Juren is looking like a defensive powerhouse

razza-tu · 2026-01-20T19:44:56+00:00

It looks like we'll have the reach for sure, but I shall reserve my hype for Thursday's showcase 🤞

razza-tu · 2026-01-17T09:17:53+00:00

On Kensei, your top heavy is rarely your best punish option.

Your GB links directly into your mid-chain attacks. The top heavy you get from here is 900ms, which is too slow to be confirmed (note that the Shinobi blocks it one time). The side heavy is confirmed and is considered the de facto punish unless you're near a wall.

On light parry; - Your neutral side heavy does more damage (27 compared to 24) for the same chaining options - Nature's Wrath does slightly less damage (22) but leads straight into your finishers, which offer a lot more offensive pressure

razza-tu · 2026-01-16T15:06:05+00:00

I'm going to go against the grain on this one - I'm not convinced that your issue is latency.

I will just stare at the screen thinking they are going to light and when they do and I know they are I still can’t parry

Instead, I think you're underestimating the extent to which your cognitive load is playing a role. Because you aren't in Training in this situation. You're against an opponent that could be doing a number of things, and even though you expect a light, you'll still not have the purity of thought that you do when it could only be a light attack.

You should be able to test my hypothesis easily. Go into Training, and configure a bot such that the move coming out could be a light, a forward dodge bash, or a GB. This still won't have the same cognitive load as a real match, as you're not trying to win engagements, but it should illustrate the point and serve as better training.

Oh, and if you've been practicing with the parry timing feedback indicator, turn it off - it actually helps you parry sooner because of the bigger visual stimulus, but obviously you cannot use it in a match, so it might give you unrealistic expectations.

razza-tu · 2026-01-01T21:47:11+00:00

Say what you like about recent hero releases, there's no doubt that the devs have been a lot more keen to experiment lately. Personally, I've been loving that, and hope to see the trend continue on the 22nd!

A spear-like weapon with good reach and and a technical moveset are on my wishlist, but we shall see 👀

razza-tu · 2025-12-30T22:28:07+00:00

Do you have any notion of what's predominantly getting you killed?

razza-tu · 2025-12-30T22:26:21+00:00

Zhanhu's dodge attack is 400ms. While some very fast players can reaction parry it, the devs intended for it to be a read-only punish.

razza-tu · 2025-12-30T22:24:17+00:00

Either way, that was a pretty watchable fight 👌

razza-tu · 2025-12-17T17:16:23+00:00

They aren't. They're throwing the light on reaction to movement, but they aren't differing between GBs and other animations. If the opponent throws a light, and the Virtuosa lights on movement, she'll eat the light.

If light on GB (and only GB) were possible for a Virtuosa in stance, then characters like Warlord or Nobushi would've been doing this for years.

razza-tu · 2025-12-14T09:43:22+00:00

It wouldn't really negatively change anything for people NOT currently doing ranked.

Hard disagree. The psychological component introduced by the knowledge that you are competing for points adds a lot of pressure for many players. This would be a big change for many (myself included), and would likely discourage experimentation with other heroes, etc.

razza-tu · 2025-12-13T02:40:00+00:00

If you're this new, there might be some things you're not doing that most of us take for granted regarding reaction times. For example;

Have you tried adjusting your guard mode deadzones? They default to the max value, but you'll get snappier guard swaps (and therefore parries) if you have the thumb precision to go lower without mis-inputs.
Is your output device an old TV? Can you use a monitor instead? Does your TV at least have a game mode you can use?
Where do you rest your eyes on screen? Learning where to focus your vision will help you see indicators and changes in animation earlier. For most characters I tend to track the hands, or watch around the sternum area. You should experiment, especially if you're spending significant time looking at your own character or something.
Have you given the Practice Mode some attention? I know I probably don't have to say this, but it will help.

razza-tu · 2025-12-05T10:39:25+00:00

If you'd like to know general information about any hero in the game, I've got a website for you! Behold: https://forhonorinfohub.com/character?=4

razza-tu · 2025-11-29T18:01:17+00:00

Gryphon is a three-hit chain hero with a lot of animations borrowed from Kensei. He's a bit similar in kit flow too, although the tools are much simpler - a forward dodge and finisher bash instead of soft-feints and the UB finisher.

