How to counter Centurion, a guide by a rep 12 Centurion.

[KiraTheUnholy]

I know there's a lot of hate going around for centurion right now. I can understand why... some of his moves are so weighted that the fight against him often hinges on one or two mistakes alone.

As a high-tier centurion player I still get my♥♥♥♥♥whooped from time to time. So I guess my way of trying to tone down some of the hate is teaching you how exactly you can beat a centurion's♥♥♥♥♥in both ganks and 1v1s.

Ganks
In ganks there is no 100% fullproof strategy to winning. Unfortunately with the nerfing of revenge it's not nearly as powerful as it used to be. Unless you use perks and max out revenge gear that enables you to rapidfire revenge I don't recommend relying on revenge in a gank.

First thing you need to do in a gank against a centurion is ensure you have a visual on him at all times. Centurions will usually spam kick, spam heavy unblockable, or spam gb in a gank scenario. There's no shame in them doing this as it is the most powerful and effective thing they can do in a gank.

The best way to stop all three of their main spam strategies is to spam attacks. No joke that unblockable, that kick? They have ZERO hyper armor. GBs are automatically stopped by light attacks, and heavy attacks if you're past the startup. Taking all of these into account, all of a centurion's openers in a gank are countered by spamming attacks. If any party in the gank becomes a parry king then you may need to get creative, but in my experience usually people who are ganking will all spam their gank-effective attacks.

Another thing you can do if you have spacing and are not playing a character with slow move speed is to run. Getting some space between your potential gankers and their fellow ganking centurions is very useful. Centurions have a very low run speed so doing this will enable more skilled players to take a couple shots at their pursuers before the centurion catches up. This isn't a way to end the gank for sure but it does help.

Finally surprise parries can be quite useful. Centurions will most likely as I said be doing one of three things. If they're spamming their unblockable it should be noted that this unblockable is extremely easy to parry as long as you know it's coming. When you parry their unblockable this opens up a small window where any other attack thrown at you is auto-parried as well. Doing this can usually net you a free hit one or more of your ganking opponents.

Finally we have a gear stat strategy. I know this doesn't apply to everyone so I'll be brief. MAX out damage. Damage-based feats, attack buffs and defense penetration. The faster you can remove someone from the gank the better. It's also worth noting that after the same opponent dies twice they are automatically denied revive so you don't have to worry about executing.

Dueling
The short answer to how to beat a centurion in 1v1 is to turtle. I don't mean "only use quick attacks, or be unpredictable" No, that may work for a lower level centurion but a high level centurion will be waiting for any attack to punish... and as I've already noted one or two punishes from a centurion can decide the entire match. What I mean is literally waiting and only using stuns or feints until you can bait out a mistake from the centurion. What do I mean by a mistake? Well centurions are lucky enough to have quite a few mixups they can open with. I'm going to describe in detail how you can punish every single one of them.

Kick opener: Basic opener. Centurion will kick you to drain stamina and then go for a light attack. If a centurion is doing this against you, with assassin characters you can dodge into a side dash attack on reaction. For other characters you can react to the kick startup animation with a light attack. (Obviously for slower characters you can only avoid this, not punish it)

Kick mixup opener: Opener designed to catch players with slower reaction times. The kick reaction window is fairly generous, however there are many players with slower reaction times that aren't even able to react to the kick. This combined with the pressure of the fight can cause people to predict when a centurion dashes forward. This means a centurion can dash forward, and wait to either kick or gb. Again assassin characters can ignore this and go for a side attack. This opener can be punished on reaction by any class if the centurion is not careful with his spacing. You can gb him as soon as he starts the dash for a free punish from any class. However if you are a raider or warlord, you can side dash and go for a 50/50 punish on gb, and it is not punishable for you to do so.

Kick/Miss into heavy: A fact that many players even today don't know about is that if a centurion misses his kick, the heavy followup comes out faster than it would if the kick had hit. The heavy will either be comitted or canceled into a gb. They can start the heavy after the kick as well, but it is less effective. It is important if a centurion does this that you DO NOT TRY to parry it. Yes if you parrry it you get a very nice punish and may win the match because of Cent's low health pool.. however it is not worth the risk as instead you can simply gb on reaction. This will gb them if they were going to commit to the heavy, and it will simply get cgb'd if they were going for the feint into gb.

