Pk rework | Forums

[Goat_of_Vermund]

An other topic about pk rework. I have a few new ideas, I am curious what do you think about it (that is the only reason I am posting it, I know she will not get an other complex rework, not that the first was complex).

1. Nerfs: Remove gb softfeint, and the hardfeint option from the zone (while making the first hit superior light), decrease gb bleed damage to 30 (1+9 each). Remove deep gouge completely.

2. Damage: Make side chain opener heavies deal 25 damage, the finishers 35. Make chain starter top heavy 35, finisher 40. Make side dash heavies deal 20. Make the zone first attack deal 10, second 35. Lights should universally deal 15. Increase dagger cancel to 15.

3. General buffs/mechanic changes: Let all dodge attacks and the second part of the zone to be canceled with a dagger cancel or a back dodge (the latter by pressing dodge during the startup). Make dodge attacks and dagger cancels chain starters. Make her first stab of gb usable while exhausted (most fast and some slow characters get a light on gb even if exhausted), reduce pk throw recovery to standard level. Maybe make side heavies guaranteed too on gbs. And maybe let her zone used during any chains.

4. New special moves and effects: Let all her heavies (including the forward jump heavy and the second part of the zone) to be canceled via pressing guardbreak to perform a kick. Headbutt recovery, guarantees nothing, but blinds, kicks back the target, can ledge, and bleeding targets fall to the ground. A heavy is guaranteed on targets falling down. Animation wise, it could be a forward throw kick animation.
The pk could gain stamina back when she hits a bleeding target. Or the bleed itself should slowly regain her stamina.
The pk should get a new deflect counter: by pressing heavy, she would prepare for a stab with a sword, with hyperarmor added, and after a second, would stab the opponent, breaking his ha and dealing 50 damage. Not guaranteed on any deflect.

[Roseguard_Cpt]

Side note, Peacekeeper will seldom actually land a heavy, even the dodge ones, against a decent opponent. She doesn't need a rework, just a damage buff.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

I land a quite amount of them. They are guaranteed on light parries, and if you make your opponent expect a light or a dagger cancel, they will miss the parry timing.
But if you think she doesn't land heavies, a damage buff is definetely not all she needs.

[UbiInsulin]

I've seen a few of these suggestions in other threads (dagger cancel starting chains is a pretty common one). For each of your points, can you go into the specific reasoning behind them from your PoV?

[Goat_of_Vermund]

I've seen a few of these suggestions in other threads (dagger cancel starting chains is a pretty common one). For each of your points, can you go into the specific reasoning behind them from your PoV?

Thank you for your answer! I go into details.

1. I think that some of her moves are cheap, and they actively ruin the chance to have a fun duel. Zone attack at it's current state is weak, but still has unfair mechanics- namely, you beat almost every mixup with optionselect parries, if we would remove the ability to return to neutral, we would eradicate optionselect parries. 10 damage is almost nothing, and after that, you must make a choice or will be punished. Guardbreak softfeint should be removed because it doesn't work consistently, and it actively discourages the opponent to go for parries. Deep gouge should go because it ends chains, so far less mixup for pk (I had a suggestion in the past to just let it restart combos, I don't know which suggestion is the better). The damage of deep gouge should be worked into the direct damage of heavies. With the changes listed in the further points, almost 40 damage on a simple guardbreak is way too much, especially if you also have a throw chance.

2. Pk damage is way too low. She is a counterattacker, but has the lowest damage numbers if we conisder parry punishes (not counting shaolin and valkyrie, but they are highly mixup intensive characters, and there isn't even a real difference that matters). With these changes, she would reach the avarage numbers 15 on heavies, 35 on lights, and I think about 50 at least on exhaustion. Some characters have way higher numbers, and not all of them even weak when we put aside punishes. By the way, look at that guaranteed berserker zone on heavy parries, that's just not fair he has that. Dagger cancel is 10 damage now, not enough for such a predictable move, since it yields very great punishes on read.

3. Pk dodge attacks are probably the worst in everything but damage, and with my changes, tehy are generally brought down to 20. They are slow, dodgable, not comboed into anything, have way too high recovery, and a guardbreak beats them. Hardcancel is not really a good way to go, but a dagger cancel on side dodge attacks would be really threatening, it couldn't be just beaten by simply waiting for a heavy parry (while giving a chance of light parries). Dodging out with a back dodge would get you out from harm's way if you choose to, but a guardbreak would beat that too. Zone during chains would give an extra pressure tool for low damage (mostly useful after heavies). The other things are for simply punishes, she need some reward even oos for some reads (like getting a guardbreak for dodging a very long recovery move, she gets the gb like everyone else, but she is uniqe in that she gets nothing out from it, no matter what).

