How to use a Charger?

[Tai Feng]

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.

It was not every bit as slow as it is now, since speed of horses got reduced in last patch.


As you said, there's tons of polearms and throwing - all of these make melee horsing much worse.
At the same time archers do mostly cutting damage which.. is great for charger IF he does nothing and stands still at a distance.

The thing with "best bet" that you said is that Courser does it better. Sarranid horse does it better. Everyone does it better.


Point that everyone is missing

Pre-patch horses did not knock down teammates and damage them. Now they do.

What does this mean? It means that with most other horses you can run in and with surgical precision lance the enemy. Charger.. what is charger going to do that? Run in and pray you don't bump teammates with the huge hitbox it has?


This is one of the key things why charger is now so bad.

bump slash with morningstar or any pierce weapon.

To what server should I come, to see morningstar-charger performance that does more kills (or more team usefulness) than Courser-lance performance?

Do you still use your charger and where can I see it

ps: well I went to your server and you were not using your charger char, nor did anyone else (not surprisingly).
Also, really hate going to NA servers, the level of culture is so horrid that every second chat line has "my old friend" etc.

[Kay of Sauvage]

If all the horses were to cost the same upkeep, I'd probably take the charger myself most of the time simply to be able to take more arrows before going down. But I'm not a very typical cavalry player. My goal isn't to get solo kills, but rather to do what I think tactically helps the team. So I'll prance around with infantry, forcing the enemy infantry to look at me while they are trying to fight other infantry or else be stabbed and bumped. Or I'll go behind or off to the side of archers to force them to keep shooting at me, and then approach them whenever they ignore me.

With a light horse, I have to be extra cautious, practically hiding away from the enemy archers, either searching for a safe place to fight or picking a good moment to dart in and be effective before the archers and infantry are aware I'm there. With a heavy horse, I can act more like a very mobile version of infantry.

[bruce]

It was not every bit as slow as it is now, since speed of horses got reduced in last patch.


As you said, there's tons of polearms and throwing - all of these make melee horsing much worse.
At the same time archers do mostly cutting damage which.. is great for charger IF he does nothing and stands still at a distance.

The thing with "best bet" that you said is that Courser does it better. Sarranid horse does it better. Everyone does it better.

I meant pre-upkeep patch - the horses now are about as fast as horses then were, since we all have 6 riding skill nowdays 

But mostly, what makes it work much worse then it used to are three things:
- much more polearms, mainly to fend off lance cavalry for which you need a polearm, and we had a ton of light cavalry before the latest patch
- throwing, which is largely pierce and does tons of damage, and we have a lot of those now - and if you are going at someone who's got a throwing weapon, your only real hope is that you get to him fast enough before he notices / cannons you
- halfswording mode for twohanders making it even less attractive to try to bumpslash then before

So all in all bumpslashing is much more difficult to do well with, in general. So naturally a horse geared for bumpslashing does worse then it used to... but the real changes to the charger weren't really changes to its stats, but changes to the playing style of people and the mass poliferation of spears, pikes, throwing, etc.

[Garris]

I considered my toon a "mounted infantry" type horseman.  Horse and sword, no lancework, up close and dangerous.

I had an heirloomed Heavy Charger.  I wore full plate.  I'd slash peasants, ninjas, and archers with my Balanced Espada or crush cans with a morningstar.  I carried only one weapon and a Steel Shield into battle.

I'd ride around and get the cheap afk kills now and again, but my main focus is combat support.   Upon rollout I'd ride ahead until first contact, then come back and cover the infantry flanks.  If I didnt see any polearms, ride into the enemy ranks and stir up the furball just before the grunts arrive.  Pullout, assess damage, and assist where needed.  K/D ratio and gold no longer seemed to matter much and life was good.

Then the patch hit.

These days I wear a gambeson and ride a Rouncy into battle. But I still swing a Balanced Espada.  Everyone carries a polearm and thows shit. So your horses death (and the ensuing chance of repair) is a given.  Friendly damage means more horsemanship is required at all times.  I'm more likely to abort a strike than risk killing a friendly.  Its alot easier to kill my mates and harder to kill the enemy than ever before.  chadz even stole my Heavy Charger, not that I got much use out of him lately.
I'd been thinking of selling the Charger for a Destrier, but I keep thinking:

Someday I'm gonna be 5x on a battle server and I'm gonna don the Gothic Plate and ride my Charger into battle alongside other heroes, milking the mutiplier for all its worth.

But for now, I'm on the Peasant Fail Team, wearing cheap gear, leaving the horse in the stable.

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

I started a cavalry player around the time the patch came out, and I dare say I frequently top the scoreboard (something that never happened) on cavalry-friendly maps. I ride a courser and heavy lance people. Oh boy to I love my courser

THE PERSPECTIVE OF A COURSER-LANCE NINJA WHO LOVES KILLING CAVALRY:

My contribution to this thread: I frequently rape armored cavalry (chargers included). Their horses are REALLY slow, making them easy targets for ass-lancing. I also do alot more damage than they do, for my horse runs faster and thus does more lance damage on impact. I can also out maneuver them, If I slow down. Courser definitly out classes the chargers when it comes to cavalry-on-cavalry clashes, on open maps. Especially if the charger is fighting alone, without the aid of infantry/lighter-cavalry.

