1 hand needs a fix.

[Teeth]

You attacked after seeing him kick? If so, that's too late, you need to anticipate (or rather bait) the kick to hit. The timeframe where a kicker can't block down is quite short. You probably stabbed before or/and after that period of vulnerability.

Anyway, let's hope they introduce no blocking while kicking like cmp talked about. Hearst is just spamming kicks and make the most of it when it hits. It's not like he hit many, compared to how many he tries.

No, I can see his kicks coming all the time, sadly that has no use cause it doesn't help me. He blocks stabs during the entire kick animation, just like so many others do these days. Which makes me completely unable to fight kickers. There is no such thing as a period of vulnerability if you block down before you do the kick.

And it doesn't matter even if he would hit 1 out of a 100, I can't harm him even when he misses, he has pretty good accuracy actually. And the one that does hit gives me a slightly held hit to the face that takes 60-90% of my hp.

If I don't facehug I never hit him, cause well, the 1h right swing is not all that fast. He tries to fight on range, chambering stabs barely works anymore cause overheads are shit to aim. If I facehug, where my animations can actually confuse him quite easily, I'll get kicked and 1 or 2 hit. Hearst is one of those players that I am unable to beat solely because of the OP-ness of kicks, combined with backpedalling and a long weapon. Same goes for TM.

[Fartface]

No, I can see his kicks coming all the time, sadly that has no use cause it doesn't help me. He blocks stabs during the entire kick animation, just like so many others do these days. Which makes me completely unable to fight kickers. There is no such thing as a period of vulnerability if you block down before you do the kick.

And it doesn't matter even if he would hit 1 out of a 100, I can't harm him even when he misses, he has pretty good accuracy actually. And the one that does hit gives me a slightly held hit to the face that takes 60-90% of my hp.

If I don't facehug I never hit him, cause well, the 1h right swing is not all that fast. He tries to fight on range, chambering stabs barely works anymore cause overheads are shit to aim. If I facehug, where my animations can actually confuse him quite easily, I'll get kicked and 1 or 2 hit. Hearst is one of those players that I am unable to beat solely because of the OP-ness of kicks, combined with backpedalling and a long weapon. Same goes for TM.

You just basically described my story with this aswel. With the exception that I always stack STR so I can always get lucky and 1 or 2 hit TM or Hearst but otherwise I got hardly any chance. It always results in a half an hour duel with them always having the upper hand and winning because I can´t avoid kickslashes all the damn time..

[Turboflex]

Gotta make yourself hard to kick by using unpredictable movements, change your lateral direction frequently, move back and forth a lot, and change your attack patterns in general a lot (switch up between holds, feints and fast blows). This is something every shielder should be doing anyways to get kills, altho unfortunately it does give my spearmen fits when I am moving like this when they're trying to support me, so I gotta change it up in formation.

I rarely have kicks land on me, and if someone surprises me the first time I'll be extra shifty after. Them being able to block is annoying so I'm glad that's getting fixed, but even with blocks I can often get around their shoulder during the second they are immobile and get a hit off.

Maybe more people kick on EU tho, cuz there aren't many really good and consistent kickers on NA battle (maybe duel is different?). All I can really think of is LUBU.