Did a few adjustments and corrections.
We were heard!(kinda
) Spear infantry is getting the long spear as default, nomad is getting the long spear as default and lancer's lance is longer now(in beta 1.5.5)I thank you sincerely devs, especially for the cavalry changes.
A lot of people can agree on Khuzait being the worst faction in the game(specifically skirmish, I don't play captain mode if someone enlightened me about how are they in captain I would be grateful). Before 1.5 Khuzait was kinda good, after 1.5 other factions got buffs and Khuzait stayed nearly the same and as of 1.5.3 with the death of horse archers Khuzait is on the ground floor cleaning toilets while Empire and Vlandia are chilling on the top CEO floor. I will try to analyze all Khuzait units and tell how to improve them and compare them to other nations. TL;DR Khuzait sucks in every aspect but the heavy archers. Fair warning this is all compiled from my opinion in skirmish only, I can reevaluate this with some more captain feedbacks. Also its high time Captain and Skirmish unit updates are separated now because one update for skirmish screws up captain and vice versa. Feel free to post your own thoughts about this and Khuzait, this thread is kinda subjective but also shows the truth.
First of all;
Rabble(Light Infantry):
Now rabbles cost of only 90 can be appreciated as it can save you money for the next round, but lack of armour is a downside and to get armour you need to sacrifice your sword.
Equipment: (Tried to take the best possible equipment)
| 1st Row Best selection: Sword | Sword(Ild): Average sword for this class, average speed, length and damage. | Sickle: It's only good side is that its "good against shields". Sickle has average speed, bad damage and good reach. | Improved Armor(Infantry Club): Gives you a total of 15 armor which is not bad for a light inf class but for this you have to trade off the sword and get a bad mace which is too short and slower than both the sword and the sickle and low damage. |
| 2nd Row Best selection: Small Shield | Small Shield: A little armoured shield which is very nice to have but coverage is low and you can get hit in the feet. Have to move in zigzags to avoid that. | Sling: More of a meme or a joke equipment. Seriously thinking; its fast speed and relatively good accuracy can disrupt attacks and works as a support weapon. | Spear(Eastern Short Spear): Gives a short spear which is the shortest in the game with 161 length, relatively fast but you will get outranged by cavalry lances and long spears all the time, plus you lose your shield and become vulnerable to archers and throwables. |
What's wrong with this unit and how can you balance it?
Weapon trade offs are bad and needs to be rebalanced slightly; when you take the improved armor you should get a different sword, that is worse than Ild but better than the infantry club or improve the club more. There was a patch that buffed the infantry club a little bit but its not enough obviously. As I said 90 gold cost is nice to have but this units slightly underperforms against other nations same classes.
Spear Infantry("Heavy" Infantry):
Although they are in the same class as the Sergeant, Legionary, Varyag and Oathsworn, Spear Infantry lacks the heavy armor its peers have and lacks the weapons that are needed. While ALL the other heavy infantry are having long spears with their loadout, if you want long spear with Spear Infantry you need to trade off your already low armour. Why? Why when all heavy infantry can get long spears and improved armor Khuzait one has to trade off its armour?
Equipment:
| 1st Row Best selection: Improved Armor | Long Spear: Gives the unit a long spear that has good reach and average damage, but you trade off armor for it and you still get a spear so this is a less thinkable option. | Stronger Shield: I'm pretty sure this is the least picked perk as it only buffs your shield and gives you short spear AND low armour so this is the worst pick. Your default shield should be enough. | Improved Armor: What you should pick basically. You will still have a spear(albeit the shortest one). You will have only 32 armor(23 without improved), which when compared to other heavy inf classes, VERY bad. Still this should be your must pick. |
| 2nd Row Best selection: Depending on situation either Long Sword or Heavy mace | Long Sword: Stronger version of Rabbles Ild, same speed swinging speed, slightly faster stabbing, 20 more swing and 1 less stab damage and slightly longer. Nice option if you're fighting against low armor nations like Khuzait or Aserai, you won't do much damage to armor though. | Heavy Mace: What I usually pick because maces are kind of broken and able deal full damage to unarmored people too and hits goes through people, unlike axes and sometimes swords bouncing off. Compared to other maces this one has the highest damage, but is also the slowest one. | Throwing Spear: A nice alternative of Empire pilum and actually comparable. If you take spear you lose your long sword default and you're stuck to rabbles normal sword which is ehh but will get outperformed against other heavy inf. |
What's wrong with this unit and how can you balance it?
Basically Spear Infantry starts 0-1 against all other heavy infantry because of their lack of armour and mediocre mace. Sword is actually nice as it has the highest damage of heavy infantry 1h swords and also being the fastest right after Legionary spatha. Also while having the lowest armour, they also have the same movement speed as the truck that is Legionary...
