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[Knight_Raime]

Spent sometime with Shinobi last night, I know what you're thinking. "Raime hates Shinobi's existence why is he playing him?" Answer is simple really. I felt like playing some fh (weird right?) and I wanted to play a hero that asks me to play differently. Currently only Shinobi and HL really ask you to play differently. "technically" Gryphon does too but I don't enjoy playing him and HL requires more intensive inputs than I care to do when i'm trying to relax.


ANYWAY, I have always understood that Shinobi has never really been in a great spot. I knew what made him unhealthy from a gameplay standpoint and I still stand by most of the nerfs he got. But I never really played him long enough to get a subjective feel for how it feels to play him. I learned quite a bit. For one you absolutely don't belong in minion lane. The chances of you hitting the target you want are slim at best due to minions and wonky hitboxes of his ranged attacks. Even if you manage a ranged GB minions just interrupt it. And because you might hit a minion you would roll in on the wrong target and thus take damage you wouldn't have taken.

Stealth is a mandatory feat for Shinobi to make escaping from outnumbered situations possible and you need to be spacing nearly perfectly to begin with. But Stealth also massively hurts your ranged capabilities to someone if they're using it. Shinobi can't do jack with someone in revenge. You can't interrupt them from range at all and you don't want to be near by because Dodging is shinobi's thing and it's never a good idea to dodge near someone.

The auto vanish on deflect is just as hurtful as it is helpful. Yet another example of why dodging is a bad idea near someone. You could accidentally deflect and corner yourself. Or worse like me purposefully deflect to try and leave a corner only to have sticky aim force your dodge after deflect to make you dodge into the enemies you're trying to double dodge away from and then die. Stamina management is pretty poor on shinobi as well. Not Jorm or Valk's level of bad but still pretty abysmal.

Inputs feel clunky with him. You can't smoothly transition into anything from dodges sans his kick which is a reactable defensive tool that has so many ways to be stopped. If a ranged heavy gets blocked you have to wait for what seems like ages before you can hold heavy to do another ranged attack thanks to the fact that his ranged attacks are treated like lights instead of heavies when blocked. You have to buffer your inputs in most situations for seemingly no reason. Trying to do a charged heavy after a dodge is clunky thanks to them tackling his charged option selects. etc.

His ranged heavies feel tempermental. I got more consistency on whiffed/landed ranged GB's than his heavies. There were times where a character was within double dodge distance and my ranged heavies would pass though them or just not connect. But other times I was hitting them at max range with both the charged and the heavy follow up.

And yet, he's still equally frustrating to fight against. The few games I went positive I went positive because I played perfectly. And by that I mean I always stayed off screen. I managed my revenge tags and peeled for allies whenever they'ed be punished or confirmed a kill from range if an enemy tried to roll away. Anytime I was in a 1v1 and the enemy wasn't close to death i'd wait for the opportunity to back flip and then super sprint away. Back capped constantly and stalled on their home points as much as I could when we lost map control. And everytime I was killed I was bagged or emote spammed.

It's no doubt in my mind that Shinobi is the worst character in the game. Always has been since he existed. The fact that the devs have left him in the state he's in without any sort of acknowledgement is downright embarassing. I genuinely have to stretch and twist my brain to try and think between him and Jorm who's the absolutely worst designed hero in the game. Pre CCU I could say Shinobi easily. But now? I don't know. If it were up to me i'd scrap both heros from the game and refund everyone steel. Genuinely both are beyond saving as they're currently designed.

I love the idea of a mobile hero who plays in a hit and run playstyle and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. However It was done poorly. The devs had to basically make him uninterruptable the hero in order for his moves to actually work and he was massively unhealthy for it. I'm throwing my hat in the ring here. I'm never touching him or Jorm ever again. I'll just take a page out of the devs books and pretend like neither hero exists. (p.s. I give my respects to those who stuck out long enough to hit rep 70 or near rep 70 with either hero. You've far more patience than I. And I apologize a hero you loved so much ended up being so mistreated by the developers.)

[Goat_of_Vermund]

Spent sometime with Shinobi last night, I know what you're thinking. "Raime hates Shinobi's existence why is he playing him?" Answer is simple really. I felt like playing some fh (weird right?) and I wanted to play a hero that asks me to play differently. Currently only Shinobi and HL really ask you to play differently. "technically" Gryphon does too but I don't enjoy playing him and HL requires more intensive inputs than I care to do when i'm trying to relax.


