Junior Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3ntZqpi_Qk
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Lawbringer was, by far, the class I was the most hyped to play. I was basically maining Conqueror to great success though both betas, and even now in release. Still, the style of the Lawbringer simply couldn't be beat. Thing is, while I do have some success with him, every fight with this dude seems to be a ridiculously uphill battle that can only be won if your enemy doesn't seem to understand that backdashing effectively shuts Lawbringer down completely.
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Damage - The Lawbringer's damage, as the video shows, is pretty pathetic. His heavies do absolutely pathetic damage, and because his overhead stuns, it does the same damage as a side heavy while still being slow enough to not be guaranteed off of a guard break. His moves are slow, predictable, and really don't post much of a threat. Every fight I've won with Lawbringer takes forever because I feel like I have to play super defensive and just chip people down with almost no guaranteed damage moves outside of a block -> shove -> light. No heavies are guaranteed unless you do the shove and then guard break someone who doesn't tech out of it, which is becoming more rare since people are starting to get the hang of the game.
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Stamina - For how little damage this guy does, he chews through stamina like no tomorrow. If you impale someone and charge, you lose about 80% of your stamina... and the charge can be blocked, unlike Raider or Shugoki, which is super annoying. Also, unlike the Raider, you don't get a free stun for hitting them into a wall, because you MIGHT get your overhead heavy off (for such little damage) to stun, but now you're out of stamina, and you have to play on the back foot again.
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Defense - He's listed as a heavy / vanguard hybrid, and while he has a decent health pool, his defensive options are limited to block into shove... that's it. A non damaging move that wrecks his stamina, nothing can be guaranteed off of it if your opponent back dashes, and if you do manage to get the GB, they can easily tech, as a lot of people do.
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Dominion - This is another problem I'm having with the Lawbringer. Because he takes forever to kill someone, they can just go, "**** it, I'm out" and run away with you having no recourse unless you want to chase them and impale them, losing all your stamina and then getting gang banged because after you impale, they just roll away and you've displaced yourself into a potential ****storm. Sitting on points seems to generate low renown, and trying to contest B is... weird. I feel like Lawbringer has awful minion clearing capabilities because you can't just keep hitting light attack, and his heavy attacks are slow and only target one guy. So while the real vanguards (Hell, even the flail whip zone attack from Conqueror does a great job without costing 60% stamina) are cutting a bloody swath, I'm just trying to 1v1 minions. No matter what role I'm trying to play in Dominion, I feel like I'm always falling way behind in levels.
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Summary - Lawbringer is great against people who don't know what he does, but once you realize that almost nothing is guaranteed with him, he can essentially be ruined. In duels and brawl, his only hope is to somehow grab you and throw you into a hazard, but lots of other characters have the same type of tricks to achieve this, so it's not really a strength.
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Also, after watching Cartoonz's Lawbringer video where he's wrecking people, the same issues persists; his opponents never seem to be able to tech out of grabs, or they simply sit there and eat follow up attacks which aren't guaranteed.
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If I'm wrong / misinformed, please tell me, though I hope you'll be respectful. I've put a lot of time into Lawbringer, despite it only being a couple of days, yet all my success with him feels like any other class I play would have ended the fight in 1/2 the time.
Member
Reputation 2 Lawbringer here with some more info for ya friend. 88% win rate in duels and brawls and 92% win rate in dominion. I don't count elimination and skirmish because A) I hate them and B) they're just gank fests with all the powerups.
He's pretty good kit-wise, but he's badly optimized. His damage is pretty low and could possibly use a bit of a boost, he's not very fast so that prevents him from being aggressive, and he's really just a non-optimized hybrid of other characters. On top of that, most of his parry attacks are too slow for guaranteed damage like either his parry>side heavy or parry>overhead unblockable.
But he has some good points!
--To counter your point in Dominion, all characters have different attacks against soldiers if you alternate your light and heavy attacks in certain patterns, some of which are much better. There's one with the Lawbringer I managed to do once with a huge sweeping unblockable, but I haven't been able to replicate it. However, his zone attack WRECKS soldiers all around him, making him one of the best to use the feat that heals you and gives stamina for killing soldiers.
