How to use a Charger?

[Tai Feng]

Alright here it is, I bought charger last week because I had too much money and didn't know what to do with it.

However, I totally fail to see the use of this horse right now. Yes I know, it takes a bit more to die, but I didn't buy it to sightsee places on the map but to kill people.


First, I thought "cool, I'll bump the enemy and cause damage". Then people told me charge damage got nerfed. Alright, so I take my charger to duel server and it turned out that it's doing zero (!) damage to a guy in plate/heraldic (not sure exactly) most of the time, and when it does dmg it's like 5%. Alright.. so it's great vs naked people I guess (so are knives).

Then I try lancing but because of slower speed it's not as satisfying. Alright.


However, right now with this last patch, my Charger barely moves. I can't even ride it. I bet I'd outrun him on foot.



So my question is, who tops the charts with a charger? Or, of what tactical value it is? How do I use it, where do I use it?

I can get to #1 in kills with my Courser, but with Charger I can't do anything. I know I'm not a cavalry player but surely there's some use of this horse that moves faster in reverse.


I'll try hafted blade and bump n slash to see how it goes. Unfortunately I have no 1H proficiency.

[Bull]

I feel your pain. The day the patch came out, I finally had enough money to buy a Charger. I was so excited because I had been saving up for weeks to buy the pretty looking horse. So I did.

Quickly, I found out that I much preferred my destrier/rouncey backup to the charger. For one, the upkeep was over 3k; secondly, the speed was awful. What the hit points/armor did to increase its survivability, it's inability to escape from arrow fire ended up getting me killed more than anything else.

That being said, it was a good shieldwall-breaker, so long as none of them had a pike (which everyone seems to nowadays). I remember charging a group of 3-4 shielders, bumping them, and a few would get dropped from arrows.

Taking all this into consideration, I'd recommend heirlooming a courser/destrier a couple of times and using that instead. Chargers are overrated and overpriced, IMO.

[Nick_Larking]

A long cut or crush weapon i would say.
Chargers own people in village streets with a good cut/crush weapon just bumping and slashing through enemy foot soldiers.
Although alot of people seem to carry poles now, jsut be carefull for those.

[Tai Feng]

A long cut or crush weapon i would say.
Chargers own people in village streets with a good cut/crush weapon just bumping and slashing through enemy foot soldiers.

But did you test that, or is it theorycraft? I am not asking here for theorycraft but for people who actually make it work in practice.

In practice, Charger moves so slow that any half-competent 2H guy can half-sword you if you have cut/crush weapon, any polearm can poke you too (and plenty of those), you move so slow every arrow and bolt will stick not into your horse but your body because you move too slow to dodge.

Slow speed also means you cant bump as many people - your horse will come to a full stop. You move too slow to get proper speed boost for your weapon.


All in all, on what server can I watch Charger players to learn how to do it.

[PhantomZero]

But did you test that, or is it theorycraft? I am not asking here for theorycraft but for people who actually make it work in practice.

In practice, Charger moves so slow that any half-competent 2H guy can half-sword you if you have cut/crush weapon, any polearm can poke you too (and plenty of those), you move so slow every arrow and bolt will stick not into your horse but your body because you move too slow to dodge.

Slow speed also means you cant bump as many people - your horse will come to a full stop. You move too slow to get proper speed boost for your weapon.


All in all, on what server can I watch Charger players to learn how to do it.

The Fallen Ones regularly feature Plated and normal Chargers. Maybe every 4-5 maps if the terrain is suitable.

Heavy Horses are like bombers, you can't fly without a formation because you just get shot up. Fighters just need a good wingman or some cloudcover to get the drop on unsuspecting foes.

[Siiem]

So the bump damage is "zero" yet people die by horsebumps on servers.. hmm mystical.

[Boss_Awesome]

The nice thing about the charger is that it can take a lot of damage.  It's fast enough to outrun infantry just fine.  Bump damage was never good for much besides killing peasants anyway, or extremely wounded people.  I really never got how those things killed so many people.  You may want to try a morning star, its got high damage so you don't need a super fast speed to get kills.  The real problem i found with this horse after the patch was the large amount of light cavalry.  I would take my charger out for a spin and get mobbed by 5 enemy coursers who would just take me a part.  I get way more kills with a fast horse.

[Yaron]

Regarding speed, I can not say much, but that horse bumping got damaged nerfed was kinda necessary IMO ... now you actually need to do something to kill ppl instead of running over them 2 times and they die while carrying 4 shields (*waves @ elephant rider*).

And plz dont come again with your "realism" ... this is a game ... it's all about balance, not reality ... and causing 50% on heavy armor by just riding over them like it was before had nothing to do with balance or skill or anything, it was just rediclious.

[FICO]

The real problem i found with this horse after the patch was the large amount of light cavalry.  I would take my charger out for a spin and get mobbed by 5 enemy coursers who would just take me a part.  I get way more kills with a fast horse.

like destroyers against battleship. you need an escort

[BlackGyver]

And plz dont come again with your "realism" ... this is a game ... it's all about balance, not reality ... and causing 50% on heavy armor by just riding over them like it was before had nothing to do with balance or skill or anything, it was just rediclious.

Woooooh, cool down Yaron. Is Tai Feng whining ? He's not. Instead of the usual complaints, this guy decided to ask for some advice. If you want to help hip, do so, but stop slapping his fingers goddammit.

So the bump damage is "zero" yet people die by horsebumps on servers.. hmm mystical.

I read "zero damage in heraldric/plate", do you know of lot of people using them every round nowadays ? The vast majority of the players is now in light/medium armor.

