This is a very very long rant about why I think that Fanbrella is structurally broken in PvP. I tried to be as detailed as possible which caused this length, but there is a Tl;Dr at the end, and the even more condensed Tl;Dr is that the Fan should not be allowed to cancel guard-breaks (Talon Strike / Yaksha Rush)

Context: I play in the SEA server at the above-average-but-not-leaderboard-material bracket: 2.3k MMR last season, 1.4k current season. I have not played in other servers so I am not sure how applicable this is for NA/EU. This post is primarily written with 1v1 in mind with a small segment for 3v3. Obviously "skill issue" and "git gud" applies here, and I do respect the very skilled Fanbrella players who would perform equally well using any weapon path.

The Inkwell Fan

The fan has two abilities, Emerald Barrier ("Windwall") and Peak's Springless Silence ("Knockup").

Windwall:

1. has a fast cast animation
2. has very high prio
3. repositions the caster backwards
4. knocks the opponent over on contact (which offsets their recovery animation)
5. plants a solid barrier in place

This effectively shuts down any combo on the slightest gap (whether ping issue or skill issue) and creates a safezone buffer, requiring two dodges at minimum to chase or an ability that phases through it. The only such ability available to everyone is soaring spin, which is easily dodged when used in this manner (to cross the wall) and has a vitality cost.

As a bonus, whether bug or feature, if the windwall is casted while the opponent has tenacity (drunken poet as an example), the devs made a cool feature where they are hard-stuck inside the wall and are required to dodge backwards to get out. Dodging sideways or forwards will keep the player trapped in the wall while still consuming their endurance.

Knockup (and Pursuit):

1. also has a fast cast animation
2. requires a second parry
3. knocks the opponent airborne
4. triggers an airborne pursuit
5. leaves a water clone to disengage

The knockup is a fast engage with the best combo opener (airborne) and includes a disengage to escape punishment.

Additionally, Pursuit has a prio that is so far above everything else in the game that nothing even comes close. Serene Breeze (which overrides everything except for the execution animation) does not work during pursuit. As if that weren't enough, while casting pursuit, the caster is immune to everything including stuns (Spring Sorrow / Qiankun Lock) which are supposed to have the highest prios in the game (this is most evident in 3v3), being able to override guard/parry/tenacity. I have not tested whether you can use a guard-counterattack or execute a qi-broken fanbrella while they are in pursuit but I would not be surprised if they were immune to that too.

Extra Special Fan Bullshit

There are two special mechanics available only to both abilities of the Inkwell Fan.

The first is the ability to chain their Windwall and Knockup immediately after Meridian Touch, thereby extending their reach significantly. These two weapon abilities are the only ones with this feature, and the only other things that can be chained behind Meridian Touch are Guardian Palm and Execution. But this is more of an annoyance rather than a real issue since it is quite manageable and obvious at higher levels of gameplay.

The second special mechanic is the ability to cancel Defence Breakers (Yaksha Rush and Talon Strike) and it is ridiculous. All three fan abilties (Windwall, Knockup and the water clone teleport after Knockup) can be used to cancel a Defence Break skill. There is no other way to cancel Yaksha or Talon apart from an Execution. This was obviously intended for a reason because both of these mystic skills are extremely powerful and low-cost (vitality wise), and they are the only way to play around an opponent that spams guard/parry (outside of the two stuns and the hengblade heavy attack). Consequently, the "real cost" of using them is the risk you take if you fail to catch your opponent in a guard or parry, because it creates such an obvious gap that is guaranteed to be punished with a combo, past a certain MMR/skill level. This risk is so significant that top leaderboard players almost never use guard breakers (count how many times Averse uses talon strike in his games) outside of gap closing into an Execution. It makes little sense why the fan gets to be the sole exception to this established rule. And with the most recent patch, both Defence Breakers are now viable as combo openers by cancelling it with a Knockup. This is, again, the only way to combo off Talon Strike because of the knockback on the last swipe.

The Vernal Umbrella

The umbrella has two abilities, Spring Sorrow ("Stun") and Unfading Flower ("Turret").

Stun:

1. Has the highest prio apart from Pursuit, Guard-Counterattack, and the Execution and Serene Breeze recovery-frames
2. Has a very tight dodge window that is distance-dependent (it needs to be almost a perfect-dodge)
3. Can be done at range (elaborated below)

(2) gets extremely annoying when you factor in the ping issues that we have hundreds of threads about (lagbrellas are unrivalled in most game modes, especially the GvG halftime show, with umbrella EX invisible stun + 200ms ping). In some cases it gets compounded by the fact that you can get choked by Windwall or the arena boundaries but we can look past that as it requires some degree of skill/trickery.

