The CHAIN EXTENDER Concept | Forums

[Soldier_of_Dawn]

A chain extender, also known as combo extender or combo extension, is where a move or small combo extends the attack chain and allows players to continue to pressure their opponents as a result. They are not too difficult to defend against but can confuse opponents when applied correctly. Sometimes they can lead to infinite combos. Examples of chain extenders including the following:

• Lawbringer's Shove Mix Up after a heavy finisher. This allows him to flow back into a chain attack and repeat this until he sees fit to stop, he runs out of stamina, or he gets countered.
• Shinobi's Kick Mix Up and Backflip combos.
• Valkyrie's former Shield Chrush that followed after heavy attacks and heavy finishers. This allowed her to maintain an infinite combo in some cases.

Further examples include the following that currently don't exist and never did:

• Allowing Tiandi to follow light finishers with a Palm Strike, Palm Strike Combo, or Heavy Palm Strike.
• Allowing Tiandi to follow heavy finishers with a Dragon Kick.
• Allowing Warlord to cancel or follow a chain finisher with his Headbutt which can be followed by a guaranteed light attack.

However, chain extenders are not to be confused with vortexes. Vortexes are infinite combos that are usually made of two moves which are repeated endlessly, are difficult to defend against, and usually end with an option select. Examples of vortexes include:

• Warden's Shoulder Bash Mix Up
• Conqueror's Shield Bash Mix Up
• Valkyrie following her Shield Crush Cancel (now known as Shield Crush) with a light attack and repeating it over and over.

While some characters have chain extenders or an infinite combo of some sort, I would like to see more of these in future reworks. I agree that the combat needs to be faster but 400ms attacks and vortexes are not the way to do it. I would also like to see more soft-feints but not the unreactable type.

In order for chain extenders to work, I feel that the stamina cost for all characters needs to be reduced by 50%, especially for team battles since lengthy combos are now more difficult to pull off without running out of stamina. However, the elaboration of the stamina issue in team battles and duels can be saved for another thread. If you must mention stamina here, don't get carried away.


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF CHAIN EXTENDERS?

• Are they an interesting way of improving For Honor's combat and making it faster?
• Which characters need them?
• Which existing chain/combo extenders need tweaking?
• Do you have any more ideas for chain extenders for any of the heroes?
• Do you have an issue with chain extenders? If so, why?

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your feedback. Remember guys, always maintain a constructive discussion and stay on topic.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

The pk currently has none, but with my suggestions, she would have three.

If dodge attacks would restart chains, dodging out from a heavy into a dodge attack.

If dagger cancel would act as a chain starter, she would have an infinite potential.

Making the deep gouge a chain starter would help her restart any chain on succesful heavies (in theory, we all know she never lands heavies).

[Soldier_of_Dawn]

The pk currently has none, but with my suggestions, she would have three.

If dodge attacks would restart chains, dodging out from a heavy into a dodge attack.

If dagger cancel would act as a chain starter, she would have an infinite potential.

Making the deep gouge a chain starter would help her restart any chain on succesful heavies (in theory, we all know she never lands heavies).

That's like my rework suggestion in progress. Glad I'm not alone on this. Great stuff.

[Klingentaenz3r]

That's like my rework suggestion in progress. Glad I'm not alone on this. Great stuff.

So basically what you would be aiming to achieve with that idea of the chain extender is what we currently have on orochi, right?

For everyone to clarify: Orochi has a recovery cancel option after his chains. In his case he can cancel out the waiting time every character has after finishing a combo by simply dodging. Since he has plenty of moves involing a dodge he can go for those. Each and everyone of those counts as a chain starter which results into orochi being able to go back to his combos right away and hence EXTEND his previous chain by quite a bit.

[Soldier_of_Dawn]

So basically what you would be aiming to achieve with that idea of the chain extender is what we currently have on Orochi, right?

For everyone to clarify: Orochi has a recovery cancel option after his chains. In his case, he can cancel out the waiting time every character has after finishing a combo by simply dodging. Since he has plenty of moves involing a dodge he can go for those. Each and everyone of those counts as a chain starter which results into orochi being able to go back to his combos right away and hence EXTEND his previous chain by quite a bit.

That is correct for the most part. The Orochi's chain finisher recovery cancel options are more examples of chain extenders. Jiang Jun's Sifu Poise cancel from his finishers is similar example since he can follow with a zone attack from the stance. You could say these are examples of passive extenders, whereas your aggressive extenders would be heavies, bashes, or special combos.

Chain extenders will vary from each character the same way openers do. They could be dodge cancels, heavies, bashes, special combos, etc. It will depend on the class and the hero.

[RLTygurr]

I actually thought up a similar concept which I called the "Chain replacement" concept.

You know how certain characters such as Tiandi can use a quick unblockable in the middle of his chains instead of another attack? I think something similar to that (commonly, with it being guaranteed on a heavy hit because of stagger but not guaranteed on a light hit) would be excellent for making older characters, especially heavier ones, more viable.

In my other thread, I thought about a replacement headbutt in shugokis chains which replace the second hit in a 3 hit combo and stuns the opponent, allowing him to perform a mixup while his opponent has more difficulty seeing his moves.

I think the concept of removing certain recovery times by allowing specific actions for a character are a good idea as well, but I would be cautious because it could be easily abused to completely make certain moves safe if you aren't careful.