--The key that I've found works against most people is to play mind games with them using your Shove ability. Since you're uninterruptible while using shove (and very shortly after, I've found, even if you're hit while ending your shove animation) you can use it to eat a light attack and start a combo. HERE'S WHERE MOST PEOPLE GET IT WRONG, they immediately try for a light or a heavy attack after shoving, but the key is to condition your opponent to react after shoves in a certain way. I personally do my first shove combo then use Long Arm and punish with a little light attack afterward. Because your camera gets all messed up if you get Long Armed, you can usually get in another heavy after a light attack that might be blocked, but not parried, meaning you can use the last heavy attack in your L>H>H combo which is unblockable and can catch some people off guard OR you can cancel it into a guard break for more damage. THEN, the next time you do shove instead of doing Long Arm, guard break them (unless they are an assassin). They will 9/10 go for a dodge, and even if they dodge backwards, you still get a range boost on your guard break and can grab them for free damage. Then you mix it up. People have NO idea how to deal with that right now.
--He doesn't stagger on normal blocks. At all. Mixing up parries and block>shoves can really mess with someone's rhythm and keep them off balance and unsure of how to attack you.
--When you want to go offensive, start with shove. Most of the time people won't react fast enough or if they do, will dodge backwards and even if you miss, you're somewhat safe.
--Something I've noticed is that lawbringer seems to recover from parries quicker than most characters. Not sure why, but I'm able to block certain attacks after getting parried that I shouldn't be able to block.
--Feinting is very important despite your small stamina pool. If you can bait someone to heavy attack you in response, you get a free parry and either a free light attack or a guard break. Train yourself to feint more than you attack. He's a defensive character so attacking directly is a no-no.
Got any extra questions? I know a lot about him at this point. <3
Junior Member
I think the problem isn't that the Lawbringer can't mixup, but moreso that it takes an absolutely horrendous amount of time to kill someone, and requires them to not understand that if you backdash out of his shove, he can't guard break you, or hit you with any moves. The shove drains some stamina, but there's absolutely no guaranteed damage to follow up after the strike, if the enemy back dashes, and it's very frustrating once people figure this out.
Again, I win duels and brawls with him, and my win rate with him in Dominion is not bad ONLY because I'm constantly shoving players while my teammates beat them like a drum. It's annoying for sure, but almost completely dependent on having your teammates do the damage, or throwing people into hazards if they don't dash out of your guard break attempts (which again, is very easy once people figure this out).
You're not wrong that the Lawbringer is good at playing mind games, but if you see that video I linked, I hit a Peacekeeper with 3 heavy attacks (one of which was a top heavy), and 2 light attacks, as well as 3 or 4 shoves, all of which drained her stamina, but also killed mine. She also had 1 full bar of life left, and a little bit of the second. If I had landed that many attacks on her with any other character, she would have been dead. The later part of that fight ended with a Warlord coming to help her, I got revenge, and they both just still beat me to death despite having my gear specced for revenge duration, revenge defense, and my weapon being almost all attack.
The spec for attack is what really annoyed me. To have a purple level 12 attack boosted weapon part did such pitiful damage to the lowest health pool, lowest defense class in the beginning of the Dominion match, so she didn't even have her damage mitigation ability yet (if she had it equipped).
So my point was that it's not that a Lawbringer cannot win a fight, but once people know your gimmick, you are completely at their mercy, and all you have is the hope that you can block into a shove, and hope they either mistime their dash so you can grab them, and THEN hope they don't tech the grab. All of his other moves are too slow and easily parried, save for maybe his top light, which does about 1/8th of one health segment.
Member
Thanks for this tips guys, because I really like the LB's design but I felt like he was REALLY predictable and the fact that he has no triple light chain kind of makes him... meh. I saw a video not long ago of a LB that had a guy up against the wall though, and boy let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. I know this is true for a lot of people, but it seems to me that LB shines when you have someone in the corner or on a wall. It's mixup city!
