Kensei - just learned he's even worse than Ara | Forums

[EvoX.]

Pommel is proceeded by a heavy and always comes out at the same time at 600ms.

Pommel hit is 600ms? That doesn't seem right. Centurion's and Nobushi's kick is 600ms and I can consistently dodge that, more or less, but the pommel looks near instant.

[SEISMIS21]

Honestly man, as a Kensei main almost the whole game, the rework almost feels like a nerf to me now.

I know this sounds crazy, but what they did was make his movements so clunky except for the soft fients by normalizing them. His smoothness is just not anything like it used to be.

In addition, the only thing he actually got was the options of UB finisher for all top heavies, but without the pressure of UB to really make it matter as much because there’s no need to parry it or anything following it up. Just look for the pommel strike, the rest is just blocking and each attack is pretty animated coming in. The only thing that they added honestly was being able to have soft fients for light armored attacks which I don’t feel was necessary anyways as the light attack option has mainly a fient option for when they were going to parry and have been reading fient into Gb, and pommel strike which is good but ironically can’t be used for the UB finisher. This move is pretty good for people who just sit there and wait, but easily dodgeable or counter Cc.

I mean, he DID get options, but the way they made him less smooth honestly makes every animation so easy to read. They basically kept skill ceiling the same level but dropped the skill floor significantly so any fool can play him but players who have been playing him understand that they didn’t get as much as they thought at face value. It slightly makes the fient game easier. Slightly..... but again, his new clunkiness really negates this small buff by the clunkiness. I suspect once people get used to him and fully understand all of his options he’ll be put into b/b+ tier. Just like aramusha.

I know this sounds crazy and is probably an unpopular idea, but that’s my honest opinion. I see him like aramusha: stupidly hard to stop once he came out, but now you hardly see aramusha doing half as well as he used to. Even on console he’s like b tier now and has been shut down easily by the collective player base over and over again.

I think the initial view that kensei is some great character now will go away rather quickly. I do think more people are picking him up and using him now than were before. I believe that's why there is noise regarding him being so good, people rarely played a Kensei before and now play him often. I also think the changes they made make him way way easier to use at a moderate level. Before the changes it took real effort to be a good Kensei, and that's what attracted me to him. Now, most new players can pick him up and be average within a few matches. Kensei is way less fluid now on dodges, making them a heavy attack forced his recovery to a heavy attack recovery. Dodging and switching characters was the best way to counter a gank, now this is still possible but less useful. Most of his attacks are slower than they were, weaker than they were (except top heavy opener and mid chain) or the timing/recovery was changed to make him easier to use (which also makes him easier to read),

I know people get upset anytime they lose, and chances are they ran into a decent Kensei that sat them down. However, that doesn't mean he is OP (which is funny to even consider at any level of play above average) and it certainly doesn't mean he is even A tier. I think that in a few weeks he will be widely considered back to B tier, because the changes they made make him more readable and less agile. He is only maybe A- tier now because people aren't used to him yet. I thought Kensei would get the love that he has badly needed since day 1, but I wouldn't say they made that big of a leap. He will not be considered true trash as a hero, which I guess is a way of saying they accomplished their goal. He is basically in the same place he has always been as for how good you can be with him, and I get the feeling that was the goal. Make it easier to be ok, but don't let him be much better than pre rework. They definitely accomplished that.

[HazelrahFirefly]

Pommel hit is 600ms? That doesn't seem right. Centurion's and Nobushi's kick is 600ms and I can consistently dodge that, more or less, but the pommel looks near instant.

I agree, but I don't have the data or enough exp yet to judge.

Regardless, I'm reporting in. Tonight I went 3 and 27 against the Kensei bot. I really think I'm going to give up on the Valk for the time being, as much as I love her. It just doesn't seem to be happening.

[Knight_Raime]

Pommel hit is 600ms? That doesn't seem right. Centurion's and Nobushi's kick is 600ms and I can consistently dodge that, more or less, but the pommel looks near instant.

My bad for not explaining properly.
The feint time into any move kensei does from his neutral top heavy is 600ms into his top heavy.
The speed of the pommel attack is it's own thing. The point of me mentioning the 600ms time is merely to let the guy I was helping understand that it doesn't matter when kensei chooses to input a feint. All of the attacks will come out during the same time of his heavy.

[guor6800]

Despite that argument....

Can I ask for some advice? Especially with the top unblockable. If I don't try and parry it I'll eat the unblockable, and if I do then he can feint it to the sidr and I an glued into a different reaction.

This feels wholly unfair. No character should have anything like this, and I know that Kensei is not alone.

As soon as he goes into the unblockable any quick light will shut down his mix ups. Also his heavies (especially top) have very slow start up frames so most of the time you can get a gb on their start up.

[HazelrahFirefly]

As soon as he goes into the unblockable any quick light will shut down his mix ups. Also his heavies (especially top) have very slow start up frames so most of the time you can get a gb on their start up.

I have only been able to interrupt him once so far. My reaction times are so bad, in combination to just not being used to him, that by the time I hit him he is already feinting it and cant be interrupted.

[Vakris_One]

I have only been able to interrupt him once so far. My reaction times are so bad, in combination to just not being used to him, that by the time I hit him he is already feinting it and cant be interrupted.

Light and GB attempts are super risky unless you know for sure he's going for the top unblockable and time it perfectly so you catch him within the first miliseconds of the start of his animation. Unless the Kensei is being super predictable you cannot consistenly rely on using a light attack to hit him out of his unblockable. Because he'll just start switching into his uninterruptible side attacks which can grant him immediate hyper armour almost as quickly as any 400ms attack can hit him.

If you have a 400ms light most of the time you'll have enough recovery to score a hit and still have enough time to block his side heavy uninterruptible but not his side light uninterruptible. Against the old Kensei it was possible and even worth it if he's on low health as you'd kill him before his heavy reaches you and even if it doesn't kill him you'd block the heavy anyway. Against the new Kensei it's not as he now has uninterruptile side lights to counter this very tactic.

It's almost always safer to wait and see what he does while his unblockable winds up and react to that rather than focusing on the much shorter reaction time of nailing him within the first couple of miliseconds into his top unblockable animation startup.