Bringing Zhanhu up a level | Forums

[Knight_Raime]

This (hopefully) is a start of a series of threads I wish to make based around a theme. I want to as a whole improve chain based offense on a character by character basis. Ubi has already started this process from a general level sense. But We've seen even from TG changes that heros like Orochi were still lack luster despite attacks landing more often. Improving chain based offense also has the goal to pull us away from the edge on over tuning a character's gimmick. and relying a lot on guaranteed damage. I am going to start this off by trying to rid the game of as many "2 hit heros" as possible. In my opinion outside of very few heros everyone should either have most/all 3 hit combos OR an infinite. I'm going to first look at the year 3 heros and then go from there.


With the explanation out of the way i'm tackling Zhanhu first. I'm not going to go into detail on his issues because most people should be aware of them by now. But if someone needs me to explain i'd be happy to answer in greater detail in a comment reply. But to briefly summarize Zhanhu is touted as a "limitless" hero. But his kit was vastly under sold. His main gimmick of being able to dodge and attack for seemingly forever has a bunch of limitations and downsides preventing this to happen. His unblockable mix up while not the main focus of his kit still underperforms compared to a vast majority of other UB mix ups. There are other problems but these are the main two.



mechanical changes:

~Zhanhu's dodge heavies are considered the second hit in a chain. This includes the dodge heavy input.
~Side dodge heavy input is now enhanced.
~Dodge forward light is now enhanced.
~Zhanhu's new mid chain lights are enhanced.
~Zhanhu's mid chain heavies have a soft feint.
~Zhanhu has access to all forms of 3 hit combos.
~Zhanhu's zone counts as a second hit in a chain.
~Heavie's earned from a GB are a second hit in chain.
~Zhanhu can now dodge out of his unblockable heavy.
~Zhanhu's grasping palm (deflect) now guarantees a light finisher. Can still chain into zone and heavy finisher.
~Zhanhu's zone is 100ms faster when used as a chain link (i.e not from neutral.)


New ish stuff:

~Zhanhu's mid chain and opening heavies can be soft feinted into grasping palm. It behaves the same as the deflect version.
~Zhanhu gets a new soft feint for his unblockable heavy. An unblockable light that's faster than the standard UB light input. Comes from the opposite side of his zone.


QoL adjustments:

~All dodge cancel recovery times are standardized to 300ms.
~Parrying his side dodge attacks now consistently net a heavy parry punish.
~slightly increased his side dodge attacks range to compensate for people back dashing it all.
~Adjusted the hitbox of his right side unblockable heavy to match his left side.
~Side dodge attacks can be input from 200-400ms into the dodge.
~Buffed recoveries on his finishers so they are not a free reaction GB externally in a team fight.
~Zone stamina cost reduced from 50 to 30.
~UB heavy is now 100ms faster.



Pulling it all together:

One thing you might have noticed right off the bat is that I didn't give Zhanhu the ability to dodge cancel any additional recoveries. I did this because I'm massively buffing how often he's capable of keeping in theme with the "death by a thousand paper cuts." He's supposed to be able to dodge cancel and attack a lot more. but also have access to chains so he's not looking to get random GBed whenever he doesn't just go straight for his finishers. I wanted to improve his UB mix up. But it makes more sense to me to keep that as an ending point. So I buffed it's mix up capability a little bit to make it more worth while to go for. But if he commits to using a finisher he has to start from neutral again.

Hopefully the addition of the 3 hit chains also means Zhanhu isn't pigeonholed into using his zone as his only combo extender. I slapped in a lot of enhanced properties for one specific reason. If Zhanhu is to actually keep in theme with dodging a lot he's going to need to be able to actually get into his chains when he chooses to dodge cancel. That being said I don't want him to ignore guard state entirely. This is why his side dodge lights still bounce. They already attempt to deceive you via coming from the opposite direction of the dodge. And when you combine that with the side dodge heavy input it makes the mix up better. This might seem like it means people would only dodge heavy. But That would make him too predictable. And thus parried more. Dodge lights also do not count towards being mid chain. meaning they can easily follow up with an enhanced light if they wanted to go the light>light route to get to the finishers.

