cav fest and the trouble cav has.

[bonekuukkeli]

No point nerfing something because of couple whiners that cant play. If something, make cav easier to notice and maybe start giving score for killing horses (best would be to add assist points in game).

[Glyph]

No point nerfing something because of couple whiners that cant play. If something, make cav easier to notice and maybe start giving score for killing horses (best would be to add assist points in game).

that's a nerf, though it isn't a direct one. but i agree with you, cav should be better hearable and killing horses should get you assists, though not for killing on the run horses. btw i'm cav myself

[The_Bloody_Nine]

No point nerfing something because of couple whiners that cant play. If something, make cav easier to notice and maybe start giving score for killing horses (best would be to add assist points in game).

Ha, I would love that!

No, serious it had to be horses with riders on it else it'd be a bad idea. Though I kill many stray horse I allways try to figure if its gonna go to enemy before doing so.

[bonekuukkeli]

Ofc only from horses with enemy rider.

[Joker86]

I often play a pikeman/hoplite on EU1, so I look out for cavalry.

What I see is a big increase of cav since the last archery nerf. Yes, if your horse or you get a headshot, the effects are worse than before. But how often do you receive headshots, anyway? And headshots were a severe problem for you before the patch, as well. Most of the arrows cav receives will stick out of the horse's flanks or butt, which means after the patch cavalry takes LESS damage in general. Those few lucky headshots they receive from time to time can't make up for this. Cavalry has been buffed.

Right now, due to the incredible fail of many foot soldier players (archers included), being cavalry is easy as pie. I see many cavalry players (kerrigan, torben, etc.) who every round kill about ten players, and their horses survive in most cases almost until the end of the round, they only get dehorsed because there are no other players to distract, so even the most retarded infantry turns around to them. If they get dehorsed at all.

I don't see so many spear/pike players like you describe them, and even if there are some, usually they are really bad (like me  ). And spears and pikes do not kill horses, they only keep them on distance. If a horseman dies to a spear weapon, it is his own fault, as he risked too much or didn't pay enough attention.

And yes, the shield bubble is still there. It is still impossible to stab a horse into the chest or the neck from the front if the rider is blocking forward with a shield. You have to aim for the legs, and if the cavalryman jumps in this moment all you are stabbing then is thin air, which is pretty retarded, too.

I am for reverting the archery nerf, anyway, but in addition I would suggest to buff spears and pikes a bit, to perhaps motivate a few more capable players to choose this class. As it is right now, with the average intelligence and awareness of most horseless players, being cavalry is really easy, if you know how to stay out of dangerous situations and picking the right targets. There is a reason I had to start to write "watch out for the enemy cav and kill them first" at the beginning of every round since the patch, in the desperate hope of not seeing so many retarded teammates running in a straight line from spawning and being lanced from behind after a few seconds. It's really a pain in the ass.

I know many people stated absolutely contrary experiences here. I suggest you to play a pikeman (actually I do NOT suggest to play pikeman to anyone  ) or hoplite (much better) and to dedicate yourself to protecting your team from cavalry. You will fail miserably, and if your multiplier is important to you, the missing awareness of most of your teammates will drive tears in your eyes. I even saw Torben lancing WARLORDS_lalien as first casualty of our team at the beginning of the round. You can guess it was a heavy loss for us, which was completely unneccessary. 

So unless the average infantry player becomes much smarter, I say if anything cav needs another nerf by buffing spears and pikes. If the players get more aware to them, we can talk again. Perhaps that cav dominance after the archery nerf patch will led to a higher attention towards enemy cav, but my experience with the cRPG crowd tells me, they will always stay the same, retarded lemmings they have always been. 

[Overdriven]

Spears and pikes don't need a buff. There are tons of players using them in servers and they can take down horses very easily. The problem with those is with the players who don't pay attention to cav, even though their class is anti-cav. They use them for support in inf more than keeping enemy cav away.

Ashwood pike for example is perfect if you concentrate on cav. It's incredibly effective and you can take a shield with it. If your failing miserably that is down to you. I have never really had any trouble from cav unless I've been entirely separated on my own in a wide field and circled.

Unfortunately the problem for inf vs cav does lie in the idiocy of inf. If the spearmen paid more attention to cav, inf would have a lot less problems. Unfortunately inf in general is pretty clueless to cav. I hate when Torben, Kerrigan, Leed or other good cav are on the enemy team and you spectate them and watch in dismay as they charge through lines of our inf and not a single one of them pays any heed to them.

[Ujin]

atm for every cavalry player i see on my team i see 3 pikemen/spearmen on the enemy side

[Joker86]

Spears and pikes don't need a buff. There are tons of players using them in servers and they can take down horses very easily. The problem with those is with the players who don't pay attention to cav, even though their class is anti-cav. They use them for support in inf more than keeping enemy cav away.

Ashwood pike for example is perfect if you concentrate on cav. It's incredibly effective and you can take a shield with it. If your failing miserably that is down to you. I have never really had any trouble from cav unless I've been entirely separated on my own in a wide field and circled.

I do use ashwood pike and a shield, and I do fine with it. Usually I dehorse every round one or two cavalrymen, and I also support in melee. It is possible to do both.

