A Comprehensive Guide to Centurion

By​ Haley​ with help from ​vinx-

Table of Contents
1. Basic Rundown of the Centurion Playstyle.
2. Max punishes, damage values, stam/HP values.
3. What do I do in duels? Pros and cons of a Centurion pick in 1v1.
4. What do I do in dominion? Pros and cons of a Centurion pick in 4v4.
5. Matchup Knowledge. How do I beat ​x​ with Centurion?

This guide is out of date as of mid-Season 8 and will remain so until Centurion is brought up to par
with the rest of the cast. I will not be putting time into this useless hero until he’s either fun to play
or competitively viable. Until then, I will not be updating the guide. As Cent has not received any
significant changes since I wrote the guide, most of the information here is still relevant. Most of the
matchups are not.

For starters, I’d like to introduce myself. I go by Haley in-game, and at the moment I'm known as

the best competitive Centurion player in the game. I (surprisingly) see a lot of people nowadays

wanting to play him more and more, so to spare everyone who wishes to do this and reads this

guide some frustration I’m going to lay out the basics for Centurion. In the guide I’ll be covering

his general playstyle, his numbers, how to play him in 1v1 and 4v4 and what the pros and cons

of Cent in both modes are, and finally I’ll be going into his matchups against every other

character in the roster in matchups ranging from ​Essentially Unwinnable ​to ​Hard, but Doable ​to

Easily Beatable​.
 Basic Rundown of the Centurion Playstyle

One of the most common misconceptions I see from people about Cent is that he is a turtle by
nature, and must turtle to succeed. However, this can’t really be more wrong. The thing about Centurion
is that his offense with his variably timed heavies is ​incredibly ​safe, one of the safest offenses in the
game. This makes it very hard for your opponent to punish you accordingly for your heavies, generally
forcing them to eat five damage in chip, over and over… Now, that’s not to say these are a particularly
strong tool, especially when considering the much safer, easier to access offense of other characters. But -
learning how to effectively use his heavies are a necessity now that his power as a turtle has been reduced.
You ​will not ​stand a chance against a Gladiator or Conqueror without throwing some hitboxes around.
Now, that’s not to say that Centurion is completely unviable as a turtle now. He’s still in the
“quite decent” to even “very good” range, it’s just much rarer that he can move into the “very good”
range. His parry counter is a strong tool, guaranteeing a heavy when performed with the properties of a
chain finisher heavy, with the rarely known fact that the enemy cannot swap their guard stance after being
hit by the parry counter or they will be guaranteed to be hit by a follow up light jab, essentially
guaranteeing 45 damage when considering the chip from his new light + heavy chain. His parry counter is
just unreliable when it comes to anything other than getting 25 damage off of a parry, as it guaranteeing
the jab and 45 damage is reliant on your opponent not knowing about confirmed jab from guard swap, and
parry counter slides off of walls quite frequently. There’ll be a video of this guide up soon demonstrating
this, and I’d like to show how unreliable the parry counter can be.
Kick and jab are very poor tools. I won’t spend a lot of time discussing these moves, because
they’re fairly self explanatory. Kick is a 600ms attack that is initiated 300ms into dodge, and guarantees a
light on every character no matter what. Against assassins, kick guarantees the first hit of zone no matter
where their guard is. Against solid-guard (non-assassin heroes), kick guarantees zone ​only ​if their guard is
top or right. If it’s on the left, your zone is blocked and you eat the corresponding heavy parry because
your zone is awful. Kick is very hard to punish however unless the enemy has a dodge attack/bash,
meaning Warlord, Aramusha, Highlander in defensive stance, Shugoki, and another Centurion are unable
to punish kick as you can buffer a heavy after missed kick to beat out GB due to the 100ms vulnerability
on Cent’s heavies. You can also charge the heavy on read to punish an opponent’s attempt to punish your
attempt to punish them for attempting to punish you. It’s a mouthful, I know. Jab is 700ms of
vulnerability on whiff, and cannot be protected from GB if the dodge recovery of the enemy allows it.

Max Punishes/Cent’s Values

Centurion’s intended gameplay and the gameplay he actually follows are quite difference. Meant
to be an aggressive, in your face brawler who never stops attacking, he’s more akin to a sheet of drywall
that hits like a truck if given the chance, but is actually fairly low damage outside of that. Before I get into
his damage values and punishes, Centurion has 120 hp, and a high stamina value of 160. Thanks to this,
however, his stamina is the slowest recharging in the game without gear once he goes out of stamina.

