Need help on a decent horse polearm/archer build...

[TonyDragon]

I am close to retiring for the 1st time and i totally messed up my 1st build which is good cause i was trying a little bit of everything but i have enjoyed being a horseman and an archer so i want to try to combine the two to create a horseman polearm/archer combo. I really wanted to ask for here for help and advice on what build works for this combo. I tried searching but i dont see many posts about this combo

1) My think my main focus is horse/polearm with horse archer being secondary and archer/polemarm on foot being a last resort i suppose. Im not 100% sure of what are the best stats for this are so please if anyone can copy/paste a stat sheet that will work for this, i'd greatly appreciate it. I know obviously polearm/archery are needed. Power strike/powerdraw/riding/horse archery/weapon mastery/(maybe shield or i might be asking for too much...), i just dont know how to divide the stats. And of course which is more important strength and agility and by how much?

2) Also when choosing retirement, i really would rather heirloom a weapon rather than armor so what is the best polearm/bow to heirloom (strong bow?? since other warbow and longbow cant ride horse)

3) any other advice on this build would be appreciated whether its even worth doing at all, i just think its the funniest play style and i dont see much horse archers at all anymore and even with my current messed up stats, i still do pretty decent with these styles.

thanks guys...

[Phazey]

You're asking quite a bit. It's an almost impossible build. You need to cut some corners.

(click to show/hide)

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    * Strength: 18
    * Agility: 18
    * Hit points: 53

    * Converted: 2
    * Ironflesh: 0
    * Power Strike: 3
    * Shield: 2
    * Athletics: 6
    * Riding: 3
    * Horse Archery: 3
    * Power Draw: 6
    * Power Throw: 0
    * Weapon Master: 6

    * Polearm: 100
    * Archery: 135

You can consider taking points out of athletics and putting them in riding or power strike instead. However, some maps (and siege) are not great for cavalry, so it's nice to walk fast (especially as an archer hybrid).

Not maxing out power strike is unheard of. But i kinda had to in this build. Makes your attacks very weak and glace a lot. So athletics 5 or 4 and a bit higher power strike might be better. Not sure.

How much do you fight with polearms? Not much? Then go for a bit more archery wpf. Archers tell me every point matters.

Here's a slightly different build:

(click to show/hide)

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    * Strength: 18
    * Agility: 18
    * Hit points: 53

    * Converted: 2
    * Ironflesh: 0
    * Power Strike: 6
    * Shield: 2
    * Athletics: 3
    * Riding: 3
    * Horse Archery: 3
    * Power Draw: 6
    * Power Throw: 0
    * Weapon Master: 6

    * Polearm: 80
    * Archery: 144

I kinda consider shield 2 to be the minimum shield skill you should take. That allows you to get a round cavalry shield or something simmilar.

What polearm are you going to use? A (war)spear is good on foot and okay on horse, but lacks couching ability. The lances are better mounted weapons but are not that great on foot.

With power draw 6 you can use a strong bow and will deal quite reasonable damage, even when mounted.

It's a shame i can't get high riding skill in there. That really helps horse maneuverability and speed.

Play around with Vargas' character builder:
http://infinitum.dyndns.org/crpg/calc.htm
See if you can make a better build and let's discuss it here.

[Vibe]

My advice is either pick lancer build OR horse archer build.

[Laufknoten]

A cool build imo. Forget about the shield, you don't need it. I'd use something like this:

(click to show/hide)

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    * Strength: 18
    * Agility: 18
    * Hit points: 55

    * Converted: 2
    * Ironflesh: 1
    * Power Strike: 5
    * Shield: 0
    * Athletics: 5
    * Riding: 5
    * Horse Archery: 3
    * Power Draw: 5
    * Power Throw: 0
    * Weapon Master: 5

    * One Handed: 1
    * Two Handed: 1
    * Polearm: 89
    * Archery: 130
    * Crossbow: 1
    * Throwing: 1

Maybe a few more points in archery, but I'm not sure. I've never tried a HA build.
Weapons: Strong or Khergit bow + light lance.

[Murchad]

18/18
3ha
6wm
6ps
6pd
6riding
2ath

your riding speed is way more imortant that athletics if you are HA/cav otherwise you will get slaughtered by archers/HA/other cav.

this build should work well, you don't really need any shield skill if you are HA/cav because more arrows are more important than a shield.
this build will be much worse once the new update makes your lance take more slots.

[Torp]

well, i'd say let go of the bow.. if you want to, you can take xbow though - i'd do like this then:

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

Strength: 15
Agility: 21
Hit points: 50
Converted: 2
Ironflesh: 0
Power Strike: 5
Shield: 4
Athletics: 3
Riding: 7
Horse Archery: 3
Power Draw: 0
Power Throw: 0
Weapon Master: 7
One Handed: 1
Two Handed: 1
Polearm: 100
Archery: 1
Crossbow: 146
Throwing: 1

adjust wpf to your liking.

TBH, i think it's better not to use bow, then i'll recommen this:

18/18
6 athletics
6 PS
6 WM
6 riding
4 shield
1 IF

[TonyDragon]

thank you all very much, i will consider then all carefully once im at lv 31. Right now im using heavy lance as i thought it was a very good lance but if you guys want to recommend others,please do so.

I really dont like athletics and since i'll mainly be on horseback or safely shooting from a distance, i think athletics would be a waste for this build. So basically i'll sacrifice athletics and shield mostly in return for higher skill lvs.

