*knock the rider off the mount, not kill the rider, my bad*

Right, so if someone's going to halt their offense to repeatedly gust you, the least you can do is have to whistle or re-enter the room and mount.

There are ways to counter this anyway which don't involve purchasing artifacts. Walls, for instance.

Sojiro:

*knock the rider off the mount, not kill the rider, my bad*

Right, so if someone's going to halt their offense to repeatedly gust you, the least you can do is have to whistle or re-enter the room and mount.

There are ways to counter this anyway which don't involve purchasing artifacts. Walls, for instance.

You can either kill the beast or knock them off. Spurs helps against knocking them off, the whistle and phoenix help when it gets killed. The only thing the spurs does is change a 1 second balance time to a 0 second balance time. This has tremendous practical implications of course.

As for walls... Maybe you haven't noticed the skillet properly, but walls hinder the cavalier. I don't think you are thinking this through much.

Previously, most things beast related were novelties or extra bonuses. Now, steeds are an integral part of Cavaliers, they are not just a side show, and they need to be treated as such.

Right, so buy them, but I don't see a need for them to come as inherents. It's already a fact that the game functions off pay-for-perks. There's a perk, go pay for it.

TBH, maybe you haven't practiced it enough, but if you have to repeatedly run in and out as a cavalier for offense, you're not doing it right. Spam impale or tackle won't kill anyone 1v1.

For the last part, I agree, which is why they came with abilities to help keep the rider on the mount.

I dunno. I can see what you guys mean with the beast spit inherent, it was just an idle thought. I mostly thought some sort of phoenix might have been fair since situations come up where you die or something and they immediately turn on your pet before you have the time to respawn, dismiss and resummon ( :().

daganev:


Some explanation would be nice. Eventru just said that steeds and supposed to be a part of our strategies, and right now, they can play only a minor second fiddle, and any warrior with a steed gets the same benefit of an extra poison every 10 seconds. I don't remember the exact point values, but for my own steed, the inborn abilities gave me an extra 60 trains to use. But charge costs 75, so I couldn't even add that on.

I said a well-trained beast is supposed to be used with the skillset, yes. Being mounted grants a good number of benefits, as you've pointed out, as well you can avoid being proned/dismounted fairly well. There's a slew of benefits out there for you - charging, passive poisons, illusions, webbing, breath attacks, trample, etc via beasts.

I also said that if you want those benefits, you should train your beast in them. :P And while it becomes costly to have your beast know every ability (that would require an artifact pet + a lot of inherents), I don't think that's really necessary either. Pick and choose your beast abilities - wisely.

I'm not really sure increasing the rate on top of it all is a good idea - when mounted, the skillset functions pretty much like a full warrior skillset, with some utility in the form of added inherents in beasts.

Eventru:


I said a well-trained beast is supposed to be used with the skillset, yes. Being mounted grants a good number of benefits, as you've pointed out, as well you can avoid being proned/dismounted fairly well. There's a slew of benefits out there for you - charging, passive poisons, illusions, webbing, breath attacks, trample, etc via beasts.

I also said that if you want those benefits, you should train your beast in them. :P And while it becomes costly to have your beast know every ability (that would require an artifact pet + a lot of inherents), I don't think that's really necessary either. Pick and choose your beast abilities - wisely.

I'm not really sure increasing the rate on top of it all is a good idea - when mounted, the skillset functions pretty much like a full warrior skillset, with some utility in the form of added inherents in beasts.

This does not sound like an accurate summary to me.

What benefits does a mounted Cavalier have, that a an unmounted PureBlade with a pet doesn't have?

It seems to me that the answer to this is , PinCharge, and SteedCharge, 10% more health on the steed, and four inherent abilities.

And I have to ask and investigate, how do those abilities aid in the Warrior surviving or killing their opponent? From my testing so far, they aren't helping all that much. Things look and sound scary, until you look at the balance time vs the cure time, and then you realize that they aren't all that effective. A faster beast balance time, would make them effective. (And I'm not even suggesting that drastic of an increase, just enough to get them in synch with every 2 attacks instead of every 3)

Now, the next thing to ask is what does an unmounted Cavalier have that an unmounted PureBlade doesn't have?

The answer to this part of the question is, half of their skills not working, and being less effective with their weapons and afflictions that do work. So it's good and great that they stay mounted most of the time that they would go prone, (doesn't stop them from going prone though) but it doesn't mean that beasts are great just the way they are for the Specialization.

Sojiro:

*knock the rider off the mount, not kill the rider, my bad*

Right, so if someone's going to halt their offense to repeatedly gust you, the least you can do is have to whistle or re-enter the room and mount.

There are ways to counter this anyway which don't involve purchasing artifacts. Walls, for instance.