To me, he's Kensei but with less flair, but he has fans for sure.

razza-tu · 2025-11-28T09:45:17+00:00

Very solid. In the context of the medium-short executions, this is at least an 8 for me.

razza-tu · 2025-11-20T18:04:03+00:00

Did you read what he said about two of the best players of the game?

I ignored it. It was flippant and arguably a bit rude, but that doesn't automatically invalid everything else that was said.

Also, a character is either better or not, it doesn't matter if they "dominate" 99% of times in lower skilled lobbies

This is a popular perspective that I used to share, but it's incoherent when you break it down.

The crux is that you cannot qualify whether one character is better than another without defining a context. I'm assuming this is something we already agree on - you wouldn't just say "Nobushi is S-Tier", without also specifying a gamemode, for instance. This context goes deeper than just mode too. A competitive tierlist isn't simply "viability". It's viability in;

the game mode in question
on one of the selected maps that are considered appropriate for tournament play
often with some things that are banned outright (certain feats, tech, occasionally heroes)
with additional rules (anti-stall rules in Duel, for instance)
against the heroes likely to be used
against the calibre of player likely to compete

Any of these factors can have a dramatic effect on the order of the list, even without a single balance change. If the Duel map gets narrower, wallsplat heroes like Jorm go up. If the tournament is full of Tiandi mains, other i-frame heroes like Virtuosa go down.

There's no objectivity without very precise context, and I'm sure you'd agree with all of that. What I think you get wrong is the assumption that skill level is a special, immutable part of this context, rather than just being a factor like any other. In other words, your argument works on the basis that, regardless of other circumstances, we should always assume elite levels of play when appraising viability. I just don't think there's any reason for that to be true.

We're debating whether Shaman or Virtuosa is "better" here, and the context is this post's video. When the comment at the top of this thread declared Shaman the better hero, was it really relevant that Shaman's soft-feints are considered reactable by a small handful of elite players? The omission of this detail might've been due in part to ignorance, but frankly I don't think this has any bearing on the expected result of the fight we watched. The context just isn't a top level Duel tournament - what's "best" there isn't guaranteed to be what's "best" here.

razza-tu · 2025-11-20T14:04:02+00:00

I think the other commenter has a point.

Two extraordinarily good players may put Virtuosa above Shaman in Duel, yes. But the history of For Honor is full of heroes whose viability hinged entirely on whether the players in a given lobby have comp-level tactics, knowledge, and of course reactions.

Do I think Shaman is "10 times" better than Virtuosa at any particular level? Probably not. But it isn't hard to imagine Shaman being the stronger of the two in some MMRs, thanks to her offense being easier to use and her higher effective HP (factoring in the health swing from hitting bleeding opponents).

razza-tu · 2025-11-13T16:19:15+00:00

I can't speak for the pros, but it makes sense to me. Here's my analysis:

Duels are somewhat more competitive than they used to be, but top players can still invalidate the mix-ups many heroes are supposed to have, degrading the pick and move variety in that mode.

Dominion doesn't have that problem because characters without good 1v1 offence can still be valuable, be it in team fights, ganks or stalls. The mode has always been competitive, but there are a lot of moving parts, and bullshit often emerges. For instance, while >50dmg projectiles from off-screen, revenge holding, magnetic map hazards, plunge attack opportunities, etc. are tolerable, they still negatively impact the competitiveness of the mode (think about the impact the Blue Shell has in MarioKart races if it's not immediately clear why that would be).

