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  1. #1

    Extended TG feedback- Shinobi

    Today's thread is going to be about Shinobi. Back story wise i've not played very much of him only about..2 reps? before his rework. The main reason I didn't play him was because I didn't enjoy how he played. In 4's your optimal play was to turtle and space against anyone who tried to fight you. Since you had Super armor on so many moves this encouraged that play. But it didn't help that you had no tools from neutral to really use against someone (talking about after kick and link into light were nerfed.) And outside that you sat on the edge of fights spamming hard to counter moves against people.

    In short he wasn't very fun to play as or fight against. Enough to the point that he was gutted pretty hard and mainly forgot about aside from the few who mastered recovery time punish and weird tech that would pop up occasionally. The devs had sited in the den that Shinobi really didn't have any tools for a 1v1 scenario. Well unfortunately Shinobi is still very poor in pretty much every same way to some degree as his live version. The main difference between live and this is (aside from an oversight with ranged heavy splatting) shinobi's flow is good. But that's the only positive I can give. There's a lot of stuff I have mixed feelings are or just don't like. Since most of this post is going to be talking about mixed/negative stuff I will have a "summary" section at the end so people can easily spot the good.


    So let's start out with the more minor complaint at the bottom of this hill here. Inputs. Far as I can tell you have to buffer a lot of the new inputs when it comes to his main combos. If you land a kick? Buffer the heavy or you drop the combo. If you land a ranged heavy? Buffer the dodge button to roll in or you drop the combo. The same goes for inputting sickle rain lights, teleport kick, new combo heavy, and back flip. The only places I don't feel I have to buffer an input is the mix on roll in between flip kick and sickle rain, and sickle rains initial hit. However the flip kick because it chains in roll earlier now has a moved input window which will probably throw people off initially.

    After playing a bit I got used to these inputs for the most part. But I hope some of them can be relaxed a bit. Centurion had a similar problem with his rework and they were able to loosen the input a little so I hope that can be done here. The new combos of his basic attacks that lead into sickle rain feel fine which is a positive to note.


    My next complaint is probably the biggest issue I have with his rework and that involves his dodges. I REALLY like that the devs decided to give him an option off of single dodge. It's probably one of the most asked for things when people talk about reworking Shinobi. However right now his dodge situations are abysmal. This is because Shinobi no longer chains into anything other than kick when double dodging and single dodge also only has kick. This means you can quite literally roll shinobi every time and he cannot do anything to stop you. And because his best option with his dodge is his single kick he essentially just turtles/fishes for you to try and attack to dodge away from and kick into. This is EXACTLY what shinobi is forced to do on live despite having extra link in options because the kick itself is slow and is rare to punish anything.

    I would severely suggest that you either let him link into undodgable lights after both dodge and double dodge or his ranged heavy to let him actually punish someone trying to roll his dodges. Giving him a roll catching option from his dodges is needed if his dodges are meant to be his way in mix up wise.

    Everyone has complained about ranged heavy splatting and while that is confirmed as a bug and won't go live I still need to note it here. Because getting a 49 damage punish from a single bash is probably the most comedic screw up on FH right now. Which is saying something considering Shugoki's T4 exists. I also want to note that I and many others do not like that you get sickle rain off of GB. The damage of that feels excessive and while that needs to get nerfed specifically it still wouldn't change that you're putting someone into a locked animation from a GB which seems pretty excessive on it's own. Some suggest letting him get his heavy opener but I think the speed of that might be a problem due to the unique animation of it. So perhaps a better suggestion would be his new chain heavy.


    Now we get to the other big complaint of mine. Back flip. I'm perfectly fine with the access to this move being limited. I'm fine with it serving as a combo extender to his flow chart. However I cannot deny that it feels a bit weak. You have to have precise timing to actually avoid something with it. Which fine, fair enough I suppose. However I can't get over how both options after flip are pretty dreadful in a 1v1 scenario. Ranged heavy is dumb easy to avoid which means he can't roll back in. Rolling fixes that. However you eat damage if you try to roll in when you're next to someone. I understand this exists so that you do not have overlapping I frames with flip and roll. However this begs the question:

    If I managed to successfully pull his flow chart off and land sickle rain what do I do after? Just flip and stand there? Yes. Because there's a good chance someone attacking you with a semi fast option from neutral will interrupt both options. So flipping puts shinobi into a read situation. I can and have avoided the follow up response from the person I just sickle rained to punish with a kick. Which felt nice. And I suppose it's fair enough that we get both put back in neutral after to avoid too much oppression. (this is probably why back flip can't just immediately chain into sickle rain.) But my problem is Shinobi's neutral is butts. And this is only highlighted by how shaky of a tool back flip is. I guess it's more fair to say that my problem with Shinobi's back flip isn't back flip itself but rather neutral.


    Shinobi's neutral would easily be fixed if they made his dodges actual mix ups. And I feel this really highlights Shinobi TG's flaw. All shinobi has is a kick. If you really think about it shinobi gained zero tools in the neutral game but kick. He gained nothing to help him gain access to his mobility. Nothing to help him approach team fights. The devs hinged his entire being on the concept of managing to start a combo. While this combo isn't anything close mechanically to how OG Centurion was I cannot help but draw comparisons to it. Old Centurion lived and died by his cutscene. And while Shinobi certainly isn't in his shoes 100% that's pretty much where he's at on TG.

    Other more misc complaints that I have but can't really fit into one particular area would be, the damage on sickle rain being too high, Deflect's damage being a small scrap of 4 damage, removal of deflect light input, ranged heavy itself not glowing orange thus causing it to be very difficult to actually see if Shinobi is throwing a ranged heavy at you externally (pretty kek,) ranged heavies if they land causing a pretty funny graphical glitch where his chain grooves on his belt constantly and you have a floating sickle for the rest of the match, And his zone being ignored in an update that removed zone OS's acknowledging that zones will need to be buffed in the same update.


