Some honorable mentions to slightly important things missed in the video: -if you're too close to a wall after you throw to change guard from side to top, do an offensive heavy instead. Will almost always connect and will deal more damage than a side one. -top offensive lights are 500 ms, side are 400. The difference is pretty visible. -less useful for punishes, but still relevant (I think?), is that entering offensive stance and immediately exiting it can be used as parry option select. And a pretty good one, I must say.
Ti m He’s literally so broken. He forces you to guess against him constantly. Oh. Dodged his kick? He can kick again. Hits you with an OS heavy? Flows back into it. He’s ridiculous.
@@coolusername6179 Don't dodge the kick. Respond to kick with a backwards light that will both dodge the kick and hit the HL, effectively making the kick useless. At least I think it hits him, you might need to combo in another light to do that but test it yourself.
@@BueBass80085 only 10 more health then pk, his trades while good are predictable and his offensive stance kick to grab is interruptable. So tell me, how is highlander op? The answer: he is not, the player just knows his hero well and applies that knowledge correctly.
Hello, Highlander main here. I just wanted to add a more well-rounded and complete explanation on the masking guardswitch tech mentioned at 4:36 as well as an extremely annoying glitch that is involved with it. This tech is fundamental to high level highlanders and is the only real opener you have against some characters like berserker, kensei, and Jian Jun, so I feel that it is important enough to warrant some more information. This is going to get quite complicated, but I will try to explain it as clearly as possible. The offensive emote is not the only thing able to mask guardswitches; it is also possible to do this after doing certain things like an unblockable heavy or, more importantly, an offensive stance light. Essentially, a highlander can instantly attack from any direction he wants after doing any move that recovers in offensive stance and buffering the guardswitch. However, the one exception is superior light chaining where it will not let you instantly light through the use of a buffered guardswitch during the recovery of an offensive stance light; you can still buffer the guardswitch but it will play part of the animation of the guardswitch if you attempt to buffer it into another side light. This leads many highlanders into using that guardswitch animation, that is created from buffering a guardswitch after throwing a light, to mask another guardswitch that can then have its animation cancelled into an instant superior light. You can even buffer a guardswitch from the actual guardswitch animation itself, making the highlander turn to one direction just to immediately attack you in the opposite direction; this works with masked guardswitches as well. Keep in mind this is not limited to superior lights; you can also mask a guardswitch and immediately do an unblockable from any direction you want making highlander's already very fast unblockables seem like they are coming out even faster because the animation does not start from neutral; this is useful to catch people who try to dodge, after you do something that can mask a guardswitch, in hopes of getting a dodge attack punish on a dodged superior light. There is also a momentum shattering glitch where if you buffer a guardswitch and do not follow up with something immediately, the highlander will sometimes exit offensive stance despite the player never having released the heavy button. This is most apparent when buffering guardswitches from dodges. If anyone wants to test this for themselves, the simplest way to do it is to go into practice mode with highlander and buffer a guardswitch as early into a dodge as you can. You will notice that if you do nothing after buffering that guardswitch and wait for the animation, you will see that the side that you are switching your guard to flashes white (the color that it is when in defensive stance). This is the time that the game will sometimes, inconsistently from my tests, exit offensive stance for you. You can also just release the heavy button at the time that it flashes white and you will get an idea of what it looks like when it happens; the highlander exits offensive stance without a sound effect or animation. It does not happen when masking attacks from the emote, only when masking attacks through the use of buffering guardswitches during the RECOVERY of other moves that can recover in offensive stance. This is a glitch that I had posted on reddit a while back but it did not get much traction and still remains widely unknown. Please let me know if I missed anything or was unclear about any points I made and thanks for reading. (Edit: grammar mistakes)
I love those little extra tips. Highlander is one of my most played characters but it's still only like a rep 10 since I'm constantly switching. I never even realized you could switch guard while dodging or get a light heavy on knockdowns.
3:35 Freeze, instead of punnishing with a light attack you can just dodge the 400ms attack aswell and then punnish with the kick. The dodge recovery is insane!
Damn there's a lot more to him then I thought and he's one of my favorite hero's. Like I didn't know the guard change made him dodge faster and the fake heavy with the light I didn't even know lol
Thanks mate, always enjoyed playing highlander. got really good with him before rework then the rework took the fun out of him. but since the other reworks and new characters he’s a lot more balanced. So I enjoy playing him again.
light into heavy is more damage but unsafe on wakeup, you have gb vuln. the safe punish is light into offensive heavy from which you're also in offensive which is where you probably want to be.
