Horses have no natural predators

[Patricia]

A pike is not a necessity to defend yourself against cavs, I can kill 95% of the cav playerbase with a short 1 hander, so let's not even talk about a decent length 2h/polearm.

[Seawied]

less gold more kills = cavalry

more gold less kills = infantry

which one do you want?

your choice

Finally another cavalry player that agrees cavalry get more kills. However, the issue here isn't the cost of horses. Horses have been more expensive and very viable for the past 4 months. They were at a pretty decent balance for the past 4 months. If you had stated this a month ago, I would have agreed with you 100%. The issue is that with the current patch, across the board, all counters to horses were nerfed, and some were nerfed severely. Meanwhile, horses remained relatively unchanged.

I'm not pushing for a nerf to horses. Horses by themselves are fine. I'm pushing for a reduction in some of the overzealous and heavy handed nerfs to weapons that countered horses. Weapons like the pike and higher tier throwing. If we could get the balance back to how horses were in the january patch, things would be fine.

I know for a fact that you, Huey, had no problem getting a positive score on horse back. Often times you alone would carry your team with your cavalry character. No one complained because it was player skill using a relatively well balanced setup to decide the map. That balance has been thrown.

[Cyclopsided]

Additionally, the situation you described of the piker/archer combo is pretty romanticized, and as someone who has played with you as a horseman, it is very rare.

Occasionally you will see an organized squad, but most of the time, if I'm focusing (which often im not!), I can swoop in and  get a guaranteed couple of kills.
Another factor you are leaving out: organized horsemen. In the situation you described, a lone horseman can be killed by a greater number of players. However, on a level field, if you have the same number of infantry versus an equal number of horsemen, if both teams are equally organized or disorganized, the horsemen should come out on top in the current patch.

Pikes? Still a problem, but much less so of one thanks to the fact that very few people on the battlefield use them. They are a highly inconvenient weapon.

I tend to not get any archers to play with TO organize is the problem, but on the rare occasion I do it isn't that "it kills that horseman" it is "It kills ALL the enemy team's horseman".
I usually am guarding at least AN archer unless they walk off to their own death. I don't know why most just auto pilot away from friendly cover until it isn't viable for me to cover them anymore...

And yes, organized squads are rare. THAT IS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. I'm trying to get more people to do them. They are the most fun I've ever had in this game. I try to organize one everytime I am on if I am playing with a few friends. It tends to just be the buddy system of 2 or 3 people though.

About organized horseman -- They can't break a 3 rank row under any circumstance. So as organization increases, pikeman and infantry counter cavalry harder and harder. With loose teamwork and low teamwork cav are at an advantage.
Cav teamworking with their infantry to do trample pushes where infantry swarm in as the cav run in? COMPLETELY different and super effective.

Oh, And I fundamentally disagree that the pike is an inconvenient weapon. And if it is so bad, you can use a 2 slot weapon on your back if REALLY needed.

Sea, one last note, have you seen when it is me and 5 PGI together? something like 4 pikemen w/ 2 shielders? Rare that we get on all at once with finals and such right now, But when we do there is no cav organized in equal number that could possibly threaten us or our team.

WITH ALL THIS SAID. The only issue that could possibly be making cav overpowered is maneuverability. It is the only issue I see. They turn on dimes so they can just be ever-present 3 meters away waiting for the opportunity. If they all lost some maneuverability points, I think the way cav feels abusable will disappear. That is it.

[PhantomZero]

Cav needs more manueverability, not less. It is already too easy for people to just jump out of the way of swords, lances, and couching.

[Inkompetent]

Cav needs more manueverability, not less. It is already too easy for people to just jump out of the way of swords, lances, and couching.

MORE maneuverability? Breaking after a charge and turning on a dime an infinite number of times isn't agile enough, added to the reach of lances making it quite possible to hit even dodging infantry?

[Seawied]

@Marathon, you mention archers and teammates straying off from your protection, and this rings true for me as well. In fact, just last night we had a very small group of people in the 80 man. The enemy team got all the cavalry players available. My polearm character used the pike, but eventually our small group spread out too thin and the cavalry picked them off one by one. If they had a single horse archer and a single lancer, they could have destroyed our 6 man group. HA would have just had to shoot me with an arrow to get me to drop my attack and have the the lancer goes in and kills either me or one of my archer or shielder teammates.