- Give Spear Infantry the long spear by default, so they can have their anti cav or supporting ability as much as all other heavy infantry.
- Give them more armour, without Improved armour they should start AT LEAST with 32 armour. With improved armour(+9) it should total 41 which is an acceptable amount of armour for heavy infantry.
- Instead of 32-41 armour, you can make it 28-37 and buff their movement speed by 2.
- Change the unit price accordingly, while yes 130 cost for a heavy infantry is good, but the unit itself is NOT good, money may be worth it but if they get the buffs I talked about their price should be 150 or 160.
- Maybe instead all of this let them be able to spawn 3 times with full gold while giving them lower buffs, just like the Aserai tribal warrior.
Now I don't play a lot of archers and quite frankly I despise light archers because they're annoying and their cost is too low thus more spawn and more annoyance. Anyways I'm not against it. I think the Steppe Bow are the worst light archer because of their bow selections.
| 1st Row Best selection: Better Bow | Faster Bow: While being relatively fast it has "relatively" low accuracy and damage, thus, in my opinion, outperformed by Recurve Bow. | Better Bow: More damage, more accurate but slower(and better) than the faster bow but still outperformed by Recurve bow. | Short Sword: This perk replaces your already bad bows with the WORST bow in the game(Hunting Bow) in return gives you a short sword which you definitely don't need as you're an archer. |
| 2nd Row Best selection: Strong Arrows | Extra Arrows: 10 more arrows to shoot, nothing special. | Strong arrows: Even with this perk you still get outperformed by Recurve bow even though you get +4 damage bonus. | Short Spear: Again the shortest spear in the game and you don't need it because you're an archer. |
What's wrong with this unit and how can you balance it?
This unit is outperformed by every other light archer class in terms of bow selection. Battanian and Sturgian archers get longbows, Vlandians and Empire get xbows and Aserai and Empire gets recurve bows. What does this unit get? Short bow and fast short bow.
- Replace one of these bows or the sword perk for the recurve bow or increase the damage of both bows.
- Make Ild(sword) the default melee weapon of this class.
I like the Khan's Guard because they have the mighty Glaive and the Recurve bow. In fact I think this unit is the most balance unit in Khuzait but they lack the improved bows(composite bow). They also have more armor than the Spear Infantry and if properly equipped can play as the heavy infantry role.
| 1st Row Best selection: Glaive | Glaive: There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't go with glaive as its better than every other perk in this row. | Heavy Mace: The same mace Spear Infantry gets, paired with the shield you can fill the gap of heavy infantry as this unit has more armor than the so called heavy unit of Khuzait. | Faster Bow: Faster but less accurate compared to recurve bow and you lose both mace and the glaive so not preferable. |
| 2nd Row Best selection: Depends on 1st Row | Extra Arrows: Stronger are better. | Small Shield: A nice very armoured small shield. If you take the mace or the faster bow you should go for this. | Stronger Arrows: What I prefer. |
What's wrong with this unit and how can you balance it?
To be honest this unit is balanced as it is because it gets the currently strong glaive as melee and recurve bow which is not perfect but not bad either. This unit can fill the gap of heavy infantry but I would much prefer Spear Infantry doing that.
Nomad(Light Cavalry):
As a cavalry main player I believe I can contribute to this section a lot more than I did to other classes.
What holding this unit back from becoming the best light cavalry unit is its spear. It's too damn short for a cavalry, and if you want the long spear you need to trade your shield for it, which is unacceptable because without shield you will be a cake for archers and throwables. This unit has the best horse and mediocre armor but weapons needs to be balanced.
| 1st Row Best selection: Charger Horse | Thougher Horse: I thought they nerfed the charger horse by removing its hp bonus but apparently not they have the same hp so there is no reason why you shouldn't go with charger horse, same hp as the tougher horse, faster, more charging damage. | Cavalry Mace: Absolutely useless, why should you pick a bad mace over the strongest horse around. Mace is very slow, has low damage and is short. | Charger horse: Best warhorse in the game, high charge damage, compared to other light cavalry horses a bit slower but it compensates it with charge damage and maneuverability. |
| 2nd Row Best Selection: Small Shield | Bow and Arrows: Before 1.5.3 I would say this perk was a great alternative to Khuzait horse archer because you have a strong horse and better melee then the horse archer but 1.5.3 murdered horse archers in cold blood so this is not an option anymore. | Small Shield: What you should go with, at least for now. It gives you a the same shield as the lancer and you have the normal Eastern Spear with it but guess what Eastern spear is also one of the shortest spears in the game with 172 length. You have to stay in infantries face otherwise you will get outranged by long spears. | Long Spear: What my heart always wants to go with when I select this unit but I can't because no shield=death by arrows and javelins early. This is the main reason nomad is "bad. |
What's wrong with this unit and how can you balance it?
