TLDR: Based on the bones of the rework alone it's good, but there are a handful of issues that need to be addressed which should at the very least see the delay of his rework being released on live.

The goal of this post is to highlight the good and bad of the rework. If you would like a visual representation of the numbers being talked about here I'd suggest Looking at Freeze's newest video on the rework. At the end I will give my personal suggestions for adjusting the rework going forward.

Animation quality: So this is a pretty easy one to discuss as most people have noticed it. Based on this alone I would suggest delaying the rework just because of how important clarity is for fighting games. We will start out with the worst offender which will be his chain heavies. Now not all of the situations are bad. Same side heavies look a little jank but are pretty fine as is. I think the primary issue for same side attacks is transitioning between a light or a heavy on the same side. It looks like it's dropping some frames instead of the usual smoothed out animation that is hidden thanks to the CCU changes. In addition to that it feels like switching from top to right (from conq's PoV) or vise versa ends up with really off animations. Left side to right side and vise versa seems fine. And left to top or vise versa seems fine as well. In addition to that all of his same side for top animations look clean enough.

This to me indicates the animations themselves can be cleaned up a bit to look less janky. I think the primary cause for this is the absence of the spin transitions that live conq has. Perhaps these had to go in order to make room for the new current chain heavy animation which is the same animation as the fully charged heavy animation. I appreciate that the devs have used the same animation for clarity on the attacks as not to confuse players with different animations. However because of this we are missing some key frames. I believe it wouldn't be hard to add some in to smooth out the transitions of the pain points outlined above. Feints and same side lights could probably use some frame smoothing as well but at least IMO they are not really needed to understand the action being done. I would however like to see a bit more animation smoothing for both scutage collection as well as soft feinting into his full block from his chain heavies. As is the transition for the latter looks abrupt as hell like it's meant to settle in from one spot to the next. But it hitches on one position before transitioning into the end position. For the former it just looks a bit messy because of how fast it transitions from superior block into the attack. On 60fps it's just noticable enough to understand what happened. But it could stand some improvement.


Scutage collection: Overall it's a very good addition to the kit as it fills the role his old zone did for outnumbered situations but it fits into what FH is now as a game. That being said the move itself has some glaring flaws. The first one being it is counterable. What I mean is low recovery zones and recovery cancels can avoid and even punish this move. Generally speaking each full block/superior block situation has both the unblockable and undodgable property. However Scutage collection does not have the undodgable property meaning recovery cancels can avoid it. And despite the fact that the move has the unblockable property it can still be parried by low recovery zone situations. This needs fixing. It's other issue is it's hitbox. It really only covers his left side up to the front some what. But it completely misses his right side. Considering the move is meant to be a "get off of me" tool it should really cover his entire self barring his back side.


Regarding full block cancel: As it currently stands Conq's full block cancel improves his ability to counter guard break when whiffing a bash from neutral and dodge things from neutral. In chain his full block cancel only improves his ability to dodge things from neutral. At current slow dodge attacks cannot punish him in any situation (slow being anything above 700ms when the attack lands,) fast dodge attacks (anything hitting 700ms or below) can pretty consistently punish his in chain dodge bash when done from a light hitstun. Neutral bash is inconsistent to punish for fast dodge attacks. Both situations require early dodge (meaning seeing orange and not indicator,) and early dodging can punish with a GB in some scenarios if you have good reactions. Dodge bashes barring LB's can consistently punish both neutral bash as well as chain bash from light hitstun. Unless you're LB. Charge bashes technically can't punish but force Conq into a mix up anyway.


Feat talk and misc: So Conq has two glaring issues not counting the above and feats. That would be a lack of a chase tool and a return of both flicker and option select. So for the former even though Conq's heavies got a nice improvement for range you can still easily escape conq's pressure after he has whiffed. This is very bad and reminds me of Black prior's situation. Pretty much every hero needs a chase tool at this point. As far as option select goes you can press heavy and dodge bash at the same time when dodging out of full block or just in general. This either will superior block for you and thus give you Scutage collection or it doesn't block an attack and you can bash the person instead. Shouldn't have to mention that this needs addressing. Flicker is actually back too. In Freeze's video he said it's probably easier to replicate for K&M players but I can pretty easily make it happen myself with a pad on console. It's an issue Ubi has fixed in the past though so they should have no problem fixing it again.

Beyond those things I want to briefly mention that conq's chain link times are longer out of lock than in lock. This isn't the "biggest" problem because you primarily only are out of lock when vising minions. Would be nice to have it addressed but it's not necessary. Another complaint I have is the hitboxes for his lights and heavies. In my opinion they are too small and thus generally only hit one player at a time. This is easily seen if you stand in minion lane surrounded by minions. Generally speaking both will only hit 2 and sometimes 3 minions. Considering Conq is being pushed into a team fighting role with his update hitboxes are really important for these scenarios and should be prioritized. Finally we get to his feats. While T1 and T2 selections are mostly fine as is his T3 and T4 are pretty lacking in both damage (compared to other T3 damage feats) and support. I know Ubi isn't in the habit of looking at feats when doing reworks but I STRONGLY suggest they look into his selections if they really would like to see Conq be used more in a 4's setting. As feats really hugely impact who gets picked for what.


My opinion overall and suggested changes: Overall I think they did a very good job with transitioning his identity over into a post CCU world. He still has defensive quirks that stand out amongst other heros defensive tools. Not having to worry about stamina with his full block tool is such a minor adjustment but it really hones in on the fortress feeling he's described as. Dodging out of his stance is completely unique to him unless you want to count Nobushi (I don't because she doesn't all block with her stance.) Finally having scutage collection exist along side his superior block options retains the identity of his old zone but in a more active fashion. Still being able to full block cancel his charged heavies is also a nice touch. And it feels so good to be able to regularly feint now.

