Shoalin is broken af | Forums

[Knight_Raime]

Actually, his dodge is easy to guard break, because of the wind up, so if you lure him into it, you got guaranteed guard break, unlike other assassins like orichi or that vanguard kensei (tho, those are essentially very easy to parry anyway with little practice - better players will try to lure those out).

That 24 damage IF he does combo(which can be risky to attempt randomly, and mind that its not 400ms, cuz its side) is laughable once you realize that his side heavy does 25 damage...not sure about top, maybe its 30. Meaning, you don't have actual guaranteed heavy damage punisher, like with other characters.

You can easily predict when he enters Qi stance, and just pre-emptively strike fast light, or start waiting for the kick before its even there. Basically, with some characters, all you just need is to spam light fast attacks and his Qi stance is wrecked.. that's why he got that range, so he could try to punish you for that spam. Yet, for example, lawbringer can just wreck shaolin with just little effort to block and just shove you into oblivion while taking those few hits that slip past.

His dodge attack or his side heavy from qi? Because i've yet to be guard broken out of the ai side heavy. People frequently bounce off of it.
Yes shaolin's light parry punish is not strong. Same with centurion. Doesn't change how strong the ability to get 20 something damage off of a heavy parry is.

You're not playing smart shaolin if you're easily predicting them. and as i've already outlined before. You can't smack him out of going into it. It's 200ms into and 300ms out of feint he can block. More than half the people who play this game can't even react block lights. I seriously doubt you're consistently hitting someone while they go into qi stance. And if you are they're an awful Shaolin.

His kick is a 500ms bash from neutral. You can't wait to dodge it on reaction. Shaolin vs LB is 100% in shaolin's favor. He can threaten with both kick and his top unblockable which he can feint back into qi stance. Block shove does jack all to shaolin because he has a deflect. Meaning he gets 20 damage for deflecting LB's light and automatically goes into qi.

How about you actually fight good players and then get back to me. Because if LB is capable of killing you through shove block you're bottom tier.

[Herbstlicht]

Hmm, maybe it was about guard break vulnerability after the Dodge attack. And I guess there is a small window after Shaolin Dodge attack where you can get guard broken. At least you have to stop attacking, you can't chain it into anything.

Anyway, getting shove attacked to death does still happen. Play on console and have a few laggers in the game.

Not saying the issue lies with the balance in this case, but though Shaolin is pretty strong, it's actually hard for him to spam. And as some people pointed out, he is somewhat predictable. If you enter qi or go into infinite combo, both can be punished with a light. And this light would need to be parried by you if you expect it and just stop after 1 hit. What would net you 25 damage and likely another light. But there are few bold players out there that use offense as defence.

So to sum it up it would be nice if a few people got off their high horse because some concerns, even if the players voicing them might be not as skilled as others, often still hold true to some extent.

[Siegfried-Z]

"If you can block or parry an Aramusha, you can deal with Shaolin. Both of them have similar infinites and both get sent flying from a simple block."
Not actually. Aramusha's gotten easier to defend against since he now has a forced 200ms delay between every combo attack. Where as shaolin can still delay his attacks to make his 400ms in combo hits impossible to react to.

"His kick and sweep requires Qi. Kick is easily dodged or poked. He can only sweep off a kick."
Kick is unreactable. it's a 500ms bash that's practically a neutral attack. If you're dodging it or poking him out of it you either got lucky or read your opponent right. Qi only takes 200ms to get into. And he can feint out of it and block 300ms after feinting. and at 500ms after the feint he can dodge and parry. So punishing entering qi stance is basically next to impossible.


"Dodge attack is almost as slow as Kensei’s and has nowhere near as many iframes."
This is true. But that's not the issue. it's that he has a dodge attack. Which are basically mandatory for dealing with bash mix ups. While most heros have some dodge based attack not everyone does. Meaning if you don't have one you're missing a pretty fundimental aspect of how fights play out these days. Which is why his side heavies are brought up at all.


Again. Not saying Shaolin is busted. I think he's nearly perfect balance wise. But he's easily high A tier. The only things that actively keep him from S tier is his max punishes are not strong. And he doesn't have an easily abusable move like most S tier heros do. Shaolin also has unfavorable match ups. Where as someone like berzerker is holding the best spot for duelist for the simple fact that how she is currently means none of her match ups are unfavorable or bad.

Kind of surprised to see you saying Shaolin 400ms hits (only from the top) and 500ms bash are Unreactable after our discussion about Roch lights

About the Dodge, his only strengh is to be considered as a heavy.. His dodge is slow, is a back dodge on the right wihch is a very situational to use and Shaolin dodge attacks can't chain.
As a Hybrid/Assassin (only Hybrid having reflex guard), having a dodge attacks is just normal. The opposite would be surprising.

