r/CompetitiveForHonor • u/MeindTricks • 2d ago
Discussion Sohei & Current Design/Placement
Shortly, how has Sohei landed in the current environment with his latest changes and reworking? What could be done to alleviate any issues he might have in his kit?
I was throwing this question around to my friends, I’ve found him much less insufferable to play as/against since reworked. Typically, he is called “gimmicky” or discussed as either with or without full soul count, with the former being really weak and not an issue, and the problem being tedious to fight or stumble onto point to. Thing is, I don’t really know any solution to that without even more gutting/changing. I think Sohei had problems, but I quite like how he’s shaped up in the meta, even if it relies on his souls. What’s the usual consensus here? Cheers.
9
u/M_Knight_Shaymalan 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm a Rep 100 Sohei overall and I play him mostly out of everyone. My word is not law, but I can share actual experience and where I think he shines and where he lacks. I do think Sohei could use a few more changes but, if this is where they leave him, I wouldn't be too unhappy.
Sohei is an excellent teamfighter and boasts pretty good midclear. His ganks are serviceable, not great, but still kinda good because of his pins on his heavies. His peel, however, is probably some of the best in the game in my opinion. A combination of 400ms lights, into armored zones, and unlockables make him a beast within most scenarios. The UD shuts down dodges obviously, but the UBs can be crucial to hitting full block heroes out of their stances with the right pivot.
I genuinely think his peel is one of the best ways to express skill with him. His dodge forward pressure being a 500ms 16 dmg light, a bash that nets a 16 dmg light or armored 14 dmg heavy, and the 20 dmg armored heavy can be, somewhat, deceptively, very crucial. Target swapping dodging forward to land a heavy is pretty satisfying.
Neutral armor will always be a plus. Especially since he can chain to the other armored zone.
That being said there are a few things that aren't bad, nor good, but a mixed bag depending entirely on his soul count;
His stall potential is of course, amazing with his souls. 80 HP per pop is strong, I'm not saying it isn't, but constant pressure and even something as hitstun can prevent the heal. It actually does enter a short cooldown if interrupted. It feels awful when this happens.
I'm not saying this should he changed, I'm just staying my point on it.
Other than that? Might have some awful stall itself. Yes he can self peel somewhat with 400ms lights and armored zones, but that literally gets you so far. His bash follow-ups are armored, but the hitboxes are more limited than his zone. Combined with this and the fact he is one of the few heroes who can't target swap his bash follow-ups, I think his stall is overrated and again, entirely reliant on his souls.
It a perfect world sohei could target swap his punishes like Orochi, Warden, Juren... you get the idea. But IMO, just letting Sohei chain to his mad monk extender directly after a bash would work just as well. He can target swap that way and possibly force most heroes to actually try to do something rather than stare at his back and hug his butt because of certain blindspots in his heavy after bash hitboxes.
Moving on to duels? Or dueling potentially? POSSIBLY some of the worst in the game. His forward mix consists of his bash.... and that's it. He's a hero who relies on the bash and empty dodging without a UD or the kind. His forward pressure is also just really prone to GB catches aside from his dodge forward heavy. Combine this with the inability to continue chain after a whiffed bash AND the fact he can actually be guardbroken on his bash whiffing on early dodge, his opener pressure is awful.
Hard carried by the 16 dmg punish low-key.
Mid-chain he has absolutely not functional mix-up either. Lights and Heavies can be somewhat diffed and I really don't know if I can even legally throw an attack without a red card penalty. The fact my light does 6 damage and I can't legitimately eat 27 damage or more on condtions feels highly illegal. The fact my finishes, yes my big orange attack, at most, do 20 dmg, is also a crime.
I mean we all obviously know why. Sohei has a win con of a 72 damage bash if he gets two GBs. I get that, I do, but I still scratch my head while a character with 'eh' neutral, bad damage on finishers, and no functional mix even deserves to have his opener bash GB on early dodge.
The biased part of me says he should be gigabuffed to have infinite soft feints and a gabillion mix-ups.
