Unbiased Balance Diagnosis | Forums

[Brother-Olrad]

[Edit as of 2/12/17 at the end of the open beta: my views have changed immensely since the creation of this thread. please disregard much of this thread, some points remain valid but i have moved on my stance for most. Considering making an updated post in the future.]








Hello there, Brother Olrad here, the following is my perspective on balance within the mechanics of combat including disparity between classes or other general mechanics such as parries and guard breaks etc.


Let us begin with the general mechanics:


Guard breaks

Guard breaking is often used excessively because of its relative reliability in scoring free damage, the reason being that the window for guard breaking is very small. I have been practicing counter guard breaking and have come to a conclusion, the reason it is so difficult is because you both have to wait for the proper window, but also not let it pass you by, most of my failed guard break counters are because I actually try to counter too early. It seems to me that one shouldn't be punished for high reaction time in a game like this. This mechanic is abused by some more than others (looking at you peacekeepers) to quite destructive effect.

The solution here feels like extending the counter window into earlier frames, thereby making the maneuver more attainable while not nerfing it into oblivion. Also the guard break kind of propels itself forward in a lot of positions and tracks very well, many times I have attempted to dodge backwards or to the sides only for the guard break to track and close with me. The guard break should not be a rush in my opinion.



Parries

Parries are less common but used by experienced players often to gain a footing and open up combos or often score a free hit after. The problem with parries comes down to how the mechanic interacts with different classes. I will be doing more testing on this in the future to discover specific interactions, I have mained conqueror for this test and I often notice when I parry, the animation and time it takes to actually throw out an attack is slightly longer than other classes like say a warden. When a conqueror parries it is often not enough time to land a heavy attack. If a warden or orochi parries, they often land a free heavy attack before you can put your block up again. I begin to wonder if the disparity on this front comes from the animation for the class who is parrying, or if its simply the time it takes to throw out a heavy attack for that class. One or the other, or both. The other thing I have noticed with parries is the stamina damage it inflicts. Again from the perspective of a conqueror, I have fought multiple capable players who parry often. Here is an example: On several occasions fighting a nobushi my conquerors heavy attack will get parried, while im recoiling they will combo with a poke into kick. From full stamina, that one heavy attack getting countered does a MASSIVE amount of stamina damage, followed with the kick, I actually run 100% out of stamina, opening me up to a flurry of blows from which it is very difficult to recover. TLDR: Literally throwing a single heavy from full stamina can lead to complete drain against a capable player. Again, I need to do more testing on this front to see if the stamina damage values vary from class to class and attack to attack.

I do not feel comfortable suggesting any fix for this without extensive testing, but at the moment I will loosely say that parry stamina damage should be lowered in general, and that all classes should benefit the same amount from successfully using a general combat mechanic, as such the animations and time it takes to be able to attack after parrying should be the exact same for all classes unless the class is specifically supposed to take advantage of this mechanic more than others.


Rush Attacks

In general I think rush attacks either need a reduced hit box or tracking. Think of the conquerors notorious shield rush spam, the wardens iconic shoulder rush spam or the warlords headbutt. These attacks are sometimes dodgeable, but even when you dodge, they either track or clip you from the side and the combo continues even though you made the correct input. Sometimes it will work, but its not consistent. This to me seems like a problem that must be questioned diagnosed, and solved.




Class Mechanic Disparity

Alright, so this is the touchy subject, there are many perspectives. You have the perspectives from each individual classes players, and beyond that you have the perspectives from people of many different skill levels. Some classes excel against people still learning the game, but become drastically easier to fight after developing more of an understanding. Similarly, there are classes that seem perfectly fair or even underwhelming, but in the hands of an experienced player who knows how to work the mechanics you can get something that is extremely difficult to find an opening against. So, as a player who has been through 3 tests and gotten to at least prestige/reputation 2 each time, this is my perspective.

This is a game where speed is key, that is the nature of the combat in this game and others like it, having a kit that will either help you make the enemy slip up, or having access to movesets that are fast enough to score free damage is king. On this point I will move to the next section.


Assassins

The assassin classes are the strongest selection you can make within the mechanics of this game. Damage avoidance on these classes converts directly into damage, whereas other classes do not have this option. This is the core of what makes the assassins so strong. Offense is the best defense and if you can turn your defense into offense as fluidly as the assassin dodge mechanics allow, you have a massive edge. Throwing light attacks at assassin classes and chipping them down is much safer than throwing heavy attacks. Heavy attacks are dodged and then immediately countered without the chance of blocking before the open up even more of a combo on you.