Heavy/Mixup into feint gb: If none of the above strategies work against you a centurion may try to open with a heavy/mixup into feinted gb. Blocking in this case is the best strategy. You can also try to predict when they're about to throw a heavy and go for the gb. This will enable you to either gb them out of their heavy... or cgb the incoming heavy feint. Alternatively assassin characters can side-dash attack this as the centurion's regular feint is not fast enough to result in a parry on it.

Charged heavy cancel into charged heavy: This is one of the lesser seen tricks centurion will use. The reason they don't use this often is because it's very dangerous for them to do so. Basically if you see a centurion regular feinting (b-press) a lot of his heavies that means he's preparing to either let one go or charge one. If he decides to charge one you can wait for it to become fully charged and simply reaction parry. Once it's fully charged it is no longer possibly to feint it into a gb, so you should be safe on that front. If he decides to let it go or doesn't go for a fully charged heavy your best bet is to block, as centurion has no safe followup to this if it's blocked.

Blocked heavy into punch: Honestly this is only ever something you'll ever see a low-tier, or particularly ballsy centurion do. I myself only do this if I think the player's reactions are very very weak. If you block a heavy and a centurion goes for a punch you can simply side-dash as any character and gb the not-so-generous recovery window granted to the centurion for a free punish.

Light-light into heavy mixups: A centurion may also try to throw a light out at you occasionally. Centurion's lights come out relatively fast so there's no shame in getting hit by one randomly. However they don't do that much damage, so there isn't much of a point to feeling pressured or fearing his lights. If he does a light you should be looking out for a second light. Centurion can combo his first light into a second, and the second into a faster heavy. However the first light cannot be combo'd into a heavy, only into a gb or a light. So if you see an indicator pop up be ready for the parry. A light parry will grant you a very nice punish.

Blocked heavy into heavy mixup: A centurion may intentionally try to use a heavy on a block stance so that they can mixup their second heavy (which comes out faster) into a feint gb or into a committed heavy. This can catch slower players off-guard, and it can screw over parry-kings who are too ambitious. However your goal here is only to go for the block on the second heavy as well. Don't fall for the bait, as many players can and will fall for the parry bait. (Note that lawbringer and conqueror can automatically counter this strategy, and any assassin character can simply side dash into attack)

So that's it. In my opinion centurion still needs something to balance him out in 4v4s... at least nerf the haymaker and phalanx perk, possibly more. However hopefully this guide will help those of you that wish to survive more fights against roman's most feared soldier.

[Jesus Respecter]

Or you can stop trying to defend a character with two seperate infinites, and who fundamentally breaks the game.

[KiraTheUnholy]

Originally posted by Gubs:

Or you can stop trying to defend a character with two seperate infinites, and who fundamentally breaks the game.

This is a helpful guide, not a salt mine.

[abexomotron]

OR wait until the next unbalanced DLC chars for season pass bait.

my true guide from a rep 30 centurion.

[Electr1csheep]

Thank you for your post and pointers, It was well thought out and obviously took some time. Hopefully it will assist in not getting my @ss wrecked all the time by cents..

[DROPbear]

1v1 isnt that much of a fuss. Most of the playerbase plays dominion that mode was already cancer prepatch.

Does centurion needs a nerf?
Answer: yes
1. Charge heavy gb feint
2. Kick stamina drain nerf

[KiraTheUnholy]

Originally posted by y3ivan:

1v1 isnt that much of a fuss. Most of the playerbase plays dominion that mode was already cancer prepatch.

Does centurion needs a nerf?
Answer: yes
1. Charge heavy gb feint
2. Kick stamina drain nerf

Yeah cent isn't that insane in 1v1s. However you'd be surprised how many people still have trouble with him. This guide is for both those people and the people sick of getting ganked by roaming cent gank squads.

Kick stamina drain could be lowered a bit, but the kick is really easy to avoid so not sure how to balance it out.
The "Charge Heavy gb feint" doesn't exist. It's peer-2-peer networking that's causing this. On the cent's side you actually can't do the gb feint once you're in the unblockable animation. it only appears this way to the enemy player because of p2p connection. In which case it would fall under fixing the p2p stuff in general.