Regarding this horse's use, I guess you need to be a real specialized cav to get the most out of it, since the charge damage multi has been drastically reduced.

[Food]

The thing about chargers and plated chargers especially is that 99% of people will never take their eyes off you if they are within 10 seconds running distance.

Here is a text reenactment of how it goes down:
: Oh LOL here comes Lady Gaga on her stupid rhino, gonna own this bitch. No skill, just money.
: Ah, she got away, atleast I hurt her horse with my Katana, let me get out my crossbow and BOOM HEADSHOT a hoe.
*half of team gets lanced from behind by knights on coursers*
 : UGGGH NO SKILL, JUST MONEY.


Morningstar is not that great of a heavy cav weapon anymore, due to no crushthrough.

[Michael]

Regarding speed, I can not say much, but that horse bumping got damaged nerfed was kinda necessary IMO ... now you actually need to do something to kill ppl instead of running over them 2 times and they die while carrying 4 shields (*waves @ elephant rider*).

And plz dont come again with your "realism" ... this is a game ... it's all about balance, not reality ... and causing 50% on heavy armor by just riding over them like it was before had nothing to do with balance or skill or anything, it was just rediclious.

I d love to quote Gnjus here but you are my friend so I dont.

Some facts: I already kill more enemies with my retired low level polearm and the cheap heavy saddle horse than I did as Black Knight on the heavy plated charger for almost 100.000 gold.

Even with 54 horse charge I couldnt kill a naked guy with 1 bump, a guy with decent armor I had to hit 3-4 times at full speed while, in the same time, you coward my old friender were hiding and 1-2 shot-killing 15 enemies.

I have never seen a pure elephant rider with earth shaking kill death ratios.

Everyone with an idea/ some experience how to play as lancer knows that Sarranid, Courser or destrier are the way to go.

Unfortunately, all the people who call the shots hate horses. Indeed, they get mad when some horseman injures them before they can finish kill number 20 without dying.

What can I say..............it seems to be too much to ask to carry a polearm and look around instead of mindless charging/ shooting. 

Some more facts: one (1) throwing lance is enough to kill the heavy plated charger. is that the balance you are talking about? i have to pay upkeep almost 5.000 gold each round for my horse even if it should survive the round and some skill-free throwing spammer can easily kill it due to its huge hitbox.

also, due to the friendly bump you cant even use the horse to help your teammates because those incompetent footmen tend to dance instead of holding the fucking line.


result: charger, even the normal one, but all heavy horses are just good in burning your money, if you have too much gold. otherwise, totally useless, but who cares. we dedicated cavalrymen, we noblemen, we know we have more skill and are the better men anyway, so dont mind the lame pedestrians.


Some advice: use the charger only on cav-okay maps such as ruins or some sarranid village perhaps. The ground needs to be really plain. Use the light lance. Attack archers, stab them in the head. Get your fellow light cav to protect you from enemy cav. If there are no competent cavmen in your team, then stick with the infantry. Stay back. Wait for your infantry to charge, then attack from the other side. Like all cav, its best to kill pedestrians that are not aware. Archers, crossbowmen, dreamers, thats your targets.

[Tai Feng]

1. I am not a cavalry player. I play all classes but am mostly infantry player. I am not asking here for cavalry buff, I am merely asking why Charger that costs entire fortune is actually *reducing* the effectiveness of a player instead of increasing it. As a general rule of thumb, a player should be more effective with better gear. If more expensive gear is not an advantage over cheaper one, then something is wrong.

2. Charger is absolutely horrible now. It isn't worth 10k let alone 50k.
Let's see what is different since old cRPG:
a) reduced charge damage by a lot
b) reduced speed in last patch
c) arrows partially do cutting damage, but throwers are like locusts, and tons of people carry thrusting polearms because of how cheap they are
d) despite what all the irrational whiners on the forum say, everyone can afford good armor with current upkeep, and chargers do almost no damage to people with good armor; the charger will do some damage to naked people but so will courser - as a matter of fact against naked semiactives/inactives courser is much much better.


I was testing charger some more today and you wouldn't believe but: charger lost all remaining 80% of health from a single throwing axe, which is a cutting weapon. Head or no head, I personally think it's ridiculous. Even from cutting weapons such as swords, charger loses a LOT of damage even while slowly moving (game calculated speed bonus in a very weird way, for example, you could be very very slowly moving on a horse and still inflict some kind of huge damage, or get huge damage at yourself).



The horse is utterly and completely useless. When I take it, I feel crippled instead of empowered.

I have not tried it with 1H but if someone did - does it work for you?


Most people think there are no chargers on the battlefield because of their cost, but people *would* use them if they were any good. I have money, and plenty of other people have too.


ps: And just for the record, and few rounds with pathetic charger performance I had, barely any kills.. I took courser. And lo and behold, I managed to make up for previous bad rounds with charger and got to #1 spot in my team. Now either I am playing with charger wrong, or courser is 5x better and much cheaper. Considering that everyone elses performance is about the same, we can conclude that charger is either a hidden gem or bad horse.

[bruce]

The charger IS a bumpslasher's horse. It was that prepatch, too, and it was every bit as slow as it is now (but it did deal good trample damage).

But due to the huge number of light cavalry with lances at one point (before the last horse nerf, deserved btw), bumpslashing is falling out of fashion, because many people started to use polearms these days (or throwing, which does sick damage). Your best bet as a slasher is in bigger battles, picking off people who're meleeing / tunnelvisioning, and staying away before that.

If you're a lancer, on the other hand... then yeah, it's a shitty horse.

[Snatch]

bump slash with morningstar or any pierce weapon.