Junior Member
Having played For Honor for quite some time now, I'm beginning to notice the trend with how the developers attempt to "balance" heroes that are mechanically weak in comparison to other heroes. Instead of putting together a perfectly balanced moveset, they just swap times whenever one hero gets to be super OP as opposed to the others. Honestly, the first real good hero rework that I have seen in a while is lawbringer. I do see quite a bit more lawbringers out there now, but none of them are winning 100% of the time. Their combos simply got more versatile and more usable rather than being so linear, and the damages were not buffed up too much. That was a good, solid rework, to the point where now lawbringer is a healthy competitor in any match. However, Shugoki simply got buffed so incredibly much that he's just way too strong, almost as a way to compensate for his rather weak moveset from before. However, it was an overcompensation. I have seen multiple games where the entire team will simply go Shugoki, and they're able to just spam everything in gang up fights that kills everyone. Even when combatant numbers are equivalent, it's still in favor of the shugokis because their charged up heavies have the widest damage arc I have ever seen. Countless times I get damaged by a shugoki's charged heavy before he even swings it just because of how wide it is. Also, the varied timing as to when he can either soft feint into a tracking hug or release the charged attack? It's way too much. I'm not talking about non-charged heavy vs. charged heavy variable timing, I'm talking about after his heavy is charged enough to have unblockable status, he can still vary on the time he releases afterwards, there's no consistency to it, and once he does, the attack is already there before you even get a chance to try to parry, or you already lost it because it looked like he would go for a hug instead. Either way, shugoki punishes you because the charged heavy will just simply track you if you dodge.
This is no different for the introduction of new characters too. Vortiger's shield bash spam was absolutely nuts (and still kinda is) when he first came out. Hitokiri has hyper armor, tracking, varied charged attack release timing like shugoki, and super super fast lights that do way too much damage. I get it, they're new heroes, and you want people to try them out, but honestly it just gets quite annoying and it really drives off people who don't have the money to buy those heroes, or don't like their play styles, and doesn't give them much motivation to really play this game anymore. Skill is no longer a factor to winning a match anymore, people can just spam the cheesiest characters and win in the cheesiest manners. It's really quite discouraging when at the end of the game no matter how well you played, if you got ganged countless times by super overpowered characters, you're still going to score terribly. The grind is just too much and the player is not reward enough for his efforts.
I think that a new approach really needs to be taken. The development team knows how to make a good, well-balanced character. Lawbringer is really good as long as you have a good knowledge of him and of the game. He is viable, but not overpowered, and at the end of the day, I never see anyone complain about him. Yet, in almost every other match, I always see someone complain about hitokiri, shugoki, shaman, berserker, and other characters who simply are not balanced well. Heck, when Jiang Jun was released, I was actually surprised at just how many people would complain about him constantly being super OP, and the development team did nerf him down. Now, he's honestly at a point where he really isn't *that* OP anymore. I don't think he's perfect personally, but he's not insane. Shugoki and hitokiri right now are absolutely insane, and need a nerf. I really hope the approach changes soon, because it's really just frustrating to play online matches anymore. Almost all the time now I'm facing 2 to 3 shugokis or hitokiris on the other team in one match, and they're always ganging on everyone. It just doesn't make for good, competitive play. Here's my breakdown about the two heroes:
Shugoki
- Varied-Timing on Charged Heavy Release | Shugoki, after getting unblockable status on his heavy, has the ability to change up when he releases that, or when he soft feints it into a hug. The window for when one can safely parry is ludicrously small, considering the hyper armor on shugoki for everything, including the hug. It makes it so that there's almost no way to avoid getting punished by shugoki when he starts that, which is why all shugokis spam this to no end.
- Hyper-armor on the beginning of the hug. | The hug does massive damage and gives health back to the shugoki, as well as allow his teammates to wallop on the target. It honestly should not be as safe and risk-free of a move as it is. Not only does it have hyper armor, but it also tracks, so even if you dodge, there's no guarantee he'll miss. On top of that, if you get hit, especially by ganging shugokis, after the hug damage is dealt, then you pretty much get your entire health bar depleted in 2 or 3 hits, making it impossible for you to fight or to activate revenge, as you are stuck in animation. Seriously, I have friends who have told me that the reason they play Shugoki is because he is effortless.
- Extremely long/wide range on heavies and the hug. | This is just absurd. His range is so wide that I could be standing 5 feet away on his side and I'd still get hit by his swing, sometimes even before he starts the actual swing. It's insane, especially considering how much damage it does. That needs to be reduced. He also has an insanely long reach for his hug, where some shugokis have jolted forward 20 feet to catch me up in a hug. It's insane how little risk there is in playing shugoki, and all that hyper armor just encourages that.
- Tracking | Shugoki has an insane amount of tracking. It almost doesn't matter when shugoki releases his attacks, they almost always just track the target.
