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Hello dudes. I am a Shugoki player who has recently branched out into Nobushi due to Nobushi being the coolest class in the game. Despite Shugoki being undisputably better and Nobushi having a large number of frustrating impediments to her success, I have worked hard to develop at least passably viable strategies for each matchup and am now playing her with relative success. I don't really know where I am on the spectrum of skill levels in For Honor, I suppose I will have to wait until ranked duels exist to determine that empirically, but I suspect that I am at the higher end of "mid-level play," meaning that my foes have a general grasp on the Nobushi matchup, understand safe play, parry selectively (at the level right below mine everyone is an addy daddy parry god and I parry baited my way out of that level,) can reliably tech guard breaks and can get optimal punishes.
Throughout this guide, I may make references to frame data, which will be fairly straightforward. The game runs at 60 frames per second (30 frames per second on console, but for simplicity's sake all my listed frame data will be based on a 60FPS speed,) therefore something which has a 30 frame startup means that there will be 30 frames of animation BEFORE a hitbox is generated, and on the 31st frame a hitbox will be generated. Since we are working with 60 frames per second, 30 frames is one half of a second or 0.5 seconds. The average reaction time for humans is 0.25 seconds to a visual stimulus, 0.17 for an audio stimulus, and 0.15 seconds for a touch stimulus according to a study done by the neuroscience website backyardbrains.
Here is my opinion on the current matchup spread for Nobushi. They will be in the format X:Y. The listed class will win X/10 duels and the Nobushi Y/10 duels between two players of equal skill, with equal matchup knowledge, on neutral stages. Bear in mind that you will likely face players with LESS matchup knowledge than you because Nobushi is not commonly seen outside of the lower levels of play, whereas you will face legions of Conquerors and Warlords and a smattering of Warden, Shugoki and various assassins and thus have the upper hand in matchup knowledge. Also bear in mind that this is my BELIEF based on data I have collected and is not necessarily true.
Knights:
- Warden - 5.5:4.5
- Conqueror - 6.5:3.5
- Peacekeeper - 6:4
- Lawbringer - 4:6
Overall knight: 5.5:4.5
Vikings:
- Raider - 3:7
- Warlord - 6.5:3.5
- Berserker - 5:5
- Valkyrie - 4.5:5.5
Overall viking: 4.75:5.25
Samurai:
- Kensei - 4:6
- Nobushi - N/A
- Orochi - 4.5:5.5
- Shugoki - 5.5:4.5
Overall samurai: 4.75:5.25
Overall: 5:5
Not a bad matchup spread right? Nobushi has a few fairly weak matchups (Warlord, Conqueror, Peacekeeper) A few strong matchups (Kensei, Lawbringer) and one extremely dominant matchup (Raider) with the rest being slight advantages or disadvantages, mostly not enough to matter, or as close as I can reckon to dead even. Unfortunately, the characters which she struggles with (and indeed, give problems to most of the cast due to their strengths) are very common in the current meta, and the classes which she defeats handily are rather uncommon (also due to their weakness in relation to most of the cast.) For this reason, I would place Nobushi solidly in B tier. She has good strengths and few glaring weaknesses, but simply struggles against meta classes in 1v1. Now to proceed to the breakdown of each matchup.
Warden:
This character is commonly said to be the one with the greatest overall power due to his lightning fast zone attack and his top light, which serves as a triple whammy of being an extremely fast normal (30 frames, meaning that if you're watching for it, you should be able to react to it in time,) a parry which makes contesting the Warden with top attacks very threatening, and a lead in to his notorious shoulderbash. I personally believe that Nobushi's matchup with Warden is relatively even, slightly in the Warden's favor due to the strength of his shoulderbash game, but for reasons that I will discuss, this is not as overwhelming as it first seems.
The first thing to note against Warden is that you should always be idle blocking to the left. The Warden's zone attack comes from his right, your left, so you want to be blocking in this direction because Warden's zone attack is lightning fast. It has 24 frames of startup, which would give you enough time to react to it, except that the indicator glitch means that the guard indicator will briefly flash in the direction that the warden is currently guarding whenever he does a zone attack. However, if you block a zone attack, you can get a free guard break. Always keep that in mind. Warden's zone attack is PUNISHABLE ON BLOCK. You WANT him to zone attack, because you want to block it and get a free top heavy. If you are idle blocking to the left, the rest of Warden's options will be reactable as long as you are looking for them. His side lights are a dopey 36 frames, which is quite slow, meaning that you mostly have to concern yourself with blocking top light, teching guard break and watching out for his shoulder bash. The only consistently threatening offensive option out of the three is shoulder bash.
