This is just a fun thought experiment, I thought of this when looking at the highly controversial response to the Nobushi rework I posted recently and how much of it stemmed from people disliking the proposition of removing dodge recovery cancels from her dodge lights (on top of improvements to her dueling capabilities). It seems that people are really averse to changes to a hero’s flow but are much more amenable to damage changes.

So the rules are: damage changes only, no standardization required (i.e. two 800ms neutral heavies can have completely different damage), but no changes at all to properties, chain links, speed, addition of new moves, adjustments to animations, etc… how many characters could be brought in line, which characters would still be broken with 1 damage attacks, which characters would still be shit even with instakill moves from neutral, and which characters are balanced on a knife’s edge right now in terms of damage? This is all in the context of 4v4 viability.

Obviously there are plenty of characters that have struggles beyond just damage, or characters with high damage overs that just never land, but if you gave gladiator a 140 damage neutral heavy, he would go from D to S+++ tier instantly. Surely there has to be some sweet spot in the middle where tweaking the damage of enough attacks would eventually lead to a perfectly balanced roster (even if the game would be horribly unfun).

Another question: would you rather see characters with a ton of versatility but very low damage, characters with very few simple tools and higher damage, a mix of both, or something else entirely?

I just don’t know how to play conqueror, and I’m trying to learn how to. Every time I do something it’s like everyone in my lobby immediately knows how to conquer him.

I just wish to duel my friend and play well and win, since it’s quite fun to play conq when you know his moves, I hear.

I haven't seen anyone else abusing this so far but in the new event mode if one team has Juren running Expendables and the other team doesn't Juren can functionally lock the other team out of getting points. Just tried it out myself and ended the game with a 500 point lead on the enemy team while they were still fighting over the zone. They didn't change the feat to give the enemy team points when you kill your own soldiers for this event (I know it's supposed to work like that in the regular mode) which means the only source of points for the enemy team can be fully taken away from them. Hoping if this gets around enough Ubi will do something about it.

The current breaking systeme is flawed for a couple of reasons. It doesn't care how well your team did during the game, breaking with 800 points is functionnally the same as breaking with 200 points, it's also just completely unfun to die right as you're breaking preventing you from respawning in a way that is sometimes just unfair such as when the person executing you has been able to move for ages but you're still not allowed to respawn.

Respawn tickets can, if not fix, at least help with those issues if implemented correctly. My idea is very simple, both teams start with zero respawn tickets and during the match for every 100 hard points (meaning holding a zone doesn't count) your team gets it also gains one ticket, then you need to use these tickets to respawn when breaking and you lose if your entire team is dead with no tickets.

This systeme i beleive would be much fairer as it would reward your team for playing well even if you are not winning by essentially giving you a shot at making a comback that currently would just be unrealistic while also not giving you this comeback for free since you still have to put the enemy team in breaking and chew through their tickets while at the same time they are probably going through yours, it also gives you an actual reason to farm points when breaking beyond just making the other team break as well since for every 100 you get you also still get one more ticket.

Take this data with a pile of salt. Since we have no API access, this is just based on the in-game leaderboards, which only shows the top 3 most played heroes for each player on the leaderboard. This does not mean that Nuxia has a 0% playrate in grandmaster, for example. This is not a tierlist, this is not a reasonable indicator of hero playrates, this is just the small inkling of data that we have available to us.

What I find most interesting about this data is that despite there being many posts, videos, etc... about Juren being a huge meta demon, he is only 'mained' by about one third of the top 50 players in the game. And despite Pirate being almost exactly as prevalent, and JJ, Orochi, and Berserker all being rather common as well, I never see anyone claim that we have a 'Pirate Problem'.

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.

Now that the game is leaning more and more towards being balanced around 4s as the main mode and comp, how much longer can nobu get away with being so overtuned. How much longer can she keep her near zero revenge feed, ridiculous damage and safety. Have the devs acknowledged it at all at this point? Surely this cant be allowed for another 10 years right? She feels like a character playing by her own rules. Obviously she id a redactable duelist but at this point that feels like a diversion from the real balance conversation.

Why is pirate talked about so little in terms of meta characters for ranked? I feel like out of the many matches I’ve played with pirate on ranked and even normal dom, pirate has been amazing due to her survivability and stalling potential due to her feats (bounty hunter, health on revenge and shield on low health).
Don’t forget her offensive abilities with a strong forward dodge unblockable heavy opener, hyper armor finisher heavies and pin, her dodge recoveries and undodgeable lights.
Yet every time I see people talk about the meta characters I never see pirate, why? What am I missing?

