Pew! Pew! Pew!

[Rhade]

This just isn't viable against good twohanders in a big fight. Maybe the shielders will get some, but they will lose.

Also, how many of you have actually tried this out in clan battles? It IS the way it works. In group fights, the only thing that matters(Apart from your dueling and blocking skills):

1) Reach

2) Damage

3)situational awareness

Assuming both groups have players of similar skill, the shielders doesn't stand a chance against good 2handers.

We can discuss this over and over, i get the feeling that you disagree, and since we can't test it properly, we might as well let the case rest. The reason why i brought this example is to show other areas were 2handers are good, not just in duels. 2handers are better in group fights than shielders, period.

You're also forgetting that range is being thrown in the whole time, and shielders can actively block this while they attack yet 2h'ers have to sacrifice all offense to shield, so even if you were right (you're not), it's still a bit lopsided.

[Maze]

You're also forgetting that range is being thrown in the whole time, and shielders can actively block this while they attack yet 2h'ers have to sacrifice all offense to shield, so even if you were right (you're not), it's still a bit lopsided.

I'll agree there. In strat before the patch, it was very hard to get up a ladder in a siege battle without a shield. Archers would pick you off very quickly.

Each style has its place where it shines. But it'd be hard to say that one is better than the other in a group battle.

And you cant say that 10 2-handers can auto win against 10 shielders. Shit happens. The battle can go either way.  It just depends on what all happens. You cant effectively test that either. No 2 ppls skill is the same.

[Rhade]

I'll agree there. In strat before the patch, it was very hard to get up a ladder in a siege battle without a shield. Archers would pick you off very quickly.

Each style has its place where it shines. But it'd be hard to say that one is better than the other in a group battle.

And you cant say that 10 2-handers can auto win against 10 shielders. Shit happens. The battle can go either way.  It just depends on what all happens. You cant effectively test that either. No 2 ppls skill is the same.

Exactly.

It's a draw/stand off, it's hard to tell because they're pretty closely matched.

Then you have 1h's ability to block ranged and 2h can't, that was part of my initial point -- 1h/shield and 2h both have somewhat similiar effectiveness in melee yet 2h is extremely vulnerable to all range.

[RamsesXXIIX]

I'll agree there. In strat before the patch, it was very hard to get up a ladder in a siege battle without a shield. Archers would pick you off very quickly.

Each style has its place where it shines. But it'd be hard to say that one is better than the other in a group battle.

And you cant say that 10 2-handers can auto win against 10 shielders. Shit happens. The battle can go either way.  It just depends on what all happens. You cant effectively test that either. No 2 ppls skill is the same.

Indeed each class/style has its strength and weaknesses. And in the tight spaces of sieges, 1handers are at an advantage.

I never claimed that you can test it out, but i wanted to bring in the argument that 2handers are more useful in group fights of melee. It is true that ranged might balance this out, but we were talking 2h vs 1h. Otherwise you can equally claim that 1handers get far more easily ridden down by cav than 2handers.

Rhade, the problem was it seemed like you claimed 2handers have no advantages in any situations. Now you just agreed to that all classes have places were they shine, so i guess you've realised.

And talking about strategus: 2handers outshine in the melee together with polearms. They just usually get shot to pieces before that happens, as they should.

[La Makina]

A bit back on the topic:

I have a theory that rangefest and roof camping are actually due to cavalry being OP. Well, personally I don't find cav OP but the fact is that cavalry is the worst threat (cav is fast, swift, unpredictable, has double HP (cumulate with the horse), longest range for melee, and it kills anything in one hit...) and that the maps are offering them too easy times. The best way to avoid the harassing cav is to go range and hide on roofs.

In this sense see that, as strange as it sounds, there is less range in sieges than in battles and I think that this is due to the fact that there is no cavalry in siege.

So, IMO, to reduce rangest and encourage melee fights (if this is what we want), we should first prevent the supremacy of the cav. No need to nerf anything, just to redesign battle maps so that cav does not always have plains and highways to rampage players on foot. More slopes, trees, water... more obstacles = more chance to survive cav = less need to go range...

[Kafein]

A bit back on the topic:

I have a theory that rangefest and roof camping are actually due to cavalry being OP. Well, personally I don't find cav OP but the fact is that cavalry is the worst threat (cav is fast, swift, unpredictable, has double HP (cumulate with the horse), longest range for melee, and it kills anything in one hit...) and that the maps are offering them too easy times. The best way to avoid the harassing cav is to go range and hide on roofs.

In this sense see that, as strange as it sounds, there is less range in sieges than in battles and I think that this is due to the fact that there is no cavalry in siege.

So, IMO, to reduce rangest and encourage melee fights (if this is what we want), we should first prevent the supremacy of the cav. No need to nerf anything, just to redesign battle maps so that cav does not always have plains and highways to rampage players on foot. More slopes, trees, water... more obstacles = more chance to survive cav = less need to go range...