Dealing with shoulder bash: The first thing to mind in order to mitigate the threat of shoulder bash is your positioning. You want to be constantly aware of how close you are to a wall. It is tempting as Nobushi to be constantly retreating to make use of her impressive range advantage. Many Nobushi players will find that this eats away at the space they have to work with relatively quickly, and they will soon find themselves against a wall or in a corner where escaping from mixups and creating space becomes substantially harder. Remember that even if you are within the range that the Warden threatens, you aren't actually at much risk due to the strength and safety of passive play. Strafing for a better position (more room behind you, away from hazards) is an important part of Nobushi's limited offense game. It's tempting to side dash to reposition, but don't do this. Side dashing is begging to be guard broken, and if you try to cover that option with viper thrust or sidewinder form, good players will catch on and parry you as these options can't be feinted. Once you have space, the threat of shoulder bash can be resolved most reliably by dodge rolling away. The easiest way to do this is to unlock from the warden and press the dodge button while holding in the opposite direction any time the Warden lands a light attack. Yes this costs stamina. Stamina management is just a skill you will have to learn. Raw shoulderbashes are not safe and are vulnerable to counterpokes. If you are facing a Warden that likes to do raw shoulderbashes to open you up, periodically throwing out Viper's Retreat when you read a shoulderbash will keep them honest. Will you get parried sometimes? Yeah, but the important thing is that you are forcing them to second guess one of their options. It's worth eating a parry occasionally to make sure your opponent isn't running stupid unsafe **** on you for free. Viper Thrust to the side or Sidewinder form will also beat up raw shoulderbashes. Mixing up between these options is likely the best. Another option for escaping a vortex you find yourself trapped in is to Viper Thrust or Sidewinder Form. The execution of this is harder than the dodge attacks of the assassins or Kensei, because the attacks cancel your dodges (and their invuln frames) immediately, rather than allowing you to get out of harms way first. This means that you have to actually dodge > delay > attack in a way that you will both avoid the hitbox of the shoulder bash and still get an attack out in time to stop the guard break. This requires practice, and I suggest having a friend just vortex you over and over again in order to practice it. This isn't the be all end all option for stopping the vortex, it simply adds an element of risk to it for the Warden. They can still beat this option by canceling their shoulder bash and parrying, but the read table ends up looking like this. (X - Y) will be used to indicate results, X and Y will be -1, 0 or 1. X indicates warden's advantage, Y indicates your advantage.
Actual shoulderbash: dodge (0 : 0) | wait (1 : -1) | viper thrust/sidewinder form (-1 : 1)
Shoulder bash into guard break: dodge (1 : -1) | wait (0 : 0) | viper thrust/sidewinder form (-1 : 1)
Shoulder bash into viper thrust read: dodge (0 : 0) | wait (0 : 0) | viper thrust/sidewinder form (1 : -1)
This means that in the shoulder bash mixup, only three out of nine possible combinations of options will allow the warden to continue the vortex, and two out of nine options will actually punish them. The remaining four will result in a return to neutral. It is still on average to the Warden's advantage to attempt the mixup, but it will not be free, and it will impose a risk.
Using your reach advantage against a Warden: As a Nobushi, one of your strengths is that you are just so ****ing long. Your legs are long, your arms are long, your naginata is super long. But how do you use your length really? For starters, Warden's farthest reaching attacks are zone attack and shoulder bash (once you factor in the movement.) As we've already discussed, both of these options can create openings for a resourceful Nobushi (i.e., one that idle blocks left and periodically throws viper retreats at people who raw shoulderbash,) so keeping your distance can tempt Warden to use these options. Additionally, distance allows you to make use of your limited offensive options from relative safety. If a Warden parries one of your light attacks, they will get a free top heavy. This means that Wardens will want to do this ALL THE TIME. Whiff light attacks from outside their range to show that you are willing to do them. Hell, throw a light attack at them just to test their reactions once you have established that you have other options in neutral (feinting heavies, zone attack, viper thrust.) If they parry it GOOD. They get one top heavy in one round. You get a potential opening for the rest of the game. Nobushi can feint their light attacks using hidden stance, so light attack > hidden stance > light attack is extremely strong against baited parries, because even if they react to the fact that you feinted and cancel their parry attempt they STILL have to react to your other light attacks. Nobushi's side light attacks are 30 frames and her top light attack is 36 frames. Against most characters, her strongest light feint is top light > hidden stance > light attack in the side that they were facing, because this has the shortest guard switch time. Unfortunately against Warden, even if you bait out his top light parry, the top light will just pummel you, so you are forced to use the inferior side light > hidden stance > side light parry bait. This is one of the reasons that I rank this matchup in Warden's favor. In summary: keeping your distance removes many of the Warden's safest options and can tempt them to commit to unsafe options or to parries which can be baited.
