A new approach to lancing

[22nd_King_Plazek]

lol, on what basis do you make the claim that nerfing lancers will necessarily increase the amount of horse archers?

[Glyph]

WHY DON'T PEOPLE GET THAT THIS TREAD ISN'T ABOUT NERFING CAV, BUT BALANCING POKE-LANCING AND COUCHING!!! atleast i do.

AND NOT ABOUT GETTING MORE HA's, THE ORIGINAL IDEA WON'T MAKE MORE HA BABIES, GET THAT!!!

[Seawied]

What is good about cRPG is the level of customization and diversity.

Riddaren, you hit hammer-dead-on-nail one of the fundamental reasons I have for pushing these changes. As it stands, lancers are hands down stronger than 1h cav or 2h cav or even non-lance polearm cav. There is very little reason to use anything but a lance.

Let's keep HA out of this, as they are an incredibly tricky class to balance.


There are a few things you are overlooking

• You do not need wpf in polearms to be a good lancer. 0 WPF makes lancing slightly more inconvenient, but unlike any melee class, or archers, it is not an absolute necessity. The reason behind this is that you only need to get 1 hit in on an opponent. In melee, you need high WPF because once you block, you have a very narrow window to counter attack. Because its a 1 hit system, this need is removed. During this generation, I did some testing on my HA character, who had very little polearm WPF, and found it to be very effective.
• On horseback, a lancer does not often need to block. I typically block in an "Oh shit, where did that cav come from?" situation. Most other times, a good offense is superior to good defense. Also, high horse maneuverability allows you to steer away from an attack before it lands. The trade-off is speed an positioning, but its a very effective tactic. Additionally, by standardizing the "cannot block" tag among lances, 2h cav or non-lance polearm cav would become more effective anti-cav classes... which would be a good thing considering their lack of infantry-killing power
• Some lances currently cannot be used to manually block. This is not noted on the website, but the great lance and jousting lance cannot manual block. By making the tags universal on all lances, you would not see the hordes of heavy-lance wielders on horseback.
• The number of HA will not increase as dramatically as you state.  There might be a small migration of lancers to HA, as there is always character migration after any sort of change or nerf, but it would not be nearly as high as you state.
• Several players against my views and who adamantly oppose my change suggestions do concede that lancers are in fact the strongest cavalry units.

[Overdriven]

• Some lances currently cannot be used to manually block. This is not noted on the website, but the great lance and jousting lance cannot manual block. By making the tags universal on all lances, you would not see the hordes of heavy-lance wielders on horseback.
• Several players against my views and who adamantly oppose my change suggestions do concede that lancers are in fact the strongest cavalry units.

The manual block would make bugger all difference. If you took it away, people would hardly notice. Yes it comes in handy sometimes. But that is a very rare situation indeed. You'd still get lots of heavy lancers.

But why shouldn't lancers be the strongest cav? Not all infantry is equal in terms of strength. They have their benefits and weaknesses, as do lancers. I would say that a 2h is stronger than a shielder. Or a war bow is more useful for archers than a strong bow. You can say it about any class.

[Wookimonsta]

hmm, some input.
due to the heavy lance having something like 65 speed, 0 wpf lancing is VERY SLOW. I used to do 0 wpf lancing, but right now the extreme time needed to prep and release the lance means a huge inconvenience against other cav and infantry as they have plenty of time to dodge you. The lance speed at 65 seems to me was a decent nerf and that can remain the way it is.
Lancers do have drawbacks, as a 1h on a horse, if you are ever stopped, you can still fight enemies. As a lancer, if you are stopped chances are you are dead.

[Keshian]

hmm, some input.
due to the heavy lance having something like 65 speed, 0 wpf lancing is VERY SLOW. I used to do 0 wpf lancing, but right now the extreme time needed to prep and release the lance means a huge inconvenience against other cav and infantry as they have plenty of time to dodge you. The lance speed at 65 seems to me was a decent nerf and that can remain the way it is.
Lancers do have drawbacks, as a 1h on a horse, if you are ever stopped, you can still fight enemies. As a lancer, if you are stopped chances are you are dead.

How it plays out practically though is that your stab acts almost like a couch in that you have a large radius of time for anyone to be hit by your lance.  Just start your thrust early and it will last long enough to your target or even a guy ten feet past him.  A lot of lancers have already adjusted to it and find it more useful this way.  Being able to slash when stopped is not a big difference, you've already messed up and either will die or ride off.  I see plenty of lancers with a shield and then either a 1handed sword or a 1 slot polearm.  Having a shield matters a lot more what happens when you are stopped then if you have a polearm or sword.  Most likely you will just block with the shield and ride away.

I agree though that making lances not have manual blocking ability really won't fix or do anything toward balancing.  The most it might do is make more lancers use a shield.  The main issue with lance cav is that the high maneuverability and speed combined with a 190 length (190!!!) polearm makes it a relatively OP class compared to everything else.  Give these horses more hitpoints and armor if they need them, but the maneuver and speed need some significant drops to balance everyone having 6-7 riding skill with champion coursers/arabian warhorses.

[Glyph]

hmm, some input.
due to the heavy lance having something like 65 speed, 0 wpf lancing is VERY SLOW. I used to do 0 wpf lancing, but right now the extreme time needed to prep and release the lance means a huge inconvenience against other cav and infantry as they have plenty of time to dodge you. The lance speed at 65 seems to me was a decent nerf and that can remain the way it is.
Lancers do have drawbacks, as a 1h on a horse, if you are ever stopped, you can still fight enemies. As a lancer, if you are stopped chances are you are dead.

but onehanded cav gets stuck 3 times as much a lancers do because lancers can avoid getting stuck and still kill