ANYWAY, I have always understood that Shinobi has never really been in a great spot. I knew what made him unhealthy from a gameplay standpoint and I still stand by most of the nerfs he got. But I never really played him long enough to get a subjective feel for how it feels to play him. I learned quite a bit. For one you absolutely don't belong in minion lane. The chances of you hitting the target you want are slim at best due to minions and wonky hitboxes of his ranged attacks. Even if you manage a ranged GB minions just interrupt it. And because you might hit a minion you would roll in on the wrong target and thus take damage you wouldn't have taken.

Stealth is a mandatory feat for Shinobi to make escaping from outnumbered situations possible and you need to be spacing nearly perfectly to begin with. But Stealth also massively hurts your ranged capabilities to someone if they're using it. Shinobi can't do jack with someone in revenge. You can't interrupt them from range at all and you don't want to be near by because Dodging is shinobi's thing and it's never a good idea to dodge near someone.

The auto vanish on deflect is just as hurtful as it is helpful. Yet another example of why dodging is a bad idea near someone. You could accidentally deflect and corner yourself. Or worse like me purposefully deflect to try and leave a corner only to have sticky aim force your dodge after deflect to make you dodge into the enemies you're trying to double dodge away from and then die. Stamina management is pretty poor on shinobi as well. Not Jorm or Valk's level of bad but still pretty abysmal.

Inputs feel clunky with him. You can't smoothly transition into anything from dodges sans his kick which is a reactable defensive tool that has so many ways to be stopped. If a ranged heavy gets blocked you have to wait for what seems like ages before you can hold heavy to do another ranged attack thanks to the fact that his ranged attacks are treated like lights instead of heavies when blocked. You have to buffer your inputs in most situations for seemingly no reason. Trying to do a charged heavy after a dodge is clunky thanks to them tackling his charged option selects. etc.

His ranged heavies feel tempermental. I got more consistency on whiffed/landed ranged GB's than his heavies. There were times where a character was within double dodge distance and my ranged heavies would pass though them or just not connect. But other times I was hitting them at max range with both the charged and the heavy follow up.

And yet, he's still equally frustrating to fight against. The few games I went positive I went positive because I played perfectly. And by that I mean I always stayed off screen. I managed my revenge tags and peeled for allies whenever they'ed be punished or confirmed a kill from range if an enemy tried to roll away. Anytime I was in a 1v1 and the enemy wasn't close to death i'd wait for the opportunity to back flip and then super sprint away. Back capped constantly and stalled on their home points as much as I could when we lost map control. And everytime I was killed I was bagged or emote spammed.

It's no doubt in my mind that Shinobi is the worst character in the game. Always has been since he existed. The fact that the devs have left him in the state he's in without any sort of acknowledgement is downright embarassing. I genuinely have to stretch and twist my brain to try and think between him and Jorm who's the absolutely worst designed hero in the game. Pre CCU I could say Shinobi easily. But now? I don't know. If it were up to me i'd scrap both heros from the game and refund everyone steel. Genuinely both are beyond saving as they're currently designed.

I love the idea of a mobile hero who plays in a hit and run playstyle and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. However It was done poorly. The devs had to basically make him uninterruptable the hero in order for his moves to actually work and he was massively unhealthy for it. I'm throwing my hat in the ring here. I'm never touching him or Jorm ever again. I'll just take a page out of the devs books and pretend like neither hero exists. (p.s. I give my respects to those who stuck out long enough to hit rep 70 or near rep 70 with either hero. You've far more patience than I. And I apologize a hero you loved so much ended up being so mistreated by the developers.)

My thought was actually not what you wrote when I started to read this. I actually thought "why does he hate himself? Or the people he plays against? It is better to just slaughter them with a Warmonger team, that at least ends quickly."

He is the worst hero. Also the weakest, but he is definetely the worst one.

Jorm is salvagable easily, they should just make the punches deal actual damage with less stamina damage, give something to cancel the light finisher's recovery, increase his stamina a bit, and call it a day. He has potential, building him on stamina damage was a stupid idea obviously. If you ask me, Shugoki is just as problematic, if not more, he is always either a joke, or the most irritating bs in the game. Maybe even Lawbringer is worse, zero offense, overpowered defense.

