Junior Member
Here are my suggestions for a Shugoki rework. I hope this reaches the devs and gains approval from the community.
Taking more damage when Shugoki’s hyper armor is down shouldn’t be a thing. He should have a health pool of a heavy, not an assassin. Breaking through his hyper armor already makes the opponents aggressive. I believe there’s no need for extra incentive in the form of increased damage.
New chains:
Light, light, heavy
Heavy, light, heavy
Heavy, light, light
Besides new chains, Shugoki’s heavies should be slightly sped up so that a wall splat always grants a top heavy just like for Highlander. The increase in speed would also help with punishing after a light parry. I can’t count how many times I parried a light correctly and immediately did a heavy, only for it to be blocked. Sometimes it works, sometimes doesn’t. It happens probably because of lag, so a slight increase in speed of heavies would fix that.
Shugoki’s lights could have a slightly higher damage as it takes forever to put any hero down with them. He used to have 25 dmg after a heavy parry due to a guaranteed guardbreak, but as he is now, he’s hardly a ‘hard hitter.’ Perhaps 20 dmg lights could be a thing. Then again, new chains with light attacks could possibly be a solution to that problem.
A way for Shugoki to move faster
His basic speed should be increased. His run is almost as slow as that of an out of stamina character. Also, the first hit of Shugoki’s zone attack could come out faster and allow him to move a bit further, giving him more range and better ability to track a fleeing opponent.
The first hit of the zone attack could also be cancellable. It would still drain stamina, but allow Shugoki to cover more distance, allowing to better pursue opponents and give him more mix-up potential. This would help him punish out of stamina heroes like Shinobi who’s way too fast for Shugoki to catch up with and do anything.
Charge of the Oni
It should be something more than a ledging mechanic. Examples:
1. It could grant a wall splat, giving a free light or heavy.
2. When the opponent is out of stamina, I believe it shouldn’t allow a knockdown, just as Warlord’s running shield bash shouldn’t. Instead, it could f.e. drain some stamina. Charge of the Oni is already a stamina-heavy move, so it couldn’t be spammed anyway.
But if Warlord keeps the ability to shield bash an out of stamina opponent to the ground, then it would only be fair for a fellow heavy Shugoki to knock down out of stamina opponents with Charge of the Oni. He would get a single heavy at best anyway.
Then again, it could be interesting to see Shugoki’s original Charge of the Oni back. In that case, he could have a long recovery after missing with it like after using his unblockable. This way, knocking down an opponent with Charge of the Oni and getting a free heavy would be pretty strong, but evading it would give proper rewards. To make it less powerful, the thrown heavy could only be a side heavy and Shugoki wouldn’t be able to do a headbutt after it.
Demon’s Embrace
I think it would be a good idea to give Shugoki hyper armor during the entire Demon’s Embrace running phase, so that it can’t be interrupted by anything other than Shugoki’s death. Even after he lost his basic hyper armor. Considering that a missed Demon’s Embrace costs health and leaves Shugoki open for a counterattack, I believe it would be fair. It is possible to dodge it by dashing left or right and even backwards if the distance is far enough and that’s perfectly fine.
New attack: Palm Strike
It could be called Slap, Dosukoi, or even be a pommel strike.
Dash forward + guarbreak button. Shugoki hits the opponent either in the face or on the torso and knocks them back a little bit (similar to what the upcoming hero Tiandi currently has). This would grant a free light or some new attack connected to Palm Strike. A wall splat from Palm Strike might be a bit too much, because it would give an easy opportunity for a Demon’s Embrace or top heavy.
An evaded Palm Strike could give the opponent a free guardbreak. If the Palm Strike turned out to be too predictable this way, it could either have the option to cancel it, or soft feint into guardbreak similarly to Warden’s Shoulder Bash. If that doesn’t work, there’s an option of throwing Palm Strike from side dodges, similar to Conqueror’s Shield Bash.
It would also be interesting to give Shugoki an option to do 2 Palm Strikes in a row. In that case, the second one could grant a big/bigger punish if evaded.
Palm Strike would finally give Shugoki an opener against turtles who can just block, parry, or dodge away from something like his unblockable heavy. Not to mention, it would stay true to Shugoki’s design as a sumo-type character since sumo have their “dosukoi” thing.
Downsides
As an eventual downside, Shugoki could have attacks that take down his hyper armor besides Demon’s Embrace. High risk, high reward kind of thing. It could be the first or second attack of the aformentioned Palm Strike, or Charge of the Oni.
I believe these changes for Shugoki would get him closer to the level of other heavies, while staying true to his design and allow him to become a hero that’s more interesting to play with and against.
