Member
After S5,as the threads on the forum suggests,A bunch of people are leaving or taking a break from the game for obvious reasons.I took a break as well and doubt I will be back anytime soon but still feel the need to address some "fixes" that may fix the game.
-UN-BLOCKABLES:
After S5 almost every character now has some sort of an Unblockable either in the form of CC or just an unblockable attack that needs to be parried.This has turned the game into a spam fest.
With the parry changes,the RISK:REWARD leans more towards reward.You can constantly feint/Let the attack go with almost no punishes for the enemy guessing right.
MAKE THEM MORE PUNISHABLE
Kensei's pommel strike (Light guaranteed if it connects) Conqueror's shield bash(light guaranteed if it connects) Highlander's kick (Heavy guaranteed if it connects) Shinobi's kick (Heavy guaranteed if it connects).
All the abilities mentioned above are un-punishable if your character lacks a dodge attack which encourages spam as there is no way to punish it.
FEINTS/LIGHTNING FAST ATTACKS:
In addition to a lot of Unblockables,you gave almost every character the ability to soft feint an unblockable or a heavy into a quick light which,like mentioned above,encourages spam because of how much of a guessing game it becomes.
400ms is extremely quick AND SHOULD NOT be a feint follow up.
Zone attacks always boggle me as to how quick they are.Zone attack like the name suggests,should be used as a breather,an attack used to have some room to breath as you are getting ganked.Not lightning fast attacks that guarantee free damage.
Kensei's zone was next to useless before,to fix that you made it almost un- reactable turning it into free damage.
Berserker: heavy FEINT light is 400ms.
Conqueror: Light are 400ms if used in a combo.
Kensei: heavy FEINT light is 400ms.
Conclusion: To discourage turtling,you gave everyone extremely exploitable, cheese tactics which promote spam.
People are gonna argue with me saying that I suck.But its clearly not the case when so many people have mentioned it in the forums.
Senior Member
I won't argue for the people leaving but My take away from them is their not against faster attacks, unblockables, or armor being solutions to heros. it's just some of them were done in a way with the reworks people are not fond of. I'm stating this to get you to understand that nobody that's quit (as far as i'm aware) is against these things as concepts. Which you seem to be. But apologies if I misunderstand. I'll try to address your points:
About unblockables. I would say of the unblockables on the 3 heros that were given reworks (zerk, conq, and kensei) the only problematic unblockable is conq's forward bash. If needed to I can explain why. But I feel like zerks and kensei's new ones are perfectly fine. Zerks has to be proceeded by an attack. Meaning anything a hero can normally do to punish that attack is an option. and if the zerk whiffs into it that's even easier to avoid or read. Kensei's is fine because it's done only from the neutral top heavy. It is feinted into at the same time as any other feint he can do from that attack. and it's got both poor reach and poor tracking. meaning back dashes and any side attack beat it out. You can also stuff it with a light attack as well. It can't be relied upon for kensei.
Unblockables reward wise are mostly fine. The easier ones to access don't usually give more than 30 damage. Which is more or less equal to what most heavy parry punishes were like pre nerf. And the harder accessed ones like centurions whole combo and highlanders are...well..harder to get into. and thus should reward more damage. Let me put it this way. Part of what's needed to make an unblockable a threat is it needs to be decent damaging. If say highlanders whole balors might was only 25 damage then people would be more likely to just attack anyway and eat the hit cause it's no biggie. I would say that if the devs are going to continue with adding unblockables they shouldn't be from neutral. They should be as hard to access as zerks new ones or harder.
Also just to correct blatently false info:
~kensei's pommel is stuffable with a light.
~Same with highlanders kick mix up.
~Shinobis kick is stuffable. but harder. Assuming they use a heavy after the kick in your example you can dodge the kick. block the heavy. and you get a free GB. This is doable even on poor dodge heros like kensei and LB.
~conqs forward bash is stuffable. but even harder. Best way to punish it (assuming the person is literally spamming bash as soon as it's possible) is to either back dash or side dodge it. and depending on the hero you punish accordingly. heros with a bash attack like warden can bash it on dodge. and if your back dash isn't super bad like conq's, wardens, or kensei's a well timed back dodge and GB them as soon as they come out of the bash is a free GB.
In summary yes. dodge based attacks/bashes are the games best way currently to handle most mix ups at a skill level equivelent to the main playerbase. However i'd rather the devs seek to create other more reliable ways to punish mix ups aside from making everyone good at dodging or nerfing mix ups in general.
In regards to feints/fast attacks:
Nearly all of conqs new feints are not fast. Same with kensei's. Zerk is the only one who was over tuned in that regard. and I personally think the 400ms attack speed isn't the issue but the fact that she's got armor on nearly all of her attacks now. Armor itself isn't an issue if used properly. but I think the amount of armor zerk has now is a little gross. No idea how to make things better for her in place of that. as i'm sure the unblockables and feint speed alone might not be enough for her.
400ms isn't really that difficult if you're used to dealing with 500ms. i'm not god tier but I semi reliably react to 400ms attacks. And if i'm not on my game and one or 2 slips by that's completely fine. Now if we suddenly got a 400ms light from neutral i'd agree. too much.
Zones need to be fast to have a use in 1v1. Kensei's new part is 500ms. Which is just as fast as wardens and orochi's. additionally they always come from the same way. so at the very least you should be blocking them easily.
I can see the fine line that the devs are walking. But you have to understand that things were too easily dealt with. I'm not saying the game should be changed so much that things are nigh unreactable even at high level play. But honestly aside from zerk and conq's forward bash everything else is really fine. and is just a learning curve for people.