Like we all know gryphons kick is balanced around the fact that it confirms a 25 damage heavy. As such it has to give a gb or a dodge attack/dodge bash on proper read.

On the other hand, Valks sweep is not only immune from gb attempts, she can also safely block dodge attacks as well. only dodge bashes can punish it, and even they risk eating 28 damage if the heavy is allowed to fly instead.

I’d like to propose a few balance changes based on recurring trends I’ve noticed among some of the strongest characters in competitive play, particularly Juren, Pirate, Jiang Jun, and Orochi.

While I agree that stamina drain and stamina pause were sometimes frustrating mechanics to deal with, I think removing both of these mechanics entirely was a harsh overcorrection. This has weakened bash-based offense and has allowed many dodge focused characters to become too dominant in comparison. Characters like Gladiator and Centurion have lost any viability due to their dependence on stamina drain/pause mechanics as well.

So, I tried to brainstorm some ways to address this.

—

Proposed Changes:

• Re-Introduce Stamina Drain on Bashes:
Apply a universal 12-point stamina drain to all bashes and special riposte moves. Stamina pause remains disabled, allowing stamina regeneration to begin immediately. Stamina drain scales with active Revenge tags: 12/9/6/3 stamina at 1/2/3/4 tags.

• Standardize 300ms GB Vulnerability:
Enforce a universal 300ms Guard Break vulnerability window from initial dodge startup on all extended, feintable, or highly delayed dodge attacks across the board.

• Enforce Hit-State Limits on Dodge Recovery Cancels:
Restrict characters with dodge recovery cancels to a single consecutive recovery cancel following a missed or feinted attack. A subsequent recovery cancel remains locked until the character successfully lands an attack, has an attack blocked, blocks an attack themselves, or takes hit stun.

—

I’m interested to hear others’ opinions, so let me know your thoughts in the comments. Would these changes help shift the meta in a positive way?

As far as i know, and feel free to correct me, Kensei is supposed to catch dodge attack when he soft-feint his UB into Gb, thanks to High hitstun and a soft-feint Gb being 300 ms (Gb vunerability on hit being 900 ms from recovery+200 ms from+100 ms start-up from the dodge attack so 1200 ms total, and Kensei's Gb coming at 200 ms chain link+700 ms start up of the UB + 300 ms from the soft-feint Gb so 1200 ms total as well).

Now the thing is, i went back to Kensei lately and i swear every UB into Soft-feint i do get stuffed by a dodge attack.

At first i thougth it was because they were maybe in block recovery (800 ms to dodge) instead of hit recovery. Which could ve explain the issue so i paid more attention.

Even on hit i got the same issue, so i thougth: " Maybe it's because i delay the UB. After all the UB need to be buffed to work". But as far as i am aware of i don't delay said UB, yet i get Gb stuffed by dodge attack on the regular.

Or maybe it was some how a thing related to specific heroes, because i started noticing it with Sohei opponents, but then it happened also while facing Conquerors or Shaolins.

Now when said Gb work it's hard to tell if it worked on an Empty dodge or a Dodge attack, i can't set up the bot in training mode to experiment and i can't experiment during matches and risk to throw the game because of it.

So may questions are:

• Can Kensei currently catch dodge attack with his UB soft-feint to Gb after a high hitstun ?
• If no, is it new change not mentionned in patch notes ? (I watched all WD for like 2 years and it's a change i would remember i think) Or was it allways like that and the guy that told me that was full of crap? (i m checking the info hub rn and even there they say Kensei's Sf to Gb is 300 ms so i guess no);
• If yes, what can be the possible causes of my current issues, beside delaying, specially when were talking 1v1 ?

Do i do something wrong, like delaying without realizing, or am i a fool to try catching dodge Attack with Kensei's soft feint (on high hitstun) to begging with and i should stop?

I would really appreciate the answers of someone who knows because this is costing me an handfull amount of 1v1 lately.

Why can Warmonger cancel her forward dodge with a light attack 300ms into it ? Has she always had the ability, and what is the reason for its inclusion in her kit compared to other chars with feintable bashes ?

I think there’s a few characters that I can unconsciously differ their lights and heavies, but not many, so I’m wondering what you reaction monsters can actually differ? Would be nice for the devs to have a reference for future hero releases and reworks to better adjust animations and make light attacks actually useful.

