Horses have no natural predators

[Chagan_Arslan]

That combined with 7-9 riding skill and you turn around see no one turn back and in less than 3 seconds you get couched from behind.  Situational awareness be damned.  The best nerf of horses would make riding skill half as effective as it used to be for speed and maneuverability (since its only 3 not 6 agility since january) and so they actually would need to catch people unawares or lance skillfully not just rely on ungodly speeds faster than any real horse alive doing sharp 90 degree turns at full gallop.

did you forgot all horses were nerfed back than by -2speed -2 maneuverability when they changed riding skill from every 6 points into every 3 points ?

[Magikarp]

Riding 7-9 builds are useless for anything but couching, couching itself is a risky business. 18 str is the minimum if you want to hit hard.

[Chestaclese]

Pikes are a defensive weapon against horses. You can't hunt horses with pikes with any kid of effectiveness. You only way to aggressively fight horses is with ranged and the game currently lacks a ranged class strong enough to deal with them. It will take a little while, as people level up and retire, but I expect to see a large influx of horses in the next week or two.

Repair bills are largely a problem for new players. The majority of us have hundreds of thousands of gold coins lying around and nothing to spend them on.

The only reason not to get a horse at this point would be because they may not be as usefull in strategus.

[Rumblood]

did you forgot all horses were nerfed back than by -2speed -2 maneuverability when they changed riding skill from every 6 points into every 3 points ?

No surprises in this thread. Should we list the nerfs given to every other class, but especially archers patch after patch after patch? Hybrid archers can't spam arrows or they will be out in the first 30 seconds of the match. Pure archers that can spam have the cavalry simply bump them to death or dismount and kill the guy with no melee weapon. Throwers were over nerfed. Pikes are only useful if a horse actually tries to attack you. The only ones who try that are n00b cavalry, the rest simply ride away until you aren't looking. As Kesh stated, you can turn around, all clear, then 2-3 seconds later an Arabian from half the map away is 1-hitting you in the back. If it comes down to a cavalry and a pikeman at the end of the round, the cavalry rides off, refusing to engage and attempting for a draw if they have x1.

While the majority of horses and cavalry builds are fine, there are some specific examples (Arabian Jet Liner Horse) that are a joke and show how biased the cavalry community is in general, judging from their snooty attitudes and negative points they like to throw around when any thread mentions their sacred cow (pony).

[Cyclopsided]

Huh, I wonder why I tend to not fear horses as infantry.
...............
Oh, I use a pike and organize my team to gather around pikes with shielders/2h up front. All archers to be protected and shoot people/horses while safe behind protection.

BRB getting x5. (until random pubs just run off and suicide  . Why do they just run off to die by themselves? It never works. It never has worked.)


Also, why is it such a huge surprise that cav is viable now? A surprise that they are 20% the population of a server now? There are three main character types. Infantry, Archery, and cavalry. If it were a normal distribution, there would be 1/3rd the server as cav -- and it is leaning in that direction.

What I am saying is tactics. If you guys don't all rambo like idiots, cav are not a threat. Unless they were to make amazing coordinated trample pushes with the enemy infantry swarming in as they knock you down like sacrificial battering rams. *flashbacks of practices with cavalieres*

The metagame is changing in a really good way. I'm starting to see pike swarms and squad play without organizing them -- sometimes. But you didn't see it as often before.

I don't think this one is a balance issue. It is a state of mind and lack of teamwork issue with players not intent on change.*

*Some small cav balance tweaks may be made, but they are not something developed to be noticeable yet. It is only a week after patch and people aren't even used to the changes yet to properly defend themselves and/or adjust to a different metagame.

[Patricia]

Pikes are a defensive weapon against horses. You can't hunt horses with pikes with any kid of effectiveness. You only way to aggressively fight horses is with ranged and the game currently lacks a ranged class strong enough to deal with them. It will take a little while, as people level up and retire, but I expect to see a large influx of horses in the next week or two.

Repair bills are largely a problem for new players. The majority of us have hundreds of thousands of gold coins lying around and nothing to spend them on.

The only reason not to get a horse at this point would be because they may not be as usefull in strategus.

Lacks a ranged class strong enough to deal with them? Oh okay, I guess 2 bolts/axes/arrows is too much to kill my horse.

[OoberNoob]

I heard that horse is actually quite the nice meal. So... horse steak anyone

Horse doesn't taste bad but I would chose beef over it any day.

[Gorath]

Huh, I wonder why I tend to not fear horses as infantry.
...............
Oh, I use a pike and organize my team to gather around pikes with shielders/2h up front. All archers to be protected and shoot people/horses while safe behind protection.

BRB getting x5. (until random pubs just run off and suicide  . Why do they just run off to die by themselves? It never works. It never has worked.)


Also, why is it such a huge surprise that cav is viable now? A surprise that they are 20% the population of a server now? There are three main character types. Infantry, Archery, and cavalry. If it were a normal distribution, there would be 1/3rd the server as cav -- and it is leaning in that direction.