Offensively what he has is kind of boring and it's effectiveness at high level play is...not consistent. This isn't entirely new as many forms of offense don't really cut it at that level of play. I cannot really express how I feel on that as I do not play at that level. All I can do is urge the devs to find a way to make offense more consistent at all levels of play. That all being said I like how his offense feels. Having an infinite chain that works regardless of what side you choose at any point, same side or not, heavy or light input, I feel works very well with the flail idea. Even if animation wise it leaves much to be desired in the "realism" department. I think the way his infinite works along side full block cancels and his retained defensive identity makes him unique enough. But I also do not blame people who don't spend as much time as I do analyzing combat and it's feel find it to be too same-ey to many other hero offerings.

All that aside though he does have some substantial issues as mentioned above. I really like how his full block cancels play out in terms of including a frame advantaged bash into the mix of options he has. But I also understand that for high level play this does open the window for players to reaction punish some options. It really depends on how Ubi wants his bashes to behave. There's a few different routes they can take with it. Beyond that Conq now enters the bracket of other heros that are capable of back whiffing a light into a cancel to let them both space and punish people attempting to deal with them. I could say "at least" his lights don't have CC properties like some other heros in this group have. But that doesn't really make it feel okay. The devs at one point did say they weren't okay with back step CC and one can assume that dislike could extend to back whiffing things in general. But until the devs give an updated assessment and statement on back whiffing it's just something we will have to continue to stomach for the time being. Anyway onto my suggestions:

• Add key frames to swapping from light to heavy/heavy to light animations on both the same side attacks as well as swapping from top to right and right to top
• Smooth the transition frames for full block cancels on charged heavy moves as well as feints
• Add a few more frames for blending the animation of superior blocking into Scutage collection
• Make Scutage collection undodgable and truly unpunishable
• Increase the hurt box trajectory of Scutage collection to extend to his right side as well
• Increase hurt box trajectory of side lights and heavies both neutral and in chain
• Reduce the damage of fully charged heavy from 32 to 28
• Give Conq a forward dodge heavy. Preferrably a 700ms heavy with generous input window, does not need to be feintable
• Reduce hitstun/block stun of chain heavies so punishing his chain bash in most situations can be done with a quick dodge attack. (hitstun values stay the same for flail uppercut and Scutage so Conq is encouraged to use his defensive tools to maintain peak offense)
• Fix out of lock light/heavy chain links to mirror his in lock chain link times
• Lengthen his time to GB recovery from 800ms on both his bashes to 900ms
• (If possible) make time to side dodge out of full block to be 1 or 2 more frames longer but keep his forward dodge out of full block at 33ms
• Failing that make the time it takes to enter full block from a whiff longer than current (either issue should fix reactionary punishment for high level play)
• For Tier 3 Buff Pugno Mortis from 40 damage to 50 damage possible with an increased radius from 8 meters to 10. Now has damage drop off like LB's Ignus ember. Heal on block replaced with Second wind
• For Tier 4 Buff Catapult time to land from 2000ms to 1500ms. Reduce overall possible damage from 200 to 150. Create a sharper damage drop off and increase it's radius from 8 meters to 10. Replace Uninterruptable with Morale booster.

If you made it this far thank you for reading. As always see you in the next thread~

Nuxia is one of the most unique heros from a mechanical stand point even in todays world where we have a hero with an actual gun. However she's never really gotten time to shine. Her kit circles around the trap mechanic which unfortunately is a very inconsistent mechanic. Even in a post CCU world where swapping your guard away to counter makes it unreactable you can still react to "counter" the trap by emoting on indicator or lighting into it since she has to trap in your current guard direction. Her traps are also the way to recycle her offense and as we've seen with the likes of Raider this is a very good thing to have that's pretty essential for chain based heros. However unlike Raider Nuxia's recyclable offense isn't great. And this is in part because her kit does not really have anything to compliment her traps. Finally we have her feats, Deadly duet is a nice concept in theory but you're hard pressed to consistently find 1v1 situations especially in a meta about team fights. Caltrops is a bit too strong considering it's a T2 feat. Thread of fate is an okay effect but isn't as powerful because it only effects one target. And infection is hard to actually use with it's short effect time of 10 seconds. My rework is going to touch on what traps mean for her kit, how to make her kit compliment with her traps, and a touch up of her unique feats.


Traps: To elaborate a bit further traps are kind of complex in that they don't really work like traditional soft feint offense as it's a mechanic that tries to solve defensive play which for arguments sake is not generally what you deal with in a dominion match very often outside of one situation. To further complicate traps they revenge lock, can be used to trap two of three directions if positioned properly, feed about a bashes worth of revenge wether they land or not, and Nuxia herself can be peeled before she actually gets to do damage since the trap itself doesn't do damage. It is difficult to outright buff her traps because of how potentially strong they can be if you make some minor adjustments. So I feel in order to buff her Traps into effective tools we need to first adjust some of these things:

Trap changes:

• Traps no longer do a follow up for damage
• Traps no longer revenge lock

I've gone on record of saying that I like revenge lock as an idea for a mechanic. However the devs have taken most methods to do so out of the game for clarity sake and I can only imagine Nuxia still has it because the devs have forgotten she has that effect. Regardless of it being intentional or not it would be insanely imbalanced of her to get my proposed power increase and be able to deny revenge while doing so. In a similar vein I think removing damage as a possibility for landing a trap is fine. Primarily because you get peeled often anyway. Removing this option in favor of utility is my idea. So with those 2 changes in mind here is what I propose traps become:

Trap buffs:

• Traps can now be triggered via soft feint or blocking
• Trap soft feint is now a bash with a hitbox and is dodgable
• Pressing GB on block automatically traps the person

I have always been a fan of two things mechanically when it comes to rework ideas. Messing with the block state, and messing with feints. While I had some what of a rework already in my head I was struggling to put the glue together to make it fit. The new hero showcase was educational and helped me come up with this solution partially. Essentially I want her traps to enhance her kit and the only way to do that is to have her traps land more often. By giving Nuxia 2 situations that lead to traps this makes it harder to just shut her out. It addresses emoting as you'll eat the bash if you emote on indicator. This doesn't prevent someone from stuffing her with a light but hitstun will and that we will get into later. I chose to have the inverse of the hero because Trap's identity was built off of blocking. She'll be just as scary with taps from external still as well and in my opinion this setup warrants her traps as a mechanic feeding more revenge than basic attacks do where imo her current situation doesn't warrant it even given the potential traps currently have.


