Best class? Also what's the difference?

[Atlaz88x]

1. Which one is best?
2. Is one of them very bad?

3. How many moves does each one gain?

[The Seed]

I've been a forsaken player the whole way through, not too fond of the other styles however some people use them pretty well... Stagger has it's perks in pvp (dodge + counter) when the right person's using it, however when it comes to both pvp and pve I'd go with forsaken. Thanks to the way forsaken works I'm able to take on up to 9 NPC's at once (so far that's the max i can get to spawn in that village where ama saba is) could probably take on much more.

After enough time your hand or thumb just moves on it's own, all styles take time to get a feel for it. forsaken can block any attack coming from the left or right when fighting multiple targets, only your main target has to be parried left or right according to what they are specifically throwing.

I tried using windfall, I was getting the hang of it however as I kept using the ability I found that no matter how I timed the dodge I would get hit... like it's sorta broken sometimes. Khalt is more about timing the hits coming in and dodging attacks that break your block or basically cut your stamina. I've seen some damn good khalt players, I don't like the idea of temporary hit points though that you have to gain back by hitting your target. If you go on a streak using the khalt ability and then get hit by one blow, all of that absorbed damage becomes permanent damage which you have to heal back.

So there you go, Khalt, Forsaken, Stagger and Windfall. I suggest Forsaken despite the difficulty developers have deemed it. I love it, it completely stops attacks and stops the flow of a deck.

[obliviondoll]

1. In competitive play, Forsaken. But not by a wide margin. For someone who's not playing competitively, whichever one feels most comfortable for you. Realistically, Windfall SHOULD be the highest difficulty rating, not Forsaken. Some people find themselves naturally more comfortable with Windfall or Forsaken than the other, but even while I have a natural tendency to do Forsaken wrong, and am more comfortable with how Windfall works, I can't honestly call Windfall the easier style. it's easier for ME, but not in general. Kahlt and Forsaken are somewhat arguable as well, because while you can stick an absorb easier than a parry (slightly), you DO have things to worry about when absorbing that Forsaken doesn't need to worry about, and you can get yourself in trouble absorbing the wrong things, which isn't a problem for someone parrying - there are no "wrong" attacks to parry.

2. Not any more. All of them are at least SOMEWHAT viable in competitive play, even though it's pretty consistent that Forsaken is the one that will get a mirror match for the top spot in any given tournament. With lag involved, Kahlt gets frame disadvantage on the ability, which is pretty horrendous, and sometimes Windfall's avoids just don't work because the timing is inconsistent on when you have to do them because of variations in ping between you and the host player. Stagger is more hard to use than objectively bad, and the backstep move is generally considered pretty OP.

3. All attacks are unlockable for all styles. Attacks have an "origin" style, but even your starting decks for each style will usually have 1 or 2 off-style moves in them. You can learn every move on a single character. For that matter, you can also learn every style, although you can only have one style active at a time. The only thing the "style" label on an attack matters for is the damage scaling when using the move in a weapon deck. Weapons have damage scaling on moves which is based on the style the move is from - and it only applies to attacks using the weapon (punches/elbow strikes with gloves, or sword attacks with swords).

[R3d_Rain+]

Either Khalt of Stagger if you ask me. Khalt is the style that most easily reverses pressure and has the highest health. It's difficult to deal with when guard breaks are the only thing that pushes through absorb because they are all reactable (not that there isn't one that should be too fast to react to) so you can decide to dodge or absorb based on the speed of the attack much of the time. The recovery window from a missed absorb is also much smaller than a missed parry, if I'm not mistaken. So missing an absorb to a feint isn't usually super terrible.

But Stagger doesn't have much more difficult reversing pressure either. Their back-dodge kick can dodge any move in the game if correctly timed, does damage to the opponent (not a ton but it adds up) and reverses pressure. There are also even fewer moves that have a chance to through the back step than go through absorb, and I say have a chance because again, any correctly timed back dodge will beat any attack. And it's not even like Forsaken or Windfall whose defensive abilities only work if you read an attack correclty (or guess, idk). But it doesn't have a lot of health comparatively speaking.

Not that Forsaken is bad; I've been playing Khalt for awhile then went to Forsaken and since coming back from the Ps4 Plus promotion have only gotten better because I had to learn the control layout. Forsaken and Khalt both fall into an area where when an enemy uses it, they can become so intimidating that you'll try to feint them when you get an opening and they'll just start attacking through it, and it feels like there's nothing you can really do.

So Khalt is difficult to punish, Stagger is hard to hit at all when played correctly, and Forsaken can create a lot of its own opportunities. I personally would put Stagger at the top, but it's fairly even all things considered. Can't comment on Windfall because I've never played that style.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by R3d_Rain:

Their back-dodge kick can dodge any move in the game if correctly timed <snip> correctly timed back dodge will beat any attack.

Well that's objectively false. It WAS true on release but it's been nerfed since. It can dodge most attacks, but mid thrusts will hit no matter the timing. That is a limited set of attacks, but more than what breaks Kahlt, and definitely more fast/hard to react attacks. It's still a bit strong, but it doesn't give enough advantage to entirely outweigh the fact that the Stagger ability doesn't give stamina back like every other style does.

As for health, that isn't a direct style advantage, the hard and soft caps on stats don't change for style. You get more HP faster as Kahlt because of the style's stat scaling, but at the cost of being able to get more shard recovery for powers, and more stamina (which in many ways is more important). And Kahlt risks HP on even a SUCCESSFUL absorb, which no other style does, so they NEED the advantage there. And Forsaken is only a little behind Kahlt in terms of HP while getting 100% damage canceling from their style ability.

The finals of EVERY PC tournament you can find are Forsaken vs. Forsaken (except in one Windfall only tournament, for obvious reasons), and have been that way pretty much since release. In many cases - particularly recently - there have been less instances of "top 4" or even "top 8" being exclusively or almost exclusively Forsaken, because balance has improved, but it's still THE style when you're playing competitively. It HARD stops the opponent, negates ALL damage, and gives FREE damage if you want it, AND gives back as much stamina as Kahlt does. There are attacks which it can parry either way making them only timing-based rather than directional, and there are no attacks which it can't parry.

Kahlt gets frame advantage AT BEST, and only a max of 3 frames, and with even minimal/otherwise unnoticable lag, it's possible to end up with frame DISADVANTAGE for your trouble when you absorb correctly. It absolutely can be strong, but it's good for SUSTAINING pressure, not REVERSING it. Parrying does a much better job of that, and so does even Windfall, which is probably the weakest style right now (again, not by very much).

Oh, and recovery time is faster on whiffing with Kahlt than Forsaken, you're right. But being slightly harder to feint out while being more vulnerable to timing mixups and DIRECTLY RISKING HEALTH EVEN ON SUCCESS more than makes up for that - and Windfall is only 1 frame slower recovery than Kahlt. Stagger you can't compare on that level because of it's nature as attacks, since you can literally cancel the recovery time into another attack, whether you hit or not.

[totty]

forsaken obv

had to

[The Seed]

i just gave stagger a try, it's quite OP in pvp. sup totty good fights bro