For Honor 2.69.0 Reworks Juren, Orochi, and Varangian Guard

Ubisoft published For Honor patch 2.69.0 on July 23, 2026. The update adds a new Hero Lore section to the Barracks, revisits the kits of Berserker, Jiang Jun, Juren, Orochi, Sohei, and Varangian Guard, and fixes several gameplay, visual, and audio issues.

The balance pass focuses heavily on team-fight interactions. Berserker and Orochi lose parts of their dodge-based safety, Juren receives changes to several dodge attacks, and Varangian Guard has tighter chain timings. The patch also includes a note that Lion’s Fury’s moveset display will not match its new behavior until a patch next season.

The complete notes are available through Ubisoft’s official For Honor patch notes.

For Honor Patch 2.69.0 Notes

New Feature

• Hero Lore – Visit the Barracks to view a new Lore section for each Hero. Look forward to more content in future updates!

Balancing Changes

Berserker

• Spin Chop was adjusted as follows:
  • Attack is now Enhanced.
  • Cannot be cancelled via Dodge Recovery
  • Can only chain on a miss from 33-300ms (down from 0-300ms).

Spin Chop was too strong in team fights. By removing Dodge Cancel, Spin Chop becomes more punishable in group fights. To compensate for the increased risk, if the opponent chooses to block the attack instead parry, Berserker will still be able to enter their chains.

The timing change for chaining on a miss fixes an issue where Berserker could chain on a miss when running out of Stamina after Spin Chop was started.

Jiang Jun

• Can now perform Light Openers from 300 to 900ms during Front Dodge.

Jiang Jun could already perform Top Light openers during Front Dodge, so we adjusted the behavior to be more intuitive by also supporting Side Light openers. This will also help protect Mighty Sanction by forcing players to be aware of attacks coming from other directions.

Juren

• Lion’s Pounce (Side) has been adjusted as follows:
  • Attack is now Enhanced
  • Miss/Hit/Block recovery reduced to 700ms (down from 800ms)
  • Good Block recovery reduced to 700ms (down from 900ms)
• Lion’s Fury (Side) has been adjusted as follows:
  • Miss recovery reduced to 700ms (down from 1100ms)
  • Hit/Block recovery reduced to 700ms (down from 800ms)
  • Interrupt Block recovery reduced to 700ms (down from 900ms)
  • Attack has been adjusted as follows:
• Speed is now 600ms (from 900ms)
• Is not feintable
• Has standardized Dodge timing (from 100-300ms)
• Is vulnerable to Guardbreak from 0-200ms (down from 0-533ms)
  • Damage reduced to 16 (down from 22)
  • Counts as a Light Parry
• Defiant Swipe has been adjusted as follows:
  • No longer has Uninterruptible Stance
  • Is now Enhanced

Juren remained too strong after all the recent changes, so we’ve adjusted the biggest pain points in his kit.

Lion’s Fury (Side) could be used as an offensive tool to mix up your opponent in situations where most characters only have defensive tools. We’ve reworked the move to have the same attack timing as Lion’s Pounce (Side), ensuring opponents can defend both attacks at the same timing. Other changes make the attack more in line with Dodge Attacks with similar timing (damage, guardbreak vulnerability, parry punish and so on). It remains a good damage option to punish opponents, with the wider trajectory for team fights. Juren players will now have to be more mindful when deciding to use the attack.
To go with these changes, we’ve reverted Lion’s Pounce (Side) to be Enhanced. It no longer needs to be a weaker dodge attack, ensuring Juren can go on offense even if blocked. In addition, for both Side Dodge Attacks, we’ve standardized the recovery timing to ensure Guardbreak is not guaranteed after blocking the attacks.

Lastly – we’ve removed Uninterruptible Stance from Defiant Swipe as it was too reliable to trade with enemies once a red indicator was shown. While there was counter-play, it was too dominant at all levels of play. To compensate, the attack is now enhanced, reducing the disadvantage after the attack connects.

Note

We are aware that the moveset for Lion’s Fury is not representative of this new behavior. This will be resolved in the patch next season.

Orochi

• Zephyr Slash has been adjusted as follows:
  • Attack is now Enhanced
  • Recovery cannot be cancelled with Dodge
• Zone Attack has been adjusted as follows:
  • Trajectory has been adjusted to have slightly less reach to the left and front.
  • Pushes opponents less on block.
• Wind Gust
  • Input changed from Light to Heavy
• Kunai (Feat 2) has been adjusted as follows:
  • Cooldown increased to 60s (up from 30s)
  • Damage increased to 20s (up from 15s)
  • Projectile is thrown at 600ms in the animation (up from 400ms)
  • Total recovery increased to 500ms (up from 200ms)

Zephyr Slash was too strong in team fights. By removing recovery cancellation via Dodge, Zephyr Slash becomes more punishable in group fights. To compensate for the increased risk, if the opponent chooses to block the attack instead of parrying, Orochi will still be able to enter their chains.

