Kensei doesn't need a damage buff, what he needs is more combos. | Forums

[iHunny]

So What your saying is that kensei is garbage regardless of how good of a player you are?

im rep 2 with my kensei, and play high rep player all the time and come out on top alot

Yes, thats how a bad character in a good players hands are. Would you not think the Warden being the strongest class in the game only cos a bad player plays it? Only cos somone good uses it and suceed do not mean the class itself is good. And no, the class is not good, you have no openings other then a faint and even your follow ups after the faint do not work. True, you could parry light attacks but many people do not have reflexes to pull that off, unless its the Kenseis lights cos they are sloooow.

[DrinkinMyStella]

Yes, thats how a bad character in a good players hands are. Would you not think the Warden being the strongest class in the game only cos a bad player plays it? Only cos somone good uses it and suceed do not mean the class itself is good. And no, the class is not good, you have no openings other then a faint and even your follow ups after the faint do not work. True, you could parry light attacks but many people do not have reflexes to pull that off, unless its the Kenseis lights cos they are sloooow.

I Completely get what your saying. Yes he can be slow i agree, and his main move is slow but as a decent player i don't use those slow attacks i tend to feint and guard block opening them up to some fast light attacks, he is powerful so a few heavy attacks and some bad parrying from them leads to my victory. I changed my game plan because of his slow heavy attacks and realised i can pull off some quite fast light attacks which even gave the peacekeeper some trouble, my personal experience with him is good i just cant get along with other heroes. Plus my strong point is parrying that how i play 90% of the time using parrys.

[iHunny]

I Completely get what your saying. Yes he can be slow i agree, and his main move is slow but as a decent player i don't use those slow attacks i tend to feint and guard block opening them up to some fast light attacks, he is powerful so a few heavy attacks and some bad parrying from them leads to my victory. I changed my game plan because of his slow heavy attacks and realised i can pull off some quite fast light attacks which even gave the peacekeeper some trouble, my personal experience with him is good i just cant get along with other heroes. Plus my strong point is parrying that how i play 90% of the time using parrys.

Unless your good at parrie light attacks you have no secure folloup on your parries tho.

[Barzah]

Kensei in nutshell

Low-mid tier match: Going left and right mixing feint with real one while your apponent amazed by your extraordinary maneuver
Top tier match: top light......top light...top light...wops got a parry, GB->Heavy and the enemy just back to turtling...top light...top light

The side attack are so frigging slow that everyone can just block even parry those attack..yet character like this are relaying on combo chain in order to shine. Wow just friggin wow

[Sephriem]

I hope I can aid a little here.
Not that ive player Kensei past the tutorial and story but I'm pretty damn quick at picking up game mechanics.

the "adaptable" tag for his character really means, chain/ability/cancel mixing, this is why the Kensei has so few skills.

if you read through the hero specifics under move set, you have:

Chain starter 'helm splitter, swift strike and guard break can initiate chains'


This means that TWO/3 of your abilities can chain directly into the second part of the first THREE/4 of your chain skills.

On a ps4 for eg, you can do a helm splitter into spirit of inevitability direct with

Dodge up + X, R1, R1* R2#

*must hit
# unblockable

This is 1 R1 shorter and a quicker execution than if those two skills didn't chain fyi.

Next you have throw into chain finisher.

This allows for any of your chains last 2 attack to form the end result, this is similar to Nobushi Hidden stance in that doing so counts as the first button of any chain, the same applies hear but with a GB instead.

So form of dragon which is
R1 , R2, R2
would now be
Square , R2 , R2

Lastly

Top heavy Finisher Cancel
Finisher start up can be cancelled by
Side light
Or side heavy # finisher

This allows for a real sudden change to attack patterns as the class finishers despite being unblockable, are still slow and parryable.

The bonus of this is that a lot of considered "cheap" players, also cancel the start up period into a guard break forcing stun and then moving back up to the throw into chain finisher.

This move can unfortunately be spammed about 3 times before their stamina depletes l, by then you're pinned to a wall near a cliff and on half a pip of hp and can't see ****e.


It's a very VERY flexible build that revolves a lot around cancels and utilising the hero specifics with chains or special abailities into the chains...

Or even

Helm splitter > form of dragon > cancel last > guard break > top heavy > cancel, top heavy finisher. A devastating 7 hit combo that they honestly won't ever see cause they're stunned lol.

