beyond unlearning the filler loop to make room for the extra Tsubame casts. The same can’t be said of Vipers, which has received a major overwork of the job’s foundation on the day of the Savage raid launch—you can check out the full list of changes in the official patch notes here.
