Rework makes the dream work (Centurion rework) | Forums

[Knight_Raime]

Yeah it's your resident Centurion main running back at you with yet another Centurion related thread. I'm aware that Centurion isn't the worst off hero at the moment and the developers have only promised to rework/balance pass the OG cast. However, I don't feel satisfied with my last rework on Centurion. I have always maintained the stance that in order for him to be a functional hero in high tier play he'd have to be basically built from the ground up and heavily changed in order to make that possible without making him a monster for average play. I still stand by this for the most part so today I am bringing you a "mostly" new Centurion. (I also need to work on my formatting to post future reworks on the competitive sub so this will be practice for me haha.)

So before we get into the details of the new and improved bully we need to briefly touch on what his issues are. Centurion is boasted as a "melee specialist" and "mix up intensive." He does have a lot of melee centric moves...quick throw, lions roars (pommel smacks,) his kick, his jab, and his knee from parry counter. However quick throw is too easily teched, pommel smacks rely on landing a guard break which is difficult against a skilled opponent even with the soft feint game, his kick is slow and easily punished, his jab is only ever useful when you land a pin, and his knee is locked behind a parry. He also doesn't have many mix up options. Varying the timing on his heavy is really his only mix up option. This rework aims to make more use of most of his "melee" options and give him more mix ups.

New combo old name:
"Lions claws" is currently a light>light>light combo that is 500ms for each light. However this combo isn't particularly useful. Not only because of the speed but because it serves no purpose for his overall mix up/melee game.

The change: "Lions claws" is now heavy>light>heavy. Heavies are really important for Centurions mix up game currently and with other changes I will detail later on they will be more so. And lights will be apart of his new mix up games instead of just random thrown in damage.

Zone cancel:
Zone is currently only useful in 2 situations. after a kick on an assassin and for killing minions. I want to make it useful for dueling purposes and slightly better when being ganked.

The change. Zone is now feintable after the first attack. first swing is currently 600ms and then followed by two 700ms attacks. Now all 3 hits are 600ms. To compensate for the faster speed and the new feint the damage on each hit drops from 25 to 20. Being able to cancel after the first attack means centurion has another option from neutral to try and surprise an opponent with and the follow up hits being 100ms faster means they should be less likely to be parried when surrounded.

Legion kick buffs: Legion kick is currently very limited. The fastest it can come out is 300ms into the dodge. Further more the heavy you can que during it is still beat out by dodge attacks. It only really deters someone who dodges and goes for the guard break. In team fights/ganks kick is unsafe to use due to it's speed and length.

The changes. Legion kick can now be used 100ms into the dodge with no variable window. Heavy doesn't have to be qued during the kick anymore. Kicks qued after certain actions (throws and parry counter) have armor. The speed change for his kick makes it similar to warlord meaning if it's spammed it's easily dealt with but if sprinkled in occasionally it's a decent tool. The armor addition is to let centurion be the grappler/harasser in fights without being hit out easily. And the removal of the que means you have some wiggle room for mind games like shinobi can with his kick. To compensate the kick stamina damage is reduced from 25 to 20.

Parry counter change: Currently a very strong move stamina damage wise and has the ability to wall splat. However I wanted to make changes to it to bring it in line with him being a melee specialist.

The changes. You can now hold guard break after the parry. You will still do the knee hit. But instead of letting them stumble away you go straight into the quick throw. This isn't techable. And quick throw doesn't exist anywhere else in the kit now. The purpose of this is to let centurion decide how he wants to abuse his opponent. He can Quick throw them into a wall for an easier splat, he can follow through with the normal parry counter to get a free heavy, or he can instead tap guard break to get a free kick if he wants to try for an environment kill. The throw would also be helpful in throwing the enemy into other enemies to help aid the team fight. To compensate for this quick throws stamina damage is dropped from 40 to 20. and parry counters stamina damage drops from 84 to 50.

Lions roar tweaks: Currently useful in the effort of keeping someone's stamina down. But i want to give it a bit more utility for team fights and adjust it's stamina damage.

The changes. The third hit of "lion's roar" now causes a blind effect. and stamina damage for the first 2 hits is brought down from 15 to 10 and the final hit down from 35 to 30. The blind effect will help centurion mask his next attack and mask his allies attacks. and the reduced stamina damage is done to be in line with nerfing all other stamina damage sources so centurions punishes on a single mistake are not so inherently oppressive.

Eagles fury: pretty decent for trading on high recovery attacks as an option to be sprinkled in occasionally. Only making one minor change.

The change. "eagles fury" now confirms a jab follow up. This enhances it's use as a trading tool because you don't do the move and then go back to neutral. instead it lets you start your combos/mix ups. I think this is appropriate given the inherent high risk the jumping heavy has. Damage is 25 and stays at 25.

Jab changes: Jab when thrown randomly is easily dodged even though you can throw it on block. The blind effect jab has is nice and would help centurion a little in duels but a lot more in team fights. But because of how easy it is to deal with by dodging it simply just doesn't get any significant use outside of a pin.

