Arelith

Ride: Mount AC reduced to 1 AC per 7 hard ranks (4 max at 28) from 1 per 5 (6 max at 30)

I understand the nerf to Spirited Charge charge, but wonder why the AC was also nerfed? If you can get 6 AC from tumble (which doesn't stack with Ride while mounted as far as I know?), Why is it bad to get 6 AC while mounted from Ride?

Disclaimer: I am not a build wizard, nor a math major so I could totally be missing something.

I feel this change disincentives non-cavalry builds from taking Ride and Mounted Combat. Why would I invest 30 skill points and a feat so I can lose 2 AC?

Security_Blanket wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:05 pm I feel this change disincentives non-cavalry builds from taking Ride and Mounted Combat. Why would I invest 30 skill points and a feat so I can lose 2 AC?

You gain 1 AC and 1 AB as a non-cav who has untrained Tumble in their build. You also gain a permanent buff to your speed which may be appealing to some.

It seems Ride is not an alternative to tumble anymore, but is now a PVP niche skill which provides a bit of an edge of mobility, AB, and 1AC to builds which do not have trained tumble. It does so at the cost of 1 full skill and 1 pre-epic feat.

It may also be used by 30 Tumble builds who wish to stretch their AB as much as possible at the cost of 2 AC. It may see some use like this, if only situationally.

Nurel wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:13 pm

Security_Blanket wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:05 pm I feel this change disincentives non-cavalry builds from taking Ride and Mounted Combat. Why would I invest 30 skill points and a feat so I can lose 2 AC?

You gain 1 AC and 1 AB as a non-cav who has untrained Tumble in their build. You also gain a permanent buff to your speed which may be appealing to some.

It seems Ride is not an alternative to tumble anymore, but is now a PVP niche skill which provides a bit of an edge of mobility, AB, and 1AC to builds which do not have trained tumble. It does so at the cost of 1 full skill and 1 pre-epic feat.

It may also be used by 30 Tumble builds who wish to stretch their AB as much as possible at the cost of 2 AC. It may see some use like this, if only situationally.

And as a mounted caster, it's just a flat -2 AC for the same investment we were making. We needed Mounted Combat for the AC bonus and the spellcasting penalty, then 30 points on top of that to get the same AC as 30 in Tumble. Where is the incentive to keep Ride as a non-cavalry caster?

Security_Blanket wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:38 pm

Nurel wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:13 pm

Security_Blanket wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:05 pm I feel this change disincentives non-cavalry builds from taking Ride and Mounted Combat. Why would I invest 30 skill points and a feat so I can lose 2 AC?

You gain 1 AC and 1 AB as a non-cav who has untrained Tumble in their build. You also gain a permanent buff to your speed which may be appealing to some.

It seems Ride is not an alternative to tumble anymore, but is now a PVP niche skill which provides a bit of an edge of mobility, AB, and 1AC to builds which do not have trained tumble. It does so at the cost of 1 full skill and 1 pre-epic feat.

It may also be used by 30 Tumble builds who wish to stretch their AB as much as possible at the cost of 2 AC. It may see some use like this, if only situationally.

And as a mounted caster, it's just a flat -2 AC for the same investment we were making. We needed Mounted Combat for the AC bonus and the spellcasting penalty, then 30 points on top of that to get the same AC as 30 in Tumble. Where is the incentive to keep Ride as a non-cavalry caster?

There's probably no incentive to keep Ride in your toolkit as a Trained 30 Tumble Caster. You could find use of it if your build is Tumble 15.
PCs may still invest a few points in it for the aesthetics and rider RP, I did that on an alt of mine with surplus skill points come 30

Edens_Fall wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:48 pm wonder why the AC was also nerfed?

Because +1 ab +3 ac for a plethora of no-tumble melee builds with a spare pre-epic feat was a no brainer and now it's just +1/+1 and probably not worth it anymore for tumble builds. Personally I think it makes a lot of sense.

As one of the few caster riders apparently, I'm not a fan of the change. The Cavalry class looks like it's supposed to support casters in the form of getting a Nightmare or other special summon, but from changes to the class to the Ride skill it seems only non-casters are taken into account. Why would any caster that has access to Tumble bother with Ride? Mechanically, they shouldn't. RPwise they still have every reason and incentive they had to before, why walk when you can ride? Now Riding is only a RP tool for those characters, and it's an obvious sacrifice in order to maintain that RP.

Security_Blanket wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 9:35 pm As one of the few caster riders apparently, I'm not a fan of the change. The Cavalry class looks like it's supposed to support casters in the form of getting a Nightmare or other special summon, but from changes to the class to the Ride skill it seems only non-casters are taken into account. Why would any caster that has access to Tumble bother with Ride? Mechanically, they shouldn't. RPwise they still have every reason and incentive they had to before, why walk when you can ride? Now Riding is only a RP tool for those characters, and it's an obvious sacrifice in order to maintain that RP.

