Hall of Heroes Nobushi Guide
Hello, and welcome to another Hall of Heroes community guide.
Today we bring you the elegant Nobushi.
This guide was written by PowerSenpai and MathiasCB, and we were helped greatly by our friends over at the Hall of Heroes discord of which you can find at the bottom of the page. Special thanks to Draxel for helping us setup the gifs.
Nobushi might be difficult for many to master, and some might call her bad or boring as a result. We hope that this guide will allow you guys to play her efficiently and show the world that this is a samurai to be feared!
Nobushi Basics
Far from brutal, the Nobushi fights with elegance. She can either slowly torture her opponents with lightning fast strikes from afar and watch as they bleed to death, or swiftly strike them down with a powerful and devastating attacks.
With the potential to be untouchable this female warrior is NOT to be taken lightly!
Nobushi’s Strengths
This hero is a flexible warrior with many tools at her disposal. The most important tool for her is bleed, and this is because of her “way of the shark” passive that allows her to do greater damage to an opponent that suffers from bleed. This is why you should always ensure that you do a bleed strike periodically to maximize your damage potential. This, combined with her high damage potential combos, enables her to efficiently shred down the health of any opponent who has come unprepared.
The Nobushi wields a Naginata, and this weapon’s range is reminiscent of a spear. The weapon can also be called a katana on a stick. This makes her adept at dealing with assassin of whom is typically using short ranged weapons. This together with her ability to pull back after a block (see the special moves section), enables her to be quite safe, and deal with fights in a way that gives her the natural edge.
Nobushi’s Weaknesses
The greatest weakness to keep in mind when playing Nobushi is how stamina demanding she is. It is quite easy to lose track of how much stamina you have, and have it be depleted long before you would expect it to, as you might be used to other characters.
Another important aspect is also mentioned in her strengths, is her “way of the shark” passive. If this is not activated, her damage will be sub-par, and will give you a much more difficult time at taking down your opponents.
Many might give up Nobushi because of her difficulty to learn and master. She is one of the more difficult heroes in the game to learn, but is so rewarding to play when you understand her.
Nobushi’s Attacks
Light attacks - Nobushi’s top light’s are quite efficient for harassing your enemy and making good use of your range. Much akin to Warden and Orochi’s light combo’s that allows them to get a free hit in after a single hit, Nobushi get’s a free bleed strike, this is however after two light attacks instead of one. This combo can be quite risky however as it leaves you somewhat predictable and therefore vulnerable to being parried/deflected.
Heavy attacks - Her heavy attacks are slow and strong, but not something I would usually attack with unless I were trying to change up my timings. However, you can get a guaranteed top heavy off a guard break (top heavy is her most damaging side to attack from), and you get a guaranteed side heavy off a parry. This is nice, as sometimes when you parry an opponent, they end up too far away from you to be guard broken. Her combo of heavy - heavy, does a lot of damage if you manage to land it.
Special Moves
Way of the shark - Way of the shark is a passive ability briefly mentioned in the start of the guide. This passive increases the Nobushi’s damage output against opponents who are suffering from the bleeding effect. This is quite useful, as the Nobushi has a lot of bleeding strikes in her arsenal. Without making use of this passive however, the Nobushi has much lower damage, so it is KEY to make use it if you want to play the Nobushi properly.
Kick - Kick is a special ability reminiscent to Warden’s shoulder charge. This ability pushes enemies back, is unblockable, unparryable, and if it lands it guarantees a light attack that bleeds the opponent. As for how you activate this ability, press the guard break button after any attack or while using hidden stance. This ability has potential to do the same spam combo as warden does on his shoulder charge spam, but it will drain your stamina quick and leave you predictable. You can also utilize this ability when an opponent is in front of a trap, a fall or a wall (wall would cause a stun). Note that it is easy to sidestep this ability.
Cobra Strike/Side Slashes - Nobushi has two different dash attacks, of which is dash light, and dash heavy. Dash light can be done in three different directions, to the sides and forwards. This attack also bleeds opponents. The second dash attack is a dash heavy, and can be done sideways to the right and left. Contrary to the light attack however, it does not attack in the same direction you dash towards. In other words, when you dash right you attack left, and when you dash left you attack right.
Having two different dash attacks is excellent for mixing up your approach and attacking people off guard, in addition to this, the dash light attacks are excellent for bleeding your enemy.
An important thing to keep in mind when doing side dash attacks on Nobushi is that she will attack at the same moment you press the attack button. This is different from the assassins for example, who has a animation that plays out with their dodge, leaving the attack to always be the same timing no matter when you press attack during the dodge. This means that you will likely try to dodge away from attacks and counter attack only to find yourself taking the hit you tried to avoid. The solution to this is to attack later in the dodge animation.
Light dash attack
Heavy dash attack
Viper's retreat - Much like the other moves Nobushi has available to her, this one also adds bleed damage. It is a very useful attack however to poke out your opponent and force them to try to go more on the agressive with it’s very efficient range. By moving backwards and doing a light attack, you move all your weight to a single foot and reach out with your entire body to poke the opponent, meaning that you will attack them from a range they do not expect. If you parry an enemy and they are out of range from a guard break, you can also do this attack to get free bleed in. You might wonder why you would want to do that when you can potentially get a free side heavy, as mentioned earlier. The reason is that it bleeds, so if you manage to follow up on that attack, you will probably do more damage than you would have done with just a simple side heavy.