I've noticed that Glad has an option select for Highlander's kick into toss. If you do a dodge light at the perfect time, then you both the kick and the soft feint will wiff. I might be wrong, but I checked it out in training and it seems pretty consistent it you get the timing down.
@@fkkfreeze yeah. I hate fighting him because his kit if full of absolute BS like his kick into toss, his fantastic recovery, and his ultra fast lights. Especially his ultra fast recovery, because the fact that he can dodge virtually every single attack and guarantee 45 damage. It pretty much negates his downside of no defenses. Especially since you can't really feint into gaurd break because he's usually already be doing the kick by then. And facing a really good highlander is really fucking annoying. Especially since I'm on cconsole. Cheesing him with an assassin isn't very easy if they know what they're doing.
Mr. Sister-Fister I’ve tried it, I think it uses a bit too much stamina and somehow people just end up dodging it. I also don’t really like to use kick into grab because it’s fucking annoying to play against. Well anyway heavy into grab just has a higher success rate for me
Also highlander is unpunishable when missing a kick and unblockable heavy unless they do a dodge attack or they dodge the attack and have a 400ms light any character that dodges and grabs(except raider) can get countered GBed
I have to ask ... why offensive light seems so fast ¿ I've read somewhere that side offensive lights are 400 ms, but they feel so much faster than an orochi light for exemple.
1:00 how do i go into offensive stance heavy after light parry. I click heavy - it gets blocked. I hold heavy - the unblockable heavy can be parried. I play on xbox please help.
It depends on your opponent like if a berserker likes to use his dodge attack every time you try to kick him then you would use an Unblockable heavy to bait him to dodge attack then parry. But simple answer use a play style that works against your opponent. Also little tip: instead of doing a light into a top heavy after a GB throw or an OOS parry on and OOS opponent do a light then use an Offense Stance heavy instead of a heavy. This will allow you to flow into Offensive Stance and keep up the pressure. But it does 5 less dmg but personally I think it’s worth it for the OOS pressure.
Hey freeze, I was practicing the guard change during side dodges in OS and i noticed that if I dodged too early, I would exit OS and then immediately go back into it. This is on xbox, did you guys run into this during tests? I noticed it happened more when I dodged the opposite direction of the guard switch (as in my thumbsticks were pointing towards each other.)
If the first part of the zone confirms the second, and the first part of the zone in confirmed on gb, does that mean he gets both first and second for a gb?
Kinda sad that after all this time HL still only has his first zone hit on GB at best, all it would take is fast flow into offensive stance from GB to get a offensive heavy punish. Or just make his defensive stance top heavy faster like with JJs rework, that would also make the light parry far easier since it's such a change of habbit to hold heavy to flow into offensive stance instad of tapping heavy input twice. I know it's an odd comment for an old video but guess it's just even more sad that Highlander had this issue for such a long time.
You have to hold the parry button while you parry tp fast flow into offensive form after the parry. Every other character you just hit the parry button once. Highlander you have to hold it down.
When i throw someone to the ground i always do a defensive top heavy kick and offensive heavy. 9/10 it will connect ant the person has lost half of his health
So is that unblockable heavy guaranteed? My friends won’t stop telling me it’s not and I said I’ve watched this video and they continue to tell me “how should he know it’s guaranteed” being ignorant as fuck
Some honorable mentions to slightly important things missed in the video:
-if you're too close to a wall after you throw to change guard from side to top, do an offensive heavy instead. Will almost always connect and will deal more damage than a side one.
-top offensive lights are 500 ms, side are 400. The difference is pretty visible.
-less useful for punishes, but still relevant (I think?), is that entering offensive stance and immediately exiting it can be used as parry option select. And a pretty good one, I must say.
CarnivalTV first dash. You can change guard direction to top after guardbreak before you throw them and always get top
@@back5594 Yup but his tip still works if you happen to forget to do that
btw back, am I correct, that you found the "wavedashing"... I wasn't 100% sure
3:51 This scares me when a Highlander does this
Ti m He’s literally so broken. He forces you to guess against him constantly. Oh. Dodged his kick? He can kick again. Hits you with an OS heavy? Flows back into it. He’s ridiculous.
Cool Username
Yea but HL stamina is dog ass. Kick -> Grab + OS Heavy absolutely rapes your stamina.
@@coolusername6179 Don't dodge the kick. Respond to kick with a backwards light that will both dodge the kick and hit the HL, effectively making the kick useless. At least I think it hits him, you might need to combo in another light to do that but test it yourself.
Patrick Morris Wait is that actually a thing? You can just back step light?
BurnZayy
You have to be 100% ready for it tho.
