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EDIT: So I changed a few thinks from my original post and suggestion, but the vast majority is the same. I mostly just changed the new mixup idea from Level 1 ranged heavies (so the unblockable is not accessable unless the opening heavy hits, so as to avoid abnoxious spam in a gank), Added in my thoughts on feats reworks, and added in a 3rd heavy attack accessable from roll-in backflip & from other chains. Cheers
I know this is a long *** post (sorry), but ill try break it up into bulletpoints. After 70 reps with shinobi across PC & Ps4, I wanted to give my detailed feedback on this hero, and discuss ways of improving Shinobi so they are both less annoying to fight, but more fun to play with. I just wanted to leave some thoughts on the current state of him, and see what everyones opinion here is on the character. Having seen some of the new reworks and versing the new heroes over season 4, its clear the Devs are really upping their game in terms of developing intricate characters with mixups, and unblockables that force reactions in order to break turtling. All the heroes from season 3 onwards have really been in a league of their own in terms of design and the viability of (nearly) ALL of their moveset and mixups in high level play. While some needed a proper buff (highlander), It seems like those heroes definitely really needed a tweak to damage/stamina numbers and easier flow into their other moves, whereas some of the OG cast only have 2-3-4 viable moves while the rest are unused (Due to being too unsafe, easy to punish and situationally useless). I think the reworks look amazing across the board, and I feel like a new much higher meta has been established.
While I know all the other OG heroes that have not yet been looked at really need some big changes, probably many of them need new moves and full on reworks, I think Shinobi (and also probably now Centurion for different reasons) could really do with the same amount of care and effort to balance the roster out, and bring all the heroes up to the new meta. I know and fully agree that the OG cast need the reworks first, this post is not meant to take away from anyone elses hero, or claim shinobi needs it more than X hero, I just want to have a discussion in terms of making the hero more fun to play with (by increasing the number of usable moves) and Less annoying to fight (by incentivising Deflects, closerange heavies, easier ways to punish the shinobi on kick whiffs and parried ranged attacks, stop some shinobis from spamming attacks at maximum possible range and being unpunishable etc)
One thing I have noticed about this game, is a character can have as low as 2 viable moves (with the rest being entirely useless) and still somehow manage to be a semi competitive pick. Orochi is probably the best example of this; Orochi has managed to make it to the finals of many tourneys, just by using top lights and zone attack. This dosent make this character a balanced hero in my opinion, nor does it make him terribly fun to play when you have but two tools in the toolbox. The reason im mentioning this, is because I think Shinobi falls into this category.
From what I could tell and everything I gathered from all the Dev streams before and during shinobis launch; Shinobi was meant to be a hero with a very high skill floor, a very high (if not the potentially highest) skill ceiling, and a moveset a mile wide with a tool in his aresenal for every situation, more mixups and options than everyone else, and an "elastic band" type fighting style of in-out mixups. All this was to be balanced out with some very costly downsides: Tiny amount of HP (90HP), very difficult to learn and many moves that would need to be learnt, a poor reflex guard, susceptible to ganking, and has no Wallsplat or OOS max punish, and cant really pressure anyone OOS. I think shinobi has failed in this regard, and I think this hero is an a bad place.
Taking stock of how Shinobi plays today; Almost 90% of Shinobis moveset is useless, obsolete, or entirely unviable against anyone mid tier and above, and the few remaining tools shinobi has left to fight with are mostly unenjoyable for other players to play against. Things that arent fun are shinobis standing at max range and spamming ranged attacks at you, and players not being able to punish that for a free light attack, or whiffing the kick and half the roster not being able to get a light attack on whiffed kicks, repeat ad nauseam. But when these are the only viable tools left in the toolbox, can you blame them for playing like this?
Its my hopes that Shinobi is made both more fun/fair to fight against & his moveset drastically expanded/made relevant again, with a little more emphasis on melee and deflect mixups at the cost of lowering his health again.
BREAKINGDOWN SHINOBIS CURRENT MOVES, THEIR VIABILITY & THEIR ISSUES
- As of now (nearly 70ish reps with shinobi) I can say that you will 100% never land a ranged GB unless your enemy is unaware you are there, or unless you swing an attack into a backflip and catch your enemy directly after whiffing their own attack and catching them when they are in recovery frames. Problem is above a certain skill bracket (mid- slightly upper mid tier players) they won’t just let their own heavies swing and miss, they will have learnt to feint cancel any heavies that aren’t going to hit, or were baited out by the shinobi in order to punish. Light parries was the only other time you could get a guaranteed ranged GB, but with this new parry punish coming, I believe you won’t get that anymore.