Trap follow ups: Now that we've set the foundation for what traps are I have to explain what her traps lead into. The idea behind this rework is to give Nuxia a conditional activation mechanic (traps) that makes her moves better. Basically the easy way to think of it as landing trap gives X property to a move. With that explanation done here are the benefits of landing a trap:

• Next heavy is an unblockable finisher
• Next light input is an undodgable chain starter light
• Pressing GB and a direction is a throw

The idea is very simple, you're mixing between an undodgable 500ms light that is low damage but keeps your combo potential (aka the recycle component,) and a higher damage finisher that ends chains but gives you the potential for more damage if the throw ends up throwing someone into a wall or other person. But you also get the option to get a throw that doesn't guarantee damage for Nuxia herself. This would allow her to stall someone in revenge by throwing them into a wall or potentially ledge someone. (note that heavy finishers when they throw are automatic. So you cannot land her heavy finisher and then trap after.)

Enhancing the rest of the kit: So we've established what traps are now and what they do. We've retained the ability for her to recycle her offense. But now we need to bring the rest of her kit up to speed. Her mid chain is a particularly interesting area to look at because at the moment she only has two 400ms lights. She does have the capability to include her zone into her chains and i've always assumed that this option existed to throw off the timing of her opponent in some way. However it's slow speed pretty much prevents it from ever being a mix up. And finally we also should look at her deflect.

Proposed changes:

• Mid chain lights are enhanced
• The first half of Nuxias zone can be stuffed into her chain as an undodgable 600ms unfeintable heavy from Nuxia's left side
• Neutral zone now hits twice. First hit being 500ms and the second hitting at 900ms. Second half remains trappable both through the soft feint as well as if it is blocked.
• Deflect is now guaranteed at 15 damage and is a chain starter. Can swap guard for a 20 damage chain starting light that isn't guaranteed.

So mid chain lights assure that Nuxia can continue to attack unless she is stopped through a parry or runs out of stamina. Considering the low damage they are I find this to be fair. But I can see an argument for lowering it from 9 to say 7 or 8 for this property to exist. Nuxia's zone being a two part attack isn't exactly original however I wanted it to have a purpose specifically for being in chain. Conq used to have a zone that could be held for multiple swings but his new zone is just a single swing of his old zone. So that's where I got the idea to add just the first half of the zone specifically in mid chain only. It is slower in chain as to not be super oppressive and an easier time to parry. But the pro is that if someone is trying to dodge mid chain you now have two undodgable options. For the regular zone I wanted to make it more usable. Unfortunately because of the way traps work in my idea her unique trap animation on landing the zone trap has to be scrapped. However i'm hoping with my changes it still makes her zone unique enough.


Cleaning up/values and numbers: Before I get into the feat adjustments I need to list values for the things I mentioned above as well as addressing one final thing that is her dodge attacks. So let's speed through this:

• Dodgable bash trap is 500ms
• Traps feed 30 revenge (note this is their current value but since they're no longer doing damage they also don't apply revenge twice. number is subject to change if 30 is too low.)
• Enhanced mid chain lights are 7-9 damage depending on what people think is fair trade for the ehanced property
• Mid chain zone is 600ms 12 damage
• Neutral zone 1st hit 500ms second hit occurs at 900ms 12 damage 1st hit 2nd hit 16 (so 28 total which is what her zone is currently if it lands.)
• Heavy finisher damage is now 26 from 30 (due to power level increase)
• Heavy opener damage is now 20 from 24 (due to power level increase)
• Deflect guaranteed is 15, swapped is 20 and the speed of non guaranteed is 500ms.
• Side dodge attacks now can be input from 200ms-300ms instead of being fixed at 300ms.
• All dodge attacks and parry counter retain medium hitstun. All other instances removed.
• Can now recovery cancel with dodges from her finishers and after a trap lands.
• Slightly increased trajectories and tracking for her dodge attacks as well as her mid chain heavies and finisher heavies.

I snuck in some recovery cancels at the end there because she is a "dancer" with weapons that were intended to fit that. However considering her entire kit with my buffs I thought that giving her recovery cancels after everything would be a bit much. I wanted at least some part of her kit to retain the medium hitstun properties that most people forget about purely because it's relatively unique to her. It should help prevent stuffing in some situations but doesn't completely remove it as an option. But i'm open to debate with this personally. And the dodge attack changes are just to make them more usable/comfortable without making them power houses defensively. The input change isn't strictly necessary and I don't hold hopes that the devs will ever willingly include delayable windows again outside of new hero releases.


Feats: Unlike the extensive retooling of her kit i'm not going to be making major changes to her kit. I thought about potentially letting her activate a feat mid chain like the new hero did but ultimately I felt that would just be excessive (as it would be tagged onto trap sections,) and not really add much to her kit. So here are my suggested feat changes:

• Deadly duet name changed to Deadly dancer. Deal 16% more damage when near 2 or more enemies.
• Caltrops persist for 20 seconds (down from 25) with a delayed damage start of 500ms (instead of instant) Caltrops AoE buffed from 6 meters to 8 meters.
• Thread of fate is now Threads of fate. Can chain to multiple opponents from the original target.
• Infection lasts 20 seconds up from 10. Damage is now 5 a second instead of 10.