The taunt sometimes freakout people and they'll dodge or react in some way as if it was an attack. Then you could get a heavy out of it
bruh highlander is just OP he got dmg, health, and the dexterity...
@@BueBass80085 only 10 more health then pk, his trades while good are predictable and his offensive stance kick to grab is interruptable. So tell me, how is highlander op?
The answer: he is not, the player just knows his hero well and applies that knowledge correctly.
Ah freeze ya bastard, it's 3 AM and I've been waiting for this forever. Better late than never I suppose. Keep up the great work, lad.
Or in your case, Better early in the morning than never.
Hello, Highlander main here. I just wanted to add a more well-rounded and complete explanation on the masking guardswitch tech mentioned at 4:36 as well as an extremely annoying glitch that is involved with it. This tech is fundamental to high level highlanders and is the only real opener you have against some characters like berserker, kensei, and Jian Jun, so I feel that it is important enough to warrant some more information.
This is going to get quite complicated, but I will try to explain it as clearly as possible.
The offensive emote is not the only thing able to mask guardswitches; it is also possible to do this after doing certain things like an unblockable heavy or, more importantly, an offensive stance light. Essentially, a highlander can instantly attack from any direction he wants after doing any move that recovers in offensive stance and buffering the guardswitch. However, the one exception is superior light chaining where it will not let you instantly light through the use of a buffered guardswitch during the recovery of an offensive stance light; you can still buffer the guardswitch but it will play part of the animation of the guardswitch if you attempt to buffer it into another side light. This leads many highlanders into using that guardswitch animation, that is created from buffering a guardswitch after throwing a light, to mask another guardswitch that can then have its animation cancelled into an instant superior light. You can even buffer a guardswitch from the actual guardswitch animation itself, making the highlander turn to one direction just to immediately attack you in the opposite direction; this works with masked guardswitches as well. Keep in mind this is not limited to superior lights; you can also mask a guardswitch and immediately do an unblockable from any direction you want making highlander's already very fast unblockables seem like they are coming out even faster because the animation does not start from neutral; this is useful to catch people who try to dodge, after you do something that can mask a guardswitch, in hopes of getting a dodge attack punish on a dodged superior light.
There is also a momentum shattering glitch where if you buffer a guardswitch and do not follow up with something immediately, the highlander will sometimes exit offensive stance despite the player never having released the heavy button. This is most apparent when buffering guardswitches from dodges. If anyone wants to test this for themselves, the simplest way to do it is to go into practice mode with highlander and buffer a guardswitch as early into a dodge as you can. You will notice that if you do nothing after buffering that guardswitch and wait for the animation, you will see that the side that you are switching your guard to flashes white (the color that it is when in defensive stance). This is the time that the game will sometimes, inconsistently from my tests, exit offensive stance for you. You can also just release the heavy button at the time that it flashes white and you will get an idea of what it looks like when it happens; the highlander exits offensive stance without a sound effect or animation. It does not happen when masking attacks from the emote, only when masking attacks through the use of buffering guardswitches during the RECOVERY of other moves that can recover in offensive stance. This is a glitch that I had posted on reddit a while back but it did not get much traction and still remains widely unknown.
Please let me know if I missed anything or was unclear about any points I made and thanks for reading.
(Edit: grammar mistakes)
I just began playing HL. Thank you for this
What does it mean to buffer?
@@lillarryv350 imput before time
Can you make a follow up to this post since highlander's offensive light's have been nerfed?
@@PhilipHubbe it's not really a nerf, you just can't hit consecutive lights in one direction any more.
freeze: hows it going everybody?
Me: pretty fucking good just getting some technical medieval education
Sunbropooks 😂lmao
I love those little extra tips. Highlander is one of my most played characters but it's still only like a rep 10 since I'm constantly switching. I never even realized you could switch guard while dodging or get a light heavy on knockdowns.
3:35 Freeze, instead of punnishing with a light attack you can just dodge the 400ms attack aswell and then punnish with the kick. The dodge recovery is insane!
For those, who have Problems after the light Parry. You can just hold the parry and will go in offensive Mode instantly.
Damn there's a lot more to him then I thought and he's one of my favorite hero's. Like I didn't know the guard change made him dodge faster and the fake heavy with the light I didn't even know lol
Thanks mate, always enjoyed playing highlander. got really good with him before rework then the rework took the fun out of him. but since the other reworks and new characters he’s a lot more balanced. So I enjoy playing him again.
light into heavy is more damage but unsafe on wakeup, you have gb vuln. the safe punish is light into offensive heavy from which you're also in offensive which is where you probably want to be.