The changes.Jab now has decent tracking when charging. Jab can now come after a light replacing quick throw input wise here. Jab now changes into it's upper cut animation when it's being charged. New soft feint on jab. So what this does is further push Centurion down the role of harasser/melee specialist/mix up intensive direction. Giving it tracking on charge means players who simply dodge on the start up of the orange will be clocked. The animation change makes it a clear distinction for the opponent as currently there is no way to tell on the charge other than memorizing it's timing. the soft feint is just further use of the charge mechanic. To compensate Jabs stamina damage goes down from 30 to 15 when uncharged and from 40 to 25 when charged. Jab speed remains the same.

New move "Lion's spite:" This move is accessed By pressing a light input either during the charge of jab or the charge of a heavy finisher. Animation wise he literally takes the flat side of his blade and smacks you across the face with it. it's a 10 damage move that can't be comboed off of. it inflicts a blind effect. and does 30 stamina damage. The soft feint window for both instances is 400ms into the charge. think warden's shoulder bash cancel timing but with slightly more wiggle room. The reason for this addition is rather simple. Centurion needs mix ups. This one lets him end his mix up games with his attacks with little benefit to himself beyond some cheap ish damage. But helps control an opponent more in team fight situations because of the blind effect. it's an unblockable like toe stab.

New trait: The other really big thing for centurion. All wall splats now give the enemy a blind effect. Centurion kind of already revolves around using surfaces to punish his enemies. This enhances that without giving him more free damage.

Unblockable heavy change: Currently it's kind of hard to use his unblockables effectively in either team fights or by himself due to their length in animation.

The change. Currently the charge time from start to attack is 1200ms. This is brought down to 1000ms. This will make the parry time a bit tighter without making it impossible to deal with. Raiders zone is currently 1000ms if i'm not mistaken and it still gets used rather well. To compensate for this buff heavies go down from 25 damage to 20. and charged heavies go from 30 to 25.

Soft feint guard break animation change: In my opinion it's never been a very clean animation. So I want to change the animation from what it is to the quick throw animation. it would still behave like normal guard break. Just a different animation. This would made it visually easier to tell between a charging heavy and the grab itself.

Jab and kick now count as an attack in a chain: This really is just a boost to the new H>L>H combo. But what it means is if I land a kick and then go for the light light heavy combo I technically only need to input one light to get to the heavy finisher. Or another example If I land a light and land a jab I can go straight into a heavy finisher. Lights are also now 400ms in combo. instead of 500ms.

Wrapping up:
This was a lot of information to digest I know. But basically what was done was I dropped his damage and stamina damage down to make his punishes less punishing. This way hopefully players don't feel really bad about making a single mistake against the centurion. Giving lights the ability to jab along side heavies means he's got one consistent melee that can always be used. And because jab now has tracking on charge and a soft feint option the bog standard playstyle of centurion is no longer one trick and easy to deal with. Letting that soft feint option be used in a chain heavy finisher means his heavy mix up game has 2 soft feint options and an unblockable that the person has to potentially deal with. But because that soft feint is limited to the heavy finisher instead of heavies in general it still stays some what reasonable to read/deal with. The blind changes sprinkled in the kit gives centurion the opportunity to continue his harassment without actually giving him extra damage and also coupled with the buffs to his kick means he's got more of a use in team fights. And finally the minor changes like getting a quick throw from parry counter, the faster kick, and the buffed zone all give centurion more options to make him less static as a player with more things for him to harass the opponent and control the fight.

I thank you for reading all of this and as always feedback is very much welcomed~ <3

EDIT: I've just posted this on the competitive reddit and to avoid having to go back and rewrite a lot of things i'll just give a run down of what I changed from this post:

~Cutscene combo is now back. No longer locked behind OOS.
~Stamina damage on kick wasn't nerfed.
~Stamina damage on first 2 hits of lions roar is still 10 but the final is 40 now.
~Heavy uncharged damage is still 20 but the unblockable remains at 30.
~Lions respite does 15 damage now instead of 10.
~Jab uncharged goes up from 15 to 20 and charged stays at 40.
~the quick throw after parry counter is 15 stamina damage now.
~New input for eagle talons is holding back on movement stick and pressing heavy.

[RexXZ347]

Centurion rework is a must. He is an easy to kill character now. I know because i use him.

[Knight_Raime]

The whole concept of having a character designed around unblockable bashes, stamina draining, wall splatting and blinding is a receipe for utter frustration. Its always made Centurion a chore to fight against, because you're constantly being buffeted around, drained to exhaustion and sitting watching that diving stab. He should be moved away from the whole OoS thing. Give his punches and kicks damage as standard, give him more actual attack moves, take away his floor stab. Give him greater ability to brute force people about, special wrestling style grapples. Basically turn him into a Heavy Hybrid because he feels hefty enough to be one.

I'm not denying he needs to be improved, but he has such a despiseable playstyle that its hard to see how people will accept him unless that changes. He is not and never has been fun to fight. Either you keep him under control and win easily or you sit there watching as your guy gets ripped of huge chunks of HP with no real need for you to even be in the room for all you can do about it.

