Member
These heroes only need a few simple buffs to be viable against S tier heroes and high level players. I think they should get these buff suggestions:
Kensei:
1) Give his top heavy opener hyperarmor at the last 500 ms.
2) Make his light attacks 500 ms.
Reasons:
1)It is too easy to hit him out of his top heavy mixup. Kensei used to be known as the most balanced hero, but the new heroes and reworked heroes outclassed him. He needs this simple buff to be viable at high level again.
2) 600 ms light attacks are only free parry.
Highlander:
1) Give his kick enough tracking to hit the players who walk back.
2) Make his OS heavy soft feint into OS light work from every direction.
3) Make his defensive stance light attacks 500 ms.
4) Reduce the stamina cost of his OS lights to 20.
Reasons:
1) First of all, the kick into grab is not a real 50/50. If you dodge at the kick timing, you either get a free GB or roll the grab and reset the fight. If you decide to dodge at grab timing, you either get a free GB or get hit by the kick and take 40 damage. The chance it is countered with a GB is two times higher than the chance it deals 40 damage. Also, most heroes have some moves that can counter it without walking back. Even if the kick had more tracking, the kick into grab would still be much weaker than some unreactable moves from neutral (Warden SB, Conqueror SB, Zerker light attacks,...).
2) The OS heavy feint into OS light is the most useless move in the game. It should work from all directions to be less useless.
3) Nonfeintable 600 ms light are only free parry and should be 500 ms. The "crushing counter" is basically a hard to use parry punish in most situations, and it only works against a few specific moves. It is not an excuse to make his light attacks a free parry.
4) Highlander's OS lights are his only good offence in 1 vs 1 against good players. It needs less stamina cost because some much stronger unreactable moves cost approximately same or less amount of stamina.
Nobushi:
1) Make her HS kick 500 ms.
2) Make her light attacks 500 ms.
3) Remove the stamina regen delay after HS.
Reasons:
1) Nobushi has no way to attack a turtle.
2) 600 ms light attack are free parry.
3) HS already costs enough stamina. The stamina regen delay is unnecessary.
Senior Member
Kensei:
Yes all of his lights should be 500ms. But no to the armor. Kensei can already counter that by dash canceling into the attack for a free GB. (though i'm not sure this will be the case once they remove 0ms start up on superior block properties.) The problem with the mix up is that because you can option select him out of the mix up it makes said mix up limited in its use. The better fix is giving pommel a variable input. The devs are unlikely to do this because they for some reason don't like variable input soft feints (but it still exists on raider for whatever reason.) so if the devs are unwilling to do this then the next best fix would be to make the top heavy faster. This shortens up the mix up window but also makes it harder to option select.
Beyond those changes kensei's nature's wrath needs to be faster and given the undodgable property so it actually works as a roll catcher like it's supposed to be.
Highlander:
They are universalizing locked on walk speed which would fix the issue for highlander as well as other heros. considering you can use emote canceling to shorten ballors might animation and hide your guard switch direction there is no reason for giving that soft feint an omni directional input. I'd rather they further reduce the stamina cost of the OF light and also give it a bit more range instead. Making his lights 500ms are a good call as well. As good as these fixes are it won't change where he sits. Because his "viability" is entirely dependent on match ups. if he fights someone who has an easy out against his offensive form Highlander can't do anything. If he fights someone who doesn't then highlander always wins. So if these changes are meant to polish him that's fine. But if you're attempting to make him more viable than redesign is what has to happen.
Nobushi:
Agree with 500ms lights. kick being 500ms would either do nothing or make it extremely strong. She can already delay the input on kick rather well and she already has 2 different kick timings depending on what was used prior to the input of her kick. You also need to know that kick is capable of splatting. People know this means walls but it also means other players. She has some of the highest possible damage punishes because of this. So making the kick stronger/safer is a very questionable thing to do.
