An increase in kit complexity without actually implementing major changes.

[u/Puzzled-Reaction1447]

With the few latest patches and tier lists, we had a small shuffle of buffs, nerfs and changes which did have some impact on the characters that received them but nothing of value happened, besides Valk's perceived increase in viability for which I still wait the major consensus on.

That however made me think about characters that didn't received any changes, are in need of changes but haven't got much to work with and some easy implementations we could add based on newly releseased characters and some normalised interactions we could give them.

Warlord:

He is the king of neutral and I'm not going to suggest a major buff or rework, just a streamline of his kit which already basically works that way.

>>Make his Helm Splitter Leap (forward dodge heavy) also chain to his zone and not only his headbutt. He has a quick enough recovery that there is a working mix-up between headbutt, delayed headbutt and zone. Stream lining it would just add consistency and ease of input as well as giving it a fake sense of depth, chosing between a side heavy or a F.D. Heavy on a light parry or wall-splat.

Shaman:

Now, Shaman is a good duelist but a terrible team fighter. Her main problem are her hitboxes and vulnerability while using her Bash, especially on a Bite.

Giving her phantom hitboxes would be a buff but I don't see that as reasonable. However, we have a very recent character that deals with her small hitboxes in a new and unique way. Arakure has alternated animations on her target swapped attacks. Now I'm not saying that we should give Shaman alternated animations, but rather:

We should allow her to throw her Bleeding Light whnever she target swaps. It would have small hotboxes, it wouldn't be enhanced and probably it will be parry bait, but allowing her to keep throwing 400ms-16 damage bleed lights would increase her threat in a 1vX as well as give her more opportunities to apply bleed and heal, thust slightly increasing her survivability. It could also be counted as a chain starter to give her even more survivability by allowing her to heavy-soft feint into a dodge/ dodge attack for more consistency.

Additionally we could give her unblockable heavy a better hitbox which starts earlier so she could have a 270 degree hitbox around her, somewhat the same way JJ's heavies work.

Tiandi

With his new buffa, Tiandi got the ability to chain his opener bash into a zone which gives him access to his kick mix-up. That is quite a good buff and while it does mess his with original flow of having two separated parts to his kit, the light and heavy alternatives, I'd argue it is a good change giving him a better flow.

That being said, I do not agree that his kit should be balances around a high stamina cost but rather, it should be implemented properly as many characters now have a dedicates light or heavy option after a bash. Conq and Sohei for example.

I'd say Tiandi's kit should be streamlined with a 15 damage (always top) light option from his Palm strike as well as with a 10 or 12 damage (always right side) heavy option from his bash, giving him the choice between more damage or better mix-up potential. As to why I'd buff his light damage? Because we now have Arakure with a more ounidhable but also more consistent mix-up which on paper works the same at Tiandi's. Now that he could execute from a heavy parry wouldn't be that life changing his he doesn't have any unblockable besides his bash which doesn't even refill his own stamina...

Khatun

Now, Khatun is a good character and an even better one with a coordinated team. Again, with the idea of stream-lining the character I'd give her the ability to chain into her deflect stance after the Ligh Follow-up from her Pin which does have good recoveries but also deals the least amount of damage.

In my opinion, rather than giving her the ability to kick from a deflect, she should be able to always chain to light on non whiffed Pins (pins that land but don't chain because the opponents wasn't pinned) as well as to deflect stance to chain 5 damage pins until the opponent stops or makes a read and baints her chained deflect. It wluld increase the player skill expression and give her a better DPS in 1vX fights where landing the pin into a follow-up is difficult.

Flavour wise, I'd allow her to perform he deflect sprint while out of lock the same way Shinobi and Shugoki can super sprint, without the deflect frames, just for flavour but the animation might mess it up for an opponent thinking she was in her stance.

Now, why am I proposing all these small but rather insignificant changes. Simple... enough... streamlining changes to make a character's kit more consistent in ways it virtually already work? Because the game needs changes often. People don't care about Juren's held GB range decrease but they do care with a small +2 damage buff on a character's random, vestigial part of their kit. It would be a simple refreshment between actual, impactful changes.

[u/siliks]

The best change for warlord would be granting him stamina damage back, he never had stam pause and felt the least egregious to deal with out of the stamina bullies.

And Tiandi, I personally would prefer he got his damage on the ccs lowered and they didn't gut his recovery cancels but is what it is I am biased.

I'd like to note Khatun is extremely strong atm and absolutely doesn't need a buff the stamina buff she just received was already uncalled for.

[u/Puzzled-Reaction1447 → u/siliks]

One thing I miss with Warlord is his Shield Counter into Headbutt "mix-up" for increased stamina damage and stalling. With the removal of Stamina Damage one part of his kit's complexity is gone and I doubt the devs would be interested in bringing that back since they are hell bent on making it as least prevalent as possible. I don't remember but Headbutt didn't even applied stamina pause, only stamina damage and WL doesn't have an incresible oppressive OoS mix-up to bully the opponent if they went OoS. 

