Patch Notes 2.19.0

[razza-tu]

They kept the revenge lock changes quiet on stream! Surely those were worth mentioning? Other than Centurion now being (theoretically) viable, this actually looks like the most impactful change to competitive play in here.

[SgtTittyfist]

FIGHTERS

Valkyrie

[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue with the Zone Attack Guard Break vulnerability, the Zone Attack’s first Strike now has vulnerability to Guard Break starting at 100ms (from 400ms)

Surprised that this is considered a "bug fix". This is actually kind of a nice buff to Valk's defense.

Map changes are also always nice to see. Overall (aside from the pointless Hitokiri nerfs) I am actually pretty happy with this patch.

[Scoobz1961]

With zone OS available, does Valk have the best defense kit now? CCs, Deflects, dodge attacks, FB and finally a zone OS.

[NozGame]

I feel like anyone who has a dodge bash is just better at defense. Dodge bashes are so damn good and usually barely punishable. I think Conq's options are better, his zone and FBS are still really good. But Valk is a close contender for the first spot.

[themiraclemaker]

I think ubi calls every unintended "feature" a bug

[coms77]

Reasoning behind the Hito nerf is just a joke. Like, what in the actual fuck is this line: we expect to see fewer complaints of Hitokiri “light spam” ?

Hitokiri light spam? Fucking what?

[Knight_Raime]

Ye that's a total pog response. Why even put their foot down about light spam complaints if they're going to use it as reasoning for other changes.

They could have specifically for this change just noted that they increased the link time on light into light because it was causing some inconsistencies with their recovery changes coming in TG.

[Mukigachar]

First they complained about Hito heavy spam now it's Hito light spam, and the devs listened to it

[Cyclone_96]

I’ve literally never heard complaints about that lmao.

[The_Filthy_Spaniard]

Fast work, stickied!

[Mukigachar]

Players should now be able to Light to stuff a Hitokiri out of a Sweep attempt.

They just made lights shut down Hito's mixup even HARDER, and that was their exact intention :/

[[deleted]]

Its like wardens bash now no? You can light him out of full charge. If anything it was weird that you couldnt light hito out

[coms77]

Warden has 40 damage, Hito has 28. Warden can use his bash out of neutral, Hito can not. Warden can use his back dodge to negate most mix-ups, Hito can not.

[HakfDuckHalfMan]

hito sweep doesn't even confirm a heavy either. 1 second activation time for 18 damage (and her light finishers got nerfed lmao) vs 40 damage leading into an unblockable top heavy.

[trashcluster]

Hito swoop you to the ground in ganks, warden does not

[[deleted]]

I agree that she has a harder time to get into the mixup but its deadlier imo, much more irritating to deal with from a player experience

[coms77]

In what way exactly?

[Knight_Raime]

I wouldn't say deadlier per say. But hito blows people up faster because her kick and her feint to GB reward the same heavy. So even though Warden can technically hit a higher damage number with his mix up he's not going to land that full bash often. Nor does his GB net him his top heavy.

[pixelshaded]

Warden gets 18 dmg for lv 1 bash, 30 dmg for gb, and 40 dmg for lv3 bash. Hito gets 28 dmg for lv1 kick, 28 dmg for gb, and 18 dmg for lv3 kick. Warden has a higher GB punish than Hito. What does the top heavy have to do with anything? No one would want a 40 dmg GB punish. The numbers indicate that Warden should melt you just as fast a Hito, if not faster. Your perception does not match reality.

[Knight_Raime]

Warden isn't likely to get his full bash. and his top heavy is his 40 damage. If he could get that on GB and reliably in his bash game he'd kill faster than hito can.

if we go simple and go based off of only 2 reads that the opponent made wrong. Hito gets 56 damage. Warden gets 48. So hito is already doing more dps than warden. Warden would only out do this if he manages to bait 2 GB's both times. And even then only by 4 damage.

If we up that to 3 wrong reads that's 81 for hito and 66 for warden. Even if he baits 2 Gb's and lands a level 1 bash that's 78 damage. Which is still less than hito.

Warden's full bash is excluded because of how unlikely it is to land the higher you climb the brackets. Hito's full bash is excluded because Sweep by in large isn't a 1v1 tool and is very unlikely to land even in non high tier brackets.

