For Honor is a game with a troubled history, but it’s gotten a lot better since its release and quite a lot of fun to sit back and relax with when you want to beat people into the ground after a long day.
But some heroes are better at that than others, depending on the game mode. Duels, Brawls, and Dominion all have their top heroes, but Duel, in particular, is what we’re talking about today, the land of the 1v1 matches, no interruptions, (probably) no stage hazards, and no holds barred. These are the top Duel heroes based on previous consistent tournament results, in no particular order.
The Best 1v1 Duel Heroes
Shinobi
Shinobi is a rough class to play for a lot of beginners, with a moveset that is chock full of very cool, but equally impractical moves to pull off in a Duel scenario. But if you can separate the wheat from the chaff in its moveset, it can be a brutal combatant. It has speed in both movement and attacks, unpredictable change-ups (and some unblockable ones!), and even damage over time capability, making it a nightmare to fight against.
The name of the game is momentum: take the initiative, keep the initiative. If you lose it, you’re done for.
Berserker
Berserker is a lot like Shinobi, despite the vastly different aesthetics. It’s a hard and fast rush down fighter with brutal, high damaging changeups and unblockables that can steamroll an unprepared opponent. If your opponent gets careless and allows you to activate your trait, it’s easily curtains for them, since you now have a never-ending stream of completely unblockable handaxe attacks from any direction you choose.
Much like the Shinobi, however, interrupting that flow destroys any chance the Berserker has of winning a match.
Conqueror
The Conqueror is a bit of an odd duck: a very high tier, very consistently tournament viable character that wins off of one move. Your shield bash is a combination offensive and defensive tool used to interrupt your opponent’s flow and set up your damaging counterattack. Everything else with Conqueror is pure game sense, not mechanics: positioning, mind games, timing, and patience.
This makes them a very passive combatant, which puts them at a disadvantage against characters that can speed blitz them, but they’re incredibly good against several of the other top tier characters, including both of the above heroes.
Raider
One thing I appreciate about For Honor is that both of the starter characters are top tier characters. It makes the slow, grindy unlock system of the game feel like less of a chore when everyone starts with two of the best heroes in the game.
Raider is a very technical hero, despite the brutish demeanor of the character model. Spacing is especially crucial for the Raider as the long handled Axe they wield is deceptive; they live and die on their close range game. Heavy attacks are heavily telegraphed and thus easily parried, meaning an effective lead in with their very close range light attacks, and headbutt is the only way to set up to deal with their big damage attacks.
Easy to learn, hard to master is the name of the game with Raider, where you need to have both good basic game sense and intimate knowledge of how all of the hero’s mechanics work to make him shine, but when you get in the groove you can be nearly unstoppable.
Warden
Warden is my least favorite hero to play against, which is appropriate for a top tier hero. Warden is a very straightforward character, but that doesn’t make them any less deadly, particularly after their buffs last year. Warden’s main strength is being easy to play. Everybody starts with Warden, and everybody knows how to play them to some degree.
They have no glaring flaws or weaknesses for opponent’s to take advantage of though no standout strengths as well. They live and die on the quality of their mind games and mixups, which makes them somewhat similar to Shinobi and Berserker in that taking the initiative is how you stay ahead, and losing it puts you on the back foot.
Unlike those two, however, Warden is excellent at taking the initiative back from overly greedy opponents, giving them far greater comeback potential than those high risk, high reward combatants. Warden is one of the safe bet heroes, who’s good against pretty much everyone in the game and great against one of the best (Raider).
And that’s the list. Hopefully, it makes choosing the next hero you want to learn a little easier.
