Kensei Guide V_0.1

Basic Kensei Guide

As a vanguard, kensei is pretty balanced. He has some quick lights, slow but powerful heavies, and a gimmick. Of the three vanguards, Kensei has the best dash, furthest range, the highest single strike damage, and strongest wall throw followup(perhaps of all heroes in the game). His mixup game takes some work to get to, but is very strong when it's reached.

The first thing you should do with Kensei is establish space. His normal attacks have greater range than every character except Nobushi. His side lights in particular cause him to rush forward towards the enemy if they are outside of their normal range. His forward dash guardbreak special also means his is superior to most other characters at a further range.

Kensei's backdash is great, almost as good as an assassin's, and can be used after blocking some heroes with shorter range to re-establish space. Peacekeeper in particular cannot spam light chains, because a blocked light means a free backdash for you, unless they read it and dash forward gb you. Blocking any character's heavy gives you a free backdash out of pressure.

Forward + light is a very fast top, equivalent to a warden's top light, but can be parried if the opponent reacts to the forward dash. It is useful for punishing whiffed heavies.

Side + light is also very fast, and Kensei's dash speed and range means this can be used to dodge and then punish an opponent for using anything like conq's shieldbash, nobu's kick, warden's shoulder, shugoki hug, warlord headbutt, ect.

Kensei has very powerful chain finishers, so you really want to get to the third hit in your chains.

Kensei's dash attacks allow you to skip the first hit. Also, a guardbreak skips the first hit, and a throw skips the second hit, so a throw can be immediately followed up by a chain finisher.

I recommend you follow up a guardbreak with a garunteed side heavy, then do your chain finisher mix-up. If you are near a wall, you should instead throw them and use a top heavy chain finisher, which is garunteed after a wall throw.

Forward throw also causes dizzy, which can be followed up with heavy top cancel mix-ups for additional confusion. It makes reacting to side heavy cancels impossible, and a true 50/50. This is generally not as good as just following up guardbreak with side heavy - top heavy, though.

Once you reach the chain finisher, start with his top heavy unblockable. Your opponent must either side dash or parry this, creating a mixup. You never really want to just let top heavy go, it's extremely easy to parry or dodge.

***Here's your basic mixup game.***

*Cancel that top heavy into a side light, which is completely unreactable, for decent damage.
*Cancel that top heavy into a side heavy if your opponent tries to throw out an attack, or dashes and has a quick dash follow-up(Everyone except warden and the heavies). Both side heavies will catch an opponent dashing to either side of you. Side heavies are inferior to side lights if your opponent is not dashing or attacking, because it IS reactable with a parry or block, albeit hard. Anything that can trade with a side heavy is heavily outdamaged by it, except for an armoed shugoki.
*Normal feint that top heavy, then use a forward dash + guardbreak to catch people dashing backwards, and heavies or wardens dashing to the side.

*If you're feeling cheeky, you can cancel top heavy into side heavy(which takes 0 stamina), and then feint that side heavy. This can bait someone with good enough reactions to parry the side heavy cancel.

Kensei's zone attack is not very useful in duels. His zone is a two-hit attack, the first being a deceptively narrow sweep that strikes directly infront of and to the left of him, and the second is a sweep with a wonky 360 degree hitbox. Both strike on the left. The first hit has armor, and the second hit can be canceled out of by hitting feint between the first and second. The first hit does very little damage and the second hit does a bit more, but not much. The first hit has more than a single hit of armor, so this is very useful after parrying or guardbreak teching an enemy when outnumbered. Use the first hit's armor, wack away your enemies, cancel the second hit, and run away or keep playing defensively.