- The majority of shinobis kit is easy to punish if you just keep your cool, and react accordingly to each of his moves.
- Only dodge after shinobis double dash when you see the kick startup, otherwise wait to CGB or maybe parry the followup ranged heavy. Use a dodge attack for the kick if you have one, otherwise just wait to parry the follow up ranged attack. ( Can be annoying if the good shinobis don’t throw it out, but the kick is very easy to dodge)
- Ranged heavies and GB are just useless, they get parried way way more often than not, not even worth using.
- When the shinobi goes to roll in after landing a Double dash kick-ranged attack, you can hit him with light attacks before he can get his sickle rain in, completely ruining and shutting down his entire offensive, and biggest mixup. He pretty much just rolls in to give the enemy the advantage to attack first. Considering shinobi gets no guaranteed damage off his backflip kick (and it doesn’t wallsplat), It dosent lead into any further moves or mixups, and that shinobi doesn’t have ANY OOS/ wallsplat punishes stronger than what he gets off a GB, there is no point in the shinobi even caring about getting you out of stamina with the backflip kick. Best case shinobi lands the kick (for no reason or benefit to himself, worst case gets dodge attacked or possibly dodge GB’d if the enemy times it right.)
- Double dash is countered the same as double dash. Only react to the kick and its easily fully shutdown. Smokeless kick, while it can be better, is countered the exact same way again.
- Heavy attacks and his heavy attack feint game is terrible and slow, and takes ages to perform out of a dodge/ double dash, leaving your defences wide open if your enemy is aggressive, and quite susceptible to a GB at the end of double dash or heavy startup frames.
- Zone attack is now debatably the worst in the entire roster (now that kensei got his fixed). Easiest move in the game to parry, low damage, uncancellable, has a tiny hitbox (players can often just top heavy me and ignore the ZA in a gank)
- Slide tackle is kinda like a 50/50 that always benefits the enemy more than it will benefit you statistically. If you land it you get a single light attack ( often it just completely whiffs anyway because its broken), but if it misses, your enemy gets a free GB heavy for more damage (and can start a mixup from this, and given it uses so much stam to do AND gives you a giant stam regen penalty, its likely the enemy will knock you OOS and just kill you). Its just a gimmick, and I haven’t bothered using it in the last 65 reps as It cant ledge people (except yourself). So if you use it and manage to land it, your left standing infront of your enemy nearly OOS. There is no situation this move is useful.
- Deflects are cool looking but fairly average or a bit above. Bleed damage is heavily negated by the fact everyone used "resistance debuff" stat or bleed immunity feats. Also Shinobis deflects have been broken since launch, Bleed will both (1) Not stack on multiple deflect in a row & (2) Will not top -up the bleed effect if an enemy even has 1 tick of bleed on them (the deflect will do 0 damage).
- Worst reflex guard, low health and a bad moveset for surviving a gank.
- Has no fun feats to use or ninjaish gadgets, apart form throwing stars that have an insane timer. Like 6 times longer cooldown than orochis kunai, for basically the same feat.
Youre just kinda left with light attacks that don’t chain into anything, deflects (that are very broken and buggy), and an easy to dodge opener. ( that is frustrating because it rarely lands, and its frustrating for others because its hard/impossible to punish) This can be annoying for others to fight, I completely understand, but when that’s the best your kit has to offer, what else can you do?
Compare Shinobi to the new reworks and shaman etc. they all seem to have multiple, intricate mixups, feints and unblockables that force a response. Cancelable moves into lights that chain into more moves that are even faster than shinobis (non chainable single lights). Moves to catch runners (shinobi also sucks here), and excellent wallsplat punishes, Huge OOS max punishes, unblockable feintable heavies, wider and deeper movesets that work and can be used at high level play. Dodge attacks that are lightning fast, are heavies and feintable into mixups and can execute. Shamans ranged leaps are miles better than shinobis entire ranged anything, and doesn’t need to be charged up, seems to have I-frame or dodge properties on the massive leap (while shinobis has none of these things) can be done while running at people, is a much faster multidirectional attack and has different timing per direction, can execute, and hers leads into mixups where she keeps the momentum going until you counter her. Can bleed people easily and self heal, incredible feats, faster sprint speed, massive throw distance, great at group fighting, has shinobis double lights, Can close distance and often retreat better than shinobi, Better disabler moves that can heal and is incomparibly easier to land than shinobis ranged GB and can be feinted and can be accessed for free from a GB and then throw to pounce, ZA that can be its own mixup and ( I think) can bleed enemy, masive OOS punish and wallsplat punish (shinobi has none), Just way more utility and useable moves across the board that are all viable at higher levels of play and dont just plateau against any half decent player.
