For Honor Tests Changes Intended to Have "Large Impact" on Overall Game

Ubisoft is doing another round of For Honor testing this week within the game's Testing Grounds, but as the company explained in a post about this latest preview, the changes aren't specific to one or two characters. Instead, these changes deal with the idea of Guardbreak Vulnerability, a system that'll affect every hero. It's no wonder then that Ubisoft described this proposed update as a "system-wide change that should have a large impact on the game as a whole" while providing some context on what, exactly will change.

The driving force behind the change is that the For Honor team wants all of its heroes to attack more, but in some cases where heroes have slower attacks than others, they're less incentivized to do so, particularly in situations where they might be outnumbered. Finishers are similarly more difficult to pull off in 1v2 situations since they're guardbreak vulnerable, too.

To combat this, Ubisoft is making it so that recoveries are immune to guardbreaks.

"As we've debated over this, one clear, clean solution came to us: recoveries should be immune to guardbreak," the For Honor team explained. "This makes it so you simply do not get interrupted by a Guardbreak (and then a Heavy attack, and potentially even more if your opponent has an ally nearby!) during ANY recovery, including when attacks are missed. This lets players attack more with less fear of reprisal. It does not mean that you'll never get interrupted (Light and Heavy attacks exist, after all!) but it does make it much safer to use a wider variety of attacks in multiple situations."

This change only applies to attack recoveries, Ubisoft said, with Full Block Stances and Dodges remaining unaffected. The notes below summarize the main points not covered above

For Honor Guardbreak Vulnerability Changes

• Most Attack recoveries are now immune to Guardbreak until the hero regains the ability to block
• By "Immune to Guardbreak", we mean Guardbreak attempts will bounce off the opponent and not interrupt them at all, similarly to what happens when you try to Guardbreak an attack too late during its startup
• There are some exceptions for especially slow recovery attacks such as Shaman's Pounce, Shugoki's hug, etc.
• When a hero regains the ability to block during a recovery, Guardbreak attempts will land, but are techable.
• All chained attacks are fully immune to Guardbreak
• Every bash that had a recovery of less than 766ms on miss is now has 766ms of miss recovery to ensure that Dodge Attacks will always beat Bashes
• Highlander has new Side Dodge attacks while in Defensive Stance, performed by pressing the Heavy button to ensure the hero can beat bashes
• Jiang Jun can now enter Sifu Stance at the same time as the hero can block during Hit/Block hit reactions to ensure the hero can beat bashes

For Honor's changes are in testing now and will be available to try out over in the Testing Grounds until July 7th.