Peacekeeper: State of the Hero | Forums

[Lolgame]

Hi all, peacekeeper main here.

I played peacekeeper for most of the beta and feel as if I got a very in depth feel for the class. While I didn't get the highest of reputations, I spent a lot of time in private duels either doing science with the character or just going to best of 99.

In terms of the health of the character, I think the biggest point that needs to be addressed is THE BLEED.

And more then that, Stabs after Guardbreak

I ran into more then a few people who had figured out how to reliably block these stabs. Or perhaps parry them, its hard to tell. Regardless, on some of these people, it reduced this tactical option to worthless. Is that so bad? Well, perhaps not. But every other class has solid followups to a guard break. The peacekeeper has specific tech after a guard break that can apparently just be negated. And while you can slightly delay it, it doesn't feel good when all 3 are blocked.

Now, is the bleed really strong? Yes. My solution is simple. and stolen from reddit, Make the stabs unblockable (As they are in every other situation) but make it so bleeds Cannot kill BUT! have them prevent critical health regen. So if you bleed someone to 1 hp, they cannot then regen back up to a single bar. This balances the fact that they should be dead with allowing their comeback.

If you are going to change anything, if you are going to nerf bleeds in any way, nerf them this way. Bleeds should not, and cannot be allowed to kill! Period!

Why is this so important? Simple. Feel. Game feel and manners. If I catch someone at one - one half bars of health left with my guard break, and then bleed them so they will die, I have no incentive to continue fighting. Whats more, if I can fully disengage, I'm able to then emote, or slow walk, or anything else while they hopelessly bleed to death. I'm sure you can imagine how tilting this has to be. In 1v1s it simply doesn't feel good in any of the following situations:

Situation one: Peacekeeper gets full bleed on a near-death opponent, opponent tries but fails to chase down a retreating peacekeeper. Peacekeeper watches flailing opponent die. - In this situation, even if I don't emote or BM in other ways, it still feels very poor as the peacekeeper to have killed someone and then watch their struggle. Unless they can revenge, I get to just back dash/back roll until they fall. It doesn't feel good for me, I can't imagine it feels good for them.

Situation two: Peacekeeper gets full bleed on near-death opponent, who then chases down and kills the retreating peacekeeper and wins the round. - I'm going to put this right out there and say this is the most frustrating outcome of the whole match. I have no incentive to continue attacking. Especially against Orochi, Wardens, anyone else with a heavy block-counter. But getting chased down, having to spend time learning and practicing tech against a bleeding-out opponent does not feel good. Perhaps it feels good for them, but why am I being punished for using my character's special ability?

Situation Three: Peacekeeper bleeds a wounded opponent, disengages, opponent either revenges or lives with a sliver of health - its sometimes hard to see if they are going to die, especially in the heat of a battle. Against foes like the Nobushi, now I've lost all my momentum, and see above. Nobushi has very strong counter attack capabilities. One hidden stance into a counter attack could kill me. Whats more, I've let off all my pressure, and now I have to press back in through their long range. Were they actually going to die, continuing to pressure may cause me to be countered, and die, when I didn't need to.

Situation Four: Peacekeeper bleeds a wounded opponent, keeps the pressure on, and kills them with the bleed not really having much of an effect. - Awesome. Now my guard-break was completely useless.Or did very little damage, when a light attack or gambling on a heavy would do as much if not more in this situation. While it IS a good momentum builder, it doesn't feel any good. The special attack in this case may have been a hindrance. So again, why am I being punished for using my character's special ability?



Now, before you ask why a Peacekeeper's guard-break bleed should feel good, its because its a core part of the class. Ask any player about a Peacekeeper's unique moveset and one of, if not the first special attack they'll mention is 'they can stab you after they guardbreak you'. But right now, with the difficulty between guard-breaks, and blocking the stabs, and suddenly having an over-aggressive opponent you have no reason to throw an attack at, my play style incorporates almost no guard-breaks. I use it as a mix-up tool if anything. I really think it needs to be adjusted to feel good. Maybe have guard-break->Light be a normal, damaging attack, and guard-break->heavy be a single stab (with twisting maybe) to inflict some damage and a bleed. Both unblock-able and guaranteed off a guard-break.