Shinobi was meant to be the tiny HP hero that had a moveset a mile wide, tons of utility, and agility but paid for this dearly with tiny HP, High(est) skill floor, but one of/the potentially highest skill ceilings for those willing to master this guy. Hes just nowhere near that at the moment, and just completely pales in comparison to this new meta.
Shinobi is left with an Almost entirely unusable moveset that’s left him with 2-3 non-chainable, single/double attack moves that are annoying to fight against as it it’s either a waiting game, or some heroes lack the ability to punish his kick whiffs. Not fun to play because now they just buffed his hp to offset the poor moveset instead of fixing any of shinobis issues.
I really hope to see this hero get a massive rework so he is both fun to play, and not annoying to fight for others. The devs look like they are really getting better at knowing what to create in a moveset. I know that Shinobi can join the back of the queue in comparison to a few other heroes. But if these new reworks/DLC heroes are the bar set by the devs, I think this hero needs some new moves and a rework. I think they should go back and fix and fill out his moveset instead of just buffing his health tons and leaving him as a light spamer with not much else.
With this operation health, I am very excited to see how they are fixing these heros and balancing the game, I just hope they extend that to all heroes, even if a hero is technically doing kinda OK with 2-3 viable moves. I would MUCH rather the devs take whatever time is needed to give every hero a proper tune up, and delaying season 2 (If thats the plan, I assume it is) until we strike balance. anyway heres what id change....
SOME IDEAS FOR CHANGE, NEW MOVES AND TWEAKS ID MAKE
- Make Shinobis Sickle Rain (second heavy in chain) require you to hold down the heavy attack button to initiate sickle rain, or to just tap the heavy attack button to instead perform the heavy without the sickle rain part. (so you can group fight without getting locked into an animation that gets you killed)
- Give Shinobi I-frames on his roll-in, GB throw forwards & Backwards (as he is standing on the enemies face above attacks that visibly look like they are missing him by miles), and on his shadowstep deflect.
- Add Hyperarmour on shinobis roll-in sicklerain so its not useless.
- More deflect mixups and options. Please make them poison instead of bleed so they arent affected by debuff stat. Give him small amount of lifesteal on deflect light. Make his deflect into kick into ranged GB an unblockable ranged GB (That can be dodged but also can be target switched after the kick). Give him a new heavy Deflect where shinobi shadowsteps behind the enemy, and goes to stab the enemy with a Sai knife (the 3 pronged knife he has on all of his clothes). This would be a multidirectional attack that can be parried by the enemy (Not blocked or dodged). Possibly make it 700ms from the sides for moderate damage, and 8-900 ms from the top for very high damage. (IF this heavy attack is parried enemy gets fee light attack)
- be great to have better control over when shinobi backflips and when he side dodges. Sometimes you just want to dodge sideways but cant because backflip is the only option. maybe if sideways directional input is used in conjunction with the dodge, you can dodge sideways?
- be nice to see some other possible melee movesets other than just two heavies that can be used and accessed from other mixups. (Im NOT asking for chainable lights at all, or for anything to chain off of his lights, as I want to incentivise more heavies/ deflects/ and a bit of ranged to be used instead of only light spam) Maybe a 3rd heavy in the chain thats in some way unique (say if you didnt hold down the second heavy to access sickle rain, then you could access the 3rd attack, Like a 1000ms heavy attack) .This 3rd heavy attack in his chain can be accessed when the second heavy is not held down to access sickle rain) (once sickle rain initiated, it ends the chain). This attack would be a lunging heavy to close gaps. It would be one big step forward into a jumping pounce heavy. Can be cancelled just before the pounce. High damage, very telegraphed, and cant be cancelled to late, so you have to commit. Maybe has hyperarmour.