For starters, here are Cent’s damage values and speed values of attacks (special thanks to ​Oakenwulf ​for
some of the timings on Cent heavy speeds and ​Snakezarr ​for some of the timings on other stuff such as
jabs and lights).
● Chain starting light: 15 damage, 500ms (all sides)
● Chained light (performed after a chain starting light): 12 damage, 600ms on second light in chain,
and 700ms on the third light in a chain.
● Chain starting heavy: 25 damage, 600ms. Can be charged from 600ms to 1000ms from all sides.
● Chain finishing heavy from top: 25 damage, 600ms. Can be charged from 600ms to 1200ms,
becomes 30 damage after made unblockable.
● Chain finishing heavy from left and right side: 25 damage, 600ms. Can be charged from 500ms to
1200ms, becomes 30 damage after made unblockable.
● Kick: 600ms attack, can be performed at minimum 300ms into a dodge. Guarantees 15 damage
from light on every hero no matter what guard, guarantees 25 damage from zone no matter what
versus assassins, guarantees 25 damage vs solid-guard heroes if their guard is not left.
● Uncharged jab: 700ms, guarantees a 15 damage follow-up light. Can be charged from 700ms to
1000ms. 1000ms version knocks the enemy down and guarantees Eagle’s Talons.
● Eagle’s Talons: 35 confirmed damage off of knockdown.
● Eagle’s Fury/Eagle’s Fury Alternate: 900ms, 20 damage. Confirms light jab on hit to raise
damage of overall attack to 35. Eagle’s Fury (out of lock) confirms jab on hit or block.
 ● Zone: 600ms, three swings, 25 damage per swing. Unfeintable.

Now that the speeds and damage values you’ll need to know are out of the way, here are Cent’s standard
+ max punishes.

● Standard Heavy and Light Parry Punish: Parry counter, heavy. 25 damage.
● Max GB punish (assuming 4v4 and Haymaker): GB, 2 Lion’s Roar punches, throw, kick,
light. Special thanks to ​LeninCat37​ for telling me about this one, this will be new GB
max in 4v4 after the upcoming May 17th patch that will fix Cent’s stagger bug that
allows light after GB throw kick to be blocked. ​ This is false, it was tested and kick after
throw can be dodged 100% of the time.
● Max GB punish (assuming 1v1): Normal Heavy. 25 damage.
● Max OOS parry + throw punish: Top light, delayed charged heavy, charged jab, Eagle’s
Talons. 80 damage.
● Max OOS parry punish near a wall: Heavy, delayed charged heavy, charged jab, Eagle’s
Talons. 90 damage.

These are the general punishes you’ll need to know. Not all of them will be used frequently,
especially the OOS (Out of Stamina) punishes considering Cent has next to no OOS pressure, but they’re
good to know anyways on the off chance whoever you’re fighting slips up. I’ve mentioned it in this guide
before, but it’s good to note that Cent’s parry counter punish turns from a 25 damage punish to a 40
damage punish if the enemy is a solid guard hero and swaps their guard, as you’re given a free light from
jab.

What do I do in Duels? Pros and Cons of picking Cent in 1v1.

I’ve pretty much touched on this before in the general Centurion playstyle portion of this guide,
but basically you have two ways to play Centurion in 1v1: You can be aggressive with your variably
timed heavies and whittle the enemy down with chip, or you can turtle for your decent to very good
punishes. This really depends on the matchup you’re facing - for example, like I said earlier, you can’t
beat a Gladiator without throwing heavies and interrupting his flow. However, vs someone like...say,
Lawbringer or Shugoki, both very bad characters but with tools countering aggression, you’re best off
waiting for them to make the first move and then taking advantage of your punishes.

The pros of picking Cent in 1v1 are fairly small compared to the cons. What positives you get
from Cent are that his offense is one of the safest in the game, and his damage can spike up to top tier
levels if you can manage your parry counters well. He has decent dodge recovery too, 600ms, which
allows him to punish most bashes if he dodges early enough. That’s about it for the pros of Centurion,
which seems a little low, but the safe offense is actually pretty big for him and I don’t mean to understate
its usage.