Removing her stamina pause would absolutely make the character busted. Hidden stance, dodge into hidden stance, and dodge out of hidden stance in combination make it REALLY difficult to punish her. Hidden stance by itself is incredibly strong because you can option select with it on top of CGB in it. In fact if you get Gbed in the start up of hidden stance and you CGB you don't even take the stamina pause penalty. Further more dodge into hidden stance or vise versa is basically giving you the window of I frames equivalent of dodge into unlock roll. Which is why it's so good at avoiding mix ups. And finally, hidden stancing remembers the guard direction you were last in and dodging out of it in the direction of your guard makes you guard in that direction instantly.
So say you are fighting berzerker and notice he attacks from your left a lot. you switch your guard in that direction and then hidden stance to avoid the follow up attack. Zerk notices this and tries to combo hit you from the left but you dodge out of hidden stance into the attack. You've blocked the comboed hit.
Nobushi is a very good very weird character. She would need a lot of adjustments to streamline her. I'm not against the idea of removing the stamina penalty. I want that to happen. But the devs will need to nerf hidden stance pretty hard for that to be a thing. Her damage numbers might even need adjusting. And they'ed need to find a way to buff her significantly in the offense department to compensate for how hard they'ed be hitting her.
Community Representative
Senior Member
To most players he's considered "the perfect" hero in terms of balance. But most are not aware of his flaws.Originally Posted by Ubiflowessence Go to original post
Being poor mid chain pressure, Natures wrath being a dead move, and his pommel mix up being a little weak.
He's basically favored because nothing is inherently spammy or oppressive about him other than maybe his dodge attack.
Member
You got good points. But i want to talk more about Nobushi. For Nobushi, i suggested to make only the Hidden Stance kick 500 ms while keeping the chained kicks 600 ms. Devs said that the dodge buff was "unintended" and it will be fixed. Without that dodge buff, 500 ms bashes are very hard to react. Making Nobushi's kick from Hidden Stance 500 ms would give her a good opener. As you said, spamming hidden stance and dodge without a stamina pause may be OP. But i still think the stamina pause after the hidden stance kick should be removed.Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
Btw, the purpose of these buffs is to make them viable at high level without big changes that would be hard to code.
Senior Member
Senior Member
I can only agree to buffing the speed on either kick if we reduce the damage she does overall via way of the shark. Both kicks afaik splat people. Which lets her hit in the 80-90's in terms of max punishes If her kick remains as flexible as is with splatting AND gets a speed buff she has to take a hit somewhere. The supposed changes I mentioned for Kensei would be better for that. And HL is already viable at high level play. These buffs would be nice QoL things. But they won't make him overall much better because of how his effectiveness is entirely match up reliant.Originally Posted by Liduras Go to original post
Swift recoil isn't really a dead move. it's just a niche one. The two situations you can use it in are at the end of someone's combo or when you're at the edge of your effective range but can still block a hit. In both cases you're looking to disengage. So you'd use that extra gap you just made and unlock roll to get away completely. If you're 100% aware of how someone plays you can technically use it more in an aggressive manner by using it at the end of someone's mix up. This allows you to keep the distance between Bushi and her opponent. Which is valuable against hero's with poor range. it lets you poke them in some manner if they try to be reckless when approaching you or trying to bait you.Originally Posted by rottmeister Go to original post
Senior Member
Tbh, didn't think about that, lol. It is very situational though, quite a few characters have unblockable chain finishers making it fairly impossible to use effectively. So yeah, it would come down to reads if you were to ever use it. I have made it work several times, but I could probably count it on one hand.Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
Senior Member
But all 3 characters are already viable?
Kensei zone gives a 500ms heavy... his other moves are nice mixups
Highlanders soft feint lights are to counter parry attempts or ppl trying to intercept you by interrupting your attacks
Nobu takes a unique mindset but is very, very good if used in her unique way
note to add: if every character has every option they'd all be in the JJ boat right now.