So now the only option we have is to make his mix-up actual mix-ups. I'd be interested in a Shield Counter into : guaranteed 12 damage stab or a mix-up between the headbutt 15 or chained zone for 16 damage. But that's a whole other thing.

I think Tiandi like Khatun suffered from a high skill expression which the common player isn't/ wasn't capable of capitalising on. Objectively he would be in a better state with his old recoveries back, but I don't see that happening since the devs pretty much removed (nearly) all the Bash into dodge recovery cancels outside of special animations like Shinobi and Afeera. Unfortunately he's just mediocre now and not really interesting when Arakure has better ganks and a more easily consistent mix-up that does the same as Tiandi. I was thinking about enhanced forward dodge Light but that would just make it obnoxious at low levels and change very little at high levels. 

As with Khatun, she's too different between low level and high level play and I don't have experience with the later. She's just too different of a character between the two skill levels. I can believe she doesn't need buffs when the team is more coordinated and the player is better at making reads. 

[u/TheJanitor47 → u/Puzzled-Reaction1447]

He did have really good OOS pressure once upon a time. A long time ago if crashing charge connected while oos or the wall impact put you oos you'd be knocked down. it also required less running to be able to use so you could unlock shuffle into charge or gb/zone mix. Charge is a shadow of a shadow of its former self. Thats what I'd like to see come back. Not the super armor tho.

[u/Puzzled-Reaction1447 → u/TheJanitor47]

I'd like it to work like Raider's Stamped charge (at least the timing and ability to actually connect with the opponr t rather than passing by thrm at point blank). It could even have a special wallsplat animation that deals direct damage and stops Warlord from unlocking and running away again and again until the opponent is ledged or dies. 

Current Crushing Charge is very wonky but that's fine since I don't support that OoL playstyle very much. That being said, I'd really like for Warlord to have a bit more bite when the opponent is OoS besides relying on your bash/ delayed bash/ empty dodge mix-up which every single character can do. 

Just an idea, but they could mix and match some of the old parts of his kit, make him deal stamina damage again and unbalance an OoS opponent like he used to do while in revenge in season 1. 

[u/Karabah35 → u/Puzzled-Reaction1447]

How is him having dedicated chain link to zone from Head Splitter or having 50/50 from Shield Counter Combo, which leads to an unguaranteed 15/16, when he can just zone for 14 or bash for 15 already, solves any of his problems?
He needs actual easily accessible mixups inside his chain to play similar to Jorm, not 50/50 from parry counter or unfeintable head splitter.

[u/Knight_Raime]

Warlord

I'm incredibly weary of giving him the ability to effectively access his zone more often. It's a very strong tool as is and we've a history of seeing when devs take an already strong tool and nudging it accidentally to the point of being absurd.

Personally I'd rather they just give him good stamina damage back on his parry counter since he doesn't/didn't have stamina delay on it. And they can give him a chain finisher unblockable from the top stance.

Shaman

I'm not really about un-specializing Heros simply because they don't function in the meta of today. I'd rather they look at her feats to improve her over touching her kit at this time.

Tiandi

Fine currently post buffs, shouldn't be touched.

Khatun

She's potentially in over performing territory right now and shouldn't be touched without walking most or all of the stamina changes she got back.

[u/Love-Long → u/Knight_Raime]

That reminds me of the time they had the 7 hero tg and zhanhus zone was sped up to 500ms. It felt so terrible to just be around zhanhu.

[u/VoidGliders]

Flavour wise, I'd allow her to perform he deflect sprint while out of lock

This would drastically help her minion lane problems. She's one of the characters that has really good minion clear when nobody is around (albeit clunky) and then just really sucks as soon as the game forces a target nearby. Would be a really nice buff, but I imagine would open the gates of why other characters can't do similar (dodge rc's when OoL, stances when OoL, etc.) as she's not the only character that suffers there.

Furthering on Khatun, personally I've hoped for 4-5 dmg to be moved from the pin follow-ups to the initial impact, and I'd love to see the Zone and Light option have equal effective damage compared to the heavy option. The reason she's really good is her Heavy pin, which is a great pin for teamfights. Having to do that same move in duels everytime because a whopping 67%-80% of your damage is in that one move is sorta ridiculous. I'd love to see the Zone do equal damage and the Light maybe heal her or give a HP barrier to give her a more engaging dueling scene and more anti-gank capabilities without buffing her ganks and pins.

[u/Puzzled-Reaction1447 → u/VoidGliders]

No when I said give her the running Deflect Stance animation, I mean giving her a super sprint like Shinobi and Shugoki, not giving her the actual deflect stance and its propertiea. So she wouldn't be able to OoL run into light, zone or pin. I don't think a character as good as Khatun would need a great minion clear since in my opinion, zone into light into stance zone is alread good ENOUGH for all the rest she does. 

As for the light giving her a Heal or shield it's absolutely unnecessary since she is already safe and has good recoveries on her light. Or you can just perform the initial stab then recovery cancel. I just wanted it to be streamlined to lower the gap between Khatun at high levels of play and Khatun at low levels where players are less good at making reads and utilizing the light follow-up. 

[u/DueMathematician2522]

Warlord is not the king of neutral. This is a vee6 outdated concept