since i rerolled to lahn from sorc and played on the class for around half a year while doing shitton of open world pvp before rolling back to sorc i felt like maybe i should say something here about my experiences and why i rerolled back, especially based on the amount of bs that is being spread about lahn (also because its maintenance and im bored and feel like writing a novel). because only very few people play it i feel like a lot of even top pvp players don't really understand how this class works at all.

1. Lahn is absolutly broken in 1v1. whoever says something different has no clue what he is talking about. it is easely top 3 of the strongest classes in duels and despite the fact it does have counter match ups - it obliterates half of the class pool without almost any chance which easely makes up for that. most other strong 1v1 classes have a lot of match ups that are going to be 60-70%, while lahn can win 10 out of 10 against a lot of classes even with good play from the people you are fighting on equal gear, which is fairly rare. for all my time in aakman (and that means a lot of time spent there btw) i remember 3 duels for spot in total that i lost and most people prefer to not even duel a lahn and just leave as soon as they see you. i am aware that 90% of the people you fight there are witchzards or pvesas, but it still shows pretty well what you can do given the right class pool even with way below average gear.

2. Grind on lahn in general is very strong. The overall high damage, ls on half of your awakening skills and low required apm makes it so you can grind most spots semi afk while watching movies for 5-7 hours a day and still make ridiculous amounts of money. you also have good spot variety to choose from. lahn also has fairly low ap requirements for most spots it is good at. That being said - on almost any spot there is going to be classes that beat you on pure t/h output. when going for the best grind in the game archer or mystic for example will be way better picks, and also pretty flexible on spot variety.

3. For open world pvp and small XvX scenarios it is also one of the strongest classes. You have very high general mobility and can run away from most setups when you feel to, while tailspin vice + sidestep follow up skill does ridiculous amounts of protected burst on high ap and allows you to take out squishy targets very fast. your grab can make life for certain classes hell and fighting line ups that have a lahn in them almost impossible under certain conditions. that being said, the presence of a sorc coupled with weak gear will make life very hard for you and it is in general very tough to do anything when you lack either ap or dp and have to fight classes that can do high amounts of damage into your SA.

Here are the main problems with the class:

1. this is the biggest problem in general. lahn is by far the squishiest class in the game that has to rely on superarmor while not adapting hybrid builds well. that combined with 2. raises the gear requirements for large scale to be almost highest from all classes in the game, being even higher then those of classes that base on trades like musas. having 305-315 dp a lot of classes can perform fairly well because their basic mechanics allow them to avoid damage for most parts of the fights. playing on a sorc i feel like even with 290 dp you can do okay, while a lahn will get legit obliterated in 1 second with 300-310 dp when fighting high ap players. even put in a flank you will have huge problems surviving. engaging on a target just with grab tailspin vice can easely kill you faster then the target even when the target is a ****ing archer with 300 dp. you also have zero ranged options whatsoever and your only way of being useful is to go into melee. when fighting for example high ap musas in 1v1s your grab will protect you because it is fairly hard for musas to do damage without high risk of getting grabbed, but in mass this kind of mechanics does not apply anymore - and believe me, everybody from ranged to melee will start hitting you with the strongest hitting skills as soon as they see you over almost anything else because you are a lahn.

a match up that highlights most problems with lahn really well is the 1v1 against sorc. the grab when used is going to kill you more often then a good sorc, while when two players with 269 ap and 302 dp fight the sorc will force you out of SA rotations with 2 skills and you will either use fg which the sorc will capitalize on or run for your life for 20 minutes until another engage to repeat, which the sorc also might capitalize on by pressing L and starting processing until you engage again, then repeat (selfheal sucks without being able to hit a target. dash heal is by far not enough).

2. AP scaling. While lahn has insane amounts of single target damage at high amounts of ap (damage starts to skyrocket from 265 ap upwards), too low ap or accuracy to take out a target will make life very hard for you. other then the damage of a lot of other classes lahns damage is by far not as conditional and also bases on cooldowns. when you can not take you a target you can try to get a dp debuff with sp or rabam, if its still not enough - thats it. the target is pretty much completely untouchable for you. that is also one of the main reasons why lahns did not perform well on bsl - 253 ap lahn damage sucks. a lot of match ups that you normally win with eyes closed are going to be impossible all of a sudden because you just can't kill - for example valks with hybrid builds, lol.

