I've been playing cRPG on-and-off since the times when the server had to be restarted every half-hour; many things have changed since then, almost entirely for the better. Ive just recently started playing again, after stopping playing in around November or December. Since then, there have been many patches, and a lot has changed. Back before I stopped playing, my main character was a two-hander without a shield, I cant remember the exact stats as Ive since over-written that character, but it had roughly balanced attributes and the like. My main now is a Skip The Fun character, with two sets of Heavy Throwing Axes, a Military Cleaver and a Heavy Round Shield; I also have relatively good armour, Ragged Outfit, Footmans Helmet, Leather Gloves and Light Leather Boots. I also have a levelling alternate character, who uses a two-hander.
Levelling:
The most major change is to levelling, with no more proximity-based experience and gold gain, everyone is able to gain experience and gold by merely being on the server; Skip The Fun characters mean that no one is forced to grind anymore. One result of this is that one sees far fewer peasants with just the default Straw Hat and Pitchfork on the battlefield, and its obvious why; within about half an hour, one can afford semi-decent equipment. Thus the process of levelling up from Level 1 to Level 20 is far less lengthy, painful and frustrating than it used to be. Conversely, due to upkeep and the like, one also sees far fewer of the invincible tin-cans on the battlefield, there probably used to be too many of them, but it did always give one a sense of satisfaction when they were brought down by a mob of lower-levels. Most players tend to be either just out of peasant-hood, or at the level which non-full time grinders used to reach. Another point is that even when someone reaches the ridiculously high levels, with multiple retirements and such, the effects of them being that high a level are reduced; whilst they are still far tougher to beat than a regular player, they are far from the god-like state which player such as Birdman, Oberyn, cmpxchg8b and other skillful high-levels used to be at.
Archers:
When I used to play, I had to deal with archers like Birdman, who could be pin-point accurate across the map, whilst also being able to shoot several arrows a second, be able to kill in a single body-shot and being so fast as to be un-catchable by any but the fastest of Ninjas. Archers now still seem to have that ability to kite, and every single one of them does so. If one is trying to kill an archer, one has to prepare to chase them across the map, while theyre able to continually turn around and shoot at one. The new animation has however stopped their machine-gun rate of fire, however weird it may look. Equally, only the highest levelled archers now seem able to even approach the levels of damage which archers of old could inflict. Archers only seem to start approaching their old power-level when they are in groups; a single archer can not really do much to sway the tide of a battle, but a group of around seven archers is easily able to kill a group of infantry double that number, largely due to their ability to collectively kite and shoot the infantry whenever they attack one of their number. When archers are able to do so well however, it is also often due to the fact that the majority of infantry in cRPG have a strange hatred for shields, and will only ever use two-handers. Any one who only uses a two-hander in Battle mode really has no basis for complaining about ranged weapons; my shield character rarely even has to acknowledge the existence of archers.
Cavalry:
Cavalry as a class has had some huge changes made to it; the first of these if I remember correctly was a large increase to horses charge damage, when this was first brought in, cavalry became relatively over-powered, due to their ability to charge recklessly through melee fights without a worry. However, the implementation of friendly horse-bumping has done a lot to balance the class, and indeed distinguish the team-playing, skillful cavalry from the reckless kill-chasers. When one has a good cavalry on ones team, melee fights become much easier, when one has a poor cavalry on ones team, one begins shying away from melee fights when they are coming near, treating them almost as enemy cavalry. One-handed cavalry seems now to be a far more viable class, with a relatively large number of them around, however I see fewer two-handed cavalry now than before. I feel that too many items have been declared unusable on horse-back, meaning that there is far less variety and far fewer interesting cavalry builds.
Throwing:
Throwing at the moment is relatively well-balanced, although it is far more useful in a support role than in one-on-ones. Having someone - so long as they can aim and thus do not team-hit - throwing into a melee fight at short-distance can easily change the outcome of said fight. They have relatively high damage, even those players who seem to have stacked Iron Flesh and bought the best armour generally only take four or five throwing axes; their accuracy is enough to be able to hit most of the time at short to medium distances, and yet not to be sniping players. They are also an extremely effective counter to kiting archers, forcing them to either turn and fight, or run and be hit by throwing weapons. The fact that there are now fewer throwing weapons per weapon slot is a much-needed nerf, if my character were to have as many throwing axes as it would in Native, it would be significantly more powerful.
Sword&Board:
In their current state, players who go one-hander and shield are under-powered, they are still relatively useful in a support capacity, by harrying the enemy whilst the more damaging, heavy-hitting two-handers or polearms kill them, and of course they offer protection against ranged weapons; however, in any kind of one-on-one, a shield-user is always far less powerful than a polearm-user or two-hander. When fighting two-handers, I find that the only successful tactic is to play extremely safely, only hitting when one has taken about three of their hits and are at kicking distance so one will actually be able to get a hit in, and even then ones hit will generally bounce on their armour, meaning that they can continue to spam one. I dont believe the problem of balance here lies with the shielders themselves, their stats are fine as they are, they shouldnt need more speed, range or damage. The problem lies with the fact that the most popular two-handers in the game are hugely over-powered. The Danish and German Greatswords for instance are both ridiculously long and fast, and the only problems that two-handers face essentially comes from ranged weapons. In any kind of melee situation, two-handers always dominate. Even though shielders are useful in a support role, two-handers are better.