The cons, on the other hand, are a fair bit more numerous.
● While Cent does have safe offense, it’s...not particularly effective offense. Five damage of chip
on demand that’s very, very hard to punish is very strong, yes, but you have to think about every
other character, too. Most all of A tier and all of S tier has better offense than Centurion, both
faster and harder to deal with and unblockable pressure on most of the characters. Compare Glad
zone or Conq shield bash to Cent’s heavies, and see why he’s bottom of B tier.
● Cent does have decent side dodge recovery, but his side dodge distance isn’t very great and he
doesn’t have a dodge attack either, leaving him unable to punish many bashes if he doesn’t dodge
early enough into them whereas most other characters can punish every bash in the game.
● Cent kick is one of the easiest bashes to react to in the game, just behind Lawbringer’s neutral
shove, so if you like to land unblockables from neutral this is not the hero for you. Kick is a full
900ms at the ​fastest​, with no delay at all between the dodge and the kick. His jab is 700ms at the
fastest, and then gives a free GB to 600ms dodge recovery characters. You can’t feint his charged
unblockable heavy, and it gives an untechable GB if dodged. His unblockables are ​horrendous.​
His cons in 1v1 boil down to his attacks being unable to get through an opponent’s defenses, and a lack of
a good dodge attack, a point made much more important thanks to the fact that most all of S and A tier
have strong bash attacks.
 What do I do in Dom? Pros and Cons of picking Cent in 4v4.

I’ll be speaking mainly about Dominion in this section, as I (nor many others) have played enough tribute
competitively/in scrims to really definitively say what the prevailing strategy is with Cent in that
gamemode, and I wouldn’t pick Cent in scrims anyways. That aside, here’s a quick breakdown of Cent in
dominion: ​BAD. ​Really, really bad. He’s a decent ganker, but in ​Skorbrand​’s tier list his flaws are
highlighted well. “Possibly the worst group fighter in the game with no range on anything, too long of
animations, poor recovery…” These are all correct points, and make playing Cent in 4v4 both a chore and
a hindrance. When you see characters like Nobushi, Kensei, Conqueror, PK, Shaman in the 4v4
meta...where does Cent fit in? And how does he succeed in the current meta? Short answer - he doesn’t.
He’s the second worst 4v4 hero in the game, just ahead of Aramusha, everyone’s favorite April 1st joke
hero. Breaking down why he’s bad in 4v4 in a little more depth, I’ll be covering 1v1, 1vX, Xv1, and XvX
and how Cent does in each of these types of fights.

1v1
● Centurion is at his best in 1v1 and Xv1, but he’s still not great at either. In 1v1, he takes far too
long to kill an opponent, even with Haymaker. He’s only a decent threat in 1v1 when he has
Pugio up, but realistically a Cent getting to tier 3 is very difficult in an organized match. His
bash-focused style even works against him if he can get the attacks landing, as very few
characters feed revenge like Centurion does. His 1v1s take far too long and feed too much
revenge, even his strongest playstyle of chipping down does nothing but feed revenge. He can
simply be stalled out until help arrives, which will usually be a solid, top tier ganker that can
easily take out a lone Centurion.
1vX (Anti-Ganking)
● Centurion is terrible at anti-ganking, his only hope being he can stall for revenge and let his team
come to him to help. His only semi-decent tools are fast lights, ​alright t​ arget swapping attacks on
stuff like chained heavies and his uncharged jab having great range, but still - this is easily
countered by just dodging or blocking his slow attacks, even when target swapped. Stalling for
help is also becoming less and less of a viable strategy as there are combinations like Shaman +
any other character, Lawbringer + any other character, Raider + any other character in the game
and players are only getting better and more efficient at pulling the ganking with these heroes off.

Xv1 (Ganking)
● Ganking is without a doubt where Cent is at his strongest, but even then, he’s only kind of alright
at his job and is doing miserably when compared to the S and A tier ganking heroes. Charged
heavy can be landed on any hero from a teammate guard breaking on parry timing, guaranteeing a
charged jab into at the very least two heavies from one ally, possibly even three if they begin
heavying at the soonest possible time, right after the Cent jabs and knocks the enemy down. This
is all in addition to Eagle’s Talons, meaning a Cent jab is essentially a guaranteed kill. This
sounds very strong, but in reality...it isn’t. Issue one with this gank is that it takes ​forever​. Cent
ganking takes about 8 seconds if performed perfectly, just because of Cent’s kit and how slow
every combo he has is. Issue two is that it’s actually quite easy to avoid Cent ganking, it’s very
possible to interrupt the Cent out of his charged heavy and the teammate guardbreaking with him
out of their GB with a good zone and run around a point to stall for help from teammates and
there’s essentially nothing the gankers can do, especially if the enemy is a faster character. Issue
three is he feeds so, so much revenge through this combo, and a lot of the time the enemy being
ganked will have already been around half on their revenge bar, meaning they’ll get revenge by
the time they’re on the ground. Issue four...his job is simply done better by others. Shaman is
likely the worst offender of this, followed by Lawbringer. Shaman’s pounce is 50 damage by
itself, cannot be broken by revenge, and guarantees two ally heavies which ​also ​can’t be broken
by revenge until the enemy is on their feet. Lawbringer impales after a teammate GB, hits a wall,
uses Long Arm, and guarantees up to four heavies - three from teammates, one from himself. And
 these are just in 2v1s, their efficiency goes up in 3v1s and 4v1s. The point is, Cent’s done in by
time of combo, ease of avoiding, revenge feed, and others simply do his job better.

