Junior Member
I like the concept of the guard-breaking move. If you're able to move in past the enemy's weapon and get in his/her face, that should give you a high payoff, as it usually does in the game since a successful guard-break usually leads to a powerful combo. However, a high-reward move should also be high-risk, especially given the context that the move involves taking your hand off your own weapon, closing the gap while the opponent's weapon is pointed at you, and grabbing your opponent. Unfortunately, guard-break seems far too easy to pull off for the benefits it provides. Granted, I've only started playing in the last week of March, so I still have a lot to learn, but it seems to me that I'm learning blocking, dodging, and even parrying far faster than I'm learning how to interrupt guard-breaks. A big issue with the guard-breaks is that the use of face buttons puts the defender at a massive disadvantage. My right thumb is usually on the right stick, since controlling the direction of my attacks, blocks, and parries is a huge priority. Blocking a weapon attack requires a simple flick of the stick in the right direction. However, if the initiator chooses to guard-break, moving the thumb to the X button to interrupt requires several more milliseconds to react to a time window smaller than a weapon attack. For comparison, the general response to an unblock-able weapon attack is to dodge. While this move also requires a face button, it's a fair challenge since you can hit the A button a split-second faster than the X button, and more importantly, failing to dodge an unblock-able attack doesn't punish you to the same extent being guard-broken does. Also, it isn't JUST a guard-break, it's also a grab/stun. Not only are you unable to block, as you'd expect, being guard-broken and all, but you're also unable to dodge or even move. Removing your opponent's defense AND movement is too big of an effect for 1 button press. Finally, your options to counter guard-breaks are too limited. When you see a weapon attack incoming, you can either block, dodge, or parry, but for a guard-break, pressing X to interrupt is your only option. Granted, a weapon attack or guard-break of your own will stop the enemy's guard-break, but these attacks would need to be initiated before seeing the enemy's guard-break to begin with. There's a few ways this could be fixed. Ubisoft could make it so that you could dodge while guard-broken, make the grab/stun require a second button press, or rename the move Grab or Stun and make it only usable after a parry. That last solution may have some issues, but 1 or more of these or other ideas could help. For those who like guard-breaks, I can see why you'd think this would be a bad change that would make the defensive meta worse, but I still think some change here is necessary, since right now, guard-breaks are essentially bringing hands and elbows to a sword-fight, and winning most of the time.
Junior Member
Junior Member