I avoided giving numbers for his grasping palm and his new soft feint light because i'm not sure what to put for either yet. Same with adjusting damage values. If anything was confusing or you have a concern please do write a comment in a polite fashion and I can try to help. The next hero I will be tackling after this one (if I don't need to make major revisions to this thread) will be Jorge. As always thank you for reading.

[AR-NewRecruit]

An excellent direction for Zhanhu! Overall, only a few things I'd prefer otherwise, such as Subduing Counterblow (deflect) dealing Fire Damage and other tidbit nitpicks. However, and while I understand the preference for this, I'd cut the 3-Part chains entirely. To me, at least, the Finishers are a solid basis for Zhan's offense with their dodge attacks being an extension of it; dodge cancel recoveries are sufficient to build on that level they could've been at in the beginning. I do see the potential in 3-Part chains, heck, I'd like to see a few things mentioned carried over to Kensei. But I'd argue it's more straightforward and just as effective to focus on the finishers, which strengthens the core of Zhanhu rather than muddle it a bit with other aspects IMO.

[Knight_Raime]

An excellent direction for Zhanhu! Overall, only a few things I'd prefer otherwise, such as Subduing Counterblow (deflect) dealing Fire Damage and other tidbit nitpicks. However, and while I understand the preference for this, I'd cut the 3-Part chains entirely. To me, at least, the Finishers are a solid basis for Zhan's offense with their dodge attacks being an extension of it; dodge cancel recoveries are sufficient to build on that level they could've been at in the beginning. I do see the potential in 3-Part chains, heck, I'd like to see a few things mentioned carried over to Kensei. But I'd argue it's more straightforward and just as effective to focus on the finishers, which strengthens the core of Zhanhu rather than muddle it a bit with other aspects IMO.

The idea of his deflect doing fire damage to help bolster his feat isn't a new one. I'm not inherently against it. But I just have a hard time seeing Ubi add another DoT effect to a hero that's not bleed.

I'll have to disagree about his finishers. I do think that it's meant to be his strongest part of his kit offensively. But I don't think the kit focuses on it as much. To me it feels like Zhanhu was supposed to be canceling his recoveries often and hucking out a bunch of attacks before going for the UB mix up. I feel like if they wanted to incorperate that sort of style they'd need to remove his dodge cancel recovery restrictions entirely. Allowing him to dodge cancel the recoveries from his finishers. And able to cancel the recoveries of his finishers and zone with attacks.

Granted, I did initially think of buffing him this way when he was still relatively new. However, I no longer like that kind of idea of Zhanhu. Because ultimately the problem of crutching on his gimmick would still exist. Perhaps I didn't word myself properly so i'll attempt again.

In for honor we currently and always have had heros that overly rely on their gimmick in order to be viable. For warden this was his chargable bash. For Centurion this was his cutscene. For Zhanhu it's his UB finishers. There's nothing wrong with kits having a gimmick. it's what makes them appealing for someone who doesn't play the hero. It's what sets them apart from other heros. But not all gimmicks are created equal. And because not every gimmick is at a mostly equal level this creates disparity in hero picks. Which isn't a good thing.

Then we fast forward to semi recently where we had the Testing Grounds changes. Where the devs overall goal was to improve chain based offense at a fundemental level. And while this went very VERY well it was pretty apparent that it didn't "fix" weaker heros. Orochi and Nobushi are two clear underperforming characters. And while both were not only landing more attacks than they used to and seeing more success on TG than on live they still were not great. Their kit's problems still existed. They could just get away with throwing attacks more now.

And this is where my thread comes in. My goal is to try and pull us away from overly relying on one strong aspect about a kit. Part of that comes from physically giving more things to the kit (i.e 3 hit chains,) but another comes from the idea of marrying the kit's gimmick or stand alone tools into the chains themselves. The best example I can give of a hero that manages to do this almost perfectly is Black prior.