The main theme behind the tweaks is to give Nuxia more of a team presence as she's always been seen as the team fighting assassin despite her feats largely not playing into this role.
As usual because some of these are power level increases they have to be nerfed in some ways. Deadly dancer is a T1 feat that will potentially always be active for Nuxia. a 4% nerf isn't a lot though. I struggled to decide between keeping it passive but have it be a lower damage buff or let it become an active but retain the same or close to the same damage buff. The important factor here is that she can use it when near more than one person. So feedback on this is appreciated greatly. Caltrops are pretty disgusting as is for as short of a CD they have. I really am not fond of CD increases for balancing which is why I chose this route.

they already do 2 damage which is low. But the no animation + instant damage makes them (imo anyway) unintentionally strong in ganks and 1v1s. I always assumed the point of them was to have a persisting field of damage that at worst lets you clear minion lane and at best has interesting implications with team fights. So the changes made make it a bit more reasonable against players but slightly compensates for it by having a larger area of effect. The delayed damage gives some counter play as well as let people leave if they're on the edge instead of feeding renown. I thought of having a total damage cap exist along side it's regular active time to potentially address the issue vs players. Please let me know if you like that idea more than this one. Threads of fate is an interesting CC feat (similar to ring of fire works) in that it effects someone's movement. I do see how potentially snowbally it could be now that it effects multiple people. But you let me know. And finally infection. The potential it has is high with 100HP damage at least on 2 people. But that assumes you can keep two people near each other. As this is difficult and it only having 10 seconds of time it often feels like a whiff of a T4. So the idea is to let it persist longer potentially getting more damage out of the ability. But with a more reasonable damage per tick. Numbers here like with all of the other feat numbers are adjustable.


Closing statement/TLDR: The whole idea of Nuxia's rework was to make her identity as the hero who locks blades to be more fleshed out. I feel this is retained by having better access to her traps, better access to her throw mechanic on finishers, and having traps have a bigger more usable presence in her kit. She works as is, but seeing the game evolve as it has over time she's been left behind and her old ways of doing things do not compete with the FH of today. Above all I wanted her to remain unique despite having to lean more into blue/orange properties...even if this idea is a wash from a balance perspective I just hope that at the very least the ideas sounded/looked unique enough.

The TLDR is traps are now conditional "bashes" that you can access more easily. Said traps give a temporary "buff" to her chain attacks that let her get started with usable and recyclable offense. Thank you for reading.

@deathtocakl

Should notice that they haven't released a new assassin hero since Nuxia. They've also not given anyone a dodge light since marching fire either. This is likely their way of subbing out reflex guard since they can't/won't put in the effort to actually remove it from old heros. That being said they have been able to modify decay rate and did so with both Shinobi and Gladiator. So in theory they could adjust the decay rate to be super long so guard dropping before an attack is unlikely to happen.

The issue I have with reflex guard is less that (since you can just get good) and more having to refresh guard to block multiple hits. As if your timing is even slightly off there you're going to take hits and be helpless.

@shogun3554

Correct, but every character should be effective offensively. Of which Kensei isn't. You can have more defensive oriented heros and they can still have competent and consistent offense. My favorite example in a fighting game of this is Ultra Instinct Goku in Dragon ball fighter Z. That guy is absolutely kitted out defensively boasting way more defensive options than any other character in the game. Yet even he is still more than viable offensively. He just lacks any kind of power house offensive tools that other characters have.

I'm not asking for Kensei to get turned into Raider who is an actual power house for offensive capability. I want him updated so that he's relevant in end game pvp for something besides just good recoveries on landed finishers.

@csodaszarvas_g

That's fine I just wanted more than one instance to feel okay with hopping on that idea. Thanks for looking!

@lostdarknight

My opinion on Pirate isn't important. But no, she's over tuned. I like her design she just needs some adjustment. First batch of nerfs are good and hurt her ganks which is good. I'm assuming a second group of changes will follow in the near future touching on some of her safety. They just gotta be careful here to not over do it. I don't want her to disappear from Comp play like Orochi and Gryphon did when the devs overcorrected both.

I understand the game can be triggering. I limit how much I play because I get upset either at bad teammates or the game screwing me over in places like weapon wall bounces or it ignoring an input or doing something I didn't input. I have much more fun with FH this way.

He's where he should've been a week ago. He feels much better to play with in terms of interacting with his entire kit. That being said he's still a pretty far cry from where he should be. This update shouldn't/hopefully isn't the last one he gets.

His damage is overtuned (but so are several other heros.) Beyond that some stamina costs could be slightly increased. But other than that yeah he's in a good spot.

I think you're being hit because Tiandi's finishers are 400ms and PK's DA's don't come out till the earliest of 300ms into her dodge. IIRC Valk has 2 400ms attacks of both her in chain top light and top light finisher. If you're still getting hit by her 500ms lights/finishers then perhaps you can't DA to punish opening lights without potentially eating a combo light. But I don't want to put my stake in that claim without testing.

Deathtocakl would be correct in saying that it's not a pk specific problem if that is the case. I think saying PK is bad overall because of this is a stretch, though I would agree that PK's dodge attacks aside from their damage are the worst things in her kit. They have a huge amount of recovery on whiff for some reason which can happen often because her DA's don't have much range. Combining that with her DA coming out 300ms at the earliest and it feels like hell. She's not the only hero with this timing and we can easily point that it feels bad in those instances as well. But unfortunately I don't see it changing because both Kyoshin (a new hero release,) and reworks like Hito's have this timing. Meaning it's a deliberate choice made by the devs.

