I thought cavalry would be the natural counter to archers.

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Think about it this way I guess, a mounted fighter is MUCH easier for an archer to predict where they will be based on their speed and direction, a horse in this game (and this shouldn't be changed lol) doesn't strafe like a ground troop can so maybe the issue your having is less with the bow speed and more with the manoeuvrability of a mounted fighter. Maybe the mounted player should consider having a shield always when hunting archers and deciding when he is coming in on a charge "what is my chance of killing this dude b4 he can get a shot on me" if your happy with that chance ( he hasn't seen you) go for it, if you think its too late and the archer has spied you raise your shield and come back for another pass.

I did derail the intention of the thread re killing machine by discussing captain instead of skirmish. Apologies for that, but in saying that there is definitely a lot of thinking in this thread that a captain player could use to understand a bit more about their role and evaluating chance of success and failure on a charge they are considering making.
 
lol actually I think its the opposite
archers hard counter cav while cav can kill inf that is engaged in melee

cav vs archer 1v1 will almost always be archer victory
Archers hard counter shock infantry and counter normal infantry, shock infantry counter infantry, infantry counter cavalry(via spears and piss strong throwables), cavalry counter archers and supports infantry imo.
If cavalry doesn't counter archers, then who the **** does? Only choice left is shield infantry and if you sacrifice 1 infantry just to push the archer you're 1 down in melee and that's bad.
Think about it this way I guess, a mounted fighter is MUCH easier for an archer to predict where they will be based on their speed and direction, a horse in this game (and this shouldn't be changed lol) doesn't strafe like a ground troop can so maybe the issue your having is less with the bow speed and more with the manoeuvrability of a mounted fighter. Maybe the mounted player should consider having a shield always when hunting archers and deciding when he is coming in on a charge "what is my chance of killing this dude b4 he can get a shot on me" if your happy with that chance ( he hasn't seen you) go for it, if you think its too late and the archer has spied you raise your shield and come back for another pass.

I did derail the intention of the thread re killing machine by discussing captain instead of skirmish. Apologies for that, but in saying that there is definitely a lot of thinking in this thread that a captain player could use to understand a bit more about their role and evaluating chance of success and failure on a charge they are considering making.
Look I get cavalry is much easier target for archers because big ass horse, but when you have the heaviest armored horse a peasant archer shouldn't be able to kill it in 2 shots.
Also I never play captain so I don't know the exact meta there, but I know archer ai is dumb as **** rn.
Also don't forget the fact that even if you have your shield up as cavalry you can still get shot at your leg which will do 40 ish damage to HEAVY armor and that is broken sorry.
 
Archers hard counter shock infantry and counter normal infantry, shock infantry counter infantry, infantry counter cavalry(via spears and piss strong throwables), cavalry counter archers and support infantry imo.
If cavalry doesn't counter archers, then who the **** does? Only choice left is shield infantry and if you sacrifice 1 infantry just to push the archer you're 1 down in melee and that's bad.
This is the thing, cav are opportunists. their clear advantage is speed so they have the ability to escape and fight another day. Speed doesnt make it hard to hit when the object is coming towards you, so their speed advantage is turned against them when they are after an arrow, it intensifies the power of the shot because of their own speed. There are just too many factors against a mounted rider surviving a direct shot from a skilled archer as though that's just the way it should be.

TBH as someone said above Cav kill inf engaged with other inf really well, super efficient.. that's an opportunity kill, not a skill based fight between 2 players, thats probably the kills you should focus on and just take archers when they are occupied or unaware. Come play captain go nuts on archers and you will be the bell of the ball if you can stop all the archers from firing while your brothers in arms take all the kills.
 
It's skirmish, so cav can spawn 2 times, and that's ridiculous. In old balanced warband battles your main task as cav was to not catch arrows until fight, and here in Bannerlord we have a situation when archers are useless against cav if rider doesnt do a terrible mistake of showing archer his head while charging at him on full speed. You can shoot enemy cav whole round and if you get lucky, you can dismount him once, and that's only one rider's respawn and you don't even kill him. Yes archer can spawn several times too, but it doesnt give him more time to shoot cause if his team dies, archer becomes useless.

