This topic is to bring something new to for honor, that we as community can suggest to devs, This means I hope this gets enough attention for devs to look at this, how they been looking and replying on several topics for past few days.

What this is about is making new form of balance. Right now everyone thinks of balance as nerfing or buffing something but in last patch devs did something that made me think. They took kensei and made some of his moves more viable, so idea of this topic is how we can take some moves from heroes and make them viable to use in high skill plays.

As right now, the high skill players and play styles are extremely boring. It is really just two people standing in each others face and exchanging feints till they land a parry. They do not use majority of the moves that their hero has because they are just not viable and resort to only couple of things. I really doubt thats this is how developers imagined this game will be played or intended it to play like this. What I am suggesting is reworking the special moves and making them viable in higher skill plays.

What comes in mind first is warden, he is considered to be one of the best heroes in the game. It's understandable since he got his parries, he got his moves that are good and kind of safe, he got his counters, he got his shoulder bash that can be used in more than one way. Here the thing though, what if we do not nerf warden, but instead do to other heroes things that will give them chance to use all of their moves as efficiently as warden can use his? That sounds great to me at least.

Let me start this so you all can see what I mean. I will speak of Orochi and how his moves can be reworked, so his entire kit can be viable in any skill level, and not just him having zone and top light. I do chose orochi for this first because he was one of the few heroes untouched by latest patch and I do have rather decent experience with that hero too.

I also want to say that I will list lots of ideas and I do not say that all of them are perfect, this is just brain storming and if devs do listen to them, it definitely does not mean that alll of them have to be included. What I mean is, I am about to list a hell ton of ideas for orochi, but I do not think that all of them should be implemented. Just a selection, to make it viable enough.

Orochi:

Firstly lets look at storm rush. This move is nearly useless for anything but mind games in average skill play, and not even used in high skill. This can be changed and I got few ideas for it.
1) The biggest issue with it is that it is heavily predictable. You can see where it's coming from and it takes a second to even que. The solution to this is not locking the attack to the side but let you switch it at any point right before it hits. What I mean is if you start it from the left and go on with it, as you run to your opponent, you can keep switching your blade form side to side till it hits. So you start on left, go with a hit, as you run you switch it to right, then maybe again to left, and so on. This will make it less predictable and harder to parry maybe.
2) Also what can be done, and I think would work well with first part of this is making storm rush feintable at any point before it hits. This might seem a little too much at first but really, this will just make orochis storm rush work like of like shoulder bash in a way. Gives you more options with it. In higher skill play you can just feint it, or go with it and switch directions, or go with it and then feint when close and go for gb. Although it is still regular gb, not like shoulder bash cancel gb.

Then lets talk about riptide strike.
1)Add so you can feint it? Right now there is little reason to use it but to look cool. if someone fakes you out by feinting and you got for it, you get parried. So why do it? just try to parry that first hit instead of doing riptide, that way if you do parry, you get to do that dmg anyways. If they feint, then you can feint too. So what if you can feint it? This will give it some credibility.
2)Make it so you can riptide strike from any direction? So you can que it from sides or top? This is me just kind of exploring different ideas, tell me what you think.

The zone attack
1)This might sound a little too nuts but this is really not just for orochi, I think this could be a decent edition to everyone. For one, reduce stam cost on it, so you can cast it 3 times on full stam bar.
2) Make it so you can chose from which side it comes out. I know, sounds nuts but like this you will actually have more moves that are viable to use. For orochi this will also mean that your enemy can't just block right and be immune to it. This will make fighting more dynamic rather than remember what this heroes only options. Keep in mind, for every hero, not just orochi. This also will make it so his hidden stance, when he moves sword in the middle, will mean something.


This is not orochi only discussion though so let me try adding something else.

Raider:

1) His zone attack, once again, make it so it comes out from either side, give control over it.
2) Make it so you can cancel it into a light attack, just like you do with heavies but in this case, in any direction, either top bash or any side swing.

This is all I can think for him, if anyone else can add any more things to his moves, feel free.

In fact this is for everyone, post you ideas about moves on any hero, which will bring those moves to a higher skill of play styles. No matter what hero, orochi, pk, or anyone else. No hate on any hero here please, just suggestion of how making a move viable in otherwise feint battle.