Unbloack me

Just started For Honor a few days ago, haven't got any rep yet, whoever my Highlander is pretty close to one. I rage ALOT in this funny sword game, and I know it's because I'm simply awful. Even though I quit this game I will find myself playing it again on some other day... So I decided to try to suffer, while being kinda good-ish, but I don't know where to start!
I would like to ask for some tips here, mostly on how to git-gud. I can hold myself pretty well at ganks, or I think that at least, but heroes like Griphon, Jiang Jun, Hitokiri, Shinobi and Kyoshin (especially Kyoshin)simply mess with me on a level I can't put to words, the best strategy I find to deal with these characters is to spam heavies and unbloackables, but even that is highly counterable by someone that knows what they're doing. Sorry if this post was long, I can't put to words how much I love and hate this game, and I never done a reddit post before. So that's it, I am only asking for some general tips.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND. LOW? HIGH? SAME SIDE? CROSSUP? UNBLOACKABLE? seriously someone has to explain this to me because i was at inches away from completly destroying my controller. Btw i have nothing wrong with chipp mains, just their super

For example : suppose I'm playing Hitokiri and I'm charging my heavy against a Warden or jorm or a conq or Kensei . so that I could feint the charge into a GB . but the opponent uses zone option select to negate the mix up and escape both options .
For me that flies against the entire notion of offensive gameplay .
Zone Option select seems to me lazy and easily over used mechanic .
Players should predicate and press the parry button or decide to wait for the GB or dodge the attack
The player in the offensive shouldn't be trying to parry Zone option select when he is trying to open his opponent
Back before the CCU it might have been beneficial to parry zone option select since that would cost the opponent so much stamina .
However now the opponent only losses the stamina they consume and no longer lose stamina by getting parried . and that is indirect buff to zone option select specially since the only guaranteed punish after parrying the zone is a light and anything after that can be option selected again .
Unless of course you are a warmonger or LB , and there is a wall behind the zone abuser , then it's a Hallelujah moment for you . but that's not the case for everyone else .
If we are taking from the majority of players the ability to react to attacks . it seems to me only fair to compensate for that by removing zone option select to make offense more accessible to everyone and defense more read based .
There might be heroes who are over dependent on zone option select and of course these heroes should be compensated with something .
However there are also heroes who rely on unbloackable mix ups like Zanhu and Raider who are having it worst since virtually everyone is option selecting against them .
Overall I do strongly believe that it's more healthy for the game this way .