Assassins also boast the most mobility in the game, as an assassin should. But coupled with the speed in combat they already possess, a skilled assassin player will completely control the pace of combat, ducking in and out of combat as they see fit, and even in combat, their high speed yields higher probability of damage. They are essentially the ultimate counter attackers whilst simultaneously being the most powerful in straight combat. I shall now continue into specific class thoughts.

Orochi

Orochi has the strongest kit in the game in my opinion, light attack oriented, fantastic engage and disengage, deflection into free damage, high damage guard break (heavy up finisher), dodge mobility into free damage. This kit is extremely abused in the hands of the capable. There is no opening to attack, at best you have a situation where there's a lull in combat and you get to wonder if they will try to open with a guard break or a physical attack. You have to wait for the orochi to make a move, otherwise he will side dodge and open into a combo, that or try to engage with a light attack if you don't have a good gap closer. Even then if you do hit he can easily dodge the next part of the chain or deflect. Which also begins another combo. I also believe the damage on the Orochi is too high for what it is. I have been in duels as a Conqueror where both me and an orochi are low hp. (The low hp after you regen a bit of health - The Last Stand resovoir if you will) I've landed a guard break and gone for the free side heavy attack, its not enough to finish him. He guard breaks me, does a heavy up attack, I die. This is ironic considering the conqueror is described as "Strong Defense and Heavy Hitter" in game where as the orochi is "Agile and Counter-Attacker"

I believe that the damage of the Orochi should be reduced somewhat. But I do need to do more testing to figure out what other things could be done. It seems to me that the very core mechanics of this class are the real problem, but it's still a fun looking class to play and it has its roots in what its supposed to thematically be, finding a middle ground between what it wants to be and being balanced is difficult. I may edit this post in the future to revise or add thoughts.

Peace Keeper

Weaker than the Orochi but in combination with the needed tweaks to the guard break mechanic, still very very strong. A peace keeper takes all the general problems of the assassin classes, and then adds in a guard break attack that is fairly easy to preform, but does damage that is highly disproportionate to the difficulty of the maneuver. The design idea could be something like "Well its a damage over time right? So it should be more total damage because you have to wait for it!" This might not be a problem except coupled with the disengage and speed of the assassin classes in general, there is no way to close with a peacekeeper while they wait out the damage. The answer is guard break counter, which is easy in theory but difficult in practice with the other stimuli in the game you have to worry about.

Either the bleed needs to be reduced, or the guard break window should be increased as described above, the two factors together make for something that is generally too powerful. Especially with the peer to peer connection and the possibility of latency ruining an otherwise successful counter guard break timing.

Berserker

The berserker is the most balanced of the assassins, it can still abuse the dodge into side attack spam, which is often easy and free damage, but can be countered to an extent by light attacks. Other than that, the Berserker kit is okay, in fact, if you were to nerf the ease of the side dodge attacks,I would say this class would probably need a buff.


Assassin overall:

I believe the side dodge into attacks are too easy to pull off in general, but they should definitely be a mechanic and it fits well with the classes. I feel like they are just too forgiving on timing for what they are. Something should be done to tone them down a little bit.



Vanguards


Warden

I believe overall the warden is in a good spot. Balanced all around, but the kit is lack luster, not in any balance perspective really, but it feels as though its missing something, not enough combos, or moves to really be all too engaging in the long run. I have heard many wanting the addition of some sort of gap closer, but it seems to me that the shoulder rush when charged is fairly capable of this. The warden is balanced more aless, just a tad on the boring side, this comes from many conversations with Warden players and a fairly limited time playing warden myself.

Raider

Fairly balanced overall, the overhead poke stun is what makes or breaks this class in my opinion. I could be mistaken but it seems like in this test the stamina damage inflicted by this attack has been increased substantially, i didn't really notice it in the previous builds. It inflicts A LOT of stamina damage for such a fast attack. You can keep an opponents stamina reserve very low and apply lots of pressure on the resource, in turn limiting their short term options for offense, and by extension allowing yourself time for a furious assault without fear of as much of a reprisal. Getting guard broken and rammed into a wall by this class is almost always going to end with you getting hit with that side unblockable attack.. I HAVE parried it... Once. It's possible. but barely. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if guard breaks were more counterable, again, please see the above thoughts on the topic. The side unblockable is the best unblockable in the sense that dodges pretty much don't work, dodging backwards still puts you into its range even despite it looking like it will miss. I did manage to dodge it once by dodging right but it seemed buggy, dodging left does nothing however. This means that the attack pretty much must be countered with a parry, and there is no other way unless you have some sort of special class mechanic that allows it otherwise. This in contrast to the kensei unblockable makes the kensei look comparatively weak vertical unblockables are very easily dodged, and I very rarely get hit by them but I really enjoy the idea that there are attacks that can only be countered with parries at the same time. All and I I think the raider is fairly well balanced and doesn't need much, if any work.