EDIT: I can't believe I screwed this up, but the frame data that I listed was actually for 30 FPS, not for 60. I have corrected it to the proper values for 60 FPS
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Conqueror: I hate playing this matchup. I hate it with knives. Every time I queue into Conqueror as Nobushi, a small part of my soul flips me off while it dies. I considered evaluating this matchup as a 7:3, but after playing it a lot, I don't really think it's quite that dramatic for reasons that I will get into. What are the problems with this matchup? Well, to put it simply, Nobushi is very reliant on baiting behavior from your opponent in order to get damage. Nobushi lacks a way to force people to make potentially wrong decisions (for example, a shoulder bash which forces people to either dodge or read a guard break, one of which will be a wrong decision, or sprinting at someone and threatening a fast unblockable such as what Shugoki has and forcing either a dodge or a guard break read, one of which will be a wrong decision.) Nobushi also lacks a fast unblockable which is difficult to react to (Conqueror's shield bash) or nearly impossible to react to (Warlord's headbutt.) These tools can allow your character to open people up regardless of what they are doing. Nobushi, on the other hand, relies on making people WANT to do things, and then stabbing them with a naginata. The biggest problem with the Conqueror matchup is that Conqueror never wants to do anything except shield bash. Conqueror doesn't poke. Conqueror doesn't parry. Conqueror doesn't really do anything except respond to your actions with the most passive, unpunishable choices possible. Block (sometimes three directions at once, just in cast you wanted to trip up his reaction speed,) tech guard breaks (remarkably easy when you are watching for them) and dodging kick (which is slow and gives a free punish.)
And then he will shield bash you. You can not counterpoke shield bashes on reaction, but it's generally fairly safe to throw pokes at Conqueror every so often because parrying is more risky for them than it is for other classes due to having to cancel their heavies with a three way block stance which I believe is susceptible to untechable guard breaks. If a Conqueror is parrying you, first feint and see whether he just lets his heavies go all the way through (parry them) or if he cancels them with three way block stance (guard break him.) But most of the time, Conquerors will not parry you, because parrying is antithesis to their safe playstyle. Instead, Conquerors will just fish for holes in which to insert a shield bash, which cannot be punished. By anything. Viper Thrust will not punish shield bash. Dodge into guard break will not punish shield bash. It is simply safe. Your best tool for dealing with shield bash is Hidden Stance. Many Conquerors like to shield bash and do a light attack immediately after, even if they whiff. If they do this, you're in because you can just Hidden Stance into RB, or simply dodge into parrying. I have yet to face a Conqueror good enough to actually hitconfirm before going into their light attack, so this is my main way of damaging Conqueror.
There is one other trick against Conqueror which I hope is not a bug, and that is that Sidewinder Form will not get repelled by his guard, which will allow you to follow it up with another attack, either kick (lol,) or Viper's Retreat, which will catch an attempt to shield bash or guard break after a block. Many Conqueror's suffer from megalomania due to their absurdly powerful block and believe that they can just do whatever they want after blocking an attack and there will be no repercussions, so they often get caught by this.
Aside from that, there's not much you can do. You must play extremely passively and try to frustrate them into making moves, which will almost always be shield bash. I can't stress the importance of learning to Hidden Stance on reaction enough, as reads will not be sufficient. If you try to read shield bash with dodge or Hidden Stance, you will get punished by guard break. You MUST learn to react. One last thing of note is that if you intend to win this matchup, then you will have to pull out all of your tricks, and one of the most annoying tricks in your book is running away to regenerate health. If you do this dilligently, then Conqueror actually CANNOT kill you off of a shield bash and must land a heavy attack. They can do this with shield charge or a guard break, but both of those are substantially easier to avoid than shield bash. Swallow your pride and just run away. It may be cheese, but their entire class is predicated on cheese, so I can't bring myself to feel too bad about it.
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Data for fights against the Berserker.
Berserker: will out maneuver everything you throw at him. Even if you are landing hits. You can land the first poke and he will have enough recovery time to actually dodge the 2nd so don't combo unless you are absolutely sure it will land. Same thing for kicks, he can easily dodge them. Nobushi's slow guard change will be your bane since Berserker can change direction fast and his attacks don't stop on block. The best way to defeat berserkers is to predict and out play his side steps and whiffs. Keep your distance extreme since many of his main attacks will be uninterruptible since your dodge game isn't great dealing him on close is death sentence. He has many dash attack options which is also why you want to keep extra distance. Your key to victory will be punishing his whiffs with GB or bleed pokes. Like I said, if you land an attack best bet is to back away and open another window, his recovery will be faster than your next attack. You can try and parry him but best use your instant dodge after every successful block that way you.
