Could do an armor for your Goliath. A horse bucking and kicking with a rider? I dunno..
I could see a horse's spiked armor damaging your opponent far more than I could I see a horse rearing up to kick/trample with a rider.( But I also don't know anything about horse riding..)
Trick you're letting real-world physics get in the way of a good story :P
56 minutes ago, Trick said:
Could do an armor for your Goliath. A horse bucking and kicking with a rider? I dunno..
I could see a horse's spiked armor damaging your opponent far more than I could I see a horse rearing up to kick/trample with a rider.( But I also don't know anything about horse riding..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD9fF7upEww
The great thing about that clip is that the horses here are just looking to remove what they perceive as a threat from their immediate area. Horses trained for combat wouldn't use love taps.
Great. Now, put a rider on that horse. You think a rider is gonna wanna spin around and let the horse kick or rear up and kick? I'm not saying its not possible, just not likely.
They only need 8 seconds to stay on....
We have made an assumption that the paladin stands before his enemy like some giant berserker waiting a battle, this is not the way of mounted combat. A mounted attacker will move quickly through the field of battle, he will not halt his horse o be pulled from it. The strikes of the horse then are not kicks, the horse is running on his feet. The strikes are straight forward kinetic energy, momentum. Dodge and parry can be used to avoid the horses strikes, only a soon to be flattened fool would try to shield or weapon block a charging stallion.
Dodge yes, parry no. Good luck parrying a charging horse with a dagger lol.
Except we have several classes that only get parry as a defense. So unless we allow protective shield to offer some protection against kinetic energy then we will be gimping the upgrade right off the bat for mages crying foul. I would simply code it so the attacks could be dodged for no damage or parried for weak damage or missed for a face full of bridle.
I think adding mounted combat effects for Paladin is a great, simple idea that would balance the class well. Give it the ability to strike in combat as well as random effects like dirt kick, 1rd lag bash type skill, push would be cool, saving Paladin from bash lock by knocking the opponent out of battle lol
Paladin has always been boring. Decently strong but boring. Something new like this advanced mounted combat would definitely put them on an even playing field.
Auto landing melee auto attacks are very bad for balance. Look at bows and the new need to code the missile shield scroll to deal with the damage. Horse themed attacks should be fully blockeable. Paladins suddenly gaining steel wall or fire shield is bad for balance in my view.
Automatic lagging or dirting things are are extremely bad for balance. Paladins blind with flame strike, that the mechanic that should be tweaked for blind. Paladins lags with mounted charge, that's the mechanic that should be tweaked for lag.
I would love for paladins to be skirmishers, of flee charging. But that is a bad idea due to the recent experience with Mino flee charge. Unless they deal two charges cooldowns on mounted charge. One for regular charge with 0 hours and another for mounted charge with 3 hours.
Who said anything about automatic? They could be saved against just like any other pets abilities
6 hours ago, Trick said:
Could do an armor for your Goliath. A horse bucking and kicking with a rider? I dunno..
I could see a horse's spiked armor damaging your opponent far more than I could I see a horse rearing up to kick/trample with a rider.( But I also don't know anything about horse riding..)
War horses did indeed fight in combat themselves via kicks and bites. They'd rarely do a full rear-up and kick, but a horse's legs have a lot of power behind them - a war horse kicking out with one leg behind it will drop someone in plate armor without any trouble. The downside to training or allowing a horse to fight is that they're not exactly great at telling friend from foe. ;)
I kinda think this idea can be taken to full-blown horse customization and would be amazing. Three tiers of horse perks the player can choose to meet their needs (so horse ends up with three perks total at rank 50). I only have a few ideas as I'm not the most equestrian savvy but basically instead of automatically having features like lag/dirt/headbutt....you choose. All the horse should really have is a basic kick and maybe a weak (i.e. low chance) defense. The perks you pick would determine the effectiveness of said kick/defense. I think these would definitely require the horse being an actual mob....not sure. That might require some re-coding of that one spell that makes paladins ungroupable. I forget the name.
The Pally vs. Rogue thing was brought up earlier so one horse perk could be "Easily Spooked" - which has a chance to initiate combat if someone pops out of the shadows, or out of invisibility with intent to hurt the paladin.
Dirt Kick (with less chance for success than regular dirt kick)
Thoroughbred - extra speed produces extra charge damage (+10% charge damage)
Saddle Master - Adds more chance for the defensive maneuver to happen
Farrier - horseshoes add a chance to cause "headbutt" or "disorientation"
- Golliath benefits from healing spells cast on yourself while mounted, including cure disease/poison etc.
Just a few little perks that, together, make a viable mounted holy force to be reckoned with.
I think paladins are strong as is, they're just really bland and slightly tedious to play.
I think even something as small as making flamestrike blind more often would increase the enjoyment of playing one.
My biggest grievance when playing one is they feel like a cleric with dodge rather than a mounted knightly paladin and more weapon choices would help there.
3 hours ago, Wade said:
My biggest grievance when playing one is they feel like a cleric with dodge rather than a mounted knightly paladin and more weapon choices would help there.
That's probably why most of the suggestions have revolved around either a paladin-specific weapon buffing spell or fleshing out the mounted combat. They'd make playing one feel a lot more distinct. If they're strong enough as is, then we can compensate for the new abilities by weakening or removing some old ones, hence my suggested paths having drawbacks for choosing them.
I do not like granting the paladin more lag ability. They get the goliath and mounted combat as lag protection. Then we say get rid of the only skill that defeats this, thrust. AND let the paladin lag others. If we improve paladin lag, and do not remove lag protection, then we will need a new skill to remove the paladin from his horse. Its a circle. No new lag for paladins is my vote, but a bit more output would not hurt the class. Its an attrition class it has the ability to hit and run more so than any other, so lets be conservative in added damage as well.
It's not like bash and bodyslam don't work currently against Paladins - they do. Mounted combat + goliath was introduced to give paladins some degree of lag protection that they sorely needed, and stopping thrust from getting around them makes sense simply because paladins shouldn't be vulnerable to vampires in such a way - if anything, vampires need to be more vulnerable to paladins (removing their bonus against paladins was part of our suggested community changes, so that's already happening to some degree).
@Pali A change actually won't be happening, since the vampire perk against paladins was the dismounting using thrust, which @Kyzarius voted against. It was on the final list, but it was disqualified.
I know it was an experiment but the criteria of only needing one veto from anyone is a bit flawed.
There were some good ideas that got totally thrown out because of it.
4 hours ago, Celerity said:
@Pali A change actually won't be happening, since the vampire perk against paladins was the dismounting using thrust, which @Kyzarius voted against. It was on the final list, but it was disqualified.
Ah, I thought it was some thac0 or other bonus against them that I just didn't know about.
As for the one-vote veto, there's no reason we need to always stick to that rule in the future, but I do still think the threshold needs to be pretty high for community suggestions - 80+% vote in favor or the like, not just a simple majority.