Tips With Kensei?

[The Last Knight]

I wanna play him more but I’m aids.

[Starwight/ttv]

Originally posted by PurelyAsian:

I wanna play him more but I’m aids.

I c/p my basic Kensei guide. I highly suggest checking out the group for newbies too, the merry mentors. I Would provide a link but via mobile version of steam, I'm not entirely sure how. I am a Kensei main since beta with around 700 hours in the game. Edit coming in a few mins, I got you :)

Here is my own guide to the Kensei BASICS. If you want to go 1v1 with me, just add me on steam and I can go more in depth.


I've mained Kensei since beta, and I figured anyone looking to play him, might like some of the basics. So, here's a few hints/tips to get you started with this Nodachi wielding killing machine.

First, there is the impression that Kensei can just spam dodges and zone attacks to win. This is not true, try that with someone who knows whay they are doing, you'll lose your head.

The Top Heavy/Unblockable:

Kensei REVOLVES around this move. His top heavy and his unblockable are your main sources for mind games. And they are ungodly slow. His unblockable is the third move in his chain, IF you chain into a top heavy attack-ie light, light, top heavy. A successful gb and a throw also count as the first two moves in said chain, so you can throw and go right into his unblockable. Same with dodge and attack, after a side dodge attack, you can go right into the unblockable.

So what can you do from the unblockable? You have several options. Your first choice is to let it go through. it does a nice chunk of damage. Buuut it is insanely slow and almost always will be parried.

You can soft feint into a side heavy. This catches a surprising amount of people as they throw a parry attempt at the unbloclable, which now turned into a side attack. You can soft feint either to the left or the right side. This can also catch people who attempt to side dodge, and is excellent for those pesky assassins. Also worthy of note is that when you soft feint the unblockable into a side heavy, the attack gets hyper armor and cannot be interrupted.

You can dash forward and from there use helmsplitter or guard break. You can also dash to the side and then go into your side dash attack. Or you can dash to the side and not do anything at all.

Another possibility is simply canceling the unblockable alltogether. You can directly canel the unblockable OR soft feint into your side heavy and then cancel THAT attack-this is a great way to bait out a parry attempt.

As you can see, you can get a lot of options just from initiating your unblockable attack. BUT you can also get quite a lot even from a regular top heavy as well.

From a top heavy you can press the gb button and go into your unblockable pommel strike which stuns the enemy, guarentees a light attack, AND from that light you can go into your unblockable heavy and all options THAT brings.

From a top heavy you can soft feint into a side LIGHT attack-I seldom see Kensei's use this, and I have no idea why. The light comes out quite fast, and is great to throw people off tempo or hit them during a parry attempt.

You can also soft feint this into side HEAVY attacks, as you would do from the unblockable. Do note, these ones will NOT have hyper armor, and are still fairly slow. But used sparingly, you can use then effectively.

And of course you can cancel the top heavy altogether as you would with anyone else.


The Zone attack

Kensei has a 2 part zone. The first part comes out at (I believe) 500 ms. It can be cancelled after the first part, before the second swing begins. And this is recommended. Like most zones with multiple swings, the second one is super easy to parry, so if you do use his zone, be sure to cancel it. Other than that, there isn't much else to his zone, it's fairly unremarkable compared to Gladiators or Shamans.

Advantages/disadvantages

Alright, so what makes a Kensei worth using? What are his advantages?

A big one is hyper armor. The second light attack in his chains have hyper armor, so they can't be interrupted.This is very helpful when trying to get to his top unblockable attack.

Range. Kensei simply outranges a lot of characters. He can hit from a surprising distance, and if utilized well, you can do a lot of damage before others can close the distance.

Dodge attacks-NORMALLY only assassins have dodge attacks. Kensei can often punish things other vanguards can only dodge. For example, a conqs shield bash. Unless your timing is pretty good, you can dodge conqs bash, but you may not get an attack fast enough to punish it. However, Kensei, like assassins, can dodge and attack at the same time, making it much easier to punish it. This can be applied to cents kick/shove, LBs shove, Warlords headbutt, Warden's SB, and other similar attacks.

And speaking of assassins, his ability to dodge attack like them, makes him a great assassin killer. Dodge happy assassins will frequently find themselves on the wrong end of that Nodachi, if you can time his dodge attacks well.