Ok, many of you may have seen my last post about accels and I felt like it would be appropriate to make a shorter, similar, post about another problem this game currently faces. Any player who has played this game for a long time can confidently say that kicks are overpowered. Unlike my last post this problem is pretty well agreed upon among most high level players leading to the devs even noticing this problem. Though I have heard that there will be a kick nerf next patch I still feel its important for players who don't get to experience the problems of high level morhau play understand the problems that plague this game and for the devs to fully understand the breadth of the issues kicks currently bring into the game.
Kicks have always been in a rough place during this games life. From one patch where they were practically useless to another where they were the strongest attack available to a player at any time with the ability to swing massive amounts of stamina in one players advantage. But at no point in this games life have kicks ever been as powerful or as prevalent as they are right now.
Unlike accels where the problem can be explained fairly easily Kicks have fallen into such a poor state and have become such a massive weapon there are many facets that lead to there dominance as we see today. First lets start with jump kicks, with the ability to steal initiative and punish players backpedaling in heavy armor, these kicks have become a formidable part of high level play. Not only is there range super long but the speed at which they come can, more often than not, catch the opponent of guard. Whoever's idea it was to add jump kicks into the game needs to seriously reconsider what they are doing in terms of mordhau combat. Jump kicks first made their appearance on the mordhau test map and were largely thought of as a joke among comp players. A skill that would be flashy but never had any reasonable chance of making it into the game. Much to the surprise of many comp players the devs decided to add them to the game regardless and with little testing as it seems. Fundamentally the jump kick is a ridiculous attack visually. The animation used for the jump kick is flat out unreadable. With lightning fast feints and little punishment outside of stamina lost the risk reward has quickly become unbalanced. The problem with these unreadable jump kicks is so large that no longer are mixups limited to swing manipulation or kicks themselves but to merely jumping with no other input to force your opponent to panic parry. The kick itself is so fast that no person could humanely react to parry or attempt to counter kick a jump kick without essentially gambling whether your opponent is actually jumping straight up baiting your parry, jumping towards you in order to kick you, or simply feinting their jump kick. Parrying a jump kick is a joke leaving you exsposed to a very quick feint leaving you counter kicking every jump your opponent does in hopes of blocking their kick. If you opponent simply doesnt kick and jumps straight into the air you are forced to gamble on whether to counter kick or not. If you lose the gamble you are left exsposed having whiffed a kick, or you win the gamble and your opponent burns a cursory amount of stam from the jump.
The next problem players have quickly discovered is that kicks can steal initiative from their opponent. For instance, If I were to stab and miss my opponent normally I would have the choice of combo feinting to parry in order to block my opponents punish or back peddle in order to disengage while my opponent has now gained initiative. Sadly with kicks in their current state you are able to quickly regain initiative by comboing your missed swing into a kick near instantly hitting your opponent before they are able to react. No punish thrown out by your opponent is fast enough to hit you before your combo kick is able to go off. Not only has this allowed players to keep initiative on there side the entire fight but they are now able to use this combo kick as an offensive weapon. By intentionally missing your attack you are able to bait a parry from your opponent sending them into recovery then by comboing into a kick you are able to guarantee a unbloackable hit. Despite what the devs may have intended, currently it is possible to hit your opponent who is backpedaling away from a non jump kick and jump kick even when wearing light armor, making it near impossible to get away from one of these kicks. Because kicks can hit hands the range of kicks often feels super inconsistent and frustrating to learn. Its come to a point where hand kicking is so powerful that players even recommend that you stare high into the sky thus aiming for the hands of your opponent. The problems with kick don't stop there sadly.
My next and final problem with kicks is there ability to force near perfect 50/50 scenarios through abusing the games reliance on chambers. By stab feinting into a kick you are able to instantly punish any attempt by the other player to chamber your attack. Being able to instantly punish any chamber attempt does sound like a good solution to the chamber spam/meta that we face today but in reality it has revealed another massive flaw in this games combat. Stabs current animations are undeniably bad, more specifically stab feints are well known to be unreadable with the go to reaction to any incoming stab to be to chamber. But with the introduction of these incredibly powerful kicks players are now able to stab feint into a kick meaning for the rest of the duel players are terrified that every stab feint is in reality a kick punish. No player can hard read a stab feint from a weapon like a great sword and when playing against a very good player duelers are now forced to hard read most stabs leaving them in a constant gamble. I cant put into words how frustrating it is to face some one who is able to confidently and effectively use kicks. I feel it says something about the state of this games combat when its not unusual for me to land 2-4 kicks on my opponent with them landing a similar number on me in one duel. Now I know the devs have come out and said that they plan on nerfing kicks by removing the kick hit box on the hands of the player but I hope they understand that the problem is broader than that and that unless they can fundamentally change the way either chambers work or the way attacks such as stabs and morphs are animated this problem will persist.
The 50/50s continue in another form that u/Fredmonroe happily pointed out. After you are hit by a kick there is a brief period of time where you are unable to chamber this essentially allows your opponent one free feint where you are forced to hard read. 90% of the time I see someone get hit by a kick its usually followed immediately by a stab feint forcing you into that same 50/50 on hard reading stab feints that I described earlier.
And like my last post I'd hate to be the guy who points out a problem without proposing any solutions so here's a couple. A global slowing of kicks in order to make them more readable. A reduction to stam and damage dealt by kicks to make getting hit by kicks more manageable. And finally a fundamental rework of chambers/animations in order to change the way reading feints works in the games current state. I know none of these changes are easy but from my perspective I would have more fun playing this game where kicks (much like shields) would be nerfed into irrelevance or at the very least to the point where they become a niche tool within a players arsenal. All of these go along with the assumption that hand hitboxes for kicks will be removed.
There are a lot of problems with this game and a lot of the time its feels frustrating as they go unaddressed patch after patch. I really hope the devs begin to understand that releasing a patch once every 2-4 months is not sustainable in a game that has such a high skill ceiling and is marketed as competitive. I STRONGLY hope we will see frequent small combat hotfixes to balance out these issues that plague the game. Waiting and leaving these issues in the game for such a long time is frustrating and frankly dumb.
PS. Here are some examples I got from a community made balance complaints sheet some EU comp players made if your having a hard time visualizing some of the problems I explained:
EX. of hand kicking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BocenKf_Lic
EX. of getting kicked while back peddling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE2jIrT-W4A
"Blue player does the correct play: Baits the kick then holds S, however the kick hits the hands and is too fast. This creates the awkward optimal play of looking up when baiting kicks so the model bends backwards and the hands do not get hit."