Kensei

I wish I saw more Kensei to be honest, I feel like I can't give a good diagnosis for this class because of lack of experience fighting them and I personally have not played them. Fights against Kensei have always felt fair when I DO find them however. All around a respectable class. I ask any kensei to reach out to me and share some experiences or thoughts, maybe I will revise this section after some testing.



Heavy


Warlord

This class strikes me as very strong but I'm still developing more of an understanding of it. It's ability to score free damage is pretty intense, though the damage inflicted is less than other classes that can do similar things. The class specific light attack parries are a very powerful tool in the hands of the capable, in addition to their iron solid defense its very difficult to exchange with this class. Your attacks will be reversed and you will be hit with free light attacks without good mix ups. The headbutt is very spamable and tracks quite well and also covers a fair distance, and the resulting stagger on a foe allows for the free attack and possibility of a continued combo. Fighting warlords usually comes down to a lot of guard breaking and environment usage. A very skilled Warlord is tough to take down, but it is possible, but in a straight up fight without using guard breaks to throw them into walls its nearly impossible to find an opening in the defense.

I think the class is fairly balanced, the points of conflict are probably the headbutt rush attack, which travels too far, and tracks too much which leads to too much free damage. I feel like I can't say much more about this class because I need to experience it for longer and collect data. Like the kensei, feel free to reach out to me in regards to this class and experiences you may have had.


Conqueror.

My home boy since my first test. I am quite familiar with him. I believe there have been some fairly large changes since my first test using this class. The heavy attack into shield rush combo is the bread and butter of this class. It is both the source of its power and its weakness. I feel that the conqueror is a one trick pony, and this is coming from a current reputation 2. You always know what a conqueror is going to do. It can do only one thing as far as a cohesive combo that can compare to the free damage other classes get. The heavy shield rush spam is extremely stamina intensive, as it should be. parrying the first heavy attack assuming it didn't come after a successful guard break completely throws a wrench into the combo because the stamina damage is O V E R W H E L M I N G. The rush does not travel very far but has a fairly large hit box, and tracks pretty well. Too well sometime, sometimes it cannot be dodged, which brings me to my next point. For some inexplicable reason the shield rush seems to stagger some classes more than others or has some sort of variable that decides the stagger time that can change or something. I have done 2v2s where I fight both opponents and the rush works to different effect depending on the class im fighting. For example: I fight a warden or a raider, if i begin the combo, it seems like 95% of the time, they cannot dodge to the side to escape the pain train combo, however using the same exact combo/move on a berserker or a peacekeeper seems to result in them escaping about 60% of the time with a side dodge. Do assassin classes stagger less than other classes or is this some strange instance of RNG effects in the game? I don't like using this combo because it feels unfair.. if it works... and if it doesn't work then you're pretty much out of luck... unless you can use the conquerors secret "heavy attack parry" reliably, which coupled with its superior block stun CAN lead to free damage. I say CAN because it doesn't often work, sometimes it works just fine, sometimes ill release the trigger as i block the attack and am still in block animation and it achieves nothing, and gets blocked anyways, but the speed CAN trip people up. I guess its not free damage,but it is surprising, which is a big step in the right direction. The conqueror is kind of a strange beast. It feels like he needs more abilities or mechanics to make him feel like less of a one trick pony, and what he does have is less effective than a lot of the other classes in the current build. By comparison, the Warlords light attack parries apply 100% of the time if used correctly, whereas the conquerors heavy parries do not land reliably when used correctly. Aside from that ability, the conqueror has the infamous heavy shield rush, which I fear is what the future of the class is doomed to be, he has so much more potential than that.

