Menavlion Infantry

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I don't think the Menavlion needs to be able to swing. It's essentially (correct me if I'm wrong), a long polearm? But it's mainly used in BL as an extra long greatsword with more damage, including from horseback.

Make it stop and overhead swing only, like the Pike from Warband, and its place will be a lot more balanced while still being unique.
 
I don't think the Menavlion needs to be able to swing. It's essentially (correct me if I'm wrong), a long polearm? But it's mainly used in BL as an extra long greatsword with more damage, including from horseback.

Make it stop and overhead swing only, like the Pike from Warband, and its place will be a lot more balanced while still being unique.
Isn't the menavlion in M&B shorter than its real life counterpart though? Seems like TaleWorlds wants to portray this weapon as a western counterpart to the Chinese Guan Dao and Japanese Naginata rather than have a true to life portrayal.
 
Not really sure on the historical reality of the weapon, but in terms of balance for MnB a fast, high damage, long, swinging weapon is god. Take away the swinging and it has a much more limited, but still strong, teamwork impact.
 
I agree with OGL regarding the use of the menavlion; we have certainly been commenting about " this problem " since the beginning of last year's closed alpha period. At the beginning of 2020 I again insisted (among many others) that a menavlion is more like a spear than an axe.

Here is a video editing the use of the weapon in the old version b.0.7.1:



The most plausible form of usage is with stabbing attacks and pike-ing style behaviour plus the possibility of striking vertical blows as a halberd. This question, together with the figure of the Fiann (ranged + 2h + armour), is one of the things that most freaks me out...among many other things in MP.
 
Well if you take away its ability to swing then what differentiates it from a pike? A pike will be much better compared to menavlion then. My suggestion is reduce the swing damage and its speed and make its blade's hitbox smaller.
 
Well if you take away its ability to swing then what differentiates it from a pike? A pike will be much better compared to menavlion then. My suggestion is reduce the swing damage and its speed and make its blade's hitbox smaller.

The fact is that a menavlion is precisely "half a pike/kontos". Voulge-billhook, two-handed axes and short glaives do belong to the swinging plausibility polearm category, although personally the recovery (inertia) I would increase it even more. In Bannerlord it seems that the bots have hyper-developed muscles, especially the dorsal ones.

If we add the problem of the excessive swing arc of this weapon, the damage it causes and the little penalty of turning, in my eyes all this makes the menavlion a bad joke as a weapon (on horseback is a meme).

The menanavlion is not a shock weapon, but rather a support polearm for helping skirmisher units and against cavalry and in the game its role is to shock (wrong, imo). In a 1vs1 against infantry units, if the guard of the menavlion (weapon's action zone) is exceeded, the advantage will always be for the infantry unit with short weapon.
 
I find menavlions in general to be a pain to deal with, they do so much damage even when it looks like only the shaft hit, this combined with allowing everyone to go on horseback means that TDM is particularly painful when fighting the empire.
 
I find menavlions in general to be a pain to deal with, they do so much damage even when it looks like only the shaft hit, this combined with allowing everyone to go on horseback means that TDM is particularly painful when fighting the empire.
There is one downside to the Menavlion. You REALLY don't want to die as a Menavlion infantry so I guess if nerfs are necessary for Menavlion Infantry, we'll likely have to also talk about buffing the Recruit to compensate.
 
CAPTAIN MODE

I was really confused when I first started playing Bannerlord that the Menav didn't use the "cutting spear" attacks from Warband, with a thrust and overhead slash.

There's a slight issue now with the way Cavalry is played and Empire in general.

The longest weapon available to Empire is their Long Menav at 220.

The longish lances in the game top out at 204. That leaves you a tiny fraction of wiggle room on a thrust, and it is technically doable. The AI doesn't seem think that thrusting at a charging cavalryman is significant in any way, so they usually just do an overhead slash, which is pretty garbage and won't rear the horse.

A legionaire's spear is <200, so he doesn't have a whole ton of hope of getting a hit on a charging horseman before getting hit himself.

Is there any way Menav infantry could get a pike option for captain mode? If horses are going to continue to be played the way they are, and I don't see why they wouldn't, it'd make the game a bit more enjoyable.

/CAPTAIN MODE
 
@Zarthas about the thrust: It's also quite unclear to me why a long Menavilon (or even a normal one) should too three times as much swing damage as thrust damage. This thing is clearly a thicker spear and should act like one.
Would probably also help balancing and setting it apart from other 2handed weapons as as the current wide swing arc, high damage and ultra long range feels kind of wrong.
 