XvX (Team Fighting)

● Cent is a horrible team fighter, as highlighted by the tier list quote from above. His range on
almost everything he does is very bad for a teamfight, he has low team fighting damage, and high
recoveries meaning he’ll be punished for pretty much anything he does. The existence of Nobu
and Kensei make his life very hard in the initial mid fight, as they outrange everything he can do.
This section is going to be rather short, as it’s not really necessary to explain beyond this. He’s
just straight up ​bad ​in teamfights. However, if you do play Centurion in teamfights, there is a way
to make him work somewhat. It’s difficult to pull off, but it’s doable. What you do is sit around
the edges of a fight, waiting for someone to use a move with decent recovery. You time a pin with
this, and get it guaranteed and possibly a knockdown which is basically death in a teamfight. It’s
pretty difficult to pull off in organized matches as it requires good timing, good positioning, and
experience with the hero to know what you can and can’t get a pin off of in recovery, but it’s his
only chance at decency in a team fight.
Feats:
● For feats, Cent’s feats aren’t actually terrible. Being a vanguard/assassin hybrid pays off well as
he has two very good Tier 1 feats in Bounty Hunter and Body Count. Cent isn’t great at finishing
characters off himself, but Bounty Hunter is still a very good feat. Cent is an efficient mid clearer,
but fills the ganker role in a team, so it honestly comes down to personal preference. If you have a
mid clearer with body count already, I’d take Bounty Hunter, especially on a map with more
rotations like The Shard, whereas on something like Sanctuary Bridge I’d take Body Count
because that map is very middle lane heavy. Tiers two and three aren’t really negotiable in my
opinion, Inspire is much more useful than Haymaker as it’ll buff your team, and since you can’t
really land attacks of your own, you don’t typically run Haymaker. Second Wind is simply too
strong not to pick right now. Tier 4 is pretty rigid in what you can pick, with Phalanx being pretty
easily the best choice for Cent at the moment for Dominion, Breach, and Tribute.
 Matchups: How do I beat ​x​ with Centurion?

It’s really no secret that Cent has a lot of bad matchups. It’s been this way for a long time, as well -
there’s always been a few heroes that Cent just can’t do anything against. Season 2, it was unlocked
Nobushi. Season 3 and 4, it was Gladiator. Now, there’s a whole slew of characters Cent just can’t beat,
especially considering the nerfs he’s gotten. I’ll be discussing each matchup, ranging from “Nearly
Unwinnable,” to “Hard, but doable,” to finally, “Easily Beatable.” Keep in mind that some of this is based
on my experience fighting the character, mileage may vary. ​UPDATE AS OF 6/27/18: ​Assassin heroes
such as Orochi and Berserker struggle against solid guard heroes due to the guard swap bug. Cent benefits
from this, and as such, they have been moved down. Warlord has been moved up as I underestimated him
as a whole. He is the best duelist in the game until dodge roll is removed. Updated for Warden/Valk
reworks as of ​8/2/18​.