No its safe he tested it on his stamina change stream
I personally just do a defensive top heavy as it does similar damage but leaves much more stamina to do oos punishes
This is a better option when being ganked because you can combo you of that punish to keep pressure on other attackers
I have won so many battles whit a emote and top heavy
It’s hard to buffer the offensive heavy after a light parry
Dont know how I missed this video, but I'm glad to see it. As a highlander main it's much appreciated.
its so fucking hard to get his light parry punish
I've noticed that Glad has an option select for Highlander's kick into toss. If you do a dodge light at the perfect time, then you both the kick and the soft feint will wiff. I might be wrong, but I checked it out in training and it seems pretty consistent it you get the timing down.
yeah, that works with most fast dodge attacks...
other characters can just backwards light on kick
@@fkkfreeze Well, I never realized that. Probably because he's the only assassin I play.
ye, it's just one of the many reasons, why HL has so many skewed matchups... it's either incredibly in his favour or almost unwinnable.
@@fkkfreeze yeah. I hate fighting him because his kit if full of absolute BS like his kick into toss, his fantastic recovery, and his ultra fast lights. Especially his ultra fast recovery, because the fact that he can dodge virtually every single attack and guarantee 45 damage. It pretty much negates his downside of no defenses. Especially since you can't really feint into gaurd break because he's usually already be doing the kick by then. And facing a really good highlander is really fucking annoying. Especially since I'm on cconsole. Cheesing him with an assassin isn't very easy if they know what they're doing.
@@josephhanicak7922 cheese doesn't exist
Can’t wait to show my military buddy’s these tips when deployed
A small tip that almost no one knows, you can soft feint os heavy into grab. It works almost every time for me
or soft feint the heavy into a kick, and then soft feint the kick into a grab.
Mr. Sister-Fister I’ve tried it, I think it uses a bit too much stamina and somehow people just end up dodging it. I also don’t really like to use kick into grab because it’s fucking annoying to play against. Well anyway heavy into grab just has a higher success rate for me
Also highlander is unpunishable when missing a kick and unblockable heavy unless they do a dodge attack or they dodge the attack and have a 400ms light any character that dodges and grabs(except raider) can get countered GBed
His kick has the biggest gb vulnerability in the game but ok
@@Anonymous-bz4ms Shugoki hug
@@wyvern5890 true, sry
I have to ask ... why offensive light seems so fast ¿
I've read somewhere that side offensive lights are 400 ms, but they feel so much faster than an orochi light for exemple.
@Absolute Scum Oof, I hate highlanders even more now.
Thx for the answer my good sir !
1:00 how do i go into offensive stance heavy after light parry. I click heavy - it gets blocked. I hold heavy - the unblockable heavy can be parried. I play on xbox please help.
Hold heavy while you parry, you'll go into stance and attack much sooner
@@jionmionskwisgaar1476 thank you so much
@@jaredgerdts you're welcome bro
Hey freeze, out of curiosity do you know when the full punishment video for Shaolin/Monk will be out?
Should I mostly be in offense or defense, or try to have a balance of using both
It depends on your opponent like if a berserker likes to use his dodge attack every time you try to kick him then you would use an Unblockable heavy to bait him to dodge attack then parry. But simple answer use a play style that works against your opponent. Also little tip: instead of doing a light into a top heavy after a GB throw or an OOS parry on and OOS opponent do a light then use an Offense Stance heavy instead of a heavy. This will allow you to flow into Offensive Stance and keep up the pressure. But it does 5 less dmg but personally I think it’s worth it for the OOS pressure.
How do you immediately go into the offensive attack after a parry tho? I usually spam the heavy button lmao help?
Wolf Gaming You gotta hold the button
I used to use the emote in offense stance to bait an attack into the crushing counter light or parry
Hey freeze, I was practicing the guard change during side dodges in OS and i noticed that if I dodged too early, I would exit OS and then immediately go back into it. This is on xbox, did you guys run into this during tests? I noticed it happened more when I dodged the opposite direction of the guard switch (as in my thumbsticks were pointing towards each other.)
I cant get the timing down for fast flowing into offensive stance after a parry.Feels bad
When I try the dash tech at 4:25 I get canceled out of OS by the time I do the second dash
4:32 What’s with the unblockable symbol flickering here?
He talks about it later in the vid. It's soft feint into light attack.
That's not a flicker
Not a flicker, he literally talks about how you can soft feint os heavies into lights like 35 seconds after that
THAAANKK you SOOO much. I was waiting for this so far.
now that the guard switching bug was removed, can we crush encounter ligths attacks on reaction? PS.: i play on xbox
No
How do I go into defense form so fast from a kick into a top heavy for a wallsplat? I feel too slow to be doing it right
I'm having a real hard time with the kick>wallsplat punish? any tips. im on pc btw
Great job on the tutorial thanks house just started picking up Highlander again
If the first part of the zone confirms the second, and the first part of the zone in confirmed on gb, does that mean he gets both first and second for a gb?