- Maybe give him a fairly quick wide sweeping dodge light, similar to the first half of his Zone Attack. This is the little move he needs to help him out in gank.
- Make his heavies come out just slightly quicker after a dodge or double dash. there is a very big delay atm and they may aswell not be a move.
- Make his whiffed kick punishable for everyone with at least a free light attack. This should make it more of a situational dodge attack, rather than a relentlessly spammed opener that many cant punish. (possibly tweak it so warden cant just go straight into a vortex spam, considering im also asking to drastically lower shinobis health)
- Maybe rethink the function on the roll-in backflip. Confirmed damage I think would be totally unfair, but it currently amounts to nothing and there is no reason to bother getting your enemy OOS as you have no punishes to capitalise on this. Im ok with shinobi not having any big wallsplat/OOS punishes. But maybe on successful hit, it could be followed up into Shinobis (new, see above) 3rd heavy lunging jump attack.
- I think parried ranged attacks should pull shinobi to the enemy for a free light attack, instead of the fall to the ground where some heroes have trouble punishing him or reaching him at max range.
- Lower his health right down again, maybe even down to 80HP possibly, but make him the glass cannon with lots of moves and options, and high skill ceiling.
- Allow him the luxury of a little more HP in revenge mode though.
- Make his zone attack better. possibly something like shamans omnidirectional 2nd half to the zone?
- As for shinobis slide tackle. please lower the stam cost and stam regen penalty, its not needed. And please fit it so you can at least get one guaranteed light on successful tackle. As for making it mildly useful, allow shinobi to drop smoke bombs and caltrops while sliding (see feats section below)
- Dont get rid of smokeless kick, it has its uses and is balanced. because its the exact same as double dash kick.... Without the smoke. Put the description of how to perform this in the
moves list.
RANGED ATTACKS REWORK IDEA!
I have an idea how to fix ranged attacks so they become useful again at moderately higher levels of play (hopefully) without being BS for others. But first I also think reworking the punish (when parrying a shinobi so it pulls-in Shinobi to the enemy player for a free light instead of on the floor far away, where some players cant reach or are affreid to commit to trying to punish, leading to frustration), combined with reverting back to the lower HP will help a lot in terms of punishing shinobis spamming it at max range and not getting punished.
----As for making it more viable and fair; What if ranged attacks that are fully charged to level 2 (max range and damage) are left the same BUT ...
----Ranged attacks charged to lvl 1 now do 0 damage (its now a utility move to access a new mixup) (Indicated to enemy by different color effect on swinging kama, letting enemy know if its a charged lvl1 or 2 attack), but it is a much faster attack (very hard to parry), (gets a small range boost from what it is now, quite close to lvl 2 range) and you can still roll in on blocked ranged attack. (except the roll-in for this lvl 1 charge could have a different moveset that isnt as powerful as lvl2? like you CANT go into sickle rain or backflip, but instead you can (1) Do any of your regular attacks as if just starting from neutral (2) Do a slightly quicker to initiate regular heavy attack (thats feintable)(that has the same animation as a regular heavy from neutral {where shinobi does the slight jump with it}), but if this first heavy lands, the shinobi can follow up with a new move/mixup, an unblockable (unfeintable) roundhouse kick (could use or tweak the roundhouse animation from shinobis throw left/right and use it here) that if successful, guarantees a ranged GB. BUT, If dodged, gives the enemy a free Guard break (like valks spear sweep).
NOTE: Overall, I think this would give shinobi one of the widest movesets and options, but with the changes to lowering his health to 90-80 HP, the changes to reliably punishing his kick whiffs and ranged attacks, and the added huge incentive for shinobi to throw out more heavies, land heavies to access chains, perform unblockables that can lead to GB's if dodged, and to perform more deflects (some that are parryable) where enemies can feint into GB's more hoping to catch shinobis attempting deflects, and the general incentive to roll in and attack more. I think this could make the fight a whole lot less frustration to be on the recieving end of, and a more high-skill based hero thats also more fun to play as.
BETTER FEATS
Please give shinobi some better feats that are more fun use. I think Shinobi should just get stealth as part of his kit without taking a tier slot, provided we drop his HP right down to 80-90 or so, but allow him to be a bit more of a crafty ninja with gadgets. A ninja should be about using traps and gadgets to misdirect or fool their enemies. Please add in more useable tools, it would make this class 1000X more fun. Just a few ideas...
