[Conqueror] Superior Block Heavy Attack

[Saint Landwalker]

There have been some questions lately (including from me) about the point of the Conqueror's "Superior Block Heavy Attack" ability. For those who are unaware, this is his ability to block an attack during the start-up of the Conq's own heavy attack, similar to what the Warlord and Valkyrie can do with their light attacks.

The issue was that it seems like the Conq's heavy attack is almost always blocked when using this ability, making it pretty useless.

After toying around with it, I found:

1. If you execute it by blocking a heavy attack, it will virtually always be blocked (Edit: Debunked, but see Reply #5 below.)
   
   
2. Assassins might not be able to block this, but I'm not sure. More testing required. (Edit: See Reply #5 below.)
   
   
3. If you execute it by blocking a light attack, it seems like it will connect (Edit: Most of the time, at least).
   
   
4. You can do this with the Conq's charged heavy, too. For some reason, this appears to be guaranteed even if you block a heavy instead of a light.
   
   
5. Unrelated side note: The Conqueror does not take chip damage from blocking, even if he blocks heavy attacks.

Again, this was very preliminary testing. More will be required in order to confirm or overturn the above findings, particularly with regards to assassins, light attack blocks, and the charged heavy. I won't have time to test more vigorously for a while, but I wanted to put my initial findings out there for folks who are struggling with figuring out the point of this ability.

[Rogat]

Wow Conq is getting weaker by any information I read on him.

[Saint Landwalker]

Publicado originalmente por Skaylor:

Wow Conq is getting weaker by any information I read on him.

Considering that Superior Block Heavy Attack is (in my experience) more difficult to pull off than a parry, and is objectively worse than a parry > GB, it doesn't seem great.

One thing I want to test when I have the time and the willing guinea pig is whether or not Superior Block Heavy Attack will reach and hit a Nobushi. I suspect it'll reach, but that it'll be blocked on a Nobushi Heavy, in which case it's really no better than "Can't reach her with a GB."

If any Ubifolks are looking at this, I'd like to make a formal recommendation to reexamine the Conqueror's Superior Block Heavy Attack to make it actually mechanically rewarding to execute.

[intelligent rat]

The superior block is way easier to pull off than the parry actually, in terms of ms window that you can start either, you have way more time in an attack to start your heavy to hit the block than to hit the parry. The block itself is almost essentially useless but it still serves in the mix up game for Conq a little bit, still always preferred to parry into gb into a wall and start normal conq combos.

[Saint Landwalker]

Publicado originalmente por bird:

The superior block is way easier to pull off than the parry actually, in terms of ms window that you can start either, you have way more time in an attack to start your heavy to hit the block than to hit the parry.

The trouble I have with it is pulling off the Superior Block Heavy Attack instead of a parry. The timing is a bit different (comes later in the attack). With enough practice I could probably do it about as well as I parry—maybe even better, since I don't have to be as fast with it—but, yeah, it's not really worth it most of the time.

[Saint Landwalker]

Additional testing results:

1. You can trigger Superior Block Heavy Attack with a "normal" heavy in one of two moments:
   
   1. Right after the parry indicator: In this case, the attack will usually be blocked (Edit: By characters with perma-guard stance; see PK, below).
      
   2. Right before the parry indicator: In this case, the attack will connect.
   
   
2. You can trigger SBHA with a "charged" heavy in one of two moments:
   
   1. Right before the parry indicator: In this case, the attack will connect.
      
   2. Simultaneously with the parry indicator: It seems the attack will usually connect in this case, too.
      
   3. It seems that releasing the "charged" heavy immediately after the parry indicator will result in you getting hit.
   
   
3. All of the above was thoroughly tested on a Level 1 Raider-bot
   
   
4. After some testing with a Level 1 PK-bot, it appears that assassins cannot (or at least, the bot does not) block SBHA even when it is initiated after the parry indicator have a harder time blocking the attack when it is initiated under condition 1.1 above. It seems they are also able to dodge it when initiated "late."

[UbiJurassic]

Thanks for the feedback and testing on Conq's Superior Block Heavy. I'm making a note of it to forward over to the team.

[Saint Landwalker]

Publicado originalmente por UbiJurassic:

Thanks for the feedback and testing on Conq's Superior Block Heavy. I'm making a note of it to forward over to the team.

Happy to help, and maybe help provide some ideas for patches that might affect the Conqueror.

Also, after some testing with a PK-bot, it does appear that assassins cannot block SBHA even when it's initiated "late" on a standard attack. I assume this is because of their neutral / resetting guard stance or something, because the PK-bot never blocked it. However, she did dodge a Top SBHA.

Edit: I kept at it for a while, and the PK did finally block a top, late-initiated SBHA. Given that the Conqueror's top heavies are his slowest, this may be limited to top attacks, but I have not confirmed.

[DROPbear]

Wait isnt superior heavy block, allows conq. to block a heavy attack without being stagger like usual. Samething with superior dodge block with kensei.

[Saint Landwalker]

Publicado originalmente por y3ivan:

Wait isnt superior heavy block, allows conq. to block a heavy attack without being stagger like usual. Samething with superior dodge block with kensei.

That is not what is being discussed. Conqueror's "Superior Block" is different from "Superior Block Heavy Attack".

[Saint Landwalker]

More experiences, more problems. I have a hard time believing that Superior Block Heavy Attack is working as intended.

UbiJurassic, is there any way you can divulge whether or not this is either (1) Working as intended, or (2) current being looked into at the dev level?

[Saint Landwalker]

Having spent most of today getting Superior Block Heavy Attack parried by Berserkers, I must amend my earlier conclusions about assassins, and reiterate that I find it impossible to believe this is the intended behavior.

[UbiJurassic]

While I can't speak to the developer's intention for the move, I have forwarded this thread to the team. If there are any developments regarding it, we'll let the playerbase know.

[Saint Landwalker]

Publicado originalmente por UbiJurassic:

While I can't speak to the developer's intention for the move, I have forwarded this thread to the team. If there are any developments regarding it, we'll let the playerbase know.

Much appreciated, UbiJurassic. I know they're juggling a lot of balls and all of us players have our own pet wish-list, but the Conqueror just feels like one of his key tools is an active liability. Hopefully they'll take another look at how it's working.