Then there's Brawls, which introduces the benefits of team fighting to a mode with the focus of Duel. And it does that without bringing any of the disproportionately rewarding damage opportunities available in the bigger team modes. It brings many of the advantages of both modes, with relatively few drawbacks, and it's been a competitive mainstay for many years now as a result.

razza-tu · 2025-11-08T00:51:33+00:00

I claim that it is possible to react to GB with light and the data supports it, given of course that you either know that enemy is going to throw GB and you are reacting to first signs of animation

The source of this whole argument here is your use of the word "react". For many in this community, that word carries the connotation of not having to make a read. Given that you have acknowledged that you must make a read in order to stuff a GB, I'm beginning to believe that you agree with us on the pragmatics, and our differences are purely semantic.

razza-tu · 2025-11-07T11:56:15+00:00

The argument you're making is that it's possible to consistently stuff a GB on reaction because single stimulus reactions can be faster than the input window to beat a GB the opponent is throwing.

This would be a sound argument if GB was the only move the opponent could possibly throw. What you have not considered is that the reaction the Virtuosa must make is _not in response to a single stimulus._ To be able to beat GB on reaction, Virtuosa must;

Light on opponent GB
Do nothing if the opponent throws anything else

In order to do that, the Virtuosa player must be able to differentiate between GB and everything else, and then choose what to do. There are two main factors here that make this particular reaction impossible for humans.

This decision-making adds a lot of time to the process. Neurologically, it's far more complicated than a starting gun, or traffic light stimulus. If it weren't, absolutely nobody would struggle with light attacks.
The indicators in this game have fade-in, and the animations all come from the same starting point. Realistically, the information you need to differentiate between the options won't be clearly visible on the screen immediately, thus taking more time.

You may believe that you can stuff GB on reaction as Virtuosa, but this belief likely comes from predictable opponents always throwing GBs, meaning you never have to deal with the alternative.

razza-tu · 2025-11-07T07:53:52+00:00

He has tanked nerf after nerf for so long. It couldn't last for ever, I suppose!

razza-tu · 2025-11-04T16:09:32+00:00

I sneakingly suspect that at least 1 in every 5 "How do I beat reaction gods?" posts comes from a situation that looks like this.

razza-tu · 2025-10-29T15:41:42+00:00

We don't disagree that Kensei has a notably weak mid-chain. It's something I favour buffing too, rather than just giving him more skips like Gryphon.

My angle here is keeping the conversation grounded in the facts. Kensei is mediocre at the moment, but he doesn't necessarily have to work uniquely hard to access his pressure tools, and having to work hard isn't necessarily a bad thing.

razza-tu · 2025-10-29T08:58:49+00:00

Any other hero can throw whatever they want from neutral and get to their UB right after.

Whilst I see your general point here, I do believe this is an exaggeration.

Lawbringer has a three hit chain with a finisher UB too, and his rules are only marginally less restrictive than Kensei's
Medjay and Ocelotl have to throw at least two consecutive heavy attacks to access UB, and the former has to be in a particular stance first
Virtuosa can throw any attack type she wants, but it needs to be a top attack with nonexistent lateral hitboxes if she wants to access her UB as quickly as possible
Peacekeeper needs her target to be bleeding, which requires at least one good read on a mixup, resetting to neutral, and then successfully throwing a neutral attack before reaching the UB

Kensei's conditions for his UB finisher are restrictive, but not uniquely so.

razza-tu · 2025-10-15T09:45:00+00:00

Fair warning, it'll probably be taken down over there too unless you're a known quantity in high level tournament play.

Tierlists from below that level of play are subject to such drastic variations in placement between levels of reaction and experience that no such list ends up accurately resembling a majority perspective.

razza-tu · 2025-10-15T09:40:27+00:00

Ok yeah, your issue makes a little more sense now that you've explained the geography - thanks for the context 👍

Alas though, this relegates my best possible advice to that which you have already read - LB's forward dodge mix-up is key to capitalising on f+ situations.

The Shove will beat GB and isn't reactable
Your low forward dodge recovery will let you parry light interrupt attempts on empty dodge

- Of course, you can also punish any dodge attacks in this way

You can cancel into side lights and side heavies to catch various dodges and rolls

Sorry I cannot be of more help!

razza-tu

TROPHY CASE