What I am saying is tactics. If you guys don't all rambo like idiots, cav are not a threat. Unless they were to make amazing coordinated trample pushes with the enemy infantry swarming in as they knock you down like sacrificial battering rams. *flashbacks of practices with cavalieres*

The metagame is changing in a really good way. I'm starting to see pike swarms and squad play without organizing them -- sometimes. But you didn't see it as often before.

I don't think this one is a balance issue. It is a state of mind and lack of teamwork issue with players not intent on change.*

*Some small cav balance tweaks may be made, but they are not something developed to be noticeable yet. It is only a week after patch and people aren't even used to the changes yet to properly defend themselves and/or adjust to a different metagame.

Oh I dunno.  My rambo techniques seem to work ok vs cav lately on the server we play on.   

[Tzar]

The overall problem with horses is the lack of communication on the team and im afraid no nerf or change will adress this issue only many many hard hours of gameplay time for new players....

[La Makina]

Pikes do not stop cavalry. They just make them go away. I can spend the complete round with a pike, turning my camera like a paranoid (= situational awareness good) but no rider will come to empale his horse on my pike.

Lower Horse HP.
(...)

Or increase horse HP but implement a penalty to speed and maneuver as they get wounded. Some mods have implemented this and it is quite consistent.

[Bjarky]

Or increase horse HP but implement a penaty to speed and maneuver as they get wounded. Some mods have implemented this and it is quite consistent.

interesting suggestion 

[Brutal]

Horse have been buffed by the patch it is pretty clear you just have to look how they behave now. Charging in the middle of melee like pre-upkeep patch is evidence enough and the scoreboard just confirm that.
Nobody sayed that you don't need skill to be a good rider so please lobbyst calm down. This is not a nerf thread it's just a discussion about current state of cav look at the title of the thread.

What I am saying is tactics. If you guys don't all rambo like idiots, cav are not a threat.

Yup let's also buff back archer to pre-upkeep patch i mean if everybody used tactics and coordination instead of rushing like buttfucker morons they were not threat at all. That argument is just fail because you can apply it for everything and teamwork on a large scale on a big battle server will never happen. How can you organize 50 people without leader, proper mean of communication and so on ? 
Also try to be more humble and less insulting once in a while that would be nice

[Magikarp]

Horse have been buffed by the patch it is pretty clear you just have to look how they behave now. Charging in the middle of melee like pre-upkeep patch is evidence enough and the scoreboard just confirm that.
Nobody sayed that you don't need skill to be a good rider so please lobbyst calm down. This is not a nerf thread it's just a discussion about current state of cav look at the title of the thread.

Yup let's also buff back archer to pre-upkeep patch i mean if everybody used tactics and coordination instead of rushing like buttfucker morons they were not threat at all. That argument is just fail because you can apply it for everything and teamwork on a large scale on a big battle server will never happen. How can you organize 50 people without leader, proper mean of communication and so on ? 
Also try to be more humble and less insulting once in a while that would be nice

If people stick to each other, at least in small groups, cav will have a much harder time killing you. Of course some lamers will go rambo, they will get owned by ranged, infantry or cav.

Please show me how we got buffed, we got the same nerf as all the others, plus a damage/speed nerf on our fav weapin: the heavy lance. Creating these fairy tales won't convince the devs to change stuff.

Like Marathon said in a good constructive post, cavalry is finally , since the last patches, getting a little ground in the community. Even though it's less powerful than before. If you compare cavalry to a 2handed spammer, the difference is little. If you don't block, you are dead. If you don't use teamwork, you might as well have a big chance of dying. OVerpowered? Nope. The problem lies within yourself.

Unlike in Native where half the server goes cavalry on flat maps.

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

The amount of times I've seen archers ignore the horses because they dont lead to kills is ridiculous... If Archers were clever enough to realise that shooting a sarranid horse a few times or a courser  a little more brings the horse down, then cavalry wouldn't be so effective. You can't say nerf cavalry due to another classes disregard of a threat they should be dealing with Archers can bring my champion sarranid down in 2 hits to the body, 1 head shot. It doesnt take much especially as I'm a thrower cav and need to be pretty close to get within range

[Magikarp]

The amount of times I've seen archers ignore the horses because they dont lead to kills is ridiculous... If Archers were clever enough to realise that shooting a sarranid horse a few times or a courser  a little more brings the horse down, then cavalry wouldn't be so effective. You can't say nerf cavalry due to another classes disregard of a threat they should be dealing with Archers can bring my champion sarranid down in 2 hits to the body, 1 head shot. It doesnt take much especially as I'm a thrower cav and need to be pretty close to get within range

Indeed, however I seem to have bad luck compared to guys like Oberyn And Tommy. I use the exact same tactics to avoid getting hit and getting kills. Yet archers seem to like focusing on me.

Archers/Crossbowmen are more dangerous to me than pikemen, because when my horse is down, I only have my trusty Quarterstaff left to bash some skulls.