it was a dominion match , i won against a Highlander with my Raider in zone A , i said Gg and thought that was it
next match he picked Jorm and kept following me , harassing me , emote spamming
i threw a heavy in case he wanted to parry a light , he traded with me with his armor ?!
I threw unbloackable so next time he would parry i would Guard break him and he option selected that ..
now we are staring at each other and im low on stamina , i can't attack , i have to save it , however i have to guess whether it's a bash or GB, and since it's console i can't react , cause if you wait for the bash to dodge it on reaction , it will get you most of the time
he guard broke me cause i dodged thinking it's a bash , kneed me in the stomach and lost some stamina , threw me at a wall , bashed me ,and i had no more stamina and i became OOS meaning out of stamina
He threw an unbloackable , i tried to dodge backward like the pros say you should but he still gb me
then i eat 80 dmg max punish and got emote spammed and sorry sorry sorry ....... then sorry sorry sorry .
i felt devastated , cornered and unable to do a thing
no other hero , pisses me off , and gets under my skin like this cunt midget
and we are being told by a minority of PC elites : he is D tier , low tier , next to nobo or shinobi .
it's like seeing someone gets raped , while some analyst is saying : that's natural , it happens in the wild
Fuck everyone who defends jorm .

LAwbringer is literally a toxic hero , JUST standing and looking at you and waiting , and once you do any mix up he is already shoving on red or spamming top light to interrupt you 24/7 , he is defensive beyond believe , at least with conq you could guard break conq's all guard and interrupt his bash with a light , and see his attacks,, but fucking law over there has the fastest top light in the game and shove with a hyper armor that function just as good as shove on block if not even better
Law is the safest hero in the game
And Black freaking prior needs a fuking nerf , a bash that you can't punish with most heroes + crash counter ? like really ? + option select zone while Raider still sucks ass with his shitty zone + undodgeable heavy attack just to piss off assassins + bulwark + unbloackable attack + delayed bash = you get the point , fuking collection of all the best moves in one hero
fuking devs going : We will move away from defensive meta to offensive meta
Two seconds later : Jorm spawns and literally bullys everyone's stamina making it impossible for offence to exist
I love this game but this is pissing me off .. specially lawbringer right now , delete that cunt.