Shinobi is just wrong. I don't think there will ever be a rework idea which doesn't start with "ranged attacks removed, ranged guardbreak removed, backflip removed", because they are just wrong. It takes too much effort to create a new moveset, and people playing Shinobi will probably hate it, it will totally change their character.

So, in the end, there will be two groups:

1. Idiots who think he should get back his superarmor, give zero f about actual balance, and just want their ez cheese back.
2. People who will say he should rot where he is right now. Either because they remember how absolutely insufferable it was to fight a Shinobi, or because they genuinely think this is the best for balance. Not gonne lie, it is probably better to have a useless hero than having one that completely ruins the game.

[Knight_Raime]

My thought was actually not what you wrote when I started to read this. I actually thought "why does he hate himself? Or the people he plays against? It is better to just slaughter them with a Warmonger team, that at least ends quickly."

He is the worst hero. Also the weakest, but he is definetely the worst one.

Jorm is salvagable easily, they should just make the punches deal actual damage with less stamina damage, give something to cancel the light finisher's recovery, increase his stamina a bit, and call it a day. He has potential, building him on stamina damage was a stupid idea obviously. If you ask me, Shugoki is just as problematic, if not more, he is always either a joke, or the most irritating bs in the game. Maybe even Lawbringer is worse, zero offense, overpowered defense.

Shinobi is just wrong. I don't think there will ever be a rework idea which doesn't start with "ranged attacks removed, ranged guardbreak removed, backflip removed", because they are just wrong. It takes too much effort to create a new moveset, and people playing Shinobi will probably hate it, it will totally change their character.

So, in the end, there will be two groups:

1. Idiots who think he should get back his superarmor, give zero f about actual balance, and just want their ez cheese back.
2. People who will say he should rot where he is right now. Either because they remember how absolutely insufferable it was to fight a Shinobi, or because they genuinely think this is the best for balance. Not gonne lie, it is probably better to have a useless hero than having one that completely ruins the game.

I mean. I like that he can Naruto run lmao. I don't hate the character. Just hate how the design was done.
I'm not so sure about Jorm. Stamina bully is an issue yes and there's a slew of ways to keep his punch into slam identity. My problem is more with how he interacts with frame advantage. His kit design during CCU saw him basically always be in advantage with little his opponent can do. Now Jorm has to wait and bait forever which effects his stamina management harshly. His neutral is also very awful. I just don't see him working out in any balanced fashion.

It's 100% better for the game if Shinobi's current design is never viable. But it's still a stain on the game in the end.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

I actually hate him. He was the most irritating bs in y1. But I really want him to be good. I just don't know how without destroying the game, or rewriting the whole hero.

Got an idea for jorm, I will make a thread soon. His puches would not deal stamina damage nor unbalance exhausted opponents. Instead, they would place a two seconds long blind on the target, and if he would hit a blinded target with them, that would unbalance them into the hammar slam into stamina reset. Of course, it needs further balancing, but I think it would fit jorm's brutal playstyle very well.

[GayForShugoki]

I actually hate him. He was the most irritating bs in y1. But I really want him to be good. I just don't know how without destroying the game, or rewriting the whole hero.

Got an idea for jorm, I will make a thread soon. His puches would not deal stamina damage nor unbalance exhausted opponents. Instead, they would place a two seconds long blind on the target, and if he would hit a blinded target with them, that would unbalance them into the hammar slam into stamina reset. Of course, it needs further balancing, but I think it would fit jorm's brutal playstyle very well.

No thanks to blind. It's a cancerous effect that ruins the game. It will be spammed, just like Stunning Tap, and no one will be able to do anything.

P.S. They can fix Shinobi with light buffs. Give hi mactual chains, fix the fact that his kick deflect can still be blocked (the damage was gutted, you may as well just light), remove reflex, and up his health.

He was emant to be a glass cannon. Huge damage, low surivability when caught. He's a glass stick.

[Knight_Raime]

I actually hate him. He was the most irritating bs in y1. But I really want him to be good. I just don't know how without destroying the game, or rewriting the whole hero.

Got an idea for jorm, I will make a thread soon. His puches would not deal stamina damage nor unbalance exhausted opponents. Instead, they would place a two seconds long blind on the target, and if he would hit a blinded target with them, that would unbalance them into the hammar slam into stamina reset. Of course, it needs further balancing, but I think it would fit jorm's brutal playstyle very well.

I do too since him and HL are the most unique characters from a design standpoint.