I've been playing around with valk against a level 3 bot to see what kind of true combos she has, and it seems rather inconsistent.
It seems like
combo #1 - guard break -> headbutt -> spear sweep -> heavy is a true combo.... however
guard break -> throw -> spear sweep -> heavy is not. It seems that the speed at which an opponent stands up form spear sweep changed depending on how you chained into it.
I also discovered that out of stamina opponents stand up from spear sweep faster. Multiple times on the same level 3 bot combo #1 didn't work. The bot could stand up and parry me.
Valk's chain of sweep -> heavy -> shield crush -> sweep -> heavy is also not true. When you land the shield crush, your opponent can side dodge the sweep and punish you. At least this is true of a valk opponent and I imagine anyone else with a quicker dodge. Slower dodgers might not be able to get out of this combo, but I haven't tested it.
My question is... how in the hell is valk supposed to execute anything? Her heavy doesn't do 25 damage so a guard break -> heavy on an opponent with one bar doesn't kill them. You can't kill them with a single heavy out of a spear sweep either. You need to land two attacks before they regenerate their bar in order to execute them, and the second needs to be a heavy. Fat chance, I think.
In the tech test the sweep->heavy wasn't really necessary since lights and 3 hit combos were more than enough to finish the job. Pre-nerf, those sweet 10 hours of the testing event, we had 3 hit combos, the jump-thrust and the dodge-poke which were hitting so hard and fast you never really needed the sweeps CC and only used the GB->heavy if you wanted to go for an execution. After the nerf a lot of that changed but combos and lights were still perfectly viable. Too viable it seems because Ubi swung that nerf bat again and, well, we can all see the end result. The health pool of an assassin, the damage of a Conqueror, the speed of a Lawbringer and the reach somewhere between a Warden and Raider.
Our heavies, both side and top, hit for exactly 25 damage. So we can't finish off an opponent that hasn't already come back from critical health at least once. Can't kill him with lights either he'd have to be literally AFK to allow to be hit by a light combo without simply blocking the second strike and then just turtle for 10 seconds to watch his HP go back up to 25.
The Valk gives you nothing for free and if you opponent is good enough to counter a GB you're going to have a very hard time finishing the job. Ubi seems to be aware of the issue but apparently see no need to fix it any time soon.
It's been 3 days since i logged in and they have my money so i guess they fooled me. Maybe something will change in a couple months or next year. We'll see.
combo#1 is a bad idea...
why would you ever headbutt out of a guardbreak if there is not environmental kill behind the enemy?
you should go GB->heavy and then decide if you want to do a light attack (which depends on your oponents class and blocking skill) or a shield-crush and then follow that up with a sweep, which they hopefully dont dodge out of
valk currently has NO vortex.
she would have one if the cancel into GB out of a shield tackle would actually work (which it doesnt... either bugged or not implemented but the tooltip is there)
what did work for me is the following:
go into shield-tackle-stance and hold it so most enemies would expect the unblockable charge and dodge out of it at soon as you move.
so intead of using the charge you can dodge out of the shield tackle stance in any direction. so dodge forward + guardbreak. most enemies will do a side-dodge so you can catch them.
you can also do a side-dodge attack out of the stance if they come closer.
apart from that you need to ace your parry game... parry -> gb -> heavy is the only thing thats viable atm as everything else is either too easily dodged, blocked or parried.
you are quite **** out of luck against nobushis and shugokis as the parry->gb wont catch them ever, so you need to try and just move in for normal GB or point-blank shield crushes.
i have tried making shoulder-pins work, but the timing is quite strict and the slightest lag will get you killed, so its hard to rely on that (even though it would be a good tool)
sadly, you can ONLY chain into a shield-crush after a shoulder-pin, so apart from the bleed damage, there is no guaranteed follow-up either.
we NEED the teased patch from last week badly![]()
I do the most damage with this combo:Originally Posted by SethEnraged Go to original post
When they attack quick go into the shield-tackle-stance (don't charge it!) and release it instant, you block the incoming attack and can then follow up with a light and a heavy. Somehow, if you don't charge the shield stance, the bash counts as a light, that's how you get a light and a heavy (from the light light heavy) off pretty good.
Edit: Also can do 2 lights which resolve in the second and third light attack of the chain. The upper one (third) deals a lot damage and the left/right will confuse them.
The only true combo I found so far is on an exhausted enemy:Originally Posted by YOGZULA Go to original post
Backthrow -> top heavy -> light -> sweep -> heavy
That isn't really a 50/50. As long as you can reaction dodge the sweep it never will be. I am a bit rustier on my reflexes these days and honestly all her mix-ups start with a heavy which pretty much primes you for it and if you don't see the sweep you prepare for guardbreak - better yet dodge the shieldbash after the heavy and she can't even go further.Originally Posted by iHunny Go to original post