As far as Zhanhu goes I actually based this particular concept off of a question Insulin gave me in my first rework thread about him. Which was something along the lines of what did I think was more important to his kit? His dodges and dodge based offense? Or stronger finishers/mix up potential? And that's how we're here. It certainly wouldn't Zhanhu to drastically improve his UB finishers. However, Zhanhu is a mostly unique hero largely impart to his dodge cancels and what they are tied to. Which is why I focused more on building off of those. Rather than pouring more attention onto his finishers.


Hopefully this explains things a bit better. I thank you for reading my post's entirety and leaving respectful and clear feedback even if we don't agree on everything.

[Sweaty_Sock]

Its a good group of suggestions but just to run contrary (shocked gasps im sure) -for me the defining feature was less on the dodges (the wulin have that covered with a kensai in reserve) the unique aspect was unblockable lights and a near 50/50 direction on dodge.

For me i'd like to see the lights played up more, would be cool if all lights had a 'charged' timing, adding 200 ms to the attack, turning it into a heavy (for chain/parry/execute purposes, and make both dodge attacks follow the light/heavy option) and have something more unique.
,
Would be fun to have a light based champ that can mess with animation twitch reflex parries

[AR-NewRecruit]

The idea of his deflect doing fire damage to help bolster his feat isn't a new one. I'm not inherently against it. But I just have a hard time seeing Ubi add another DoT effect to a hero that's not bleed.

Oh, for sure it's neither creative nor my own idea, I just like the Fire Bender shtick since it's so heavily emphasized (regardless of the feat synergy). Nothing but a simple fun flair that fits, even if Ubi is reluctant on a DoT effect that isn't bleed.

I'll have to disagree about his finishers. I do think that it's meant to be his strongest part of his kit offensively. But I don't think the kit focuses on it as much. To me it feels like Zhanhu was supposed to be canceling his recoveries often and hucking out a bunch of attacks before going for the UB mix up. I feel like if they wanted to incorperate that sort of style they'd need to remove his dodge cancel recovery restrictions entirely. Allowing him to dodge cancel the recoveries from his finishers. And able to cancel the recoveries of his finishers and zone with attacks.

Granted, I did initially think of buffing him this way when he was still relatively new. However, I no longer like that kind of idea of Zhanhu. Because ultimately the problem of crutching on his gimmick would still exist. Perhaps I didn't word myself properly so i'll attempt again...

... Hopefully this explains things a bit better. I thank you for reading my post's entirety and leaving respectful and clear feedback even if we don't agree on everything.

Plenty to unpack, but I'm cutting things down for the sake of clarity and brevity.

You're correct, Zhanhu's kit doesn't focus on the finishers primarily, much like you say, "supposed to be canceling his recoveries often and hucking out a bunch of attacks before going for the UB mix up." But that's why I want to retweak that basis altogether a bit; both the recovery cancels and UBKs flowing seamlessly together is a straightforward yet suitable change for Zhan, which is a massive missed opportunity not to build on. While I understand we'd want to avoid overly reliant "gimmicks" such as Warden's Shoulder? Making everything in the hero's kit link together into a gimmick (while being practical and fun) is a well-designed hero, such as BP. That's not to say this is the only way, to be frank, I can very much see Ubi refusing to head in this direction. And if we get to that point? Your rework is one of the better foundations.

Perhaps I should elaborate that I've a bias towards subtractive design, less = more, only when executed well mind you. But it's hard to convince me otherwise on marrying current mechanics that enhance the core fundamentals, rather than physically adding more, such as new chains, new moves, and all that "stuff" people always want for their rework posts. Typically, I'm against bloat and am not totally remiss from things that are a worthwhile inclusion, but I do think specific changes such as 3-Part chains tend to muddle more than benefit, but that is simply my viewpoint. In the end, I disagree with (some of) your direction because I think it's possible to accomplish the goal of marrying the chain offense with the Finishers, but it's excellent either way. To put it simply, if I was stuck with these changes being the final iteration of Zhanhu? I'd still be more than happy, especially compared to what we got currently.

