I will start by saying that the game is very good, but I think there are some pressing matters that need to be fixed before fixing or evaluating if we need to fix others.

One of the things that might or might not need to be fixed is the character balancing, like the Shugoki insta-kill attack and passive shield, but before fixing (or not fixing) that, the developers should look into the bugs or griefing behaviour from players that are breaking the game.

One of the biggest issues is Guard Break, specially against Heavy characters (I use a Warlord and a Berserker).

Heavy characters don't have high mobility and base their combat advantage on their guard, and the fact that the different characters can just spam GB without any risk being able to land (at least a light attack afterwards) makes the heavy characters unplayable. In fact, there is a noticiable migration of players to lighter classes lately and I'm guessing that is one of the reasons: What would happen if a certain character had a passive ability that didn't let light characters sidestep? well this is the same.

Another problem of the GB is the throw that can be chained to it, specially in environments where you can instakill a character by throwing them to a pit or a cliff. GB spam + throw (specially if it ends in instakill) is frustrating and infuriating.

Look at this 21-second-video and imagine you are the Orochi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljCCnIu1RL4

Yes you can argue that you can always leave and not play against that player again, but he won already and there is nothing you can do about it.

My questions are, why does GB exist? Isn't the aim of the game to hit and guard? why do we put a system that just breaks the whole purpose of the game? Why do we put a system that frustrates players that are good at keeping their guard? Why?

It is clear that GB should be used rarely (to say the least), not constantly like nowadays.

My first suggestion would be to remove GB completely from the game, I don't think there would be a big issue if that feature was gone.

My second suggestion would be that a GB + whatever drained the stamina of the player performing it, completely. There would still be the problem of environmental kills though.

My third suggestion would be that GB always gave the player who received it, not only the chance to interrupt the GB but also the chance of defending themselves against the chained attack or grab.

Thank you.

B1g

P.S: Please, be respectful if you decide to reply.