First off, I get that this is a fantasy game and that it's not going to be too realistic. I also understand that many of the samurai heroes were more inspired by anime and manga than by history (not to say that this is entirely the case; the costume design of the Kensai looks somewhat similar to woodcuts I've seen of samurai). I also understand they wanted to make the faction unique. However, they way they chose to go about it brings up a HOST of balance problems. They try to put anime characters up against heroes that are... I don't want to say historically accurate, but at least historically inspired. This causes the Samurai to require what I've come to call "mystical BS". I feel like all the characters to some degree or another don't really follow the rules the game sets up. So I'm going to make some specific notes here. The Kensai has some rather silly things going on what with attacking against their own momentum in a dodge strike, and the Nobushi's bleed is WAY out of hand, and the Shinobi is an unbalance-able mess that I won't even bother to look at. The Hitokiri seems to win a lot of fight without a lot of effort, but being a slightly rare DLC character I will just leave them out of this. I want to focus mostly on the Orochi and the Shugoki, with a mention of the Aramusha.

I noticed once I started playing the single player mode on realistic that the Orochi is balanced completely on sword play. Completely about being the master of what I assume is Kenjutsu (although my knowledge of Japanese sword martial arts is extremely limited). This makes them difficult to balance what with the light armor and low HP. This is like balancing a table on one leg, and that leg is a katana, and the design isn't actually that conducive to a one legged design. They have a high skill gap, obviously, but I question whether their whole kit is so limited that the individual parts of it have to be tuned to obscene levels just to make them usable. Also, I don't think specialized duelist characters are necessarily the best choice in this game. Which is why they're such a PITA to balance. I see the same problems with all the assassin/duelist characters. They're supposed to be about single target destruction, highly focused on a single thing. The problem with such a philosophy is that they'll either take away other people's fun by killing them instantly, or be no fun to play as they won't have any use in anything OTHER than a 1v1 situation. This is the reason why I thought about suggesting a rapier user but realized that it would be silly and have no place in the game. I want to say give them more tools, but the problem is, you're trying to balance a character around a sword style perfected for honor duels, not necessarily battlefield use, so maybe break some rules there and give some options outside that.

The Shugoki is another example of a single legged table. Although because the character has the "easy" label applied, other things are boosted to make up for what would be, on a battlefield, a laughable, telephone pole carrying meat-wall who would die in the first arrow volley if diabetes or a heart attack didn't get him first. The problem is, he has a small toolkit and pretty much everything in that toolkit has to be made unbelievably deadly to make up for lack of options. Demon's Embrace can be easily spammed and even if an opponent sees it coming, dodging it reliably is difficult or even impossible FOR SOME PEOPLE. Pretty much every attack is uninterruptible, and they do metric tons of damage when they hit. You can't trade with him, and dodging becomes difficult because basically every attack is a feint, with how long they take to wind up. Do I even need to bring up how ridiculous it is that a lightly armored ***** is somehow more resistant to interruption than what we're told is basically Arnold Schwarzenegger in full plate? (I'm talking about the Lawbringer). Most heavies require timing to be uninterruptible(although the warlord heavy is uninterruptible it doesn't do enough damage for it to matter). Maybe look into updating his attack animations and require timing. If he attacks at the right time it's basically slapping their own weapon back into them. Take away some uninterruptible stuff and make Demon's Embrace a little easier to dodge, maybe even not heal the Shugoki, if he actually has to give a thought to defense he won't need the heals.

The Aramusha is the Orochi only even more focused on dueling, somehow. Though he doesn't seem to be played much probably because even if you win, it's not very exciting even when you win. Same thoughts as the Orochi, more options.