The Lahn Awakening was updated on Black Desert Online KR on January 11th. The newly-born Lahn with her Awakening weapon, the Blood Flow Blade, really caught the attention of KR players. Notably, many players joined in the bandwagon of Awakening Lahn since she was rumored to have to the ‘deadliest grab skill’ and ‘improved mobility skill’ prior to her Awakening update.

Although the Lahn has many skills with Super Armor and Forward Guard, as well as a mobility skill, these players pointed out that the animation for the Lahn’s skills cannot be canceled, which is a huge drawback. Also, she is great in grinding areas like Desert Naga/Fogan, Gahaz, and Pirate Island where she can quickly kill a group of monsters with one or two skills and move on when grinding. However, the Lahn’s efficiency falls in places like Navarn Steppe (Wolf), Manshaum, Ronaros, and Gyfin Rhasia Temple, where monsters have more health.

Players have been saying that the Lahn lacks DPS in PvP since she depends heavily on her grab skill, and she also has a low accuracy problem. Meanwhile, many players were looking forward to the Lahn after videos of her easily countering the Mystic were uploaded. However, some say that since the Mystic can deal a huge amount of damage to the Lahn, it’s difficult to say if the Lahn is a proper counter.

The names of the skills are temporary translations and may be changed once the official terms are released on BDO NA. 

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[KR reaction to Lahn Awakening]

◆ General KR reaction

▷ You can quickly use the Lahn’s skills in combos, and swapping between Awakening and Pre-Awakening is fairly easy. Because of that, it’s more convenient to manage buffs or use Absolute skills.

▷ She has the best grinding speed ever. Her stamina is easy to manage, although her AoE is bit small.

▷ I think her grinding speed is different in each situation. I thought her grinding speed was great when I went to Pirate Island for a short time, but it feels real slow in Manshaum.

▷ Her efficiency drops when you go to places where monsters get stronger like Pila Ku Jail, Feather Wolf, Manshaum, etc.

▷ I think she has the best grinding speed on Desert Naga, Pirate Island, and Crescent Shrine. But it was different in Pila Ku Jail. After I got through one group of monsters in Pila Ku, I didn’t have any other skills to kill the next so I had to swap and use Absolute skills, which I think depended too much on Piercing Heart for her DPS. That’s why the Lahn is so weak when her Piercing Heart is on cooldown.

▷ It feels like I am doing PvP with monsters in Hystria. Got no skills to use. My skills other than enhanced ones don’t deal any damage, and I don’t have any skills to keep me alive once they are on cooldown so I had to leave after continuously using Evasion-Guarding forward while moving backward.

▷ So in general, she is really good in grinding areas where you can just sweep a group of monsters clean in a single skill combo then move on to next group, but not in the ones where you have to pour all your skills out at once to kill a monster.

▷ I think that is due to how the skills were designed.It’s not like the cooldown for her skills is that long or anything overall, but all her skills have cooldowns so she can’t keep accumulating damage with one or two skills. This means that she has to use most of her Awakening skills and so efficiency drops when you’re grinding powerful monsters.

▷ She does have a small AoE, which seems weird, but she was like that before Awakening. She doesn’t hit the targets even though they seemed close enough.

▷ It’s annoying how she has long skill animations and you can’t cancel them.

▲ Lv 61 Lahn grinding on Desert Naga after Awakening (by 도끼3)

▷ But it’s true that it does look like she has an advantage in PvP with her insane grab, Super Armor, and Forward Guard.

▷ Her only drawback would be that she’s squishy… You need to know that you’d die instantly if you fail to grab your target and lose control of a fight.

▷ I still think you’d be in a much more favorable position just with the grab skill.

▷ She doesn’t have a decent skill to initiate other than her grab. Since the cooldown for her Blood Waltz is 4 seconds long, the pattern of skills she uses to initiate a fight is too simple. Not only that, her Chain Wheel doesn’t have a good hitbox so it’s hard to use that skill.

▷ Since the Lahn has low accuracy, her damage drops if your target has Evasion Magic Crystals. If you fail to grab or hit your target with her Chain Wheel, then you’d be forced to just run around during her cooldown.

▷ But even if you do succeed in grabbing, it seems she lacked DPS because of that accuracy problem. It was near impossible to kill Warriors or Valkyries in just one shot even if you do use all of her skills on them.

▷ Since her grab skill hitbox is so good, I think they made it hard for the Lahn to continue using skill combos right after.

▷ At least she’s the quickest out of all classes when it comes to killing Mystics.

