Kensei Feedback and disadvantages | Forums

[WhoDaresWins6]

I wanted to do a little blurb with the Kensei as he is all I really played.

I want to point out a few of his issues and let us start with the HP.

Health: It appears that he has the same health as the Orochi, however he is much slower and doesn't have the defence options. Orochi has deflects on top of the regular block and parry. In addition an Orochi has better mobility with quicker light and heavy attacks. Now I don't know the numbers for damage, but I do believe that the orochis damage is close to if not it appears to be the same as Kensei.
What I would like to see is a higher health for the kensei, as he is not a hybrid character nor a assassin, he should be another bar of health easily.. this will have to be balanced with the devs obviously. Having a little bit more health could help him with his moveset to survive a little longer. This also ties in with how he can be punished in so many ways and cannot punish in return.. so more health will give more opportunity.

Combos and Damage: Now his last strike of his chain combos have great damage like his third heavy attack in a chain combo which is the flaming overhead sword. The issue I ran into over and over again is that it never lands on any good players as it is so telegraphed.
I think if the devs don't want to touch the kensei's damage, they should at least reduce the time it takes for some of his major moves to go off. This also includes his zone attack which is very telegraphed, and weak in damage. If they can increase this it will make it more eventful, interesting and balanced playing kensei and it will keep the opponents more on their toes.
For that reason I never even use the heavy overhead attack, because even if it lands it doesn't do close to as much damage as for example a raiders unblockable, and it will never land against a basic dodge to the side.
If you look at all the other characters, for example raider, he has so many ways to pressure you to a point where he can significantly threaten on landing his unblockable in a final move of the chain. For example you can faint a heavy into a pummel strike and then the unblockable compared to the kensei who doesn't have that type of guard break or a faint into a "close the distance" move to then give the chance to land that overhead.
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Another example is the warden who has a charge up guard break to again threaten and make sure his heavy in the chain lands.

The berserker can guarantee a follow up from a deflect to throw you into a wall and guarantee a overhead strike.

So all of these heroes end up being much more threatening.


It just comes down to the Kensei only having range on his side. He has too many disadvantages as he is slower, he doesn't have deflects, his health is equal to the lowest health character (at this point). He is too telegraphed with most of his move sets. He does not have anything special to land a guard break and he has weak faints. The only thing that one can say is that he has a soft faint from his overhead into a side heavy.. but again this is way to slow it needs to be sped up.

Anyway let me know what you guys think.

[EnderVex]

I agree wholeheartedly. I also, in my limited time playing the alpha, only played Kensei.

I guess the rationale was making characters with larger builds have more health - except for the Samurai. And if you say that "the Orochi and the Kensei have similar armor and therefore health", remember that the Raider is essentially shirtless, but he has more health than Orochi and Kensei, both of whom are armored.

I honestly felt that, while I really wanted to play Kensei more, it felt like I was getting punched in the gut just for choosing him. As you said, Orochi was essentially better in nearly every way. They appeared to be equal in damage, and the only thing that Kensei had over Orochi was range.

Overall, I think that they should definitely give Kensei more health and either more damage (the character is stronger, the nodachi is longer and has more surface area to hit with - I've trained with it personally IRL), or as you said, make his major moves go out faster.

[WhoDaresWins6]

Anyone else have some feedback?

[Resident-Patient]

I only played as the Kensai for one match, and didn't immediately like it that much, mainly due to the windup on his attacks and damage output compared to the Warden. That said, fighting against the Kensai I had a few consistent impressions.

He has a very long range light thrust attack that I had a hard time reading, due to the camera angle.

His unstoppable, while not a big damager, was extremely irritating for the amount of time he can stall with the knockdown.

No one I fought seemed to utilize the smoke bomb very well. Raider's pommel strike always led to trouble, while Kensai's used the smoke bomb as a defense.

Most of the Kensai's I faced were dodge rollers, which I don't think is terribly effective for the game in general, but even less so for the Kensai. Caught a lot of players who messed up their range and got too close, then tried to roll out.

Good Kensai's stayed just close enough to use the todachi, while being out of range for a guard break. Every Kensai who did well against me made sure to find his range quickly.

[WhoDaresWins6]

It's funny you say dodge rollers, because that doesn't boad too well as one can be punished strongly for rolling around like that mid fights. I do believe he is a harder hero to use, but again not too many advantages, I would like to see him moderately buffed. Thanks for the feedback and thoughts guys