Again, the menavlion should behave like the Warband awlpike, straight stab/thrust and vertical swings (both in competitive and CM); no chop-copter side swings. And I repeat again, the menavlion on horseback is an unfunny joke (no mounted unit should be equipped with it; yes courser I'm looking at you).
 
@Zarthas about the thrust: It's also quite unclear to me why a long Menavilon (or even a normal one) should too three times as much swing damage as thrust damage. This thing is clearly a thicker spear and should act like one.
Would probably also help balancing and setting it apart from other 2handed weapons as as the current wide swing arc, high damage and ultra long range feels kind of wrong.
Yeah, totally agree. It is a 2 handed sword with different animations, at the moment.
Again, the menavlion should behave like the Warband awlpike, straight stab/thrust and vertical swings (both in competitive and CM); no chop-copter side swings. And I repeat again, the menavlion on horseback is an unfunny joke (no mounted unit should be equipped with it; yes courser I'm looking at you).
I do not understand the Universe that Bannerlord creates, tbh.
If you have the technology to create these deathsticks, there is no way the Calradian Empire could have ever fallen.
Why Cataphracts are not armed exclusively with Long Menavs is beyond me, they'd be unstoppable.
 
[...]

I do not understand the Universe that Bannerlord creates, tbh.
If you have the technology to create these deathsticks, there is no way the Calradian Empire could have ever fallen.
Why Cataphracts are not armed exclusively with Long Menavs is beyond me, they'd be unstoppable.
:lol:
tenor.gif

It's not the Universe that Bannerlord creates, this is called the BaNnErLoRd ExPeRiEnCe™ :iamamoron:
 
Again, the menavlion should behave like the Warband awlpike, straight stab/thrust and vertical swings (both in competitive and CM); no chop-copter side swings. And I repeat again, the menavlion on horseback is an unfunny joke (no mounted unit should be equipped with it; yes courser I'm looking at you).
I do not think the problem is swinging per day, it is a persistent problem of spear / axe shafts doing the same amount of damage as if you are swinging a 10 foot long two handed sword.

There is a simple logic check that can be done to see if the weapon hits with the “Blade” part or the “Shaft” part, then calculate damage accordingly. Already have that in RealisticweaponCollision

And honestly think it adds a lot of depth to combat as you can use a real world tactic of closing the distance to the opponent to render the polearm ineffective, at the risk of being kick-stunned or block-pushed

Currently you can hit with the Menav shaft that is 2 inches away from your hand and do 50-100 cutting dmg which is absurd
 
I do not think the problem is swinging per day, it is a persistent problem of spear / axe shafts doing the same amount of damage as if you are swinging a 10 foot long two handed sword.

There is a simple logic check that can be done to see if the weapon hits with the “Blade” part or the “Shaft” part, then calculate damage accordingly. Already have that in RealisticweaponCollision

And honestly think it adds a lot of depth to combat as you can use a real world tactic of closing the distance to the opponent to render the polearm ineffective, at the risk of being kick-stunned or block-pushed

Currently you can hit with the Menav shaft that is 2 inches away from your hand and do 50-100 cutting dmg which is absurd

You know I'm a fan of your mod; but let me point out that what you say "in theory" is what was "said" to be happening.

Impact Point
For swings, damage depends on the location of the impact point on the weapon. When showing weapon statistics in the inventory, we simply show damage as if the attack connected at a point a few centimetres below the tip. During combat we take the impact point from the position of the weapon and the target, so it is not necessarily near the tip. So for example, an axe that advertises itself as having 80 damage can deliver much less if it hits the target near the grip.
(dev blog 16/11/17)

Evidently this is broken nowadays.

Despite these problems, which I agree with your argument; what I complain about in reference to this weapon is its handling and how through that the attack animations are derived (there are several problems with animations, here is an example). Although it may be a controversial opinion, my position is that the menavlion should be a slow weapon with only two attack animations / attack possibilities; a thrust stab (from the hip + overhead) and a vertical slash.

In my opinion I only contemplate two menavlion possibilities, the standard and the long/heavy.

standardlong/heavy
menavliatos.jpg
rgvXF.jpg

I would never equip the courser or any type of mounted troop with menavlion; there are much more versatile weapons that fit the class archetype better. Without a doubt, I would sacrifice the side swings for the bracing option, much more appropriate for the type and use of this weapon.
 
I can understand why people wanted the Menavlion nerfed, though people seem to also forget that the Menavlion Infantry has a crippling downside in the form of "severe punishment if you die as this unit".
 
Just a reminder to please fix this scummy class. It got nerfed in terms of damage fairly heavily last patch, but possibly due to the physics calculations or whatever it hasn't really changed much. It still one shots most of the time and is completely broken on horse-back, often out-ranging most long spears.
 
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