With 2023 fast approaching many may be surprised to hear that For Honor is still a fully supported Ubisoft multiplayer title. With thousands of players still playing most online game modes you will rarely have to wait long to get online. It is, without a doubt, the best medieval fighting simulator to date and there is still time for anyone to start their For Honor journey.
This For Honor ultimate guide for beginners is meant to provide you the information and tools to survive the potentially frustrating pitfalls early players face. Admittedly, For Honor is a game that can easily lead to broken controllers and screaming matches with the TV. There are lots of technical aspects and skills required to dominate fights even as a beginner. However, For Honor does implement skill based matchmaking so you will rarely be pitted against veterans. With all that being said lets go over what you will need to do to begin playing this game in 2023.
For Honor Gameplay
For Honor gameplay centers on melee combat between heroes. You must hold a trigger or key to lock onto another player which will cause their in depth combat system to activate. Title “The Art of Battle” this weapon triangle will appear and allow you to attack in one of three directions; up, left, or right. You can also use either heavy or light attacks which vary in timing and damage.
Mirror Mirror on the wall. Who will stike first and make their opponent fall?
Each hero has their own combination that should be learned in the training arena. Most of them consist of alternating light and heavy attacks or changing the direction of your attacks.
When you see the red flashing icon come on your art of battle it means an attack is incoming. If you face the direction of your attackers strike without hitting any buttons you will skillfully block the strike.
Berserker apparently.
However, there are also guard break options where you can grab or bash an opponent. If done successfully you will have the option to throw them aside or enter into a combo attack. These moves are called guard breaks because they will not work if a hero is actively striking at you or dodging away. Time these well and you can easily punish defense crazy players.
For Honor Advanced Fighting Techniques
It takes more than blindly swinging your weapon to win a fight in For Honor and I recommend you learn this earlier rather than later like I did. Take your preferred hero into the Training Arena to learn the specific combinations for them. I recommend learning three at a time as pulling these off in the training arena opposed to actual multiplayer combat is completely different. Once your experience with those combinations is mastered, rinse and repeat.
Strategy tip: Don't get executed.
Blocking is the difference between a hero who survives the battle and one who does not. You block by taking the same stance as your attackers swing and not pushing any buttons. However, parrying is the true way to punish your enemies. Parrying is one of the most difficult moves to pull off in For Honor, but if you learn it early you will quickly become a formidable warrior. Like blocking, parrying requires you to face the same direction your attacker is swinging at, but at the moment of impact you press the heavy attack trigger. This will allow your hero to parry the attack and throw the attacker off balance and take some extra stamina from them. Most parries also allow an opportunity to perform a unique follow-up combo or attack. LEARN PARRYING EARLY!
Warden Parry go Brrr
My final advanced fighting tip for beginners would be feinting or canceling out of attacks. Not all heroes can do it for every attack, but most can. The best example is the lawbringer. His simple attack patterns make him easy to parry or block, but a seasoned Lawbringer will begin an attack, but hit the cancel button (O on the PS controller) which calls the attack back. This is the perfect anti-move to a parrying hero, and can easily throw off your enemies. If you can learn to do this quickly you will easily destroy other beginners.
For Honor Settings Update
Adjust setting you should. Win you shall.
Another aspect of For Honor that is rarely talked about are the combat settings no one ever pays attention to. First, make sure you change your Camera Sensitivity to the max setting of 10 because it helps with map awareness and helps with awareness of surroundings in battle. Also, make sure to go to Fight Control Tuning and disable the default values, they are garbage. Instead change your Guard Stance Angle to 135, Full Block/Hidden Stance to 30, Guard Mode Dead Zone to 1, and Rotate Widget to 0. If you play For Honor before changing these settings you will see a massive difference in reaction time and combat efficiency.
For Honor Hero Factions & Classes
The heroes in For Honor each serve one of five factions.
- The Knights of Ashfeld: Warden, Peacekeeper, Conqueror, Lawbringer, Centurion, Black Prior, Warmonger, Gryphon.
- The Vikings of Valkenheim: Raider, Berserker, Warlord, Valkyrie, Shaman, Highlander, and Jormungandr.
- The Samurai of the Myre: Kensei, Orochi, Nobushi, Shugoki, Shinobi, Aramusha, Hitokiri, and Kyoshin.
- The Wu Lin: Tiandi, Nuxia, Jiang Jun, Shaolin, and Zhanhu.
- Outlanders: Pirate and Medjay.
Each of the above listed heroes also belong to one of the following classes. These classes define a character's move set and style of combat.
- Vanguard - Balanced heroes that are meant to provide solid attack and defense. They do not excel in any area, but provide you with the tools to fight multiple ways.
- Assassin - Quick and effective warriors that excel in 1v1 duels. Their attacks don’t do as much damage as other warriors, but they are shifty and quick, allowing you to take down more powerful opponents.
- Heavy - These heroes serve as the traditional “tank''.” They have slow attacks that deal devastating amounts of damage and have more life than other classes.
- Hybrid - Hybrids are a combination class of two of the above three categories and also have skills specifically limited to them.
The best warriors are beginning to come out of the Hybrid or assassin classes, but rest assured that with the right training you can surely dominate as any hero.
For Honor Best Beginner Heroes
For Honor has many awesome looking heroes and sometimes you get wrecked on by a hero so good that it makes you want to play as them. However, in my 200 prestige rep experience there are only a few characters one should stick to in the beginning hours of For Honor.