Yet you will fail protecting your team from enemy cav, because you are one of perhaps two or three players who try to do so, and unless you make spearmen characters that fat to be able to lock down one or both flanks from cav, you will only get evaded and they lance someone else who is not around you.

Unfortunately the problem for inf vs cav does lie in the idiocy of inf. If the spearmen paid more attention to cav, inf would have a lot less problems. Unfortunately inf in general is pretty clueless to cav. I hate when Torben, Kerrigan, Leed or other good cav are on the enemy team and you spectate them and watch in dismay as they charge through lines of our inf and not a single one of them pays any heed to them.

This is what I witnessed, too. And it makes me go crazy. I think you should balance according to reality, not to theory. In theory cavalry should do much less damage, as we have enough spearmen and archers concentrating on them to protect the rest of the team. But in reality we have at least a 50%-retard-lemming-quota, making life incredibly easy for cavalry.

There are three possible solutions:

1. Buff cavalry that hard, that they become the absolutely dominating force on the maps, forcing the remaining players who didn't regequit to learn to be aware of cav. Then nerf them back to the current state, in the hope of the players still sticking to the behaviours they learned. Repeat in regular intervals

2. Further nerf down cavalry.

3. Buff archery and spearmen.

From all those possible solutions Nr. 3 seems the most appealing to me.


Many players in this forum think, that skill should have a big impact on your success. But cavalry doesn't need the "classical" definition of skill in the same extend like the other classes. Reflexes and muscle memory are not that needed. Lancing someone while riding past him is everything else than difficult. And riding someone down, stopping almost on him, turning around and lancing/slashing him while he is getting up isn't that difficult either. I know it, because I suck at this game, but yet I am capable of doing those things.

Cavalry skill is having knowledge. Which routes to ride (for example along hills always on the same height, never hill downwards or upwards close to enemies), which targets to pick (those who don't look and who are seperated), which spots to avoid (corners, for example) and so on. It's less about reflexes, more about the right behaviour.

This is why I think that good cav is not good because of some swing speed values or hore hitmpoints, it's more about experience. And that's why many nerfs won't have the wanted effects.

[Elmetiacos]

Let me add that in order to be an effective anti-cavalry pikeman, you really need to take the Pike or be a hoplite.

Even with a bamboo spear, as a 2h polearm user, you can stab a horse and the lance will still stab you and possibly kill you with the horse stopped but not dead - even with your 200 length spear. Since the pike is 3 slot, this stops you taking a backup polearm if you are forced into combat so you must either fight with a pike (difficult for most players) or be a melee hybrid. If you are a hoplite, you are a weak fighter unless you can find a team of dedicated hoplites to work with because of course, you effectively give all your opponents autoblock... sling your shield on your back to fight - you have had to nerf yourself by putting points in Shield even though you only use a shield if you attack a horse.

I've been told (by non-polearm users, of course) that I must aim for the horse's head. While this is true, it's easier said than done.

To attack, you have to position yourself perfectly: stand in the wrong place and the rider either turns away and escapes, or worse, turns and kills you. You also have to time your thrust perfectly, remembering that different horses move at different speeds and need the thrust to be made at a slightly different time and also that some horses are heirloomed and so what looks exactly the same as the previous horse you stabbed might actually be faster or slower. Get it wrong and you either get bumped and knocked down or killed by the lance.

Do all that, plus get the height of your attack right, so that you hit the horse's head, not the body (or you're hit) while making sure the angle isn't too steep to reduce the length of the thrust (in which case, your polearm is shorter than the lance and you're dead)

[Stabby_Dave]

Ah Archery is now nerfed to the point where it is no longer annoying! Now to move on to the second most annoying class: Cavalry. Cue weeks and weeks of whine>nerf>whine>nerf>archery buffed>whine about archery again>nerf.

[SixThumbs]

This might be somewhat off topic but I think having no wpf in polearms and using a bamboo spear or other anti-cav weapon actually allows you to stab with a longer active window.

On topic: the problem, as was mentioned in the last few posts, is player awareness. Most people will focus on the closest target to the point of tunnel vision when they don't realize that cavalry on the periphery can move in quick. I think the majority of spear/pike users just need to realize that if they want to win; by choosing that particular weapon and sticking with some teammates you can effectively stay out of range of the infantry you're clashing with and periodically keep an eye on the perimeter of your group for cav and other flanking infantry. As an added bonus I think turning your back on the closest opponent(s) gives them a false sense of security.

It might not apply in all situations but for myself if I'm using a spear I'll try to get a hit in on infantry when it's relatively safe to do so but focus mainly on making sure no one, cav or otherwise, is trying to sneak up on the group I'm with.

[Overdriven]

9 arrows in a destriers body before a lancer finished it off  That's with an MW hornbow and barbs.

5 in an Arabian that had already been stabbed by a lance.

5 in a desert horse to kill from full health.

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

NERF CAV

[Ujin]

9 arrows in a destriers body before a lancer finished it off  That's with an MW hornbow and barbs.

5 in an Arabian that had already been stabbed by a lance.

5 in a desert horse to kill from full health.

And you think that's bad ? LOL

[SixThumbs]

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no
No no no