I agree with AstralUniverse in that, Ride was to become a no-brainer skill for everyone who is not tumble 30. This change was implemented to prevent this, and there is a sound logic behind it

Myself I rushed to replace Craft Mastery with Ride to benefit from the mechanical superiority, but now I reverted back. It is better, because CM suits my character, while ride does not. I merely took it for the 3 AC and 1AB. I could even keep it on my character as I am a 15 tumble PC. It would net me 1AC and 1AB plus the movespeed... but still I decided CM is better flavor for my character, as is Toughness in place of mounted combat.

But aside from this, I do like seeing a caster on a horse, if only just for the looks. It is cool to behold. A caster could un-dip their tumble class dip and get Ride anyday. But if you have a Tumble dip, you do not take Ride.

We still have all the same RP reasons though, those never changed, and this is supposed to be an RP server. This change effectively dismounts every caster that likely built for Tumble. There is plenty of reason to ride a horse along the road on a large island, but now that's out the window because Cavaliers were too strong, how is that fair to everyone else? Riding a horse was a skill, only Cavaliers can summon a mount, and now it's just part of the power creep, either you take Tumble or you know how to Ride, the jokes on you if you want to Ride a horse for RP reasons. You can at very least remove the requirement for Mounted Combat to give AC and remove the spellcasting penalty.

Security_Blanket wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:50 pm We still have all the same RP reasons though, those never changed, and this is supposed to be an RP server. This change effectively dismounts every caster that likely built for Tumble. There is plenty of reason to ride a horse along the road on a large island, but now that's out the window because Cavaliers were too strong, how is that fair to everyone else? Riding a horse was a skill, only Cavaliers can summon a mount, and now it's just part of the power creep, either you take Tumble or you know how to Ride, the jokes on you if you want to Ride a horse for RP reasons. You can at very least remove the requirement for Mounted Combat to give AC and remove the spellcasting penalty.

I feel like the real penalty here is the spell failure. What if we had a combat mode, like combat casting, that negated the spell failure but incurred a concentration penalty while riding to simulate the challenge. I mean, you could just use combat casting and have it negate the ride penalty when active. Honestly, concentration would be the biggest problem with casting on a horse. There is nothing anti magical about horses themselves that should incur a spell failure chance. The other option might be to remove the spell failure chance when riding an arcane mount.

Archnon wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:09 pm The other option might be to remove the spell failure chance when riding an arcane mount.

Just wanted to make it known this is already a thing.
Also just so we all are on the same page, spell failure != Arcane spell failure, this applies even to divine casters.

Taking mounted combat also removes the spell failure if you want to ride a better horse then the arcane steed, unless that changed?

Arcane Steeds are not that common, regular horses on the other hand are all over the place. You don't take Mounted Combat to use a better horse than an Arcane Steed, you take it so you don't have to be limited to casting only on a horse that's much harder to acquire.

Security_Blanket wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 10:08 pm Arcane Steeds are not that common, regular horses on the other hand are all over the place. You don't take Mounted Combat to use a better horse than an Arcane Steed, you take it so you don't have to be limited to casting only on a horse that's much harder to acquire.

I see them behind the mage tower all the time..

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Fri Jun 03, 2022 6:59 pm I see them behind the mage tower all the time..

You know what I mean, once those are grabbed that's it. If you mount a horse from anywhere else in the server, too bad. Where's the Arcane Steeds in Sibayad or Guldorand? Do they have them in Skal?

A wizard 27 / ranger 3 can get 1 more AC when mounted compared to CCing tumble. With the areas being far more lenient to mounting now, the AC should apply where it matters.

If one’s argument is still that riding isn’t applicable everywhere, I recommend going to
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=37707
And post if some place should (not) be mountable.

Kenji wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:37 am A wizard 27 / ranger 3 can get 1 more AC when mounted compared to CCing tumble. With the areas being far more lenient to mounting now, the AC should apply where it matters.

And a 27 Wizard 3 Bard loses out on 2 AC with the same investment. You simply can't be mounted at all times, even with things being more lenient, you're not going to be on a horse 100% of the time. What bothers me is that it's ALL ABOUT THE MECHANICS, all about the edge, all about the "win" mindset, now even my RP tool of simply riding a horse got pulled into this nonsense.

Kenji wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:37 amIf one’s argument is still that riding isn’t applicable everywhere, I recommend going to . . .

No, my argument is specifically casters, 28 Skill points and 1 feat to lose 2 AC just so you can freely cast a spell on a horse? Versus 30 points for a flat 6 AC, and still run just as fast when hasted. That's a hard sell.

27 caster 3 bard also loses out on 1 pre-epic or epic feat compared to the aforementioned ranger dip. The change is mainly a balance adjustment for non-tumble dip melee and mundane builds.

If a caster build is reliant on this extra 2AC, I'm sure they have bigger things to worry about such as leaving themselves open to archer barrages or letting melee get close in the first place.

Security_Blanket wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:49 pm What bothers me is that it's ALL ABOUT THE MECHANICS, all about the edge, all about the "win" mindset, now even my RP tool of simply riding a horse got pulled into this nonsense.

Your RP tool is fine regardless of getting that 2 AC or not. Now that more places have been opened up for riding, the RP tool of simply riding a horse is now more open than ever. The only "win" mindset that's being presented here is your arguments about the loss of 2 AC for your RP tool, not the other way around.

