Free guard break after parry - is it healthy for the game? | Forums

[YOGZULA]

I was playing a bit of lawbringer today. A hero that has FOUR follow up moves after a parry as part of his kit. 3 can be blocked, only one can't be, which is a light attack.

So after labbing with him for a while, I concluded that the best follow up to a parry is to just guard break, just like every single other hero. A free guaranteed heavy or throw is just incredibly powerful. It shifts momentum greatly in your favor and lets you start a chain or apply a lot of pressure. It encourages just waiting out your opponents attack to parry them for massive follow up opportunities.

I have crticized parrying heavily before, saying that it's too powerful of a mechanic, but looking at heroes with actual 'chains' that begin with a parry, and how those chains are universally weaker than just guard breaking, it leaves me to question if parrying was ever really meant to be so powerful? Was it intended design that the lawbringer never uses his unique parry follow ups, and just guard breaks instead? Is the homogenization of classes really good for the game?

[Fuzzybutts]

I was playing a bit of lawbringer today. A hero that has FOUR follow up moves after a parry as part of his kit. 3 can be blocked, only one can't be, which is a light attack.

So after labbing with him for a while, I concluded that the best follow up to a parry is to just guard break, just like every single other hero. A free guaranteed heavy or throw is just incredibly powerful. It shifts momentum greatly in your favor and lets you start a chain or apply a lot of pressure. It encourages just waiting out your opponents attack to parry them for massive follow up opportunities.

I have crticized parrying heavily before, saying that it's too powerful of a mechanic, but looking at heroes with actual 'chains' that begin with a parry, and how those chains are universally weaker than just guard breaking, it leaves me to question if parrying was ever really meant to be so powerful? Was it intended design that the lawbringer never uses his unique parry follow ups, and just guard breaks instead? Is the homogenization of classes really good for the game?

I feel you here. I think it would be perfectly healthy is there was blockable, but un-parryable initiations that heroes could change into combos. This way if someone is obviously baiting parries one can open with one of these sorts of moves, which they may try to parry, mess up, and get chained on.

In the games current state the only heroes actually able to get off any chains/combos are basically the Nobushi and nothing else (which is why her damage seems so crazy compared to others, shes just the only one able to use chains in the hyper-defense meta.)

[GLR476]

I feel you here. I think it would be perfectly healthy is there was blockable, but un-parryable initiations that heroes could change into combos. This way if someone is obviously baiting parries one can open with one of these sorts of moves, which they may try to parry, mess up, and get chained on.

In the games current state the only heroes actually able to get off any chains/combos are basically the Nobushi and nothing else (which is why her damage seems so crazy compared to others, shes just the only one able to use chains in the hyper-defense meta.)

I'd actually like if they made LB even a little slower but rewarded you blocks with moves that actually were worth doing and extremely difficult if not unblock able; if you parry a PK with a slower version of LB you deserve to rip out half their HP with an unbloackable imo to compensate for the BS of you basically needing LUCK to block a PK anyway... In return PK needs some kind of nerf to attack speed to make up for how unpredictable they are compared to other character with more limited attacks at that speed.

At least this way the LB would actually.. you know.. counter attack.

[Knight_Raime]

I thought he had a parry move that lets him do an unavoidable unblockable attack that doesn't give the person time to parry or dodge it (you have to parry a light.)
regardless yes. being able to get a guarenteed GB off of a parry isn't good imo. but it's tollerated because it's really the only way a gb will land in higher level play. TBH parrying needs a tighter window. and the frames in which you can feint your parry need to come later so they almost have to sort of commit to the attempt. and parrying should remove more stamina from both users to compensate for whatever free damage might come. But getting a GB guarenteed shouldn't exist.

[YOGZULA]

I thought he had a parry move that lets him do an unavoidable unblockable attack that doesn't give the person time to parry or dodge it (you have to parry a light.)
regardless yes. being able to get a guarenteed GB off of a parry isn't good imo. but it's tollerated because it's really the only way a gb will land in higher level play. TBH parrying needs a tighter window. and the frames in which you can feint your parry need to come later so they almost have to sort of commit to the attempt. and parrying should remove more stamina from both users to compensate for whatever free damage might come. But getting a GB guarenteed shouldn't exist.

Nope. You can follow up with an overhead unblockable from a parry, but it can be both parried and dodged, with plenty of time to react to it.

[RazhemUplay]

Definitely not healthy and one of the bigger reasons why defense trumps all. The moment a parry can get you a lot more damage than starting a chain, things go south very quick,

[SnugglesIV]

I was playing a bit of lawbringer today. A hero that has FOUR follow up moves after a parry as part of his kit. 3 can be blocked, only one can't be, which is a light attack.

So after labbing with him for a while, I concluded that the best follow up to a parry is to just guard break, just like every single other hero. A free guaranteed heavy or throw is just incredibly powerful. It shifts momentum greatly in your favor and lets you start a chain or apply a lot of pressure. It encourages just waiting out your opponents attack to parry them for massive follow up opportunities.

I have crticized parrying heavily before, saying that it's too powerful of a mechanic, but looking at heroes with actual 'chains' that begin with a parry, and how those chains are universally weaker than just guard breaking, it leaves me to question if parrying was ever really meant to be so powerful? Was it intended design that the lawbringer never uses his unique parry follow ups, and just guard breaks instead? Is the homogenization of classes really good for the game?

To be honest, I think the bigger problem is that some classes can get a free heavy after GB, whereas some CANNOT. Raider and Lawbringer are excellent examples of why being unable to get a free heavy after a GB weakens a class so much that it is hard to justify picking them.

[MinaX-LorD]

It is healthy, because as of right now, if you couldn't do it, there would be no way to get damage on anyone besides trying to anticipate when someone is going to do something and then throwing out a light attack. Other than that, people will just constantly defend or parry your first or second attack because it's that easy. This is why guard break doesn't need to be "reverted" because it is one of the only ways to punish people who just sit there and defend the whole fight.

Or we could all just play conqueror and warlord and do headbutt/shieldbash light attack followups. Thats what this game is going to become eventually.

[MinaX-LorD]

To be honest, I think the bigger problem is that some classes can get a free heavy after GB, whereas some CANNOT. Raider and Lawbringer are excellent examples of why being unable to get a free heavy after a GB weakens a class so much that it is hard to justify picking them.

I dunno how long you've been playing the game but LB gets a free side heavy after a true guard break. The problem is that guard breaks are so easy to defend, that it rarely happens against a decent opponent unless you caught them with a GB in some kind of startup or recovery animation, but this will all change soon if UBIsoft decides to revert GB mechanics and make GB counters spammable and counterable in any situation. Then you will never see another GB landed on a human again.

[TCTF_SWAT]

Ummmmm Lb DOES get free side heavies after a Gb. He also gets a free blind justice after parrying a light attack......