Aramusha “Rework”: Fixing Aramusha
Aramusha doesn’t need a full blown rework. The most effective way to propel Aramusha into the category of fun and viable is to simply add two new moves/mechanics which would eliminate the problems with his current character design.
What I believe is required for a well designed hero in this game can be summed up by two broad categories:
1. Hero Identity (I will explain this later)
2. Overall Viability and Balance
Overall viability and balance is self-explanatory. Basically “Can the hero effectively win a majority of fights when played at the highest level, whilst also failing to grant inexperienced players free wins at lower skill levels?” Right now, for Aramusha, the answer is no. Aramusha is only truly viable at lower tiers of play, in which lower tier players struggle to block his light attacks. In higher tiers, Aramusha has no openers or unblockables, his feint game is mediocre at best, and his trademark move, blade blockade, is a bad joke. I’ll explain my remedies to this after I explain Hero Identity.
Hero Identity is just as important as hero balance, if not more. Hero Identity is the way a hero’s moveset fits in with their appearance and background. For example, the Shaman. The Shaman, while being hated by myself and many other players, is unarguably a perfect expression of successful Hero Identity. The Shaman is meant to be a bloodthirsty, cannabalistic, savage women from the wilderness. She appears to be deranged from her appearance. Her playstyle effectively expresses this, with a bleed-centered moveset and a bite. This is an expression of Hero Identity. When everything about the character centers around the concept behind the character’s creation, Hero Identity has been expressed. For Aramusha, this is not the case.
The Aramusha was said to be inspired by the movie characters who were lone ex-samurai warriors who were either banished or unsatisfied with the samurai way, and as a result, are forced to go rogue. This is his background. His appearance represents him well, as he was clearly modeled after the ronins of the movies. But his gameplay doesn’t line up. The ronin of the movies were 1vX machines who would fight off multiple enemies at once when attacked, using their eccentric twin katana fighting style to fight off their attackers. Right now, he’s not that. His ability to win 1vX’s is pretty laughable, but more importantly, his moveset doesn’t reflect the 1vX playstyle.
Before I get into the changes, I would like to make a distinction. Both Berserker and Aramusha are meant for 1vX, as can be seen by the infinite chains they have. But their Identities are not the same. Berserker is meant to leap into the fray and go wild (his recent changes support this, go Ubi!), while Aramusha is meant to be defending a certain area and fight off attackers. Berserker is the aggresor 1vXer, while aramusha is the more passive one. NOW FINALLY FOR THE CHANGES:
I’ve put a lot of thought into how Aramushas moveset could mirror his background and appearance while also being viable, and this is what I got.
Blade Blockade’s main punish now is a guaranteed fast, unparryable and unblockable attack in a circle around Aramusha at his max range which can then be chained into a guarunteed kick or ring the bell on the person who procced it from the aramusha, or a twin vipers mixup. The AOE unblockable would do 20 damage. Ring the bell would be changed to be a faster animation. Twin vipers can now soft feint into heavies as well. The kick would recieve no changes.
With this, trying to use bladeblockade is worthwhile. Right now, it doesn’t even guarantee decent damage, but with this, Aramusha can now effectively 1vX. Blade blockading in a 1vX is always risky and normally not even worth it because of the short duration and recovery paired with the guardbreakability. With the new spin move, blade blockade is worthwhile and still grants a choice of the old follow ups (minus rushing wind or whatever the top heavy was, this is removed).
The next new move is a fast pommel strike which can be feinted into from a heavy finisher as an alternative to the deadly feint option. It would guarantee a 10 damage light attack from the side. It would have short range and very high recovery time to balance it. But as things are now, this move would make deadly feint obsolete, so there is another change!
Deadly feint light attacks are now 400ms, and along with this, all of aramusha’s light attacks now do 15 damage no matter what. This would prevent the pommel strike from drawing away from the deadly feints.
All of this, if implimented as I have imagined, would make aramusha a fun and viable character. And while people may scream “op op op!!!”, it can be tuned up or down and I’m willing to debate about whether this would be balanced or not.
I love Aramusha’s character design and the concept, but right now his gameplay feels so lackluster. His gameplay feels both uncool and unrewarding, but with my changes, he would be extremely fun to play. I really hope changes like these are implimented someday, and I’ll check in here every so often to see what people say (assuming people even bother reading this)
2 people found this helpful
Banned
Member