[DROPbear]

Charge heavy feint to gb exist. I m not sure if ubi going to fix it, as its a bit abusive. The good centurion player will gb right before the stab animation, so it will create a flicker to parry.

[Axel]

So what happens when you're smashed into a wall?

Also, in my opinion Shinobi is just as bad in Ganks. My main problem is however that if a Centurion or two are spamming Heavy into charged Jab whilst you're in Revenge, if they catch you with a Jab that's it you're on the deck. It can be spammed faster than Shugoki's Hug or Valkyries shield bash or leg sweep making it an absolute nightmare when you're being ganked.

1v1 Centurions give me no problems. In ganks they're absolutely ridiculous.

[Nitromethane]

There is a lot you have not mentioned in your Guide, like the unlock tech from Cent´s. I have seen Cent´s win 1v3 by using that. Imo its an expoit - it was not intended for him to have such a 50/50 ability that gives a heavy as reward.

[Starwight/ttv]

Originally posted by Shakta:

There is a lot you have not mentioned in your Guide, like the unlock tech from Cent´s. I have seen Cent´s win 1v3 by using that. Imo its an expoit.

The guide is showing how to fight a legit player not exploit abuser, so moot point. Nobody would make a warden guide and include how to deal with the 1 hit death blow either, because it's an unintended exploit.

[Nitromethane]

Originally posted by alonesilverwolf:

Originally posted by Shakta:

There is a lot you have not mentioned in your Guide, like the unlock tech from Cent´s. I have seen Cent´s win 1v3 by using that. Imo its an expoit.

The guide is showing how to fight a legit player not exploit abuser, so moot point. Nobody would make a warden guide and include how to deal with the 1 hit death blow either, because it's an unintended exploit.

The thing is that those Cent mains dont see it as an exploit. And everyone is using it now.
It would be to write a guide on nobushi with out mentioning the unlock tech.

[Starwight/ttv]

Originally posted by Shakta:

Originally posted by alonesilverwolf:

The guide is showing how to fight a legit player not exploit abuser, so moot point. Nobody would make a warden guide and include how to deal with the 1 hit death blow either, because it's an unintended exploit.

The thing is that those Cent mains dont see it as an exploit. And everyone is using it now.
It would be to write a guide on nobushi with out mentioning the unlock tech.

Flicker is an exploit that everyone abuses to. Does it mean every character capable of it needs nerfed? No, flicker needs fixed.

Same with unlock techs. Ubi needs to find a fix for that, not nerf chars capable of it.

[Nitromethane]

Originally posted by alonesilverwolf:

Originally posted by Shakta:

The thing is that those Cent mains dont see it as an exploit. And everyone is using it now.
It would be to write a guide on nobushi with out mentioning the unlock tech.

Flicker is an exploit that everyone abuses to. Does it mean every character capable of it needs nerfed? No, flicker needs fixed.

Same with unlock techs. Ubi needs to find a fix for that, not nerf chars capable of it.

What? Who said anything about nerfs. You cant come here and state that he is bad in 1v1 or give a guide on facing him with out mentioning how you counter his unlock tech. And by judging from previous patches, it will remain here for some time. For the ones who do not know about his unlock tech, he has a 50/50 that gives him a free heavy.

Altough I appreciate Kira´s effort, im a bit salty from the untech exploit.

[Lv 20 Bolting Bot]

Originally posted by KiraTheUnholy:

This means a centurion can dash forward, and wait to either kick or gb. Again assassin characters can ignore this and go for a side attack.

Not going to reply to all of it, but assassins, don't do this. If Cent dodges forward and you do a dash attack, the Cent will parry it and punish you heavily. If Cent dodges forward, either hit him with a light to counter GB/kick or wait to CGB or dodge the kick then punish with a light.

Something this list also doesn't cover that advanced Cents use from time to time is the light into unlocked light into heavy with multiple possible outcomes. It's like what good Kensei players tend to do.

[Rogat]

Can you do a 1v1 guide for him? I find it hard to play with him in duels.