Which leads me to the next state of the peacekeeper: Her attack speed.

Okay. Let me get this out of the way: The Peacekeeper is too fast. I've dueled people who literally, after a few duels, stop and go 'Okay, why can't I guard?' and its not that their guard isn't functioning, its that the peacekeeper is, on average, too fast to react to a mix up. I have, with little trouble, light attacked rank/reputation 3 Orochi to death with a simple light-spam mix ups. A high speed counter-attacking hero wrecked because they guessed wrong on all their 33%s.

Now, that isn't to say she needs to be nerfed into the ground. Thats the problem. Its her primary ability to fight. Her attacks are extremely short ranged, and she doesn't have the tech of the Orochi, the reach of the nobushi, the slams or unblockables of the Kensei, Warden, or Raider. ect ect. She has speed And while the warlord or Conqueror may in theory counter them, I've caught a number of these very defensive and block heavy characters in light attack loops. Litterally chain-light spammed them to death because, again, they miss their 33%.

I'm not sure what to do regarding a fix for this. The peacekeeper really has few offensive options at this point, with their dash-heavies being easily read, and their guard-break currently very counter-able. At this point, a peacekeeper's best offensive tool is literally light attack mix-up spam. This doesn't feel good. It can't feel good to be on the end of. One observation my raider friend made was that Peacekeeper was the only one he couldn't trade light attacks with. Simply too fast. If I get you into my blender, you either have to guess, or fully disengage. Her attacks outpace any guard break. Against most, they strike before a light attack trade. Unless you can instantly unstoppable attack, you have to fully dash back out of range, allowing me to simply pursue and continue rushing you down with dash-forward mix ups.

It think the peace-keeper is in a bit of an bad place at the moment. The bleed doesn't synergize with some of her other kit. And the Bezerker has the infinite-chain assassin title, or is supposed to.

One idea would be to solidify her as a mix-up artist. Give her chain a small window where neither can attack to reset the situation, perhaps putting more power into her light->heavy chain, guarantee the two hit, but add a pause. Then let her dash->light->heavy as well. Which, while readable, helps with her mobility, and still opens her dash->guard break.

This way she becomes less about rushing you down with light->light->light->light->light and more about light->heavy->dash->light->heavy. or light->heavy pause light->heavy. This makes her a lot more readable. It would also put more emphasis into the peacekeeper reading their opponent's disengage and works to allow her to prevent counter attacks or to evade retaliatory strikes. Making her side dashes a bit faster or longer might be inclined.

Apart of this change might be a quality of life improvement I think the Peacekeeper ABSOLUTELY needs, tracking on attacks needs to be reduced. If I want to side-dodge an overhead attack early, because I see it coming, I shouldn't be punished with my opponent turning and bringing it down on my recovering head. I shouldn't be punished for reading my opponents overhead attack.

He should be punished for attempting to overhead attack a dash. This is especially the case against Wardens and Kensei.

All too often, they throw an overhead heavy, I dash it early, and enjoy it tracking me. This especially includes the Orochi back-step heavy overhead. In cases where simply light attacking would counter the attack, but because I dodge it, I get hit? It is absolutely ridiculous. If I want to dodge an attack, I shouldn't have to wait to dodge or deflect it. I don't mean being able to early deflect. I mean early dodge. I'm playing a very mobile character, I should not be punished for utilizing her evasion.