@picoancus

Lighting him out of his neutral zone is technically an option if you start from true neutral as if he landed either a chain zone or a chain finisher heavy the hitstun on both would basically guarantee you won't interrupt his soft feints. However you're risking being light parried against a hero who very quickly makes massive health swings thanks to his over tuned damage profile. So "yes" you can light his zone opener just as early dodge is also technically an option. But both are very risky. There are better instances when vsing raider when it's more acceptable to try and interrupt.

Storming tap is completely unreactable if you're a person who looks for indicators. This is totally appropriate in some situations like Orochi because you can easily spot when his storm rush is being used because the indicator immediately disappears. However a lot of reaction based play at high levels focus more on animations. In raider's case he has a very distinct animation of his feet leaving the ground when he goes for tap. This is why I recommended if you are playing solid guard to block top. Because you can still protect yourself whilst looking for his feet to jump. Nobushi is another character where you can react specifically because her feet leave the ground.


I will have to disagree. I don't play at high level/comp level so I could be wrong in my assertion here. But I block top basically naturally because it's far easier for my brain to make me block left or right on indicator than it is for me to swap to top guard. It just feels more natural. When I fight raider i'm already blocking top. Then I simply just choose in my head what I believe the character is going to do. If I think he's going to soft feint to GB then I just look for blue. If I think he's going to commit to or feint his chained zone I just pay attention to indicator and dodge if the soft feint window has passed. Obviously this is still a difficult choice reaction and my method doesn't rip his offense to pieces. But it is specifically why Raider doesn't blow me up on average. I'm sure against an actually good player he'd mess me up more. But average players are too predictable. So when I get rolled it's usually just because i'm playing badly. There's never been more than 2 heros at any given time that I actually struggle against.

I know Raider is S tier competitively in both duels and dominion. My response wasn't to disprove or dispute that. Just tactics that you can employ given specific circumstances. I like many others think his damage definitely needs to be pulled down. And probably an increase to stamina consumption. But mechanically what his kit is capable of is more than fine IMO.

@mcbooma16

Everyone I talked to told me I wasn't missing out on much because of how messy it was looking. I didn't doubt them I just wanted to see for myself and unfortunately I wasn't really able to.
I also agree with you, I don't want to see another system wide TG again if not only will the actual stuff we test be this rough but the blog post/Den is not detailed enough for us to have a baseline of understanding. Kind of hard to test things if we don't have a clear set of information to go off of.

This thread is going to be more of a thread about theory rather than me saying what should and shouldn't be done. There's a few reasons for this and the first one is my disclaimer. I have only played 2 games on the TG. I have tried for 3 days to get games of Dominion and each time I waited in que for about an hour or so. Since I have limited time/desire to wait around for ages I won't be attempting to look anymore. So everything in this thread is going to be my own opinion as well as input from competitive players. The link for their video is as follows:

I have linked it at the time where they start discussing. I will TLDR their input after my own but I highly suggest if you have an hour of free time to give it a watch. As it goes to show not only differing opinions amongst the comp scene but they also give examples on why they think one way or another.

The other major reason this thread is more of a discussion about theory is because I feel like the TG is misunderstood in it's intention. Part of that is because the blog post is not as helpful as it should be. But also part of that is because there's a running trend at the moment is people showcasing awful problems in duels. This isn't to say that duels can be ignored nor am I trying to minimize the issues they showcase. But rather people are using said instances as proof that the TG itself is flawed and has nothing good going for it. Basically it's painting a false narrative and does not help give the kind of feedback we need to pass to the devs. That feedback is already going to be muddied because the devs themselves were not detailed enough with their blog post and thus what we experience on the TG is hard to parse what is intentional and what isn't. So with these things out of the way I am going to do my best to clarify the intent of the TG and what the devs were trying to accomplish.

What is the goal of the testing grounds?

The goal of the testing grounds is to provide more of an opportunity for players to attack in out numbered scenarios as well as encourage players to go deeper into their chains.

This sounds relatively straight forward but it means a bit more than just "I can push buttons more." The devs are wanting to give players more opportunities to do something besides defending. The devs want players to have options. Previously this has shown up as recovery cancels and fast flows. But in the past we've seen examples like having armor/unblockables for parry counters and most recently the devs gave Conq the ability to self peel after landing a bash. Basically the devs would like all characters to have options in all scenarios instead of only a few. But they do not feel it is reasonable (be it resources or simply time) to try to give every character a unique option. So they want to make some blanket changes that can be the building blocks for more varied options in the future.

My personal thoughts:

I'm hardly the only person to think of this but I like the idea/intent behind the TG. There are situations that get resolved from this TG that are considered universally good now. The primary two being landed finishers being immune to GB punish, and blocks of attacks no longer netting GB's. However the way this stuff is implemented is very poor. We have two easy examples of this, the first one is GB's bouncing because of immunity. This is specifically a problem because GB bounces open up punishes to the person bouncing. Technically speaking this is also the case for CGBing. However the main difference between the two is GB bounce's don't have DR armor on them. Meaning you can get a heavy with full damage for the GB bounce. Ideally GB bounce's shouldn't exist because of this. But then how do we make chain based attacks GB immune?

The second point is a lack of information on how things are supposed to work. In the blog post the devs mentioned moves like Shaman's bite and Shugoki's hug being moves that would still be GBable on whiff. On the TG they're not and we can simply chalk that up as a bug as there are a few other bugs in the TG right now (those being Nobushi's dodge heavies lost their zone property and Centurion's punch netting a chain light instead of a chain opener light being some examples of bugs.) Really why they are this way isn't important but rather what we should be focused on is what the devs are trying to make as exceptions. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the chargable bashes might also be exceptions the devs thought about. We could also argue that Aramusha's Ring the bell could be another exception. Simply put because we have no real direction on what exceptions are supposed to exist we cannot give accurate feedback. Then there's also the issue with how the change was implemented.