I think the Conqueror (and rush attacks in general ((ie warden shoulder rush - warlord headbutt etc))) needs less tracking on the rush... that or smaller hitbox, or some combination of the two. I also feel like the inability to feint hurts him DRASTICALLY as a possible competitive character. His speed is too slow and his reach is too short which makes players rely entirely on the heavy shield rush combo to apply damage and keep a foe engaged. He has no decent mix ups and his entire kit is oriented around heavy attacks which are pretty much just parry bait. Basically the conqueror feels really strong early game when people are just learning the game, but against anyone who can parry reliably, the conquerors offensive options are DRASTICALLY limited. For this reason I feel like the conqueror is overpowered until you know how to counter his one trick, and then laughable when you do.



Hybrid


Nobushi


Again this is a class that I feel that I need more experience with before passing any judgement, I've fought them and won, and fought them and lost but never felt like anything was out of my control, I always noticed I had made mistakes. I do believe that their attack speed is very high considering that they can stack those bleeds, but I don't know if I would call it TOO FAST. Again, I will need to get more data on this character. As said before, any nobushi players or anyone wanting to share their experience fighting nobushi, feel free to contact me with your opinions.




Conclusion:


After the games release I intend to do some digging in frame data to get to the bottom of some things and see if these perceived disparities are fact or fiction. I hope the thoughts here have been able to help everyone develop a decent understanding of the state of the games balance. I tried to remain as unbiased as possible. I hope that I achieved that goal. I have looked forward to this game for a long time and I really want to love this game with all of my heart, I intend to stream it and make videos often. I also hope that Ubisoft finds this message helpful.

I am at anyones disposal for comments questions and other feedback.


Cheers.

[Black-Briar]

I played mostly PvP-Duels (Rep. 1 Lv 15) in this Closed Beta and I can totally agree with your points. Especially the Guard Break "issue" and the Assassins.
As I mentioned on Reddit these days, Assassins are pretty strong because they are way faster than the other classes, and at the same time, they don't have downsides. Orochis and Peacekeeper (and to some extent Bersekers) can just dodge-hit you forever, winning without even using 50% of their kit, and that's because they are overpowered in a way. A "bad" player can still give you a really bad time with these classes, since they can "spam" dodge and light attack giving you no hope for a block whatsoever. You will attack, earlier or later, and when you will do it they will just dodge it and light you. This, plus the Guard Break minimal window of reaction, makes the Assassins not so "hard" at all to use and abuse. 70% of my matches were Orochis and Peacekeepers.

So, as I said earlier, I agree with your suggestions, especially to adjust the Guard Break reaction-time, and the Assassin's damage. Since they need to be the faster amongs all, and that's right, they sure need some change in their damage number.

[TCTF_SWAT]

GB's beat dodges/dashes.

[BiG_DuPP4]

I agree pretty much with everything that you said, very good post overall. I played Warden for about 20h and I can contribute to the opinion you gathered, saying basically the same.

As for classes you don't have enough data for, I'd say Nobushi is a very well balanced, decent class, I won some, I lost some. Didn't find anything about them that would not point me towards my own mistakes during combat, which is good. Kensei - I find them also pretty well balanced but one issue I had with every time is their top heavy finisher. It is supposed to be unblockable and deals insane amount of damage but the problem is I dodged it maybe ONCE. I have no idea how to deal with it.

[SethUnleashed]

good feedback overall and igree to most of it.

guardbreaks:
guardbreaks need some sort of change, either a cooldown or a seperate recourse (like you have 2 guardbreak "points" which recharge at something like 30s per charge, so you can basically guardbreak once every X seconds and dont spam (would make for much nicer games)

parries:
if used correctly, they can shutdown any attacker that isnt making use of feint (which currently almost no one does as fainting attacks is in my opinion a VERY advanced tactic and requires a LOT of coordination to be pulled off in a way that you actually benefit from it, which is a good thing).
i played a fair amount of warden and if you get the parry timings right, you can be more annoying than an assassin who is side-dodging ...
parries are VERY usefull, but i would say that most players still rely on blocks and either dont know about parries or they just arent experienced enough to use them (might be because the explenation for parries is "hidden" in the advanced training, which you need to manually navigate to in a side-menu most players probably dont look into very often.

rush attacks:
agreed on this one... the tracking or the hitbox feel weird at times, but it MIGHT be a p2p issue as well.

