Senior Member
I solely focus on 1v1 here, because that is the foundation of the game, feats, perks and team compositions make it more complicated in 4v4. Also, most tierdifference, like raider's, should be easy to eliminate just by introducing 100% friendly fire. This would kill off unfair things like wide attack spam and unlock techs.
List of viable heroes (A and S tier):
Warden (S tier)
Conqueror (High S tier)
Gladiator (low A tier, could use a defense buff, but possesses one of the best offenses in the game)
Black Prior (S tier)
Berserker (High S tier)
Valkyrie (low A tier, could use something)
Shaman (A tier)
Highlander (low A tier, but offensive is S in some matchups)
Kensei (low A tier, could use something small)
Shugoki (A tier)
Tiandi (A tier)
Jiang Jun (A tier)
Shaolin (A tier)
Out of 23, these are 13 of your heroes, who, with some small changes, could challenge anything in the game. Of course, the Berserker and the Valkyrie are miles away from each other, but the Valk still possesses the necessary tools with a realistic chance to kill a Berserker.
The requirement of being here are the following: Possesses reliable offense in neutral and can keep the offensive mixups on for enough time to seriously hurt other heroes, or their mixup simply has very strong damage. They have weaknesses, but they all have tools and fair punishes against any move in the game if read correctly, they are not completely useless against any other heroes or moves (unlike the infamous Conqueror vs Lawbringer matchup).
So, in short, they can't be turtled out in neutral for long without perfect reads, and their kit allows them to fight back against any moves (like shieldbash or inifinite hyperarmor), either by having something that counters it, or just having high enough punishes that rewards the good reads.
The other heroes have the following problems:
Peacekeeper (C tier. No opener in neutral, no real offensive mixups chained together, very low punishes, inability to deal with infinite hyperarmor)
Lawbringer (low B tier. No opener in neutral, not existing offensive mixups. Somewhat compansated by having the best punishes in the game. Immensely vulnerable against melee bash attacks).
Centurion (B tier. No reliable opener, low pressure game. Somewhat weak punishes, however, with walls, the punishes themselves make him A tier. Weak against bashes)
Raider (high B tier. Openers are very slow and easy to interrupt or avoid. However, has great punishes, and punishes bash attacks very well)
Warlord (high B tier. Opener's risk vs reward is very bad. Has good punishes, but weak against bash attacks).
Orochi (high B tier. No opener in neutral. Good punishes and some reliable pressure to keep mixups going. Weak against infinite hyperarmor, but still punishes it well enough).
Nobushi (C tier. No real opener, very bad pressure, incredibly bad neutral mixups with the slowest attacks in the game.. Very good defense with good punishes. Very poor stamina management.)
Aramusha (B tier. Opener costs stamina, main mixup tool is not hard to counter. Very good punishes and defense. Weak against bash attacks.)
Shinobi (high B tier. No real opener or pressure tool. Very good punishes with spacing that makes some strong tools useless. Weak against fast attackers)
Nuxia (high B tier. Opener is next to useless against prepared opponents, otherwise A tier.)
Feel free to write here if you disagree, but I think the devs should buff all of them up asap. If they give something more to pk and warlord, and the lb and raider rework will be good, only 6 heroes will remain in the need of buffs. The problems in the higher list are much smaller than in the lower.
Senior Member
I think most of the high tier is more problematic than low tier. Because what makes them viable is one broken tool. Take that one thing away and whole hero collapses back to C tier. Most heroes are designed poorly as one trick ponies.
Kensei should be benchmark for good hero kit. But they wont do anything, not at the pace they work.
I wish they simply opted out by making all bash attacks only chaining into heavies like Glad. Make them stun the opponent so you have a window of mind games with heavy feint options. Also all heroes should have some means of soft feints out of heavies.
/rant
Member
The problem lies in the combat system itself: either you have an unreactable move or a 50/50 (aka softfeints) or you suck. Thats why viable heroes are ALL super cancer because they rely on one thing (a hero is as strong as his strongest move) and others are trash or must abuse the game mechanics themselves to win.
Also: Nobuchi does not have the slowest attacks and her hidden stance can beat almost anything if used correctly (requires practice tho), shinobi is S tier, but 90% of people suck at him at a pretty impressive manner, nuxia can't be below A tier with that light spam (especially on consoles)
Senior Member
Mia: There are definetely examples of moves that are strong by themselves, such as Gladiator's zone, which makes his kit's strongest ability, but other attacks are viable too. Even if you barely use it, the ability to have it is threatening enough, and that makes normal chains, fuscina ictus, feint games or blinds more useful too. Or in conqueror's case, while the full kit might be bad without the shieldbashes, he actually has an infinite chain that is very strong, you can alter lights and heavies as much as you want. It might not be strong on itself because it doesn't open up anyone, but you mostly want to throw lights against conquerors to hit them out of a possibly incoming shieldbash. BP is the same, you have to divide your attention between the strong tool and the avarage tools. I am barely over avarage in skills, but even I can easily kill players who spam just one thing, even if it is something like a conq shieldbash or bp shieldbash.