PhotonGangLol I'm not sure
That only works for out of lock, he only gets the first hit on gb, the hit stun out of lock confirms the second part of the zone
Can you see if the left celtic curse is slower than the right? It feels as such and has had me curious the entire way all the way to a rep 43 HL
If your guard is on the left and you Celtic curse to the right it will be slower too
Damn, it looks like I've been missing so many opportunities as highlander.
Kinda sad that after all this time HL still only has his first zone hit on GB at best, all it would take is fast flow into offensive stance from GB to get a offensive heavy punish.
Or just make his defensive stance top heavy faster like with JJs rework, that would also make the light parry far easier since it's such a change of habbit to hold heavy to flow into offensive stance instad of tapping heavy input twice.
I know it's an odd comment for an old video but guess it's just even more sad that Highlander had this issue for such a long time.
Cant wait for that raider punish video that's gonna come out soon. Just hope they dont ruin what's fun about raider ;-;
P.S luv u
Raider is fun, but it's stressful for other players
@@fernandocontreras4981 well
Hehe, they did
Ah waking up to a freeze vid to a good day
Hi all, does anyone know how to get the unblockable after a light parry... i dont seem to be getting it all the time
You have to hold the parry button while you parry tp fast flow into offensive form after the parry. Every other character you just hit the parry button once. Highlander you have to hold it down.
@@apriljennings5127 dude you are a lifesaver, thx
1:00 HOW???? I try too swich in the offenisive guard but i can't ................
Hold your heavy input while you parry.
Yet another wonderful and informative video, poo faced jordan! And I have a question, can highlander crushing counter using offensive lights?
Nope, that would be cool if he could though
When i throw someone to the ground i always do a defensive top heavy kick and offensive heavy. 9/10 it will connect ant the person has lost half of his health
You missed an opportunity to show a safe oos punish: light into OS unblock heavy
5:48, I have proved you wrong even during these times against orochi lmao
What
Strategical emoting, eh?
_More characters need this._
This isn’t related to the video much, but what is your accent? It’s really nice on the ears.
Someone parrid me when I thorw them on the ground tho
If they have rock steady, they get up instantly.
I'm probably super late and you probably figured this out but ye-
Which heroes can counter his backstep light?
Assassins deflect
@@a1phamalestud they have enough range to do that?
Love your videos man any chance I could join in on the Shenanigans if not keep loading man I love this series.
this needs more views
Failed to mention that HL can switch guards after the GB has already landed. Like GB, GB landed. Switch guard to top. Then side throw.
Geez, I pray to for honor gods I will never get put against that Spy dude
Imagine living in the world where OS heavy guarantees you kick into heavy into kick i to heav...
What world is that?
Can you update this? ty
Freeze parry & guardbreak punishes when?
Can glad be next? Plz
Noice
Still waiting for an update gladiator punish 🗿
Love U freeze another great video
Is hl F tier?
No
do gladiator skewer punishes!
Rip my 500ms follow up attacks from any side
On a light parry ( it's not guaranteed but pretty likely it will hit ) offensive stance heavy into OS light
50 Damage
Or 2 OS lights for 60 damage
Yay, thanks Freeze (:
Light parried this guy 5 times and the unblockable didn’t hit once, almost fucking done with this game man
So is that unblockable heavy guaranteed? My friends won’t stop telling me it’s not and I said I’ve watched this video and they continue to tell me “how should he know it’s guaranteed” being ignorant as fuck
guaranteed on what?
@@fkkfreeze light parry sorry
ye you do.
@@fkkfreeze gotcha it seems hard to do tho
hold your heavy during the parry.
you go into offensive stance straight away and the attack comes out much sooner.
Love u freeze, YOU'RE THE BEST!
You no play hailander really? 😂😂😂
Any Highlander that did the dodge recovery guard switching before this video like this comment pretty sure ill have less than 10 lol
I didnnot know that And Its interesting.
Quit begging for likes
THIRTEENTH!!!!!
first
Nope
Highlander is easy mode character and it's same for Centurion. Too ez.
Centurion?? LLLLMMMAAAO
@Absolute Scum Hey trololo. You don't even have to be good. It's too EZ op classes.
@@PartizanRus you are a new player or a noob or maybe you're trolling us
@@PartizanRus git gud you fucking idiot
Sure, you play Highlander against someone competent and say he's ez