Final Solution for Cavalry. (Make it.. different)

[Son Of Odin]

Buff pikes? I'm a cav/piker hybrid and have been piker for a very long time. Pikes don't need a buff at all, if anything they could do with a slight nerf. Maybe remove polestagger from all polearms with a small stat buff to compensate

Well I don't know why people don't use pikes anymore.. I am amused since at the same time everyone complains about cav and don't do anything to counter them... Maybe people are dumb then..

I haven't used a pike or longspear for couple generations because I have been consentrating on being cav. That's why I don't know how good those weapons are currently.

[Kafein]

Just buff long spear somehow. Melee enthusiasts quite much shit their own bed when they cried like little bitches about long spear being OP.

I don't see too many long spears or pikes around anymore. If I remember right, long spear is taking 3 slots currently and it doesn't allow long spear men have a decent sideweapon. That makes cavalry more dangerous to melee infantry units than anything. Yeah ranged counters cavalry, but its kinda borderline. Cavalry counters ranged as well and rangers can't protect the infantry from cav like pikemen and long spear men do.

I don't know about you but I attack infantry "protected" by pikemen aware of me much more often than I do when there are archers guarding the area. At least with the pikeman I know I'm safe if I stay out of reach.



I think an increase in cav leads to an increase in ranged, because being ranged you can play in places where you are immune to cav. An increase in ranged leads to an increase in ranged because the best way not to get shot from all sides is still taking cover, but you can't do anything hiding with a melee weapon so you take a ranged weapon. But an increase in ranged doesn't increase the cav population IMO. Why would it ? The number one cause of death for horses is projectiles. Charging aware archers is a gamble at best, attacking a thrower is suicide. As cav you need someone to attract the attention of the enemy, at least for a second. I can guarantee being horseman in a team full of archers against a team full of archers is pretty horrible because the enemies don't have anything to distract them.

Ranged counters cavalry all the time, by denying safe access to certain zones. Cavalry only counters ranged during those five seconds of lack of awareness.


A charge can only work with a coordinated force of ~5 cav players. Out of the more or less 7 cav players per team you can regularly see on EU_1, maybe 5 of them aren't complete noobs to the mod, out of which 2 could do some proper teamwork. And I stress on the coordinated part. Doing cav teamwork requires more than just the basic knowledge of the class like archery cross-firing shielders. Ally horsemen can block each other's path which means that in a charge you are truly a threat to your teammates unless you all move in a straight line. And more importantly, what follows a successful charge must be coordinated too, since otherwise the riders will make random u-turns to go back individually. All this takes audio conferences in a cav-based clan to do properly and is quite irrelevant to what happens in pub battles.



About pikes : you don't really need a pike to counter cav. It's just a very handy tool to repel them in case you don't trust your awareness too much. Most 2h and polearms are just as effective for personal cav defense.

[Laufknoten]

A much needed suggestion! In the current state cavalry just enhances the players killing-ability with no cons.
I'm at the most a mediocre player, but when I was cav a few months ago it was easy for me to be in the top 5 on eu1, often even first. I played with light unloomed equipment and a rouncey most of the time, so I even made good money that gen. 
Cavalry should be powerful, but only if used right.

[Son Of Odin]

2h and shorter polearms are always a gamble against cav. Good cav with decent timing and horse movement is really not that easy to counter with 100% confidence. If you have a pike or long spear, the cav has absolutely no chance against aware player.

[CrazyCracka420]

I personally think the servers would be better off with more people carrying pikes or long spears.  I think moving them back to only taking up 2 slots would be ideal.  They were already unsheathable when the patch made them 3 slot weapons.

I understand for the sake of being "uniform" they should be 3 slots.  But asking infantry to run around in even loose "Formations" (if you can even call it formations) is asking way too much from a game that has such limited communications or battle commander options.  So anything that can make it so that infantry is more balanced with cavalry would be ideal (as they should be, and they are if there are pikemen and ranged in formation with other infantry who can fight against enemy infantry).

Disclaimer:  I say this as someone who's only ever played cavalry lancer builds.  So pikemen are pretty much the bane of my existence, and the natural counter to cavalry.

[Leshma]

2h and shorter polearms are always a gamble against cav. Good cav with decent timing and horse movement is really not that easy to counter with 100% confidence.

You're right, it's not 100%. More like 90%. For greatsword users at least.

[Leshma]

A much needed suggestion! In the current state cavalry just enhances the players killing-ability with no cons.
I'm at the most a mediocre player, but when I was cav a few months ago it was easy for me to be in the top 5 on eu1, often even first. I played with light unloomed equipment and a rouncey most of the time, so I even made good money that gen. 
Cavalry should be powerful, but only if used right.

