Being aware of your own limits for starters.
Try and kill the ones who are unaware, and avoid getting into massive groups of enemies who will mob and slow you down. If there is a particularly troublesome opponent, do not be one of the many stupid cav players out there and keep circling him to try and kill him, and instead just run off (Speed is an advantage, so always use it) and go kill some other player.
Playing a slow ring-around-the-rosie of a single opponent when there are a few dozen remaining enemies is a sin too many cav commit.
If there are a half dozen team mates mobbing a single guy, do not be a prick and run into them to try and add one more kill to your count. Learn how to play smart and do a well timed cav bump to the enemy for your team mates to exploit while he is getting up from the ground, and learn to not run over your own team mates.
Being greedy as an infantry hurts team mates, being greedy as a cav kills them.
A great example would be BlueGreen who is one of the best armored cav players I have seen on any server. Never allows himself to be stuck, never slows down, always moves to new places, and knows when to switch weapons or avoid people with pikes.
Can somebody tell me please? By good I mean can kill Tommy and Oberyn all the time, as opposed to picking up easy kills
Thanks for this Tears! Found really helpful. I am now playing on EU1, you? I know Bluegreen well, he is a nice guy.
Couch a Heavy Lance or use Jarids.like your pic :P
EDIT:
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Sound like you want to be a cav that's good against other cav? A heavy lance and polearm skill is really nice against other cav. Practice on the duel server with some other cav friend to get the timing and subtleties right.
Use a maneuverable horse like the sarranid or steppe horse. Consider going throwing + horse archery, it's a great cav-vs-cav build. Go for maximum riding skill always.
A nice trick i use a lot is to body-block their horse with yours, forcing them to stop. Combined with a maneuverable horse and high riding skill, you should be able to get behind them and slash or stab them once or twice before they can escape you. Risky move though, if they are on to you they'll just aim for your horse instead of you.
Edit: one more important tip for cav versus cav: always try to move in front of other cav. Never cut in behind, always cut along their front. Server latency and mechanics seem to favor the guy that swings or stabs really early and aims slightly ahead of where they are displayed on your screen.
Why are so many cav kind of obsessed with lances and pointy things ?Sorry, the most fun as cav is.. lancer vs lancer. I tend to get bored when there is no enemy cav left.
Right know I would estimate the melee cav population like this :
80% of lancers with over-maneuvrable horses like the sarranid
15% of traditional bump-slashers (just like Bluegreen mentioned above) with more charge-oriented horses
5% of lowlevels/trolls
And the goal of many horsemen on the battlefield seems to be to kill enemy cav. That's the worst thing you can do as a cav. In most cases, cav duels are extremely risky, just for one enemy cav down. Don't loose your time and risk your life duelling with other cav, the thing you are good at is poking archers and unaware infantry in general. As a cav, you should consider yourself precious and allways try to survive as long as possible. You will likely have much more opportunities to land a cheap kill than any other class so the longer you live, the better you do.
Killing other cavs with 1h works very well too, just block the enemy horse and swing. An important thing to note is that hunting HA's (something you should normally avoid at all costs) goes much easier with slashing weapons on horse (and you need the overhead slash for those moments when the opponent is right in front of you).
Meh, you've killed me enough times to know by now :P.
I consider you a pretty decent cav
Rich is pretty good.
Just want to stress .. avoid bumping friendlies like the plague. Melees tend to get antsy and may swing before seeing the flag over a horseman's head after the tenth 'friendly' bump.
I admit that you are the first to inspire me to be a Cav, nice lancing just like sending a billiard ball to its hole, I adore you.
Then I saw Templar_Tommy who often had 30-40 kills every round, very stable.
I also saw vernadian made 50+ kills the highest record I've ever seen.
So think cannot call myself a good cav unless can kill you guys most of the time...em..I know, maybe mission impossible!
Oberyn, if you know any trick to kill an infantry pointing heavy lance at you, do please let me know :P
Server latency and mechanics seem to favor the guy that swings or stabs really early and aims slightly ahead of where they are displayed on your screen.
If this is RichBaby_(lots of 0s), you have to be trolling. You are one of best horsemen I see playing. You are an inspiration to those who suck at being cav (just me). No asslicking intended.
