Whoever nerfed lance/couch damage is a dumbfuck: The Thread

[MURDERTRON]

I'm going to write a lengthier post later, but as Legs says, you can't use Devilize as an example.  He has low ping, is level 35 with a priority in all things lancing, has played more hours than most as just that class, and as far as I know, every item he wears is +3 and wears extremely heavy armor.  He has no hybridization, the only points he could have arguably spent differently is not having 7ath, and instead going for a more cookie cutter build with either 24 ago or str.  To say Devilize represents an average lancer is the furthest you can get from the truth.  Furthermore, if you want to look at what is average, you'll see that most lancers have up lancing for more effective builds after the nerf.  Another person who fit a similar profile as Devilize is Rohy.  Rohy gave up lancing, respecced out if it, respecced back into it to try a +3 lance and respecced out of it again.  He has not gone back.  And to top things off,  Devilize has been using a Morningstar, +0 from horseback instead, while still carrying an elegant poleaxe on his back.

[Torben]

It's definitely true.

lol

[ROHYPNOL]

For actually nerfing Cavalry as a class, the things that should be looked at are horse stats and not the damage of the weapons. Reducing the ability for all horses to tank damage would be a pretty good start, so if a cavalry player makes any mistake (by getting their horse hit in melee) it would always die to even 1handers or ect. Removing bumps fully would also be a very good idea, so horses can only "stagger" people in that they can't block and attack while the horse runs through them instead of fully knocking them over and doing tons of damage which is brokenly good in many situations.

I agree with the fact that heavy lance needs a serious buff and should have never been nerfed. I like many of your ideas, but you have some rather drastic ones also.. Remove bumps, and horses die instantly to every weapon.. Not sure about that one

[Matey]

I like the ideas... I personally think (and have said many many times) that horses are the worst part of this game. Nothing ruins the game for me more than getting poached by some asshole on a horse who is able to outmanoeuvre my 9athletics light armour ass because he has 4+ points in riding and can blatantly miss with his weapon but knock me down and get me killed... or just run straight at me, absorb my attack and then run me over and hit me by swinging wildy in the air while im on the ground under his horse.

The cav that doesn't annoy the shit out of me are the ones who will actually fight me when I'm looking at them, it can still be annoying if you are trying to go do something else and they keep making passes at you... but if I at least have a chance of fighting back then it doesn't enrage me as much.

You can run ranged players down (if they are on foot) but you can't run down cowardly cav which is why i hate them 2nd most and ranged cav most... common theme being horses.

Another issue with horses everywhere is that the only decent counter to horses is ranged. More horses? more ranged. More ranged? more everyone crying about ranged. Nerfing horses ability to soak melee damage and making it more attractive to not be a cowardly piece of shit when on a horse could well lead to less people feeling the need to have ranged and thus less ranged in general and less tears in general! (I can dream)

Anyways.. I am obviously biased and lobbying and blah blah but I still like the idea of buffing the heavy lance and nerfing horse bumps and horse hp (against melee)

[Penitent]

Cav is underpowered right now, and lances/couching are only part of the reason...but they should be fixed.

[Teeth]

the former is a wide spread rumor which devs have confirmed not to be true,  I used to think it as well.

Can you find me a quote of that or can a dev confirm this? From playing with a pike I'd say slow weapons do get affected more by speed bonus. I sometimes have to stab running archers in the head 3 times, while I sometimes oneshot medium to heavy armour infantry moving towards me. Anecdotal evidence, but nonetheless a very strong difference which I cannot explain otherwise. It also simply makes sense. The impact of a slow moving object influenced relatively more by speed differences of the target than a faster moving object. Case and point, throwing. Move towards a thrower as cav and they will do a fuck ton of damage while they can whiff when riding away, this does not apply nearly as much comes to arrows, because the speed of a horse is relatively low compared to the speed of an arrow.

I'd say the same would apply to slow moving weapons.

[Ronin]

Maybe it's just the nature of slow weapons in general, greater damage. They benefit more from speed bonus because they have more base damage.

Gotta test in Singleplayer.

[Vodner]

Maybe it's just the nature of slow weapons in general, greater damage. They benefit more from speed bonus because they have more base damage.

Gotta test in Singleplayer.

Best thing to do would be to take a weapon, test it on some training dummies, then mod the weapon so that it has incredibly low speed and repeat the test. I expect that's what you're already doing, though.

[POOPHAMMER]

free BADPLAYER

[Torben]

thread: http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/

me thinking pikes and heavy lance getting better speed bonus damage:
http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/msg688179/#msg688179

cmp schooling us:
http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/msg688194/#msg688194
http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/msg688211/#msg688211

[Torben]

woha oppermabanned. asked too many questions, eh?   

[Teeth]

thread: http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/

me thinking pikes and heavy lance getting better speed bonus damage:
http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/msg688179/#msg688179

cmp schooling us:
http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/msg688194/#msg688194
http://forum.melee.org/game-balance-discussion/fix-1h-2hcav-balance/msg688211/#msg688211

Wow, I am so surprised here, but yeah he did say it. Technically this means that a bamboo spear should do more damage than my pike, which I find a ridiculous notion from having played with both. Can't really believe it.

[Hobb]

The more you nerf the lance and compensate by giving bump damage, the more you encourage back-stabbing. This is why I have no faith in the devs when it comes to balancing cav. If you put the best lancers on the balance team, like devilize or roh, or some the good eu guys, I think you would get a way more balanced cav class.

I think we can all agree that all you really did to lancers was made the playstyle more annoying. Despite popular belief, the rider on a horse is incredibly fragile. Speed bonus works both ways, and a throwing weapon, a pike stab, 2h swing/thrust will 1shot any rider at full speed. I wore a +3 churburg (18str, 6if) and I had to bring a shield on my courser because I couldnt tank more than two arrows.

Yet, before I respecced half-way through 35 (not because of the nerfs btw) I had the same 3:1 K:D I had during the glory lance days.(before I quit retiring, I usually had 4:1 average cav builds, but i never spawned off horse) I did way more scavaging/spawn protecting/back stabbing/ cav hunting then I used to post lance/couch nerf.

But any lancer will tell you that charging a infantry piker/2h that is isolated isnt worth it, because you need to lance him 3-4 times while they just need to get you once. Yet a bump/lance with a heavy horse, or a bump/couch with a courser is still a 1shot.

In NA, I would make the obviously bias statement that the best pure lancer heavy cav is my brother, Habb. 15-27 no ath or IF, and even at lvl 34 he still has over a 4:1 k:d. yet prob 1/3 his kills are cataphract bumps and prob half the damge he delivers is from charge.

Its easier to bump when the enemy is fighting or unaware. Bumping is worth it more now than pre-nerf. devs have encouraged more cavmy old friendgatry, less "skill."

my suggestion: scale back bump damage significantly, and either speed horses up accross the board or give the lances some love again.

[MURDERTRON]

Hobb has some pretty good points.  1h stab now 1 hit kills cav players and is incredibly easy to hit.  Basically you removed any reason for a cavalry player to ever challenge an aware opponent other than bad ranged or three directional 1h.  You've also removed basically any reason for any non-ranged cav to use an non armored horse.  Worst of all, you've pushed more players into playing horse archers.  The lance at this point mostly serves as a deterrent against conservative players from trying to stab you, making them block and hoping you get the bump.  2h and 1h weapons do more damage, have far more versatility and since you should never challenge aware opponents the reach of the weapon hardly matters, which is all the lance had going for it.