HOWEVER. On more tightly-spaced maps I find my butt getting fisted by the few players who use chargers. I simply can't contend with them, since my speed and maneuvering don't count for shit in a tiny space. As Lady Gaga says: bump-slash is your friend. A 1hander on a charger will kick my lightly armored, lance weilding ass if ever I am forced to a stop.

I also notice that chargers working with infantry work very well.

[Tai Feng]

If all the horses were to cost the same upkeep, I'd probably take the charger myself most of the time simply to be able to take more arrows before going down. But I'm not a very typical cavalry player. My goal isn't to get solo kills, but rather to do what I think tactically helps the team. So I'll prance around with infantry, forcing the enemy infantry to look at me while they are trying to fight other infantry or else be stabbed and bumped. Or I'll go behind or off to the side of archers to force them to keep shooting at me, and then approach them whenever they ignore me.

With a light horse, I have to be extra cautious, practically hiding away from the enemy archers, either searching for a safe place to fight or picking a good moment to dart in and be effective before the archers and infantry are aware I'm there. With a heavy horse, I can act more like a very mobile version of infantry.

Actually it's all the opposite of what you said.

With Courser or even Sumpter you're more a mobile infantry because you're faster, and even if your horse gets killed you're - well - infantry, as long as you recover from the fall.

With Charger, you're neither cavalry nor infantry. You're not mobile infantry because you don't dismount, since that's the entire point of having a charger - to stay on a horse as long as possible. You're not cavalry either - cavalry kills you, horse archers kill you, and you kill no one as you said - you're just sightseeing around.



About usefulness of distracting infantry.. that's certainly good, but often you can distract infantry with any other horse as well. And while you're doing nothing but sometimes distracting, that Courser teammate of yours can kill 5 people easily and distract while he's riding by everyone real fast.

My point here is that no one can actually show how Charger is good, and intangibles such as "distractions" just don't cut it. You're using 70k+ worth equipment for distractions, that just doesn't pay off. If Charger cost the same money as Courser I'd still take Courser.

I meant pre-upkeep patch - the horses now are about as fast as horses then were, since we all have 6 riding skill nowdays

Well doesn't that mean you invest more skill points to be faster? If I understood you.

HOWEVER. On more tightly-spaced maps I find my butt getting fisted by the few players who use chargers. I simply can't contend with them, since my speed and maneuvering don't count for shit in a tiny space. As Lady Gaga says: bump-slash is your friend.

I'd still love to see that. I observed some chargers today and same results as before. LadyGaga had a crossbow and some cheap horse when I went to US server.

The thing with tightly maps is - are you going to use charger there? You *might* get better results in village map from a charger, but would you get better results than from Sarranid, or by going on foot entirely? Sure you might bump in a village, theoretically speaking, but if you try it yourself you'll see that soloing gets you piked, and team-supporting means you cant bump anyone because you'll probably end up bumping your teammate as well or just him with huge hitbox horse.


So I'm merely asking - where can I see this usefulness of a charger? I see usefulness of throwing every round, of coursers/sarranids, of archers, 2H, polearms, you name it. With some players I can see 1Hshield works for them. I see naked people scoring well and doing well. But charger? Where? There are people with 200,000+ gold, it's not that they dont have money. But no one takes charger and those who do, do average at best and can in no way compete with Courser.

[Brutal]

Most of the problem come from the new distribution of riding skill point.
let's say you have 5 riding point . if you take a palfrey you have 2 more riding than requirement so you will go faster and have more maneuverability than the original riding stat of the horse. If you take a charger which is already slower and less maneuverable you don't get that bonus of extra riding skill compared to requirement.
So the difference in maneuverability and speed is just to great between heavy and light cav making heavy cav obsolete.
It' s because high riding skill is possible that horse have been nerfed, but the one that really got nerfed were heavy cav.

A solution would be to lower riding skill requirement for heavy cav to even it out.

[Wookimonsta]

charger is ok for lancing but mainly excells at using a swinging weapon
you can ride in close and punch someone without having to worry about your horse being one shotted.

unfortunately, since they removed horse swing on bec du corbin, i will have to go with a hafted blade i guess.

[FICO]

my recommendation on how to use the charger. i'm not cav player, but i like teamwork and tactics.

anyone who ever played medieval TW 1 or 2 knows what was the use of heavy horses. they are incredibly expensive, so you have to save them. they are used for "hit and run" usually on flank of infantry already engaged in combat. that way they are going to score most kills. also very usable against archers as they are more armoured than light cav. another use of heavy cav is when enemy is trying to regroup. (killing retreating and running away).
so what's with light cav? you can picture it as in naval warfare - you have few big mighty battleships and little fast ones that guard the big bully. also very useful to lure foolish enemy infantrymen out of ranks.
cav archers? well... they are annoying. and they are good at it. and they are used for it.

as i said before. now teamwork is essential if you want to be efficient at any build you want

[Tai Feng]

my recommendation on how to use the charger. i'm not cav player, but i like teamwork and tactics.

anyone who ever played medieval TW 1 or 2 knows what was the use of heavy horses.

