SP - Battles & Sieges Does anyone else think spears are utterly useless?

[Venset]

Boot up a custom battle, Choose Sturgia for your team, choose Vlandia or such for the enemy. Put 100% infantry for your guys, and 100% Calvary for the enemy.

Try a formation like square, watch your guys get rekt. why? They bump their spears into friendlies and enemies, so they can't do the damage.

Now choose the same setup put choose 100% archers for yourself, put them in square, hold fire. They will win cause they can hit the enemy with their melee weapons.

Bear in mind this is like 250 vs 250 cause my max unit's is set to 500.

Spears are crap, and they shouldn't be. Unfortunately you cannot tell your spearmen to use their swords/axes against cav.

Spearmen do better when they have more space to move and attack so they will get more kills that way, but they still get rekt.
So the anti cav unit is the least effective against cav.

I've tried everything to make spearmen effective, normal line, all the other formations, line formation but drag them into a tight formation, same with the other formations, even charge. Spearmen are garbage.

 

[flenaly]

The AI using spears seems to be pretty useless like has been said. For me personally I tend to fight on foot and they do make good Cav stoppers if you time it right and can occasionally get a dismount from killing the horse outright. I tend to get the longest two handed pike I can find. When the two "lines" of infantry clash, use the overhand attack and go for headshots. You can stand behind your "line" and still hit the other side pretty effectively.

 

[Ichon]

The clipping and bumping of models/weapons definitely need some work. It seems to affect some types of units and weapons more than others. Spears are a good example but not the only one. I think there should be more space around most models- it looks like a mosh pit at the moment and way too many attacks coming from 2 ranks back or 2 models off to the side that auto-attack whatever is in range of their weapon. No friendly hits, high proficiencies (faster attack rate at really high levels that many units have) and the combats have a lot of weird results.

Short spears should probably have a much higher rate of attack with more accuracy but lower damage without getting a headshot as a spearpoint that finds a chink in the armour or flesh is deadly but otherwise has a small amount of edge that is more likely to slip off armour/glance off moving bodies doing almost no damage. Combined with 1-3 ranks a spearwall would be formidable but 1 v 1 not as bad if you have a shield or high skill with your single weapon to block as fast as the spear can attack.

As it is so many weapons and models seem to have inconsistent range from their stats or perceived lengths and most groups fight as if they were in phalanx with several ranks being able to target the enemy in front of the front rank- something like 6-9 feet away if we take the standard spacing of an infantry formation from countless Roman and Chinese manuals as accurate.

 

[ShotgunJed]

They need to buff spears (on foot) in this game

 

[Benisfug]

On a side note to anyone who says spears are good against cav. You will lie to me right now but I have never ever seen infantry fair well against cav with spears. 50 spearmen vs 50 cav lose to the cav consistently

 

[Shatti]

-spears should have better thrust damage (10% or 20%) more
-the Ai should really be more efficient using spears (40% to 50%) more

 

[samoja]

It's because AI in Bannerlord is suicidal kinda, IRL you don't survive a spear thrust to the face, meaning that, if you have a shorter weapon you have a problem, you want to rush the spearman so you can attack but you are in range of his weapon a lot sooner then he is in range of yours, and if he is good with his spear he can trust it at you before you can get to him, also he will try to keep you at range. IRL spears were main combat weapon for generations because of this very fact, but in Bannerlord(and all other M&B games) the AI will just rush you like a maniac, caring nothing for his safety, and that means you only have a short window of opportunity to use your spear before he gets too close, can't shorten it either, IRL you can grab the spear closer to the tip and fight quite effectively even when the enemy gets close(though sidearms are better) but not in Bannerlord.

 

[bantad87]

So I'm playing a new save on 1.0.6 on realistic, working my way up in the arena in Revyl and the final fight is a Spear and Shield duo.
I dropped my spear and shield [discarded in the top left of the screen] and proceeded to beat the spearman to death with my bare hands and came out on top.
He was wearing some decent gear and punches don't do much damage [see the blunt damage log in pink on the screenshot] - so he got got 2 stabs in on me (each taking about 1/3 of my health off), one on the neck area the other in the gut before I KOed him.

Now this is a weird case, sure, as I doubt anyone is going to go onto a battlefield just using their fists (Unarmed skill line when? lol), and you can get inside a spear's minimum stab range easily with fists, but it does illustrate what a weird state spears are in:

• Polearms and Glaives are disgustingly strong, you can glide through a battlefield atop a horse decapitating scores of enemies - but they do poorly in enclosed areas like castle sieges.
• Thrown weapons (and bows) can one-hit-kill in some cases whilst giving you the safety of distance and most can be flipped to use melee as a last resort
  • (though I've just discovered in the practice arena that you cannot use Throwing Axes as melee axes, too, for some odd reason?)
• Lances, on a fast horse, when couching, deliver a blow so strong they can set off a small mushroom cloud on impact, and they let you mow down out-of-position infantry.
• Most 1H and 2H blunt and blade weapons swing in a wide arc letting you guarantee a hit or can be thrusted in confined areas - and they can do a lot of damage with each swing. Just like spears they benefit from shields.
  • (2h Axes are particularly deadly, both on foot and horse - I havent seen many 2h maces/mauls at all yet? so cant comment on them).

But spears? I think i've died to a spear a handful of times in MP (on foot) and once in SP when I got swamped by militia whilst stuck in the unit-command menu.

