Originally Posted by PepsiBeastin Go to original post
The point i was making is that since he has such a large time where he can delay his attack, he can wait until someone tries to attack/guardbreak while he's dodging to do the attack, which is unfair.
You just need to get used to the time window of when he can still actually initiate a swift strike, the window doesn't last throughout his entire dodge only as long as his sword is glowing white. He still has a dodge recovery after finishing his dash, wait for him to be almost at the end of his dodge before GBing him because then you can be sure that if he hasn't launched into swift strike then it's too late for him to do it.

If you don't want to risk mistiming it then don't react early to his side dodges. He gains nothing from dashing to the side and making no attack and you lose nothing for letting him do it. Instead work on parrying him when he does throw the swift strike and work on baiting out a swift strike with feints. You have options available to you to handle this move. I honestly wouldn't bat an eyelash if the delay to swift strike was removed but it is far from unfair. It's simply an extension of Kensei's mind games.

Originally Posted by C4Phaze Go to original post
The I frames are too much, but i think its made a lot worse with the dodge distance. Kensei can basically side step effectively against up to 3 opponents.

Personally i have a beed with the amount of uninterruptable attacks that he has. Combine that with his feints and his dodge he is in a league of his own.
Kensei has always been strong against ganks because of the distance he moves during his dodge strike. Why would they take that away from him when it is a fundamental part of this character?

Only his light finishers and side heavy finishers are uninterruptable. He has to actually work his way towards them unlike say Zerk who generates hyper armour on a 400ms light just from feinting any heavy from neutral. If anyone is in a league of their own it's the 2 characters who are in S-tier; Conq and Zerk and formerly the pre-rework PK. Kensei is comfortably in A-tier where the majority of heros are nowadays.

Originally Posted by Tyrjo Go to original post
The power of the dodge heavy, even with a parry you don't really get much of anything out of it. Kensei's who play the dodge turtling game. Wait for any thing from your opponent, then dodge and start their chain. It is kind of safe a move.
If he's overly reliant on punishing you with a dodge strike then that makes him easily susceptible to being baited with a heavy feint and into a parry. How can you say you don't get much from a heavy parry when you drain stamina AND get a guarranteed light attack? His swift strike is only 20 damage. Most characters have a light attack from neutral that can do 20 damage plus the stamina drain from the parry. That's a pretty decent payoff for parrying one of the game's slowest and most telegraphed dodge strikes.