Light Cav

[NJ_Legion_Icedtea]

Thinking of trying a light cav/inf build and thinking of 12/24 so I can have 8 riding. But is the 8 riding worth it or would the extra strength be better?

[Dalfador]

Thinking of trying a light cav/inf build and thinking of 12/24 so I can have 8 riding. But is the 8 riding worth it or would the extra strength be better?

are you couch lancing, stab lancing, swinging a sword?

12/24 cav is a dedicated lancer build. Infantry hyrbid with such low STR would be bad so you should just be pure cav IMO.

I've used 18/18 for level 30 every gen now. It's a solid infantry/cav build so I can ride the courser.

6 PS
6 IF
6 ATH
6 RIDING
5 WM

If you go to level 31 you can convert an attribute for a total of 3 skill points for 3 shield. So you could be a hopilite on foot if you choose.

To answer your question though, I think you're fine, IF you're lancing that is.

[NJ_Legion_Icedtea]

Thank you for your response.

I am going to be a lancer (stab lancing). My thought was to try out something a bit different and to be able to run away from those other cav who WILL try and kill my horse

However as you have said 12 STR is very low and I won't be dealing a lot of damage. Maybe 15/21 would be better? or again as you have said the 18/18.

I might try a few different STF to see which one would work the best.
But again thank you for your help.

[Grumpy_Nic]

Think of the horse you wanna use and then you see how much agility you need.
Arabian and Courser are both very good for lancing. Courser brings more speed and with the Arabian you can pull off these nice tight turns while couching. I'd go for max. 21 Agility at lvl30. Rest in STR.

[BlueKnight]

balanced cav best cav

[CrazyCracka420]

I'd recommend only going the agility needed for the horse you want to ride.  The Arabian warhorse is the best horse in the game (IMO, at least playing on the battle servers, in strategus armored horses are best).  Followed by the courser or destrier.  However you only have 5 or 6 power strike with the arabian, which is on the weak side when you're infantry.

You also need to decide if you want to put WPF into one skill or two, if you want to use a shield or not.  This will all affect your build. 

Since I decided on my first gen I wanted to ride the fastest horse in the game, I used this build (from gen 2 to 13), at level 30:

Level 30 (4 420 577 xp)

    Strength: 18
    Agility: 18
    Hit points: 55

    Converted: 2
    Ironflesh: 1
    Power Strike: 6
    Shield: 4
    Athletics: 6
    Riding: 6
    Weapon Master: 6

    One Handed: 120
    Polearm: 119


If you're going to want to use a shield, I'd suggest also using 1h WPF.  If you aren't going to use a shield, I'd suggest putting all your WPF into polearms (and carrying something like a bec or long bardiche as your backup weapon).

If you aren't going to use a shield, then I would suggest at level 30 you go 3 more strength (21/18) and convert some more skills to attributes (will need to lose the 1 IF, and drop down to 5 WM, but that won't be noticeable to you). 

If you are going to ride a destrier, then go 21/15 (if using a shield, 24/15 if not).  If you want to ride an Arabian, go 15/21 with shield, 18/21 without).

Whatever you do, always plan your build from the beginning, and make sure you are maximizing it throughout each level:

http://sayginsoher.com/merccrpg/calculator/

One more thing about lances, I prefer to use the regular lance (always used the heavy lance until the damage was nerfed a while back).  Heavy lance is the lance to use if you want to go head to head against other lances.  Since I think this is a really bad way to play lancer cavalry, I switched to the lance.  It's faster and does 5 more damage than the heavy lance (that's a huge difference).  I think lancer cavalry is the most effective (for your team winning the round) by attacking enemy infantry who are unaware of you, and then attacking enemy infantry that are "good" players (or heavily armed) when they are fighting with your own teams' infantry.  I typically only go after other lancer cav when I get A.D.D and am not playing necessarily strategic.

[San]

I wouldn't discount cav who prominently attack other cav. On my cav hybrid, I mostly went against other cav until I was dehorsed. You get a lot of points for even 1 good stab on an enemy cav. When the enemy cav are out of the picture, your cav and infantry have a lot more freedom on a good number of maps. I was fine with a regular lance against other cav, but if they have a heavy lance, it's definitely harder if they're of equal or better skill.

[CrazyCracka420]

I'm not discounting the importance of eliminating the enemy cavalry, just saying that I think with a horse you're most effective against the enemy infantry.  I will certainly try to stop enemy cavalry when I can, I guess it's an unconscious "risk vs reward" calculation going on in my head (discounting when I have A.D.D. or am taking high risks) and I typically think you're better off avoiding enemy cavalry lancers just because you're going to have maybe a 50-50 chance of taking them out, versus being able to dominate infantry.  If you get dehorsed rather than taking out 3 or 4 enemy infantry you're not as effective. 

You are also correct that targetting people's horses is a smart move (both for gaining points for valor and dehorsing a cavalry person making them much less effective, and also going for a horse is important if you think the person is going to be blocking your lance thrust...if you aim for the horse act like you're going to dehorse the person and drag the lance up, because if you do kill their horse even if they're blocking, you will hit the person as well)

[Gktq]

I played light cav char.But i dont like it because u can kill easily by archers.You will have low hp and their using speed bonus.