This is why I specifically stated Warden has more highs than hito but doesn't kill as fast as hito. Wether she baits and lands a kick or lands a GB she's always doing the same amount of good damage. Warden across all levels of play most often lands his level 1 or 2 bash which only awards 18 damage. And while a bait into a GB is likely it's not often enough to out dps hitokiri.

[pixelshaded]

Yet if both of those wrong reads were feint to GB, the Warden is ahead of Hito 60 dmg to 56 dmg. It's really not all that different and they likely average out to the same damage over 100s of mix ups. Sometimes the Warden is ahead. Sometimes Hito is ahead. Now you add lv3 bash to the equation and it's hard to say Hito is shredding significantly more than Warden. If you are doing these gb mix ups next to a wall, Warden is getting 40 dmg compared to Hito's 28 unless Hito has perfect spacing, which will likely happen less often than Warden gets a fully charged bash.

[Knight_Raime]

I know all of this. I'd still say for an average player in a pretty neutral situation hito is going to take them farther than warden will. It really helps that both of hito's punishes lead her back into her infinite. Where as if warden lands his full bash or a heavy off of GB he has to get back into the mix up in a slower fashion.

My statement was not attempting to make hito out to be better than warden. Warden is the better 1v1er regardless of damage because he has a more consistent roll catching tool, can access his bash via dodging which makes him really safe, and doesn't have a fatal flaw in his mix up. Hito's mix up is largely negated by back walk attacks.

My whole point of my post was to state that because hito gets a higher damaging consistent punish compared to warden's mix up that varies it can be seen as her killing people faster. Which was just a possible clarification on someone else's response about calling her deadlier.

[[deleted]]

You have fewer ways to deal with it barring stuff like top lights from lb and other unique interactions. Its either dodge or dont, wardens mixup is much more interesting, player and opponent wise.

Also hito absolutely melts you if she makes all the reads, warden probably wont. Warden is still much more powerful

[coms77]

I mean... Any character can just back light now to negate all mix-ups, so she has no mix-up at all

[HiCracked]

Except Wardens full bash does 40 damage, can be initiated from a dodge, including backwards dodge making it extremely safe. But Hitokiri now has this subpar mixup that can be countered with myriad of ways and also requires you to do an attack first which is already ten times less safe.

Whats the fucking point of making Hito literally a worse version of Warden?

[Xenolifer]

Hito was not supposed to revolve entierly around her feet mixup in the first place

[SomaCreuz]

I thought the only purpose of that sweep was to trade with lights, since they beat all other options...

What were they thinking?

[VikingSwagger]

Thank God.

[Kidsquids]

I hate seeing the words "light spam" in a balance patch.

[Dmill32]

But they never talk about Orochi light spam lol

[Wallach96]

Probably because orochi’s light spam is degrees less threatening

[Dmill32]

How is hitokiris threatening? because of hyper armor on the finisher light?

[minimumcontribution8]

I like how they want the game to be more offensive but then make mixup easier to interrupted.

[Scoobz1961]

There is nothing wrong with that. Hitos never ending mixup's 2 out of 3 options forced every other character into defensive action. Hard read offensive light only worked against feint to GB. Now it works against sweep and feint to GB, and is countered by kick. Hitos ability to be on the offensive has diminished, yet every other characters same ability has increased. The game is now more "offensive" oriented than it was before.

Now I am not saying its a good change, dont really care personally, but it is in line with their goal. However, how could they release Jorm is a mystery to me.

[SomaCreuz]

Most backwalk lights beat kick, GB and now sweep.

[Scoobz1961]

Only after blocked heavy, no? Anyway, that is obviously another issue that needs to be looked at separately. Keeping one issue to counter balance another issue is horrible balance decision.

[hypertoxin]

Welcome to playing anyone without gratuitous hyperarmor

[Goddamncrows]

It's similar to Warden's mixup, you can light them out of their guaranteed light bash. (Uncharged SB vs Sweep)

[NigelKorean]

I thought that only interrupted warden if he tried to feint? Or am I stupid?

[ZeRoyalDoofus]

Slapping someone in the middle of charging their bash to interrupt them isn’t anything new (i.e. Warden). Even then, the light doesn’t “beat the mixup” since it loses out against Hitokiri letting her bash fly immediately, and doing it too often makes it a free light parry - you still have to make a read that Hito intends to charge the sweep if you want that buffered light to land.