The Umbrella Combo:

The combo is extremely easy to learn while being extremely forgiving (Dragon Breath can be used in the combo even without pre-intoxication), and is hardly ping dependent. Especially when compared to the combos of other weapons, which typically require precise timing: Sword-Heavy Attack into Toad has a tight window, Nameless Sword-Relentless Pursuit combo requires an extremely precise parry-cancel after the first slash etc etc etc. The point here is that the Umbrella Combo does not run the risk of dropping due to its large forgiving windows.

Combos are, of course, part of the game and everyone is equipped with Serene Breeze to offset it. In fact, Serene Breeze is so important and powerful that proper utilisation determines whether you win or lose the fight. At lower brackets, Serene Breeze is used to get out of a combo and reset to neutral to reduce the damage you receive. At higher brackets, Serene Breeze is used almost exclusively as an engage to flip the combo. This requires an understanding of animation-locks for each and every skill in the game, and also an understanding of every combo to know when the next animation-lock will trigger. For context, an animation-lock is a skill cast animation that cannot be dodge-cancelled, such as the Tab-switch skill for swords (which is one of the most common places to use Serene Breeze). This is because Serene Breeze has a stagger at melee range when casted, which is enough to act as an initiator for most combos.

To finally address point (3) of the Stun, everything in the last paragraph does not apply to the umbrella, because they are outside the range of Serene Breeze. When caught by the Stun, there is barely any opportunity to flip the combo, since the combo is done at range or in tenacity during Dragon Breath and Leaping Toad. The only chance to flip it is if they use soaring spin, which is not an animation-lock and not strictly required for the combo.

This removes a massive amount of mental overhead because they do not need to reaction dodge a Serene Breeze, which is something that every other weapon class has to deal with.

Turret:

1. Deals good damage
2. Continues to damage even during Execution
3. Is literally a turret and allows you to do other things

The optimal choice when the Turret is up is to spam dodge, otherwise you get hit with a Talon Strike (which, again, carries no risk for the fanbrella). The only other option is to use Dragon Breath / spam Drunken Poet and offset some of the damage due to the damage reduction, but this typically happens after your revival force is blown and carries a big risk.

3v3

With the ability to customise attunements and have all inner ways configured to T6, Vernal Umbrella's Spring Sorrow does 3x3s stun with T6 Blossom Barrage and 3x3.6s-4s with the disc attunement. This is effectively a hard shutdown for 1 player, across the map, with the highest prio in the game (outdone only by the Inkwell Fan-Pursuit and the Guard-Counterattack). At minimum, this forces the opponent to blow their Serene Breeze. At this point in the meta, pretty much every serious 3 stack runs at least 1 umbrella, and most support builds are able to run it as a sub weapon (Thundercry + Vernal / Panacea + Vernal / Nameless Sword + Vernal).

However, since it is an equalised gamemode, everyone is able to run umbrellas which results in the current stale meta, and that argument forms a hard shutdown of any discussion ("you can also git gud and equip an umbrella")

Common Counterarguments

Having read some threads from other salty non-fanbrella players like myself, I have noticed recurring counterarguments and will include them here so we can accelerate the discussion in the comments section. I know that Fanbrella players love playing the victim and constantly talking about how difficult their weapon is and how they are nerfed to oblivion.

"Umbrella Stun is difficult to hit": This is true if the stun is thrown at a distance because you can just walk away from it, but that argument is also true for every single skill in the game. Additionally, unless its a bait attack, all skilled umbrella players use the stun in only two instances, after the Fan-Knockup (which I believe is a true-combo or at most a really consistent ping-combo) or after using Serene Breeze with the helmet attunement that gives 2.8s of Tenacity. At close/melee range, the umbrella stun is not easy to dodge, especially when taking ping (of both players) into consideration.

"Umbrella Stun has low prio when casting": This is covered by the second half of the previous point

"The fan Knockup is hard to hit": This is true because most of the low-skilled Fan players throw a naked Knockup at an enemy staring at them after running around in circles and sprinkling in light attacks, or with a Meridian Touch to make it even more obvious. Every initiator for every weapon is difficult to land if done in that manner, at least strategic sword has a charging requirement before zipping across the map. Other skilled Fan players go out of their way to use the sprint-attack trick, which is a thing for some reason, and creates a true combo for the Knockup. Extremely skilled Fan players enter close range to trade parries and drunken poets, which can combo into the Knockup and is extremely reliable, unfortunately it requires a high degree of skill.

