Originally Posted by
ScottJund
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Alright, I've used Orochi pretty much exclusively since September, so let's start it up.
Brief summary of what is wrong with Orochi
Lack of Opener
This is Orochi's (and a lot of other characters) biggest problem. The only way an Orochi can occasionally hit someone that wants to turtle is by flickering a zone attack. Once that bug is fixed, he will have absolutely no way to stop someone from defending whatsoever. This is mostly because the only fast attacks Orochi has are his top light and his zone attack. The entire left direction can be ignored when fighting one, which means even if you just straight up guess which attack is coming next, you can still parry it half the time.
Deflect is a Shadow of What it Was
In the first Alpha, Deflect was triggered by blocking at the right time. Obviously, this was too powerful, but while Deflecting was nerfed, the reward for hitting a Deflect never changed. So, with Wind Gust, you have this terrible 25 damage attack that is completely outclassed in damage, safety, and stamina reduction, by parrying. Hurricane Blast is negated by just double tapping roll backwards, on every character in the game. Characters with side dodge attacks are completely immune to Hurricane Blast. (Kensei, Valk, Shinobi, Orochi, Peacekeeper, Berserker, Nobushi). In high level, Hurricane Blast is effectively useless except on the 1-2 scenarios where an attack has such high recovery it is guaranteed (Warden's Zone for example).
Storm Rush was also overnerfed
Storm Rush used to be extremely fast, and it was feintable at the very last second. I agree that the feintable til very last second thing was a bit much, the speed nerf was not at all needed. Storm Rush is meant to punish whiffed attacks, except it can't actually do that if you're reacting to a whiff. You basically have to guess when an attack with high recovery is going to come out, and already be rushing forward as their attack is ending.
Riptide Strike
I don't even need a description here. There is never a scenario where Riptide Strike is the correct, optimal option. Ever.
Some Possible Fixes
Side Lights
Every other Assassin in the game has 500ms side lights. In fact, let's count the heroes with 500ms side lights. We have Peacekeeper, Berserker, Shinobi, Centurion, Nobushi, Warlord, and Valkyrie. Half the characters in the game have 500ms side lights, and half of them aren't even Assassins. There is no reason the agile Orochi should have side lights as slow as Raider - it makes no sense thematically and gameplay-wise. If Peacekeeper exists, and Shinobi exists, and every character with 500ms lights exists, then console can't really complain about Orochi either because their issues already exist in several characters with 500ms lights.
I would honestly be okay with like a 32->25 damage nerf of the top lights if this happened.
tl;dr: Orochi would benefit from 500ms side lights, and it can't really be considered overpowered considering half the characters in the game have this.
Riptide Strike
Riptide Strike is one of those "cool in theory, useless in practice" moves. There are several options to fix Riptide Strike it make it not worthless. All of these are possibilities, and it doesn't mean ALL of them should be implemented.
- Make Riptide Strike feintable. This one is pretty non-negotiable. The fact that it isn't feintable blows my mind.
- Make Riptide Strike chargable. I think as one of the signature abilities of Orochi, Riptide Strike should have some type of mindgame associated with it. Let it be charged like a Centurion heavy and make the damage scale with charge time.
- Make Riptide Strike faster. You can't really dodge anything on reaction with Riptide Strike unless it is an extremely slow heavy. Having to completely guess is a terrible idea.
- Make Riptide Strike have i-frames similar to Hidden Stance on startup. - As it stands right now, you can't really dodge anything with Riptide Strike. Attacks usually just track to you because your hitbox is still active. Having a Hidden Stance style effect could help this.
- Make Riptide Strike feintable directly into Storm Rush - This could be a decently cool mixup. As long as you've begun your arc back, it acts like the backdash required to initiate Storm Rush. This way, you can counter-attack from all three directions.
Storm Rush
Make it faster. That's it. That's really all the change it needs. Its supposed to be a huge whiff punish, but you can't actually punish any whiffs unless you guess.
Change Crosswind Slashes to incorporate heavies
There is literally 0 reason to ever use a full chain of Crosswind Slashes. However, if the third hit was a smoother faster heavy attack instead of a worthless 600ms light, it could introduce mind games after hitting a top light combo. Now instead of hitting a top light and going for a zone or...well, nothing else, you could top light, heavy chain into one direction, feint it, attack the other, etc. Obviously the top light is central to the dev's vision of Orochi, so allowing combos to chain off of it that are actually useful would be great.
Buff the damage of Wind Gust
Wind Gust needs to do 35 damage to make it comparable to a parry. There is zero reason to Wind Gust instead of parry in most scenarios. In fact, even with similar damage, parrying will still be better because of stamina drain, but at least it won't be a complete waste if the damage is similar. Hurricane Blast can remain the same for the few times it is guaranteed.
Hurricane Blast "mixup" isn't a mixup
I know the devs think Hurricane Blast has this super cool mixup, but they need to ask themselves "What is the point?" Sure, you can dodge cancel a Hurricane Blast, but why would you skillfully time a deflect, and then do NOTHING? Why would you skillfully time a deflect, and then cancel it into a guard break when you could have just parried and guard broken for less risk and more reward. These are serious issues concerning Hurricane Blast that need to be addressed.
I'm not honestly sure what I would change about Hurricane Blast. Its badly designed to begin with. There shouldn't be a punish that can be...punished. Maybe make it faster so its guaranteed on more attacks, like end-of-chain heavies or other rarely used attacks. It should have a role as a big punish for rarely used attacks.
Also, as a side note, make it so Hurricane Blast doesn't have the wonky camera change. I can't even see where the dude I am Hurricane Blasting is if he begins dodging - he goes off frame. Additionally, having Hurricane Blast start immediately after deflecting would be cool, since there is no downside to that, as you could still cancel into light.
Zephyr Slash could use a speed increase
I believe Zephyr Slash is currently the slowest dodge attack among Assassins. This is not a very high priority request, however.
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Updating more as I think of it.
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