[Knight_Raime]

Its a good group of suggestions but just to run contrary (shocked gasps im sure) -for me the defining feature was less on the dodges (the wulin have that covered with a kensai in reserve) the unique aspect was unblockable lights and a near 50/50 direction on dodge.

For me i'd like to see the lights played up more, would be cool if all lights had a 'charged' timing, adding 200 ms to the attack, turning it into a heavy (for chain/parry/execute purposes, and make both dodge attacks follow the light/heavy option) and have something more unique.
,
Would be fun to have a light based champ that can mess with animation twitch reflex parries

I mean his unblockable light and his "mix up" with side dodges is pretty unique. So you're not wrong for feeling like that. I'm not against the idea of turning attacks properties via charging. it's a suggestion i've seen before. (personally I myself have thought this might work for orochi's back dash light.) However I think adding some sort of charge mechanic to Zhanhu would slow his gameplay down a bit too much for my liking. Your idea of messing with people's parry timings can be achieved via adding a soft feint UB light from his UB heavy like i'd suggested. Unsure if you missed that part.

[Knight_Raime]

Plenty to unpack, but I'm cutting things down for the sake of clarity and brevity.

You're correct, Zhanhu's kit doesn't focus on the finishers primarily, much like you say, "supposed to be canceling his recoveries often and hucking out a bunch of attacks before going for the UB mix up." But that's why I want to retweak that basis altogether a bit; both the recovery cancels and UBKs flowing seamlessly together is a straightforward yet suitable change for Zhan, which is a massive missed opportunity not to build on. While I understand we'd want to avoid overly reliant "gimmicks" such as Warden's Shoulder? Making everything in the hero's kit link together into a gimmick (while being practical and fun) is a well-designed hero, such as BP. That's not to say this is the only way, to be frank, I can very much see Ubi refusing to head in this direction. And if we get to that point? Your rework is one of the better foundations.

Perhaps I should elaborate that I've a bias towards subtractive design, less = more, only when executed well mind you. But it's hard to convince me otherwise on marrying current mechanics that enhance the core fundamentals, rather than physically adding more, such as new chains, new moves, and all that "stuff" people always want for their rework posts. Typically, I'm against bloat and am not totally remiss from things that are a worthwhile inclusion, but I do think specific changes such as 3-Part chains tend to muddle more than benefit, but that is simply my viewpoint. In the end, I disagree with (some of) your direction because I think it's possible to accomplish the goal of marrying the chain offense with the Finishers, but it's excellent either way. To put it simply, if I was stuck with these changes being the final iteration of Zhanhu? I'd still be more than happy, especially compared to what we got currently.

I get where you're coming from. And I agree that simplicity is nice, it's also a big thing for the devs. They try to make things as straight forward as possible with their hero designs. We've seen them attempt to create complex characters and it's usually not worked out (cent/shinobi come to mind.) And specifically for some reworks we've seen them trim down some of the more out there aspects of some kits, namely Goki and Valk. I'm personally torn here when it comes to Zhanhu.

On one hand I feel almost forced into using his UB mix up to get anywhere. This by itself isn't inherently a design problem. I don't have an issue playing as Hitokiri for example. Despite her literally just being charagable attacks the hero. I also get where the mindset of "spammy design" complaints come from. Even though Jorge's design of stamina bully is currently a problem it doesn't tick the box of annoyance for me when it comes to playing him. As i'm actively working towards a goal with his gameplay.

Zhanhu's design seems to just be..well empty. They have these recovery cancels to try and push you to attack constantly. But you're heavily punished for doing so. And it's not really feasible to be an aggressor against someone who has even passable levels of reactions. The unblockables seem to be pushed as his power. But also a definite end to his aggression. But it's not a very good powerful mix up. And even if you manage to land an attack to get to your mix up and even land said mix up the pay off doesn't feel great. And you can't really go anywhere else besides the mix up.


To come back to the beginning here I should attempt to once again restate something. The point of adding a 3 hit chain is to physically add more to the kit. So that one does not feel forced into doing the same gameplay related thing. I'm perfectly fine with dropping the idea of adding 3 hit combos on Zhanhu if we can somehow extend his kit some other way. I think he should be able to constantly recovery cancel to try and continue to risk for more damage as a viable way to play. And I think his UB mix up needs to be stronger to properly incentivise a player for going for that big play. We need to somehow marry these concepts together. Without making the hero feel overwhelming.