What I mean is currently there are 3 "phases" involved with the state of someone's GB vulnerability. You have the GB immune phase where if you attempt to GB you will bounce off. Then you have the techable GB phase where you haven't fully returned to be able to block yet but GB's do not bounce, instead you tech the GB. And then you have the final phase where you're back to full neutral and can block again. The devs did actually note in the blog of those two seperate instances but the problem is that's not consistent amongst the cast. The running theory is these phases are based off of the moves original recoveries. To be brief each move has 3 recoveries that dictate when you can GB/CGB, dodge/switch guard, and attack/block. (I might have the groupings mixed up but the point is there's 3 that dictate different actions.) We have no idea if the GB immune phase is based on which grouping and the same goes with the tech phase. Because these values differ from hero to hero it doesn't make this easy to grasp and understand.

But yes let's bring it back around to my thoughts. So I kind of like how this effects duels to a degree. What I mean is if everything is forced down to a dodge attack it will lengthen duel matches which would be appreciative. And for 4's I really like that I can actually attack when surrounded with characters like Nobushi instead of just being forced to do nothing until I die or help arrives. I acknowledge that with how diverse the cast is that sweeping changes like this cannot simply be made without careful implementation. There's just too many situations that exist in the game to account for. So I would have to recommend that the devs either close down the TG and find a different solution entirely, or get feedback from the competitive players exclusively to alter how this TG works and the re-run it for another week (with at least double exp) to try and get some more focused feedback. There's simply no point in keeping this TG up specifically with how many flaws exist and how unclear some things are meant to behave.

Summary of Comp opinions:

To end this segment I wanted to give a short but sweet overview of what competitive players think of this Testing Grounds. It will have 3 categories dubbed positive, mixed, and negative. Then there will be a brief spot at the end of potential suggestions strictly for what to test on another TG as well as some short commentary on other topics they touched. Namely Revenge, Dodge attacks, and some specific interactions/explanations.

Positive reception:

• Finishers that land being immune to guard breaks
• Having your attacks blocked causing you to be able to be GBed and cannot counter GB. (mainly considering light attacks in this scenario.)
• JJ's new cancel into Sifu window off of hitstun

Mixed reception:

• Chain attacks being GB immune
• Whiffed GB's being GB immune
• Highlander's dodge attack

Negative reception:

• Bash punishes being changed
• Fully whiffed attacks being GB immune (meaning the attack hit no one.)

Comp commentary:

In general it seems like the competitive side thinks it's fair for finishers to get whiffed and you get guard broken. As you're taking a risk to potentially damage multiple players and properly positioning to make your hitbox actually connect is a skill that should be rewarded as much as it should be to risk such a thing. This goes hand in hand with not being punished if you land a finisher as you correctly made a play in a situation and shouldn't be punished because you made that play at all. Essentially they do not like that the outcome (being GBed) is always the same regardless of how the actual scenario plays out and the want that changed.

Where things get muddied is chain attacks themselves. On one hand if you make chains fully immune to GB's you have two big issues. The first one being GB bounces will be frequent and that's not okay because of how much it screws someone. There's no decent way to prevent this from happening often because of how recoveries differ between Heros. So it would be unreasonable to expect any player to avoid that consistently. The other major problem is how it effects Heros specifically. You have some characters that get most of their ganks in from landing GB's. This would knee cap them. Also it would necessitate all teams have Hero's like Shinobi who do not care about your GB vulnerability because their ganks are from bashes. They mostly seemed to agree that you should be able to attack more with your chains they just don't have a unified opinion on how to approach that. Some have suggested shrinking whiff recovery in totality while others suggested GB immunity for specific chains like heavy into heavy.

The point of Contention is whiffs. As the game considers off target attacks landing as whiffs anyway. So finding a correct window where people can be appropriately punished for the given scenarios is difficult since depending on what whiffs and how it whiffs changes what is appropriate. In regards to bashes specifically it seems like everyone agreed that bashes should be GBable on whiff. However given the nature of some Hero's kits that isn't reasonable. For example BP's bash it's not where as Warden's it is. The agreed upon situation seems to be that they want all bashes to be punishable with both DA's and GB's. Though the recovery has to be low enough that you have to dodge attack the opposite guard direction to land your dodge attack. And for GB's you have to make a hard read which to them means you early dodge. The main reason they don't like the devs implementation of this is because even if you exclude charge bashes the person who has the bash (be it in chain or from neutral) has much less to think about since they never have to worry about being Gbed. Where as the defender has to think about more and potentially risks more regardless of what they do as their read.

To further prove how this change isn't good for bashes they talked about dodge attacks a bit. I'll leave out their suggestions on what a dodge attack needs as I think that's best heard from them. But they basically stated that if all bashes (or even just cast standard bashes) were DA only as a punish that means the devs then have to turn their focus to dodge attacks to make them all not only viable for this but also they can't make DA's too different from each other without basically hurting the power balance between them. Basically think back to when we were going over removing zone option selects. The devs if they wanted to keep that would've been forced to go over every zone to standardize them to a degree. By removing Zone OS they are allowed a greater variance in what the move does for each kit. Well this is basically the same scenario. To tie this off they do think that all cast members should have dodge attacks regardless if this TG happens or not simply for the sake of giving heros options on how to defend themselves. (Though they do mention DA's are more than just punish tools in kits.)

Smaller topics talked about...Wall bounces both live and TG give an untechable GB. They want that axed, preferably wall collision entirely but at least removing this. They want Nobushi to get the same treatment with her hidden stance as JJ got with Sifu in that she should be able to hidden stance dodge something even given hitstun. But they stated BP shouldn't get that due to the nature of his flip. It's okay on JJ because JJ's dodge attack cannot punish bashes traditionally where as BP's flip can. BP instead should get a dodge attack to punish chain bashes. Revenge being buffed was briefly talked about. They tabled the discussion because that's a whole other topic but obviously buffing Revenge isn't the way to solve all the problems here since you do not always have Revenge.