• They're really only deadly en masse - and it feels like their damage has been balanced so that they need to be used en masse too, unlike most other weapons - it can take more spear thrusts than I'd expect to kill sometimes, even against low-tier enemies, not sure why - this is probably (as I'm not a military historian) historically faithful...
• but it feels crap to use the most precise non-distance weapon in the game and only score a "30" damage (If I miss with my thrust it's less forgiving than a sword whose arc will probably hit them anyway).
• They have one of the longest "vulnerability windows", if you miss your thrust you are exposed for longer than most of the other weapons (even a polearm can horizontally thrash around if you screw things up)
• And they seem to have a minimum stab radius, get close enough to a spear wielder and they just cannot seem to hit you at all. Maybe this is an AI issue, maybe its crap people on MP - so not 100% sure on this one, but it certainly feels like it.

I don't know if the game has a special critical multiplier system for damage, but I feel like landing a "headshot" with a spear thrust, should do way more damage than it currently does and would go some way to making them feel more rewarding to play with. If I stab a guy in the eye with a spear, which takes a little more skill/timing than with most other melee weapons, he shouldn't really be shrugging it off.

Anyone feel this way - or otherwise - about spears?

Edit:grammar

The issue is the AI doesn't use shield bash, punch, or kick to create distance. The spear works great (I use it as my primary weapon as a footman), the AI just isn't using distance management well.

 

[bantad87]

to anyone wanting to use a spear just for the sake of using a spear because they like spears like me, you can actually craft a spear at the smithy that is very short which makes the weapon not just bounce off people you stab it at, even if you are face to face. its effective vs infantry, can still be used to stop cav charges or just outright kill the rider (though due to its shorter length more timing and precision is needed), it can be used on horseback again with more timing and shorter distance to hit people with it. i use this spear as my primary weapon

I fight as an infantryman and have two spears. A short range spear for melee, and a long pike for anti-cavalry / standing behind the front line in the melee scrum. Works very well.

 

[flenaly]

On a side note to anyone who says spears are good against cav. You will lie to me right now but I have never ever seen infantry fair well against cav with spears. 50 spearmen vs 50 cav lose to the cav consistently

I've seen the Imperial Pikemen stop a few charges, but seems to be real hit or miss.

 

[Diavolo]

I think the release delay on attacks (which seem to be extremely long on stabs) hit spears very hard. Imo the release delay should just be completely removed.

I also think that speed bonus is too high in bannerlord. I know speed should increase damage, but a person's arm must be able to withstand the impact (which is why couched lance deals so much damage since you increase the power you can stand against). The high speed bonus makes spears need less damage to be balanced which is why they deal so little. So I think they should reduce speed bonus a bit, and increase spear damage a tiny bit. Also remove the release delay (Especially on stabs).

I also think that if you use a spear with 2 hands the handling stat should improve extremely much as that makes sense realistically and also makes spears good in 1v1 fights if you don't have a shield out.

For more info about how spears work : (lindybeige doing tests with hema people)

 

[Demoulius]

Good to know.



...and yeah, I was just gonna look for that link. Glad to see it's already been posted.

The ever developing trend in warfare is to increase the effective range of weaponry.

Yeah watched that video a while back. Lindybeige is great

I have been doing....ok with spears ontop of my horse. But I swapped to a sword and shield combo quite recently and while its shorter (so its harder to poke at things) the damage seems to be greater.... ALOT greater.

The biggest advantage the spear has ingame is range but aside from that its kinda crap. In multiplayer any player who knows what he is doing will just get in your personal space and steamroll all over you, not much that you can do against that tbh....

I find it an interestin mention that piercing damage doesent seem to be working properly... Have other people noticed the same issue with other piercing weapons?

 

[vahadar]

(...)
Anyone feel this way - or otherwise - about spears?

In Warband singleplayer :
AI with spear AND shield = useless.
AI with spear and without shield = somewhat effective.

Actually thats the same in Bannerlord...

 

[Sild]

Yes, they are.

Especially now since more have been "reworked" and can no longer be used as crouch weapons on horseback (looking at you Fine Steel Menavliaton). I don't get why that was needed. As far as i know there's NO weapon in the whole Empire culture that can be used as a crouched weapon.. and they have frikin Cataphracts.. that should tell you how much they valued cavalry. (What Bannerlord calls couched lance is actually half-couching - the spear is held aligned with the lower arm and nestled inside the elbow), and that can be traced way earlier than the Normans, pretty much all the way to the Roman or even bronze age...

 

[LordKay]

They should give spears a shoving or bashing move (while 2 handed) to create distance/flinch openings. Also, make subcategories of short spears/regular spears. Short spears should be quicker and higher handling, maybe be able to do horizontal bashing attacks with the butt.

 

[Ephant]

Weapon collision in general is way too strict.

 

[Jhaerik]

That's because spears are meant to be used en masse, like you say, when the enemy makes a circle, or a shield wall with spears? A cav charge gets stopped dead in its tracks

One on one though? They're useless, there is a reason spear formations were exactly that...formations (the phalanx for example) a single soldier can't do much

Quite the opposite actually. You'll be hard pressed to find anything to the contrary of the above honestly.

 

[Broxogar]

Spears on horseback are insanely good. Nuff said.

 

[KamikazeKrieger]

The biggest Problem with Spears is that its just way too easy to just run straight into the face of an enemy and pretty much ignore the spears reach.
Spears should be able to keep enemies at distance without having to double back all the time. Adding Stagger and drastically increasing speed when used without a Shield aswell as being able to attack with a shield up might work but not sure how to keep it balanced. After all Spears didnt rule the Battlefields without reason.

 

[Icaurs]

They should give spears a shoving or bashing move (while 2 handed) to create distance/flinch openings. Also, make subcategories of short spears/regular spears. Short spears should be quicker and higher handling, maybe be able to do horizontal bashing attacks with the butt.

Spears already have a bashing move. hold down block and while holding block down press your "kick" button, and you will pish/bash your opponent with any two handed weapon