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Yeah it was to be expected, they never cared much for lb like they do for let's say kensei. A propser rework was not to be expected. No HA and nothing for long arm + shove and impale nerf is almost insulting tbh. Just spam feinted unblockable into gb and yeaaaaah fun ! good gameplay !
Not even sure im gonna try it out
Senior Member
Yeah, like a said, other than damage values and reduced light attack speed with HA, everything else is a nerf.
They’ve whittled down his whole kit to be shove->light->UB mixup.
Neutral shove is basically the centurions kick: reactable and guarantees the opponent a free GB. It’s more of a hinderance to use than a strategy unless they’re OS, but wait, we can’t drain any stamina any more because shove->block is gone. Shove had a viable GB follow up option that when the opponent dodged gave you more damage and another shove for mixup, but no ones going to dodge anymore because the lights guaranteed making it an inherent nerf by default. Just had all around.
Senior Member
Disagree. I have my own gripes with LB post rework. But he's 100% better than his older kit. Here's what he lost:
~Block into shove
~Shove "mix up"
~Brain dead ganking via impale/long arm.
That's it. Long arm and impale as far as we know still do not give the enemy damage reduction. Meaning they're still incredibly strong gank tools for teams who actually setup with each other instead of flailing their hands on their controllers.
His mid chain mix up is strong. Shove is unreactable and has armor. Lands it gives the second light in the chain at 400ms and goes straight into an unblockable mix up. Forcing you to dodge or parry attempt. Due to the heavies having a slightly longer animation (from being slower attacks) it affords you the ability to feint later which tricks people. (this is already seen with Warden's top UB heavy mix up.)
His side lights are enhanced and are 500ms. He has a 400ms neutral top light. and his heavies are slightly faster. Meaning from neutral he has semi decent feint game with the ability to get into his mix ups easier. His heavies also have more range now. Meaning people who attempt to roll his mix up mid chain might get caught by them. Or at least people who back dodge on heavy indicator.
His zone from neutral was sped up to be 700ms. making it a decent option select parry since the GB vulnerability will be lower. And his parry game is decent as well. Parry a light? Top heavy unblockable into guaranteed ending light. Parry a heavy? chain starting blinding light OR an unblockable zone that has armor. And he still has parry into impale. Which means he still has a high damage punish from any parry.
Like yes. I understand that it sucks that he didn't get armored heavies. But his heavies actually need to be respected now. And his parry game is stronger now. Part of LB's identity is parrying. He's got decent opening pressure, and good mid combo pressure. He's 100% better. Ya'll just don't grasp that somehow.
Senior Member
I get a few of your points, but the nerfs were not sufficiently compensated for how bad they were. Maybe it’s different because I am on console, but I’ll rebut your points in order (don’t mind caps or asterisks, they are there for emphasis not to be disrespectful):Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
Impale and long arm are both interruptible now. Yes you still “CAN” hypothetically get A good hit in if you *key word* coordinate with teammates. That is assuming you are playing with someone. This means that it “CAN” hypothetically be a good ganking tool still only situationally and assuming that even in those situations it goes according to plan. It made the moves high risk for low reward. You feed the enemy a substantial amount of Revenge for your teammates to *maybe* get one hit in and hope they don’t hit just you instead.
His mid chain mix up really isn’t strong in comparison to other characters. It’s either a light which is an easy block, or heavy (also block) with possible GB feint. That’s not exactly crazy mix up potential. There are no soft feints, no HA, no melee options and a zone too slow to be an option too. Shove IS reactable so I don’t know where you’re getting that it isn’t from? I assume that was a typo or a mix up? It’s also slow which means it’s easily dodged and offers no cancel. You’re relying on a slow melee attack, easily punished by a GB and follow up heavy, to even get to you UB finisher. This isn’t a problem to you? On top of this, even if you do get to the UB finisher, as you pointed out, it’s incredibly slow which means it’s an easy parry. It has no options other than hard feint GB or light and with the hard feint it offers enough reaction time. If dodged it gives a free GB to your opponent. AND THEN you didn’t even address that it doesn’t have HA. Good luck with your feint game when LITERALLY any character can just light attack you out of it before you can do any mix up anyways. It’s too slow at this point to carry the kit home.
I agree with you on the speed boost on light and heavies being a good thing, though I think catching people on back dodged and roll away is wishful thinking. Added range doesn’t matter really, it’s the dodge and roll timing that matters whether they get hit or not.
The zone is still slow and comparably useless except for clearing minions and the very rare multi-parries. Impale is only guaranteed for sure on a light parry also, so his parry options aren’t as amazing. Don’t forget the impale will still be interruptible so they nerfed this parry punish as well.