Archers were always good against cav both on short and long distance, and here in bannerlord archs cant do much against cav cause of their respawns, and you are complaining that archers are too op, I really don't get it.
 
It's skirmish, so cav can spawn 2 times, and that's ridiculous. In old balanced warband battles your main task as cav was to not catch arrows until fight, and here in Bannerlord we have a situation when archers are useless against cav if rider doesnt do a terrible mistake of showing archer his head while charging at him on full speed. You can shoot enemy cav whole round and if you get lucky, you can dismount him once, and that's only one rider's respawn and you don't even kill him. Yes archer can spawn several times too, but it doesnt give him more time to shoot cause if his team dies, archer becomes useless.

Archers were always good against cav both on short and long distance, and here in bannerlord archs cant do much against cav cause of their respawns, and you are complaining that archers are too op, I really don't get it.

I disagree. As an archer, you need 2 shots max to bring down an enemy horse no matter where you hit it. While the rider falls you can hit him with one arrow, so before he can do anything, he's on 70 % life. If you have the faster weapon and movement speed, it's impossible for him to kill you, if you're somewhat of a moderate player
 
You can shoot enemy cav whole round and if you get lucky, you can dismount him once, and that's only one rider's respawn and you don't even kill him. Yes archer can spawn several times too, but it doesnt give him more time to shoot cause if his team dies, archer becomes useless.
That's not true at all.
Horses are very fragile against archers in BL. Super easy to shoot its head or neck and do 70-100 damage with each shot, easy to dismount. And cavalry are very bad in melee when on foot. Like it doesn't make sense when a sword does barely 20 damage to the armored horse but a worthless archer scum can deal tremendous amounts of damage to it.
 
Average teamfight lasts around 20-30 secs, and that's the only time you can catch the arrow, and if you aware of your position and your movements you won't get every single shot in your horse's head, so you can hit enemy inf like 5 times before you get dismounted and that's how you win the fight as cav. These calculations only work if enemy archer is focusing your horse the whole fight, and if he do so, he's a bit useless cause when your horse get hits, you still can kill enemy inf and the only thing enemy archer doing is trying to dismount you and not get any inf headshots.

From your messages I see you think that horses should be unkillable as if archer's won't deal horse damage, there won't be any reliable damage to enemy horse cause in close fight all inf switches to melee weapon which, as you just said, deal around 20 dmg to the enemy horse. I know you want your class to be op so you can enjoy your gameplay, but the game needs some balance. Cav is not a premium class, it does it's thing and a good cav can totally rekt enemy team even when there's an enemy arch shooting, no matter how good he is.

As I said before, archs were always good against cav and cav were always good in teamfights, and that's how game works. If you think cav should take no dmg from an archer and should be able to easily kill him, you just have a biased game sence.
 
People please, there is a difference between light an heavy cav, most arguments here are completetly worthless because they dont address specific issues, its more a collection of rants.
 
Average teamfight lasts around 20-30 secs, and that's the only time you can catch the arrow, and if you aware of your position and your movements you won't get every single shot in your horse's head, so you can hit enemy inf like 5 times before you get dismounted and that's how you win the fight as cav. These calculations only work if enemy archer is focusing your horse the whole fight, and if he do so, he's a bit useless cause when your horse get hits, you still can kill enemy inf and the only thing enemy archer doing is trying to dismount you and not get any inf headshots.

From your messages I see you think that horses should be unkillable as if archer's won't deal horse damage, there won't be any reliable damage to enemy horse cause in close fight all inf switches to melee weapon which, as you just said, deal around 20 dmg to the enemy horse. I know you want your class to be op so you can enjoy your gameplay, but the game needs some balance. Cav is not a premium class, it does it's thing and a good cav can totally rekt enemy team even when there's an enemy arch shooting, no matter how good he is.

As I said before, archs were always good against cav and cav were always good in teamfights, and that's how game works. If you think cav should take no dmg from an archer and should be able to easily kill him, you just have a biased game sence.

