I think shinobi needs his backflip reverting and hyperarmour putting back on his kick | Forums

[Knight_Raime]

I find it funny how much you believe yourself to be true, somebody has a counter point, they play the game or character wrong. "Free easy damage" oh like all 3 of the new season characters? You wanna list all the armored easy damage characters get right now? The armor gave him a damage option and set him up for mix aside from just using it for a counter attack, your gonna ca a light? Someone faints a heavy smacks you out of kick? 100% safe he says... Lol. Armored kick, trade, setup for a heavy or a bicycle kick, or a gb if they try to dodge either. Aka pressure. He's never relied on his charged ranged heavy or gb for anything other than a punish. He's a counter attack character and the armored kick gave him options other than running tf away. Simple as.

Nothing you said when you quoted me was a counter point. Counter points disprove something. You were making false claims. I will apologize for my original attitude.
As for the "wrong" way to play comment i'll explain it.

Shinobi didn't start with armor on the kick. The devs never designed the hero to be someone who trades. And if they wanted him trading as a style they wouldn't have totally removed it from his kit. So the style of letting people hit you for free insane damage was indeed the "wrong" way to play the hero. I could also site how he's played optimally to even further prove my point. But it's not really needed.

Yes it's safe. Because after the kick whiffs you hold heavy which puts you into a charge attack state. If someone attempts to parry on that indicator with light timing you parry them. If it was on any other timing you can dodge out of the charged heavy and deflect theirs. If they feint their heavy you can feint yours. If they feint to GB you can feint to CGB. It's his charged heavy option select. Which is notorious and one of the main reasons why he's extremely disliked in the competitive community.

I'm 100% aware of what his armor used to allow him to do. It's irrelevant when that's not how you play him optimally. His playstyle hasn't changed with the removal of armor because of that. I sympathize with the fact that people have one less way to play as him now. At the same time I don't promote keeping it or asking for it back because it was unhealthy. His current style is also unhealthy. But because it's much more inline with the "Identity" the devs created for him it's likely not going to change much in the future if they revisit him. Same thing with LB. He's always been built around parrying. The devs made his parrying game much better despite that being extremely unhealthy and unfun to fight against.

[We.the.North]

The kick has always and still works as a counter attack to a committed to move. All the armor did was allow you to trade.

Shinobi didn't start with armor on the kick. The devs never designed the hero to be someone who trades. And if they wanted him trading as a style they wouldn't have totally removed it from his kit.

Hre are my thoughts on those 2 points I cherry picked :

First, you say Shinobi's kick didn't have hyper armor at release. This is true.
Second, you say the kick still works as a counter attacks, this is mostly true... but it gets worst and worst and here's why.

Since season 4ish, characters are getting reworks after reworks and in each of them, they get new attack chains and/or faster attacks. As a result, Shinobi players start seeing weird timing appears. The worst one is probably the fact when the Shinobi dodge kick his opponent attacks, some opponent have chains so fast they will actually hit their 2nd attack before the Shinobi kick lands. Thus, Shinobi is the ONLY dodge attacker in the game not able to punish with his dodge attack against certain opponents because his dodge attack kick is that slow.

Shinobi suffers from a very big game design flaw right now. A lot of stuff the character do to punish your opponent will work on some characters and will not work on others who seems to be doing the exact same thing !! As a result, you need a massive knowledge of every damn character in the game to know what you can and can't punish with the exact same situation. Here are some exemples :

Exemple #1 : You can ranged GB a Shugoki / Warden / Warlord / etc. if you whiff a light attack into a backflip. You can't do it against a Conqueror / Kensei / Berserker / Aramusha, etc. Depending on the opponent's class falling for the exact same "trap", on some cases the Shinobi punishes ; on other cases, the Shinobi gets punished.

Exemple #2 : You can ranged GB your opponent after they perform a dodge attack while he's in recovery. But the animation of certain characters' dodge attack makes it impossible to land the ranged GB before the end of their recovery frames. You can land that ranged GB against PK / Raider / etc.. You can't do it against Gladiator / Shaman / Berserker / etc. Again, depending on the opponent's class, on some cases the Shinobi punishes ; on other cases, the Shinobi gets punished.

Exemple #3 : You can ranged GB certain characters against their bash (or the follow up). It works against Warlord / Warden / Ulda / etc. It doesn't work against Lawbringer / Kensei / etc. Again, depending on the opponent's class, on some cases the Shinobi punishes ; on other cases, the Shinobi gets punished.

Those exemple are taken from my personnal experience playing many, many 4v4 Dominion games, playing a Shinobi who comes to help gank for their teamate looking for that juicy opening for the sickle rain combo. After 70 reputation level, I got a lot of people telling me they enjoy playing with me because I'm a team player.(while other players are just toxic towards Shinobis in general) ... but far too often, I do see other Shinobi whiffing their ranged GB, which only ends up feeding the opponent revenge and get their teamate killed. All that because they didn't know all the possible timing for successful ranged GB in the damn game ...