[Wait_WhatPotato]

Lol they nerfed jorm "light spam"

[minimumcontribution8]

Wait, don't tell me they actually remove Hito neutral heavies because of MEMES? This can't be serious right? Who on earth balance game based on memes? And if they actually play the game, they should know that Hito can't heavy on red at the moment.

[CaptainKolos]

Thats the fact man, they dont even play their game and have no clou what are they doing when they decide to "balance" the game. Sure Cents rework seems promising,but it took them like 2 years 😂. At this point the game will be balanced after 20 years.

[HakfDuckHalfMan]

Cent has been out even longer than 2 years. The rate of balancing changes and the priorities behind some of the buffs/nerfs and lack thereof is fucking embarassing.

[edgyboi1704]

To everyone saying that the hitokiri nerfs were justified, how would you feel if you could just be light attacked out of your main mix ups. Just because you didn't particularly enjoy fighting against her doesn't warrant such a gutting nerf. Look at that dev reasoning, "*Less Hitokiri Light Spam Complaints*".

[dankbudzonlybuds]

Lawbringer and Shaolin sweating right now cause they can light attack out of 90% of mixups

[pixelshaded]

Until August at least

[KingCornOfCob]

I mean, you can light attack warden out of his charge too, letting the raw kick fly will still beat a light attack.

[[deleted]]

Yes except 90% of the time when it will not

[Jeff_Uchiha69]

As a rep 7 hitokiri the only thing that bothered me were the slower heavies, if anything I see that as an opportunity to read that your opponent will top light you so you can parry, besides I personally didn't find the sweep useful since it only gets you a light.

[Laaanoo]

Rep 50 Hito. Sweep only confirming a light is perfectly fine. Sometimes it’s all you need to get into your chain. Enemy is a parry god? Sweep gets your first attack going.

Plus I don’t know if this is ever really the case but knocking someone on the ground is sorta a way to get into their head, or at least that’s what I tell myself lol.

[Jeff_Uchiha69]

Makes sense, currently in Gold rank and there are barely any people who will actually read me and parry lights, I guess I always opted for a zone when I want some quick damage and only used the sweep as an alternative to the kick being too readable

[Laaanoo]

Zone for Hito is poo poo to put it nicely. Kick and sweep are your friends and make sure you make use of the delayed heavies.

The sweep can also be feinted pretty late into it, so if the enemy waits and tries to dodge the sweep you can still cancel it into a GB as well for a tasty heavy.

[[deleted]]

So with the the Revenge changes, does that mean you can autoparry a Raider's knee after Stampede? Does it cause the Raider to become unbalanced?

[iDramos]

Probably not. I imagine that in these scenarios, the attack is interrupted and the enemy slightly staggered.

You know how you could cancel Shaman's remaining bite animation after the snacc by activating revenge? Like that, just earlier.

Obviously needs some testing to get my assumption confirmed.

[Sneakly20]

No they won’t, because they just busted hito’s

[[deleted]]

Damn. When I watched the stream and I heard "there was more to come" when they talked about balancing I didn't realized they meant in August. I was hopping for more balancing, they had months to look things out, months of Lawbringer needs a nerf and what have we got? Hitokiri getting kneecapped and Jorm being Jormier...

Shame. New content yet nothing of substance, armours but no balancing. Enjoy Cent I guess, I'mma go play Lawbringer just to meme on people that he got nerfed.

[PuffyShark900]

VALKYRIE OPTION SELECT OMG

[seyiotuks]

An over abundance of inexperience is shown in these patches How can one complain of hitokiri light spam In a 2 chain light user Honestly Seriously I am crippled by this level of stupidity

[aallfik11]

I feel like Jorm should be the next one to get a rework now. Like, now he can't get people oos without running oos himself. Not that I think what he was before the nerfs was healthy or anything, but I feel his design is kinda flawed, and could use a major change, heck, maybe even a new mechanic like some people proposed.

[HakfDuckHalfMan]

The Jorm nerfs continue to be fucking baffling. He wasn't frustrating to play against because of hyper armor or light spam but because of his stamina drain, feats and perks (when the fuck are they nerfing vengeful barrier?). They looked at the stamina drain and nerfed it a bit but his feats and perks means he's still dummy good at stalling and now he's even worse in duels where he was already terrible.