Conqueror
Block, boink, repeat.
I recommend the Conqueror because of his superior block ability and easy attack combinations. He is a great hero to practice blocking with, but when you initially struggle learning how to block you can rely on his all-block. He is a punishing warrior that will allow you to learn several aspects of For Honor quickly.
Kensei
Hack and slash your way to a bloody victory.
The Kensei is an expert swordsman that will help teach you the importance of feinting out of your attacks. Many of his combos can be feinted out of to trick warriors trying to block them and deal punishing damage. The Kensei is a great frontal assault warrior that will serve as a great starter hero.
Zhanhu
This is gonna hurt a bit.
Zhanhu is one of the best warriors in the game and his combo attacks are far from difficult to master. In theory he is a basic fighter compared to his other Wu-Lin Companions. However, his large sword provides incredible range and his quick sword jabs are difficult to counter. Mastering this hero early will not be difficult and will easily allow you to eventually compete with more experienced players.
Shaman
You every just want to bite people? Yeah she does too.
The Shaman is the best assassin class to play as next to the Orochi, but allows the opportunity for new players to learn more advanced styles of combat. While this may be pushing it for newcomers, I started as a Shaman and mastering her combos and timing made me a dominant fighter going forward.
For Honor Multiplayer Modes
And here we have a Black Prior about to get parried into next week.
There are lots of game modes in For Honor, but admittedly heading into 2023 only a few modes have constant player matches. The rest will have you waiting 5-10 minutes to connect for a single match.
- Dominion - A classic Dominion match is the most popular multiplayer in For Honor. It will be a 4v4 match where the two hero teams spawn on opposite sides of the match. There will be three bases that need to be held. Each base gives an automatic 100 points and 1 permanent point per second held. You can take these bases back by recapturing them (Standing in them) and when your team reaches 1000 points the opposing team will break meaning they can be killed without respawn and you win the match.
- Duel and Brawl - Two game modes that are essentially the same. Duel is a 1v1 battle between you and another hero. While Brawl is a 2v2 similar situation where you and a teammate hero will fight two others. The first player or team to win three rounds of five wins.
- Breach - The most elaborate and fun game mode in my opinion is Breach. You will be divided into two different teams, Team A: Attackers and Team B: Defenders. Team A is tasked with storming a stronghold and guiding a ram to two main gates. It is their main objective to protect the ram’s life as once the second gate is breached it’s life translates to how many respawns your team will get. The third ring of the stronghold will have a god-tier NPC Commander you need to kill. If Team A can kill the commander before being killed off they win. Team B is tasked with defending and protecting the stronghold. They must either destroy the ram before it breaches the second gate or kill off the enemy team until they break to win the match.
Dominion/Breach Strategy
Duel and Brawl are easy as far as strategy goes, just win your fights. However, there is more strategy needed to succeed in Dominion or Breach. Here are my tips from over 900 hours of gameplay.
Ode to Pikemen
Dominion - There are three points to capture so off the bat the best strategy (assuming your teammates will listen to you) are to send your heaviest/most powerful hero to the middle zone with pikemen. If they can clear the zone and start with claiming the center you will claim an early advantage. Send all other heroes to the next closest base and claim it. Afterwards send two other heroes to join the heavy at the middle zone. They can roam where needed from there. I recommend you or another teammate stay in a base at ALL TIMES! If a hero is actively standing in a base they own then your permanent points gained per second is doubled. This can help you take an early lead and if the enemy team tries to take your base you can fight it out and make it difficult for them to claim. Always double your bases and you will rarely lose.
Marching Fire Time
Breach - Breach has a lot of strategy that can be employed, but I will highlight some of my personal favorites. The interesting part of Breach is that no matter what team your on the strategies are the same for both:
Shield Flag- Each of the first two breach zones will have a respawning shield flag that can be placed on the ram or gate. Locate the shield flag in each map and keep an eye on it (It will glow white when ready to be grabbed). This flag provides a huge advantage to whomever claims it and can be claimed multiple times per gate should a battle be drawn out.
Bases - It can be overly tempting to focus on destroying the ram/protecting the ram, but don’t be fooled. This is an actual battle with many different factors. It is most important to hold or take the bases along the side of each zone because of one reason, archers. Each zone other than the cauldron room has three archers. While they don’t seem like much they tear up the attacking pikemen who push the ram. Keeping those bases will leave the attacking team in a difficult situation once the ram reaches the gate. For the attacking team taking those bases will at least get the archers off your men’s back so once the reinforcements get to the ram they are left completely unharmed. Bases are key and if you leave them to the other team you will lose.
Execute - One of the coolest parts of For Honor are the unique execution animations. However, Breach is not the time to get fancy. Put your long winded brutal execution on the backburner and use your fastest one. The respawn times in Breach are highly delayed, but if you execute someone it takes even longer. The difference can be a 15 second wait time for kill or a 26 second wait time for execution.
Cauldron - This is a fairly obvious strategy, but each gate has a cauldron above it which can be dropped to damage the ram a great deal. The attackers absolutely must claim that final base and prevent as many cauldron drops as possible. On the other side, the defense needs to defend that cauldron and leave a hero up there to pull it the second it is ready to go. Controlling the cauldron is the biggest key to success.
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I hope to see many new For Honor players jump on in 2023 using my own strategies against me! This game has been beautifully supported and there does not seem to be an end in sight for it. Come and join the fray!
