Feint

Feinting is a gameplay mechanic in *For Honor*. Feints allow a player to cancel their attack during the start-up, allowing them to either undo an unfavourable attack or fakeout their opponent.

## Mechanic

Feints (also known as "Hard Feints" or "Cancels", though not to be mistaken for recovery cancels) is when a player cancels their attacks through the Feint button, which is B for XB1, ◯ for the PS4, and E for PC. Feints can only be performed on Heavy Attacks, latter strikes of most multi-strike Zone Attacks, Charge Attacks and other designated moves. All Light Attacks, along with most Dodge Attacks, Bashes, single-strike Zone Attacks and certain Heavy follow-up attacks, are not able to be Feinted. Non-Heavy Attacks that can be Feinted and Heavy Attacks that cannot be Feinted are for the most part noted on each Hero's Moveset page.

Most Feints will occur 400ms before the attack or move would land, unless said otherwise. The only time this is not the case is with Chargeable attacks, which can be Feinted just after starting the attack until the 400ms before the attack would land. Chargeable Bash attacks have a much more lenient window for Feinting, as they can be Feinted 300ms after starting the attack, until as late as 300ms before the attack would land.

Visually, Feinting is identified by small white flashes coming from the hands of the one Feinting as they return to their neutral stance. By Feinting, a Hero returns to neutral and can proceed to return to attacking or defending instantly.

### Soft Feints

In comparison to the Hard Feints that completely stops a Hero from committing to a move and returning to neutral, a Soft Feint (also spelled as "soft-feint" when used as a verb) is when a Hero cancels their current attack during its start-up into another move. The kind of Soft Feint a Hero has depends from Hero to Hero, ranging from being able to dodge out of a slow attack to jabbing at the opponent with a different attack.

The way to access the soft feint also differs, compared to Hard Feints which are universally tied to the designated Feint button. Compared to Hard Feints, Soft Feints also lack the white Feint visuals that the Hard Feint has.

While every Hero have access to Hard Feints in some form of way, not all Heroes have access to Soft Feints. As a result, the Soft Feints that each Hero has access to can be unique, changing up their playstyle. The most common form of Soft Feint though is an attack into a Guardbreak.

The following is a quick table of each Hero's set of Soft Feints (if they have access to one), divided up by Faction:

* Knights
* Vikings
* Samurai
* Wu Lin
* Outlanders

* Conqueror is able to soft feint his Heavy Attacks and Charged Heavy into either a Shield Bash or a Full Block Stance.
* Peacekeeper is able to either Dodge, Guard Break or perform a Stab during the start-up of any Heavy Attack. She is also able to soft feint the second strike of her Zone Attack into a Stab.
* Centurion can soft feint his Charged Heavies into a Guardbreak.
* Black Prior can perform a Bash by pressing Guardbreak during a Heavy Opener.

- Raider can soft feint his Heavy Attacks and Zone Attacks into a Storming Tap (Top Light) or a Guardbreak.

- Berserker is able to cancel the start-up of their Heavy Openers with a dodge.

- Valkyrie can soft feint her Heavy Attack with Guardbreak to perform Shield Crush.

- Highlander has a few soft feints:
	* He can soft feint Celtic Curse (Forward Dodge Heavy) into Celtic Curse Cancels (Side Heavies).
	* He is also able to soft feint his Heavy Chains and Celtic Curse into his Offensive Stance by holding the Heavy input.
	* When in Offensive Stances, Balor's Might (Offensive Heavies) can be soft feinted into an Offensive Light, Formorian Kick (Bash) or Caber Toss (Grab), while Formorian Kick can also be cancelled into Caber Toss.

- Shaman is able to soft feint her Heavy Openers into a Bleed Stab (Light) or Guardbreak. She can also soft feint Heavy Finishers into a Dodge. Her Forward Dodge Moves can soft feint into each other with their designated inputs.

- Jormungandr can soft feint their Serpent Smite (Forward Dodge Heavy) into a Guardbreak.