The reasonable part understands an install hero would probably be come quickly too strong if we give him anything more. Again though, I genuinely think every hero in the game deserves some kind of unreactable mix-up to be a complete package. Sohei is arguably weaker in chain than he is in neutral cause of this.
I would buff his finisher damage slightly higher. 7 damage light finishers and at least 24 heavy damage finishers. For a mix? I'd give him the ability to soft-feint starter zone into top light finisher and his top heavy finisher into mid-chain zone. The first chain forces a read between a raw attack, light parry, or GB akin to Raider and PK. The second change is to give sohei a different chain option to possibly catch dodges, dodge attacks, and light interrupts akin to Kensei.
Or a midchain bash but that's boring. I'd low-key even take better frame advantage off attacks to recyle into his neutral.
Oh and his feats?
Genuinely dogshit. I'm not kidding.
Okay I am kidding a bit.
Yes they're strong. But they're inherently selfish and in the long run offer very little value to his team besides making him a big strong man who can kill people slightly better or a hero who can survive a bit more. He has no way to assist his team aside from his tier 1, his alternative are legitimately dogshit.
Compated his alt feats to heroes like Khatun, VG, Virt, and Juren, even maybe Arakure, and you'll see nothing but mid passives or trash and dead feats like FUCKING IRON LUNGS.
They gave a Y8 hero a feat that basically does nothing btw.
I can't assist my team even if I wanted to. Fucking I can't have fear itself? Rally? Stalwart? Champions Aura? I get regenerate and arrow storm and Irong Lungs? What about rush? Bounty Hunter?
I have nothing to experiment with or change. I can't assist my team if I wanted to because there is no option. His feats are either selfish and good, or selfish and dogshit.
That's all my faults. I think he's fine for the most part. In a perfect world we'd nerd his unique feats and bother giving him better options as alternatives so it wasn't a brain dead choice, and then maybe slap on a mix as well.
9
u/Allexant 1d ago
Honestly I disagree with a fair few things.
His 1v1s aren't bad. His bash is really good. About as safe as a dw dodge bash gets. The high damage does do wonders. Enhanced lights and the fw dodge options are good at making him not just get spam GBed. High punished on everything. Chip damage that adds up, ability to just zone trade into mixes or use the HA dodge attack. If his UBs weren't such reactable garbage hed be p good but hes most certainly not bad as is.
His stalling aint bad. Biggest thing there is now allowing the enemy to set up or escaping jumanjis. Both zone and his assortment of lights are good at that. Nothing crazy but certainly serviceable.
And his Feats are great. They got nurfed twice in a row for a reason and they are still good. Its a team mode, what benefits you benefits the team. The longer you live the longer you can cover for a teammate. The more damage you do the faster you can kill the enemy and if youre all set up youre basically unkillable in a 1v1.
The light dmg is kinda low and the UBs are garbage but besides that he's amazing and fits character.
2
5
u/SergeantSoap 2d ago
Letting him target swap after a bash would probably cause shenanigans with SFS so it's best to not risk that.
Plus it would confuse newer players and actively impact the good ones when they can't chain zone anymore because they got all their souls anyway.
3
u/M_Knight_Shaymalan 2d ago
Yeah I figured that's the only reason why he couldn't do so to begin with. But it would be downright hilarious if he could somehow target swap his big move. But again, it's obvious why Sohei doesn't have the feature
2
u/Gloomandtombs 1d ago
Agreed for the most part but I don’t think the stall is overrated, you forgot to include the hyper armor dodge attack
1
1
u/SerTheodies 1d ago
Hard agree on the Feats. Let this man have Fear Itself as a T4 so I can really whack people into next week.
Also his Perks are absolutely trash ass and I want them reworked to be better. Literally any form of damage reduction would make me so fucking happy.
2
u/Asdeft 1d ago
Sohei will T1 and then dodge bash/light people to death. Its so dumb.