So, back to hyper armor on kick, the reason why Shinobi players needed it was to get a little more "standardized" punishes when dodging your opponent's attack. With Hyper armor, even against those annoying character able to land their 2nd attack before the kick lands, at least the Shinobi knew he can always punish an attack he successfully dodged by kick + ranged attacking. There is a reason why people say Shinobi is hard to master, you need to know the For Honor encyclopedia of what you can and can't punish because a Shinobi screwing up wil fall on the ground and get MASSIVELY punished for doing something he though would result in a win. With hyper armor on kick, you can worry a little less about what you can and can't do. Worst cast scenario, you get an unfavorable trade. Without hyperarmor ... well that's another move we need to learn every other character's move in the game and test is it works or if it doesn't work.

[Knight_Raime]

Hre are my thoughts on those 2 points I cherry picked :

First, you say Shinobi's kick didn't have hyper armor at release. This is true.
Second, you say the kick still works as a counter attacks, this is mostly true... but it gets worst and worst and here's why.

Since season 4ish, characters are getting reworks after reworks and in each of them, they get new attack chains and/or faster attacks. As a result, Shinobi players start seeing weird timing appears. The worst one is probably the fact when the Shinobi dodge kick his opponent attacks, some opponent have chains so fast they will actually hit their 2nd attack before the Shinobi kick lands. Thus, Shinobi is the ONLY dodge attacker in the game not able to punish with his dodge attack against certain opponents because his dodge attack kick is that slow.

Shinobi suffers from a very big game design flaw right now. A lot of stuff the character do to punish your opponent will work on some characters and will not work on others who seems to be doing the exact same thing !! As a result, you need a massive knowledge of every damn character in the game to know what you can and can't punish with the exact same situation. Here are some exemples :

Exemple #1 : You can ranged GB a Shugoki / Warden / Warlord / etc. if you whiff a light attack into a backflip. You can't do it against a Conqueror / Kensei / Berserker / Aramusha, etc. Depending on the opponent's class falling for the exact same "trap", on some cases the Shinobi punishes ; on other cases, the Shinobi gets punished.

Exemple #2 : You can ranged GB your opponent after they perform a dodge attack while he's in recovery. But the animation of certain characters' dodge attack makes it impossible to land the ranged GB before the end of their recovery frames. You can land that ranged GB against PK / Raider / etc.. You can't do it against Gladiator / Shaman / Berserker / etc. Again, depending on the opponent's class, on some cases the Shinobi punishes ; on other cases, the Shinobi gets punished.

Exemple #3 : You can ranged GB certain characters against their bash (or the follow up). It works against Warlord / Warden / Ulda / etc. It doesn't work against Lawbringer / Kensei / etc. Again, depending on the opponent's class, on some cases the Shinobi punishes ; on other cases, the Shinobi gets punished.

Those exemple are taken from my personnal experience playing many, many 4v4 Dominion games, playing a Shinobi who comes to help gank for their teamate looking for that juicy opening for the sickle rain combo. After 70 reputation level, I got a lot of people telling me they enjoy playing with me because I'm a team player.(while other players are just toxic towards Shinobis in general) ... but far too often, I do see other Shinobi whiffing their ranged GB, which only ends up feeding the opponent revenge and get their teamate killed. All that because they didn't know all the possible timing for successful ranged GB in the damn game ...

So, back to hyper armor on kick, the reason why Shinobi players needed it was to get a little more "standardized" punishes when dodging your opponent's attack. With Hyper armor, even against those annoying character able to land their 2nd attack before the kick lands, at least the Shinobi knew he can always punish an attack he successfully dodged by kick + ranged attacking. There is a reason why people say Shinobi is hard to master, you need to know the For Honor encyclopedia of what you can and can't punish because a Shinobi screwing up wil fall on the ground and get MASSIVELY punished for doing something he though would result in a win. With hyper armor on kick, you can worry a little less about what you can and can't do. Worst cast scenario, you get an unfavorable trade. Without hyperarmor ... well that's another move we need to learn every other character's move in the game and test is it works or if it doesn't work.

Would it help my argument if I stated that it was only a decent counter attack tool? I know it's not a consistent one and that's primarily because it comes from double dodge. Meaning to consistently punish certain mix ups you need to attempt in advance. I will say from the arguments i've seen so far about "Shin bad gib up vote" that your perspective on the consistency aspect is probably the argument I like the most.

As for match up knowledge Highlander and Shinobi are both super heavy when it comes to knowing what works with what and what counters you. Granted there is match up knowledge to learn for all heros. But it's for lack of a better term more blatent/obvious with these two heros.


However, My argument still stands. Shinobi is still strong if you play him optimally and the removal of armor in his kit doesn't vastly effect that. To solve the issue of consistency i'd rather see Shinobi get single dodge attacks to go along side his double dodge mix ups than have him have armor. Even if it did have some "good" aspects to it I think it does more harm than good to keep it in.