So, the black prior...Hmm interesting...You know the shugki got a rework right? So,now much like the shaman he can heal without the threat of losing any hp on a wiff..Clearly a balance game design choice to make him faster and gain heath with ease...Very intresting..Oh, the warlord got 2 new attacks a light light and a heavy heavy...That is nice..
​
So,explain to me why the black prior can basically knock down 4 people at once,even If they have unblockable. Please tell me why his light have long reach yet are faster then warlords and suffer everyone's favorite 400 milsecond problem? Tell, me did no one consider that much like warlord and shugki...toxic?
​
Ok,I'm gonna break away from the bullshit, The made a knight who does a better job defending vs many people..Who is basically a 2.0 warlord without pushing people off ledges. Because If there is one thing Roman loves doing,It is sucking knight cock every fucking update.
​
But,this..actually pisses me off to a level which transcends normal. Because, Black prior does not lose engery when doing it's defense. Black prior has a built in knock over free attack. Black prior had range..
​
And what does the warlord have? running people into fucking walls..and a all guard which is now outdated because we have a fucker who can knock down a whole team without having to revenge.
​
They have done the thing,they made a falt out replacement for a class..Because for some odd reason the devs hate the fucking warlord. Well,fuck It...
​
Only one to do...quit..
​
Go,on give the snarky "Good bye" bullshit whatever...I am just tried of fighting a uphill battle with the class that seems to be hated by the devs...I've delt with this shit for years..From league of legends and so on
​
Yeah,we get It..Black prior has a female skin so,It should be pampered. And I can hear "Warlord got moves,isnt that enough?" no,because It does not change the problem with the warlord..No,one gets It..No one will. They are mad he is played a fucking spammy pusher,but they do nothing else but make that his only way to get anything done..Meanwhile what does the black prior get..a unblockable shield bash with a unbloackable attack.
​
I cant wait for the hammer viking to be half ass made..So,roman can jerk off his tincans some more...

Here is a list of what I've just faced;
Round 1 - orochis with bleed damage that have to be executed (but you can't because the others hit you out of it)
Round 2 - shugoki and a highlander who's attacked were unbloackable and cost less stamina
Round 3 - conq and a valk that just turtled and parried EVERYTHING i threw and dodged all my openers
Round 4 - 2 raiders with fire damage that liked to just throw top heavys (probably the easiest I faced)
Round 5 - A warden that with a shit tonne of hyper armour and health on hit when my health was always going down due to bleed damage.
I know it's pretty much RNG but fuck me. The rewards aren't even worth it.

Here is something weird..all the asian heroes (yes even the samurai) have flipping magic or unnatural powers in the game..I mean really look at this.
​
Tiandi..He is basically like the kensi a assassin dressed as a vanguard. However,his powers are..odd...I mean I thought baraksers would be the one with the "low heath equal more damage" stuff..Guess not. Then he has a skill that lets him hurt himself,to heal allies..Which also helps his 3 other skills. Also, he has a bomb in his pants..Oh, and can kick you half way across the map because, Kong fu gives you magical powers.
​
Nuxia: This bitch can cast bleed like a fucking spell..Really? Also, she gets to steal a viking perk..also she is immunity to bleed..also,parry proof and block proof. And has heavy only skills..So,you telling me this small ass chick is gonna throw everyone around like a rag doll.Menwhile, Conqourior knocking people down on a dash skill is considered "Cancer" or warlord being forced to dash at people. Ok,sure whatever.
​
Jiang Jun:Feel the wraith of a man standing still has he gains engery faster than your broke ass. Watch a million warlord mains go "What the fuck" as this man has a on comand heavy parry grab which does damage and a aoe unbloackable to boot. Watch as this man can stand still and give everyone around him bonus engery and wittness the fact he can get revenge by attacking..(Really what the fuck? Are all Wu hybrids or some shit?)
​
Shaolin:You cant teleport in real life..Also,fuck your fucking jumping the air like this is the fucking matrix.
​
Orochi:Somehow this fucker attack faster than sonic can run? Why idk..logic? But,he has a skill where screaming stuns people..How does that work? Oh,lets not forget only for honor best mary sue "The Emporior's champion" could defeat the main bad guy..cause...weeb magic.
​
Nobushhi:I just hate the fact,she is wifu bait for the knights.
​
Shugoki: Cant be moved,cant be pushed..Can heal by grabing you. Clearly no magic here..Everyone knows hugs heal all wounds.
​
Kensei: Basically,he is a Orochi with longer reach..fuck whoever did this.
​
Aramusha:This guy can fucking teleport..Why? I dont know..Why can he teleport?
​
Shinobi: Think Orochi,ranged verson

How necessary are the Ash Barrens? Why aren’t people playing Delver anymore? Is Augur just good for Consistency? I remember when people were jamming Simian Spirit Guides in that deck to try to kill faster. Also, nothing to make your dudes unblockable? What about Apostle’s Blessing?
I understand we have Dispel but it seems a little sketch trying to get damage through without unbloackable.
I think think is the deck I want to build, that or mono-Black, so I thought I’d see if you guys could give me some insight before I buy in. Thanks.