Thanks Christo,Phazey, Daergar, KaMiKaZe_JoE & Tears_of_Destiny for the tips as well though, even if they aren't directed to me they will surely help!
With all due respect if you attack a guy face on and repeatedly do it as a cav, then you are a blooming thrice damned idiot.
In a straight fight a cav player is at a disadvatage due to that ugly massive clumsy horse that can actually get in the own rider's way. At least BlueGreen can defend himself when dismounted and still get kills.
Gnjus, there is a difference between an effective cav player, and a "skilled" one who is macho and does nothing but forward attacks and gets his horse cut down from him due to any sane 2Her outreaching him with a stab, or a Piker saying "shove it" and stopping the horse, or even a 1hander doing a jack-in-the-box jump and slicing off the head of the horse.
Stick with playing your 2Her with crushthrough (Because god knows your wooden hammer needs massive amounts of skill) and be a dear and stop diving into cavalry threads.
Sorry to disappoint you mate but it's not that hard to be a "good" cavalry guy, all you need to do is hunt down all those unaware/blind fools that just go straightforward and.....die........you backstabb 'em and they.....die.....their life sucks and then they just....die..........
As for the Tommy/Oberyn/Ujin......give 'em a half-decent opponent (one who is not blind/stupid/incompetent/unaware) and they just......die.......... :rolleyes:(click to show/hide)
I dont thonk its fair to say that those guys completly fail when fighting aware people. Cav Vs Cav fights require very good timing so its not like they are complete skillless noobs as your somewhat rejective post suggest my old friend :lol:
I never doubted for one second that a dedicated archer could comprehend my post.....i never said cavalry should charge into the pikes that await for em.....nor did i say they should charge the lolstabbers......all i said is that when you see Tommy/Ujin/Oberyn get scores like 50-60/2-3 its all down to the incompetent opponents, rather then their own "uber-OP-skill".....just ask them and they will confirm it. When they face some able (or at least half-able) opposition they dont get very far.......and they know it very well. :)
As for my 2hander with "godly" crushthrough" (that needs some skill)...that is exactly where i was waiting for you....when i played a shielder you called me a noob who cant manual block, now when i play a 2hander (and having a slow/short mallet requires some manual blocking skill) you still call me a noob (using an OP/no skill required weapon)......and all that coming from a guy who plays a class which requires the most biggest amount of skill = a dedicated archer ? Youre having a laugh....... :)
And yes...i played a cavalry...a lot in native, somewhat less in cRPG but yeah, i played it.
No, no, no....i never said all these guys were bad.....skilless noobs, etc.......and im not being rejective to them...also, you cant deny that most of em are skilled even without their horses (Oberyn, Ujin, Tommy, etc)...
As for the Tommy/Oberyn/Ujin......give 'em a half-decent opponent (one who is not blind/stupid/incompetent/unaware) and they just......die.......... :rolleyes:
Run along now, play nice!
You have a marvelously unique way of putting that they are skilled. Simply fascinating.
I consider you a pretty decent cav+1 keep doing what you are doing, as much as it pains me...
I do play quite shit sometimes, especially when my gf calls in and have to stay on line for hours and play without sound.
As a reasonably veteran cav, I still feel hopeless when killed by a peasant holding a pitchfork which happens a lot...
I've seen you play and you're quite good. Quite frankly, a horse lancer's job is to go for easy kills. If you spend your time dueling other horsemen you are wasting your time, because it's the horse archers/archers job to kill the horsemen. I usually just run away from duels and go back to killing unawares.
As for actually dueling horse lancers... it's all in timing/ping. It just takes time and practice. You're good and you shouldn't have much trouble picking it up, if you ask me. Still I would keep away from dueling horse lancers. Your potential is wasted in there, you should really really focus on lancing infantry and unaware archers.
Also, never go head on against a guy on foot with a polearm, be it pitchfork or a pike. It's really easy to kill a horse lancer with pretty much any polearm, so you're better just running off to the next "easy kill".
