Suggestions to increase viability of Lawbringer | Forums

[Tharrisonne]

Lawbringer, as most of us know, is not in a great spot right now. They're heavily reliant upon guard breaks to do any real damage, and the nerf coming next patch, while a great move for the health of the game, is going to hit Lawbringer harder than any other character.

Here are some reasons backing up my statement. Lawbringer has no defined identity other than "ledge guard king", which isn't even a completely accurate title. Their throw distance isn't as far as some other heroes, and their shove is a toned down version of Warlord's. You could also argue that it's a toned down version of Warden, Valkrye or Conqueror's, but I find Warlord's to be the closest as it's less of a "charge up" move and more of an immediate counter that can be used inbetween a combo. Warlord's headbutt comboes guarunteed into a light attack, which is a very powerful tool for them to have. I think it would be fair for this to apply to Lawbringer's as well, as currently he has no guarunteed comboes off of anything except a guard break or his flip.

Lawbringer's three hit combo is similar enough to Kensai's 3 hit combo to draw comparison. They both can be completed unless your opponent parries, and the third attack is unblockable. However, with how clunky Lawbringer's light attacks are and how slow his heavies are, combined with the inability to feign the attack, it's inferior to Kensai's in every way. Furthermore, their overhead parry response is easy to parry as well.

Lastly, the general stats regarding the character. He's incredibly slow, has few comboes, has mediocre damage, reach, and block switch timing, and the nerfs coming are going to hurt him especially bad due to his dependency on guard breaks.

My proposed solutions to this would be:
1: Make Lawbringer's shove combo into a light attack similar to Warlord's. This would open up a new attack combo, a void they so badly need filled.
2: Make Lawbringer's parries daze enemies, making his unblockable response harder to parry, while not making it unparryable. Similar to Kensai, this would reward skilled players who can time the ability through the daze.
3: Make Lawbringer's light attacks faster. Quite simply, it would open up more comboes similar to the shove change, which is something very necessary for him to keep up with his main combo source being nerfed.

[Tharrisonne]

Forums be dead, bump.

[TCTF_SWAT]

Kensei's unblockable isn't very good though.

[Tharrisonne]

Kensei's unblockable isn't very good though.

But his can be done after a gb into a wall guarunteed. No such luck for our law-loving friend

[PlagueGripes]

I really get the impression they won't do anything to him, and he'll just stay as the worst class for the rest of the game's life cycle. Someone has to be, after all. I doubt anyone of importance even reads these threads. They probably just look at their internal numbers and do what they want. They ignored the alpha feedback of LB, which was all negative, so I doubt they'll do anything about him now.

That said... he's a lot of work for no real reward. Every fight is an uphill slog. A glass cannon has the benefit of absurd damage, speed and near invincibility if played to its mobility, along with a more diverse range of moves and deeper versatility at the technical cost of one or two hits of health. Lawbringer has... really, nothing that any other class has, other than about 10 or 20 more health points. The manner of which you have to play LB is the same style of play you can adopt on other characters, with greater effectiveness.

Let me list various complaints about him, just to get them off my chest. Because there's a lot about Lawbringer I hate having to deal with:

He is absurdly slow. Just trying to move a few feet is a chore. His dodge covers less than a meter of space and seems to have one frame of invincibility. His damage is pathetic. All of his combos are so slow that there is no way in hell you'll reliably ever see any of them in practice. I audibly laughed when I saw he technically has a four hit combo. You will never see it, in your life. His followups are so slow that people can actually WALK (not dodge) to one side and avoid them after being shoved. WALK. He has no unique effect mechanics like poison, regain, or a stamina drain to accessorize his slow, deliberate play. He's meant to be played to defense, yet his stance switching speed is horrendously slow to the point that he is physically incapable of defending himself during some combos. Worse, he's supposed to deplete stamina as a long term strategy in a game in which stamina exhaustion doesn't really matter all that much. To top it off, his death cries sound like an overweight child being shoved in a locker, and he looks terrible in blue.

