Discussion about cavalry balance and knock downs

[King_Arthur253]

Bumps should be easier to make and shorter, rather than being so RNG
Couching should be a bit more better since heavy cav is a bit not viable right now due to being able to only spawn once and having negligible benefits

 

[TheBard]

As IGL, former Spearman (poor Dextrus) and Inf main I'd like to chip in.

What will we get in the next update is
1) removal of throwing
2) changes to archery
3) cav bump buff/change (?)

I know I am considerably late, but as others already pointed out I think that with the removing of throwing infantry becomes less dangerous to horses by nature. If the harass by constant throwing at your horse is removed completely via heavy inf, there are two choices: go light inf and continue the meme or stay heavy and hope that spear rearing works. Even if you rear the rider you just stop him from dealing damage, the killing is a different part and usually comes from concentration of damage on horse/rider. Cavalry can do more daring approaches if the danger from throwing is gone.

You have to look at what happens when cav approaches aside from the bump. If cavalry gets the knockdown im combination with infantry advancing, that guy getting knocked down is surely dead. And skilled riders will be able to knock down reliably, especially with Steppe Charges and Camels. I think buffing knockdown is not really necessary right now if infantry loses their throwing on heavy spawns since vs Infantry:
1) light spawns with throwing are more prone to die
1) H-spawns are useless against horses unless they have a spear.

Since I am no archer I'll rather keep silent about that I guess haha.

3.Horse team bumps , you charge into team mate and you literally push him so he can "walk" faster. Just make horses do same damage and bumps/knocdowns on teammates to force cav players to be more careful in teamfights. One of the thing i loved in cRPG mod in Warband when a cav charges and bumps both teammate and enemy.

I'd like to adress this one specifically, it can work to your demise if you get pushed accidentally by allied cav into 1v3 situations or in generally into opponents strike reach. I died quite often from it, stopped counting.

Bumps should be easier to make and shorter, rather than being so RNG
Couching should be a bit more better since heavy cav is a bit not viable right now due to being able to only spawn once and having negligible benefits

Unpopular opinion: I think with upcoming changes this is too much. Heavy Cav is hard to kill for any class and the price is justified on any of them but the khuzait lancer!

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tl;dr: Cav is fine right now and will probably get stronger with less throwing on H-Inf. Don't touch it. Maybe buff courser (you did that already I saw) and keep and wait for how meta develops around your new patch.

 

[hoonii]

hope that spear rearing works

Yeah about that...
It feels so weird with the spear rearing lol. As cav main one of my big issues was that you could get reared from absurd angles for absurdly low amount of damage, it's kinda balanced now but rearing angles are still bad IMO and spears are still not THAT reliable; you can stab the horses head that is straight coming atcha at high speeds for 50 damage and it won't rear or you will just tickle the horse from the side for much lower damage and it will rear up while its barely moving, like wtf?

 

[Mushbeast]

Yeah, you can still manage to rear cavalry from some wacky angles but it's not like you can really reproduce it on purpose, might be a latency thing. Cav shields blocking spears that would have hit the horses head needs to be fixed for sure though, it just doesn't make sense and if knockdowns or charges are buffed then this surely needs to be fixed or shield-bumping could become a thing

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

Unpopular opinion, I think that Cav is at a really good spot right now. I haven't had any negative experiences regarding the bumping at all since the last updates. I'm really starting to think that people are trying to over-perfectionise things, because they get the opportunity to do so here. There will allways be something to complain about, no matter what will get changed on cavalry.

 

[Alyss]

Roach in TW3 is more maneuverable, just saying

 

[NIN3]

Hey just a quick update!

With the hotfix yesterday we added the couch lance changes which I mentioned above. The damage now overall is a bit higher again (it was very low in some cases) and more reliant on horse+weapon weight rather than speed, since that made light cav exponentially better at couching than heavy cav. Still speed matters a lot of course.

This will go to live with the next patch, but you can try it in beta right now if you want.

 

[Barbellz]

The knockbacks are good imo, however what is up with blocking while you are knockeddown? seems like a unfair bug

 

[hoonii]

Hey just a quick update!

With the hotfix yesterday we added the couch lance changes which I mentioned above. The damage now overall is a bit higher again (it was very low in some cases) and more reliant on horse+weapon weight rather than speed, since that made light cav exponentially better at couching than heavy cav. Still speed matters a lot of course.

This will go to live with the next patch, but you can try it in beta right now if you want.

Much apprish, hope it makes couch lancing reliable again.

 

[Forsee]

Arch main, about 700h

People mentioned that problem above, but seems like nobody takes it serious. In 1.5.5 there just won't be any reliable damage source for horses, except enemy cav and archers. The damage of the most common bow (recurve) has been nerfed so that's even less damage for horses. The rider will feel free to ride through the whole teamfight with no fear of catching random throwing axe, and the archer player will not feel safe near his inf team. That rider's freedom of action will cause more bumps, spear hits and impact overall.

My suggestions are:
Decrease horses armour to the point where infantry can deal noticeable damage to heavy horses.
Buff long range spears and pikes against cav, for example add something like 1.2 multiplier to this weapon against horses.
Slightly decrease speed threshold for stopping horses.

Also the rider's leg has a strange hitbox, you can shoot directly in the rider's feet and you will only damage his horse.