- Instead of KIAI, Shinobi should have a flash bomb he throws down (could use same animation as throwing smoke bombs). where instead of being directly infront of the player like KIAI, its in a circle of affect around the shinobi, can be used as an anti gank tool. Functions in the same way as KIAI, justwith quick initial bright flash and small amount of smoke. Quick to throw down, has a cooldown timer 1.5x longer than KIAI.
- Could give regular smoke a slight buff in terms of shield.
- Reduce the cooldown on throwing stars, its way to much for a weak dodgeable throwable.
- Poison smoke. Functions exactly like smoke just with a poison effect, slightly larger cloud but easier to see through (purple/green colour smoke). Longer you stay in it, more it builds up. Can kill minions. tier 3
- Blow pipe (feat 3) fairly high damage blow pipe shot that poisons enemy. Higher damage than other projectile tier 3 feats, but fairly slow telegraphed animation that takes a second to pull out & nearly a second to put away (if not fired) (cant dodge out of firing animation, suceptible to attacks and GB's while in animation). Can ONLY be manually aimed and fired. Downside is enemy can run and dodge it if quick enough, and GB shinobi in recovery frames while shinobi is either putting it away, has it out or has just fired it.
- Caltrops. Tier 1. slow respawn. Functions like beartrap that only stays on the ground for 30-40 seconds. Does not make enemy go out of stam + enemy can counter GB and block while staggered. It Just staggers enemy for 3 seconds, does tiny amount of bleed damage and pauses current stam regen, can affect multiple enemies. Enemies are only susceptible to a bash attack as they cant dodge for a brief window. hard to spot on the ground, but can be dodged into and disabled.
SO HIS NEW FEATS WOULD BE:
TIER 1: Caltrops, Bounty hunter, Flash bombs.
TIER 2: Throwing stars, Smoke, Slip Through.
TIER 3: Blow pipe, Poison smoke, Sharpen blade.
TIER 4: Yama Uba, Arrow storm, Nail bomb.
Anyway thats my thoughts on changing Shinobi. Giving him a very wide moveset and some crafty gadgets, but making him extremely squishy again, if not moreso, and also more reliable to punish for everyone on kick whiffs and ranged attacks. What do you think? would this change be OK with other players/ shinobis out there? Cheers.
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I agree... Shinobi is lacking, i feel like he's missing 1 thing about him.
Deflects... Shinobi has the best in the game, you realize Shinobi gets 50 dmg off a deflect? Bleed into kick followed by Heavy... If they have reflex guard then you don't have to switch direction of attack but if they have the regular guard then you have to switch to a different direction besides the direction you deflected from to get free heavy.
Shinobis deflect is actually amazing in a gank situation, you got 2 seperate dodges, one where you go for deflect and the other when you teleport behind your opponent after deflect is activated. I actually deflected 2x in a row which looked pretty awesome, pretty sure you could loop deflect it's something i want to test in arena mode.
No more out of lock attack buffs lol they ruin life.
Shinobi is tricky to balance though because her moves could turn into an endless ganking situation.
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As a fellow Shinobi main you hit all the main points.
He definitely needs a rework. I was having a discussion with someone the other day about how Shinobi feels incredibly unfun to play against; he's similar to Shugoki in that you have to play his playstyle. It's extremely binary: If you have the reaction time to dodge the kick on startup, Shinobi is just a bargain Peacekeeper.
I wish I had good ideas about how to change him, but I don't. In the current reworks they talk about the "essence" of characters, and I feel like Shinobi's essence is just inherently unfun to play against. Just my two cents, though.
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Seriously no.Originally Posted by Echoesong Go to original post
- guaranteed double lights for 24 damage at 500ms
- ranged attacks (superb in any gank situation)
- cutscene from a double heavy or ranged GB into sickle rain
- super-sprint
- double dodge
- unblockable after double dodge for guaranteed heavy
- super-strong deflect
None of this is a capability that PK has. Now go away and wait for your "needed" rework. There are plenty of other Characters (like PK...) that need some changes before Shinobi...
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Yeah... at first I assumed he meant 70 reps overall, but nope! Specifically states that he has 70 reps in the Shinobi.Originally Posted by Speedeyposting Go to original post
Entire post invalidated lol.