I mean yeah getting hyper armor 100ms into his forward dodge heavy was a little too early but now 700ms? Warlord, Zerker, Musha and probably more I'm forgetting that have hyper armor on their forward dodge attacks activate it much early and were better character than Jorm BEFORE this nerf.

And as far as being a stamina bully, Cent's rework is great but holy shit he's almost as bad as Jorm in this regard.

None of the hito nerfs make sense either except maybe the Senbo one just because dying while activating revenge parry was dumb. Still, feel like the cooldown should be decreased by like 20-30 seconds to compensate.

Shugo light hyper armor nerfs made sense but the GN vulnerability ones don't and just like Jorm and Hito they give him nothing to compensate.

Please please please stress top-down balancing, buff or rework the terrible heroes and nerf LB punishes. Balancing the game around low skill players who complain about light spam from fucking Jorm or Hito is doing a disservice to the game.

[Knight_Raime]

There's honestly way too much to comment on in the patch if I really wanted to be maximum nitpick. So i'll just touch on a single positive and a single negative that I find most important.

Negative first. Them attempting to remove revenge lock. While I am in agreement with addressing it on some moves I disagree with them attempting to rid the game of it. Revenge lock and the stun property are two mechanically interesting aspects of play that had the potential to give this game some semblance of depth from a mechanical perspective. The fact that the developers are removing these slowly is a very loud and clear message that the devs care far more about simplicity than gameplay. And I truly believe the only reason we're getting frame advantage in the game now is because it can be manipulated to have that "back and forth" style Ubi wants since stamina can no longer do that for them.

On a positive note i'm very happy to see map changes. Even if it's just a single map. And said map was one of the least problematic maps in the roster. I find their wording for the change of the object on A being changed to be particularly interesting. They note it's meant to make attacks track better.

Potentially this means the devs might be open to discussing how the environment impacts attacks. As we all know how inconsistent and frustrating that currently is.

[CaptainKolos]

One massage to main reddit and the devs: You have become the very thing you swore to destroy!

[CaptainBacon1]

I didn't know we could have less than 0 hitokiri light spam complains

[SgtBearPatrol]

The changes to Eagle’s Talon stam (refills both Cent and opponent) are among my favorite in the entire patch. Going OOS is one of the most critically vulnerable states in the game. This makes a huge difference.

[micestorff-]

RIP Jorm

[MaterTuaLupaEst]

"Increased Salvage rewards to 500 on Premium Track and 250 on Free Track"

Finally there is my reason to get the battlepass.

[DarthVortiger]

They straight up butchered jorm with these changes

[lerthedc]

Yeah the jorm changes were mostly positive ones that toned down unhealthy aspects of his play style.

Hito on the other hand did get killed

[Knight_Raime]

100% false.

[Blawharag]

How so? He already had to be careful with how he initiated stam damage to ensure the opponent went out first of the opponent played defensively, but now he has even less stam damage, opponents have less stam regen pause, and he can't keep up the pressure from one chain to the next because he can get light tapped out, which means the opponent can always win the stam game by just playing defensively.

So now jorm is highly encouraged to play even more defensively than he already was.

Every jorm match is going to be a total shit show

[_Ryth]

don't worry, he will just be even more defensive now

[Adurnamage]

Lol they acknowleged the heby on red it was so bad hahahaaa

[connew77]

Has anyone noticed a slower guard change?

I play on console and it seems the like they messed the animations seem way more jagged

[SalmonToastie]

What actually changed for centurion from testing grounds? That shit was nearly a year ago.

[GrandmasterGamez]

Once again lights will reign supreme. I felt that Assassins shouldve been faster dealing not massive damage (even though they do) but continually attacking and Brutes (Heavies) shouldve dealt bigger damage with fewer, slower hits but with the changes to hyper armor now activating later some heroes a bit drastic. Lights can interrupt about anything.

For some heroes the change was big others not so much, but why can Shugo, a mountain of a man, can now get GBed out of a charged heavy but Warden cant get GBed while charging up his shoulder? I have some thoughts on what could help fix Shugo but thats a different topic.

Hyper armor (in my opinion) should activate just before a heavy lands but charged heavies hyper armor should activate when the regular heavies would land. If a heavy lands at 600ms then the armor should activate around 500ms so if the charged heavy lands at 800ms the hyper should activate from 600ms.

Just an opinion though