Swift Recoil - When you block an attack as Nobushi, you can quickly dash backwards quite a distance by pressing the dash button immediately as you block. This allows you to reposition yourself to regain the advantage of your range. However, it can be perilous to use this near ledges or traps, as it allows your enemy to more easily push you off if you reposition incorrectly. This could potentially be useful in combination with Viper strike.
Hidden stance - Hidden stance is an unique ability that no other character has anything similar to. Instead of having three guard stances like the other characters, the Nobushi has 4. By moving your guard down you will enter a stance that, with the right timing, will allow you avoid any incoming attack with the exception of a guard break or feat. The timing of this ability is earlier than a parry, and thus requires you to use it more predicatively rather than reactionary as you would a parry. You can also hold the stance to obscure what you will do next (since the move puts your guard in a neutral position) and you can immediately kick or dodge from this stance to surprise your enemy.
This move will also end recovery animations of attacks, and can be used to feint light attacks of which can serve to surprise your enemy.
Hidden stance comes with a very important downside however as it takes a good amount of stamina and ends stamina recovery for a short period of time, making it quite risky to use when already already low on stamina.
Zone attack - The zone attack of Nobushi is a useful tool of clearing out minions, and dealing quick unexpected damage to opponents. This attack has two hits, she first spins around and hits you, after that she goes on her knees and stabs you of which causes you to bleed. A unique thing to this ability, similarly to Peacekeeper, is that you can feint the second hit. This is important because the second hit is easily parried, but you also leave yourself somewhat vulnerable if you do feint. After the feint you will for a moment be incapable of dodging and blocking and can be punished if the enemy blocked the initial hit of the zone attack.
Full zone attack
Feinted zone attack
Cobra Strike Mix Up - Not much is to be said about this, but if Nobushi guard breaks someone, and pushes them in any direction, she can then follow it up with a light attack that bleeds.
Nobushi Defense
Nobushi’s defense is not to be taken lightly thanks to her ability to both avoid enemy attacks, and lead it into a counter-attack.
Utilizing the hidden stance in a defensive manner is not one of the easiest feats to pull off, example being that if you pull it off at the start of someone’s combo, you might have some issues dealing with the upcoming attacks, her attack won't be fast enough to retaliate since the enemy’s next combo strike will get you first, You’ll be forced to do another hidden stance or dash away thus either losing more stamina or gain nothing on it. Instead one might aim to use the hidden stance to avoid the last attack of the combo, which will guarantee you a strike whilst they are recovering. The hidden stance is a great tool to get out of things like a Raiders unblockable zone attack or used to evade a Shugoki’s unblockable charge attack, with the correct timing, everything can be avoided and countered.
The Nobushi wants to stay at a certain range when fighting her opponent and she’s got a great tool to make it happen, Viper’s retreat. Use this tool to create distance between you and your opponent whenever you feel the situation is slightly under the control of your enemy, block an attack and create distance using Viper’s retreat. If you feel like you need to be more safe and keep some extra control over your retreat, follow up with a Viper strike. Whilst this will make you take a small step back, it will also help to control and prevent your opponent from keeping his pressure on you, if you opponent would keep coming at you, they would get punished by your stab. Distance is your ally, your reach is one of your keys to victory.
Nobushi Offense
To utilize the scary offensive side of the Nobushi there are a couple of things you would like to focus on.
While the Nobushi is a potential candidate to earn the title of the lowest normal damage of the game, she can at the same time produce an amazing amount of damage with her passive. As mentioned earlier, she has a passive that makes her do bonus damage whenever she successfully hits someone that is bleeding. So, to actually make this huge damage happen you’re required to first make your opponent bleed and then land one of your heavier attacks, this requires some work and in some cases a lot of stamina usage. When you’ve successfully made someone bleed, you’ve got a limited time to make your next move to make use of your passive which can be stressful at times depending on your opponents skill. Your heavy attack is not all that easy to land, so make good use of feints to make one land, don’t be afraid to perhaps do a double feint, even if you use about 80 percent of your stamina just to land one heavy attack, it is well worth it all thanks to the shark passive that you have. High risk, high reward.
The Nobushi has multiple ways to utilise her offensive capabilities. What is mentioned above is just one way out of many. If you feel like being the patient kind of Nobushi that works too, bombarding your opponent from a distance with lightning fast stabs inflicting bleed whilst also keeping your enemy in control by using your reach to your advantage.
Hidden stance fits in everywhere, whether it be defensive or offensive maneuvers.
When you’re aiming to use Hidden stance in offensive ways, you’re either looking at feinting your attacks or using it as a strong counter-attacking move. As an example, you would be able to enter the stance and evade your opponent's attack and then go straight for your kick, light attack, Viper strike or a dash attack. If your enemy is not bleeding,
using this opportunity to make them bleed would be a very wise choice
Now leave warrior, leave and show our enemies that it is we, the samurai, will reign victorious!
Discord Link
Under is a list of HoH guides for you to read:
Guide to the Warden + Advanced mechanics
Guide to the Kensei
Guide to the Orochi
Guide to the Raider
Guide to the Warlord
Guide to Feints
Guide to Dominion
Guide to Faction War
Guide to the Berserker
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