4. The kick is a bit similar to the shaman's mechanics in role, and the reason for giving them is having an opener without making her an unblockable fest. With all these changes, with decent damage and greater mixup potential added (like the side dash attack softfeints or dagger cancel improvement), she doesn't need a full unblockable. The simpler way would be to give her a top chained unblockable, but this is a more on toe approach: if she lands a bleed on you, there is a mechanic you have to look out for, if there is not, it's not really threatening unless you positioned yourself very poorly, and it still yields a punish on read. I think that all characters need something that forces the opponents to move from place (traps, bashes, unblockables), this one is good. Maybe it's not too overpowered to let the pk use is and still get a top chain unblockable heavy along with it, but I think that we can stick with one or the other. I would be satisfied with a chained top heavy unblockable for a start. I had other opener ideas in the past, too: making the heavy into grab uncounterable if the opponent doesn't do something actively (a bit similar to traps), a kick that is hard to dodge and can be chained into an unblockable that still can be countered, giving her a fencer stance, giving her the ability to kick dust up for blind etc. I understand that it would be a poor business move to introduce a totally new mechanic for a year 1 char, however, so bashes and/or unblockables will do. Just something. She is an assassin, she should have at least a chance to kill an opponent quickly before the reinforcements are arriving in 4v4, and if you can block for about two minutes before you die from light attacks in 4v4, the assassin attacking you does a very bad job, since you will either get revenge or reinforcements before the assassin will do the job. A fight with an assassin should be a fast one: you should either die quickly to the mixup, or read it and burn through his/her low hp. That's impossible without openers, and in 1v1, it promotes turtle meta, simply because you don't have anything else (usually the low tier characters are the ones without openers).
Having a stacking bleed without any advantage of said bleed is a bit silly, the pk should get advantage from using her favored playstyle. Shamans get health and a move, nobushis get increased damage, but since neither can have a bleed stack, pk should get something weaker. My favorite idea was block damage increase, that itself would act as an opener (the block damage actually always hurting the intact hp, so technically, your block damage is lethal against heavily bleeding opponents), but some stamina regain could be nice too. The most radical idea of mine was letting light attacks continue chains against bleeding opponents, but I think it's hard enough for newer players to block some lights without this.

[Zhantay]

Let me land a heavy from a successful Guardbreak? I don't know why I'm not allowed, I'm all for kidney stabs but sometimes I want to see my Executions too? I can barely get a heavy from a wall splat and when I do it's like 20 damage. With modes like Breach execution players is a must, if I can't do that I'm a hindrance to my team. This goes the same for any 4v4 mode.

[DefiledDragon]

Let me land a heavy from a successful Guardbreak? I don't know why I'm not allowed, I'm all for kidney stabs but sometimes I want to see my Executions too? I can barely get a heavy from a wall splat and when I do it's like 20 damage. With modes like Breach execution players is a must, if I can't do that I'm a hindrance to my team. This goes the same for any 4v4 mode.

Exactly this. No character shouldn't be able to land a heavy from a successful GB. The fact that PK can't absolutely baffles me. What the **** were they thinking?

[Zhantay]

Exactly this. No character shouldn't be able to land a heavy from a successful GB. The fact that PK can't absolutely baffles me. What the **** were they thinking?

I don't know dude, but no one has ever brought this up, not on here or on Reddit, it's crazy.

[DefiledDragon]

The rationale is probably that it would make her signature 3 stab gb pretty pointless if she could just inflict her damage immediatly with a heavy attack. Even after the damage nerf and bleed stack, plenty would still opt for the immediate damage.

I still say that PK and Nobushi should trade their respective bleed abilities. It would make far more sense and be more useful for both characters IMO.

The issue I take with that is that executions can only be performed on a heavy. How much fun is it to watch your opponent bleed to death? Well, personally, no fun at all. I like PK. I like how she looks, but I won't use her because I'm all about the executions and I can't get them with her, most of the time.

[Zhantay]

But with Deep Gouge available to her, would you not go for that every single time instead of the 3 bleeds? The only solution that could work is to give the 3 bleeds a special property like temporarily reducing enemy attack or something.

Because why would you use that over your heavy otherwise?

Bleed isn't instant damage it's a timer, you can bleed a guy as much as you like, but he can still kill you. When you finally land that clutch guardbreak you want to finish the guy off with a heavy. Letting him off easy with a bleed, gives him the chance to heal up, or kill you, pop bounty hunter or whatever health perk they have, and walk away. I've been on both ends of this and it's really stupid. Having to soley rely on bleed when certain heroes can counter your gimmick entirely with a feat is really stupid.

She can't perform something as basic as this is the equivalent to a hero not being able to feint their heavies.