▷ It’s true that she can deal good damage against a Mystic, but it’s hard to see the Lahn countering the Mystic since the Mystic can deal a lot of damage against the Lahn as well.

▲ The PvP video that set off the rumors of Lahn being the counter class for Mystic (by 십고수)

◆ KR reaction to Lahn skills

▷ I think her most powerful skill is Piercing Heart. It has the biggest AoE and deals the most damage; Slash, the skill used with Piercing Heart in a skill combo, has a small AoE so you’d have to make sure you’re looking the right way if you want to use them together in a combo. The only drawback is that it has a real long cooldown.

▷ Piercing Heart certainly is the Lahn’s main skill. I think it takes up most of the total damage dealt. But since Piercing Heart is the most powerful skill, it gets stressful when you are grinding monsters that won’t die in one shot with this skill.

▷ Dance of Death can also be used as one of her main skills. Dance of Death has an 8-second cooldown so you won’t be able to keep using it, but it deals a fair amount of damage and has Forward Guard. Although you’d need to get in close to your target since it has small AoE.

▷ Using Chain Wheel effectively is crucial- it has a 4-second cooldown and allows you to move in front of your target on successful hits. It has Stun, Super Armor, and a buff that increases your Attack Speed by 15% so it’s a perfect skill to use for initiating.

▷ Descent, Crescent Dance, and Flow: Sinister Strike are often used as initiating skills. Pressing RMB while using Chain Wheel will use them in a skill combo.

▷ Scream of Confinement has too small of an AoE when used alone, but using Black Spirit’s Rage on it makes it super powerful. Almost the same as the Warrior’s Black Spirit’s Rage, although its after-delay is too long.

▷ I recommend locking Rage and Step of Apocalypse. As for Rage, it does a fair amount damage if you manage to hit your target with all of it but there are moments when you are left vulnerable after your 1st hit; as for Step of Apocalypse, it’s just better to use a different skill when the cooldown is over instead.

▷ You need to keep Step of Apocalypse locked since it gets in the way when using Chain Wheel.

▷ But what the heck is wrong with the animation for Step of Apocalypse lol

▲ Step of Apocalypse has been laughed at for its weird animation. (by 뀨여사)

▷ Blood Waltz has a 4-second cooldown, double dash, and can restore health!

▷ Blood Waltz is great but I wish they took out the healing part and reduced its cooldown. It’s kinda frustrating.

ㄴ I think this is asking too much. It is better to have a shorter cooldown when you’re grinding only in places where you can kill monsters in just one skill combo, but being able to sustain longer becomes more important as you move on to grinding areas with higher levels.

▷ For me, I’m satisfied with Blood Waltz and its mobility efficiency. If you use RMB in a skill combo then you can even teleport.

▷ Using Pendulum Waltz after using Blood Waltz twice right afterward will let you move really fast.

▷ Blood Waltz isn’t that efficient in PvE but a great skill to use in PvP.

▷ Return to Naught is a movement skill that allows you to dodge sideways, and it has a 1.5-second cooldown and Invincibility.

ㄴ I think its efficiency is similar to that of Dark Knight’s Dusk, which gives you Invincibility. Isn’t that amazing?

ㄴ But you can’t cancel the animation for the Lahn’s skills so it’s quite hard to really take advantage of Return to Naught. It feels like you’d use it after you get hit.

▷ Oh, her grab skill isn’t short range but mid range? Her skill range is longer than I expected.

▷ So it is the ‘Might Grasp’ after all. If you fail to grab your target, you’d dodge backward and it has big sideways AoE.

▷ 5-hit hitbox for her grab? It even has Super Armor! What the...

▷ Lahn’s PvP seems to start and end with her grab skill. It’s true that her grab skills are really powerful but you won’t be able to do anything if you miss, so you need to use it carefully.

▲ The hitbox for the Lahn’s Soul Grasp AoE, looking forward (by 댕댕이한마리)

▲ The hitbox for the Lahn’s Soul Grasp AoE, from above (by 댕댕이한마리)

◆ The animations for the Lahn’s Awakening skills

[Blood Flow Blade: Blood Waltz]

[Blood Flow Blade: Return to Naught]

[Blood Flow Blade: Piercing Heart]

[Blood Flow Blade: Chain Wheel]

[Blood Flow Blade: Descent - Crescent Dance - Flow: Sinister Strike]

[Blood Flow Blade: Rage]

◆ Tooltips for Blood Flow Blade skills