"why not have more players use pikes?" Well that answer is simple, people aren't buying them or using them because they aren't convenient, and leave you exposed. I think they need to get rid of the "drop on switch" requirement they have on pikes in order to get people to use them. You need to calculate the human factor into balancing.

[Cyclopsided]

I don't think making them sheath-able is an answer to this. Not only is it stupid to pull a pike out of your pocket that makes for bad gameplay mechanics.

It being inconvenient to use as a dedicated pikeman? Then make dedicated pikemen a little better.
and TBH pikemen are great and my only threat is range -- like any non-shield using class. So I don't think that is the issue.

besides, I still prefer pike for killing infantry than cav. it just gives me that LOVELY ability to say "lol cav"
Ask cyranule who he hates to meet in the fray of battle.
poke poke poke

[Tydeus]

I actually feel like I've seen more pikes now, than ever before. My only guess as to why this is, is that there are indeed less natural predators. There is overall less ranged (which is a good thing) and 2h thrusts have been nerfed so hard that even when a cav rides directly into a greatsword(general term for the longer 2hers, not specifically the Greatsword itself) thrust, the horse and rider can still manage to come out alive. I've also seen less thrusting at horses and more side swings, I'd assume this is because of an increase in miaodao/cleaver usage, something coming about due to the overnerf to 2h thrusts.

Edit to clarify the relevance here with my last statement: Thrusts give a much longer effective range than swings. This is something that is a complete necessity when fighting cavalry, even if you go at them from the side as you would with a swing.

Ask cyranule who he hates to meet in the fray of battle.
poke poke poke

Not just cyranule, pretty much any skilled 2her/polearm user.

[Tears of Destiny]

Hmm, pikes certainly were on the rise tonight. I saw Goretooth using one, I mean... Wow...

[Chestaclese]

With the nerf to throwing horses are running around unafraid. Either rebuff a range type to deal with this menace or nerf horses.

Rebuffing a range type to deal with horses is an option haha.

[Native_ATS]

Rebuffing a range type to deal with horses is an option haha.

Throwing is crap.... Dont throw.... it isnt good at all,
Cav pwns throwing hard... i will post my toughts on it here as well,

[Native_ATS]

took me 2 master work throwing lances to kill a bow men in leather.... i reloomed as a bow men because throwing is 100% crap, they where over nerffed and who every did the nerff should not be allowed to do anything in this game anymore, they dont know what they are doing at all. I hear it is a group that says what needs to be fixed
but any group that buffs xbow damg and super nerff throwing is soo dumb that i lost fath in the dev's that where in charge of throwing...

but to be fair let me give a little cred where it is do, the dev did hear my thoughts and try to fix it, but they did it in the wrong way or just not enough.
Lances where even worse befor the hot fix and they got buffed but the buff wasnt enough... there little buff was even a bigger nerff after i tested it more...
Lance take 2 slots and the ammo went form 12 to 2, and you cant sheath it.... so that means you can only bring 1 into battle... you need around 100wpf to even throw it in 12lb of gear.... other wise you can pick up your 1 lance....
I was all str and had like 10pt and i was like WOW i cant pick up my only lance.... the aim on the lance is soooo bad and i get it even worse since i can only have 1 and i cant throw more then once....

so i told them in the forms and i was happy when they saw my post and they buffed them...
the buff was you can sheath it but u only get 1 per stack.... each stack takes 2 slots....and they were nerffed in damg by alot. a master work lance was the same as a nomal lance befor patch -.-
AND you cant pick it up if you wear more then 12lb worth of gear.... the aim is still just as bad and you are forced to wear light to no gear.... you have to have high pt to even do damg and at 10pt it takes 2 lances to kill a bowmen or pony... then your left with nothing.... Ya you can throw jarids but at 9pt it takes 3 jarids to kill 1 man..... ya am not joking it takes the whole stake to kill a man...so good luck and dont miss
Throwing is crap in every way.... i was once voted best thrower in this game and even i cant stand what they did to it, i re-gened and did throwing again, i still toped the score bord but it wasnt fun at all, to do well i had to NOT THROW... i had to just relay on my 9ps and not my 9pt..... soon i was thinking why i even had pt....
alot of the time i would throw both lances into a pony and cry as it ran away with my 26,000$ worth of lances with him -.-