Every class that makes use of entourages benefits from Channels to freely recall their entourage when gust/other'd apart from them. A Cavalier's steed should be considered like a wiccan/illuminati's entourage and is required for their offence to work. I think the perk that should be paid for here is increased movement resistance like Cement Socks or whatever, not faster whistling.

If Beastmaster's whistle does something else, perhaps no need for that aspect, but I think the Channels/BeastWhistle comparison highlights the problem for Cavaliers.

Ushaara:

I think the perk that should be paid for here is increased movement resistance like Cement Socks or whatever, not faster whistling.

Isn't this already a trainable beast power? It's usually not useful as it's usually very easy to knock off mounts, but that's not the case with Cavaliers.

Because of how warriors work, I don't think it's really appropriate to liken the beast to wiccan ents, who themselves perform a larger portion of wiccan offense (not all of course, but a lot). It's closer to a demesne, in that it's a required condition to unlock many of your other abilities that has some variable effect all on its own.

EDIT: I'm not alright with increasing the balance on beasts for cavaliers for a few reasons.

1) This may be the most simple, but is the most easily fixed: There has already been a few (very minor) spots of trouble with the code for the steeds, quickly rectified. Not sure that it's all that feasible to do on the code side without more trouble.

2) Balancing all future beast reports and beast changes around two different balances. Not very fun.

3) I'm not really sure it's needed for the class. It looks like Ushaara has a good idea about what to do with the warrior-y parts of the class to make it more viable. I'd just listen up to that, and leave it at that.

In short, add more (mostly utility?) abilities to the steed if you want, but the bottom line is that unless those things run passively along with warrior attacks (which can easily get OP), there usually won't be a reason to use them instead of a normal wound-causing attack. That's just being a warrior for you. Making it near impossible to split a cavalier and their mount (a-la whistle whistling and spurs vaulting) is already quite powerful, on top of the huge tankyness available to these mounts (High health, regen health, armor, Cavalier buff skill, Ecologist growth), on top of the difficulty of removing them from steed (need to gust past balance training + any other resists, taking eq/balance of the caster) is already fairly good for keeping your beast alive, and you on it. I DO think it's dumb that strategies may revolve around just flat stopping you from using some of your skills by spamming these things, but welcome to lots of the other Lusternian classes...

One thing that could work is just a beast whistle that works without consuming eq-balance while in adjacent or near rooms, but has a short delay before the beast gets there. In other words, not a faster whistle. So, you get blasted out of your room by some sort of uber-gust. You continue to fight off whoever followed you to that room after using SteedCall. 10 seconds later, it arrives and you mount up. Get vault as a class skill. Or possibly have it work kinda like the ecology call used to work on beasts. You can use this as a preface on your abilities, and it draws your steed one room closer to your location each go.

Enyalida:


Isn't this already a trainable beast power? It's usually not useful as it's usually very easy to knock off mounts, but that's not the case with Cavaliers.

Because of how warriors work, I don't think it's really appropriate to liken the beast to wiccan ents, who themselves perform a larger portion of wiccan offense (not all of course, but a lot). It's closer to a demesne, in that it's a required condition to unlock many of your other abilities that has some variable effect all on its own.

Off of my mount, a cleave takes 7.2 seconds, on my mount it takes 4.5. Fighting off the mount is not really an option, not even bashing. And that's not including miss rates and lower damage as well.

What race?

EDIT: Tae'dae, of course. I dunno, that just sounds like what you signed up for. Are all of the abilities slowed off-mount, or just the 'Mount: yes' abilities?

daganev:


Off of my mount, a cleave takes 7.2 seconds, on my mount it takes 4.5. Fighting off the mount is not really an option, not even bashing. And that's not including miss rates and lower damage as well.

I'm not seeing this differentiation in testing. Cleave on and off mount both take about 4.5 seconds.

P.S., On a related note (but nothing that could cause this disparity you're reporting), I have just fixed a bug that was stopping Cavaliers from getting their weapon speed boost from the Polearms ability, like all other specs get.

Also figure that beast whistle is on eq. Which means that if you balance it to be fast around the spec race's times (Tae'dae with a -3 eq time), it'll be stupidfast on everyone else.

Enyalida:

Also figure that beast whistle is on eq. Which means that if you balance it to be fast around the spec race's times (Tae'dae with a -3 eq time), it'll be stupidfast on everyone else.

I hate to sound so casual, but so what? Tae'dae get other perks, but no speed. I get speed, but no other perks. It may be faster for me, but what I make up for in speed he makes up for in more damage later.

Enyalida:

Isn't this already a trainable beast power? It's usually not useful as it's usually very easy to knock off mounts, but that's not the case with Cavaliers.

