Bringing back the L.A.W.! (now with smily faces)

[Undedd Jester]

Okay so maybe the LAW was never here really to start with, but in the never ending quest of zombie destruction, fewer things are funnier than watching 5 zombies explode on impact and 7 more gettting hurled up in the air Saving Private Ryan style.

I've been playing the LAW as a demo lately (Level 4 on Hard btw) just to see if I can work out if it has any use, and I've actually stumbled across a number of advantages it has over the grenade launchers. Thats right dear reader, your eyes have not decieved you, the LAW actually IS useful.

Firstly the bad that we all know.
1) Its heavy, as a demo you get no weight buff, so its LAW and pistolling, thats it, not even a damn pipe bomb or two.
2) Its reload is long, so if your target doesn't drop your up crap creek without a paddle.
3) It doesn't have a safety mechanism like the launchers, so someone strafing across your line... really screws you up.

Now the good points
1) Its explosive radius is HUGE, and it penetrates targets very well indeed. This means that unlike the launchers you can hit the target at the front of the line and usually blow the rest of them to kingdom come as well. Hard to meatshield a rocket there chaps
2) Its damage I'm sure is higher, on Hard I find a direct hit with the launcher will kill a gorefast but anything else won't. This either requires a quick swap to pistol or a nade thrown in to double bang em. Scrakes seem to be explosive resistant as well (I've hit one with a half hit on a pipe bomb, 2 nades and 6 M32 shots and still not dropped the swine). The LAW on the other hand will absolutely nuke an entire group of gorefasts, and although will not kill a scrake, it will stun him on impact, either allowing someone else to follow in.. or you to bung in another taste of that anti tank awesome
3) Also Fleshpounds aren't as immune to it as you would think. I'm not sure if other people helped, but I've killed a fair FP's few this way. I've read that the Fleshie is 50% immune to L.A.W. damage. At the same time it is 50% weak against grenades. I'm sure I've read somewhere else that the LAW rocket COUNTS as grenade damage, so they balance out to be a standard, yet high amount of damage. This means you can stack 2 grenades (Demo damage FTW), quick scope in, and fire the LAW to rage him on the nades... Boom...
4) If you trust your teammates you can also drop your LAW outside the trader, buy your pipes, lay them down and pick up your LAW as well. So the explosive fun reigns even without a line of sight

So my point of my post - The LAW is a bit of a novelty gun but actually isn't so bad. The one thng that does suck is that although the explosive damage still counts for the Demo, its ammo is tied to Shotgun for some reason rather than grenades. Not only is it heavy for Demo's to carry, but the ammo is the standard 12 shots rather than the Support Specialists 16. Since the Demolitons Expert is the explosives expert and the LAW is a rocket launcher, shouldn't he recieve at least an ammuntion boost for the thing? Discount would be nice too, since its use is similar to the M79.

I'm not by any means suggesting reduce its use for the Support, since the SS can carry it AND another gun. I'm merely suggesting making it a more viable weapon for the perk it makes just as much sense for using it. Plus its an absolute riot using the thing.

 

[DocDave]

Law damage is 650 as compared to 350 for both 'nade launchers per shot. I don't know how the radius compares. Though it does about twice the damage, it also takes about twice as long to reload per shot and has about 1/3 of the ammo. Yeah, it's actually not that awful.

 

[HaTeMe]

Scrakes seem to be explosive resistant as well (I've hit one with a half hit on a pipe bomb, 2 nades and 6 M32 shots and still not dropped the swine).

Scrake is the only specimen with high resistance to explosives. Fleshpound only resists the LAW, but not grenades or pipebombs (dont know the logic behind that one tho).

If you trust your teammates you can also drop your LAW outside the trader, buy your pipes, lay them down and pick up your LAW as well. So the explosive fun reigns even without a line of sight

lol, I doubt anyone can actually carry LAW unless they just joined the game and didnt spawn with a weapon. So I wouldnt worry too much about the weapon being stolen.

So my point of my post - The LAW is a bit of a novelty gun but actually isn't so bad. The one thng that does suck is that although the explosive damage still counts for the Demo, its ammo is tied to Shotgun for some reason rather than grenades. Not only is it heavy for Demo's to carry, but the ammo is the standard 12 shots rather than the Support Specialists 16. Since the Demolitons Expert is the explosives expert and the LAW is a rocket launcher, shouldn't he recieve at least an ammuntion boost for the thing? Discount would be nice too, since its use is similar to the M79.