Zone Attack was still too safe to use, so its trajectory was adjusted to create fewer phantom hits. The reduced pushback on a block makes Zone Attack slightly easier to punish.

Wind Gust’s input was changed from Light to Heavy, so players cannot option-select by pressing Side Dodge + Light. Before, if the deflect occurred, Wind Gust would trigger. If not, then Zephyr Slash would trigger. This is no longer the case.

Lastly, Kunai was adjusted to deal more damage, but its cooldown was extended to compensate. We also changed when the projectile appears to give more time for the opponent to react and additionally extended the recovery time so that Orochi cannot always prevent the counterattack if the opponent successfully dodges the Feat.

Sohei

• Eye of the Demon (Feat 1): Defense Debuff reduced to 20% (down from 25%)
• Ancillary Might (Feat 3): Damage Buff reduced to 20% (down from 25%).

Sohei has been performing much better since the previous update. We toned down some of the Feats’ values to compensate for the increase in power across his kit.

Varangian Guard

• Sellsword’s Valor has been adjusted as follows:
  • Removed Crushing Counter
  • Can evade attacks from 0-300ms
  • Can be performed during Side Dodge from 200-400ms (down from 100-400ms)
• Sellsword’s Bounty: Can be performed during Front Dodge from 200-500ms (up from 100-500ms)
• Oathkeeper Spiral: Has more forward movement.
• Delayable Chain Timing has been reduced by 100ms on Hit, Miss and Block for the following attacks:
• Light Openers
  • on miss/hit: 200-300ms (down from 200-400ms)
  • on block: 300ms (down from 300-400ms)
• Heavy Openers
  • on miss/hit/block: 200-400ms (down from 200-500ms)
• Allegiant Charge
  • on miss/hit: 200-300ms (down from 200-400ms)
  • on block: 300-400ms (down from 300-500ms)
• Allegiant Spiral
  • on miss/hit/block: 200-300ms (down from 200-400ms)
• Hjaldr Oathkeeper
  • on miss/hit: 200-300ms (down from 200-400ms)
  • on block: 300ms (down from 300-400ms)
• Sellsword’s Bounty
  • on miss/hit: 200-300ms (down from 200-400ms)
  • on block: 300ms (down from 300-400ms)
• Sellsword’s Valor
  • on miss/hit: 200-300ms (down from 200-400ms)
  • on block: 300ms (down from 300-400ms)

Varangian Guard has been over-performing for a long time. The goal of these changes is to reduce the egregious aspects of the kit while keeping the Hero’s identity.

Sellsword’s Valor was too strong: it evaded attacks, counterattacks, helped to reposition, and could also Crushing Counter (sometimes unintentionally in team fights). We removed its Crushing Counter properties and standardized its evasive properties like other Dodge Attacks.

Sellsword’s Bounty will now come out later from Front Dodge to reduce its potency as a peel tool in team fights.

Oathbreaker Spiral could occasionally miss the intended target, so we increased its forward movement to prevent this.

Lastly, we shortened how late players chain to Light Finishers. This made it very difficult to punish Varangian Guard in team fights as some players could react very late to counter-play. Now, Varangian Guard will have to commit to a choice earlier.

Bug Fixes

Audio

• Berserker (Feat 4): Reduced the volume of Berserker’s Feat.

Balancing

• Khatun: Blood Wrath
  • Fixed an issue that caused Bloody Wrath to not cause a wall stagger on release when hitting a victim in 1st hit-stun state.
• Jiang Jun: Dou Shi’s Choke
  • Fixed an issue that caused Dou Shi’s Choke to not cause a wall stagger when hitting a victim in 1st hit-stun state.
• Lawbringer: Side Final Jurisdiction
  • Fixed the rotation during the strike portion of Side Final Jurisdiction that caused phantom hits. Now, Lawbringer will turn towards their target, and the trajectory will behave correctly.
• Juren: Attack Indicators
  • Fixed an issue that caused Juren’s attack indicators to be prioritized when performed directly after another player’s indicator.

VFX

• Bloody Rage
  • Fixed the VFX of the Bloody Rage effect that was misaligned for the female Hitokiri model when equipping certain Helms.

Gameplay

• Game Session Freeze
  • Fixedissues where the game would freeze before being kicked from the match (error 0006000118)

Tell us what you think of the Hero changes in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram for more gaming news.