Succession Lahn has far too many gaps, is extremely squishy, and has almost no trade damage. Many newer or updated classes have protected kits, mobile damage, health regen on hits, larger AOEs, and are generally much tankier, which makes it feel nearly impossible to interact with a lot of classes. At the very least, she should be an actual threat to backline classes rather than just a mild inconvenience.

Since Wizard and Witch, like Succession Lahn, are nearly gone, most backline targets in the meta are mobile ranged classes with strong protections, crowd control, and high damage. Succession Ranger is more of a stationary exception, but experienced Ranger players typically deal with this by holding Charging Wind (Shift + RMB) and either getting peeled, out-trading you, or waiting for some inevitable gap Succession Lahn is forced to commit to.

The recent addition of two Super Armor landing options did nothing to address the core issues. Most of her main damage skills have long animations, are stationary, deal low damage, and have significant unprotected gaps. On top of that, the damage is heavily backloaded and only comes at the very end of long skills.

Suggested Changes

• Add Super Armor to the initial part of Pendulum Kick (F).
  
  

• Increase the overall damage of her PRIME skills, with a higher amount on Blooming Nether Flower (LMB + RMB) and Salp’uri Purge (Shift + Q), to give her more protected combo and trade damage on par with many other classes.
  
  

• Move the AP buff from Dismemberment (A/D + RMB) to Pendulum Cleaver (A/D + LMB) and Blooming Nether Flower (LMB + RMB).
  
  

Increase in damage is by far the most important change for Succession Lahn in Large Scale PvP. The flaws of the kit become too obvious because her time-to-kill, even on squishy crowd-controlled targets, is way too long. In other areas of the game, she would need additional protections. There are too many instances where the majority of her skills cannot be used. Here are some additional suggestions:

• Reduce the cooldown of Salp’uri Purge (Shift + Q) to Tier 2 Add-on range (11–12 seconds).
  
  

• Add Super Armor to the unprotected landing animation of Spring Breeze (W + F).
  
  

• Remove the Stiffness and add Super Armor to the start of Blade Dance (RMB), as well as adding a Down Attack modifier to the skill.

Alternative to adding Super Armor to the unprotected landing animation of Spring Breeze (W + F).

• Change Forward Guard to Super Armor on Spring Breeze (W + F).

Alternative to Moving the AP buff from Dismemberment (A/D + RMB) to Pendulum Cleaver (A/D + LMB) and Blooming Nether Flower (LMB + RMB):

• Increase the duration of the AP buff from 10 to 15 seconds and move it from Dismemberment (A/D + RMB) to Pendulum Cleaver (A/D + LMB).

Skill Issues

Prime: Pendulum Kick (F)

Unprotected Knockdown into Super Armor. This skill is pretty much what is left of the class at this point. Every interaction feels like flipping a coin to see if you get crowd controlled or not. The only skill that feels like it actually moves enemy HP bars.

Prime: Blooming Nether Flower (LMB + RMB)

Used to be the identity of Succession Lahn. It went from being one of the highest trade damage skills in the game to something you mostly use for Super Armor movement. The damage is currently so low that it feels purely cosmetic.

Prime: Cymbidium (S + F)

A two-part skill that starts with a long, stationary Forward Guard into a Super Armor dash that gets hit-staggered so often it barely moves half the time. This skill feels extremely outdated. It is stationary, slow to cancel, slow to turn, and has a very long animation.

Prime: Blade Dance (RMB)

Unprotected Stiffness into Super Armor. Because the gap is so large, it is almost never used outside of a 1v1 combo.

Prime: Crescent Barrage (S + LMB)

It has no crowd control and has the longest unprotected gap in the kit. The second part is very underwhelming for how risky it is. It also has issues with the jump in the second part, which interacts poorly with hit-stagger and sometimes knocks you out of the skill. It can also place you on top of opponents, causing you to slide off with a falling animation. 

Prime: Salp’uri Purge (Shift + Q)

It is fast, chains well out of several abilities, and, together with Morning Dew (Aerial RMB), is one of the only reliable catch tools the class has. The cooldown is 16 seconds, which is very long for a skill this important to the kit. It used to hit hard, but now the damage feels insignificant.

Absolute: Dismemberment (A or D + LMB)

At this point, this skill feels like a joke. A 12 AP buff for 10 seconds on what is probably the worst skill in the game. It would be a huge quality-of-life change for both PvE and PvP if this buff were moved to Blooming Nether Flower (LMB + RMB) to fit into the damage rotation and Pendulum Cleaver (A/D + LMB), which fills a role as an ability cancel.

I am not much of a capped player, but it is not surprising that Succession Lahn underperforms when she has no accuracy buff, a -12 evasion debuff, and a +12 AP buff with a short duration, while most classes are running around with +20 to +32 AP built into their damage rotations.