That's because you're able to to pick targets, which isn't something infantry can do all the time. That's the best thing about cavalry, and that bugged couched lance.

[Son Of Odin]

You're right, it's not 100%. More like 90%. For greatsword users at least.

Well not against me at least... Some great swords are a bit tricky sometimes if the 2h is good. Against poleaxes and similiar weapon stabs my success rate is much higher though...

[Kafein]

Well not against me at least... Some great swords are a bit tricky sometimes if the 2h is good. Against poleaxes and similiar weapon stabs my success rate is much higher though...

I'd say it's more of a gamble on the cav side, because whatever you do there's always a succesful counter to that, and you have to reveal your strategy earlier than the footman due precisely to low maneuver. All it takes on the footman side is the correct reaction, be it moving on the right or the left, backward or forward, jumping or not, chamberblocking or outreaching...


The arguments involving k/d are to be heavily relativised. As cav you can chose your targets, which means that like the lions you will openly attack the sick and the elder so to speak. Even without purposefully chasing them I'm quite sure I kill more low level players (read : not that useful to their team) than most 2h that have similar k/d.

[Black Wind]

This would fuck up horse archers and horse xbowmen too much.

[Malaclypse]

This would fuck up horse archers and horse xbowmen too much.

[Teeth]

I'd say it's more of a gamble on the cav side, because whatever you do there's always a succesful counter to that, and you have to reveal your strategy earlier than the footman due precisely to low maneuver. All it takes on the footman side is the correct reaction, be it moving on the right or the left, backward or forward, jumping or not, chamberblocking or outreaching...

The average footman can't just dance out of the way of cav, our maneuver isn't all that great either. There is also not always a succesfull counter attack. For me as a 1 hander the only thing I can do is blocking or chambering, which never actually hits the horse if they have some speed. Ofcourse if the horseman is shit I can jump and rightswing, but then its their own fault. Arabian horses when couching still retain extreme maneuver and can fuck me up without being able to do anything.

Also the bump of a horse hits you very early, the amount of times were I saw a horse coming at quite a whiles away and tried to attack, but got bumped before I could are countless. For coursers if you spot them at 20 m and have a 90 ish speed weapon youre still fucked.

Greatsword users do not outreach the lancer himself if he has somewhat proper timing. They can only hit the horse before the lancer hits them as the horse is a bit in front of the lancer. This does mean though that if you hit the horse and it doesn't die, you are still fucked cause the lancers attack is uninterrupted and hits for a shitload of damage.

Keep that in mind, fending off cav with greatswords has quite a high risk to it. And the horses are fucking tough. Arabians regularly survived my MW german with 7 ps stab when they were charging at me at full speed. While the lancer on the arabian who has about the same pierce damage could oneshot me with 60 hitpoints and 60 body armor.

[tankmen]

i fear every person on the field wielding a weapon as long as my lance, so any great sword or pole arm, because all they have to do to outreach it is thrust n step to the right of me out of reach of my angle because my elbow is struck retarded by the gods.  BTW i ride palfrey and destrier n charger, dont remove my maneuverability,people already side step my horses enough. BTW im talking about a head on charge the persons aware of me completely and my intent and i dont charge the low K/D players i aim for the ones winning the round. 40% of the time the player dont realize how committed to lancing him i am n i get them or wound them but 60% then side step n cleave my horse n me.

[Gravoth_iii]

This would fuck up horse archers and horse xbowmen too much.

Is that a bad thing?

[Hunter_the_Honourable]

I normally ride a Palfrey and Destrier and if I charge a 2her whos aware of me 75% of the time they stab my horse in the leg (often 1 hitting it)  and I cant move out of the way fast enough plus when a person with a german great sword or a danish great sword often out range my Heavy lance  Iv been playing as cav for 10 gens now and Id say the problem is people with champion Arabian Warhorses. Yes I know they have been nerfed allot and is the only horse that needs 7 riding to compensate the high maneuverability but it  when its at champion stats its quite stupid

It has
- 5 less hit-points then a normal destrier
- the same body armor as a steppe horse
- one less speed then a normal destrier
- has more maneuverability then a champion courser has speed
- the same charge as a normal courser


to me that is quite stupid and when its a HA whos on the back of one the horse takes more then its fair share of damage, can and will dance around you like theres no tomorrow and will bump you and do way more damage then it should. If the horse is that maneuverable it shouldn't be able to take that much damage nor deal that much damage.

I'm not the type of supporter of cav who say things like "cav is fine leave it alone!! Q_Q" or "nerf ranged instead or pikes!!!" no I don't believe cav is perfect as it is and one or two horses could use a stats change but most of the horses are fine and to be honest its not really the horse a majority of the time its the rider and his build that wins the fight not the horse.