Senior Member
With the addition of four new viable heroes with extensive, interesting kit, peacekeeper feels even more obsolete than ever. Her parry punishes are the lowest in the game (or the second lowest after valkyrie), her dodge attacks are the easiest parries in the game for low damage and no invulnerability against guardbreaks. She is also the only character who completely lacks unblockables, undodgable attacks, hyperarmor or bashes. Her stamina management is very poor, her mixups are very easy to understand, and since her attacks deal very low damage, the only semi-rewarding offense is light spam (that is not viable). Her hated zone is now 15 damage and 2/3 stamina drain if you want to feint it. Her dagger cancels only work on side heavies, they are easy to read for very low reward, and almost all of her mixups either drain full stamina, or forces her to give up offense in five seconds. She needs something to make her viable, and more importantly, unique.
1. Give her more chains. What is absolutely necessary is a H-L to make the second heavies actually useful, but longer chains would be welcomed too, like a triple heavy combo, or a H-H-L and a H-L-L. I don't think that a triple light combo would be healthful, but maybe add that too.
2. Make deep gouge count as a chain starter light attack. This way, her pressure wouldn't break just because she landed a heavy attack. You should also make her dodge attacks count as a chain starter heavies (to let her follow her chains if it is simply blocked). That is the only dodge attack that can't be comboed into anything.
3. Increase her total stamina. Her stamina feels hilariously low for an assassin, and the exhausted state is punished harshly now that her dodges were cut back, so she deserves a little more stamina.
4. Give her playstyle a goal. Every strong/somewhat well designed character has some: shaman's is to land a bite, shugoki's to land a hug, centurion's to land a charged heavy combo, warden's to land a fully charged unblockable, nuxia's to land a trap, lawbringer's to land a spike riposte into a wall/a blind justice, raider's to land a raider fury, valkyrie to land a sweep etc. Pk doesn't have anything like this: the biggest hit is the stab after a guardbreak, but it's either easy to land, or impossible to land, it doesn't feel that rewarding, and it's not risky at all, it's a simple guardbreak into a punish that doesn't even get you an execution. My ideas for giving her one:
a: Simple, slow unblockable third heavies for big damage (at least 35). Landing a big heavy is satisfying, and she desperately needs some kind of opener.
b, By pressing heavy during the heavy startup, the pk would step back and hold her sword ready for a stab. If not canceled, she would thrust forward for 40 damage. Against targets bleeding when she starts the move, this should be an unblockable (no target switch during the charge). It should be feintable during the startup, and should have undodgable property (but no softfeints options).
c, If you want to reward her as a counter attacker, give her something like the orochi's heavy deflect follow up: a hyperarmor heavy attack after deflects for 50 damage that breaks hyperarmor, her version could also yield executions. It should be dodgable of course, but it could be softfeinted into a guardbreak. Maybe make it available as a parry followup, not guaranteed on any parry of course, but that would be a bit too much I think.
d, Make her heavy into guardbreak softfeints a unique type of guardbreak: it should phase through the opponent with normal guardbreak whiff recovery if the opponent does anything actively. However, if the opponent doesn't do anything actively (like attacking, going for a parry, dodging, fullblocking, bashing), the guardbreak is uncountarable- it beats active guards and passive reflex guards (I think it should also beat all emotes to avoid exploits). After succesfully landing it, a heavy thrust is guaranteed for 30 damage (probably bleed with the stab animation). Unlike nuxia's traps, this wouldn't beat anything but passivity, so a parry attempt would beat this move for example (bigger risk using it), but simply changing guard wouldn't solve anything. With this change, heavies would be a bit more threatening, especially if the opponent is exhausted.
5. Make her bleed do something. Since she can cause more bleed than a nobushi or shaman, hers should get a weaker effect, like some stamina regain on hitting bleeding opponents, or increased block damage. Some very minor (weaker than shaman's) self heal would be nice toe, since she really suffers in team modes from the lack of health regain (her playstyle and numbers barely allows her to execute, and in team fights, the last hit is mostly not hers because of her numbers again).
You might have different ideas, the important thing is, don't forget to buff her. She is the most useless assassin, everyone with at least avarage skill and understanding of the game knows this. Her mechanics were never strong, her numbers made her broken, and her speed was a unique feat, but now with lowered numbers and multiple heroes with even faster offense, she is very weak.
Member
Meh, I think Ubisoft should more change up her existing abilities or remove and add some. I would say that she isnt Underpowered. She does actually have a goal and that is to GB and stab you 3 times. I dont wanna throw the "Rework" word around but just buffing her abilities wouldnt fix her i think. And i also dont think For honor needs more soft feints. I would also like to add that the reason why PK doesnt have an ublockable (Which is often a really heavy hitting one) is because she's an assassin. Assassins are mad to be fast and not to crush enemies under a heavy strike, And Undodgeable attacks is something very few heroes have so i dont know why you bring that up, She doesnt need Hyper armor since that would be kind of stupid if you count how she looks (A small woman with 2 swords) and lastly a bash again, Is something most Assassins dont have.