Some tracking is good to prevent simple side-stepping, but I've suffered what felt like 90 degree turns

Conclusion:

Overall, I think she's not in a very good place. The Peacekeeper in her current state is not healthy for the game - BM bleed kills and oppressive light attack spam. While fun, unlike a lot of heroes, once you get in with the peacekeeper, there is almost nothing they can do. And so help them, if you get a Raider or Warden against a wall? They are guessing a 33% (25% if you mix in guard breaks) and dying. This coming from a peacekeeper main. I want more depth to her. More depth to the rush-down mix-up game. Before you tell me to play the Beserker, that isn't what I want. I don't /want/ the infinite chain attacking. I want a proper mix-up game in a highly mobile, but short ranged hero. I want my matches to be about me getting in and staying in, not about 'can I chain you to death with light spam'.

TLDR: Stabs and bleeds suck for everyone. Fix light spam. Give real mix-ups. Don't just nerf her attack speed or she'll be worthless.

[TCTF_SWAT]

I would be fine if her bleed mechanic was removed. Then I could focus on other aspects of her when playing her.

[ShellfishDesire]

Its not all about reading the attack its also about reading the player. Most I've seen so far use pretty repetetive pattern, especially easy to perceive in duels but still doable in whatever else. And even if randomly blocking, if you got the correct side you interrupt her (or any other char) and can fight back

And about the overhead stuff. Imagine pointing at someone with a bow like 90ft away from you. if he moves right when you shot he might dodge, if he starts moving while you draw the arrow you can read the pattern and adjust your aiming to it. Thats how I imagine how this works in FH too. Might not be the best example but it gets the job done i think. Also I'd rather talk about the death from above aim adjustments, THEY are hilariously f***ed up xD

[BLUECH1LD]

Towards the end of the beta (it is 1/29/2017) every 4 player Domination team consisted of at least 2 Peacekeepers. I too agree that this class (in its current state) is toxic for this game. In a game called "For Honor", my biggest concern shouldn't be "how many seconds until I get rapidly stabbed in the back". I think this post should be taken seriously by any dev reading this.

Side Note: It's nice to know that the bleeding mechanic bums out the people giving them out too, gamers all like fair balance, thanks lolgame for the post

[ttodoroV8]

Or they should just make this bleeding be activated and placed on the skills bar. And then.. he wont spam it all the time. Same for nobushi - damn op hero.

[Ligrevdox]

As i said in my thread, the Peacekeeper needs a nerf for sure, but at the same time it's not fair kill her with a huge one. I like your thread, but the peacekeer was created for be a "hit and run" Hero.
it's okay that bleeds can kill. It's NOT okay that the grab makes you bleed for how much? 40%? 45% of your HPs? Its just too much.

Even the recovery on the heavy attacks it's just too fast. It's a speed based hero and it's ok, but this is just too much if you have to watch yourself from the grab.
this is only my opinion, if the Ubisoft want to nerf the Peacekeeper in another way like yours its good.

Sorry for the bad English

[Rilandas]

I actually didn't understand two thing during playing her on Beta:

1) I added full bleeds on enemy Orochi (2v2 brawl). His hp bar is fully red. He disengages. "Ok, he'll die", I thought. And what did I see?
Suddenly he started to regen his health back.
THE HELL WAS THAT?

2) Are the 3 stabs after Guardbreak actually blockable? Eh? How? I encountered many people who blocked the third one.



PS ah, and deflect is high risk + low reward vs JUST DODGE IT + stab-stab. That's disappointing.

[C0rnolio]

PS ah, and deflect is high risk + low reward vs JUST DODGE IT + stab-stab. That's disappointing.

"dodge stab stab" doesnt deal a lot of damage, compare to "deflect+light,light, heavy+stab" combo

[UlfhednaR_BEAST]

Yes, it would be cool to see her attacks getting slower a bit. A little bit.

[khaosrayne1978]

bleeds need to be removed from hero's unless they are a feat.
Remove the damage increase of the triple stab, make it a standard regardless of one or three stabs. remove the bleed effect from it, increase the damage slightly and tone down her light attack speed enough to allow people to block.
Nobushi needs the same thing. She shouldn't be bleeding unless it's a feat. she's a long range fighter, give her standard damage or just under as she is a long range fighter.