deflects:
they need to be reworked because right now the risk/reward of them is soooo bad that youre better off sticking to parries or dodges.
and unless most players start making heavy use of feint, this will continue to be this way (which isnt something thats gonna happen soon i'd say)

for the classes:
peacekeeper:
the guardbreak bleed should go as it isnt needed (i've played 5+ hours without using it at all and still won 95%+ of the games with smart counter-play, BUT the rest of the peacekeepers damage could use a slight buff in exchange and it could also use one more combo of any sort in exchange for loosing the guard-break-stap.

orochi:
pretty solid class, the charge-attack can be blocked quite easily if you are used to it. the light-attack damage overall should be toned down a little bit.

berserker:
sadly i havent had the muse to play this class a lot, so im not gonna say anything here

warden:
i agree on this one, solid class, but lacks at least one combo.

raider:
the facebash could use some tinkering, dmg output seems ok

kensai:
the range could use a slight nerf. this class is very strong if played correctly, but not a lot of people seem to play it, so its hard to judge it correctly just yet.

warlord and conquerer:
i havent played either of them against players (just some AI matches to understand the mechanics) so i only say one thing here.

nobushi:
the bleed damage needs to be toned down... this class has too many ways that are too easy to pull of to apply huge amounts of bleeding damage combined with long range and very high speed.
the hidden stance is a very cool mechanic but hardly anyone seems to use it, because being fully offensive (or parrying) is easier to understand and harder to be countered.
the focus of attack and defense needs to be shifted towards a more counter-attacking or defensive style making more use of hidden stance instead of "full offensive high bleed".



overall i feel the balance is pretty decent already (which isnt a small feat in a game with this much in-depth mechanics etc) and i applaud ubisoft for making an actually challanging game!
experience and training is the most important thing in this game and i am very much looking forward to the 14th !

[Brother-Olrad]

Hmm. I've never had much trouble dodging the kenseis unblockable, and when i do get hit by it I know its been that I've made a mistake. The unblockable attacks kind of charge for a moment before the come out, if you dodge them like you'd try to dodge a normal heavy attack, the tracking will still get you. You have to wait longer. At least that's been my experience.

[MrFuddyDuddy]

I played Nobushi main this past Closed Beta and got to Reputation 1 Level 10, she is fairly balanced I found. Her only determining factor that makes her out of control overpowered is when you apply your Sharpen ability and watch in awe as you chunk someone for a quarter all the way up to a half of there health in bleed damage in a single light attack. I find her very easy to fight with and her keep away game is incredibly strong, usually only losing fights to either 2-3v1 ganks in Dominion or poor positioning on my part as I wasn't always able to keep good distance, or assuming I had the upper hand and failing to predict blocks.(Berserker and Orochi are notorious for whipping my a**, and I learned the hard way my pokes DO NOT beat there light attacks)

Her Shadow stance is also incredibly powerful (which I wish I would have abused more) and seemingly allows her to dodge any incoming light or heavy attack allowing very easy follow up damage. Her retreating attack is also very strong, despite not hitting the hardest it can save you from damage and bleed your opponent at the same time, which speaking of she desperately needs her basic bleeds. By the end of the Beta I was running a purely defensive set up on her, and her damage didn't suffer too greatly but she doesn't neccissarily hit very hard either which unfortunately makes her somewhat difficult to execute opponents with as her light attacks and faint attack are significantly safer options and often times allow you to disengage and just let your bleed finish someone off.

[KarmaGator]

Thank you very much for this post, it sums up my current understanding of the game pretty much perfectly.

For the Kensei section: (After about 40 hours of playing him as my go-to alt spread over 3 tests, I think I have a good grasp of the class)

The Kensei is pretty similar to the Conqueror in regards to its viability. Against newer players who are not able to parry or evade correctly, this class is ver strong; However, when playing against someone who is even moderately skilled, it is probably the most underwhelming class in the game for reasons I will go into in a bit.

It is a class with a very diverse basic kit, as it incorporates pretty much all basic attack skills from the other classes (e.g. side-evade into light from assassins). It also has very good range and gap-closers built into most attacks (e.g. when an enemy is rolling backwards you can do a triple light attack combo and hit him with the last 2 neatly into the back) . His kit is based around outplaying the enemy with "soft" and "hard" feints, being able to initiate combos with pretty much everything and generally using the full extent of your movement set. If it would actually be like this the class would be really interesting, but alas this is where the fun ends.

