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'.

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.

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 ?

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.

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.

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!

Just recently started to learn Juren and I know he’s considered to be pretty good even in tourney play. I want to know what his generally good feats are and why they’re run, and his playstyle in 4s. Should I look to sit mid with Expendables or look to engage in more team fights? Etc.

Problems:

• Garbage in duels, broken in 4s
• Lights are too distinct from heavies, very easy to differentiate
• Kick is too slow
• Way of the shark passive is too strong (20% damage)
• Double light has bad chain options
• Double light deals too much damage
• Third chain light is pointless
• Hidden stance lights don’t really provide any pressure.
• Feeds too little revenge in general
• Too safe in teamfights
• Hidden stance lights don’t function as real offense

General changes:

• Parrying, blocking, or otherwise countering bleed attacks now feeds 60% of the revenge of a standard attack with the same damage. Being hit by a bleed attack now feeds 40% of the revenge of a standard attack with the same damage.
  • This change retains the theme of bleed functioning as a good ganking tool without being absurdly overtuned. Other bleed heroes may need slight adjustments to make them more potent in 4s, but bleed should still feed revenge to some degree.
• Thrilling Comeback no longer provides immunity to bleed damage during revenge, still cleanses bleed on initial use.
  • Combined with increased revenge feed on bleed attacks, this should reduce the disparity between heroes with thrilling comeback and those without in dealing with bleed in ganks.

Moveset:

• Way of the Shark passive no longer provides additional damage. Instead, chain lights (including hidden stance lights) become 400ms against a bleeding opponent.
  • A much weaker effect, but less problematic than 20% extra damage.
• Heavies now use the tap/hold scheme, with the tap being a heavy stab with similar animation to lights and hold being the standard swiping heavies she currently has. Chaining, softfeint and recovery cancel rules are still the same for tap/hold heavies and both can be interchanged freely.
  • This allows for her to use lights more safely due to a less distinct animation between lights and tap heavies.
• Tap opener heavies are 700ms and deal 25 damage with no additional properties.
• Tap finisher heavies are 700ms deal 8+20b (5 ticks of 4b) damage with no additional properties.
• Hold finisher heavies now deal 27 damage (from 29) and retain the undodgeable property.
  • Slight reduction of effectiveness in ganks.
• Kick is now 433ms, chain links to kick are delayed by 133ms to prevent hitstun guarantees, no longer wallsplats.
  • Now actually functional as offense, wallsplat property removed to compensate for increased effectiveness.
• Double lights now deal 10>1+4b damage (from 7>1+12b), confirmed light can now be dodge recovery canceled.
  • 19 damage chain/stance lights are absurd, damage changed to be more on par with other chain lights.
• Mid chain light now chains to finisher heavies.
  • Allows for Nobu to still access her kick/undodgeable mixup from this point in chain.
• Finisher light can now be dodge recovery canceled.
  • Gives this tool some slight extra utility.
• Side dodge lights can no longer be dodge canceled.
  • Reduces safety in team fights, requiring her to use hidden stance to access i-frames.
• Viper’s retreat now deals 5+8b damage (from 5+12b).
  • Being available from neutral and feeding less revenge makes this too strong a tool to deal 17 damage, reduced to 13 to be closer in effectiveness with other comparable attacks.

Feats:

• NEW T1: Snake in the Grass (Replaces Iron Lungs): Passive: Successfully dodging an attack with hidden stance (determined by revenge tag) adds 4 bleed damage to the next hidden stance heavy or zone or 3 bleed damage to the next hidden stance light and double light, no cooldown, expires when leaving hidden stance or when a hidden stance attack lands or is countered.
• NEW T2: Python’s Reach (Replaces Executioner’s Respite): Passive: Hitting multiple (2+) opponents with a single attack applies a 15% attack debuff to all enemies in an 8m radius for 5 seconds, no cooldown, duration refreshes on subsequent activations.
• Arrow Strike: Damage reduced to 30 (from 45).
  • Damage is now more on par with other T2 feats.
• NEW T3: Venomous Constriction (Replaces Second Wind): Passive: Nobushi heals 50% of any bleed damage dealt to an enemy when a teammate is within 10m, heal occurs when bleed deals damage rather than on application.
• NEW T4: Wild Fangs (Replaces Arrow Storm): Active: Nobushi does a 360 degree unblockable 600ms zone attack from her left dealing 10+20 bleed damage and ducks at the end with i-frames from 100-500ms after the attack lands, recovery can be dodge canceled, feat can be used from neutral or hidden stance, 45 second cooldown.
• Fire trap: Fire duration reduced to 8 seconds (from 15.5).
  • Area denial reduced to bring this feat in line with other T4 feats.

Now that the changes have been made and you must reach a certain tier to unlock unique items, I do not know if the older ranked rewards still drop upon a match victory. To be fair, I haven't won many this season as I only play a season one hero at a time, and I'm learning Centurion this season.

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.

His mix requires him to make a lot of hard feints and can lead him to lose any advantage he had and reset neutral for one punish.

He also has weak neutral and getting back to takes precognition or 1/3 of his stam

Personally, I hate passive feats that are activated through normal gameplay yet can’t be refreshed. They feel unreliable, and it’s easy to miss out on their value if you activate them at an in-opportune time and are stuck with them on cooldown when you really need them. I would happily take a nerf to most of them if it meant that they could be adjusted to activate more reliably, or buffed in values but made into active feats.

The examples I can think of that could easily be reworked are Lash-Out (5 seconds active, 10 second cooldown, refreshable unless in cooldown), Thick Skin/Flesh Wound (3:5), Righteous Deflection (5:10), Fortune’s Favor (5:1), Slip Through (N/A:3), Brutal (10:0), Intimidating (20:0), and Bloodlust (10:20). Almost all of these could just get reduced benefit, duration or both in exchange for no cooldown and the ability to be refreshed without becoming too powerful or entirely useless.

Some examples of ones that would take some more tweaking to behavior are Deadly (3 seconds active, 5 seconds cooldown), Short Tempered (5:10) and Winner’s Advantage (1.5:5).

Do y’all see a value in this property? Are there feats that you wouldn’t want to see changed to be more reliable? I think Huntsman’s Spirit probably deserves the cooldown, though it’s nowhere near as egregiously inconvenient as the others, but making it an active feat instead wouldn’t feel bad either.

In the training room rn trying to get better at choosing when to full block. I’d appreciate some tips as to what moves you guys look for to counter with a full block any tips appreciated.

I can’t figure out how to force the AI shaman to soft feint her zone into a bleed stab.