Nearly Unwinnable

● Conqueror:​ This is likely Centurion’s hardest matchup. Cent can do nothing about a Conq who
knows how to properly mix up shield bash timings, while a Conq can option select with zone to
beat out Cent’s chip damage heavy strat - and the real punch in the gut is that Cent can do nothing
about it if the Conq option selects at light timing, his hard feint is too slow to feint and parry the
zone. Centurion can’t turtle against a good Conqueror, and he also can’t chip him down. Against
an equally skilled opponent, Cent should never win this matchup. Almost impossible.
● Shinobi: ​With the recent discovery of slide tackle being a very viable running mixup that is
nearly unpunishable even by dodge attacks, Cent is left out to be slaughtered by Shinobi as he has
no way to punish slide tackle, and his damage pales in comparison to Shinobi’s. If he manages to
get a GB on the Shinobi, he gets 25. Shinobi’s lights nearly do as much as Cent’s heavies, and it
only takes three wrong guesses on slide tackle to get killed thanks to Shinobi’s 40 damage GB.
● Valkyrie: ​While Valk isn’t a very high tier character herself, she absolutely slaughters Cent - it
isn’t even close. If the Valk is quick enough, she can superior light on a red indicator and will get
27 guaranteed damage and Cent cannot feint to parry because of how poor his feint timing is.
Cent also lacks a dodge attack which means he cannot reliably, if at all, punish Valkyrie’s Shield
Crush. Her neutering of his offense renders him about as useful as Aramusha, just without the
light parry damage.
● Warden: ​Warden is a very hard matchup for Cent, just like he is for pretty much any character
other than Warlord, Gladiator, and Conq. Shoulder Bash as a tool is far more powerful than
anything Cent has in his kit, even variably timed heavies. You can’t reliably roll away from his
mixups because of Vanguard’s Advance, forcing you to face Shoulder Bash head on in most
scenarios, and without a dodge attack the best you can hope for is reading an uncharged Shoulder
Bash right and dodging it for a GB. Add this to guaranteed damage on kick and jab dodge and
Warden demolishes Cent.
● Berserker:​ Berserker’s dodge attack makes things difficult for Cent right out of the gates,
meaning his kick and punch can no longer be used at will to pressure the enemy. Cent trades are
horrible, they’re low damage and he has high recovery on everything. Zerk out-damages him,
out-speeds him, and has decent unblockable pressure + insane delay on his attacks. It’s very hard
for Cent to defend against a competent Berserker. You just try to chip him down and hope a few
heavies slip through his guard at the right timings.
● Warlord: ​Warlord versus Cent is hard for the Cent mainly because nothing he has pressures as
much as Headbutt and Crashing Charge. Cent has 600ms dodge recovery, which means he can’t
punish Warlord headbutt on reaction every time, only on prediction. Thankfully, Warlord can’t
punish Cent kick either, because of buffered heavy on GB read and his lack of a dodge attack.
Kick won’t hit much, but it’s something. Warlord’s damage values are low, as are Cent’s, but
Warlord is able to land more attacks vs Cent than Cent is vs him. Probably about a 7-3 matchup
for Warlord. ​Outdated as of Crashing Charge removal. Warlord has no pressure now.
● Gladiator:​ I remain convinced that Glad is the perfect character to shut down Centurion when it
comes to his moveset - however, thankfully his ridiculously short guard helps Cent out a lot in
this matchup. Glad’s offense is perfectly designed to shut down Centurion, focused mainly
around unblockables, meaning he can’t turtle up against him. Glad zone is completely safe
against Centurion due to the lack of dodge attacks, meaning he can just zone and regain stamina,
zone and regain stamina, mixing it up with guard breaks every once in a while to catch someone
looking to dodge the zone. His 20 damage dodge attacks mean Cent really, really needs to watch
 his usage of his bash attacks, but thankfully there is some saving grace in this matchup. Cent’s
variably timed heavies are very difficult for Glad to deal with due to the duration of his reflex
guard, meaning that a decent amount of heavies will get through him for 25 damage. It’s very,
very hard as a matchup, but it’s maybe a 7-3 rather than an 8-2 like PK or Conq are at equal skill.