Yup, it is, same as it is for everyone else who could benefit from increased movement resist and has spurs. The Cavalier resistance to sprawling (though as Daganev said, still get the p for prone and I have yet to fully work out the subtleties there) is very nice yes, but this resistance is not resistance to being separated from your steed through something like a simple gust/raise cudgel, which is where I think the need for a faster whistling comes in.

Separation from your beast isn't such a huge deal for other classes as they're all designed to function without them, it is however a huge deal for Cavaliers. Between gust/raise cudgel/pits/scissorflip/etc. and the frequency with which those occur in fights, re-entering the room to remount often isn't feasible and spending 4s off equilibrium to whistle before being able to move or be back to full effectiveness for a class that requires constant pressure to build and maintain their kill condition really neuters the class.

I can see your point Enyalida, but still think my Channels analogy holds rather than likening to druids. Only another druid/mage can neuter a meld, here anyone with simple gust enchant can neuter a Cavalier. The difficulty in dismounting may be a different issue, but I think better ways to address it would be abilities like Illusion Spook or having disloyalty causing beast to throw the rider etc.

Regarding faster beast balances, sure it'd be nice. Don't really think it's needed though.

Ushaara:

Yup, it is, same as it is for everyone else who could benefit from increased movement resist and has spurs. The Cavalier resistance to sprawling (though as Daganev said, still get the p for prone and I have yet to fully work out the subtleties there) is very nice yes, but this resistance is not resistance to being separated from your steed through something like a simple gust/raise cudgel, which is where I think the need for a faster whistling comes in.

What? Sure it is, it's movement resist. Movement resist is resistance to being separated from your steed through a forced movement effect... Perhaps you should look into getting balancing as an inherent instead of kicking, as kicking is.... subpar.

Enyalida:

What? Sure it is, it's movement resist. Movement resist is resistance to being separated from your steed through a forced movement effect... Perhaps you should look into getting balancing as an inherent instead of kicking, as kicking is.... subpar.

Resistance to sprawling isn't movement resist is what I meant.

The ab for balancing indicates that it's movement resist, not sprawl resist.

While your beast is trained to balance, it will be difficult to move,
thus making you difficult to move (and thus increasing your resistance
to being magically summoned).

For Training:
Syntax: BEAST TRAIN BALANCE
Prerequisite: mount
Type: Body
Trains: 60

daganev:

What benefits does a mounted Cavalier have, that a an unmounted PureBlade with a pet doesn't have?

I heard that they do about 25% more wounding mounted than they do unmounted. The AB also suggests that there is a bonus for wounding while mounted and a malus while unmounted, so I guess the 'unmounted pureblade' would lie somewhere in the middle. A 12.5% bonus to wounding is damn nice, if you ask me.

Ushaara:

Yup, it is, same as it is for everyone else who could benefit from increased movement resist and has spurs. The Cavalier resistance to sprawling (though as Daganev said, still get the p for prone and I have yet to fully work out the subtleties there) is very nice yes, but this resistance is not resistance to being separated from your steed through something like a simple gust/raise cudgel, which is where I think the need for a faster whistling comes in.

Just go back and remount, I'd say. Costs only the small amount of time for vaulting. Comparing a cavalier's mount to the entourage of guardians/wiccans might go a little far. It's just so different in many respects. For all those who are worried about their mount getting killed: You can have as many as you want, so train a cheaper one as a reserve. I still think that hardly anyone will go for a cavalier's mount in combat, it's just (potentially) too hard to kill and not integral enough for their offense (compared to nymphs, pookas, homunculi, for instance).

I never complained about about whistle being slow, so I'm not sure what that part of the conversation is about.

I have to assume that the difference in time I saw is because of lag then. However, while bashing I've often felt much slower than I normally was with bonecrusher and often found myself not mounted. (Normally because I'm just not used to fetching my steed from the stables every time I get dced yet)

I also don't see why Beastmastery would have to have skills balanced around "two different speeds", when all other skills are not balanced around Aslaran, Human and Tae'dae speeds. A bonus is a bonus, and nobody ever says to remove speed bonuses and penalties from races because they have have different balance times on the same skill.

It would be nice if the Steed was central in the offense, and not just a requirement for being on par. (Beasts, even without artifacts, are not cheep!)

Veyrzhul:


I heard that they do about 25% more wounding mounted than they do unmounted. The AB also suggests that there is a bonus for wounding while mounted and a malus while unmounted, so I guess the 'unmounted pureblade' would lie somewhere in the middle. A 12.5% bonus to wounding is damn nice, if you ask me.

Can you confirm that? If true, I agree that is nice, but it didn't seem like such a big bonus to me.