while for example the sorc has both buff up with ad+stinger crit buffs and downsmash resets to make it possible to kill targets you don't have enough damage to one combo, when the lahn can not kill in one combo it requires the target to have brain damage to still manage to die. also the grab is pretty much your highest damage opener besides from retarded self downsmash and not cancellable sacred dance, while for example a starting float with sp will do less overall combo damage because the transition from it sucks.

other then for example valks and witchzards that adapt hybrid builds pretty well, because of how the lahns ap scaling works you are required to have both 269 ap and high dp to not die in SA (also accuracy btw, lahns acc scaling sucks too. not a single skill that also does damage has more then... 11%? (i think it was 11 cba to look up) acc modifier, also no usable eva debuffs, no acc buffs. you are ****ed if you miss accuracy)

3. stamina management. people who will tell you that sorcs and lahns are similar ("lahn is a sorc with a grab") have no clue about how lahn works in most cases. those two classes are very different on almost all aspects - and most of all on stamina management. lahn does not have any tools that help you to manage stamina while still doing something that is useful (nr 4. does not make it better btw). when playing on a sorc you can play with 1900 stamina and be fine if you play your class well. on a lahn even running a meme build with 3k stamina you will feel like you are hungering on stamina all the time. the superarmors get trashed in 2 seconds. the s+c transition from preawa skills into block is strong but situational and ye - also gets trashed in 1 second.

4. mobility. this sounds really silly because only 2.5 classes in the game have any chance to catch a lahn when it just starts running in a straight line. but the problem is that the mobility of a lahn is extremely unflexible. in any kind of mass you pretty much only have one way to disengage all the way out on a fairly long cooldown (yes, you need the flow from ns, just ns isn't enough. longer cooldown). you are pretty much a dive based class, that jumps in once in a minute to try and do stuff - on a very limited time frame, based on your hp and stamina. compared to mobility monsters like musa and mae who can pretty much move forward and backward engage and disengage whenever they like this is extremely clunky. most other classes will also have much more flexible movement, even when they lose by a mile when they just try to outrun.

another huge problem is that only way of frontal engage is pretty much double dash grab, because everything else either has huge wholes (spring breeze w+lmb w+rmb) or no good transitions into cc skills that are either quick or protected and not stationary. unfortunatly it also requires people to have brain damage to get hit by the double dash grab, easely the most telegraphed engage in the game. the only classes that get hit by it despite not ****ing up completely are valks, archer or witchzards without tp. any other usable cc that you have is pretty much based on a target jumping you - and you have a lot of possiblities there, but all of them are baits based on slow casting skills you want people to jump into, or rather quick but short ranged and unflexible w+rmb (yes, there is not a single good transition into this. target still has to come close by itself. i tried spring breeze into w+lmb behind and back attack with furious chase for some time but its rather dagerous and rarely works). that is also why you will only see good lahns going for double dash grab when they know you can not dodge bc you ****ed up and used your stuff for something else (hello @ warriors that use their 2 sec cd iframe for movement in 1v1s vs lahns). pa even took away the only way to do a good fake engage with ****ing up the double dash tailspin transition - btw completely unintentional im like 90% sure.

5. no tools for trading damage whatsoever. pretty much all of your classes abilities are designed to hit a single target that is cced. protected skills have either small range or no damage. tailspin vice requires ridiculous amounts of gear to be used for trades and still has small range.

6. it is actually ****ing boring for everyone who is interested in mechanics and outplaying the people you fight. this was by far the main reason for me personally to go back to sorc. yeah you can show skill by using preawakening skill set a lot, pulling off insane grabs on ninjas out of stealth or baiting people to jump into 2 second animations which is kind of funny once but when its the only thing you have it becomes very repetative with time. and the problem is that the play is so one dimentional that the difference of impact that a lahn that uses the whole preawakening skill set alot and does insane grabs and a lahn that plays on the class since a week and only knows double dash grab bd hold is going to be fairly small compared to most other classes (still not talking about the 3 button classes like musa or mystic obviously, but yeah). when you win - it's because of your opponent (class or skill) when you lose - if you lose - it is pretty much also bc of your opponent. also - no one wants to fight you. literally. no one. and when you beat a dude that outgears you by 40 rs 10-0 even when he is complete garbage and doesn't understand the difference between SA and iframe, also a ninja, rank 1 on rbf on your server and only uses block jump for any engage - it is going to be "bc of your class", then he will tilt and leave after 10 minutes. like no joke, i even dueled a lot of sorcs that tilted out bc "youre a lahn bro ofc you win".

if somebody has made it till here - you have my respect. i was just kind of bored and felt like in the position to talk about lahn. also maybe it helps someone who wants to reroll to lahn and doesn't know what to expect.