Hard, But Doable

● Kensei:​ Kensei vs Cent is a pretty interesting matchup, as Kensei has a lot of tools but they can
all be reacted to aside from Pommel Strike. The Cent needs to play this matchup very
mechanically well, and making sure to get hard reads on the Kensei all the while. Watching for
top heavy soft feint into side heavy instead of side light, for example, is something you can’t
afford to be hit by in this matchup. Kensei players will generally always keep their guard top
because that’s where the majority of their mixups come from, so if you’re expecting a zone
always watch the guard. Kensei is solid guard, so he has to show the direction his guard is which
makes the heavy rather than zone mixup fairly useless - if he moves his guard to where the zone
comes, the Kensei is usually going to heavy. Don’t parry in this case, Kensei’s heavies are too
damaging to afford a mistake like that. However, if his guard is top, you can parry on indicator
from the zone’s side. As usual, Cent can’t kick or punch freely in this matchup due to Swift
Strike. In my experiences playing against Kensei players, it’s about 5-5, maybe 6-4 for Kensei in
the case of playing the true best Kensei players. ​Outdated. Kensei is not a good duelist.
● Shaolin:​ Shaolin struggles slightly vs Centurion simply because he has solid guard, but he
doesn’t struggle with much else in this matchup. Bashes get dodge attacked if you use them, chip
damage is outclassed by actual, unreactable mixups, and 400ms light chains on top of that make
this a rather easy matchup for Shaolin. Very hard to do well in this one, unless your reads are on
point. ​Outdated. Dodge buff makes this almost trivial for Centurion.
● Orochi (Post May 17th Patch): ​Another hero I tested in duels with ​Skorbrand​, Orochi is the
same as PK in that the community as a whole (competitive players nonwithstanding)
underestimated him very, very much. Orochi gets easy access to 400ms tri-directional lights, and
has very versatile chains. His potential to catch a Cent going for a parry with a heavy in place of a
light that you can only react to indicator on (unless you’re bodrat or some other inhuman reaction
time having person) is huge and his pretty decent punish numbers around the board mean that
Cent gets punished hard for the Orochi guessing right on a heavy timing or parrying a light,
getting 22 damage on a heavy parry and 35 for a light. Storm Rush is worse of a tool than we
 imagined, as the lights after Storm Rush can’t be delayed properly, and Riptide Strike is pretty
bad as well, but Orochi more than makes up for it in pure speed, versatile chains, and mixups.
Skor won this duel 19-13 vs my Cent, and I suspect that had there been a better Orochi player
against me (no offense to Skor, he admitted himself he’s a trash Orochi and duelist) it would’ve
likely ended up around 24-8 or 25-7. ​Outdated. 5-5 matchup with more time against Orochi
than when I wrote this. Neither has a way to hurt the other significantly.
● Tiandi: ​Cent has no way to punish Tiandi’s Palm Strike consistently, so he pretty much
automatically loses this matchup. Tiandi’s defense isn’t great, however, and as such he has no
real way to defend vs Centurion’s chip damage onslaught, his dodge light will get caught because
of the low i-frames and his dodge heavy is vulnerable to soft feint GB. Chip damage is the only
real way Cent stands a chance here.
● Shaman: ​Shaman vs Cent is actually fairly even in my eyes, but her having a usable offense even
if it’s quite risky tips the scale slightly in her favor. Shaman heavies are very difficult to parry due
to the multitude of options she has coming out of one (Bleed Soft feint, GB Soft feint, Hard feint)
and her bash is actually usable. Again, one of the characters who has a dodge attack that actually
does pretty good damage, so that crosses off any options with kick and jab. However, with some
practice her offense is rather easy to beat in 1v1s, and as such I don’t think this is that uneven of a
matchup. ​Outdated. Shaman wins by virtue of true unreactable offense that does actual
damage, different to Centurion’s unreactable offense that does none. Same HP means she
kills him faster than he can kill her.
● Peacekeeper (Post May 17th Patch):​ I overestimated PK, while she remains decent in 1v1 she’s
a lot easier to deal with than I thought with Cent. I dueled ​Setmyx​, the best 1v1 PK, and came out
on top 11-5, and won an earlier duel vs ​Skorbrand​’s PK 20-9 as well. She still regains many of
her strengths, like very fast chained lights, her punishes have been downgraded to just decent
level rather than ridiculous level, her dodge distance on the side is still very far, and her zone is a
great tool against Cent’s heavies as he cannot parry or block it if PK zone parries on light timing.
However, her kit still suffers from not really having an opener to speak off, and dagger cancel is
easier to deal with now that I’ve put some time into the matchup. Her lights and heavy soft feint
to GB and just raw heavies aren’t enough to open up the bleed soft feint, you can reliably block or
react to everything else she does and just go for parries on dagger cancel, and now she doesn’t
have the punishes to justify a bad offense. Cent got a big benefit from the nerfs in this matchup,
and that is that he is now immune to PK soft feinting her heavy to GB to catch a parry attempt
because of the new standardized time (400ms into the heavy) that PK can soft feint into GB from
 her heavies, meaning he can parry on light timing and be safe from one of her options, albeit still
vulnerable to a raw heavy. A bit easier of a matchup for Cent now, but a decently hard one
nonetheless. ​Outdated. Trash hero.
● Highlander:​ Highlander’s strength comes in his Offensive Stance, his 400ms dodges in it
allowing him to punish most everything in the game unless the opponent can get him out of it.
Just so happens that Cent can’t - his hitboxes and range are very small, and his recoveries are
incredibly high. Nothing Cent does can get him out of Offensive Stance, meaning Highlander gets
to just roll all over him, right? Not necessarily. Cent is one of the few characters in the game that
can simply walk backwards vs Highlander Kick and react to the Caber Toss mixup, rendering a
large part of Highlander’s OS mixups useless. However, the fact still remains that Highlander
can’t be taken out of Offensive Stance and Cent gets heavily punished for trying to hit him out of
it. And, thanks to the “​sl0ppynoodles ​tech” (​https://i.imgur.com/O27eLtB.gifv​) ​Highlander has
a safe way of getting big damage onto the Cent. About 7-3, maybe 6-4 considering the fact that
Cent can react to Kick/Caber Toss but can’t really do anything to get HL out of Offensive Stance.
● Nuxia: ​Nuxia is in this category purely because her 400ms light chains are really, really damn
good, and are a better offense than anything Cent has with the flexibility of them and the
relatively good damage. Nuxia only struggles in starting up her light chains vs the solid guard of
Centurion, and a lack of defensive options leave her with no defense against the chip damage of
Cent. She can still be lighted out of her traps, just like with almost every other character.
Winnable matchup.