Anyway, i agree he is well balanced, no nerf, no buff, he is fine.

[Siegfried-Z]

Go and play on console and say shaolin is not op side heavys QI stance a almost guarantee kick. His lights are practically instant what is a joke, He’s got infinite combo light up so anything can come at you and it’s impossible to read him. Don’t even get me started with his feats which he can teleport to the enemies or his 4th to help his teammate out that’s a F***ING joke!

I play on console and i say Shaolin is not OP at all.. So ?

[Lord_Cherubi]

^ Whats problematic with JJ?.

To me the only problem with JJ is his busted indicators flashing all over the place hours before his hits even land. In a fighting game this intence you can't really think all that much, you have to react and it's EXTREMELY difficult when his attacks aren't in sync with the indicators.

[Demannu.Resu]

His dodge attack or his side heavy from qi? Because i've yet to be guard broken out of the ai side heavy. People frequently bounce off of it.
Yes shaolin's light parry punish is not strong. Same with centurion. Doesn't change how strong the ability to get 20 something damage off of a heavy parry is.

You're not playing smart shaolin if you're easily predicting them. and as i've already outlined before. You can't smack him out of going into it. It's 200ms into and 300ms out of feint he can block. More than half the people who play this game can't even react block lights. I seriously doubt you're consistently hitting someone while they go into qi stance. And if you are they're an awful Shaolin.

His kick is a 500ms bash from neutral. You can't wait to dodge it on reaction. Shaolin vs LB is 100% in shaolin's favor. He can threaten with both kick and his top unblockable which he can feint back into qi stance. Block shove does jack all to shaolin because he has a deflect. Meaning he gets 20 damage for deflecting LB's light and automatically goes into qi.

How about you actually fight good players and then get back to me. Because if LB is capable of killing you through shove block you're bottom tier.

Dodge Side heavy - it can be easily guard broken(not sure if applies to both sides, because his dodge to one side is a bit different). LB just needs to shove and guard break if shaolin tries to dodge side attack after being shoved.

Probably that half of people who play this game and can't even block light, don't even try enough, cuz they busy attacking most of the time... ya kno, "best defense is offense", is kinda popular idea for some and so they just don't even try most of time.. and still win. Anyway, that's beside the point - game SHOULDN'T be balanced around only newb's anyway or there will be close to no satisfaction for trying to improve personal skill. There are annoying characters with annoying mechanics all over the place in the game and I'm not convinced that shaolin on average is annoying beyond anything else that game has to offer from characters. I EVEN THINK THAT ONCE PEOPLE GET USED TO HIS KIT, HE WILL BE UNDERWHELMING COMPARING TO OTHER CHARACTERS, but we shall see.


I'm not here to discuss my skill level and your remarks on that are unnecessarily for topic at hand. Lemme put it this way - I DO KNOW that even at my skill even if I do faints in various forms, mix up combos in various forms, enemies still VERY OFTEN(!) just parry/deflect those shaolin light attacks(yes, even that 400ms top) and dodge those kicks... in other words, it isn't big deal as you make it look like, at least, not at my skill level, tho, I can't really tell what kind of skill level it is.


P.S. I'm talking about PC version.

[Herbstlicht]

Well, I can confirm parrys and deflects on 400 ms attacks even on console. However, I am convinced this is mostly by accident.
Those days, I am playing with a lot of friends who are rather new to the game. That means I tace of against a lot of players that are not all that experienced, and when the connection quality to everyone is very good, those games feel very, very easy to me because you can read a lot of stuff due to experience. However, once we get bad connection combined with spammy gameplay, the monk and pretty much every class with shorter combos and no fixed guard does suffer. The window where you can deal your damage compared to a berserker for example is rather short. Add to this a lot of timings that can not be varied, whereas other classes can, it makes defending against shaolin easier then this berserker. So when in a bad connection game, i really prefer fighting a shaolin whose timings are fixed and whom I can punish because there is no need to read into delays, they don't really exist. This fixed timings overall might be a small bane to the whole Wu Lin faction. But it is still rather early for this. Starting from today everyone can play the new ones. Give it a months time and we will have way more knowledge about balancing issues.

[KnightRider_69]

Why would anyone buy Marching Fire if new characters weren't op?

[Devils-_-legacy]

Why would anyone buy Marching Fire if new characters weren't op?

For me
Early access and arcade?