Hitokiri
- Varied-Timing on Charged Heavy Release | Like Shugoki, Hitokiri can feint her heavy or release literally at any split second that she wants to, and immediately follow up with some other move that almost always guarantees a punish.
- Lights are WAAAAY too strong | Hitokiri has some of the fastest lights in a game (and she's considered a heavy class?) and she does 18 damage with every single light. I've seen a lot of hitokiri that honestly just keep spamming their lights to win, and it works. There's no risk and no skill to be able to do it, it's the safest move that she can do.
- Fourth feat recharge rate | I don't have a problem with the feat itself, however the feat does recharge rather quickly, even in online matches. Hitokiri use it so often that it's insane.
- Hyper armor | She has too much hyper armor, some of it somewhere needs to be removed. Preferably off of charged heavies.
- Tracking. | Like Shugoki, Hitokiri can track her attacks like crazy, and it's honestly just absurd. It really makes her hard to fight, especially for assassins who rely on dodge ability.
I honestly do hope that changes like these are implemented to make heroes more balanced. It's not a good mixture when you have some heroes who have good and bad aspects, but then others with just amazing aspects and very few, if any bad aspects. I enjoy playing For Honor but it gets really hard to enjoy a game of dominion when I have to face so many shugokis and hitokiris in one match, especially when an entire team is shugoki. My clan currently is active in For Honor and hopes to recommend it to other people, but that's going to get harder to do when the balance isn't there.
Member
Junior Member
Vortiger's shield bash needs to get nerfed a little bit still, sure, I can give you that, even though it was already nerfed once. However, Hitokiri is not just fine, because he does not fit his class type. He is a heavy. Heavies do not have extremely fast lights that do ridiculous damage. Every hitokiri light does 18 damage, however they are faster than most vanguard lights, all heavy lights, and most hybrid lights. As a matter of fact, the warden's side lights are way slower, but do way less damage. Only his top light is as fast, but the damage doesn't come anywhere close. And, again, he has hyper armor on the light finisher, which is absurd. There is only one drawback to hitokiri - his range. It is very limited. Now, if they wanted to nerf those OP things I listed and swap them out with more range, I'd personally be 100% fine with that because I think Hitokiri's range is a bit short at the moment. However, he is most certainly not balanced right now.
Kobi Blade, just because he's extremely slow and can't combo to infinity and beyond doesn't matter. He has super tracking on all of his central moves, and the variable timing, even after his heavies reach unblockable status, is ludicrous. If you try to parry, he can just soft feint immediately into a hug, and you're trapped. If you decide to wait to dodge the hug, it's going to be too late for you to parry or to dodge the heavy swing, because he'll just end up hitting you. Also, uhm, what are you talking about? Shugoki does not have to be super close lol he has incredible range, especially in terms of width lol.
Member
You clearly never played as Shugoki, his attacks don't have any superior tracking, what he has is wide attacks (and that is only the unblockable hits), his normal combo has no reach nor wide attacks whasoever.Originally Posted by Tasmann44 Go to original post
Are you seriously being grabbed by Shugoki? I rarely see a player being grabbed by Shugoki due to how easy it is to avoid. Please stop talking nonsense of Shugoki, which has gotten little to no love from the developers compared to other heavies.
If you think he has reach, boy you in a for a surprise, he has the lowest reach of all the Samurai (and he balances it out, by having a wide attacks). Not to mention he is as slow as a snail in all of his attacks (which again, is balanced out in his damage), I suggest you learn to play against Shugoki (or play as Shugoki yourself to learn his quirks) before coming on the forums saying he is OP.
Last thing I need is for Shugoki to be even weaker on top of being more boring to play. He is already as barebones as it can get, not to mention extremely easy to kill with fast and high reach characters like Aramusha.
Without his current toolset he is as good as dead against high reach and fast characters, of course you didn't think of that, you just want an easier game not a balanced game (were everyone has a chance).
Junior Member
I have already played Shugoki my friend, and I managed to pull off the same nonsense that I described is wrong with him when I was playing as him. Literally everyone gets caught by the shugoki hugs my friend lol. Unless you're one of those "I ONLY DUEL" people, you're going to get hugged lol. The same stuff that I complained about is the same stuff that I've also been able to reproduce in matches when I just play shugoki for the lols. He's OP, bugged, and needs fixing. I'm not saying remove his moveset, it's a good concept, but the implementation is terrible. He should not be able to have variable release time after his attack has already gotten charged to unblockable status, and he should not be able to soft feint to his hug immediately from that either. If he plans to soft feint into a hug, it needs to be before his heavy can become unblockable. An easy fix to this is to make it so that unblockable status is only reached in the later part of the swing rather than so early in the charge up.
Member
Why shouldn't he? When his combos are extremely limited? As if he wasn't predictable enough already.Originally Posted by Tasmann44 Go to original post
Not to mention most of those complains aren't exclusive to Shugoki, it can be done with the majorly of the cast, so you just looking to make Shugoki useless in comparison to the rest of the heroes.
