I would find it hard to believe this qualifies as a buff. My heavy lance has been failing to kill a lot more targets than it used to in the same situation before the patch.
But whether it's properly balanced or what, I don't know. I know I'll still use it and will be fine. My horse is the weakpoint if anything, not my lance.
My only concerns in the game are the lack of throwers, the fact that archer heavy teams seem to dominate (though much of that may be from shields being rather rare), and horse archers being very hard to hit even when you've got a good run on them (though lag effects are probably the biggest culprit here).