[Knight_Raime]

Dodge Side heavy - it can be easily guard broken(not sure if applies to both sides, because his dodge to one side is a bit different). LB just needs to shove and guard break if shaolin tries to dodge side attack after being shoved.

Probably that half of people who play this game and can't even block light, don't even try enough, cuz they busy attacking most of the time... ya kno, "best defense is offense", is kinda popular idea for some and so they just don't even try most of time.. and still win. Anyway, that's beside the point - game SHOULDN'T be balanced around only newb's anyway or there will be close to no satisfaction for trying to improve personal skill. There are annoying characters with annoying mechanics all over the place in the game and I'm not convinced that shaolin on average is annoying beyond anything else that game has to offer from characters. I EVEN THINK THAT ONCE PEOPLE GET USED TO HIS KIT, HE WILL BE UNDERWHELMING COMPARING TO OTHER CHARACTERS, but we shall see.


I'm not here to discuss my skill level and your remarks on that are unnecessarily for topic at hand. Lemme put it this way - I DO KNOW that even at my skill even if I do faints in various forms, mix up combos in various forms, enemies still VERY OFTEN(!) just parry/deflect those shaolin light attacks(yes, even that 400ms top) and dodge those kicks... in other words, it isn't big deal as you make it look like, at least, not at my skill level, tho, I can't really tell what kind of skill level it is.


P.S. I'm talking about PC version.

Ah. Well you'd only use that attack to deal with raw bashes.
Lb has to do everything after shove on read. Where as a person with reflex guard can react to it all.
So shove into GB won't work unless you read that he does an empty dodge.

Either you're fighting people who are great at reading you or you yourself are playing too predictably.

Hmm, maybe it was about guard break vulnerability after the Dodge attack. And I guess there is a small window after Shaolin Dodge attack where you can get guard broken. At least you have to stop attacking, you can't chain it into anything.

Anyway, getting shove attacked to death does still happen. Play on console and have a few laggers in the game.

Not saying the issue lies with the balance in this case, but though Shaolin is pretty strong, it's actually hard for him to spam. And as some people pointed out, he is somewhat predictable. If you enter qi or go into infinite combo, both can be punished with a light. And this light would need to be parried by you if you expect it and just stop after 1 hit. What would net you 25 damage and likely another light. But there are few bold players out there that use offense as defence.

So to sum it up it would be nice if a few people got off their high horse because some concerns, even if the players voicing them might be not as skilled as others, often still hold true to some extent.

You can't reliably light Shaolin out of qi stance. He enters it in 200ms and can launch anything in it immediately after that. If you attempt to light him on reaction to seeing him go into qi he'll just crushing counter your light attempt. You punish shaolin's qi stance moves by reading how he will use them. You cannot reliably punish him for going into it.

Kind of surprised to see you saying Shaolin 400ms hits (only from the top) and 500ms bash are Unreactable after our discussion about Roch lights

About the Dodge, his only strengh is to be considered as a heavy.. His dodge is slow, is a back dodge on the right wihch is a very situational to use and Shaolin dodge attacks can't chain.
As a Hybrid/Assassin (only Hybrid having reflex guard), having a dodge attacks is just normal. The opposite would be surprising.

Anyway, i agree he is well balanced, no nerf, no buff, he is fine.

400ms light from the top is a neutral attack (his in combo lights are also 400ms from any direction). Pk's zone is also a 400ms neutral attack. People don't react to her zone. they rest their guard there. Same with shaolin. If someone manages to parry/block it consistently it's a read. bashes from neutral are always their intended speed and his kick is considered to be from neutral. Meaning it's actually slightly faster than 500ms. Because Shaolin can enter qi in 200ms and let an attack fly immediately you cannot react to the kick.
Perhaps I should clarify since people seem to not understand.

If Shaolin uses his kick immediately after entering qi stance every time he enters qi stance and you dodge it you've read what he's doing. You're not reacting to the kick.
Now if Shaolin uses his kick 3 times in an entire fight and each time he uses the kick he's done it after a different mix up and you manage to dodge that kick once you didn't react to the kick nor did you read him. You got lucky.

To put it another way mob mentality is a thing. So you will see a lot of players use a specific hero the same way. So even if you fight someone you've not fought before but they use that bog standard way to play him you're still just reading him if you dodge his kick. As it's an established pattern you're used to.

Reacting to something means it can be thrown at any time in any combo or feint mix up and you can reliably block/dodge/whatever. 500ms lights are reactable. This is because you can see any decent player at the game consistently block them regardless of how they're being used. Where as 400ms lights are not reactable. because not even the best players in the game can consistently block/punish them.