I have been playing Samurai since its release in Stormblood, and for the most part have played it in most pve content and enjoyed it across the board. Particularly in 6.0 I've been having a lot of fun with the job as while it isn't the perfect job it's certainly one of the most satisfying. The build up to your finishers and burst felt clean and easy to learn/play at a casual level and engaging to master to get the most out of. Patch 6.1 saw the addition of auto-crits on many of the finishers in the name of consistency, with a sizable drop in potency. It also saw the removal of Kaiten, one of what I would consider cornerstone abilities to Samurai's feel and identity.

Reading the preliminary patch notes I was curious and tentatively worried about what it's removal would mean for how the job played. Those worries were founded when the patch went live and I didn't like playing Samurai for the first time since I was learning the job in Stormblood. Imagine you're playing baseball, and you're going to bat. You'll usually get in position, take your stance, wind up and hit the ball. That's the Kaiten-Midare Setsugekka experience, and when you crit that's hitting a homerun. With 6.1, it feels like you're going from a standing position with the bat at your side to hitting the ball, and the homerun is guaranteed now. And with the potency drop they don't feel like homeruns at all, just slightly bigger normal hits.

I understand the desire to bring consistency to a job that has a large disparity to its numbers depending on crit hits. But spreading out the damage to all of its hits and removing what is, at the end of the day an extra button, but also one of the driving experiences of Samurai as a job, is not the correct action.

I would strongly encourage the dev team to consider returning Kaiten and returning the damage emphasis to the finishers and burst of Samurai. It will lose that consistency yes, but I would rather keep the inconsistent but fun identity than lose it. The auto crits can stay or go, I may warm up to them yet. But Kaiten's removal is a detriment and wound to Samurai's otherwise solid history.