So as we all know, this game is just simply not balanced correctly. However, I want to just talk about the heros here. The balancing gap for heros is waayyy too huge in this game. Even in the top tier itself. The top three characters should be in a section of their own because of how good they are. Warlord, Conqueror and Peacekeeper. These characters are always in the competitive tourneys and they are all largely broken.

1.Warlord is either the best or second best at literally everything in the game from frames to offense to unlocked play. His full guard is one of the best moves in the game, he has hyper armor on all heavies, he has the second fastest lights, he has a great offensive tool in headbutt (which is mostly fine just change the hit box a little bit), his unlocked play is god like with a safe unblockable move that carries you across the entire map and comes out instantly and can be mixed up with a move with hyper armor or a guard break that also can throw you across the entire map.

2.Conqueror is largely and mistakenly seen as the top tier underdog and sometimes is left out all together. This is a mistake given that conqueror has one of the best offenses and the best defenses in the game. Conqueror's strengths really come from two things, the best move in the game his shield bash and his blocking. Conqs shield bash is just plain ridiculous. Its an unreactable unblockable move that provides damage and takes away stamina and can be mixed up with a gb and the best part is its safe and costs minimal stamina. This move is absolutely broken and needs to be fixed immediately. The next best tool in Conqs tool belt is defense because he can effectively shut down and entire offense from even the best offensive players. Conqs blocks provide him with a free gb on every heavy blocked except Peacekeepers and on almost every zone and even some lights. He has to work half as hard as the rest of the cast and it costs him no downside. Then on defense he can also use his trusty shield bash as an answer to almost everything. It can act as a quick punish because it comes after a dodge and it allows him to even punish things that are supposed to be unpunishable. Lastly he is provided with an infinite when he gets his opponent in the corner.

3.Peacekeeper is broken by two simple reasons, her zone and her dashes. There is no reason her zone attack should exist at its current state right now. It singlehandedly allows her the opportunity to never lose to another assassin class except another peacekeeper (she'll challenge herself by both just doing zones) because they cannot put their block on the side of her zone the entire time and react to the lights. Peacekeepers zone is the second move that is the jack of all trades, its a quick unreactable hit, its a safe and plus attack on block, its does decent damage, it has amazing recovery and can be thrown out whenever, it can be used as a feint, a whiff punish, a dodge punish, a ranged attack and an interrupting move. The second problem with peacekeeper is her dashes. These dashes go hand in hand with her zone attack. The only disadvantage that the zone attack has is it takes half the stamina of peacekeeper. This is supposed to be important in the balancing but her dashes makes this effect completely pointless. She has the fastest and farthest dashes in the game and can hit and run everytime and never get punished. If she does run out of stamina she can dash away as far as possible and so the opponent would have to unlock, chase her down and then maybe get a punish in if her stamina hadnt regenerated by the time they got there and she does another zone.

Now, its not all doom and gloom because these characters will actually be much easier to fix than the mid and lower tier characters.

1.Warlord can be fixed easily be making him not be able to counter guard break his full guard and not have the heavy option after the full guard. His guard break just needs a massive range reduction and his running unblockable needs either a significant startup reduction or he needs to be punishable after hes done the attack and it missed. If these changes are made his hyper armor would be fair. Because offense is so neutered in this game, warlord needs to keep his headbutt, and if these changes are made it would be indirectly nerfed because of the gb mixup. In fact his headbutt is the most fair tool in his tool belt and only would need a slight hitbox nerf and a slight damage increase after these nerfs.

2.Conqueror is a fairly simple fix. Make his shield bash be punishable when dodged preferably a guard break punish like what warlord has. His blocking is a much more difficult fix. He should not get a free shut down of offense just because he blocked the attack. There's really only two solutions to this, make him not have such good blocking and make it so its the same as the other characters or give him some kind of penalty when he blocks something like a stamina reduction.

3.Peacekeeper again is a simple fix. Make her zone have more recovery frames on whiff, hit, and block. Make it so if the attack is blocked it guarantees a free guard break. Then make it so her back dash has less range and and when she is out of stamina even more of a range reduction. The trade off would be that she gets a little more damage from her zone.

These are my ideas on how to fix the broken characters in this game. Warden is the most well balanced character in this game and should be a model for all characters, good offense, good defense but punishable. Now dont get the wrong idea and think that the middle and lower cast would not need buffs after this. The difference between the top tier and the middle and low tier is ginormous. Just look at warden, a perfectly balanced character is seen as top tier because of how weak middle and low tier heros are. There is definitely a problem when in the hypothetical scenario of a psychic player who knew exactly what their opponent was going to do, played a middle tier character in a competitive scene the best they could do is get only ties. There needs to be unreactable moves, there needs to be guessing in the game otherwise there is no way for anyone to open anyone up. Please take these suggestions into mind and consider them when you are balancing the game.