Playing as Lawbringer is not fun. It is miserable. It is WORK. We need to establish that first. You're not playing Orochi here. You can't just dash side to side, throwing out random hits for fun and being delighted if some of them land. Being Lawbringer is pain. All burden is placed on you. When you win, you will feel nothing but relief that you managed to climb up a hill. THAT is the main problem. He feels bad to play. There is no power fantasy associated with the character. He's a design trash bin that someone made to dispose of a class type that no one on the development team actually cared about. You can feel the indifference and lack of love and attention when you play Lawbringer. No one wanted this child. And he knows it.

So, yeah. Where to go from here, if anywhere?

Lawbringer's main issue is a lack of guarantees. You shove someone. They just walk out of the followup, or block it. Or hell, even parry it. Your second hit in a combo will be blocked or parried 80% of the time. You won't ever see that lauded unblockable. You miraculously dodge out of the way of an unblockable lunge from a faster character and try to shove, only to find they're already out of range. I get it. His ONE THING is that he can shove people. If he actually blocks you, he can shove you for free. In theory, that should be strong. It's not, but it should be. The devs don't want attacking him at all to lead to guaranteed damage, since he doesn't have to parry to get that attack attempt. I get it.

The solution is rather simple. And like a lot of things this game gets wrong, it involves stamina. Give Lawbringer an effect on the second hit of his combos that applies a stack of something I'll call the Fatigue status. When someone's stamina breaks into exhaustion, they take a little damage based on the number of stacks of Fatigue they have, and all stacks are then removed. That's it. That's all you have to do. You don't need to speed him up, increase his damage or do anything to his combos other than give him a way to exploit draining someone of their stamina. Too many players go ape **** on targets without any concern at all for their stamina, because especially against Lawbringer, it just doesn't matter. They can still tech, they're still faster than you, and they'll get their stamina back very quickly. Lawbringer is built to drain stamina and nothing else. That is his problem. Accessorize it by making it the end goal of his damage application, but place it on the second hit of combos so it isn't a guarantee but not impossible to ever see like the rest of his worthless kit. That's it.

[TheCadian_]

In terms of the Lawbringer I feel there are only a few small things that really could, should, or would need to change to make this class feel that little bit more competitive. Honestly I am not suggesting all of these or even several of these as one would suffice in my opinion.

a.) After using 'The Long Arm' allow a Heavy Attack to be successfully performed before an opponent can return to their guard stance as the strike lands during the animation of the opposing character still trying to rise.

b.) Perhaps alter the over head counter-strike after a top parry. To me the strike seem utterly useless because of how easy it is to (ironically) parry. I'd much rather see a lower damage spike thrust which... could do all of a miniscule amount of damage but inflict daze.

c.) Maybe even give the Lawbringer a simply double light attack string of two hits... add some fluidity to his potential initiates.

If one of these seems like it would be overstepping the bounds of fairness I can take critique and would reassess the suggestions.

After playing the Lawbringer as my main to Prestige 3 I think it is fair to suggest I know a bit about how the character works and what is practical with him. My personal opinion is that the Lawbringer is not in need of any statistical increases. This means no more hit points, no more stamina points, and no additional damage. He simply needs either a reliable source of damage in the form of a post 'Long Arm' throw or a more simply light combination so the Lawbringer has a move or two they can actually throw out instead of relying on guard breaks as initiators.

[neogeo___]

Lawbringer is built aroud block to combo. He does not need this much of an attack buff nor is meant to be played that way.

Strongly disagree, and unparryables? Kensei? what?

[RatedChaotic]

Your opinion. Not everyones OP.

[Felis_Menari]

Part of the problem with the lawbringer is that he can't shove off of all of his heavy attacks. The final hit of Swift Justice (heavy, light, heavy) *cannot* combo into a shove if it's delivered in the left or right stance (vertical works fine), and shove also doesn't work off of Blind Justice (parry counter from high stance).