ups about throwing in new patch
war darts! 3xloomed wardart own at 9pt, they do like 30p damg and are so easy to throw, if you bring nothing but war darts you end up with 28 darts and you only need 3-4 to kill most people, they have a high rate of fire as well
can pwn 2 handers all day every day... just dont miss or your toast
.....that is it, there is nothing ells that is ok or good about throwing

bad side to throwing
cant wear gear if you want to throw lances, need high wpf yet cant get it if you still want the throwing item to hurt....
at 9pt (27str) it takes a whole stack to kill a man, so you have to be way better then me and not miss 1 shot
all mid to high throwing takes 2 slots
damg nerff on all throwing weapons! even rocks where nerffed? ROCK WHERE NERFFED!
Sheilds will reck your shit.... any sheild pwns lances,jarids,axes....
cav recks throwing hard now... damg nerff and ammo nerff make throwing at cav a hard fight. If there are 2 cav you lose 100% of the time... throwers can kill 1 cav and 1 cav only now...
bowmen reck throwing, good luck killing that bowmen with ur weak ass jarids, dont miss...

I think the dev where scared and gave into the crys of nubs who knew nothing about throwing and in there heart wanted to make it better.
the devs tryed to fix throwing but since none of them are throwers they didnt know  how and they just ended up over nerffing them

how i would fix throwing?
give all mid to high teir throwing 1 more to there stack... that way we can miss 1 time....
maybe up the damg on all throwing since you cant wear good gear and still throw top teir items or even because we have less throwing weapons to throw lol
maybe lift the wpf need to throw in heavy gear... i cant throw lances with 101 wpf? am forced to wear 12lb worth of gear even tho am all str?
i would still throw if i had more then 2 lances... or if they upped the damg... but even if they uped the damg back to what it was it wouldnt help... since all weapons need more str it makes them have more hp...

***To any other thrower who wants to try throwing i say dont, it isnt worth it at all... it will even be more worthless once strat is back up....
try xbow, it has all the power of throwing with no down side, heck since it has better aim then lances you dont need wpf in it lol, might want some to reload faster tho.... or just use the master work light xbow... great 68p and you can spam all wpf into a 2hander or pol-arm
 I might throw again one day but that would mean i would have to loom my lances all over again just to have a good shot at killen peps, truely not worth it

[Gorath]

Damn you're crying hard Native....   

[Native_ATS]

Damn you're crying hard Native....   

Natives cant cry unless you throw your trash on the floor!
i just use a bow now, just pew pew lol dont want people to throw, it isnt worth it at all in anyway.... have you tryed it since the hot fix? I would tell you not too, but you might want to try it and see how bad it is, anyways throwing is crap since strat is coming back so might as well just do something ells, anyways..... cav is a tad stronger now since they are fast and there only counter left is bowmen/xbowmen... but since xbows and bows where buffed i think ponys might not be a huge threat... then again ponys can pwn bowmen/xbows so idk

[Gorath]

Natives cant cry unless you throw your trash on the floor!
i just use a bow now, just pew pew lol dont want people to throw, it isnt worth it at all in anyway.... have you tryed it since the hot fix? I would tell you not too, but you might want to try it and see how bad it is, anyways throwing is crap since strat is coming back so might as well just do something ells, anyways..... cav is a tad stronger now since they are fast and there only counter left is bowmen/xbowmen... but since xbows and bows where buffed i think ponys might not be a huge threat... then again ponys can pwn bowmen/xbows so idk

I have tried it, and I'm still satisfied with my wardarting.  A headshot is a headshot is a headshot and it kills just the same (except for the notable str stacker like walrus who ends up with a pinnochio nose from the dart in his face) as it always has.  Yes, lances were nerfed.  I don't have any sympathy there as I've been saying from day 1 of their inception that they needed to go away, as did any and all ranged weapons that could 1-shot body kill (this included Jarids/Spears and in rare cases axes and javs).

It's not their only counter.  Since the rise in cav I've taken Vyrus from 1h/xbow back to my 1h/polearm roots (hoplite - barbarian style) with a bamboo spear to go with my cleaver/shield and I've been tagging me cav left and right.  Or they stop and get off of their horse to fight me on foot like a man.