From the way you're writing, I can only see that you do not want to understand our point - fair enough
Please explain to me, why an archer is useless, when he is focussing the weak horse in the beginning of a teamfight, killing it with two shots and then start shooting into the teamfight? where does he get any sort of pressure from a different class?
 
Cavalry should have an overwhelming advantage against archers on open terrain and pretty much all maps have areas that archers can stay that aren't accessible by cavalry due to stairs or obstacles. I haven't really experienced it first hand, but even if it took three or four headshots with the bow to the horse to take it down, that'd still kill horses quicker than spears do, minus the rearing.

I don't get this idea that archers are designed to be anti cavalry though, it seems like the logical design choice would be the exact opposite.
 
Cavalry in current competitive setting doesn't directly counter archers as such. What they can do is interrupt them and keep them busy, but as soon as the archer notices you and takes his melee weapon out, there is nothing you can do but keep him distracted. You run up to him, holding your shield because a good archer will shoot you any time you go for a stab if he's aware of you being there, and then you just mash against each other. If the archer is Khuzait or Battanian, he takes out his 2h or glaive and kills your horse in 3 hits. You can risk counterstabs and feints in those situations, but it is not worth it. If you miss the initial backstab or bumpstab, a cav has to make up his decision to either keep the archer distracted or go help his infantry, but let the archer shoot. That's how these engagements generally go down, with exceptions, of course.

I don't personally mind it being like this too much, though being told to push the enemy archer and receive a ~150 dmg arrow to the horse while doing so does hurt my soul a little bit every time that happens.
 
I don't get this idea that archers are designed to be anti cavalry though, it seems like the logical design choice would be the exact opposite.

Spears counter cav, so logically cav are not gonna go where the spears are unless they can help it. That leaves us with throwing weapons and bows and other cav to catch/hit the cav. Archers may have been countered by mass cav charges in the real world, but here in Bannerlord they ARE the counter to cav as they are the only class that can pressure cav.

Don't think of Bannerlord in generic rock paper scissors sort of balance, think of it as Infantry create engagements, while they work with Cavalry to deal damage, and Archers support by either shooting in openings or pressuring enemy cav/archers.

The whole reason we have class limits is because if you wanted to be the most effective and annoying tactic possible, it would be to take archers and cav, eliminate the enemy cav with your superior ranged firepower(kiting the enemy team), and then win the ensuing infantry fight with superior cav numbers. There is no need for infantry in the game really, but I think most people would agree it's more interesting if infantry actually has a part to play, and groupfighting as an infantry player is really chaotic fun.
 
First, you need 3-4 HEADshots (not 2 as you said) to kill enemy horse, which is not that easy when enemy cav is at least trying to avoid these shots. Even if you get lucky and your team takes a good fight, you take a superior position to shoot and enemy cav has no place to hide, it will take 6-7 shots on average to dismount enemy cav. But in most cases there always would be some strange **** going on so you cant just spend 15 secs to aim an enemy horse during teamfight so that horse would rekt your whole team.
Second, in most cases archer wouldn't just focus enemy horse cause he can get couple easy inf headshots and it would give a better advantage for your team.
Third, the game balance is not works as rock-paper-scissors, it is inf-based, if your inf is dead, the fight is lost. Cav is the best inf-killer as cav hits usually cannot be blocked as they comes from your back and you cannot just turn around in a close inf combat. Archers do their job agains inf too, but it is harder to shoot enemy inf in teamfights then to hit as rider, but archs are also good against cav. If your inf is dead, both cav and archers are useless cause they will get outnumbered and pushed by enemy inf or they won't be able to take enemy flag. Archer can be easily pushed by 2 enemy horses or by 1 inf player, or they will be just useless when the whole infantry will die cause enemy will have 1 more cav or 1 more inf instead of archer.
 

Shots to the front of the horse (neck as per the hitboxes, I believe) do as much damage as a headshot. The problem that seems to be the general point of this thread is that cavalry cannot force a kill on an archer if he is aware of the cav being there, while the archer can do so at any situation (assuming neither party makes a mistake), both in melee and ranged. Again, I personally don't mind this too much and I've learned to cope with it, but I absolutely do see where the frustration is coming from.
 
