Overhead lance

[Tovi]

What the overhead lance could bring ? The ability, for an hoplite, to strike with his lance while his shield is raised. As a malus, damage will be reduced by 50%.
That would be a strong advantage for hoplite to have some fight in close combat, because actually they are useless against any spammer.

[MURDERTRON]

Only if the regular stab is nerfed.

[Grumpy_Nic]

I just glanced at the title of this thread and read "lapdance".
Now I'm disappointed.

[Algarn]

If you're talking about the bullshit from NW, then no. No, because it always leads to some feints hardly counterrable. Still, maybe it could be added with the 50% damage reduction, but it would also need to be much slower than the insta stab we got in NW. Only way it won't be overused/abused. Better forget that, since most people won't forget the OP NW bullshit, where you can point blank stab to the head with 1 hit kills, or switching to the speed of light to an actual stab and also 1 hit kill the ennemy.

[Huscarlton_Banks]

It would probably be very awkward to script something that blocks melee attacks with a shield while attacking, the animations/sounds wouldn't make any sense with what's happening.

I'd rather see some sort of "brace" option for hoplites using couchable polearms which:

Has a forcefield vs ranged (same as blocking) - Don't know how to implement this
Only damages horses/riders
Doesn't block melee attacks

This is only to counter the nonsense that ranged cavalry like to pull where your only options are:

1) Attempt to stab and get shot
2) Get run over and shot while knocked down
3) Keep your shield up and try to dodge if they're dumb enough to charge at full speed with a low maneuver stat horse, attempt to stab if they let you dodge to their right side (only with the fastest polearms and extremely high wpf, otherwise they'll be out of range)

Only problem thing is it'd also counter melee cavalry.

Another alternative is having the shield + polearm stab animation keep the shield in front of you, though it still wouldn't do anything vs melee.

[spiritus]

Hoplites are op as fuck noooooo way this would be way unbalanced.

[Tovi]

That's probably why we see quite no hoplite anymore...

[MURDERTRON]

That's probably why we see quite no hoplite anymore...

There's plenty on NA.