My reasoning behind this build is to basically have 2 play styles (horse polearm and horse archer) plus archer for backup on siege maps,etc. And im not much of an alt guy but a 1 character guy and i know i am worse off with this build rather than concentrating on 1 main build but im playing for fun and by 3rd gen, if its really that bad, i'll try a single concentrated build or if im liking the dual build, i might just stay at gen 2 since i dont play the game too much as it is and it took me a pretty long time to get the 1st gen over with so i might just stay at gen 2.

[kongxinga]

Concentrate on the horse archer component. You can carry a bow and 2 stacks of arrows plus a light lance. Learn the timing and ride a agile horse so you can use horse movement to compensate for low poleam wpf. HA 4 is minimum if you want to hit anything while moving. Pure HA 5 (either archer or light crossbow) will eat you for breakfast if they force you into a high speed shootout, but you will outshoot them if the map limits speeds to trotting (AKA when badly designed). With a pure HA build, you can still carry a light lance and get plenty of stab kills and couches. What's better is you can shoot all those braced pikemen while as pure cav you would have to mostly avoid them.

[Phazey]

A cool build imo. Forget about the shield, you don't need it. I'd use something like this:

(click to show/hide)

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    * Strength: 18
    * Agility: 18
    * Hit points: 55

    * Converted: 2
    * Ironflesh: 1
    * Power Strike: 5
    * Shield: 0
    * Athletics: 5
    * Riding: 5
    * Horse Archery: 3
    * Power Draw: 5
    * Power Throw: 0
    * Weapon Master: 5

    * One Handed: 1
    * Two Handed: 1
    * Polearm: 89
    * Archery: 130
    * Crossbow: 1
    * Throwing: 1

Maybe a few more points in archery, but I'm not sure. I've never tried a HA build.
Weapons: Strong or Khergit bow + light lance.

That 1 Ironflesh doesn't make any sense. Put that in power draw, riding, power stike or weapon mastery, shield or even athletics.

I really dont like athletics and since i'll mainly be on horseback or safely shooting from a distance, i think athletics would be a waste for this build. So basically i'll sacrifice athletics and shield mostly in return for higher skill lvs.

As a dedicated cav player, i can tell ya: you'll get dismounted a lot. With low athletics and no shield, you stand no chance against the multiple archers and multiple infantry that will be on your case.

But, considering that this build has to cut corners because you lack skillpoints to max out both the polecav and the horse archer roles... it's probably a reasonable compromise. You'll suck on cav-unfriendly maps though...

Try this build:

(click to show/hide)

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    * Strength: 18
    * Agility: 18
    * Hit points: 53

    * Converted: 2
    * Ironflesh: 0
    * Power Strike: 6
    * Shield: 0
    * Athletics: 3
    * Riding: 5
    * Horse Archery: 3
    * Power Draw: 6
    * Power Throw: 0
    * Weapon Master: 6

    * One Handed: 1
    * Two Handed: 1
    * Polearm: 100
    * Archery: 135
    * Crossbow: 1
    * Throwing: 1

You might want to 80 polearm and 144 archery instead for better aim. No shield is gonna be tricky perhaps. But it allows you to get a bow, polearm and two stacks of arrows, which is nice for a horse archer.
Or consider dropping another point out of athletics to get minimal shield against arrows, perhaps.

[TonyDragon]

I'll take all that to note. Is the light lance better than heavy lance? Ive been using heavy lance for a while now since the no shield doesnt affect me anyways but ive been seeing more and more light light lance recommendations so maybe i'll try that.

And yeah i figure if its a bad map for horses, i'll just stick to the archery. So from that angle it is better putting more wpp on archery than polearm and im guessing 100 wpp on polearm isnt too bad,is it or try to even out archery and polearm?

[Christo]

I'll take all that to note. Is the light lance better than heavy lance? Ive been using heavy lance for a while now since the no shield doesnt affect me anyways but ive been seeing more and more light light lance recommendations so maybe i'll try that.

Light Lance is good, but it's too short in cav vs. cav situations. I prefer Heavy Lance.

[kongxinga]

Christo has a point, but as a horse archer you really should not be going cav to cav, since you are shooting their horses out are you? Light lance is faster and does a point more damage, so is somewhat easier to use in killing crunchies. If you are facing a cav man take out your bow for the most part.

As for athletics it is highly marginal for a horse archer/lancer character. Let's face reality, if you are dehorsed, you are pretty much dead. Everyone is goign to land a free shot on you, and the points you spent on HA are now useless unless you whistle for a horse fast. Your points in athletics will thus only be useful when your points in HA and riding become useless, not a situation you should be in. The horse is your life, if it dies you die. "Death before dismount"  should be a cav or horse archer's motto. In addition, you are already spending points in several extra categories compared to pure cav, or pure foot archer or pure infantry (who have it the easiest). You have PD, HA, Ride and WM at the minimum. You would not be able to spare the points, and if you had spare points, they need to go into HA, or riding. Some cav can get away with athletics, but HA is pretty much impossible.

[Phazey]

As for athletics it is highly marginal for a horse archer/lancer character. Let's face reality, if you are de-horsed, you are pretty much dead.

Poppycock. This, dear sir, is a load of fatalistic nonsense.

If you go for some gimped 0 athletics build then, yes, you are most likely screwed. But i've always gone for max athletics and max riding on my cav builds and i do fine on foot.

First, you say that athletics is useless as a cavalry. Then you say cavalry is useless without it's horse. Doh! That's because you went with 0 athletics!

Trust me, it's much smarter to have a build that can do fine on foot aswell as ride a horse. More fun to play and much more versatile.