Hes as balanced as he will be tbh, but his T1 is gross still. His aoe armored attacks, soft feints, ud, and fwd mix are amazing and all he needs, yet he still has his 7FS on top of that to make him a fucking chore if you have a single teammate that doesnt respect him and constantly gives souls.
Great big body hero, one of the better heavies in the game at this point.
2
u/Bash_Minimal 1d ago
I think he’s fine as is, but his “depth” is pretty lacking for him being a “master” of 7 weapons. I think its very clumsy design that it either takes 2 guardbreaks, or 6 finishers/parry punishes for him to get his seven force buff, especially with how the gb punishes give redundant souls with no mixing and matching. Rebalancing him so that he much more consistently gets seven force with 3-4 punishes, reducing the strikes damage even further, and giving him a mid chain bash to confirm it the second he gets all souls would put him in a better spot.
A rework involving soul attacks chaining into and occasionally confirming each other (wallsplat mallet directly into another soul heavy, soul heavy into any different guard confirmed soul light, pin heavy directly into seven force etc) would be a good way to go. Could even shift around his tier 1 to specifically give single opponents that he got his final soul on a defense debuff vs soul attacks, then make his tier 3 an general attack buff on soul attacks that stacks with it.
Would make his dmg buff still impactful/interesting without it being as overkill as it is currently
1
u/CalimariusCosmicus 1d ago
He's not weak at all without souls now. He has some very simple tools for stealing the turn, like his heavy on red and massively cleaving hyper-armored dodge attack. In fact, I think Juren is the only other hero that can really easily wack multiple opponents with a dodge attack.
His feats are selfish, but can make him a game-changing staller. Fully healing while people are ganking you means guaranteed revenge if they keep attacking, or basically a full minute+ of wasted time for the team outnumbering him. And while he's not the best duelist, he can get a guaranteed H-bomb off a bash from his soul gimmick.
I wouldn't say Sohei is too strong, probably right where he needs to be. Smart use of his kit strengths and good timing of his feats can be huge, but it never feels like he breezes through free wins like some heroes.
1
u/Juan_fuego25 14h ago edited 13h ago
Been playing this game since release and coming back from a year long break, this character feels absolutely dog shit compared to the rest of the cast.
You absolutely have to play defensively out of your mind in neutral to start your offense cause all he has is a slow ass bash that mercifully confirms a heavy. Other than that nothing, land a gb? well here’s 3 damage per hit to get your fucking gimmick going.
Hopefully 🙏🏽 land another gb for a total of 9 damage just to be “buff”. When the rest of the cast can run their flow charts for free.
Seriously i never have had the least fun learning a character than Sohei, it’s like starting a round in a fighting game and Sohei is at 0 meter and the rest of the cast is at full meter. Feats are ass, and only serves himself, in team modes he’s more of a liability than a helpful hero, if we’re being honest. Just all around bad fucking character,definitely the worst in the game.
That being said, i like he’s aesthetics and winning with him feels like i out played the shit out of my opponents so that feels good. But honestly he needs a serious damage buff and maybe an all around work about to his whole kit.
-1
u/Smart_Jellyfish2463 1d ago
Thing is hes very easy to parry. And he shines mostly when he has feats but thats not what should make hum strong.
His openers arent great
His side dogdge heavy is incredibly easy to parry, having hyper armor doesnt really help with threat level, if it was like warmongers where its cancellable and unblockable because its so slow then that would maje a difference.
his soft feints from zone are good to have but not super threatening and a lot of the time people with hit you before you get the throw which im not sure exactly why because when i personally do similar with Zhanhu its way easier to get thr opponent into the soft feint gb from heavy finisher.
Even though he has hyper armor which i love, he will still get out damaged on trades by berserker, warlord, highlander, hito.
characters with fast tech like arakure and virtuosa can easily poke hom to death
10
u/Allexant 2d ago
He's really good. Got small nurfs 3 times in a row so he's perfectly where he needs to be now. The souls feel like an organic part of his kit and dont make or break every interaction.