For the Kensei's attacks are very, very slow and extremely telegraphed without doing more damage than those of faster classes (and in several cases even less). This leads to him - possibly together with the raider - being by far the easiest class to parry. The (regular) light attacks are not quite as slow and the second in the chain is even very fast, but they are still only slightly faster than most classes' heavy attacks and thus very easy to block.
The assassin-like "dodge into light attack" called "Swiftstrike" (from the sides) and "Helmsplitter" (from the top) are reasonably fast, but still a good deal slower than those of actual assassins and therefore not suitable for regular offense. They also deal very little damage.
Even with this, the most problematic thing has to be the unblockable finisher, its only "special attack". Literally the only time you can use it (or the hyperarmour-heavies you can cancel it into) is once you parry an enemy and throw him into a wall, thus guaranteeing the hit - this is basically the only viable combo this guy has. If you don't do this it is not even worth bothering to try it. It is the easiest attack to parry in the whole game and the unblockable can even be interrupted by a light attack. Both the unblockable and the heavy alternatives you can cancel into can be easily evaded in all directions, because the Kensei has "good range" (sorry for the sarcasm, but it had to be said)., even though most of the time the animations shows the sword going clean through them (yay, these iframes are totally balanced).

All in all, the Kensei has an extensive, interesting and fun basic kit with good range; However, extreme lack of speed, exaggerated telegraphing, lack of meaningful special attacks or really meaningful versatility hold the Kensei back to the point of being unplayable against players who have played the game for more than 20 hours. Everthing he does can be done better and more easily by other classes.
He is very fun to play against light-attack spamming Orochis who are new to the game (aka half the playerbase right now) and pretty fun in general, just don't expect to win a lot once people get actually good at the game.

[Moxas1]

Sure they can keep doing that, but can't the other classes do the same thing as well?

Like waiting for an attack, parry it > guard break > lots of free damage.

I feel like this game punishes the first attacker too much, that's why you see alot of duels with people just waiting for the other person to attack to get free damage, it's quite silly.

I think there's 2 things in this game that needs to be fixed.

1 - The massive disadvantage of the attacker (Dodge > free damage. Parry > free damage)

2 - Guard break and how hard it is to counter it

So, there's two ways to counter Guard Break

1 - You have an extremely small window to counter it back by pressing Guard Break yourself (It's usually just predicting, as countering it with pure reaction is very rare)

2 - Using light attacks as they completely ignore guard break, but i don't like this, because it will transform some games into a light attack spam fest to avoid getting your guard broken.



My suggestions?

For the first problem, The massive disadvantage of the attacker

Better feint attacks to confuse the defender.

Add a way to counter back dodge attacks and parry attacks obviously would need good reaction times so it would be a battle of the person with the better reaction, maybe have the reaction times get faster and faster with each counter dodge and parry, as they will reach a point when someone will break down to the pressure.




The second problem, Guard breaks

i think theres a few ways to fix this one

1 - the counter back window increased

2 - cost a huge amount of stamina to punish the grabber and prevent spamming

3 - add cool down to it 5 - 10 seconds.

[Swifte.]

If I remember correctly and without going in to detail, Kensei has been changed quite a bit from TT1 but he is still a well balanced class. If his range was nerfed, it would just be Orochi 2.0, just slower with no real disengage and because he is a big guy, his base movement speed is ridiculously low. I had to stat mine (purple gear) to give him an insane mspd boost just to barely keep up with PKs and other Orochis in Dom.

I mostly agree with KarmaGator but I wouldn't say he's underwhelming at all. Most of it having to do with adaptability (he's tagged that on the character outline when you select your hero).

The Kensei's heavies also have ridiculous tracking so even though they're slow, it makes up for it in range and glue-like target locking. You also do not have to use the uninterruptable/unblockable, you can also:

1. cancel and back off for space (he's Warlord/Nobushi in the sense that they all control space really well when played properly)
2. feint -> side heavy
3. feint -> side light
4. feint -> side heavy or light -> feint -> guard break

and so on.

The reason why I think he's labeled as adaptable isn't as much for the player. It's more so for the opponent because his kit is mind-game heavy (like other heroes but his especially) because you need to psychologically dominate your opponent with him in order to use him to his full potential. People find him underwhelming because of this.


In general:

I can see where people are coming from when they say the attacker is at a disadvantage but I've played some people who've played relatively aggressively and they manage to take me out because they feint with their toons. If you mix it up, you'll beat a passive player. It's on the passive player to find out what went wrong and adapt.

The game is too new for people to be creating tier lists, complaining, what role (attacker/defender) is the best position to play and trying to find out what's 'meta'.