I will say I agree his heavies are to be respected more and once his chain starts, the in chain lights will be good, but he didn’t really get any opening pressure (please elaborate cause I don’t see a single thing he got that helps his opening other than HA on side lights), his mid chain pressure is pretty much the same, just slightly faster but not enough to be a cataclysmic change, just *slightly* better. His parry game is weaker by default because impale was nerfed. Adding HA to the zone doesn’t do that much TBH. It’s definitely a small neat little buff but nothing game changing.
Bottom line is he lost shove on block, got impale (again, nerf to parry punish) and long arm nerfed heavily in exchange for: slight speed buffs, slight damage buffs, a couple more quality of life chains that don’t really add much, a guaranteed light after successful UB finisher (doesn’t add much considering you have to be able to land the UB), HA on a zone ONLY AFTER PARRY which doesn’t add much either as you can’t chain off of it and is only good very situationally, and shove after whiffed heavy.
So he lost 3 of his best tools to gain minuscule buffs that don’t add much with the only good ones being shove on whiffed heavy, speed and damage boosts. I’ll leave the guaranteed light after shove out of it and chalk it up as neutral because it does make it guaranteed damage into the UB finisher. but also doesn’t offer any higher reward for mind games and is still very unsafe to neutral shove.
They have forced him into being a character based around shove, which is very punishable if dodged. I’ll break it down: Sure the side lights have HA, but you must also have a second attack to get to the UB and side lights are 500ms which even on console is a manageable parry. If you try to go into shove, which is very slow considering competing melee openers, if you get dodged for a free GB it makes it super risky. I can see how if you get the ball rolling he could flow into his mix ups pretty well as you could go shove->light->UB mixup and if you get a GB rinse and repeat or if you got UB then free light at the end, but that leaves you back in a neutral game state, but that’s assuming 1) shove is successful, 2) that your option select on UB finisher is successful. I guess we’ll see how well it can really flow when we get there.
They also didn’t address LB hit boxes from what it seems. His wide swinging heavies only hit 1 minion at a time for the most part. I hope this is an unmentioned Inherent buff like when they did Kenseis rework. He lost key elements in his kit and didn’t get a worthy compensation. This would be a different story if they gave shove a follow up on whiff so it would be harder to punish and at least *A* soft feint or two mix up from his UB finisher making it harder to react and with more options. That would have made it at least even in my eyes but as it stands it’s not enough and he can’t put enough stamina drain pressure anymore to really let his mixups shine while the opponent is OS. It needs more. We waited for a long time as everyone got the perfect buffs and tweaks for the most part just for our character to get barely, if anything to redeem his grossly fallen behind kit. I hope I’m proven wrong, but watching the game play and listening to them talk about the changes, I really think the character got more of a nerf than a buff.
Senior Member
I think his uninterruptible side lites on block and being able to use his shove after a heavy wiff or block will be very good. A lot better than what people think anyways. Mix that with his moves being a bit faster and the 100ms guard switch buff and I think he'll be decent.
A lot better than he is now anyway. Still would of liked to see some hyper armor like everyone else.
Raider didn't need any armor imo.
Senior Member
Shove and unreactable? ^^Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
The even slowed it down from guaranteed to 500ms (guaranteed light, but mix-up gone.)
That things is telegraphed as heck ... look at the animation. And it still requires to get into the chain. Since LB has no way into his chain beside basic attacks there is not much variety. Guard top and parry sides on reaction --> offense shut down.
Dodge Shove is still trash as it was. Even if you get to the unblockable, you can get poked out since there is no hyperarmour. This shiit is 900ms. The unblockable/gb "mix-up" forces you to nothing. It doesn't even have a soft-feint into gb ...
The increased range is not said or confirmed, that it will catch back dodgers and not even to mention back rollers. There was nothing mentioned about undodgable properties. How can you make such claims??
Okay WOW. You call his 700ms zone (one of the worst in the game) a "decent option"
Also the Imaple from parry got a 10dmg nerf and te follow-up neutral top heavy still only deals 25 or 30dmg (I am not sure). It still requires a parry light, which is no easy deal. Others get that for simply charging the shoulderbash a bit longer or biting a bleeding target.
His heavies don't "need to be respected" at all, since he can't follow a neutral light by another light, but needs to throw an heavy. He can not shove after light. He is trash and what the heck are you talking about???