In my experience im only shooting enemy horse when my cav player tells me that enemy horse is low, cause usually it's way more efficient to give enemy rider himself headshot. If im shooting enemy cav from a long distance, im running out of arrows too quickly cause cav can avoid long shots with these fast stops and goes and from long distance I deal too small dmg to the horse (30 in a body on average), so I prefer to shoot enemy arch or just wait a fight if he's in a superior position. There should be a really good reason for cav player to rush enemy arch alone imo
 
Spears counter cav, so logically cav are not gonna go where the spears are unless they can help it. That leaves us with throwing weapons and bows and other cav to catch/hit the cav. Archers may have been countered by mass cav charges in the real world, but here in Bannerlord they ARE the counter to cav as they are the only class that can pressure cav.

Don't think of Bannerlord in generic rock paper scissors sort of balance, think of it as Infantry create engagements, while they work with Cavalry to deal damage, and Archers support by either shooting in openings or pressuring enemy cav/archers.

The whole reason we have class limits is because if you wanted to be the most effective and annoying tactic possible, it would be to take archers and cav, eliminate the enemy cav with your superior ranged firepower(kiting the enemy team), and then win the ensuing infantry fight with superior cav numbers. There is no need for infantry in the game really, but I think most people would agree it's more interesting if infantry actually has a part to play, and groupfighting as an infantry player is really chaotic fun.

I feel you there. I hate how the meta has become mainly archer/cav -- and to be honest you really only need one cav and the rest archers if at all. Give us a melee only mode or hardcore where there's no crosshair or something.
The mechanics are just too skewed in archers favour where you hardly have to lead, compensate for drop or adjust your shots at all. I don't have much any issue with archers being able to deal damage to horse riders as it's a much harder target to hit than the horse itself, but perhaps horses (at least ones with armour) should take significantly less damage from non-javelin projectiles as from what I've gathered in the thread it seems like they're just as, if not more effective, than spears for anti-cav purposes.

To be honest the way archery works at the moment just sort of ruins the game.
 
I feel you there. I hate how the meta has become mainly archer/cav -- and to be honest you really only need one cav and the rest archers if at all. Give us a melee only mode or hardcore where there's no crosshair or something.
The mechanics are just too skewed in archers favour where you hardly have to lead, compensate for drop or adjust your shots at all. I don't have much any issue with archers being able to deal damage to horse riders as it's a much harder target to hit than the horse itself, but perhaps horses (at least ones with armour) should take significantly less damage from non-javelin projectiles as from what I've gathered in the thread it seems like they're just as, if not more effective, than spears for anti-cav purposes.

To be honest the way archery works at the moment just sort of ruins the game.
The problem is, bows / crossbows do piercing damage. Armor doesn't really protect well against that one. Maybe there should be a way that horses take less dmg from ranged, cause as of right now it's laughable. Maybe make it slashing dmg or something like that, so taking more armor on your horse actually makes sense
 
First, you need 3-4 HEADshots (not 2 as you said) to kill enemy horse, which is not that easy when enemy cav is at least trying to avoid these shots. Even if you get lucky and your team takes a good fight, you take a superior position to shoot and enemy cav has no place to hide, it will take 6-7 shots on average to dismount enemy cav. But in most cases there always would be some strange **** going on so you cant just spend 15 secs to aim an enemy horse during teamfight so that horse would rekt your whole team.
Second, in most cases archer wouldn't just focus enemy horse cause he can get couple easy inf headshots and it would give a better advantage for your team.
Third, the game balance is not works as rock-paper-scissors, it is inf-based, if your inf is dead, the fight is lost. Cav is the best inf-killer as cav hits usually cannot be blocked as they comes from your back and you cannot just turn around in a close inf combat. Archers do their job agains inf too, but it is harder to shoot enemy inf in teamfights then to hit as rider, but archs are also good against cav. If your inf is dead, both cav and archers are useless cause they will get outnumbered and pushed by enemy inf or they won't be able to take enemy flag. Archer can be easily pushed by 2 enemy horses or by 1 inf player, or they will be just useless when the whole infantry will die cause enemy will have 1 more cav or 1 more inf instead of archer.
Guess, we're playing two different games then :grin:
 
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