Warden. An oppinion even if its to late. | Forums

[Rahnzan]

Got Aramusha to rep 11. Heavy feints and no bash attack. Congratulations, "your" idea sucks absolute **** in a duel.

Heavy Finishers cancel into lights. But only Heavy Finishers. The constant response to an Aramusha's Heavy is Light or back dash.

Aramusha has zero openers; the only bash he has is a kick out of blade blockade which is a response move, and a terrible one at that. The only follow up that you have if they werent ledged by the kick is a foward dash attack, which they will parry, or you can cancel it if you feel like eating a light attack. His LightBB is weak, his Top HeavyBB can be blocked and his Side HeavyBB can be parried. You can feint the SHBB but congratulations, you're now out of stamina.

His three move sets are the infinite combo, forward dash attacks and Zone Attack. All of which can be Hard Feinted which is a bad idea because his openers are either weak or slow. Only Zone Attack Feint seems to be fast enough but since the only move you can flow into from a hard feint that's fast enough to connect is a top light, you're going to hand them an obvious parry after you finish a side attack. If you dont feed them the obvious parry, you can feed them an easy one. Which leads me right into..

Infinite Combo is beaten by parrying top attack if it's a light, or dodge attacking/bashing if a light gets through. Meaning infinite combo is more two hit combo, or "slower, less versatile, more predictable version of peacekeeper light spam." A side heavy can be deadly feinted but this is not done. Most Aramusha are in the habit of sticking to tempest rules even if you can deadly feint in any direction, so side heavy finishers are always feinted to an obvious top light. The few Aramusha who understand that you can soft feint in any direction usually lose their rythme. The ones who dont get parried. Top heavy deadly feints are better as there's a 50% chance your opponent guesses the wrong side to parry.

All of this is moot however because Top Tier Meta gameplay involves parrying the first light or heavy. Since everything an Aramusha can open with is parryable, he's bottom tier even versus Assassins whom he can almost stunlock. Every starter he has is slow enough to hard-feint into GB. Even the lights. He can get grabbed out of lights.

The ONLY starter he has is the uninterruptable forward dash top heavy, which gets parried...a lot. You can ******** an FDash Side Heavy Feint into Top Light as kind of a soft-starter. But again, all you can flow into is tempest, which lays up an eventual parry.

If by some miracle of god they don't parry you, your best move is deadly feint side attack, which would be great if your only three moves after that werent side heavy into deadly feint or an easily parried top light/heavy. So really you only have two moves; Continue predictable deadly feints that are met with guaranteed dodge attacks, or swing heavy into another direction, feinting to avoid parry and thus resetting at a whopping lead of A - Single - Light - Attack - So - Far.

One more time. Without a raw bash a character only has Lights (Parried) Heavies (Parried), Hard Feints (Dont Respond), or Hard Feint GB (CGB). A bash either has to be unavoidable or cancelable to force a mistake. In a duel, Aramusha's only option is to turtle, which sucks for one very painful reason: he can only guarantee lights off of GB. If he parries a light he can get a single weak Top Heavy or a Side Heavy into Top Light, after that, he's going to hand out a parry again because of Tempest's Top Side Top Side rule. Turtling into Blade Blockade is a bone headed move because as mentioned, your heavies are respondable, the kick resets and the light doesnt chain. You also give them a free untechable GB if they bait BB out of you.

TL;DR: He has no openers, one starter, every single move or feint he has is predictable, and he has the weakest punish of any character in the game. The only thing he can do is L/H-H-DF in chaotic directions but that does not matter because for the Nth time: you can parry that first swing.



Man it's almost like not being able to force a response is bad for dueling.

[Jazz117Volkov]

Oh dear, what have I walked in on...
Don't answer that. Really.

Here's my bit: OP's idea is bad. Allow me to explain. I've main'd Warden since Beta, I know and like the moveset, strengths, and style of the character. Any reworks or expansions to the moveset should not change that, they should enhance it. These suggested changes very much do change that. They not only take away Warden's strength, but also the appeal. And Warden's strengths are quite important to the game.

For Honor is basically paper > rock > scissors > paper, etc. (Despite the DLC heroes making it spam > everything that isn't spam, these are still the fundamentals.) Changes to Warden's kit need to make the scissors cut better when the enemy is paper, the paper wrap better when the enemy is rock, etc. You can't just say "Warden should only have a poke thing mix-up, scrap the rest" and expect it to be viable and not irritate everyone who's cared for their hours behind the Warden.

Crushing Counterstrike is one of the best moves in the game, and Warden's is most definitely stronger than Highlanders. Highlander can execute his with the old Warden timing because he's a DLC hero and they're babied like mad by the devs, but Highlander can't follows his with anything, the Warden can follow it with everything. I've turned a lot of fights around with that single move. Unless your opponent is really lucky, they either get out or get wrecked, and that's the way it should be. Warden's are the Knight's vanguard; they're the bit at the front that tells the enemy to f**k off. There's a theme and role the Warden has that must remain intact, no matter the changes or additions made.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

The Highlander's superior light deals 25 damage. The warden's deal 40, and if you have the stamina for it, an additional 18 after the guaranteed shoulderbash. It's twice as much damage, and it means the warden is superior in every top feint game (if you expect a cc but the warden goes for a heavy, you fail, and if you go for a guardbreak to cancel the heavy and he goes for the cc, you still fail). The cc what makes most of the warden's opponent to find their offense on right or left, removing it would take it away. The shoulderbash is a core move, so what you really suggest by removing it is deleting the warden and adding a new character. Without these two moves, the warden is a captain with different skin and slightly faster heavies.

This attack you suggest adding wouldn't make up for the shoulderbash, unless it deals like 50 damage of course. If it has low damage, it's just a weaker version of the gladiator's fuscina ictus- he can do it mid combo, after the combo, in neutral, after feints, and it's only viable because he has many more tools. If this attack has an indicator, t's even worse, everyone will parry it or hit you out of it. Furthermore, what makes the warden so effective is his shoulderbash- after every light attack, he threatens the opponent with two more, this way he would just do endless softfeints for low damage. I would stop every feint game with my pk, as soon as you try to throw a heavy, I would throw a zone or light out, and some characters could respond even more effectively.

Overall, asking for the shoulderbash's removal is like asking for the shugoki's armor removal or for the raider's fury's removal, you can just create concepts for totally new heroes instead.