"You can just hold guard/use tenacity for the Fan Knockup": This applies to almost every weapon in the game too (outside of the Umbrella/Nameless Spear stuns and the Heng Blade-Heavy), the only key difference being that other weapons cannot cancel a guard break.

General Miscellaneous Thoughts

There were other things I planned to include in this post such as the general gameplay style used consistently by fanbrella players (olympic runners and talon/yaksha abusers) but it ended up being longer than I expected.

I wrote this post because I think the weapon is overpowered in the mechanical sense, and not just in the big-number sense. Primarily because it compensates too much for the lack of individual player ability and lack of game fundamentals.

This is mostly in reference to the average Fanbrella user, and obviously not the top players who are extremely skilled and would likely retain their rank regardless of the weapon combination that they use. Fanbrella players tend to focus on learning "tricks" like how to do a standing sprit attack or how to throw the stun in midair. Even without learning parry/dodge timings for the different skills of each weapon, or game fundamentals such as the effective usage of mystic skills, they are still able to outperform players of equivalent innate-skill level. In a way, what this means is that the Fanbrella inflates the MMR of players due to its forgiving nature.

This is in addition to the other problems that already plague PvP. Ping is obviously one of the biggest complaints across the community, yet the Umbrella has some degree of benefit due to the way the stun works. It is also not "fun" to fight against the most commonly used playstyle employed by fanbrella players (extremely passive hit-and-run tactics) and there is very little takeaway for reflection or growth from such fights.

I think the weapon deserves a nerf in PvP, in particular the ability to cancel Guard Breakers (Yaksha/Talon). In the past, the Knockup was able to override tenacity which was fortunately removed, and the patch today applied diminishing returns on the Umbrella Stun. While it is a step in the right direction I think it does not move the needle much, since the mystic skills were already optional in the Umbrella Combo anyway.

"But if you nerf X it wont be usable in PvP": Outside of PvP, Fanbrella has one of the highest DPS ceilings for PvE assuming ideal-rotation, and even its simplified rotation outputs a more than reasonable amount of damage. It already dominates the speedrun leaderboards for both Sword Trials/Hero Realm and Abyss Trials, and it also trivialises many of the No-Hit Runs, a recurring theme where mechanical knowledge and skill are ignored. There is no reason this weapon path needs to be able to excel in PvP, especially since its playstyle has no overlap with any other path, and the game is bending over backwards just to accommodate it. Other clearly defined-role examples for paths are:

• Bamboocut Dust, which does buff/debuff in PvE, but lacks true combos in PvP
• Stonesplit Might, Tank for PvE, but still able to find its place in PvP
• Silkbind Deluge, Heal for PvE, very high skill floor in PvP

Each of these weapon paths are sub-optimal for PvP but are still able to be played by really skilled players, while retaining enough uniqueness without breaking underlying gameplay fundamentals. They do not have the ability to cancel guard-breaks and they still take on the same risk as all other paths when they engage. If anything, these Paths require an even deeper understanding of PvP and gameplay fundamentals than the meta PvP paths simply because they have fewer tools to work with.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

Tl;Dr

Fanbrella breaks gameplay structure by bypassing established rules or trivialising challenges faced by every other weapon path

• Defence Break Skills (Yaksha/Talon) carry a high risk of being punished if you miss, except for all three of the Inkwell Fan skills
• Serene Breeze can break all combos, staggers and stuns, except for the Inkwell Fan Pursuit
• High Prio attacks (Spring Sorrow / Qiankun Lock) can override all states, including guard, parry and even tenacity, except for the Inkwell Fan Pursuit (applicable in 3v3)
• Serene Breeze can flip an opponents combo when used appropriately, except for the Umbrella combo
• Combos are ping and timing dependent, except for the Umbrella Combo
• When executing a combo, be prepared to reaction-dodge an opponent's Serene Breeze, except for the Umbrella Combo

These exceptions end up compensating significantly for the user's skill and punishes opponents much harder than any other weapon path. Fanbrella users do not need to learn as much PvP and core gameplay fundamentals such as dodge and parry timings or effective Serene Breeze usage when compared to other weapons.

Optimal Fanbrella passive playstyle of running and dodging is not fun to fight against and pretty much eliminates most of the risk that any other weapon would have to take when engaging. GuardBreak-Cancel abusers are the worst of the lot and it makes little sense why this weapon alone has special privileges, either make guard breaks cancellable by all weapons or remove the fans ability to do so.

When further combined with overarching PvP issues (mainly Ping and inconsistent stagger/hit prio), higher ranked players get shortchanged significantly when matched against much lower ranked fanbrella players, as compared to any other weapons.

Fanbrella is simply too forgiving of a weapon comp.