SAM changes should have been delayed

TL;DR: 6.1 changes were communicated poorly. Samurai changes should have been delayed until 6.15 at the earliest or preferably 6.2 when all the large changes are planned.

After watching yesterday's official Patch Notes Reading stream and looking at the actual numerical changes, I feel I have a better understanding of the developers' intentions with the SAM changes, although I still ultimately disagree with them. In particular, there are two paradigms which should have been better communicated during the Live Letter:

1. It is clear from the numbers that they want to distribute SAM's damage more evenly across its kit. I feel this may be the actual reason for the removal of Kaiten, as it necessarily creates a divide between high-potency and low-potency skills. This still isn't very solid reasoning, but I think it makes more sense than whatever "action bloat" was supposed to mean.
2. They are aware of the anti-synergy with crit buffs and they plan to address this in the future by overhauling the buffs themselves. I think changing crit buffs will be good for the game overall. After all, WAR players have been struggling with this same issue for years. In my opinion, one way this can be done is to change the buffs from raw crit rate to the Critical Hit stat, which gives both crit damage and crit rate.

In my opinion, the one of the main reasons people are so upset with the 6.1 changes is that they were abrupt, uncalled for and poorly justified. Regardless, I feel the reasoning listed above is still flawed:

1. These changes contradict most current job design. Ever since Shadowbringers and continuing into Endwalker, jobs have been tightly focused on having a burst phase every 60 or 120 seconds which lines up with raid buffs. This was even reinforced for SAM in 6.0, where we got another massive burst cooldown in the form of Namikiri.
2. We still have the old crit buffs in 6.1. While auto-crits could be good future solution, they have been currently inserted into an incompatible version of the game. It is especially problematic that this was done so close to the release of a new ultimate, where synergy issues will likely have the biggest effect. SAM already has very little raid utility, creating problems using it alongside specific classes only makes the job more undesirable.

Ultimately, I think that now is one of the worst times to make sweeping changes to any job. It is fine for the developers to want to gradually shift FF14's overall design, but this shouldn't be done right before the release of the most challenging content in the game. If they want to test design changes on the back of SAM, this should be done during a more laid-back patch, such as 6.15 or 6.18. As a SAM main myself, I would personally prefer if this were done alongside all other jobs in 6.2.

the trouble is with the number, i'm totally ok with you...
my problem is why did they buff the combo instead to leave us have an impactfull midare and ogi? because that the reason of why the two was nerfed (and tenka goken too... ) they did increase the damage of the combo for mitigate the damage loose of midare/ogi. but it lead with a strange feeling of not being powerfull or impactfull. we are not a damage dealer that is about dealing constant damage... but more a damage dealer that have high burst windows of damage!
all the sam action are means to lead to the usage of the iaijutsu for deal insane damage! but right now i fee like i'm hitting with a hammer toy each time midare or ogi are launched. worst when you begin to compare the number with other job like blm that can toss 36k dh/crit with is spammable fire spell when we are left with 26k dh/crit why?

instead to boost all our combo skill i will have prefered that our damage of midare and ogi was buffed. for keep our identity as samurai! right now the samurai have an identity crisis and it have nothing to do with kaiten removal. it's about what is the goal of the jobs when we deal damage! what all our action are leading us to do! we build sen for use iaijustu and our 2 minute windows is another powerfull iaijutsu! but with this patch number... they feel weak! it don't feel powerfull... impactfull or even meaningfull to build sen for ditch this sort of damage!

i know that the change did keep somehow the balance... but the balance without the feeling of the jobs feel wrong! and it not something that must wait the 6.2 to be adressed... it something that need to be adressed ASAP because right now i prefer the feeling of the sam in pvp than what we did become in pve. and it kinda weird because i have the feeling to play two different class...

ps: outside this i'm like you i feel they try to prepare change for later but i admit some change was means to be done before do this one.

even if they delayed these changes they would have been terrible. SAM feels terrible to play with these changes. WHEN they do it makes no difference. these changes should have never happend, not now not in 6.15 not in 6.2, never.

you cannot take a jobs that is all about builing up to big hits and then take the big hits away. i bet you could never press iai jutsu on sam now and not even lose that much dps, thats how shit it is now.

kenki bar is useless now, just press shiten when it lights up. iai jutsu's are weak af. whats even is this job supose to do now it just feels empty, unfun and unrewarding.