Easily Winnable (But Highly Annoying)

Bit of a special category reserved for two characters that are pretty awful to fight as Cent, even if they’re
not particularly good vs him.
 ● Lawbringer: ​Horrible character in 1v1, yes, but block shove prevents Cent from freely taking as
much chip as he wants from Lawbringer. However, even though he has block shove, if he does it
on a neutral heavy, Cent can bypass it by doing a chained heavy and then react to whatever he
was going to do off of the shove, resulting in you potentially getting even more from the shove.
Lawbringer has huge parry punishes on heavy and light parry means that if Lawbringer guesses
correctly on one heavy timing near a wall (and most duel maps are small enough for Impale >
Wallsplat to connect) he gets 50 damage, the equivalent to two parries for Cent. Lawbringer still
isn’t good enough to beat Cent, because he relies on something that can’t be assured, but he
forces Cent to turtle up just as much as Lawbringer does. Not a losing matchup for Centurion,
rather just a very boring and long matchup. ​Outdated. Lawbringer is a good 1v1 duelist and
only needs 1 parry to essentially win the matchup.

● Shugoki: ​Shugoki’s passive hyper armor makes getting Cent’s chip damage in an absolute chore,
and good Shugoki players will light you out of your GB’s to get the hyper armor down.
Thankfully Cent’s parry counter eats Goki hyper armor on parries and still stuns for the heavy
afterwards, so this is a decent matchup for Cent if he parries the attempts to light him out of his
gb. Shugoki’s lack of a dodge attack and poor dodge recovery helps as well, allowing him to kick
as much as he wants when armor is down. Much with Lawbringer, it’s quite winnable for Cent,
just very, very annoying to play. ​Outdated as of the rework.

Easily Winnable

● Nobushi: ​Nobushi does not particularly have any tools to defeat Centurion offensively, and while
her Hidden Stance beats out Cent’s punches and kicks, he can vary his heavy timing if he knows
she is going to try and use Hidden Stance to avoid chip damage and catch her out with a heavy.
This matchup basically comes down to how strong the Cent is mechanically, as with many other
matchups, and how good he is at reading when the Nobu is going to attempt a Hidden Stance
when she is about to be hit by a heavy. ​Nobushi can use the Hidden Stance option select on Cent
heavies, yeah, but only on the uncharged ones. If she does use it, the Cent may get caught by it
once or twice before they (hopefully) wisen up and begin to charge their heavies to hit the Nobu
while she's in Hidden Stance and before she goes into any attack to try and interrupt the Cent out
of his heavy (even though she wouldn't be able to anyways, nothing she has is fast enough to get
 through a half charged Cent heavy if she's option selecting it).

Nobu also can't dodge out of Hidden Stance to try and avoid the half charged heavy because of
the existence of soft feint into GB catching that, though she can read that with Sidewinder or
Cobra Strike I believe and make it somewhat safe for her to dodge out, but even then the Cent
can't really get punished for whiffing the first heavy because a buffered chained heavy will stop
any GB attempt from the Nobu. ​Fairly winnable for Cent, but a very good Nobushi may be able
to take this from him.

● Raider: ​With the latest batch of reworks, Raider is left alone with Aramusha down at the very
bottom against Cent. His “mixups” will never land on any competent player, regardless of if
they’re Cent or not, and he has no real ways to stop Cent from chipping him out. The only thing
he has in this matchup is dodge GB beating out kick chaining into heavy and guaranteeing GB on
jabs, but that’s about it.

● Jiang Jun: ​Centurion has nothing stopping him from backwalking into backdodging JJ’s
unblockable, left dodging his kick mixup, and chipping him to death. JJ’s lights are slow, being
500-500 in chain, and his zone attack is predictable and reactable. ​Outdated. Same situation as
Lawbringer.

● Aramusha: ​Ah, finally, the absolute joke of a hero known as Aramusha. His only decent tool in
this matchup is the fact that he has 500ms dodges to give him guaranteed GB on dodging the
uncharged jab. Aside from that, everything he can do is easily reactable and is essentially handing
the Centurion player free damage, and like the others, he can do nothing to stop the Cent from
chipping him down. Aramusha should never defeat a Centurion (or any character, for that matter.)