Not picking on you, but here in NA, it's all about the cav on cav fights, when you get them together. It started out as each team trying to protect their stragglers and afks from the enemy cavalry, and evolved to "take those bastards down, so they leave us alone". The trend lately has been to laugh at cavalry "padding" their K:D ratios by chasing afks, and giving the most respect to those that can bust up an enemy formation without going down while simultaneously keeping enemy cav from doing the same. We're actually seeing organized cav movements such as wedges, group flanks, and close-in ride behinds to turn enemy ranged around and expose them to the fire they should have been watching in the front.
I love it when cav charges me head on when i have my lolstab chambered (ummm fresh meat)
In Europe, we ride for kills, not advance tactics.
Can somebody tell me please? By good I mean can kill Tommy and Oberyn all the time, as opposed to picking up easy kills (though which I think is the true job for cav). :D
speak for yourself please, not everybody like to kill easy targets just like you, some are for the challenge and want to kill some high priority targets rather than that afk guy on spawn
Easy kills do not necessarily mean AFK or "noob". Easy kills are also: unaware, people fighting in melee combat, shield+1h. It doesn't have anything to do with your "high priority targets", mr assassin.
Also, would you risk going 1v1 vs a pro polearmer/2h as a cav rather than easy killing 5 mediocre players, therefore helping the team more?
Thanks Christo,Phazey, Daergar, KaMiKaZe_JoE & Tears_of_Destiny for the tips as well though, even if they aren't directed to me they will surely help!
Phazey speaks the truth+1 from someone who noobcharges on horseback too many times.
But then you come into situations where there is a big cav furball happening off the side away from the main lines. Some of your team cav are engaged. Do you wait by the ground pounders or do you jump in to tip the odds in your favour? After all, whichever team wins the cav skirmish gets total cav superiority afterwards.
Obviously it is better if all stayed with the inf, but if it's 5-4 at the cav furball, it may rapidly become 5-3 then eventually 4-0 if you stayed with the infantry. Joining even late can allow your cav to disengage more or less intact if they were getting overwhelmed. Dedicated anti cavalry cav shine in these messes, while infantry support cav might not want to get involved. No self respecting cav is going to fall for being lured to pikes or archery range so these fights tend to happen off to the sides. Of course if its one of those cramped "LOL" cav/city maps you will not see the cav skirmish.
While ping and timing (but I repeat myself) are important for cav, what I really want is for someone to come up with a guide to maneuvering and positioning so friendly cav can work together properly. I have seen some clannies work as a two man element, most notable to pincer horse archers, to cut off retreats or to deliver one-two blows. Cav only really work well with other cav for the most part due to friendly bumps and differing dispositions. For example, infantry will want to climb ledges and stay in some cramped place. A cavalryman near them is not really contributing and will get picked off first by concentrated force before the enemy assaults the high place. An infantryman is too slow to follow cav to the cav skirmish area, and is just a speedbump there even if he did make it, as his teamates did not follow him.. So much for combined arms. If infantry were willing enough to follow to the clear area, cav could and would offer support. But since most inf just town/building\ladder\stair\corner camp, cav have a tendency to go off into the cav furball. The winner of the furball usually wins the round just by virtue of having more people around. Thus a guide for cav to work together with cav is needed, especially to win the cav skirmish.
This lack of infantry supporting cav and vice versa is not a problem with the mod, but with the maps. If map makers continue to put awkward buildings and terrain for no good reason, infantry cannot resist the temptation to go there. Cav can't follow the inf onto the roofs or into the marshy woods for example , and will die off in the far off skirmish on more reasonable terrain. If we had more maps that even looked the slightest bit like a semi plausible battlefield instead of something from counterstrike, we would have what phzah wrote about, cav supporting inf in the correct manner. With the current line up of maps in most servers that is just not possible.
+1 for this, I actually spend a lot of time trying to come up with ways for cavalry to support the team, even if it's just keeping 4 or 5 enemy infantry tied up by riding slowly behind them. The fact that most of the "open" (what happened to random plains, dammit?!? ) end up as "Rush to the nearest roof, tower, outcropping before enemy does!" really limits tactical play. For the rest of the maps, I posted up a "Light Cavalry Tactics Primer", that may be of interest to cavalry people. Some of the info may be out dated, and my attempts at paint.net illustrations are as ugly as I remember, but I hope it helps :D.
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php?topic=488.0