- Kensei is able to soft feint each of his Top Heavies into either a Side Light, Side Heavy, a Guardbreak (a Bash for the Heavy Opener) or a Dodge.

- Shugoki can soft feint his Heavy Attacks and Charged Heavies into a Demon's Embrace with the Guardbreak input.

- Nobushi is able to cancel the start-up of her Heavy Openers with Hidden Stance.

- Aramusha can soft feint his Heavy Finishers or Twin Vipers attack (Blade Blockade Side Heavy) into a Light Chain Attack from a different guard direction.

- Tiandi can soft feint the second strike of their Zone Attack into a Dragon Kick with the Guardbreak input. Side Dodge Heavies and Dragon Kick can be soft feinted into a dodge.

- Jiang Jun is able to soft feint his Heavy Attacks into Sifu Poise. He is also able to soft feint Mighty Backlash (Side Dodge Heavy) with the Light Attack input to strike from the other side. Mighty Sanction (Forward Dodge Heavy) can be soft feinted into Shin Kick with the Guardbreak input. Heavy Finishers can also be soft feinted into a Guardbreak.

- Nuxia is able to soft feint any of her Heavy attacks and Zone Attack into a Trap with the Guardbreak input.

- Pirate has access to soft feint Guardbreaks during her Walk the Plank move.

## Tactics

Feints and Soft Feints function to provide one of two functions: to fake-out the opponent, undo an attack in an unfavourable exchange or to access special moves. Overall, these Feints grant a form of mix-up for players to use.

Players can use Feints and Soft Feints to trick their opponent as to what attack they will strike from. It can even used to condition an opponent in thinking that you will use a feint, thus landing a certain attack when they don't expect it. It can also help cancel an attack so that you can respond to whatever counterattack your opponent assumes to take, such as cancelling a heavy when you opponent uses a Dodge Attack. There is no guard switch delay when you Feint, and you can immediately dodge, block or parry after a Feint too.

Due to how the Parry mechanic is tied to the Heavy Attack input, it is not uncommon for a player to use the Feint to cancel a Heavy attack that was meant for a Parry. This is useful in higher level play, as opponents will often try to trick you with their own ends of Feints and Soft Feints.

While any Hero is able to Hard Feint a Heavy attack into a Guardbreak (Guardbreaks after a Feint are 100ms faster), a Soft Feint Guardbreak offers ease-of-use, together with a smoother animation that can fool better than a hard-feint-into-Guardbreak. Otherwise, it does not provide any better advantage speed or stamina wise.

## Recovery Cancels

As a note, "Recovery Cancels" are not the same as a Feint (as noted above), and visa versa. Instead, Recovery Cancels don't require the need of the cancel button, instead allowing the Hero to cut a portion of certain move's recovery animation instead of the start-up. This mechanic is what allows for chain attacks to occur, together with follow-up attacks which have similar functions to soft feints in that they both branch out to moves that usually cannot be accessed.

For Heroes with Recovery Cancels, it helps them keep up the offensive or gain access to certain option. Some examples are the following:

* Conqueror, Black Prior and Aramusha can access their Full Block Stances after any Chain Attack almost instantly.
* Lawbringer can access his Shove after any Heavy Attack with the Guardbreak input.
* Heroes such as Shaman and Peacekeeper have access to Recovery Cancels for their Heavy Attacks (Heavy Finishers only for Shaman) as they can perform poisoning stabs at their opponent after landing successfully the Heavy Attack for bonus damage.
* Zhanhu, Orochi, Tiandi and Pirate can cancel the recovery of any of their moveset with a dodge. Zhanhu in particular is also able to cancel their non-Finishers with a Zone Attack.

Some Heroes have chain-ending attacks that have a very short Recovery, such as Warlord's Stab, giving a similar feel of having Recovery Cancels.

## Trivia

* Prior to the midseason update for Y4S2, Feinting used to create a white human figure that would copy the last position the Hero had taken right before Feinting. This was changed in favour of a clearer Feint visual that is more believable; the white human figure has been moved to being an after-image for dodges.