Season 6 Fighter Update: Orochi

Why do we want to improve Orochi?

We've already seen Orochi under-perform compared to the rest of the roster in Season 4 (check out our article on State of Balance in Season 4 here, and with the Season 5 changes that nerfed Orochi's Top Light damage, Orochi has continued to struggle in Season 5.

We feel Orochi currently has three problems in fight situations:

Weak initiation - Orochi has very few ways to effectively start offense.
Ineffective counter-attacks- Riptide Strike is not currently an effective option for counter-attacking despite being one of Orochi's signature moves
Hard to sustain offense with a Chain- Once Orochi does get a hit in, there is too much risk in continuing the chain

When we examined how to improve Orochi in these situations, we thought back to the "soul of the character" - which often had us returning to the concept of Orochi as an agile fighter, well-suited for counter-attacking. With this concept in mind, we are making some changes to help Orochi players be more successfully able to counter-attack and parlay that into a sustained offense. That said, Orochi also needs improvements to opening up an opponent, so let's start with improving combat initiation.

Initiation Improvement: Storm Rush

Before the update, Storm Rush did not really fit the role of an initiation tool. Because the attack always came from the stance you were in when you back dodged, it telegraphed what direction the attack would come from, allowing the opponent to easily Block.

Storm Rush has been reworked into a more versatile initiation tool – you can now choose which side your attack will come from by changing your stance during the charge or the run portion of Storm Rush. Your opponent won’t be able to see the stance indicator until Orochi starts swinging the weapon, making it very difficult to predict and a great tool to start your offense.

You can now also Cancel the Storm Rush at any point until the attack starts. Note: we have removed the ability to Cancel Storm Rush with a Guard Break, as it no longer felt like a necessity.

Counter-attacking Improvement: Riptide Strike

Before the update, Riptide Strike was too slow (especially when you need to change your stance to activate it) and did not properly dodge many attacks.

Now, Riptide Strike is performed by Dodging backwards and hitting Light Attack quickly. This is much faster, and now swiftly counter-attacks as it was intended.

Sustaining Offense Improvement: Chain Attacks

Before the update, Orochi’s Lights Attacks were slow throughout the chain, and easily parried at top levels of play.

After the update, many of Orochi’s Light Attacks are faster. This lets Orochi both be much more threatening with 500ms attack openers in all three stances, and allows Orochi to be more likely to use the entirety of the Chains.

We have also added 3 new chains:

L > H
L > L > H
H > L > H

This makes the Light Attacks in chains safer, since the existence of the Heavy finisher from any Chain now means that your opponent cannot safely Parry your Light as soon as a Red Attack Indicator UI appears.

The changes to Riptide Strike and the Chains especially fit our vision of Orochi as an agile fighter, and we would like to see Orochi players be more successfully able to counter-attack into a sustained offense.