I'm maybe okay with a buff if Ubisofts stops with the light spam, the current meta is to do really fast attacks and that makes heroes like Lawbringer, Warlord and other slow heroes obselete. I 'm trying not to sound rude since it would be dumb of me to critize all other Buff suggestions if i want my own hero to get buffed (LB). But yeah, A rework would be cool or just some slight changes to her attacks.
Senior Member
First, I'd like to thank you for writing down your thoughts, and I did not find anything rude in your comment.
I don't think the pk should have hyperarmor (maybe she could have it on her deflect followup, but she doesn't need it with correct timing), and her speed, mobility and guardbreak softfeints punish dodging really well already, I just listed these things, because there is no character who has neither of them in neutral (the orochi has undodgable and a pretty useless hyperarmored deflect followup, and everyone else have an unblockable and either or all of the other things). What I think the pk needs is an unblockable, even if it's only useful against enemies wasting their stamina. Granted, it's not the most satisfying thing to try to block a pk who feints properly when a block doesn't stops her light chains, but at the end, if one or two goes through, it's still only 30 damage for most of your stamna. Just to compare it to the heroes considered viable, all of them has a very real chance of taking 40 health as a punishment (and some of them have insane ground punishes, like 80 health or something, while the pk's is barely 50, and there are heroes infamous about killing their exhausted opponents without ever giving a chance to regain stamina). 40 health is really the optimistic version, like one charged shoulderbash or one cabertoss, it can end up way worse most of the time. These are also the heroes who cut down turtles with the least difficulty.
If you would write a list about the weakest heroes, we would find the ones without openers. The shugoki and the lawbringer (he is my other main by the way, I understand how much he needs his own rework) has openers on paper, but it costs them most of their stamina to use them, they are reactable, and you can escape them by back dodging. The peacekeeper has no unblockable other than the deflect stab, it's difficult to block everything she does, but you can block everything she does, you are not forced to dodge or parry. The raider's zone is reactable and heavily punishable even if the opponent is exhausted, and you can just light attack them out of it if you are not exhausted (he has the stampade as an opener against exhausted opponents, thank god there is only a few using it, it's annoying as hell). The orochi is hated because of the lightspam, but just like the pk, no opener, though he has avarage-high punishes, better damage, better mixup game and better counterattack tools than the pk, so he is still above her. The centurion kick and jabs are easy to react, only the broken wallpunish keeps him semi-viable (he is less and less viable with every day, I can't recall when I have seen the last one in duel). The nobushi kick is reactable, and the hidden stance heavy comes out really slow for lots of stamina to be threatening (if a hidden stance heavy is blocked, the target can't dodge the kick). The last ones on this list are the warlord, the aramusha and the shinobi, but all of them have some kind of unblockable, and the last two have insane damage to give a little compensation for the lack of tools (I still doubt anyone considers either of them more than midtier, their kit is inferior to the high tiers).The high tier and midtier heroes have access to tools that forces the enemies into reacting, and if exhausted, it's a 50/50 most of the time, that's the main thing separating the roster's upper half from the lower. Everyone deserves at least one, some characters already have four different ways to force a reaction, while a pk has none, and a lawbringer has one that never works on high level players.
I think that a pk could live without an opener if she would get buffs, I don't think she needs an other full rework. Things like I have mentioned in the first 3 points would make her excel so much in mixup games that she wouldn't need openers or bigger damage on counters, but I would still like at least a slow opener or a hard to build up opener like a third heavy. About goals, I wouldn't call her threestab a goal, it is indeed her hardest hit, especially with a wall, but it's still a simple guardbreak. It's still below 40 damage without a wall, some characters barely hit under it with their guardbreak,orochi and nobushi is very close to her in it, and the shinobi deals 40 damage with a heavy-light. Almost everyone else has a main goal that is the spine of the playstyle, pk doesn't have that. She just lands about 12 light attacks, and the opponent bleeds out.
I always ask people to compare her to the shaman, who is literally the better version of her, with almost every move added to her kit, plus some very fancy additions that would be enough tools even if we would distribute it among three underpowered heroes.
Senior Member
Since it's against the rules to bump:
She also needs a dedicated move to parry punish, a stab riposte for 20 bleed or something. Every assassin gets at least 20 damage on heavy parries (shaman gets 25, zerker 28). Pk gets 15, if she uses her zone which is most of her stamina (or a 13 damage light).
I tried shugoki recently, he feels slightly stronger than the pk. I am convinced she is the weakest now.