Yea its kinda funny, its an explosive weapon but its not ment to be used by a Demolitions Expert

But, I dont agree about LAW being usefull. It weights too much, costs too much, and cant even take out the bigger enemies effectively (scrakes and fleshpounds). I would consider the weapon to be usefull if I could take out any enemy with one direct hit apart from the Patriarch ofc, but with its current damage output, weight, reloadspeed and cost, I wouldnt use it in any situation. Not even for Patty. Not to forget the fact you cant shoot while not using the reflex sights, and if you fire the weapon too close you end up dead due its huge radius.

The whole weapon is more of an danger to yourself than the zeds.

 

[DocDave]

Yea its kinda funny, its an explosive weapon but its not ment to be used by a Demolitions Expert

"Demolitions" generally involves using explosive charges (not weapons) to demolish large things, like structures. A task also handled by military engineers.

"Support" generally involves handling weapons to support an infantry team, weapons that require more than a single person to operate most effectively, like heavy machine guns or anti-tank rockets.

So, technically, the LAW should be a Support weapon, but at this point, if any perk can make it worthwhile, have at it.

 

[18Bravo]

So much for shaped charges eh?

 

[BEEEEEES]

Just for the record yo- I've killed plenty of scrakes/FPs with LAW headshots while playing as demo.

On scrakes especially, the rocket will keep on trucking straight through his head (after dealing damage and stunning him) and still explode as normal on whatever it hits after. Many big zeds have met their quivering meat-chunky end at the receiving end of my rocket to the face.

I'm not out to defend the LAW as anything but a novelty weapon due to the painfully limited ammo/loadout restrictions, but here's something to consider:

demo bonus * 350 for launchers < demo bonus * 650 for LAW...by quite a bit.

...at 40% bonus, launchers are 490 per round, while the LAW is a whopping 910 damage, over a much larger area. Launchers need two rounds to meet/exceed the LAW's damage output, so in terms of ammo-to-damage, launchers have about 1/2 their max ammo to meet LAW damage/ammo.

Put another way, 2 launcher rounds >= 1 LAW, but not by a helluva lot, and also with a smaller area of hurt. Even though your max launcher ammo is halved effectively in order to meet or exceed the LAW damage per shot, you still come out ahead with a few extra rounds available (AKA: more damage).

Launchers are better in terms of raw available damage to be dished out when considering only a single target, because you have more ammo, but the LAW hurts a significantly bigger area and deals almost as much damage as 2x launcher rounds.

The only downfall of the LAW is that it prevents you from carrying anything else. The launchers win the comparison by a landslide only because you can carry both (way more available ammo than with the LAW).

If demo was able to carry around ~20 rockets with the LAW (without needing to be support), it would be close enough in terms of available power that the choice between LAW/Carrying 2x Launchers would be mostly personal preference- as it should be.

 

[HaTeMe]

"Demolitions" generally involves using explosive charges (not weapons) to demolish large things, like structures. A task also handled by military engineers.

"Support" generally involves handling weapons to support an infantry team, weapons that require more than a single person to operate most effectively, like heavy machine guns or anti-tank rockets.

So, technically, the LAW should be a Support weapon, but at this point, if any perk can make it worthwhile, have at it.

Well yes, I agree. But wouldnt that mean M32 and M79 are "wrong" choices for that perk because they are weapons ?

 

[DocDave]

Well yes, I agree. But wouldnt that mean M32 and M79 are "wrong" choices for that perk because they are weapons ?

Yep. Grenadier would probably be a more accurate term, although that word is kinda archaic now. It's been used less and less since even before Viet Nam, at which time rifle-mounted grenade launchers became popular. Those pretty much killed the need to have a soldier carrying almost only grenade-type weaponry, with the M79. (Due to it's rifle-like size, soldiers carrying it were not issued a rifle, but a pistol.)

 

[Nibe]

The LAW has a protection, when shooting point blank. Try it It is just a 3 meters max, but it still has it. (See the rocket hit to teamamate and then just fell to the ground, without explosion.

Lets double the damage of LAW and thats it. Support can carry a LAW and AA-12 @ LVL6. That will be a superrior combination anyway.

Or we can make LAW as anti-FP/Scrake/Siren/Husk/Patty weapon.
It should be that way that one perk can PWN one type of enemy.
Sharpie can still PWN every type enemy, but only if they come one by one. Stalkers and crawlers should do extra damage to aiming sharpies. (like ignoring the armor.)

We can only start tweaking and thinking about perks, to make balanced team only change to survive at suicidal.

EDIT: And tweaking perk means that some perks take extra damage from some enemies. Sharpies could take some extra damage from every enemy type. i think this a little and Ill make a new thread about it later.

 

[9_6]

The only thing that makes the law still a not-so-feasible choice would be its weight and the horrid ammo price.
Seriously shoot a few rockets and you're at an ammo price of 300 in no time while you can completely refill the m32, which also shoots MUCH faster and lets you carry something else, for as much as ~100.