[We.the.North]

However, My argument still stands. Shinobi is still strong if you play him optimally and the removal of armor in his kit doesn't vastly effect that. To solve the issue of consistency i'd rather see Shinobi get single dodge attacks to go along side his double dodge mix ups than have him have armor. Even if it did have some "good" aspects to it I think it does more harm than good to keep it in.

I agree 100 %. I still get good scores in Dominion despite the hyper armor removal, but I do see one occasion about every 3 match where I die due to lack of hyper armor on a kick where I would have gotten the kill instead with the hyper armor.

You suggestion is one I often voiced in the past and I would gladly accept it as a middle ground. I dont understand why Shinobi needs to double dodge before all his counter attack. It's stamina intensive (which Shinobi has too little of in my opinion) and creates weird timing because the counter attack is slowed down by the need to double dodge.

If you give Shinobi better double dodge punish timing by adding also a single dodge punish timing ... it would be a middle ground I'd gladly accept.

I would also like to see the doudble dodge (or single dodge) kick deal hp and stamina damage by removing the need to throw a ranged heavy afterward. The ranged GB option after a kick is rarely used because it's counterable and with all the ganks going on in Dominion, I rarely rolling in after a kick ranged attack. I would rather have the kick deal hp and stam damage, remove the option to roll in after the kick ranged attack, but allow the Shinobi to roll in after one of his ranged attack is blocked. People often complain Shinobi stay too often on the sidelines ... allow him to roll in after a blocked ranged attack and I garantee you, more Shinobi will get into melee range.

[Sweaty_Sock]

There were 2 types of Shinobi player, whole kit and those who relied entirely on kick/back flip, rinse repeat.

The former players are still wrecking face and just adapted to include the changes, the latter refuse to accept that a cheap crutch move was fixed and the character overall put in a good place

[Lord_Cherubi]

My 2 cents on this:

I really appreciate the fact that they tried to create a unique character with all the ranged mechanics. And thats why its a bit sad that the ranged gameplay is by far the weakest aspect of his kit, useless in 1v1 and very annoying in ganks/teamfights.

His kit is designed so badly that most of tge Shino players are forced to use hit n run "tactics", other than that he has absolutely nothing that the other heroes dont. Ever tried to play vs a Shino as Shugoki? I have, countless of times and its like chasing a ****in cricket. He just wont stop, he can choose whether he wants to fight you or not and thats absolute ********.

[IAlphaGamerI]

As pointed out earlier, Shinobi players need to learn the perfect punish for every single hero on their missed attack/recovery periods. One of the most frustrating things about not having hyper armour on kick is just that the attack itself is so vulnerable to characters with fast light attacks/light attacks in chains and bash dependant characters (Jormungandr has been my bane recently).

With how the backflip works now you can't for example: Whiff an attack against a conqueror, where when he goes for a shield bash and you backflip, if you try to ranged gb him when you finish the backflip it will simply just phase right through him. He doesn't get the option to counter it, nor does it land, it just goes right through him and he can get a big punish on you afterwards. A lot of the time as well when you whiff an attack to try and see if they'll fall for it, they'll throw an attack just after I backflip, with the attack tracking me due to laughable distance of the flip.

After the recent changes, I've basically just dropped 75% of his kit as I find it far too vulnerable and solely rely on deflects/quad dash kick. Whereas I mostly only deflect light attacks which isn't really that special as you can parry someone and get a similar damage value at a lower risk of taking damage yourself.

If you try to open up a defensive character as a Shinobi now:
Startig any light attack chains = Get parried
Trying to feint a heavy to go for a deflect = Doesn't work, they're not stupid
Whiff to try and go for a ranged gb = Nothing. They don't even startup an attack and feint it, since they already know what I'm going for.
Only thing that'll work most of the time is quad dash and kick, but that drains over half my stamina meaning I'll have to stay on the defensive for a couple of seconds after that. But if I'm fighting against a Jormungandr, then I'll never regain my stamina, as the gut punch has surprisingly amazing tracking against dodges, I've had instances where I've dodged a gut punch but Jorm tracked me turning 90 degrees around him and still hit me.

[IAlphaGamerI]

Oh and don't get me started on how vulnerable Shinobi is to guardbreaks... I've gotten guardbroken so many times during the startup of my backflip that it's not even funny. It's already bad enough how characters can gb you out of a double dodge even if you're 50 feet away from them

[TheUberDome]

I love how ubisoft refuses to acknowledge how much they ****ed over shinobi, and knowing how slow they are with balancing, it frustrates me that this is the state they left shinobi at.

[Hormly]

I love how ubisoft refuses to acknowledge how much they ****ed over shinobi, and knowing how slow they are with balancing, it frustrates me that this is the state they left shinobi at.

Shinobi is now in "the bin" along with PK, WL and cent

Welcome, and don't expect another balance patch for at least the next 12 months