The Kyoshin only released a few days ago, so normally it would be too early to tell, but he needs to be tweaked. Honestly, the devs definitely made him sound more powerful in the stream than he really is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that he actually needs to be buffed rather than being OP/broken and needing to be (overly) nerfed. However, they shouldn’t buff him too much to the point where he becomes OP/broken. Below are my final thoughts on how he can be improved based on my own opinions, other people’s ideas I’ve seen on the forums, and what Freeze has said in his video below. For simplicity’s sake, I’m not going to get super technical with number values or anything like that, so I apologize if there are points where I sound vague. Feel free to comment if you want to share those specifics or have anything else to add.




Speed:
The Kyoshin’s chain link speed needs to be buffed, meaning the amount of time between the attacks in most (if not all) of his chains needs to be decreased. He just feels too clunky, and even his most basic attack chains are way too slow and can easily be dodged, countered, parried, etc.

This is the biggest issue I see with the Kyoshin, and this should be the biggest priority in terms of tweaking him.

Hitbox:
His hotbox is terrible and needs a major buff. There are points where my attacks don’t even seem to land a hit on my opponents (and it’s not because I was out of range).

Stamina:
The Kyoshin’s stamina management and regeneration suck. He uses way too much stamina and gets very little payout (i.e., damage inflicted), and his stamina regeneration could be slightly faster.

Damage:
The Kyoshin’s damage needs to be looked at as well because some of his attacks deal slightly too much damage, and others don’t do enough damage. To give an example, I don’t remember the attack’s name, but the unblockable heavy attack that you can do from kaze stance needs to deal more damage.

Kaze stance:
He shouldn’t be completely unstoppable (and thus, block everything) in his kaze stance, but he’s just way too vulnerable in this stance, especially to bashes and guardbreaks (especially since you can’t move while in the stance). Going back to stamina, he goes through it pretty quickly in his downstance.



Final thoughts:
All in all, Ubisoft did an amazing job on this hero; his aesthetics and moveset are great. His potential is there, but he just needs some tweaks to make him more viable, without making him completely OP.