Please no theorycrafting. I absolutely cannot stand theorycrafting. I am searching for people who are *playing with chargers* and *making them work better than alternatives* such as Courser or Sarranid horse.

unfortunately, since they removed horse swing on bec du corbin, i will have to go with a hafted blade i guess.

I'm pretty bad with hafted blade when mounted so it would be best you try it out and let me know the results. For me, it just doesn't work. The entire animation and the way I have to "aim" is driving me nuts. I find it physically painful.

you can ride in close and punch someone without having to worry about your horse being one shotted.

I'm not sure if you're playing with charger or not, but as I said, a single axe can take at least 80% of your chargers xp (in the head I guess). I don't think you have the luxury of cruising near enemy mob, but if it works for you I'd like to see it.

[AssPunisher]

Horse charge to cause some serious damage requires speed and heavy armord horse is very slow hence the low damage.
Anyway, Plated Charger is the silliest thing in cRPG. Before the patch it took one plated charger to wipe half of the enemy team and ensure victory.
Everyone whines about archers but almost invincible horse that tramples enemies to death is fine. Kind of twisted logic here.

[FICO]

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Please no theorycrafting. I absolutely cannot stand theorycrafting. I am searching for people who are *playing with chargers* and *making them work better than alternatives* such as Courser or Sarranid horse.

well you asked how to use charger. if you want to be meat-grinder all-purpose uber killing machine - you're welcome to try. but i think you will fail equally as uberarcher which run out of meatshield

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infantry

[Malevolent_Warlord]

- Don't run into pike
- Avoid a bunch of archers who are aware of u
- Dont waste time chasing one peasant or any other useless targets.
- Enter melee after infantry has engaged

Blackslash, bumbslash, ram.... profit.

If u play it smart u are easily the last one alive and the one with most kills.
With coursers and such it only takes one mistake or a few arrows to down u. 

Charger is a tank so use it as one. It ain't a ferrari-courser.

[Tai Feng]

- Don't run into pike
- Avoid a bunch of archers who are aware of u
- Dont waste time chasing one peasant or any other useless targets.
- Enter melee after infantry has engaged

Blackslash, bumbslash, ram.... profit.

If u play it smart u are easily the last one alive and the one with most kills.
With coursers and such it only takes one mistake or a few arrows to down u. 

Charger is a tank so use it as one. It ain't a ferrari-courser.

Can you show all this to me? To what server should I come and when?

[kongxinga]

Well prepatch you could grab a light crossbow on your charger and a heavy lance and use those to ward of light anti cavalry cavalry. that courser may be fast, but it is going down after 2 crossbow hits (or a crossbow and a lance). The charger can tank a lance hit pretty well while light horseman would be dehorsed. This works ok now, but obviously not really as viable.

You could also attack clusters of pedestrians, as long as there is one or two pedestrians not paying attention with a readied pike. Run over the unaware pedestrians, side lance the aware ones, and ride through the formation by switching to a close combat polearm like iron staff. You can flail madly as you continue bumping to stagger people, while the enemy has to attack a bit more carefully to prevent tk. Get 2 heavy cav on this and you can plow through most infantry formation, the formation may fall because people think infantry is an I win button and thus do not pay attention.

The reason people die to cav is because they do not pay attention and refuse to bring a pike because they think the pike weight will ruin their perfectly tuned duel character by making it slower. Guess half swording made them happy now. These are the same people who whine about horse speed simply because a few guys had a bit more riding. Do you whine when people get faster with more athletics?

Nowadays with the silly uncalled for horse speed nerf and the return of jumping in front of horses because of very low bump damage, there is no big payoff to escorting one or two heavy cav to an pedestrian mob, while previously the team that did that properly usually won the game. Post patch heavy horses seem to have some utility as a mobile horse archery elevated platform that could take some arrows. If you are moving away while shooting from a heavy horse, arrows do next to nothing in damage. Just avoid other light cavalry looking to couch you.

OT:Using medieval 1 and 2 to form theories? If you use those games as a basis, you would think the optimum medieval army was 4 CMAA, 4 FMAA, 3 pavise, 4 Chi Kn, 1 general. Archer shootout, infantry adavance, cavalry advance GG unless the opponent was using catholic with same setup. No real valid takeaways from that game unfortunately. People were not doing anything fancy with the knights, just simply charging and recharging the enemy since they were so good. How the knights instantly received and followed those orders in the midst of fighting is a big mystery. The purchase and upgrade model used in multiplayer was so bad in med 1, and got worse with sega. Even the simplest beer and pretzel medieval wargame gave a better sense of the period than those 2 games.