these type of wars are supposed to be chaotic. and “sloppy” is a part of the natural chaos that involves large scale battles. the 1v1 and 2v2 have their epic side, but 4v4 is really awesome, and it’s not really a total gank fest because there’s so many different outcomes, and I experience several incredible comebacks in Dominion.
I would say to most fans, Dominion mode is the selling point. it has a great mix of duels, team ups, crowd slaughtering, all in one battle.
the most skilled players are tested further in Dominion mode. I say someone with elite skills could successfully defend against multiple opponents, maybe even kill them all themselves. I actually had a case where I was outnumbered, and finished off 3 of them. maybe it was a fluke, but there’s a lot more depth to the whole Dominion fights, than 1v1/2v2 where basically the higher skilled players have a landslide victory in some cases. there can be some close matches, and it’s great they provide modes like that, but For Honor really wouldn’t peak interest without Dominion mode.
Yeah wars are chaotic, but the controls of a game aren’t supposed to feel sloppy and chaotic. Dominion as a mode isn’t a test of your skill, it’s a numbers game. 2v1 will win every time. The lock-on system is straight up terrible when you’re outnumbered, you cannot successfully defend against two players unless you’re a character with full block stance. It works like a MOBA, you want a jungler to switch from point-to-point and have 3 anchor characters holding each one with rotations from the midlane player to support large pushes from the opponents.
Onto some juicy tech I’ve been glancing over, I picked up the Warden and fell in love, but also discovered a lot of interesting things about characters and how they function. It also opened my eyes up to how good the Warlord is. Everyone complaining about the Nobushi will think the Nobushi is fair compared to the Warlord.
So at high level, or just advanced level play parry baits are a thing. You cancel the start-up of a heavy to bait your opponent into their heavy attack from the parry attempt. It’s an easy way to score some pressure and land a free attack. But some characters can circumvent this mindgames entirely, namely the Warlord. Something called Superior Block exists within the game that allows light attacks to also parry if timed correctly. Now some characters have this on select attacks. The Warlord has this on EVERY light attack he has. This makes the Warlord simply untouchable as far as opening him up goes, he’s impervious to parry mindgames and has full block stance, where if he blocks any attack he gets a free stab attack off at you. His strong attacks also have unstaggerable frames towards the end of their animations, so baiting heavy attacks to land light attacks is also a terrible idea. The only thing you can do to beat a Warlord is guard break them to death, or force them to attack you so you get a free parry off. And no good Warlord will let that happen.
The Warlord does mediocre damage but is literally untouchable if you play him correctly, this game has a fair amount of depth and the meta will in my opinion shift towards the Warlord and Conqueror who play reactively and neuter offensives with ease. The Nobushi IMO is third best at least to the Warlord and Conqueror.
Mark my words, the Warlord is fucking retardedly good in this game. He’s hard to play effectively, but he has by far the best defence and counter attack options and due to this - best attack in the game.
I seen 2vs1 where the solo warrior kills them both. dominion is more skilled based, of course with spammers, there is strength in numbers, but that makes the moments of overcoming the odds even more intense, plus make team work more valuable.
a lot of epic back and forths with both teams breaked. duels and brawls have nothing like the full scale of glory Dominion has. I like a duel and brawl occassionally, but I would quickly get bored exclusively doing those modes, meanwhile, I can play Dominion persistently like a enjoyable career.
some people say that Nobushi and Orochi are OP, but they are crazy. Nobushi has range, but overall slow, and I got beaten by other classes that are arguably lower tier. it’s still totally skill based.
and Orochi while they kill fast, are very squishy, so it balances itself out. the better defender will have the advantage over those with better reach or attack.
also it’s so awesome playing with all the UI turned off. yes there still is a minimal UI like when you lock on to a nearby enemy, or a zone’s highlight, but it does look more AMAZING with no UI/HUD. of course I only do that for Players vs AI matches, for players vs players, the UI really is helpful to optimize performance, reaction timing, and strategies. and of course knowing when the feats are ready.
I am unsure if I will buy the game in the end. I really like the duels and the fact you have 2v2 or 4v4 modes that are based on FG skills, but there are still some questionable decisions in it that can ruin it (the too big OHK area in some stages I already talked about, P2P only gameplay…). I might still buy it if I find it for a reasonable price since there won’t be any other FG-like games for PC until the release of UMvC3 on Steam.
for P2P, it runs impressively solid. yes if the “host” leaves, it tumbles down, but all the matches I played, that is a rarity, most that wanna play aren’t rage quitters, and the netcode is even greater than Star Wars Battlefront and ARK Survival Evolved which have dedicated servers.
this is practically the first game where it doesn’t feel like p2p will be a dealbreaker. fighting games would like to always be this smooth and amazing looking
Yeah my Warden is insane, Warden has shot up to tier 1. The dude gets really good mix-ups from his parry > guard breaks and his top heavy parry bait leads into one hell of a good mix-up as well. He can tank you for 1/4th of your health in seconds if you make one mistake.
This game is fucking dope, I’m looking to get really good at it. I haven’t lost in duels for a fucking while now.
Sadly, but it’s COMPLETELY sold me. I love this game, it’s heavily punishing and has really weighty combat, one mistake is all it takes. Just how this kind of game should play.