Interesting analysis. I think it's partially true. But changing maps won't work. Except if you completly remove cavalry. Maps such as Nord Town are usually not so bad for cav players, because horses used currently have a shitload of maneuvrability. We should change the way horses have to be used in a more risky one for cav players, not allowing them to make a u-turn at full speed. This is the reason we don't see any more 1h cav but only lancers. It's so easy to avoid every attack you don't really need armored horses, just fast and agile ones. This leads to clans like GK dominating many maps, with their correct use of the extreme maneuver of champion sarranid horses.

Prepatch we had way more 1h cav because heavy horses were usable (not doomed by horrible upkeep prices). Now I'd say 65% of horses seen are sarranids, 10% steppe and 25% of others. Read : disbalance among horses. To fix that, I'd suggest we buff charge damage, armor and health points and nerf maneuvrability A LOT (maybe speed too, but not so much), so "charge" horses are used again, and horses users aren't allowed to evade everything by making a u-turn at the last moment.

Furthermore, this would probably lead to more organised cavalry forces, and better chances of opposing cavalry armies avoiding each other (attacking the enemy cav group should'nt be the good tactical move), so less chaos of cav vs cav "battles" where agile horses dominate even more.

[Cyber]

There is no "rock scissor paper" mechanics in Warband, sure some classes have advantages over others in certain situations but there are no real counters to specific classes, it is all situational.

Really, it is pretty hard to top a scoreboard as an archer and if you are good you probably do better with a melee char, I have tryed playing an archer and it is not easy at all. I guess what the most people have problem with is that there is just too much ranged, really most of the time almost 2/3 of the people have somekind of a ranged weapon and all this range spam can get pretty annoying. But nerfing the archery because of that seems pretty unfair because good archers already have problems in cRPG battles being as effective as good melee players.

I play both 1h and 2h char in cRPG pretty succesfully, and i would say that 1h/shield is a bit easier to play in a battle. 2h actually may often top scoreboards but it is mainly becaus they are agains´t not so good players who they can simply kill with few hits, it takes a bit longer with 1h to kill an enemy.
If you ever played in competetive native clanwars players almost never uses 2h, mainly because they are not effective cuz of the ranged, it is a lot easier to fail with 2h and harder to fight multiple enemies. Also most of the players are pretty decent and you can´t just quickly kill them off. It is mostly ranged fights with shielders and maybe some cav supporting them.

With most of the average player in cRPG i would say that 1h/shield would win agains´t 2h in a 1v1 melee fight, simply cuz it is easier to play with autoblocking.  However if both players are really good i would say that 2h wins it with superior reach and dmg. But obviously battle is just not about duelling your enemy 1v1. Huge advantage for shielders is that they are protected from ranged, also autoblocking helps a lot in battle.
However 2h can inflict more dmg and can kill enemies quicker. Firstly there are a lot players in cRPG battles and it is often very chaotic,  ppl really don´t ever act as a organized team and 2h with some situational awareness and some skill can take advantage of that and often get easy kills just by spamming the enemy, simply because most of the players are not really good and ppl really don´t ever act as a organized team. In a organized clanwar 2h would be a lot less useful. (not talking about some melee only tournaments )

I would say that for cRPG battles 2h and 1h/shield users are pretty much equally effective cuz the players are not organized. Don´t really know what to you could do about all the ranged spam though. I guess one thing is that making an hybrid should be a bit harder, it should take some more wpf to use xbows effectively and maybe same for throwing.

[Elmetiacos]

A bit back on the topic:

I have a theory that rangefest and roof camping are actually due to cavalry being OP. Well, personally I don't find cav OP but the fact is that cavalry is the worst threat (cav is fast, swift, unpredictable, has double HP (cumulate with the horse), longest range for melee, and it kills anything in one hit...) and that the maps are offering them too easy times. The best way to avoid the harassing cav is to go range and hide on roofs.

I don't agree; apart from horrible random plains maps this isn't what I've observed. On random plains, both teams immediately rush up hills and hide behind siege shields in a big mob, shooting at each other, because otherwise they would indeed be horse food. The maps where I've seen the most domination of the game by ranged fighters have been the very maps where cavalry is weakest such as that one in the walled town with a road leading to a distant castle - don't know the name.

[kongxinga]

Interesting analysis. I think it's partially true. But changing maps won't work. Except if you completly remove cavalry. Maps such as Nord Town are usually not so bad for cav players, because horses used currently have a shitload of maneuvrability. We should change the way horses have to be used in a more risky one for cav players, not allowing them to make a u-turn at full speed. This is the reason we don't see any more 1h cav but only lancers. It's so easy to avoid every attack you don't really need armored horses, just fast and agile ones. This leads to clans like GK dominating many maps, with their correct use of the extreme maneuver of champion sarranid horses.

