Lawbringer changes | Forums

[Goat_of_Vermund]

I got an idea yesterday during the total destruction of a Lawbringer player's will to keep playing the game. I think that with very few changes, Lawbringer could be made a fun, viable and fair hero again.


What LB players dislike:

- Lack of offense
- Unusable Longarm

What everyone else dislike:

- Unfair risk/reward because of his high hp and gross parry punishes
- That. Fookin. Hyperarmored. Completely invulnerable. Shove.
- 400ms top light


Changes to address all:


1. Side dodge shoves lose hyperarmor. This is a fairly popular recommendation. All dodge attacks are vulnerable to punish, this shoudn't be different.
2. The parry punishes should be normal. 45 damage+blind on a light parry is still stupid. Make it 40, remove the guaranteed light followup, maybe keep the blind without stamina drain. I wouldn't go deeply into numbers, since hopefully the tg comes soon. Which hopefully includes the removal of that 400ms top light too.
3. Lawbringer still has a hard time getting his offense going. I think to address this, he should be able to shove after a light. This way, his mixups would be more unpredictable, because right now, his options after a light are very limited.
4. The longarm should get a 100ms Gb vulnerability to make it a prediction tool against a guardbreak. Furthermore, the move should get some hpyerarmor protection in order to trade (not the flip part, only up to the connection with the enemy). This move is very risky, punished with a guardreak on miss and is very telegraphed, these properties would make it a bit more usable without making it abusable in 4v4.

[Vakris_One]

Who are these Lawbringer players that find he has a lack of offense and that longarm is useless? I play Lawbringer as one of my competitive picks and neither of those two things are a major problem with him.

He doesn't have a particular problem of entering into his offence because he has enhanced side lights, a 400ms attack from neutral and a HA dodge shove. His problem is in sustaining his offense because of how much stamina his mixups drain from him and a lack of pressure from his mid chain. Long arm is an excellent ganking tool. It is not intended to also be a great 1v1 tool and I am baffled every time I read someone suggesting that longarm should be made into a 1v1 mixup tool in addition to being a strong gank tool. It already has its intended purpose in his kit and honestly, anyone that calls the move useless has either never played Lawbringer or; to paraphrase Roman, doesn't know how to play the character correctly.

With that out of the way I think your suggestions are mostly on point, Goat.

1) I agree. Losing the HA from dodge shove would stop it from being an obnoxious "dodge shove on red" tool while putting it in line with other side dodge bashes.

2) Yes, his light parry punishes still need reigning in. We'll have to see how they adjust his damage numbers from the TG feedback we gave them. Parrying lights is going to be much more difficult if the TG changes make it to the live game so that will impact LB. I think his health pool also needs to be adjusted to match the damage reductions in the TG. His top light was reduced to 500ms in the TG, which still keeps it at 400ms due to the across the board speed changes. In the TG pretty much everyone had 400ms lights from all directions. The key element was the frame advantage changes which allowed for that speed increase to function way, way more healthily for the game than what we have currently in the live game.

3) I'm not too keen on giving him a shove after a light. He can already shove after a heavy and I wouldn't want to turn him into a heavily bash reliant character that shoves after light, after heavy and after a dodge, because that would encourage a less fun playstyle both to fight against and to play as. In my opinion it's far more important to give him the stamina he needs in order to make the most out of his mixups and to sustain his offence. In the TG Lawbringer, like many other heroes, was able to throw attacks a lot more often and get far more mileage out of sustaining his offence due to the stamina changes. Having enhanced lights gave him a very potent offence in the TG so with that in mind I don't think he really need a shove after light. Provided we get that version of the TG and not a watered down cop out that is.

4) The long arm doesn't need to be touched. It already fulfills its job of being a powerful gank tool and very useful for stalling out an opponent who is in revenge. LB's kit will not be lacking for offensive options in a 1v1 come the Testing Grounds changes.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

The tg changes, along with the stamina changes, might indeed be enough. Especially if they leave the heavy finishers this way which prevents people lighting them out. I mainly came up with this because as soon as a usual Lawbringer starts to be aggressive, he becomes a very easy opponent.

[Vakris_One]

The tg changes, along with the stamina changes, might indeed be enough. Especially if they leave the heavy finishers this way which prevents people lighting them out. I mainly came up with this because as soon as a usual Lawbringer starts to be aggressive, he becomes a very easy opponent.

That's true of pretty much every character in the live game. As soon as anyone goes aggressive they become an easier opponent. That's why defense is so overbearingly more optimal than attacking. I really cannot wait for the TG changes. Even though it wasn't perfect the game felt so much better in the TG.