Even before he was nerfed, I had little problem with him... eventually. He was so outrageous and so ubiqitous that I died a whole lot but had so many chances to face him that I eventually cracked the code. Post nerf he is even easier. But the core problem remains - his playstyle is tedious to face and if it works as intended guarantees an awful, frustrating fight whether you win or lose.

TL DR: His playstyle must stop being about stamina draining if he is ever to be accepted. We want to fight him, not watch him fight.

While I can appreciate the honesty in your reply this isn't really constructive feedback for my post. Making his punches and kicks damage moves instead of stamina moves sort of goes against how the game is currently structured. the only time moves like these do damage is with feats. And speaking of that you'd basically be making that feat redundant. I nerfed his overall damage and stamina damage to lessen the frustration of receiving punishes based on one mistake. And I also moved his knocked down into ground stab to only when you're out of stamina.

I really would have appreciated if you actually read my rework instead of just posting your own feelings. That's not the point of this thread. If you wouldn't like my rework because of your fundemental issues with centurion's theme/design/playstyle then you could have just said that and left.

[Knight_Raime]

Centurion rework is a must. He is an easy to kill character now. I know because i use him.

yeah when you get up higher in the skill tiers he becomes a lot harder to use.

[EvoX.]

All of this seems more like a nerf than a buff........

[Playing_Mantis]

i wish cent players would QQ cent is fine. So many others need work before the cent. VALK!!!!!!

[Knight_Raime]

I *did* just say that because my point is that your changes are nips and tucks that don't the problem with the character and that nothing short of root and branch change will be enough to quell the rage that this character engenders when he works as intended. I gave all the constructive criticism you need - the character's playstyle is a lost cause because you will never bridge the gap between those who use and those who face him.

And if I'd just rocked up and said 'Cent sucks and everyone knows it' or something equally pithy and dismissive, people would have every right to say I hadn't explained why I thought that. Look, I like the idea of him but he was hated with just cause. Of course he should be improved, but that cancerous playstyle is not the way.

And I rather assumed it went without saying that Haymaker should be changed or buffed if he already did melee damage. Was such splitting of hairs really necessary to mention?

It wasn't constructive. You just told me how you felt. and had you rolled in and said "look this is how I feel" It still wouldn't have been constructive/what I wanted feedback wise but I would have respected it. and yes. You must never assume someone you have a discussion with knows something you know.

All of this seems more like a nerf than a buff........

Both his damage and stamina damage had to go down to reduce both how often you can max punish someone and how much that punishment does.
Beyond that the only significant nerf he got was the knock down being moved to OOS. literally everything else I mentioned is a buff.

[Knight_Raime]

i wish cent players would QQ cent is fine. So many others need work before the cent. VALK!!!!!!

Ironic coming from someone who spends 90% of their time on the form qqing about something.
Centurion isn't fine. if if you actually bothered to read I acknowledged other heros are worse off. No where in my post did I state I wanted centurion to be buffed before anyone else.
So please take your trolling arse out of my thread if you've nothing constructive to add.

[Knight_Raime]

So your idea of constructive criticism doesn't include being told your whole premise is flawed and redundant? Good to know.

You really need to work on your attitude. Exactly how many people do you think will care to respond if you keep lashing out like this? I told you what I thought because it renders the whole notion of continuing with Cent's current style void IMO. You don't agree then fine. But its my right to express that opinion and if you don't like that, that's just tough isn't it?

If you hadn't copped such an attitude, I'd have left it at that. But hey, I've had my say now. I won't get in the way of you shaking your fist at people anymore. Christ...

That's strawmanning me.
Your argument is that centurion is flawed.
This thread isn't about his design. It's about a rework idea.
It would be constructive if you told me what about my rework doesn't work. Or why a suggestion I made wouldn't fix the issue I supposedly had. Or even a new problem that supposed changes would create.

Telling me "Centurion is flawed so no rework works for him" isn't constructive. And calling my attitude out has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. But i'm not going to go further off track. if you've got nothing more to say other than "your rework doesn't work because centurion doesn't work" then fine. I've heard you. Move along.

[EvoX.]

Both his damage and stamina damage had to go down to reduce both how often you can max punish someone and how much that punishment does.
Beyond that the only significant nerf he got was the knock down being moved to OOS. literally everything else I mentioned is a buff.

You reduced all his damage which he didn't even have, effectively making him the weakest hitting character next to Valkyrie. You reduced all his stamina damage. You removed the cutscene. His Unblockable bashes are still the same speed. A 20 damage Light Parry punish which seems completely absurd, but maybe I missed something about it.

All of those massive nerfs in exchange for what? The ability for the Jab/Uppercut to track, giving him a pseudo-50/50, which just guarantees a light and can be rolled out of. Oh, and a new 10-damage move, plus a bunch of stun effects added, because stuns definitely work on non-amateurs.

That's nowhere near a fair or balanced exchange. Players would get used to this within 5 hours of something like this launching. I fail to see how this would even get him out of C-tier, let alone make him competitively viable. In fact, on paper he seems like even more of a noob stomper because of the additional UB and the stuns, which definitely put massive pressure on newbies.

He's supposed to be ''Mix-up intensive'' and a ''Melee specialist'', but if everything you throw out is still dodged or blocked without too much issue, that doesn't make him either.