Damage- Kensei does a lot of damage, and can end opponents very fast if he lands his strikes. And he has enough HP to make trading blows a viable option against most heros.

With all these advantages, Kensei does have limitations too. Namely, the speed of his attacks. His heavy attacks are extremely telegraphed, and not only that they have an insane windup. All an opponent has to do is light attack you out of the windup and he can interrupt any heavy or feint attempt. This is easier said than done, but it is doable.

With his attacks so telegraphed, it is easy to parry Kensei. Many of his mixup attempts will end up as parry bait, unless you are very good at really varying your attack strategy.

One last thing to note, is that Kensei has superior block. Not many know about it. You have to have your guard in the same direction as an attack, then dodge into the attack with the same timing as you would a parry. You will block the attack while dodging and can go right into a dodge attack from there.

These are the very basics with Kensei. If anyone is interested in learning more advanced tricks, and tactics to help improve your Kensei game, just hit me up. My steam and Uplay ID are posted in the stickied "veteran mentors" topic!

[Dephty]

Originally posted by alonesilverwolf:

Originally posted by PurelyAsian:

I wanna play him more but I’m aids.

I c/p my basic Kensei guide. I highly suggest checking out the group for newbies too, the merry mentors. I Would provide a link but via mobile version of steam, I'm not entirely sure how. I am a Kensei main since beta with around 700 hours in the game. Edit coming in a few mins, I got you :)

Here is my own guide to the Kensei BASICS. If you want to go 1v1 with me, just add me on steam and I can go more in depth.


I've mained Kensei since beta, and I figured anyone looking to play him, might like some of the basics. So, here's a few hints/tips to get you started with this Nodachi wielding killing machine.

First, there is the impression that Kensei can just spam dodges and zone attacks to win. This is not true, try that with someone who knows whay they are doing, you'll lose your head.

The Top Heavy/Unblockable:

Kensei REVOLVES around this move. His top heavy and his unblockable are your main sources for mind games. And they are ungodly slow. His unblockable is the third move in his chain, IF you chain into a top heavy attack-ie light, light, top heavy. A successful gb and a throw also count as the first two moves in said chain, so you can throw and go right into his unblockable. Same with dodge and attack, after a side dodge attack, you can go right into the unblockable.

So what can you do from the unblockable? You have several options. Your first choice is to let it go through. it does a nice chunk of damage. Buuut it is insanely slow and almost always will be parried.

You can soft feint into a side heavy. This catches a surprising amount of people as they throw a parry attempt at the unbloclable, which now turned into a side attack. You can soft feint either to the left or the right side. This can also catch people who attempt to side dodge, and is excellent for those pesky assassins. Also worthy of note is that when you soft feint the unblockable into a side heavy, the attack gets hyper armor and cannot be interrupted.

You can dash forward and from there use helmsplitter or guard break. You can also dash to the side and then go into your side dash attack. Or you can dash to the side and not do anything at all.

Another possibility is simply canceling the unblockable alltogether. You can directly canel the unblockable OR soft feint into your side heavy and then cancel THAT attack-this is a great way to bait out a parry attempt.

As you can see, you can get a lot of options just from initiating your unblockable attack. BUT you can also get quite a lot even from a regular top heavy as well.

From a top heavy you can press the gb button and go into your unblockable pommel strike which stuns the enemy, guarentees a light attack, AND from that light you can go into your unblockable heavy and all options THAT brings.

From a top heavy you can soft feint into a side LIGHT attack-I seldom see Kensei's use this, and I have no idea why. The light comes out quite fast, and is great to throw people off tempo or hit them during a parry attempt.

You can also soft feint this into side HEAVY attacks, as you would do from the unblockable. Do note, these ones will NOT have hyper armor, and are still fairly slow. But used sparingly, you can use then effectively.

And of course you can cancel the top heavy altogether as you would with anyone else.


The Zone attack

Kensei has a 2 part zone. The first part comes out at (I believe) 500 ms. It can be cancelled after the first part, before the second swing begins. And this is recommended. Like most zones with multiple swings, the second one is super easy to parry, so if you do use his zone, be sure to cancel it. Other than that, there isn't much else to his zone, it's fairly unremarkable compared to Gladiators or Shamans.