    Suggestions:

    -Can now link into an undodgable lights from single or double dodge

    -Sickle rain bleed damage reduced from 12 to 6

    -Removed sickle rain from GB and chains to combo heavy instead

    -Zone can now be soft feinted out of with a dodge at feint window timing

    -Deflect bleed damage is now 10 up from 4

    -Ranged heavy get a different indicator to be made to see easier

    -Fix all of shinobi's bashes from ignoring the 3rd hitstun rule

    -Fix Shinobi being able to pin an opponent during another pin effect

    (last two points are shown and explained in Freeze's video here: https://youtu.be/jNIT5oC3SaM?t=430)


    Summary:

    I think the devs have successfully managed to skin off all of the unhealthy aspects Shinobi had and gave him a more focused gameplan that can actually work. However there's a few holes in the TG kit that if left unchecked will likely result in Shinobi not seeing much play in higher skill brackets and being a frustration for lower level players. Which even though it's for different reasons is also currently where live Shinobi exists. To repeat, the gameplan for Shinobi is wonderful. The combo structures are sound and the overall flow is there. But shinobi lacks neutral to get there. which basically highlights any actual issues with the combos themselves. If neutral is addressed his pain points on TG will not be felt nearly as bad.


    Once again thanks for sticking by and reading. Hopefully i'll get Raider's thread done tomorrow.
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  2. #2
    Thanks for this thread, Raime This highlights everything that I wanted to say, plus a few more.
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  3. #3
    Originally Posted by MCBooma16 Go to original post
    Thanks for this thread, Raime This highlights everything that I wanted to say, plus a few more.
    After playing a bit more from writing this (was gathering more experience on raider) I'm unsure about the suggestion of adding his combo heavy for his GB punish. That thing has next to no animation from the opponents perspective. Which is weird because it doesn't always look that bad. I'm not sure if that was a connection thing or if the animation itself needs more polish. Neutral heavy would probably be better but I just think there would be animation conflictions. So idk.

    Also, I was toying around the idea of letting him chain into his zone and it being unododgable from his dodge/double dodge. But I thought that would be too hard to make look decent from an animation perspective. Undodgable lights is probably better but I worry about him skating a bit with it animation wise. Also, I don't have anyone to test it with but have you been able to dodge his teleport kick when he links into it from parry counter? I haven't been able to and it might be important to note if that's intended or not.
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  4. #4
    I definitely agree with having some sort of punish after a dodge/double dodge as he has always had 1 in 1 form or another such as quad dash, or being able to throw a light, heavy or zone after double dashing which really feels like a step backwards. I also think that the revenge gain from sickle rain should be increased it currently feels like you can have 2 shinobis tag teaming sickle rains without the risk of the opponent getting revenge before dying.
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  5. #5
    Originally Posted by Chump94 Go to original post
    I definitely agree with having some sort of punish after a dodge/double dodge as he has always had 1 in 1 form or another such as quad dash, or being able to throw a light, heavy or zone after double dashing which really feels like a step backwards. I also think that the revenge gain from sickle rain should be increased it currently feels like you can have 2 shinobis tag teaming sickle rains without the risk of the opponent getting revenge before dying.
    Revenge gain getting a bump like they did with skewer would be a way to go for sure. But i'd still recommend that they dial back sickle rains damage if nothing for the fact that it's a GB punish.
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  6. #6
    Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
    Revenge gain getting a bump like they did with skewer would be a way to go for sure. But i'd still recommend that they dial back sickle rains damage if nothing for the fact that it's a GB punish.
    I would be in favor of not getting sickle rain off a guard break and just his netural heavy.

    I also made a post a couple days ago about having moves that pin bounce off of other pins, parries and block stun. In my opinion they should only confirm from neutral or hit stun.
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  7. #7
    Originally Posted by LightUpTheEyes Go to original post
    I would be in favor of not getting sickle rain off a guard break and just his netural heavy.

    I also made a post a couple days ago about having moves that pin bounce off of other pins, parries and block stun. In my opinion they should only confirm from neutral or hit stun.
    I'd be fine with that or his new combo heavy instead. But I wonder if there is a confliction in animation for either of those cases and that's why they went with sickle rain instead.
    And yeah Shinobi was able to reconfirm sickle rain with another shinobi even before this rework pretty easily. Unfortunately that's just a consequence of not having single pick.

    Your solution would also fix layering pin moves from other heros as well. But I think it might be more complex to implement such a system.
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  8. #8
    I had fun with shinobi in the tg however I agree with many of your points. I problem I kept having while using him was sickle rain just being dangerous for myself. I cant tell you how many times as I'm in the animation about to land it an enemy player pops around the corner and gets a free bonk because I am stuck in that pinned animation.
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  9. #9
    Originally Posted by Xavyn Go to original post
    I had fun with shinobi in the tg however I agree with many of your points. I problem I kept having while using him was sickle rain just being dangerous for myself. I cant tell you how many times as I'm in the animation about to land it an enemy player pops around the corner and gets a free bonk because I am stuck in that pinned animation.
    Yeah that's something else I should've brought up but I felt it would be more nitpicky. His combos are generally loooooong and it's easy to stop him along the way. Even if he manages to land his sickle rain where most of his damage is he's just as vulnerable as the person he's pinning. Which isn't bad inherently but when that's kinda the only thing you actually do its awkward.
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  10. #10
    I feel like shinobis backflip needs to put him a bit farther than it does.....
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