Feinting is a large part of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. While some consider feinting cheap, it is by feinting that decides an attackers offense, and a defenders defense.

We all fall victim to feints. They copy the animation of a normal attack and by time it is too late to tell the difference, you will probably have parried. This is normal, and even high level players block to them – but there are ways to reduce your vulnerability to feints, and I will go in to them now.

The first method is by double parrying. Double parrying is the most common method used by players and is known as an escape. I call an escape a way to avoid attacks and not needed otherwise, which is exactly what a double parry is.

This escape is only performed when you fall victim to a feint. The key to this escape is that when you parry to the feint, your goal is to parry again, to stop the next attack following up from the feint. This can only work if you make them delay their attack, by making them move their attack long enough – a way to do this is by running forward and then after a second, running back.

Then, the next time you need to double parry, you can do this again but the opposite way. The goal is to make them delay their attack by tricking them on your position, it is possible to double parry the same way as last time, but they will already know where you’ll move, which will reduce their delay and make your double parry harder, so it is recommended to swap your trick delay (as I like to call them) to further confuse your opponent, and will make sure that you always have a standing chance to double parry.

Of course, as the goal of a double parry escape is to parry again, being able to perform one will depend on how far you blocked to their feint, for example if you blocked just as they feinted, you will more than likely not be able to double parry again – however, if you do something known as early parrying, you may just be able to. This is the second method, a riskier alternative that, when not countered, will guarantee you a double parry.

Early parrying, in my opinion, is a great way to avoid having to combat feints – but it is also a far riskier way. It is a gamble, and a good or bad one depending on who your opponent is.

The goal of early parrying is to be able to double parry if they feint, and to block their attack if they do not feint – this is where the risky part comes in, if they drag their regular attack and you early parry, you will get hit.

Player 1 blocks to Player 2 just as he begins a stab, and Player 2 feints the stab. Player 2 is confused on what to do now, because he is not used to seeing opponents parry early. He follows up with a regular attack, but he is already out of time as Player 1 can parry again.

Now Player 2 thinks, “Hmm.. how about I drag my attack and hit him that way?”.. he attacks Player 1 again, this time not feinting, but dragging. Player 1 early parries like earlier, but now his parry is down, and the dragged attack from Player 2 finally connects, “Yes!” Player 2 exclaims.

This is the risk. You sacrifice a chance of losing health to be able to block the feint, keeping your health stable, and reducing the stamina of your opponent if they feint after you early parry.

You don’t have to early parry. You can just try and read the animation and if you fail to and block to a feint, you can try double parry normally. You don’t need to take the early parry risk, but if the other player isn’t aware on you early parrying, it is probably best to keep doing it.

If you feint an opponent, then you will lose nearly 1/4 bars, and they will have lost health depending on whether or not your attack following your feint was blocked or not and the weapon that you have – if you feint with a maul, and they block the attack after, you will have just lost stamina (this is why double parrying is very good if performed correctly), whereas if you feint with a longsword, and then attack after and hit your opponent, you will have lost stamina BUT they will have lost health. Mixing up your attacks and feints while watching your stamina management is really how you win. If you feint in the same place each time (combo-overhead for example), then you will (probably) be gambled (or predicted as some may say) because you do it each time and then you will be hit before, or after you feint, and they won’t block. Now if you, for example, do 3 combo-stab feints with longsword and then do a normal combo-stab, then you will have set your opponent off guard, because he would have expected your last attack to be a feint as well, if you just feinted the last 3 other attacks – this is tricking them and making them think you’ll do one thing, when you will do another. You should play around with this.

The last thing I will cover is feint-to-parry. Feint-to-parry (more commonly known as FTP/ftp) is a dangerous utility used to avoid health loss, at the cost of stamina. It is performed during the windup of an attack by right clicking twice, to feint your first right click, and parry on your second right click (if you have a FTP bind, which most people do, you will only need to right click once). It is used if you make a mistake on the timing of your attack. Like if I do a stab and the player avoids it by running back, and comes back in to punish me for missing, I can feint-to-parry to parry when he attacks. I will lose stamina from this, and depending on how the fight is going, have less or still more than my opponent – but I will not have lost health. The same applies if you begin your attack but your opponent attacks before you, forcing you to feint-to-parry or to take the hit.

I try holding back on feint-to-parry a lot and try and time my attacks better – because if you time your attacks better and are accurate, and don’t have to rely on FTP to save you, you won’t have lost any stamina, and won’t have lost any health. But sadly, there are cases when you will have timed your attack well but still be forced to FTP, like if you stab and they do a backswing (when they put their back to you and swing, causing an instant attack) and you know that their attack is going to hit before yours, then that is fine. You can feint-to-parry that, you just need to try and avoid those situations by timing.

Aaaand that covers feinting. I hope my guide has made some sense to you.

Tyguy
Creator of chivalrytutorialsblog.wordpress.com