Let's jump right into this shit show. This is an opinion of one person, so don't lose it. However I feel my opinion does hold merit as I've been playing the game since the closed beta. I have used every single character thoroughly, in fact my lowest experienced hero is Highlander at rep 1 lvl 13. FYI, I main Nobushi, Orochi and Shinobi so I may be baised to try get these heroes buffed.
1 - Low Teir, 2 - Mid Tier, 3 - High Tier, 5 - Top Tier
"I Love GoT" Tin Can Man 2/3: Near useless. His only viable openers are his top light (super predictable) and his shoulder bash vortex. But you can avoid the vortex completely just by dogding back (you don't need to roll), try it. If a warden dodges, just dodge backward and he cannot hit you with his shoulder nor can he GB you. The only reason this bash is not completely useless is because if Warden hits you with anything before he activates the bash, you are stunned for a long enough period of time that you cannot dodge backwards and be safe from the GB. But Warden's can only do a predictable top light to make his shoulder bash viable, I dunno. Sometimes he feels like one the worst heroes.
Alzheimers 3/5: Dodge, shield bash. Dodge, GB. Block heavy, free GB. Repeat this a million times and that's a typical game against a 'good' conqueror. A smart conqueror player will delay the shield bash after the dodge and if he does that, it is essentially a vortex because that bash becomes unreactable.You just have to guess if he does a bash or a GB. Also his dumbass ability to get a free GB after heavy block renders characters reliant on heavies completely useless, the first that come to mind are Shugoki, Centurion (eventhough I hate him) and Zerk.
Zonekeeper 2/3: To be honest she is not too bad. PS4 players are starting to get better and that means that more and more players are starting to block her lights. The only issue is the zone. A 'good' peacekeeper will spam this 'till time itself stops and that is what makes peacekeeper so menacing. If her zone was removed (which I'm not saying it should be), she would be a 2 hero at best.
Saltbringer 5: He can intiate a vortex just from blocking, why aren't more people complaing about him? Probably because everyone and their mothers use this broken character. He is a little easier if you use an assassin as if you have good enough reactions or if you're lucky, you can deflect an incoming attack. But that's like saying smashing your head against a hammer is easier than smashing your head between a hammer and a wall. Still hard nonetheless.
Gankturion 5: He has the same vortex as conqueror only this time he partially blinds you. He gets a free charged heavy from a light parry for MEGA damage and yeah, nuff said.
Ragiator 5: Toestab, an unreactable unblockable which is a reskin of warlord's headbutt only with more forward momentum and a free heavy on an OOS opponent. Combo this with the threat of a GB and this is vortex 1. Skewer, a crazy forward range unbloackable, so the only way to dodge it is to dodge to the side unless you are already far away from him, however a smart gladiator will then GB you. This is vortex 2. Shield punch, an almost unreactable, unblockable attack that drains stamina and leads to crazy mixups. I don't know if I can call this a vortex or not. Zone, unreactable unbloackable that can be feinted so you can't even punish a whiffed zone, that's balance right there. This is the most powerful zone in the game currently. Can't wait for season 4 where the new heroes will have a 2 frame long insta-kill unbloackable zone. Any more unbloackable ubi? Why not make his light unbloakable, I'm sure that will give a stiffy to the 6 quintillion galdiators out there.
"Re way qui Pita" 5: His zone is a vortex. He can feint it into a GB, stunning tap, attempted parry. Why don't people complain about his zone vortex? Because raider is quickly becoming a more used character and noone wants their main to be nerfed. His stunning tap mixup is also unreactable on console. 'Good' raiders abuse the ST, heavy-feint, ST, heavy-feint, ST and you never know when they are going for a real heavy which is scary. I am tempted to also call this a vortex because it works soo well. You can do 5 STs in a row and the opponent will still be afraid of his heavy. Also his stampede charge is broken. Throw them off a ledge, insta-kill. Run them into the wall, free 30 damage into mixup. Throw them onto the ground, free zone. No matter what happens, raider will always benefit from a stampede charge, where is the skill? Now look at shugoki pre-nerf oni charge, eventhough it was broken it still required skill as you would have to stop immediately in order to get that free heavy. Now that oni charge is 100% useless.