Proposed Changes
What would I do to make Cent an overall better hero on the tier list, and more enjoyable to play as and
against? It’s a fairly common question I see or get, and while I don’t think he needs a full on Kensei level
rework, he needs more love than just a small HP buff and a light heavy chain. So, here’s what I’d like to
give him.
Buffs/Adjustments:

Standardize light timing in chain to 500ms. Opener lights stay the same, chained light
does 17, finisher top light does 20.
Speed up Eagle's Fury in lock to 800ms to confirm it on light parry for a 35 damage light
parry punish, not great but better than the joke of one he has now.
Allow kick to be performed 100ms into dodge, instead of 300ms, keep the actual kick
itself at 600ms. It doesn't need to be a new Conq bash because it's harder to punish.
Zone now feintable after first and second swing.
Uncharged jab is now 600ms, down from 700ms, with 800ms recovery, up from 700ms,
but can chain into a light, making it like Nobushi kick - have to read to get a punish on it
or risk eating a light.
Chain finisher heavy works like Nobu hidden stance heavy, it confirms a light jab if
blocked or landed. Forces a reaction vs oos opponents, still pretty weak to dodge roll if
the enemy has stam. I'd like to see how dodge roll changes effect this before saying if it'd
be too strong or weak.
Cent can now feint his charged unblockable heavy 200ms before the parry timing.
Charged punch now tracks early dodges, has wallsplat property that guarantees charged
finisher heavy into uncharged jab for 40 damage, similar to Highlander kick into caber
and rewards Centurions who position well.

Nerfs/Power Redistribution:

Light after jab deals 10 damage.

Fully charged punch only knocks down an oos opponent.
Eagle's Talons does 40 damage rather than 35 to compensate the blanket nerf to the
combo, this will give him actual oos pressure too as the risk of eating 70 damage from the
unblockable finisher will actually force a reaction when the opponent is OOS.
Stamina drain values dropped across the board.
Centurion's own stamina is nerfed by 20 points, but is given Glad stamina regen time.
 First part of zone no longer guaranteed off kick.

I believe the changes proposed here are the best ways to go about making Centurion more fun to play,
however, my only concern about this is that this would only really significantly raise his strength in duels,
leaving him still barely passable in dominion and brawls. To make him more powerful in those modes, I
believe reducing the recoveries he has on his finishers is a good place to start. Giving him more range on
attacks as well would help, such as returning the old distance he had on charged heavy openers to 5m
from 4.25 as it is now. He’d be a bit similar to Conq in teamfights currently, maybe a little better because
of high damage relatively quick attacks to punish people going for any damage on your teammates. But as
I said - similar to Conq, where in the initial fight he can’t do a ​ton,​ but still has his uses, and becomes
rather decent in them once he reaches Tier 2 (Haymaker). Speaking of feats, Cent has a few
underpowered feats specific to him I’d like to change. Namely, Centurion’s March, and Phalanx.
Centurion’s March would be a fairly simple fix, where it gives everyone on the team unlimited stamina
for a certain duration - perhaps at the cost of Cent’s own stamina, like Tiandi’s tier two feat.
It’d be interesting to see if this would be used over Haymaker, though I could see it becoming a
Zerker-esque feat situation where you can run Revenge Attacks or Bear Trap and experience almost no
drop off in viability depending on your playstyle. As for Phalanx, the duration is very short as of now,
making it strictly worse than Catapult. The change is easy, doubling the duration from 10s to 20s. It’d
become very strong in late game situations especially, essentially guaranteeing a won fight in double
breaking scenarios - hell, in any team fight, really. Increasing the cooldown of it a small amount would be
a pretty good way to balance it out, forcing the Cent to be smart with their Phalanx usage. With these
changes, and a small nerf to Second Wind, Cent could potentially have two completely different feat
loadouts that are both just as viable - Body Count, Centurion’s March, Pugio, Phalanx for a more
team-oriented style, and Bounty Hunter, Haymaker, Second Wind, and Catapult for a more DPS, solo,
1v1er sort of style.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Cent isn’t really a viable character in any mode, other than a meme mode
tournament like 2v2 with feats enabled, and even then, his role is better done by someone like Highlander,
but discussing 2v2 feats enabled isn’t the point of this guide. However, he can be made to work decently
well against a fairly wide array of characters in 1v1 if you have the experience and skill to back up the
character, but unfortunately, there are some matchups that are nearly impossible to win with him. Do I
recommend playing Centurion? No. But if you must do it for whatever reason, this guide should’ve had
everything you need to at least make a base to succeed with Cent. Thanks for reading.