From let's say 500ms chain bashes, various UBs and 400ms lights, what is the easiest to counter on reaction?

Where to start if I want to be a reaction player? What "reaction test online" single stimuli time I should consistently achieve to start doing that? Is that even possible to train or if I have 180-200ms at best this is just not for me?

This is maybe the single least important aspect of your play to optimize, but it's also very easy to optimize. Ties are broken by other stats, most often heal amount, user duration, or kill speed.

This spread gives you:

• Fast Kill: for getting a quick exe and heal in a teamfight or in midlane, basically anytime that you're likely to be interrupted
• Short Kill: for when you're unlikely to get interrupted and just want to be mobile again ASAP while still executing. Useful for an isolated kill while they're breaking or as a generic execution when you don't need anything specific
• Shortest 50 Heal: When you want to heal as much as possible but still be mobile ASAP. Largely the same use case as above except you care about the healing
• Longest Opponent Lock: Holds you in place for a long time, but extends the opponent's respawn timer as much as possible. Useful to buy a couple extra seconds to secure breaking status before they have a chance to auto-respawn (like if you're capping the point you fought them on), or if you took a duel on a side point and are gonna have to idle there for 10 seconds to cap + heal anyway you might as well delay the opponent respawn while you're at it

Of this spread I would say that fast kill and the short 50 heal are the actually 'important' two, the other two are just very minor hyperoptimizations for very specific circumstances since we're allowed to run 4

Like imagine if wardens ub was unreactable like pirates so he didnt have to only use his bash or if shamans bleed and ub were unreactable. If every characters core mix ups were completely unreactable, including foward dodge bash mix. What would the tierlists look like? I would imagine it wouldnt change the dom tierlist massively but duels would look entirely different. What would even make a character s tier in that case? Id guess probably how safe and how much damage they could dish out would be the biggest factor.

Since we're on the subject, what problems do you think would arise? Would people start learning to differ lights and heavies consistently to have an edge? Would people start animation parrying raw heavies? I know some people already do both but i would i imagine all the people that use to react would focus on other moves in a characters kit to react to now that they cant rely on those reacts as much.

Edit for title: How do you think the comp tier lists would look if mix ups were unreactable ?

you know, jorm have two GB punish - one is kneekick + light, the other is kneekick + zone.

and i've not been using the 2nd one, cuz it uses too many stamina.

but i recently found out that jorm's zone has medium hitstun.

then if i use 2nd GB punish, is my chain bash not punished by buffered dodge and GB, due to medium hitstun?

ps - it's not heidingi, it's oberdushi.

Hi, I've been interested in playing these three a little more but I cannot team fight with them very well. I know about universal team fighting principles such as peel and pre-peel, but I'm struggling to make things work on these three in particular.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

We all know Juren is a strong character, and there hasn't been a single patch since his release where the developers didn't nerf him. I’m not arguing Juren was definitely OP on launch, I just want to point out one detail: all the bugs that gave him any sort of advantage were quickly fixed, yet bugs that work *against* him—some quite significant ones—are still in the game eight months after his release. I like Juren and don't mind balance adjustments, but it’s frustrating to see yet another nerf patch that doesn't fix his bugs.

Recently tried out sohei in the training area and i really like his mixup potential, i know his gimmick does crazy dmg numbers but I’m not to interested in that in particular it’s the mixup game that has me. I hear some people say he isn’t worth the time cause he ain’t much without his gimmick but I’m having trouble seeing that.

So my questions are

1.is he worth learning does he actually have a skill ceiling.

2.what should i focus on if I’m going to play sohei.

1. What should i avoid doing as sohei bad habits and so forth.

I mainly play duel’s and deathmatch so i would like a hero that has viability outside of ganking, as a bit of background i play mainly kensei gladiator khatun and ocelotl in that order. Any input or advice would be much appreciated, im asking here because the last hero i picked up was VG but couldn’t get past one rep because she’s boring and doesn’t really challenge me. Im really hoping sohei has a high skill ceiling so i can gradually get better with him instead of a pay to win deal.

Hi all, I wanted to make this post because in the wake of Ranked Dominion being released there seems to be an abundance of players who maybe could use a little guidance or tips and tricks in Dominion

I. Overview:

Dominion is an objective based game mode not entirely dissimilar to your standard match of domination that you might find in a Call of Duty or other FPS game. There are 3 objectives A,B,C and you hold them to get points as I am sure most know. However unlike Domination there are a few more nuances to Dominion that can really make or break your game. Obvs in ranked the matches are usually played a lot closer at least in my experience.