Spear, spear is wrong with this unit, everything else is perfect but being forced to have a short spear with shield is what kills this unit. While you have the best war horse in my opinion, you have a very short spear.
In a historical manner, Khuzait nomads should be the BEST light cavalry.
- Give nomad unit +4 armor.
- Reduce charger horses charge damage by 2.
- Remove the short spear as default and make the long spear default so we can have shield+long spear with this unit. It's a must have.
- Let's say you removed the short spear, move cavalry mace perk in its place, to the second row, and add a "Steppe Barding" perk for the horse, in the 1st row. Steppe Barding will not give that much armor, as steppe horses at that time were not very well armoured, lets say it would give +15 armor to the horse. This would make it an interesting choice between charger horse and horse barding.
- Nerf the long spear by shortening it by 10 units(201 to 191)so it won't outrange heavy lances. And call it "Eastern Long Cavalry Spear" as a new weapon so it doesn't overlap with Spear Infantry spear.
Oh boy where do I start.
This unit in particular have so many points that needs mentioning because they underperform in every aspect.
- While a bit faster, it has the shortest lance in the game. It even gets outranged by long spears.
- They have the lowest default armor among every other heavy cav, taking improved armor makes it 2nd lowest armored heavy cav after Mameluke.
- The default horse is bad compared to other heavy cavalry other than its maneuverability.
(FROM FEEDBACK) I'm told Lancers are a strong cavalry in captain because AI is dumb and Glaive just cuts through infantry, I'm open to more feedback from captain mode.
| 1st Row Best selection: Improved armor or Glaive(situational) | Cavalry Mace: Useless compared to other maces and other perks in this row. Slow and low damage, albeit longer than other maces. | Glaive: Maybe the most controversial weapon yet. This thing feeds off chaos and confusion. It's super effective in TDM and Siege(and apparently Captain) and against low armoured units, but kinda sucks in skirmish and is very situational. Very wide sweeps(albeit slow), very high damage output but makes you vulnerable against far away archers without shield(whilst sweeping with it). Also you trade the improved armor for this soo 30 armor for a heavy cav is indeed low and risks getting one shot. | Improved Armor: +9 Armor always nice to have. |
| 2nd Row Best selection: Small Shield | Bow and Arrows: Even before 1.5.3 I would oppose taking this perk because you need the shield with lance or glaive. I moreso oppose it now. | Small Shield: What you should take. Small round shield with high armour. | Tougher Horse: I really wish this was a viable option, because tougher horse perk gives you a really nice horse, but you trade it for your shield which is bad. |
This is the worst heavy cavalry in the game right now and here is how you can fix it:
P e r k b a l a n c i n g.
- Move tougher horse perk to 1st row to place of cavalry mace, switch them so we will have to choose between improved armor and tougher horse.
- Increase the base armour of lancer by +5.
- The small shield perk should be the base default equipment for lancer(so you should have a shield without selecting a perk)
- Glaive should be nerfed, just like the cavalry menavlion did; it should be shortened from 178 to 170 and its swing damage lowered from 171 to 120(or even lower).
- Instead of the small shield perk, there should be Heavy Lance perk, just like the vlandian knight. "Heavy Eastern Lance" should have a reach of 201, 1h thrust damage of 30, 2h thrust damage of 37, thrust speed of 74, 2h speed of 81.
- Default horse speed should be increased by 10.
I'm not even going to talk about horse archer for that long. All you need to do to balance the horse archer and make it viable again:
- Revert the latest archery update with some minor tweaks, decreasing the accuracy was an ok idea but this is too much. Remove the rng or at least reduce it from this unit.
- Revert the 1.5(I think) update for horse archer which gave them 50 ARROWS with extra arrows perk and reduce their arrows significantly.
- Increase the bow drawing and releasing the arrow time by 1 second at least, so archers don't fire like Legolas from LOTR.
- (FROM FEEDBACK) AI horse archers in captain already sucked and had to stand still to shoot even before 1.5.3 so this update completely killed them in captain too. AI accuracy needs to be better and AI should be able to shoot accurately whilst moving.
Thank for reading this far, I took me hours to compile this all. When I was making this I also thought as the competitive side. In the BEAST tournament Khuzait will most of the time mean a loss, of course this doesn't apply to high tier clans but still. If any of you have suggestions too I will gladly listen and maybe modify the thread according to them. I would really like to listen to some captain players too.
Peace.
-thanks to
Vattghern
vfkaseke
for Captain feedbacks here
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