Please do see how ironic your post is.

Now that I've had a chance to play the updated cavalier some, I have some feedback on cav, cav related mechanics, and particularly charge.

Overview

I think Cav is in a much better place post-update than it was before

Hitboxes

With the update to ride, it's possible to ride vs a much larger range of PvE enemies than it was before. However, against some of the larger bosses, this is proving problematic. First, against enemies with a large hitbox, you will frequently find yourself being told that you are out of melee range with large targets, such as dragons, even when you are as close as it is possible to be. Second, on dismounting, you will retain your horse sized hitbox. This means that if you enter a boss room and get auto dismounted, you will probably be unable to fight if the boss is large (this last problem has been around for a while, it's just that you mostly never took horses to dungeons).

I'm unsure if this is something that can be resolved by increasing melee range while on a horse, and then properly resizing people to clear their horse hitbox when they dismount, but both things would be welcome.

Ride AC

Good change. No complaints. It does place most cav builds in an uncomfortable position of lacking a full-AC option (since most of the time, cav fits into a build where the tumble dump ordinarily would), but worth it to deal with the number of completely un cav related builds getting 3 AC and skipping a tumble dump. Will keep an eye on this and see if it feels like cav suffers too much from taking up a class slot.

Charge

First, the new damage numbers feel reasonable, and the new charge is far less abuseable than the old. In PvE, this button feels very good. It's a quick little damage spike that lets you reliably dunk important mobs, and the daze usually means that you get in another shot or two on NPCs who are probably failing the strength check.

In PvP, this button is now the next best thing to useless.

The only time it's worth accepting a three second root for what is basically a +50 damage attack that doesn't really crit is when you're hitting a target that's already crowd controlled to begin with (and when you're not getting attacked by anyone). 50 bonus damage seems like a lot, but it's worth noting that a cav charge, even when it crits will usually do much less damage than a normal critical hit; think of the cav charge damage bonus as a hit that falls somewhere between a normal attack and a critical hit. For WM cav and deep bg cav (which gets might and sneak attack dice), the average charge hit feels only marginally stronger than a vanilla attack that can crit for x2 or x3. It's nice, you'll still press the button in pve, but with a drawback attached, you probably don't push the button.

When cav had a movespeed advantage (this no longer seems to be the case; not sure the exact numbers but mine seems to be at or slightly below haste speed), and when charge was doing 200-300 damage in combination with another attack or two, the old 2s root made sense. The new (longer) root doesn't, as we've somewhat normalized the cav attack pattern. Hit and run cav spiking does not feel like it's really feasible with the reworked damage pattern. On top of this, the root appears to properly flat foot the cavalier, leading to a loss of a whole bunch of AC. This can be a death sentence.

To make matters worse, even if you win your bull rush check, a dazed opponent may still move fast enough to walk out of range of your followup, provided they're paying attention and realize that they should get away.

I would suggest removing the root (maybe keeping it as a 2-3 second heavy slow as a penalty for charging 2h weapon users), then carefully monitoring charge. If it feels too strong with no drawback to its use, scale back the AB bonus until it feels non-oppressive.

Last I checked, you keep the horse hit box size until relogging, no matter if you de-mount outside of the dungeon and enter without the horse entirely. For me this alone still creates a big "No, thank you" for playing with horses at all. I take it from the feedback above that it has not been fixed and I just hope it can be fixed.

I'll agree the new charge damage seems largely underwhelming. While the old damage was high, the new charge damage with a root in place seems pointless as stated above.

Perhaps a bump to the damage or removal of the rooting in place is warranted?

I'm no build expert of course, but as is cav charge seems rather useless other then for a dmg spike on certain mobs in pve.

I’m still not experiencing any root when I use spirited charge. I have an Air Genasi human Rogue 13/Cav 10/WM 7 with a light flail. Spirited can be used whilst in combat to stun + get sneaks in with crippling strike very reliably. Because there’s no root, it’s both a great opener to an encounter and something to repeatedly tap whenever it’s available.

And to be fair, this has always been the case in my experience. I was almost never reduced to 1 APR, nor rooted, at any point in this character’s history.

Kenji wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 10:15 pm Please do see how ironic your post is.

I'm aware, but skill points are limited and there aren't enough reasons to justify having Ride over Tumble anymore. There was always a balance between having your character sheet match your RP and building a mechanically viable character just to survive. This change is saying: "If you have this then there's no point in having that." I don't think that's a great approach and acts as a disincentive to even bother with Ride as a caster if you have Tumble. I feel like the main focus of this change and the Cavalier class in general has been melee riders and casters were a bit of an oversight.

That's not strictly true. Mounted combat applies +1 ab in addition to the ride AC. Now that horses can go most places, I think this is a solid buy even with someone that gets full tumble. 30 skillpoints and a feat +1 ab and +1 ac on classes that don't dip tumble, and +1 ab -2 ac on those that do. Overall, a great skill+feat.

In addition, you have sprint which gives you 150% movement in spite of whatever stats you have in strength or constitution. A great mobility buy as well.

Wasn't an oversight, everything is as intended.