(Legends PvP) Forward Flip and Backflip Abilities Evade Counters and Grant Immunity

Discussion in 'Arkham Asylum (Bug Reports)' started by ShadowTheHunter, Sep 29, 2019.

  1. ShadowTheHunter Well-Known Player


    One of the counter rules we were taught on the Brainiac Harvester Ship is:

    • Throw a Block Breaker (BB) at a blocking opponent to knock them down and gain counter immunity for a short time.
    Forward Flip, Backflip, and other flip-related variant abilities possessed by specific legends characters can be used to bypass the first rule. When used at a specific time when a player is undoubtedly vulnerable to being block broken the ability will prevent the player from being knocked down. Additionally, if the ability the player used was a Backflip, it appears to grant the player a counter immunity, as shown in the above video.

    When a player flips out of their opponents' BB since they are not knocked down, they can counter the opponent as soon as their immunity ends, which would not possible if they were knocked down as they should be. Basically, flips reduce the amount of time a player who scored a valid counter has to attack without being countered for that attack. These properties appear to have been around for years, but it has been magnified by the fact that the revamp reduced the duration of immunity windows. Before the reduction, a player could flip out of a counter, but they wouldn't be able to then counter their opponent's subsequent attack since their opponent would still be immune, but the shortening of immunities is part of the reason why this scenario is possible.

    Characters with two flips such as Nightwing, Robin, and Harley Quinn can use both flips to evade two counters in a row, resulting in the opponent only able to be fully rewarded for a counter when these abilities are on cooldown. With the short cooldown of these abilities, this counter evasion has high uptime.
    The affected abilties include:
    • Nightwing's Forward Flip
    • Nightwing's Backflip
    • Robin's Forward Flip
    • Robin's Backflip Escape
    • Harley Quinn's Forward Flip
    • Harley Quinn's Backflip
    • Huntress' Backflip
    • Catwoman's Backflip
    • Two-Face's In Your Face
    • Joker's Backflip
    • Lex Luthor's Tactical Blast
    How to reproduce (two people):

    1. Have one person (Tester 1) select any legends character, have another tester (Tester 2) select a legend with an affected flip ability and load into any legends scrimmage. To best see both properties at work, Tester 2 should select a character with Backflip.

    2. After loading in, the two testers must agree on a countdown after which Tester 1 will throw a BB, and Tester 2 will flip out of it, as the bug occurs with specific timing.

    3. Tester 1 counts down. Tester 2 holds block, preparing to react to when Tester 1 will throw a BB.

    4. Tester 2 activates a flip immediately before Tester 1 throws the BB.

    5. Observe that Tester 1 gained counter immunity, but Tester 2 was not knocked down (this occurs with both Forward Flip and Backflip). If Tester 2 used a Backflip, Tester 2 should immediately hold block after flipping.

    6. Tester 1 should throw another BB after Tester 2 uses Backflip and is blocking.

    7. Observe that Tester 2 does not get countered at all.

    SOLUTION:

    Similar abilities that don't appear to evade counters or grant immunity include:
    • Huntress' Forward Flip
    • Deathstroke's Backflip Burst
    • Batman's Forward Flip
    When attempting to evade BBs with these, the player appears to be knocked down mid-animation, giving the countering opponent the full time to attack until the player stands up. Assuming everything described is not intended, the affected flip abilities should be patched to perform exactly like these. Backflips should not be granting immunity. These abilities on their own already have low power cost and cooldowns, and Backflips do extra damage when opponents are knocked down. Moreover, these properties don't appear anywhere in the descriptions of these legends characters' flips, so these don't appear to be intentional.
    • Like x 3
  2. ShadowTheHunter Well-Known Player

    The Current Effects menu is very useful information, and I'll admit that I did not notice the abilities' status effects listed there. However, upon looking more closely at that menu, it just adds more to the inconsistencies I found above. After testing the flip abilities that evade BBs versus the ones that do not, I found each of those that do evade BBs have that dodge status effect listed in Current Effects, and Backflips seem to have a half-second longer duration than Forward Flips. This confirms that these abilities are granting immunity. Huntress' Forward Flip, Batman's Forward Flip, and Deathstroke's Backflip Burst all do not appear anywhere in Current Effects however. That may be the reason why you are able to still be knocked down mid-animation from a BB while performing these abilities.

    Why is this? It isn't consistent, and just because those other abilities have Dodge effects, that doesn't mean that it's intentional. More clarity from the developers is required on this then, which was the whole point of this thread. I have been PvPing for years, so it isn't correct to say that I just learned the basics. Neither you or I are developers, so we still don't know everything.
    • Like x 2
  3. SeeMeFight Well-Known Player

    Basically what's going on is the PvP equivalent of lunge spamming in Survival Mode 2019. Dodge (which is granted by lunge, backflips, and frontflips) is being used to avoid block breakers (considered projectiles, therefore dodge-able). This leads the player abusing dodge to avoid a hard stun and any counter punishment.

    This needs to be changed because:
    1. Nothing should let you avoid being countered properly (cough cough Black Adam and Shazam). If you misplay, you should be punished accordingly.
    2. The game is very laggy right now and thus, there is a strong chance that the person that threw the block breaker doesn't even get immunity. This leads to a broken system where that person gets punished for playing the counter system correctly.

    How to fix:
    Remove dodge from lunges, backflips, and frontflips.
    • Like x 3
  4. Arqueiro Robusto Well-Known Player

    This is a balance topic. It's not a bug. Sorry man. I don't agree with removing dodge from lunge.

    If dodge is going to be removed from most abilities, it needs to be removed from everything. (That includes rolling)
    • Like x 3
  5. ShadowTheHunter Well-Known Player

    So we established that what I described in the original post is due to many legends characters' flip abilties having the dodge status effect. This doesn't appear to apply to every flip ability though, and this effect doesn't appear in the ability descriptions.

    Can we get confirmation from a developer on whether or not the dodge is intended?
  6. Arqueiro Robusto Well-Known Player

    Huntress not applying dodge on front flip. I have tested this many times. She isn't applying dodge on her front flip. If this is intended, can dodge be removed from the rest of the legends then?
    • Like x 1
  7. ShadowTheHunter Well-Known Player

    Not all flips are dodges, but at the same time most of them are, so whether it's all intentional or not is still unclear.

    Intentional or not, dodging has ruined legends. Glitching has ruined legends. All anyone wants to do now is use flip characters and dodge BBs and ranged damage. Almost all dodge characters can glitch. It's also possible to glitch BBs with just nomal lunges. Everyone glitches now. Bat family characters are the meta.

    Legends has never been worse.

    In my opinion, dodging should just be removed from PvP entirely and all glitches need to be patched. Immunity duration needs to be restored to the old value.