Member
I read through these and I found a few things I did find interesting, but I also have a few suggestions I think might work.
With the whole palm strike thing, I think those types of moves aren't necessary on a lot of characters and really upset the balance of the game because of (usually) how fast those forward dodge slaps come out and it would turn him into another conquerer. Nobody wants that. Instead, I think maybe you could add the headbutt as part of his chains rather than a move that ends a chain. For example, you could do light>headbutt (even if it's blocked, since shugoki lights aren't interrupted on block)>heavy or light>headbutt light. Since the headbutt stuns, they could rework the headbutt to not make the opponent stagger back for quite as long, giving them an opportunity to attempt to defend themselves against shugoki's heavy mixups. I personally really like this idea, but because shugoki lights are already basically parry bait, it may be one of those things that doesn't get used much in higher tier gameplay unfortunately.
Having him take increased damage while his shield is down doesn't make much sense. I say get rid of that bonus damage and simply reduce his hp to compensate. It doesn't make a lot of sense for him to have a ton of hp if he take more damage per hit from his opponents.
Increasing light damage makes some sense, but with all the other changes I think it might be a bit much to make it all the way up to 20. Instead, I'd say just increase the base damage of uncharged heavies by 5 as well as the first and second hits of the zone up by 5. Along with the change to headbutt, I think adding the zone as part of his mixup potential in chains would create a more interesting character. If they really wanted to make it more useable, they could add hyper armor to the startup of the zone (not affected by his passive hyper armor, it wouldn't matter if it was down), increase the distance he travels, but slow down the speed of his hits. This way, it's more of a trading/catchup tool than a quick smack.
Charge of the Oni in its initial form was too much, as it was too easy to hit people with it and get free damage or knock them off edges. I recommend adding some kind of mixup to the move, especially since it costs so much stamina already. Allow shugoki to cancel his oni charge into either a zone attack or a heavy, and give him permanent hyper armor during the charge. This makes it more of an engage/disengage tool, as well as a method of dealing damage. Don't let it wallsplat or knock people down, and make the zone or heavy slow enough that someone can defend themselves if they're hit by the charge. If they wanted to, they could add a stun effect to the charge to make that mixup potential greater.
If you can't tell, I think heavies should be able to use the stun effect on a large number of things. Since they lack the speed of assassins and most other characters, they need to rely on other things that disorient or confuse their opponents to win. I think this (as well as other effects they could add in later for heavier characters specifically) helps make heavies more balanced since they have ways of making the opponent's ability to defend themselves much weaker or more difficult. Just like it is possible for people to counter assassins attack speed by simply predicting it or having good reflexes, people can defend themselves against the stun effect by refusing to be baited and just blocking heavies (chip damage viable?).
I'd love to hear your thoughts on these OP!
Member
Member
For everyone's sake, I hope that this is exaggerated.Originally Posted by Jmoyano92 Go to original post
Shugoki is hands down one of the 3 weakest characters in the game for 1v1 situations. Especially now that you don't get a free gb off a parry, you getting insta-killed by demon's embrace is 100% your own fault.
And as an aside, all it takes to be considered a shugoki main is to know how to throw lights when someone tries to gb you, and to know the latest time you can hold a heavy before it turns unblockable and let it go.
Senior Member
Not sure if serious or troll.Originally Posted by Jmoyano92 Go to original post
Senior Member
Junior Member
Shugoki can be strong against low level players who don't know how to handle him, but in the middle and high level games, he's really difficult to win with. His kit is just too limited. You do a light? You get parried. You do a heavy feint? You get guardbroken and have your hyper armor taken down.
Pretty much every assassin is good against Shugoki, while Shugoki can be considered decent against Highlander, Lawbringer, Raider and Warden. Once his hyper armor is down, classes like Highlander and Conqueror can quickly destroy Shugoki.
Even if the Shugoki rework won't come, and it should, he could at least have the normal amount of health, instead of receiving extra damage when his hyper armor is down. That's the one thing he should really have and it would be easy to implement. Either that, or he should reveive less damage while his hyper armor is up. Then that would be a trade. But personally, I think he should just receive normal damage like any other character.
Member
Originally Posted by Kenzu8 Go to original post
I personally think part of the issue is that his hyper armor gets removed by guard breaks. I don't know if it could be considered balanced if that didn't happen, since that would mean he would essentially recover fast enough to punish a heavy off guard break, but it definitely would change the way people play against him (and make less situations where people get smacked for trying to gb him).
Not sure if it's feasible, but it could mix things up.
Senior Member
Junior Member