TLDR: Both I and the competitive community believe there were positives in this TG but the overall implementation of the TG was very poor and there's practically no actionable and usable data/feedback from this TG. Either the devs need to scrap this entirely and find a different solution or there needs to be a second TG with a much more nuanced approach to the problems.

@csodaszarvas_g

The devs did note on the Den that both Shaman's bite and Shugoki's hug were supposed to stay GBable on a miss. So I personally believe full charge bashes also being immune on whiff is a bug just like these scenarios. Regardless of the idea being good or not there would have to be significant work to make it balanced for the game and I don't disagree with that. I'd just rather try to look at the actual goal of the TG and try to understand all possible positives before I weigh in on weather the devs should go back to the drawing board with this or not.

@darrowshowlers

I literally said I was going to come and post my thoughts about this TG as my last stuff. This reply to this thread falls under that.

Please stop trying to start things with people. It's annoying.

@csodaszarvas_g

This whole TG feels rushed and weird, like they wanted to make this in order to not do hero reworks.

I disagree tbh. Even if these TG changes were perfect and all the hero specific scenarios that were unhealthy got ironed out kits would still have problems that need addressing.
I DO think that this TG (if released properly) will make reworks easier on the devs but honestly I think it has a bigger impact on future hero inclusions to the game.
The devs have gone to a very specific sort of formula with creating heros as of late. That being 2 hit chain heros with either some kind of defensive move (aka stance) or Recovery cancels to make up most of their uniqueness.

Prior to Pirate and Kyoshin we had Gryphon and Warmonger. Both of which featured 3 hit chains and ways to avoid using said chains. Gryphon has easy access to his finisher mix up through his dodge/dash attacks and any light self confirmed into another for going into the mix. Warmonger had enhanced attacks with easy access and continual frame advantage so she never had to go deep in her chains. Even has 2 unblockables accessible from neutral.

The intent of this TG is to both allow and encourage people to go further in their chains. If successful the devs can likely start making more 3 hit chain heros again which would lessen the pressure for people to immediately react/read. It would slow fights down again because the scarier things that would make people have to make a strong read take longer to get to. We could afford to have more interesting characters that make their chains look free form Like Valk, Kensei, and Shaolin. Rather than having characters that immediately threaten from neutral or after a single soft punish (aka dodge attack) force you into a scary mix that probably loops. This isn't to say that those characters are bad/poorly designed and that we should never have them again. What I'm trying to say is that unless we get something similar to this TG as a soft boot to how combat flow works we're going to have to continue the trend of heros that people don't enjoy fighting. The devs outright stated they didn't want to give everyone recovery cancels when talking about this. That alone should be a big enough hint to how potentially cornered the devs are with hero design right now.

Anyway this is more rambling then I wanted to do. I've barely been able to play the TG because of how dead it is. It's looking like my write up is going to have to be more theoretical instead of actual experience. Which I can work with that but it makes it that much easier for me to end up with egg on my face. Anyway, please look forward to my TG thread soon. The plan is to have it up before the end of tomorrow so I can head out to my family's home for the holiday on Monday and not be thinking about the game.

@mayan_master

I always recognize you by your pfp so no worries man. I appreciate your kind words.

 unlike conq.

Despite some of the issues with him I was actually enjoying him. However the latest hotfix (if I understand it correctly) means I don't get to enjoy him anymore.
So that's fun.

I hope you return sometimes

I'll probably still be lurking but unless someone @'s me directly i'll probably refrain from posting.
Just doesn't really seem worth it anymore.

@undondory

Nah, You have a few upstanding members left. Death, MCBooma, Csodasarvas, and Solider of Dawn. I feel comfortable in vouching for them. Plus you yourself are pretty decent most of the time.
And like I said, this post doesn't mean i'll never reply here again post TG. I just won't be actively looking here anymore. Or probably more accurately unless the post is asking for information or a post has blatant misinformation in it I likely won't post in it. I'll probably not make threads anymore either. I think Death is pretty informed like I am and can easily take over in explaining new mechanics or situations if need be. Probably the only worthwhile thing that will get lost that I used to post is Den summaries that are focused on gameplay stuff. If no one steps up to that there's always the r/competitiveforhonor as someone always seems to post details there.

@mcbooma16

Yes something I have learned a few years back with this game (back when it's hooks were in me completely) is that I have to temper my expectations on what the devs will actually do.
As Death has pointed out before the devs have a pretty clear pattern when it comes to adjustments and reworks even if the quality between them varies. I still like suggesting in my feedbacks what else can improve the kit just because I hope that someday they'll give more complete reworks so we don't have to revisit a reworked Hero every year or two. There's a few things I can't let up on though, probably the biggest thing for me is the game's training room and things related to it. I absolutely love being able to tell people about the nuances of combat but the game really should do a better job at explaining the game's combat. I still find it abhorrent that people have to go outside of the game for resources on basic things like frame advantage and hit/block stun. Revenge isn't even fully explained and it's a prominent feature in Dominion which is the one game mode they seem to care about at all. I also really hate that I cannot set a bot to do specific commands just to see if something is or isn't possible in a match up. I could ramble forever about stuff like this.

As far as seeing me around goes I don't wish to promote another game on a forum not dedicated to it. But i'll drop it here since it's fighter esque and it's probably where i'll spend my pvp energy whenever I'm not feeling like For Honor. I just started playing a game called "Naraka Bladepoint." It's basically a melee based BR. there is some ranged combat but it's more complimentary than a main focus. The depth to it's combat is quite impressive and unlike FH there is a significant emphasis on movement. It is cross play between PC and Xbox. So if you look into it and like it you may see me there sometimes.

@csodaszarvas_g

I'm glad I was able to help you out with understanding the game. That's my goal.