What about horse teamhit damage, I have no idea why this was implemented but for me as an archer it feels good)

About bump speed thresholds, decreasing it, even together with decreasing of knockdown time, will buff cav even more, cause experienced cav players will bump almost always. Now the bump is something like pila headshot at the start of a fight, it rarely happens, but it gives you a great advantage, but with consistent like 2s bumps cav impact will be way higher

 

[hoonii]

Arch main, about 700h

People mentioned that problem above, but seems like nobody takes it serious. In 1.5.5 there just won't be any reliable damage source for horses, except enemy cav and archers. The damage of the most common bow (recurve) has been nerfed so that's even less damage for horses. The rider will feel free to ride through the whole teamfight with no fear of catching random throwing axe, and the archer player will not feel safe near his inf team. That rider's freedom of action will cause more bumps, spear hits and impact overall.

My suggestions are:
Decrease horses armour to the point where infantry can deal noticeable damage to heavy horses.
Buff long range spears and pikes against cav, for example add something like 1.2 multiplier to this weapon against horses.
Slightly decrease speed threshold for stopping horses.

Also the rider's leg has a strange hitbox, you can shoot directly in the rider's feet and you will only damage his horse.

What about horse teamhit damage, I have no idea why this was implemented but for me as an archer it feels good)

About bump speed thresholds, decreasing it, even together with decreasing of knockdown time, will buff cav even more, cause experienced cav players will bump almost always. Now the bump is something like pila headshot at the start of a fight, it rarely happens, but it gives you a great advantage, but with consistent like 2s bumps cav impact will be way higher

Half your suggestions would make cav very fragile as if they are not already. Swords deal less damage to horses because guess what they are armored for that reason, swords deal cut damage and armor protects against cut damage(I think), pierce(spears, arrows, javelins etc.) still deal a LOT of damage to the horses. Decreasing the armor further would probably make 1 arrow to the head in close range kill a heavy horse which is completely unbalanced. Shooting for the legs hitting the horse is not completely true, if you aim for it medium-close range you will hit the riders leg %99 of the time.
If cav is going fast spears and pikes will decimate the horse and either stop them or kill them right away, resulting in most probably his death.
Decreasing the damage threshold should be completely out of here. There is a reason they have been increased(stopping horses with 10 damage, lol) and it's good now.

Ways to balance cav further has been discussed in the previous posts, and I believe reducing armor and adding damage multiplier or so will break this class. The major issue is the bump damage, duration and frequency.

 

[Forsee]

you aim for it medium-close range you will hit the riders leg %99 of the time.

You can, but im talking about feet hitbox, not the hip, and it's inaccurate

Cav nerf is needed, because now the cav is pretty much well balanced, and after throwing removal and bows shot damage nerf cav would be in a superior spot compared to other classes. The horses are gonna be too sturdy cause they won't take extra 100-150 dmg from throwing each spawn

 

[Mabons]

You can, but im talking about feet hitbox, not the hip, and it's inaccurate

Cav nerf is needed, because now the cav is pretty much well balanced, and after throwing removal and bows shot damage nerf cav would be in a superior spot compared to other classes. The horses are gonna be too sturdy cause they won't take extra 100-150 dmg from throwing each spawn

I mean most good archers( and hell even mediocre ones like myself )can reliably headshot cavalry coming in for the kill. I don’t think archers will be any more fragile than now.

 

[hoonii]

I mean most good archers( and hell even mediocre ones like myself )can reliably headshot cavalry coming in for the kill. I don’t think archers will be any more fragile than now.

Archers won't perform worse in 1.5.5 lol , on the contrary they will perform better imo. No need to nerf the horses so archers can be even more dominant.

 

[LANDALORE]

It almost doesnt make sense to be arguing about cav balance right now, they are in a pretty good spot, we are talking about nerfs and buffs for cav at about the same amount. I say we let the beta branch become the main branch, see where archers and inf stand. Then make cav changes to balance it out.

 

[hoonii]

It almost doesnt make sense to be arguing about cav balance right now, they are in a pretty good spot, we are talking about nerfs and buffs for cav at about the same amount. I say we let the beta branch become the main branch, see where archers and inf stand. Then make cav changes to balance it out.

Exactly, if cav is op or bad, its reason is prolly because either other classes are too good or too bad against cav.

 

[Firunien]

You can, but im talking about feet hitbox, not the hip, and it's inaccurate

Cav nerf is needed, because now the cav is pretty much well balanced, and after throwing removal and bows shot damage nerf cav would be in a superior spot compared to other classes. The horses are gonna be too sturdy cause they won't take extra 100-150 dmg from throwing each spawn

Skirmisher classes receive big throwing weapons, maybe the meta shifts away from heavy inf because of that, with even more cheap spawns with pila cav might end up nerfed further. Lets wait for the patch to go live before predicting.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Just a thought. Making horses slower across the board would mean that horses spend more frames inside the hitbox of infantry and would therefore lead to more consistent and predictable bumping. Horses are also very fast right now.

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

Just a thought. Making horses slower across the board would mean that horses spend more frames inside the hitbox of infantry and would therefore lead to more consistent and predictable bumping. Horses are also very fast right now.

Horses got nerfed enough. When playing cav you already get headshot by throwing weapons fairly frequently and it became pretty hard to escape infantary with lances. If cav would be any slower, they would be completely useless in my opinion.

 

[Aprikosenmann]

Skirmisher classes receive big throwing weapons, maybe the meta shifts away from heavy inf because of that, with even more cheap spawns with pila cav might end up nerfed further. Lets wait for the patch to go live before predicting.

Light Inf throwable spam has to safe the balance.