It's very clear to me that either the main concern (or one of the main concerns) was Zhanhu attacking forever. If we were to allow him to dodge cancel his finisher recoveries this would put him directly on that path. Even with heros who have infinite combos they often are given an end. And Zhanhu would not have one. Here is a revised suggestions list to buff his kit without the 3 hit combos. Please tell me what you think. And if you have any solutions of your own to help potentially avoid the problems i've tried to mention feel free to share:


Mechanical changes:

~Zanhu's forward dodge light is now enhanced.
~Zhanhu's Grasping palm now guarantees the unblockable light. Still chains into zone and UB heavy.
~Zhanhu can dodge out of his unblockable heavy.
~Zhanhu's zone is 100ms faster if used as a recovery cancel.
~Zhanhu can dodge out of UB light finisher recoveries.


Additions:

~Zhanhu gains a soft feint for his UB heavy. It is an unblockable light that comes from the opposite side of his zone. It is faster than the standard UB light.
~Zhanhu can link into Grasping palm after a dodge attack. Can chain off of whiff but said attacks are openers and not finishers.


QoL changes:

~Parrying his side dodge attacks are now consistently heavy parry punishes
~Zone costs 30 stamina down from 50.
~All dodge cancel recoveries are now 300ms.
~Fix the right UB side heavy hitbox to match left side.
~Side dodge attacks now have more range.
~UB heavy is 100ms faster.
~Side dodge attacks can now be input between 200-400ms of the attack.

[MrGrippz]

Easy fix for him, from a rep 64 Zhanhu...

Standardize his vulnerability to parry punishes on his side dodge attacks [light parry gets heavy, heavy parry gets light]

Decrease recovery timing by 100ms

Guarantee unblockable light off side dodge superior block to bash

Allow zone to be thrown from left or right instead of just right

All light dmg to 15 from 14

[Knight_Raime]

Easy fix for him, from a rep 64 Zhanhu...

Standardize his vulnerability to parry punishes on his side dodge attacks [light parry gets heavy, heavy parry gets light]

Decrease recovery timing by 100ms

Guarantee unblockable light off side dodge superior block to bash

Allow zone to be thrown from left or right instead of just right

All light dmg to 15 from 14

It's interesting you mention changing his zone's direction. I had actually tried to think of some way to include that.

[MCBooma16]

I like the general concept of Zhanhu. It's the concept of keeping a chain going through continuous dodge canceling into more attacks, as it requires different inputs compared to other characters and helps the character deviate with its own identity, much like how conq has to full block in order to feint, or how Shaolin or HL have to access different stances.

In theory it sounds neat, but we can see that it doesn't always work out in practice. I suppose he's good in this regard in 4's, as he's more mobile, but eh. It's not amazing for duels, and the pressure really comes from the unblockables. Something that's really good with Zhanhu is the variable side dodge attacks, which is versatile for 1v1s, and I honestly have to make a read on console. Bad thing is it can dodged on one timing...

When I go against people who can just react to it, I just dodge and wait to be out of the dodge animation before throwing a heavy, unto which throws them off and they eat the heavy damage.

I love the dodge recovery because it allows me to get those palm strike deflect-into-mixups if they decide to dodge attack.

But, I don't know. Unless you spam unblockable pressure it's hard to make other parts of the kit work, which is boring.
The zone is honestly slow, too slow. It isn't reliable, which is a shame because the hitbox is nice. It isn't useful as a part of a chain.

I wish the deflect actually guarenteed something, and I don't fully understand the reasoning behind it not. Sure it blinds, and can be a mixup, but against a competent opponent it isn't always going to get anything. I wish it were more special. His deflect should be awesome, and it only works some of the time.

Anyway, for some reason the character is only okay.

I think those changes would be nice. Anything to make the character more versatilile, and right now Zhanhu feels kinda clunky and lackluster.