@Soldier_of_Dawn

I gotta say I was originally let down with Raider's hero skin but actually seeing it in the game it's not as bad as I thought.
I still wish it was a skin where Raider had a shirt or something covering his torso, but I definitely don't hate it.
Hero skins IMO like the rest of the game aren't bad and definitely have potential but they still need a bit more work before i'd spend cash on them.

You were one of the members that made me think in different ways and put a magnifying glass to my own viewpoints. I appreciate that a lot.

I'm never quite sure how to do proper titles, I stared blankly at my computer screen for what felt like a good long while before I could begin to write this. Not because I have a lack of things to say but more I really don't know how to neatly package up my thoughts. I don't mean to sound like i'm some important figure in the community with my title, more so it's just my way of clarifying what this thread is. We have a small community on the official forum so chances are i've interacted with most of the regulars and the occasional people who pop in and out from time to time. I also have been some what noticed on Reddit. All this is to say i'm sure some people know who I am regardless. So when I refer to "community" in my title i'm speaking directly to these people.

So what exactly is this thread? Is it a goodbye? In some ways, yes. Does it mean i'll never post on here or Reddit about this game again? Not really, I don't like to give myself or others absolutes as they're too unrealistic for how humans behave. To be more cut and dry after the TG concludes and i've given my thoughts on it i'm planning on cutting my activity for online forums off as much as possible. I'd still like to be informative and answer questions for game mechanics and things closely tied to it. But i'll probably avoid doing so for awhile to give myself an easier time to ease out of the habit of forum posting.

Why am I doing this? Well...there's really 2 big reasons for it. The first one involves my interactions with others. While I do try my best to be respectful and decent when it comes to responding to people I have a hard time not..avoiding triggering statements. I've made it clear before but I'll repeat it again, my intention for interacting with people online about this game specifically has always been to help others understand the game better. Over the years of my dedication to the game my activity has been less helping others and more so correcting others or interjecting my opinion as the correct one. Which has caused a lot of friction not only with other members in the community but has also caused some unfortunate discussions with mods of other forums having to kindly ask me to behave better. To which is a matter of shame to me. I am not proud of how I have acted over the years. Which is why I want to take the time to say this: To any member I have been rude, unkind, or just plain awful to both past and present I apologize for my behavior. Even though I am not a highly known community member I should hold myself to a higher standard.

Apologies aside I have to be honest. I no longer have any sort of enjoyment discussing this game anymore. Which is disappointing to me since I'm a weirdo who enjoys gushing about things I like with others. Almost more than actually playing/interacting with what I like. For my own sake as well as others I think it's best if I move on as much as possible. So what is the other big reason for this choice? Well i'm rather disappointed with the game itself. To be clear i'm not back peddling on past statements or my feelings. I still think the game is going in the right direction for the most part. I still like a majority of the things the devs have done and continue to do. However, I cannot turn a blind eye to things anymore. I cannot simply continue to over look the pile of growing issues that the game has.

For honor lacks quality, and by that I mean it's not given the same level of love and care that it was originally crafted with. This is from small things like animation quality getting worse and worse to larger things like a lack of complete reworks. The two most recent reworks are a good example of this. Both have awful animations that don't seem to have been adjusted at all for their new behaviors. I can forgive it looking a little wonky on the receiving end considering the nature of the CCU update. But when they look bad from the player's own perspective that's just not okay. Both are also missing what seems like easy/bare minimum additions and come off as unimaginative. Shaolin's opening problem as well as keeping a non bash related external threat could've been fixed by making his forward dodge heavy unblockable. This would already work well with his ability to dodge out of Qi stance. Then there's a lack of recovery cancels that would make this new flow better. Particularly after a sweep recovery would be real nice. But being able to dodge after his whiffed kick would also be nice.

His kick going to a top light (after whiff) that's not even enhanced and has nothing else going for it really only some what helps his flow. But it doesn't go far enough. Also, I can maybe understand not having him fast flow into Qi after his finisher heavies as they have great hitboxes for team fights and that's all they really need. But why can't we also chain into sweep after his finisher heavies? Another nice flow improvement that seems pretty no brainer. I can keep going with Shaolin, this isn't to say his rework is bad or not viable. It just lacks flair/flavor compared to other reworks we've gotten. Conq is lacking a chase tool which is pretty astonishing. With his nerfs his damage now feels lacking in some areas and a no brainer fix would be to rework shield basher to give him more damage on Superior block actions. Also again his exit time is questionable for full block. Like Shaolin he "works" but he still has a lot of kit gaps that weren't really addressed. We can also look back to how badly they killed Orochi's flow.

We still have various UI issues. We still have a very dated match making system. Many modes are basically abandoned from the devs. Our training mode is grossly lacking features basically every other fighting game has. I can go on. It's not that I think the devs don't care about their product. It's not that I think the game is inherently bad. I just feel like the game is not kept to a standard that should be kept for a AAA live service game should be held to. Especially in today's current gaming market. I think the reason this is allowed to slide is purely because of the uniqueness the game holds. There's nothing else on the market even remotely close to For Honor. On top of that it's rather friendly in terms of content. Everything in the game barring the battle pass itself can be bought with currency that you earn in game. If the game was also free to play i'd say it would probably be the most player friendly fighter like game that exists.....

Anyway, I'm deciding to leave the community in terms of chatting, i'll still play. But with my negative outlook on interacting with the community as well as a lack of quality/standards with the game I just can't bring myself to really invest into the game anymore. At least outside playing it. It's been a very long 6 years and not all of it was pretty. But I don't regret spending my time with it. To those that i've had a good time with thank you for making my time enjoyable. For those i've had bad interactions with i'm still glad I had the chance to butt heads with you. I am just as happy you added to the community as others did. With crossplay existing I may see some of you in the future. Until the TG happens i'll be going dark. If I see you after that concludes it's nice seeing you again. If not well, it's been nice being with you at all.

Regards, Raime.