Senior Member
Senior Member
Of course we can not make absolute claims without having it in our hands. But there are not much changes made to him in general. And every experienced LB will tell you that he was fundamentally flawed. Some number tweaks and new chains definitely don't fix that. This is why it is so easy to make pretty precise, not absolute, but pretty pretty precise claims about the quality of the rework.Originally Posted by The_B0G_ Go to original post
And even if it miraculously worked somehow (even if VERY unlikely), it is simply not what people want to see from a 2m tall, metall wrapped bodybuilder shouting AD MORTEM, when going through the Hero roster! He is a dancing git. A feinting queen. A fragile kid without any trace of confidence. A light spammer with ugly unauthentically fast animations.
People want to see bulky and shear break through power, hyperarmour fitting his appearance, some kind of hooking (since halberds/poleaxes are made for that). This kind of stuff.
Member
His rework feels a bit underwhelming, but this version of LB is much better for the game. He should be viable in 1v1's without stalling for time and kiting, and he's still strong in 4v4's
I know it's weird to some people that the large man clad in plate armor has no hyper armor, but his big and bulky design represents his large health pool. LB isn't designed to trade with people
I think initiating with him is still going to be awkward, but at least it's possible now. I would like to see his neutral shove sped up, or allow him to feint long arm, but that's about it. It just sucks that LB mains had to wait 2 years for these changes
Senior Member
I'm only responding to you because we have history. I respect you. You repeate yourself a lot and I'm on mobile about to head to sleep. So I'll respond to a few things here. And then if you want we can talk in pms. As I'm done discussing LB already. It's frankly Redick that people are talking about shove on block being so amazing as a mix up but then state in the very same breath that his new 500ms lights will always be parried and his new shove is reactable.Originally Posted by mrmistark Go to original post
Anyway. Numbering the responses to you from top to bottom:
1) I still play console. I also play pc. 90% of the time I'm solo queing. I have no troubles ganking effectively with randoms. It's easy if you observe what your ally does and aid them instead of trying to force your own setup once they're on scene. Yes. The nerf made it factually harder to use LBs gank tools. And it's better for the game in the long run if all grapple based attacks can be intrupted. It forces smart use of your tools and awareness of your surroundings. Rather than being that LB or raider that ool runs in circles at a team fight repeatedly trying to grapple someone. LB has one of the very few tools in the game that doesn't apply damage reduction to enemies when they are grabbed. That's insane power.
2)mid chain has access to a 400ms light. A shove that isn't reactable and has armor that guarantees a top light that chains into chain finisher. Or a heavy. The added combos means his chains are no longer predictable. And feint into GB. His bash is 500ms. That's faster than tiandi palm and as fast as shaolin kick. You have access to the shove from hit block or whiff. Meaning he can always threaten with his shove. Yes all he can do is feint or commit to his finisher. Same thing applies to wardens top heavy finisher. And I'm pretty sure they share the same speed. Yet no one thinks his ub mix up is bad. And if yiu try to hit him out of the finisher he can just feint into neutral shove because it has armor. Or feint into parry.
3) his zone parry is UB with armor. So you can choose between different damage amounts on parry. Go for riposte into chain. Go for impale or UB top into light guarantee if light parry. Or zone parry on heavy parry to deal with being surrounded. Zone option select parry is doable now because his zone from neutral is now 700ms from 900ms. Means his GB vulnerability is around 400ms. So a feint into gb buffer would catch it. But still. I'm not saying it's an amazing option select parry. I am saying it's a viable thing to do now because of less vulnerability.
4)you're being melodramatic here. Impale and long arm are usable in the same places they were viable. They require thought now. That doesn't make them suddenly irrelevant. Shove on block isn't a nerf. You only specifically shoved very specific things. And LB had so many factors to consider for what tactic to use after shove. What hero did he shove? Is the person attempting deflects? Are they back dodging? Are they only dodging on indicator? Etc. Yes. Technically if LB knows exactly what his opponent is going to do LB had an answer. But it was far easier for LBs opponent to react to what LB was attempting to do.
Most people I've spoke to actually like what's been done with LB. We all thought having shove be the mix up tool would be cool. But we also like that shove is apart of his mid chain mix up now. Like you can very easily do what shaolin does with his kick. Buffering shove. Delaying shove or faking out the person and GBing their dodge attempt. The fact that you can do that on top of threatening to follow up with a delayed top 400ms light in the same mid chain pressure is ****ing insane.
There are still some things we won't know till we get our hands on him. Did they alter any feint windows? How Delay able is shove? Are his recoveries still the same?
I'm not saying the nerf to his gank tools are not significant. I'm saying that what LB gains makes him a far more interesting hero to play against and play as. I feel like once people actually get in there and play with his new way of playing its going to click with people.
And if he's not your thing anymore that's fine. (know some goki players that happened to.) and I sympathize. But I still think the direction he's going in is the right one. Even if they dropped the ball with making long arm usable outside impale.
