Perfect Guard

In a lot of ways, the perfect guard is a good thing. Chains into cool attacks and maybe shortcuts, sure. But then it FUCKS US OVER in the worst way possible.

So let's have a little context. Regular blocking generally has three different states when hit. Light, medium, and heavy knockbacks. Light takes no damage and is easiest to recover from. Medium takes 10% damage (from World to Wilds). Heavy takes 20%, eats sharpness, and has a long recovery.

Did you know that in MH Generations had a way to mitigate all the penalties via a perfect guard? In Adept Style, we had a guard that ignored knockback and chip damage when timed right. It was a lifesaver and a showcase of skill.

So when I saw the Perfect Guard in Wilds, I thought "YES, IT'S BACK". Then the game released, and I did a lot of testing...

For some godforsaken reason, THEY GAVE THE PERFECT GUARD A "HEAVY KNOCKBACK" VERSION. Like, landing a regular perfect guard allows immediate followups and no chip damage. But if an attack hits that would normally have caused a heavy knockback, the Perfect Guard gives no benefit except staying in place, because any followup you have still gets slowed down and you still take the chip damage, just a little reduced. WHY.

And the worst part? Back in MH Generations, we used to be able to chain the Adept Guard for multihits. Rewarding skill and memory. But in Wilds? You get the penalties, AND you can't mitigate multihits by timing successive perfect guards. It's just... Really disappointing. Give me my Adept Guard back. And don't call it perfect if you don't reward us pwrfectly for it.