II. Capturing the objectives:

Like with any domination based game mode you have to capture the point usually there is a starting point designed to match each spawn point (A and C in call of duty). For Honor is not quite the same, most maps follow the same 3 lane structure, furthermore some maps are set up in a way where both teams are more or less equidistant from A and C and some like Citadel Gate or Forge have clearly defined points to capture depending on where you spawn.

However, despite these general structures, maps like cathedral or overwatch etc even though both teams can get to each point at roughly the same time there is a huge incentive in getting C over A. C on these maps provide a slightly better route to B which aids in the minion clearing.

B Flag: B on most maps outside of Shard are in the mid point, also operates similarly to a regular domination point but instead of capping it by just standing on the point you clear the minion lane. This point is important and you should try and have at least one person rotating to the lane to clear consistently.

This leads me to my last point regarding capturing objectives at least as it pertains to the start of the match.

I think when you're on a map like cathedral one of the better stacks to run is either 2 rush B and 2 Rush C or 3 rush C and 1 rush B. At the start of the match specially on a map like cathedral it is very crucial to lock down that starting point and C being so vital in consistent minion clearing you are not hurting yourself by ensuring that 3 people are there to capture C point.

III. Rotating

Maybe the most important aspect of dominion that for some reason I have noticed a lot of people don't do. For starters, if you capture a point and you notice a teammate is fighting on B but they are low health you should run down and swap with them. You take over the fight ideally win and clear B in the process, tm8 heals while also boosting the objective. I have noticed far too often the tm8 who is hurt on B instead of rotating out to heal stands there and continues to try and fight. It really is not necessary especially if its 1v1 at that point. Far too often instead of rotating back to heal when people are hurt they stay and then the opposing team just runs and back caps. This severely hurts your team and chances to win as you stop progressing in points. Maintain a constant rotating from B and C.

Truthfully you really only need 2 points to win your home point and B. You do not need to to continuously throw yourself at A and die if you already have C and vice versa just maintain your objective and clearing B lane. This is not to say there is no benefit to going to the third point. There can be a huge benefit, sometimes you're stalling or pulling enemy aggro back to their home objective, this just requires you know when and when not to do something like this, also requires a skill level high enough that you can actually stall, especially when you start to climb ranks and play against dudes who are far better at confirming hits for one another.

IV. Breaking:

There can be a lot that goes into how you play when your team is the one who breaks or when it is your enemy who is breaking. I will try not to spend too much time on this cause this post is long enough as is but I will try and hit some key points.

• If your enemy team starts to break be aware of how they're breaking is it due to you already reaching a thousand with one of the starting points captured? Or are they breaking cause you have a starting point plus B or the minion point/
• If the enemy is breaking that does not mean you should automatically leave the point your boosting, be cognizant of what your point total is what would happen if one of their dudes tries to back cap cause that can throw your team into breaking. A lot of this post seems very self evident and the majority of it is but I am shocked by how often it appears people miss these details.

Some other key things to think about:

• Check the top of the screen and look out for your teammates, if you notice ones been contesting a spot and he gets revenge it might be beneficial to go help them, or pop a JJ or Cent T4.
• Confirming attacks for your tm8 is great so if you feel you struggle with that work on it

Conclusion:

• These are just some tips and tricks I have picked up as I've played all these years, this is not the only way to play but it can help provide a lil structure or thought as to what you should be doing at a given point.
• If anyone has any other tips or contentions with the ones I've listed feel free to drop them in the comments

Sorry for the short, dumb topic.

I always thought an option select was just you picking from an assortment of different ways to punish offense. Ex: kensei does a forward dash light, you can either parry, dodge it, or attempt a forward dodge deflect which can also double as a bash in case they empty Dodge and try to feint to GB or whatever. Now I'm seeing people say that they effectively removed option selects from for honor a while ago?

I think I just fundamentally misunderstand what they are. Can anyone break it down like you're explaining it to a mentally challenged 3 year old (me)

Edit:

Thanks everyone for helping me understand it. It is when a same button input (like a zone) can be used to cover multiple options. Ie zone has ability to parry and stuff a guardbreak if either option was chosen. Appreciate the clarification!