Prepatch we had way more 1h cav because heavy horses were usable (not doomed by horrible upkeep prices). Now I'd say 65% of horses seen are sarranids, 10% steppe and 25% of others. Read : disbalance among horses. To fix that, I'd suggest we buff charge damage, armor and health points and nerf maneuvrability A LOT (maybe speed too, but not so much), so "charge" horses are used again, and horses users aren't allowed to evade everything by making a u-turn at the last moment.

Furthermore, this would probably lead to more organised cavalry forces, and better chances of opposing cavalry armies avoiding each other (attacking the enemy cav group should'nt be the good tactical move), so less chaos of cav vs cav "battles" where agile horses dominate even more.

 The reason no one uses armoured horses is because no one can afford them unless you use banner 'balance'. And what's with this hate for even weak horses? Sarranids are not fast, but if someone puts 10-12 riding, why shouldn't he go fast? Maybe we should take away some damage done from your power strike or power throw because it is too much damage? You put 11 Pt and you one hit me with a masterwork throwing lance, maybe that is OP? Same logic. Of course throwing should be powerful with 11 PT, just like horses should be fast and turn on a dime with 11 riding.

The reason for roof camping is because while many players have the twitch skills, they lack the situational awareness to avoid being eaten alive. Time after time I have seen a lone lancer creep behind out lines and couch someone at game start. After 3 times, does anyone bother to spin around a bit or use tilda? No, they keep pressing w. If you play badly, it is just your poor performance, not the OP of other people's equipment to blame.

People roof camp because they lack the skill to deal with cav, or to work together with the team to eliminate situations with cav. This is why gaining cav superiority is the priority on normal semi plausible maps (maps that are not roof camp fests). If you can't eliminate enemy cav, at least keep your cav players in being (cav in being principle), so you will not get slow speed circle stabbed by heavy lances. Cav usually only slow down to circle stab if the opposing team cav has all died. else they look like delicious couch or lance fodder to passing enemy cav.

Roof campers just lack the software to handle cavs and also refuse to deal with it by taking the easy way out. Bad map designers worsen this problem with the random buildings out of nowhere for people to camp. Some people won't be satisfied with cav until all cav  cant bump, die to a single hit of anything, and move as slow as sumpters. Even if that happens, I can guarantee some people will still die to cav, since situational awareness is non existent. Even clannies need ghosting to help them in that area, so how much awareness can you expect from public players?

One anecdote to illustrate this was in pre patch was on a mountain map, where a heavy cav was trying to kill a tin can but the tin can was alert and on rocky terrain so it was too difficult. The heavy cav then moved towards a nearby friendly archer, stood behind him, whistled twice, then reared his horse to warn the archer to stop tunnel visioning, but did the archer even bother to turn around? I think even a tiny love tap was involved as the situation got critical. Tin can got the archer in the end. I messaged the heavy cav to praise him for his efforts, but as he said, "Archers, what can we do with them...". Pretty much beyond salvation when you can ignore 2 whistles and a horse rear coming RIGHT BEHIND YOU. Most likely a roof camper caught without roofs who never bothered to improve situational awareness.

Lastly cav do not have twice the HP unless lag or other factors prevent you from aiming properly. If we don't take into account the free hits on the cav man as he is dismounted, those people who you complain are turning on a dime have very low HPs. To get 10-12 ride to ride on a paper horse that dies when anyone looks at it funny, I will only have enough HP to die when anyone sneezes on me. Contrast with the new easy mode, strength stack black armour crushthrough or 2 hand lolstab or throwing, these guy's effective HP is around thrice an unarmoured peasant, and they get it for cheaper than a decent horse.

[Kophka]

It's  been a long time since I've heard "Cav is OP!!!" . Cav is probably the least OP build in the game. An average archer/crossbowman can stop even the most skilled heavy cavalryman in 30 seconds, as can a peasant with a pitchfork. There is no "whiff" mechanic when it comes to polearms vs horses, as even a "whiff" will rear a plated charger. A lvl 8 person with a 500g pike can completely rape a lvl 30 cavalry with 80k worth of gear, all he has to do is pay attention. And I'm not sure where you play, but almost every map in NA features broken terrain, hills, buildings, fences, towers, and rocks to climb on.

I wish we'd go back to having random plains in the NA rotations, since that's where both ranged and polearm users can shine when they work together, while flankers and shield bearers can form a line and advance on the enemy. It'd be nice to actually see tactics in this game (like the day the Hospitaller crew put a random plains map on, it was one of the greatest battles I've seen in months, here in crpg.), so that 2 handers/polearmers can do what they do best (flank engaged fighters, and get 5 kills in 5 seconds), shielders can do what they do best (make a line and push the enemy around like a bulldozer vs a doll house,) ranged can do what they do best (force the enemy to keep their heads down and shields up, protect the team from flankers), and cav can do what they do best (scare the crap out of the enemy, flank, draw people out of formation, and kill people too dumb to move with their team).

