My analysis of the Lawbringer, and suggested tweaks.
I really like the idea behind the law bringer (hence forth LB). It's a very versatile class in game modes, and it gives you a lot of options to take out opponents.
The virtues of the LB really shine in gamemodes where one fights against Bots. But the versatility and enjoyment of the class stops there.
Any experienced player, will quickly notice that for the LB to do damage he needs to either start off with a light attack, that will always be followed with a heavy attack, or start with a heavy attack that will be followed with a light attack. But in each case one can either simply take the first hit (light to heavy) and just jump back, or dodge/block or even parry (since it’s so incredibly slow that a blind person could time it) and then jump back. The other way for the LB to start an attack, is by blocking into a shove, or starting with a shove and then followed by either a heavy/light or a guard break. Now going from a shove into a light attack does so little damage, and isn’t guaranteed, that it is simply not worth spending the stamina to do it. Shove into heavy is equally disastrous because it can simply be dodged by rolling back. And I’m not even talking about the top heavy, which grants you the LB special feature of blinding your opponent.
You may see a pattern here; dodge-rolling evades almost every strong attack a LB makes. And this does not only go for the light/agile classes. The only way to counteract this is to go from a shove into a guard break. But when the only real option to do damage is to do the same thing over and over one’s opponent won't fall for it. And now that the guardbreak is going to be fixed, this option seems even less viable. Since while they could simply dodgeroll away, they will surely break your guard break. Now this may give you the option of choosing between shove to guard break, or shove into heavy, but this would only be slightly better, if it wasn’t for the fact that there is an even better remedy to guard-breaks or heavy attacks after a shove, and that is to simply always dodge-rolling after a shove. If you dodge-roll after you’ve been shoved you are out of all danger immediately. So as in the case of all the LB's attacks, simply dodge-roll back and the LB can’t do anything. Lure him into attacking a couple of times and he's out of stamina, and you can launch your attack.
Even though I’m well aware that the game has only been out for a few days, I’ve had the opportunity to play it a lot in those days. I am not the top LB in the world, but being prestige rank 2 should count at least for something. In Player vs AI I make full use of all the abilities of my class, and I’ve played it for over 20 hours.
So what would I suggest to improve the LB?
Ok, let’s start at the top. “Book, chapter and verse” seems to be a fine combo. But, since it does not result in a 2nd or 3rd unblockable (or special in some other way) attack, the speed of its second attack should be slightly increased. When it comes to “Judge, Jury and executioner” its speed seems fine, even though only a fool would be unable to avoid it. Speeding that attack up would make it too unfair I believe. A possible tweak might be to allow for an extra light attack (so an optional light attack to trick the opponent, which can then still allow you to fire off the unblockable) or extend the combo time (that is, not the time it takes to fire off the combo, but rather extend the time in which pressing RMB will still count as part of the combo) for either both the first and the second RMB or just one of them.
Then we come to “Swift Justice” and “Swift Justice Finisher”. I haven’t timed this but this attack is anything but swift. It is on par with all the other attacks of the LB, and the “finisher” version is absolutely unlandable. No opponent would be caught by 4 slow hits by a LB. They would have either blocked, parried (which, as I mentioned before is particularly easy with the LB) or dodged away already. Now, dodging still allows you to finish the attack, but its range is just too short to be able to catch anyone.
Since the LB doesn’t have the ability to do significant weapon dmg to experienced players, he is forced to use his “Impaling charge”, and “Impaling Reposte” to corner their opponents. But when he does, it drains soo much stamina that he can only shoot off 1 heavy and a light before he becomes exhausted. Moreover, and more importantly, in both cases the impalement does almost no damage to his foe. If you wish to keep the stamina drain, then at least make the impalement more damaging, and add a little more damage, or a blind, if the charge ends in the opponent being bashed against an object (not a damaging object, but a wall or something). If not, then significantly decrease the drain on stamina that the charge inflicts on the LB.
Now we come to “Blind justice”. Blind justice is a fine ability, and makes use of LB’s ability to blind people when they are hit in the head. But as I mentioned before its requirement to parry is simply not worth it. Parrying is simply not part of LB’s regular gameplay because it doesn’t open up useful attacks. Impaling riposte just does not do enough damage. Now, you might say “well then it should be part of your play style.” And then I’d say, very well, but why does the attack need to be from the top? Not to mention the fact that it is just as easily dodged by simply rolling back, or just dodging to the side, due to the fact that it’s incredibly slow.
Light Reposte and make way are fine abilities, don’t change anything there.
“The Long arm” The long arm is a cool ability, but it only guarantees a light hit after your opponent is hit by it. And so I’d take a guard break instead any day. Now you can go from a “Long arm” into a guard break, but I find that this is often countered for some reason.
Now we come to the “shove”. Shove is in my opinion only useful for going into a guard break, even though any experienced player will know to dodge right after a shove. The way to solve this problem seems to me to allow for a quick unblockable attack, or a couple of light attacks (the first of which is guaranteed). This would provide the shove with more versatility which will make its use less predictable.
And lastly, the LB is wielding a polearm. It may not be a fast weapon, but it is a weapon with an incredible amount of range, range that should easily cover a dodge-roll. If not a dodge-roll then it should surely be able to hit someone who dodges to the right when my unblockable attack comes from the right, if not from the left as well (though probably less severely). Since the LB’s focus is on starting with, or employing a lot of, shoves, parrying attacks are almost completely out of the question. Not only that, in the case of the LB he needs to first parry, and then move to a top position before he can do Blind Justice. Parrying, then, is even more riskier than for other classes.
Now these suggestions may not work, or may require far too much tweaking to estimate whether it would be balanced. So what I suggest instead is for you to do only one of 2 things. Either you increase the range of the LB’s attacks, which seems reasonable since he’s using a polearm. Or you increase the speed of his attacks to be almost on par with the Kensei (not my favourite option).
And in either case, make sure that swiping unblockable attacks are not dodgable in the direction that they are come from, only the opposite direction. This may seem to be unbalanced, but we all know that unblockable does not equal unparryable.
In conclusion, I'd like to say that I really love your game, but as it stands now I get far too frustrated when playing the LB. He is supposed to be difficult, but when I compare it with the Valkyrie he's far more difficult to play, even though you've already announced improvements to the Valkyrie. Which I find absolutely unnecessary if I'm completely honest.
Thanks for reading this, I put some time and thought into this analysis.
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