Guardian Feedback

I tried the Exemplar for a bit and felt KI is too fast a game for it,
but then again it might just be me being too slow to properly parry.
It’s still great fun when I do manage a parry or two though.

Fractured Ward is my guardian of choice, allowing me to
counter any offence with a command grab
(into combo when Hisako is at full wrath)

Haven’t used the others enough to really say much about them.

The way I use exemplar with Fulgore is against projectiles. I use blade dash and mash forward. This allows me to parry fireballs while having a full screen move. I feel that exemplar would be op with combo assist. Mash forward and press buttons to parry breakers.

My favorite 2 Guardians are (still) the Snake and Vampirism. The Snake is amazing on Cinder with his burnouts, but it’s deadly with anyone really. Start the match with one very short combo, and it gives you a huge advantage.

Part of the reason I like those Guardian best is because they are passive. I prefer the guardians with passive effects more so than Guardians that need to be manually triggered, such as the Tiger Guardian. The Guardians that require manual inputs just seem to interfere too much with my normal flow. I feel like I HAVE to use them, and end up focusing on how to implement that more than my actual gameplay.

I would say the one that bothers me the most, and has turned me off of the Multiplayer mode almost entirely, is the Easy Breakers Guardian. When I fight someone online, it’s just a constant combo breaker fest the whole time. This also obviously conflicts with my use of the Vampirisim and Snake, since you can’t get off any combo enders. I even try immediately counter-breaking, and even when my timing is still on point, they still get the advantage which I’m sure is intended. Just not a fan of it. I think that Guardian combined with Combo Assist mode is just a little too low.

BTW, LOVE the improvements to Shadow Lords - the inclusion of the Shadow Lab Shadows, the better balanced rewards and difficulties. All very nice!

-What Guardian is your favorite?

Right now I’d say Fractured Ward followed by Tiger, Snake and Vampire Bat

Which is your least favorite?

Probably Exemplar, though that’s more because of my slow reflexes. Also haven’t used Watcher much. Given how aggressive I feel like I need to be with the AI, especially on higher difficulties, I tend to favor the guardians that help me keep pressure on, drain the opponent or help me use less health regens.

Which is most helpful?

Tiger. Love breaking those blocks! Also love using the killer snake on midlevel opponents. Two combos and I’m done with the match. Love it.

Which is least helpful?

Killer Ram. Once you go through the set amount, it’s worthless. Well, it still gives the attack and defense buffs, which is great, but in terms of what it does, well, it’s just kinda odd for a killer level guardian.

What’s your favorite Guardian/character pairing?

I’ve been using Sadira a lot lately, so I’m really enjoying fractured ward and the spider lady.

Least?

Can’t really think of anything. I tend to pair them with whom ever I’m using.

Are they working as you feel they should?

I feel like Killer Ram could be more useful throughout the match given it’s status as a Killer guardian. Maybe you just get the usage stocks much more quickly? Maybe the usage stocks on the lower level Rams would need to accumulate more slowly to compensate, but it feels like the overall balance here is a tad off.

What would your ideal Guardian do in terms of game mechanics? Let us pick your brain!

I’m not sure how this would work exactly, but it’d be really cool if there was a guardian that gave each character an ability or move that offset their biggest weakness.

I also wouldn’t mind having a guardian that had its own health bar and when you charge it up by attacking the opponent (it gains slivers on block, but bigger chunks on hit), when full, the bar starts glowing, and any damage the opponent does from that point on drains the guardians health instead of yours until the health bar is depleted. Once depleted, you can then start charging it again with hits.

Or how about a guardian that players could actually command to attack in battle? Again, not sure how that would work or what the consequences would be for the opponent, but something like that could be really cool depending on what they do.

I would like a guardian that makes counter breakers safe if failed.

They always fail against AI anyway, so it would kind of be useless lol

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I would like some change so that If you guess correctly on a break it would not use up a charge on the Ram guardian.

Also, I have a slight issue with the vampire bat. Most of the time the actual vampirism runs out by the time I open up an opponent, meaning that it doesn’t really provide any help. I don’t know of any good way to fix this or if it doesn’t effect anyone else, but I know it is a problem with me.

If you want to know my favorites, here’s a list

1 - Fractured Ward
2 - Snake
3 - Vampire Bat
4 - Ram
5 - Tiger
6 - Watcher
7 - Exemplar

Daigo’s parry in KI… Ehh… Does this really work for KI on shadow lords?!:confused:

The sentinel drone ( o) is really awesome. What a great idea for a guardian. :thumbsup:

I just noticed when tusk triggers instinct he says “wolf spirit” what is that and why haven’t we made a guardian out of that, and Kims dragon spirit. Where are those guardians?

it seems the exemplar aren’t getting much love. I suggest an exchange… What about an eagle spirit instead.

I think the Exemplar would be greatly improved if you could cancel a block into the parry, but I don’t know if that would intrude on the Watcher’s territory too much. What I find difficult is that it requires specific enough timing that you have to take the risk of being hit to attempt to use your guardian’s ability, whereas the other defensive guardians are more or less guaranteed to work. Armor, Block Breaker, and Psychic Breaker do not have so strict a timing restriction. I feel like taking the Exemplar guardian is only marginally better than taking no guardian at all since I’m not really getting the active benefit, only the passive stats.

Would it be possible to change the Parry input to :arrow_left: instead of :arrow_right:? That way if you’re too early on the Parry attempt you at least might block the incoming attack instead?

You can parry out of blockstun from my experience.

It’s the highest skill cap guardian. It’s basically 3S parries.

It was already back in the beta. They changed it to forward. Which I prefer.

I’ll have to try it - I so far have only tried when the attack was incoming and since I clearly don’t have the timing down it results in me getting hit. As there isn’t currently a way to practice Guardian effects (another feature which would be nice to add to Practice mode!) I’ve been avoiding using it for anything other than Deploying, to be honest.

I understand how it’s supposed to work, and I think the idea is great - the timing has eluded me so far, though. It may simply be that until there is a way for me to practice it I will simply avoid using the Exemplar, (and I wouldn’t presume it should be changed if it works for the majority of players) but feedback is feedback.

If the Exemplar input changes to “back” instead of "forward"
it’s no longer a parry as in the Street Fighter III series
but a Just Defend as in Garou: Mark of the Wolves.

Maybe that’s one of the remaining guardians?

Well the exemplar is in the hands of the players. Basically if you can use it you’ll go places. If you can’t well then it might as well be a hunk of junk.

It actually did use a backwards input in th Beta. They changed it to make it more intuitive so you wouldn’t just get block every other time.
Since they had the back input and then removed it, I have a strong suspicion they aren’t going to use it again in the future.

If you make the guaranteed item like 10 times the amount of the “chance” pack, that may be pretty enticing.

Honestly I like the idea of being able to save up for the thing I most want, and not being forced to blow all my loot in the hopes of finding the one thing I want. That being said, the idea of buying packs and swapping out guardians when I find a better one is cool. Why not just to both?

The Guardians with the KI emblem can be pack only items, or just in general the ones you buy could be lower quality / middle of the road versions of the ones you find in the packs. Lets just say a single guaranteed normal killer guardian was like be like 100,000 Astral Gems, while like a chance pack of 3 Guardians, with a guarantee of one killer was like 20,000 (or whatever it is right now). I think that would be fair.

Least favorite/lease used/lease useful: Exemplar
Favorite/Most used/Most Useful: Snake

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