I understand HX/HA is annoying class, especially for 2h/pole. But you guys are simply overacting.
Firstly, I agree HA is very weak class at the moment. Only HA build worth considering is 18/24, high level (at least 33), Yumi +3, Bodkins +3. And that's the build I will go next with my future HA. I'm sure damage of this HA build will be similar or even higher than HX damage. At the moment HA Horn Bow 15/24 build is just too weak to go for. So, the problem with HA is, it requires high level to be effective. Meantime HX is much easier to build, level 30 is perfectly fine for HX.
For people who claims HX is effective on foot and on horse. You can't be both accurate on range and good in melee. Chosing 7/30 or 9/30 build makes you useless in melee. My level 30 HX (9/30) has 0 PS, 0 ATH and 1 WPF. This means I always bounce, so when my horse dies, i'm dead too. This build makes me however accurate on range. If you go 12/27 or 15/24 you can wear a bit better armor, put some PS, but you won't be as accuracte. If you want to kill archers/crossbowmans/other HX, you have to go accurate build (7/30 or 9/30). If you just want to "annoy" 2h/pole you can go even 18/21. And "annoy" is the right word to use here. Because, like Strudog stated in his last post, he used 7 bolts to kill Latvian. You have to remember, you won't be 100% accurate as HX, even if half your bolts reaches target, it's fine. So you need to fire about 14 bolts to kill target like Latvian. And it's just one target, one enemy. Considering HX has 26 bolts, you could kill just 2 heavily armored targets during whole round. That's why there is no sense to shot heavily armored targets as HX (not only players, but horses as well).
From my experience, with my equipment (Light Xbow +3, Steel Bolts +3), I need 2-3 bolts to kill lightly armored horses like Arabian Warhorse (if I hit it of course - this horse is so unpredictable, it's not easy to hit it in first place). Medium armored horses like Destrier dies from 4-5 bolts. It's better to leave heavily armored horses alone, since I would waste too many bolts trying to take them down. I'm not counting head hits here, but they of course can help you to kill enemy horse much faster.
As for players. I need 2-3 hits to kill lightly armored targets (archers/xbowmans/ninjas etc). Medium armored players dies from 3-4 hits, heavily armored from 5-6. Same time enemy crossbowmans kills me from just 1 bolt, enemy archers can kill me from 1 arrow too if they are lucky. HX is very fragile class, at least 7/30 and 9/30 builds are. This of course makes sense, I resigned from melee and defence in favor of accuracy by having 9/30 build.
Decreasing HX accuracy will result HX going for easier targets (2h/pole). Right now many HX goes for enemy archers/crossbowmans/horses, because those are main HX threats (also they use light armor in most cases). I focus enemy infantry only when I see none of these targets around. So in some way, HX is doing good job to keep enemy ranged/horses away from his team. Without accuracy I would just stay away from enemy ranged (I would still go for enemy horses thou), so more enemy ranged will focus my team, being completely unthreaten by anyone.
I also don't agree that 2h/pole can do nothing but die seeing HX. You can invest in throwing and take down HX horse, you can invest in shield and protect yourself from bolts, you can avoid bolts with huge success rate, you also can hide, wait for flags and make enemy HX useless. I don't understand what infantry expects, staying open ground, being surrounded by 3-4 HX. If you do that, you SHOULD die, because that's your tactical mistake. I understand there are some open ground maps on the server, where you can't hide, but you have to remember there are also town maps or maps where HX is completely useless, and I never saw HX crying to take that map off the server. If you don't want to play on open ground map, just don't do that.
Yeah, HX is lowest risk class, especially if you keep distance from all threats, but just think a while about that. If HX is staying alive longest in most rounds and still not doing amazing scores, how is it OP? When I have great round, I can hit enemies with ~15 bolts of my 26. And still, by hitting enemies so many times I can have 3-5 kills per round. All that considering it will be indeed great round for me! So I don't really understand how can people claim HX damage is too huge. Any other class can get more kills pretty easily. Look how many enemies 1h cav kills every round. It's because they are choosing weakest targets you say. But many HX are chosing weakest targets too, and they aren't even close as effective in battle. So even staying longer don't make you OP if your damage is so low as it is now. Yesterday I had more than 10 hits in single round and no kills - it's nothing strange about HX, happens pretty often. That's good enough reason to say HX really IS support class, and nothing more than support class. HX is a class mainly to help taking down enemy horses and keeping enemy ranged busy. Sure this class is annoying because of it's inaccessibility (for not ranged classes), but that's the only true strength of HX. The "problem" with HX is, rounds lasts longer than usual because of them. But the enemy will most likely win the game by flags anyway, so HX survivability don't change anything here.