Spring Breeze (W + F)

It states that it has no collision, but because the skill is Forward Guard there are situations where the animation instantly ends before you can get into the air if something hit-staggers you. Despite Ethereal Dance (Aerial LMB) and Fragrant Stigma (Aerial F) being changed to Super Armor, when used from Primrose Sprint (Shift + S), Spring Breeze does not work with sloping terrain. You will end up too close to the ground before you are able to use either skill or chain into Nimbus flight and will instead be forced into an unprotected animation.

Camera Control

Lahn was one of the classes that relied heavily on mouse movement, and while the recent changes to flight made that aspect more manageable, there are still some skills that used to be fully maneuverable but no longer are. This is mainly an issue with Pendulum Kick (F), which often feels like it is lagging behind. It would be nice to have this skill follow the camera more responsively to compensate for the removal of mouse movement.

Overall State

Flight is a strong mechanic, but it does not compensate for her lack of trade damage and how punishable her kit is overall. Succession Lahn has gone from already being weak to borderline unplayable in 1v1, Arena of Solare, and Guild League. Being high risk and low reward in Node War and Siege on top of that just feels terrible.

It feels like I can count the remaining active PvP Succession Lahn players on NA and EU on one hand. Many players, including myself and several of the people who contributed to this post, want to play her but end up swapping to stronger classes because she has been frustrating to play for several years.

Closing Thoughts

I do not like sugarcoating things or asking for pointless changes, so I will ask for something that actually matters. In my eyes, it is simply not reasonable for a melee class to rely on nothing except hoping people do not see you coming in a game that is riddled with mobile, fully protected classes that have absurd amounts of crowd control and damage.

To be clear, I do not think bringing up Succession Lahn to date is the best solution. It would be healthier to tone down most classes. That said, with how the game is right now, it feels way more realistic to buff her rather than trying to remove protections, damage, defensive stats, and crowd control from over 20 different kits.

I could make similar posts about both Awakening and Succession Warrior, Wizard, Witch, Guardian, and Corsair, as well as Awakening of DK, Ranger, Drakania, Maehwa and several other classes. Many of these classes also feel neglected in areas where they used to be strong, or are only used for very niche roles. Still, I have some hope these classes will receive attention, especially since classes like Awakening Lahn,  Awakening Ninja, Kunoichi, Sorceress, Sage, and Archer have received updates and are now doing well in most parts of the game, or at least in the areas where they are expected to perform well.

This post was written based on feedback from experienced long-term Lahn players from both the NA region (Ham, Bler, Azurlia, Intuu, Rhya) and the EU region (Aviel, Gunna, xTobu).

Posts regarding unresolved Lahn issues: 

Recent Attack/Movement Speed Changes Have Hindered Lahn

Awakening & Succession Lahn: What Still Needs Attention

i dont play lahn but please buff succ lahn so the rangers quit being so unhinged and free to do as they please on rbf roofs

Protected knockdowns are a red line for me. Instead, make every knockdown unprotected and make it so you cannot emergency escape (V) while in one. Everything else I can support.

W Post

Overall a very solid post, and I agree with the overall sentiment: Succ Lahn is riddled with gaps, whereas more "modern" classes do not seem to have these same gaps. There's a decent bit of TLC required for both Lahn specs IMO, and most of what's proposed here seems like welcome additions. However, there are a couple of things that I'm not quite sure about. 
 
Regarding the AP buff value on Dismemberment: We've had a couple patches that "addressed" the issue you're seeing here with the "inconsistent" AP values. One of them was just this week, where classes had their passives and self buff skills adjusted to be more in line with each other. The reason you see some classes with a 32 AP self buff, like Seraph, is because they have 0 AP gain from their passive skills. Succ Lahn gains 12 AP from Zephyr XX, 12 AP from Dismemberment, and 8 AP from Prime: Blooming Aroma V, for a total of 32 AP as well. There are still slight discrepancies here and there, but overall it seems to be in line with most classes. 
 
Regarding changing Salpuri into a T2 skill: As much as I would love for Salpuri to have a lower cooldown, that does also mean that Lahn is left without a single T3 add-on skill left in her kit. I don't have particularly strong feelings one way or another, but that is definitely something that should actively be taking into consideration for this change as well. 
 
Regarding Cymbidium: I think that there's another thing that should be mentioned here: You already mentioned the hit stagger issues, but the inconsistent collision checks for the skill are driving me bananas. Sometimes you will just lunge through a target that definitely has a hitbox, and sometimes you get stopped in your tracks by an invisible pebble. It's quite infuriating to end up mispositioned because the skill behaved inconsistently.

good comms

shouting into the void XD

good comms

I could understand other complaints from Lahn succ but being the first one protections is like .... Bruhh