Advantages/disadvantages

Alright, so what makes a Kensei worth using? What are his advantages?

A big one is hyper armor. The second light attack in his chains have hyper armor, so they can't be interrupted.This is very helpful when trying to get to his top unblockable attack.

Range. Kensei simply outranges a lot of characters. He can hit from a surprising distance, and if utilized well, you can do a lot of damage before others can close the distance.

Dodge attacks-NORMALLY only assassins have dodge attacks. Kensei can often punish things other vanguards can only dodge. For example, a conqs shield bash. Unless your timing is pretty good, you can dodge conqs bash, but you may not get an attack fast enough to punish it. However, Kensei, like assassins, can dodge and attack at the same time, making it much easier to punish it. This can be applied to cents kick/shove, LBs shove, Warlords headbutt, Warden's SB, and other similar attacks.

And speaking of assassins, his ability to dodge attack like them, makes him a great assassin killer. Dodge happy assassins will frequently find themselves on the wrong end of that Nodachi, if you can time his dodge attacks well.

Damage- Kensei does a lot of damage, and can end opponents very fast if he lands his strikes. And he has enough HP to make trading blows a viable option against most heros.

With all these advantages, Kensei does have limitations too. Namely, the speed of his attacks. His heavy attacks are extremely telegraphed, and not only that they have an insane windup. All an opponent has to do is light attack you out of the windup and he can interrupt any heavy or feint attempt. This is easier said than done, but it is doable.

With his attacks so telegraphed, it is easy to parry Kensei. Many of his mixup attempts will end up as parry bait, unless you are very good at really varying your attack strategy.

One last thing to note, is that Kensei has superior block. Not many know about it. You have to have your guard in the same direction as an attack, then dodge into the attack with the same timing as you would a parry. You will block the attack while dodging and can go right into a dodge attack from there.

These are the very basics with Kensei. If anyone is interested in learning more advanced tricks, and tactics to help improve your Kensei game, just hit me up. My steam and Uplay ID are posted in the stickied "veteran mentors" topic!

Thanks love. Good job mentoring yet again.

[Knight Commander Martellus]

Or feint unblockables into oblivion, That seems to work like the trojan horse tactic. ^.^ Lolz

All in all Poster above covered it.

[Starwight/ttv]

Originally posted by Eltharion:

Or feint unblockables into oblivion, That seems to work like the trojan horse tactic. ^.^ Lolz

All in all Poster above covered it.

That's primarily what you have to do, honestly. But you can't always feint unblockables into the same thing. Gotta mix it up. Sometimes soft feint left, sometimes right, sometimes dodge out of it, sometimes just cancel and do nothing. Occasionally let it fly. Mix that in, with the above tactics, and a few more advanced tips I didn't get into (was meant to be a fairly new person's guide), and you'll do fine with Kensei

[Nitromethane]

What makes kensei decent in optimal play is basically his zone (range and cover) and delayed dodge attacks. I once delayed a dodge attack to the point it hit the other guy as soon as he saw the indicator. So yeah, it is strong if you "cheese".

Never buffer attacks, since this game favors delayd input (delaying attacks in a mixup will make the indication pop up later for the enemy - dont ask me why, but they need to fix it).

That means that you will have to time the cancels, example top heavy into side light (input light during end window of the top heavy) as otherwise it will be parried 10/10 times.

You will only be able to do top heavy if the enemy is out of range to hit you with a light or a zone (vs good players). Use variation in your mixup, I.E best one Kensei really has is top heavy (wait for cancel window) into side heavy -> cancel into GB (your GB will come out quite fast). And always optimize for a chain, if you get a light attack in - go into top heavy (delay it feint it) sometimes let the heavy go, sometimes soft feint it into a light or a heavy and at times cancel those into GB or another light/heavy.

I do not endorce delayed attacks at all, but it is what it is. And I hope ubisoft will fix them. Since it gives such an advantage, to the point that attacks in chains become impossible to parry for the enemy.

[Nitromethane]

Offtopic, am I the only one who gets triggered with the delayed attacks? Is this something that we should expect to have in the game for a long time (I.E do we all need to master it) or will it be fixed?

[Fent Fiend]

That's the point. Be aids.