"Remember when I was Good?" 2: Now after his dodge recovery has been increased and his headbutt no longer drains stamina and has increased recovery, I see no reason to use warlord anymore. What does he have? I am legitimatly asking. I have seen noone use him anymore on PS4 after the nerf.
Manly ballorena**: Nothing noteworthy to say about him. He has nothing. I honestly can't get salty losing to him since he is so hard to use. I guess you can say he is one of the highest skill required heroes. His zone does annoy me, I think its faster than his lights and it does minimum 25 damage but that is not too much of a complaint.
Slowly becoming more powerful!? 3/5: Is she a vortex character? She can intiate a shield tackle by feinting a heavy, therefore the tackle is unreactable and unpredictable, then she can GB or leg sweep. Both are also unreactable so is this a vortex? I genuinely think so. Not mention her BS full block stance. You cant hurt her during the stance and this can also be used a vortex either by going for a tackle from the stance or by dodge cancelling into a GB. Valkyrie used to be a trash hero but nowadays I'm coming across players where it feels like I can do nothing to win. She is kicking my ass and I don't know what to do against herafter she tackles.
Angry war veteran grandad 2/3/5: He has the potential to be 5 for sure, his offensive lights are near unreactable and his unblockable heavies are feintable. He just has a few major setbacks. His normal lights, easily react parriable. His normal heavies do too few damage for the lack of speed and health highlander has. Highlander is supposed to be used for trading but that is not viable when at best you will trade evenly with the enemy. For such a long blade his lights have the same range as orochi, really!
Honourabru Samuru 2/3/5: Maybe the ***** is stretching, but carry on reading. Kensei does have a vortex as his top unbloackble can be feinted, but this vortex is not as good as the other vortexs. I don't know why but people do not fall for his vortex very often, why it is the similiar to raider's zone vortex. Nothing more to say.
More headbutts than nerflord 1/2: Do I need to write anything? For the sake of discussion I should. He is super gimped just like warlord. Also just like warlord, the only thing shugoki can do is use his strings and at high level play, that just doesn't work. But at least warlord can get guaranteed damage with a headbutt whereas shugoki has..... nothing. In the future I may write about buffs I would like to see for multiple heroes as I have quite a few for various different heroes in mind.
Your average anime watcher 2: Top light, zone, repeat until "victory" or "defeat". Again, I'd like to write about buffs I want to give her but I won't write that in this post. Buff his storm rush just for starters plz.
Kawaiiiiii 2/3: Her dodge attacks can be tricky but other than that she isn't very impressive. Her hidden stance is counter intuative to use as if the opponent mindless spams attacks, you'll get hit before the light comes out.
XX, XX, XX, XX, XX 2/3: Ever since his doucle dodge vortex was removed, I found a hard time finding a purpose to use shinobi. At high level play, the only thing she could rely on are the lights. However, with the not so recent discovery of the quad-dodge and the fact that you can use a ranged-GB immediately after a DD to catch someone trying to dodge out of the way of the potential kick, shinobi has gained some use.
Tell me your opinion.

Is there a glitch where the ken can "cancel" their unbloackable but keep the animation of the the swing?
Let me explain
Ken swings at you
For a split second their stamina goes down a bit
AND their arms move a bit from as if they canceled it