[Beauchamp]

i wonder if there is an option how a user could delete a thread so it doesn't appear anymore while he is logged on with his account.

[Gnjus]

A bit back on the topic:

I have a theory that rangefest and roof camping are actually due to cavalry being OP. Well, personally I don't find cav OP but the fact is that cavalry is the worst threat (cav is fast, swift, unpredictable, has double HP (cumulate with the horse), longest range for melee, and it kills anything in one hit...) and that the maps are offering them too easy times. The best way to avoid the harassing cav is to go range and hide on roofs.

In this sense see that, as strange as it sounds, there is less range in sieges than in battles and I think that this is due to the fact that there is no cavalry in siege.

So, IMO, to reduce rangest and encourage melee fights (if this is what we want), we should first prevent the supremacy of the cav. No need to nerf anything, just to redesign battle maps so that cav does not always have plains and highways to rampage players on foot. More slopes, trees, water... more obstacles = more chance to survive cav = less need to go range...

ROFLcopter !

If i was able to laugh my ass off at anything within this mod/forum i recon this is the case when it would happen.
Cav Op.....needs to be prevented......the only thing that needs to be "prevented" is a bunch of non-caring, blind, "i charge cause its fun and i dont give a damn about anything" morons who tend to give horsemen those unbelievable scores for free, all cav needs to do is ride and "collect" their 40+ kills per map. Nerf them (blind, non-caring idiots) and you've successfully nerfed the cavalry.

[Tears of Destiny]

ROFLcopter !

If i was able to laugh my ass off at anything within this mod/forum i recon this is the case when it would happen.
Cav Op.....needs to be prevented......the only thing that needs to be "prevented" is a bunch of non-caring, blind, "i charge cause its fun and i dont give a damn about anything" morons who tend to give horsemen those unbelievable scores for free, all cav needs to do is ride and "collect" their 40+ kills per map. Nerf them (blind, non-caring idiots) and you've successfully nerfed the cavalry.

I agree with the above, as running my cav alt I am finding that when assaulting groups of aware players, getting kills is significantly harder, though I do question the statement that there is less range with seige maps (At least on NA that is not true, those initial ramp surges are utterly brutal with all the arrows and thrown weapons, though there is perhaps less xbow spam)

[kongxinga]

It's  been a long time since I've heard "Cav is OP!!!" . Cav is probably the least OP build in the game. An average archer/crossbowman can stop even the most skilled heavy cavalryman in 30 seconds, as can a peasant with a pitchfork. There is no "whiff" mechanic when it comes to polearms vs horses, as even a "whiff" will rear a plated charger. A lvl 8 person with a 500g pike can completely rape a lvl 30 cavalry with 80k worth of gear, all he has to do is pay attention. And I'm not sure where you play, but almost every map in NA features broken terrain, hills, buildings, fences, towers, and rocks to climb on.

I wish we'd go back to having random plains in the NA rotations, since that's where both ranged and polearm users can shine when they work together, while flankers and shield bearers can form a line and advance on the enemy. It'd be nice to actually see tactics in this game (like the day the Hospitaller crew put a random plains map on, it was one of the greatest battles I've seen in months, here in crpg.), so that 2 handers/polearmers can do what they do best (flank engaged fighters, and get 5 kills in 5 seconds), shielders can do what they do best (make a line and push the enemy around like a bulldozer vs a doll house,) ranged can do what they do best (force the enemy to keep their heads down and shields up, protect the team from flankers), and cav can do what they do best (scare the crap out of the enemy, flank, draw people out of formation, and kill people too dumb to move with their team).

Took the words right out of my mouth. Maps are bad, cavalry are not OP, most NA servers have horrible maps, except for NA NYC Acre server which has classic maps like field by river, ruins and guess what, RANDOM MAPS! You don't see tactics till you get a good old random map. More Karma for you.

[Baron_Settmour]

Took the words right out of my mouth. Maps are bad, cavalry are not OP, most NA servers have horrible maps, except for NA NYC Acre server which has classic maps like field by river, ruins and guess what, RANDOM MAPS! You don't see tactics till you get a good old random map. More Karma for you.

QFT. I think Cav are just fine as they are. For every time I have been killed by cav, I have equally killed someone riding. I personally don't like being cav because I suck at lining up lances on the move but I can take down just about any horseman with my polearm.

Also, totally agree on the NA map rotation. It really blows and the Wallace map just makes it 100x worse. I actually leave the game if that map comes up and go play Euro until it is gone.