TimetoCrusade: I might have been wrong about shinobi, he seems to be weak for me. If you play a bp against them as you would against others, you lose, but his kicks are completely reactable, and his other moves are nothing. I see however exceptional shinobis sometimes who can butcher me, so that might have been just a wrong assumption from my experiences. Nobu hidden stance takes a ton of stamina, and while it might beat some mixups, you need very hard reads for it to be succesful, and it is ineffective against some heroes. Nuxia lights are indeed bothersome, I am not really good countering attacks this quick, but they are parriable on a read, and everything else in her kit goes out to the bin.
Senior Member
Always hard to judge these kinds of threads when viable is such a vague term.
Like two examples to pull from your viable tab that i'd call into question (based on my perspective of course,) is Highlander and Shugoki.
Highlander is anything but viable because his effectiveness is entirely match up dependent. If highlander is fighting someone who has easy access to undodgables he's never going to land a hit.
If he is fighting someone who doesn't have an easy out to his offensive form Highlander bends them over and said opponent can't do anything to consistently retaliate.
Goki can be spaced super hard, headbutt is a dead move, and you can roll his entire offense on one timing.
Two examples i'd pull from your not viable tab would be shinobi and lawbringer.
Shinobi has an over tuned damage profile with an escape tool that forces disadvantage on over half the cast. He can't be consistently punished or pressured by a huge majority of the cast both with his back flip and his unlock slide tackle games.
Lawbringer has strong punishes, super high health, prevents any combo from happening, and delayed light after shove beats rolls and reactionary approaches to things after shove. Yes he has no real offense of his own. But he basically forces a stall on a duel and due to that delayed light from shove and his high punishes once he gets health advantage he can basically just turtle for the rest of the round.
Neither shinobi or lawbringer are well designed heros nor am I saying both are fine right now. Just saying if we go off of "viable" alone there are a lot of heros that will work just fine providing you have the knowledge and reflexes.
Member
Okay so:Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
LB punished are very inconsistent, this is why you almost never see a LB use the empale on a heavy parry, because of how inconsistent it is
Shove on block does not prevent combos lol, any heavy into light combo will hit and cancel out the shove, some heavy heavy combos too (like cent) so you should actually not shove on a heavy block
Any follow up to shove is easily reactable, no need to roll. Shove is basically useless in 1v1 and just feeds revenge in other modes
Super high health....ever heard of JJ ? His health is above aberage but when more and more heroes hit for 50 and he feeds them revenge it's meaningless. Your dmg output outside of light parries (when the follow up is not inconsistent, also happens) is litteraly the worst in the game
Also I don't care how good you are, anybody counters you by not attacking or bashing you to death (conq or BP into LB are prob the most unbalanced matchups in the game)
As for shinobi, the pb is just that 90% of shinobi mains suck massively, 1 in 10 shows how ****ing annoying and arguably broken he can be
Goki headbutt was already just a revenge feeder and in 4's he is stupid op atm
Dunno for HL never played a hero with access to dodge
Member
The problem here is that the devs want to balance more around 4v4 game modes, which some characters excel at despite being pitiful in duels. Raider is a good example of this. Its an excuse they'll use until time will allow for more reworks and changes
I understand that the dev's time is probably quite limited when it comes to working on the earlier roster, but I'm sure more changes will come eventually. Shugoki was finally given justice after 2 years, and knowing that Raider and Lawbringer will be looked at next makes me optimistic about the future
What really gives me hope is that many of the cast in B tier and below are pretty close to becoming viable with some minor changes, ones that wouldn't require full blown reworks and many new animations
Member
I am 100% for a raider rework IF they nerf his dmg, there is 0 reason to have such high dmg if he gets a viable kit to work withOriginally Posted by LionsFang78 Go to original post
But we all know reworks to come will be stupid softfeints or unreactable moves
As for "minor changes" they never happen, whether it's a buff or a nerf
Member
Senior Member
Everything I have mentioned about LB is specifically recent statements from the best players in the game. If you want me to I can go find their exact wording. Buy anyway,Originally Posted by TimeToCrusade Go to original post
You are correct that you don't shove every combo. But if you're a centurion throwing constant/frequent committed to heavies you'll be parried. And as I already mentioned LB has really strong punishes. Actually no, you can't react to a delayed light out of shove and it beats rolls. And because of this you can't react to his shove mix up. All the LB needs is health lead and he'll just avoid fighting. There are heros who can of course pressure him. But you can't overly commit to anything because LB threatens with a shove or a high damage parry punish. Conq doesn't bash people to death at high level play. He out turtles them. And BP's bash has no range or tracking and his zone is too slow to use even semi frequently.
Goki being op in 4's? Thought we were talking about duels. So I won't comment on that.
It's common knowledge that HL either spanks or get spanks. There is no inbetween. Either you can make his offensive form a joke and thus HL a joke. Or you can't and thus HL makes you a joke.
