Assuming you didn't have a shield or melee weapon and carried only throwing lances, you had 8 throwing lances. While strength does give more life, having high requirements is a definitive drawback, as it substantively reduces key skills like athletics, riding, horse archery, wm, or potentially shield. You also needed 9-10 power throw to consistently 1 shot an opponent. At 8-7, it typically took 2 hits to kill your opponent.
They were one of the slowest projectiles in the game, and the most inaccurate ranged weapon in the game. It was because of all these drawbacks, I found other throwing weapons to be more effective in practice than throwing lances. While some people, like ATS_Native, used them to great effect, they by no means warranted the insanely punishing 2 slot, 1 ammo nerf they received.
The nerf really seemed like a knee-jerk reaction that someone did after getting killed by one of these weapons. They could have been balanced in infinitely better ways.
Or just removed entirely.
I found that war darts are the new throwing weapon to go for. I heirloomed them once to heavy and they're quite nice. Accuracy is terrible, but the damage is allright.
Main drawback: They don't break shields and you can't use them to block with in melee.
The latter can be fixed by just picking up a weapon from the ground when you've depleted a stack. It's just that you will be so slow you can't hit back after you blocked.