When more people realise this

[Iskaroth]

ROFL, this thread is getting even more hilarious - a guy who admits he doesnt play Kensei is now teaching how to play the class. What the actual ****?! Theorycrafting at its finest.
No matter what "combo" you do Kensei's attacks are slow as ****(except for helm splitter), easily dodged or parried. There are many problems with the class but since this game is fairly shallow and casual with no chance of becoming an e-sport in its current state i doubt devs will make any significant balance changes.

[iHunny]

I think they will balance the game, I actuly think they are in work of it right now and thats why it takes time for the patch, they want to make sure they do not **** things up even more.

[Iskaroth]

Kensei is one of the classes that gets HUGE mileage out of the core mechanics in addition to his moves. He does not need new unique chains. He has hidden unique chains that the game doesn't tell you about that the skilled Kenseiers know about. One of these is feinting the unblockable for a side heavy, it's extremely powerful and is an hidden chain that most don't know about.

How on earth is this hidden when the game literally tells you how to do this when you go to Kensei's moveset? It is pretty cool and can sometimes catch people off guard but my main weapon against other players are basics: carefully timing your attacks, parrying, feinting, dodging, GBs etc he doesnt really have cheesy, OP moves. I admit Kensei's range and damage are quite good, no complaints here. Also Warden is very good class, hes kinda like Kazuya from Tekken - fairly limited movelist but what few tools he has are all top tier.

[BossTode]

I see a lot of opinion from people here who are obviously relatively new to the game, I can empathize with your opinions because I remember what it was like to be a low MMR kensei, he is an excellent noob-stomping class. There will come a time, though, after you git gud and fight some skilled players of other, better, classes that you will realize how limited kensei's kit is.

It boils down to this: after 100-200 hours of play, most players, yes even you filthy casuals, will be able to reliably block most attacks in the game and counter almost all guard breaks as well. When both players are in neutral stance, the only way they can really open the other guy up is either:

a) By punishing someone in the middle of an attack when their guard is down
b) By using ultra-fast attacks with low frame count that can sometimes get past someones reactions due to input lag, human error, etc

Most classes have access to at least one fast attack. In kensei's case, it is the overhead light. When you are fighting any given class, you want to recognize where their fastest attack comes from and leave your guard there, because you KNOW you can guard the other directions reliably if you need to, but if you're too slow to react to that overhead light - no big deal, your guard is already there.

Now, what is setting most top-tier classes in a league above the others is simply this: They have more than one fast attack, and can therefore threaten you from multiple stances instead of just one. Warden, Peacekeeper, Warlord and Orochi (the cast that most seasoned players consider to encompass the S and A tier) all have absurdly fast zone attacks that come from the left or right, which means that you cannot ever be complacent in leaving your guard stance to simply UP. The importance of this is massively understated around here.

Many classes simply do not have the tools to bypass a seasoned players guard. Kensei is one of them. His light overhead is beautiful - one of the best attacks in the game IMO. But a good player will simply leave their guard UP in the neutral game. Every other move you have is extremely unsafe and likely to get you parried.

This forces you into the role of turtling up and your play will degenerate into the following:

*Fishing for parries
*Tapping people on the head with overhead light during the startup frames of their attack (using prediction)


There is a little bit of tech you can use like:

*Unlocked Zone attack double hit to counter aggression, abusing that hyper armor (unlock camera to turn your back then immediately face forward again)
*Purposely whiffing your first 1-2 light attacks to access your chain finisher (usually for the hyper armor side slash)

There are some other good moves but they are all reactive, and focus on punishing the enemy while they are unable to block.

But these things are pretty gimmicky and generally only work because they havent seen it before.

On a related note, assassins are my favorite (and imo best) matchup ,simply because they have to activate every block and they cant just neuter you by leaving their guard in the up position.

I dont want to dumpster Kensei or anything, i have pointed out a lot of problems here, but I do believe that he is a mid-tier class. But this is only because there are many other flawed classes in for honor that struggle to pass the guard of seasoned players. He DOES have some good things going for him like, a great guard break, a great dodge, great parry follow-ups. He just need to be able to threaten players from more than one stance during the neutral game, that much is clear. But another thing I would like to see is some stamina cost reduction across the board so that he can be more creative with feints and cancels.

[FutTheWuk]

Mr.BossTode, I commend you for so eloquently outline kensei's issues in mid to upper tiers. It took four pages but someone finally made some freaking sense. Still something tells me that some ******* is going to be "YUH BUT IM GOOD SO I CAN 4.0 K/D AT GOD TIER CUZ IM SO GUD, SO KENSEI CANT BE BAD!"