Knight's non-spring life
 

After my favorite class lost speed I was searching for against archer tactic.

If I run away from archer the only thing that can save me is Defensive+fort or save near. But most time its a dead end: Ethereal arrow strikes ignoring all defense and Break apart deals big damage over time + aimbush.

If I try to hit enemy it becomes a very loooong story. Intimidate gives -10% speed. It is nothing against mobility(barb's spring too btw). Maybe I have bad luck but even with BLOCK working on all knock and stun spells successfully hits me almost always. Even when moon locates in sign of my zodiac and I kill enemy archer it takes about 15-20 minutes. When enemy is almost dead he\she run to save. And what is easier than run away from knight?

Maybe I do something wrong... Dear knights, how do you live with that?))

I miss spring :-(

I think we should get it back. The theory behind removing spring from knights makes sense. But in reality it doesn't really work well imho. Some marks still hit me with 110 normals under defensive stance 5 and dueling armor :-S
I understand that just giving it back will cause a completely new imbalance ... but ...but ...*sigh*.

Intimidate idea is nice, but I think that spell should be improved... at least to -15% or so...

Wild spirit + mobility allow hunter to get off from Intimidate's range

Or why not create a new knight branch, horses ? The knight would be able to fight on a horse which he can summon. And when he fall from the horse (maybe a spell could do this, or a low percent chance to fall from a normal hit), or his horse is dead, he have to continue the fight on foot, so without spring ^^

And now, the knight will became a true knight and not only a paladin :)

Well it's harder now, depends where are you. I use disable limb which is way better than intimidiate (0 points, -10 isnt good enough) + knocks, if it doesnt help and theres a bigger tree or something im trying to play around it, he must come closer, not like in open field when he's always range.

defensive stance, good/v.good armor vs piercing, block/precise block, knockdowns, disabling, disable limb, balestra/ribs braker, a lot of patience :dumbofme:

if you have disable limb (5) and intimidate, you can also try defensive support when you cut enemie's speed

:pumpkin:Knightmare: hard to grind, hard to play!

If it's only one enemy you could hide behind trees. If no tree or rock is around it's bad :bangin:

As a hunter, i can tell some knights do fairly well versus us, just run behind a rock or a tree and wait.

The main issue, imho, is Confuse(3-5), because a suprised knight will not be able to buff, and may die before confuse expires if no tree/rock/fort is around.

I am okay with not having spring even though I miss it. I do think Intimidate needs the slightest of tweaks . I would probably like to see it at 12%-13% for level 5. That may be enough.

Other options include the spear which I keep handy, balestra. Other than that there is Disable limb. The game is RvR balanced so it is not really my job to catch the hunter. Not a big thing for me.

On the damage reduction side ,Challenge used to be an option but since the update and the reduction of base evades etc. , it is not as effective as it used to be. I tested block (5) in combo with challenge (5) which works well but , that is a rather expensive build to defend against range. Rigorous prep(5) + challenge (5) sort of works too but again way too expensive for the little protection it gives. Those are really class specific builds and I tend to use general purpose ones.
Once ally rangers are around, I let them do their thing. If I am alone I buff and try to reach the ranger if they are close , else I head to the next outpost. I would never catch them if they have a head start. No chance with marks.

*barbarian

I kill archers like this

- Treehugging :P
- Defensive stance till I can use feint than I put it off and give them DISABLE LIMB 5 hehe ;)

But yes I think we need spring back.. Come on Barbs have UM + Spring.
And we got Defensive Support for no knock, And thats -25% movemenspeed :P

With a tree or a rock the fight is pretty well in favour of the knight.
The archer can't hit you, and if he came close he is, most of the time, dead.

Well, I don't have any problems fighting ranged, I mean, 5k+- hp is hard to get off if your avg hit is between 14-100, I just put up def stance, def support sometimes

And even without disable limb and intimidate, I can catch them, because getting such alot of hp away with alot of defense takes loads of time, and since the avg skill of a random player isn't so high he doesn't make any mistakes....

Then, I get feint in, click def support off right after a hit(kinda piggyback), then kick+balestra to finish the job, most will try to cc you before running, but precise block is lovely for that, and they lose valuable seconds because of that ;P And if things really go bad, there's always the option to hugg a tree and wait/try again with more hp.

Jah, Confuse is the big one. We don't need spring -- we're in plate armor for god's sake. Just thankful we don't have a movement penalty, which by all rights we should have, given our encumbrance.

Even after engagement, with a fully buffed knight, the archer can break off the fight at any time, e.g., stun and run. This is not true for the knight. In an open field with no cover not sure why anyone expects to win 1 v 1 vs hunter. It's true, knight will simply be kited unless he can find cover. Even in defensive stance you can only hold out so long. Night did a 253 critical on me in DS yesterday. :) (at least the icon under the health bar said I was in DS). Still, if I want to try to survive and not win I usually can (about 60-70% of the time).

There is a separate thread which discusses the op-ness of confuse.

But what reason does a knight have to be unbuffed? If you just run around with defensive stance on, and only turn it off when you need to, then a single hunter coming out of camo won't be able to confuse and kill you quickly.

Horse. (adding extra words to make the post longer so it gets accepted...)

+1 to this.. i ALWAYs run around with def stance(5) on me.. most of the time i can run to safe place if a lonely hunter appear..
sometime i try to catch him and then.. sometime i die (often) rare time he die
(lol)

but running around unbuffed is like painting himself with colored circled target..

1 on 1:

Knight/Archer: Stale mate or a loss, battle is in the Archers favour.
Knight/Mage: Warlock has the advantage, Warjuer might win.
Knight/Barb: Barb has the advantage.

Sure a lot of people will argue otherwise with me but this has been my experience fighting knights and being one. Lack of speed on a knight is the most frustrating thing and it's always amusing to have mages get away in open field battles.

Knight is totally fine as it is.

Solution to knight movement problems
 

Just allow knights to summon basic mount that gives + 10% mobility as a skill
Also allow knights to attack from this summon wth skills.
Also allow knights to stay on this summon until they reach 50% hp

problem solved:lighten:

Knights have always been able to attack from mounts right?

I too agree that Knight is probably seeing its best days ever.

I think how you fare in 1 v 1 depends a lot on your build, gear and experience. I would say that a knight has very good chances against any other class once it is purpose built. A lot of us tend to run around with the jack-of-all-trades build that may or may not be advantageous.

Like I said before, I miss spring but really my tool box of skills are the best they have ever been. I am comfortable trading it and a few other spells to have the ones I have now. It is the most flexible class in the game at the moment. I would go so far to say that it is also the most balanced class in the game now.

Yeah, I'm very happy with knight. I would make Intimidate a decent spell, however. Right now it is crap. A -25% speed penalty at level 5 would be fine. It would make it much more interesting for those kite-crazy speed-passive hunters you have no hope of catching.

You are right.

You are wrong.

You are wrong in your analysis, 1 Vs 1 knigts are screwed unless they hit lady luck, or the opponent doesn't know what he's doing. Against ranged we lack the speed and the CC immunity to reach them, against barbs it's luck based, MS or knocks over the protections, still they have the upper hand, barbs have more HP given their dmg then we do.

We are not even close to our prime. And probably we'll never be again. Our prime was when we would block 7/10. If you think that's OP (and it was) you must realize barbs only needed a hit to kill a knight (4.5k SC if I can recall on a lvl 50 knight is documented somewhere on this forum).

A knight speed in war is, realistically, -25%. Otherwise we spend our time knocked, ivyed and stunned. Even then we always eat a lightning arrow, slow, twister, ensnaring or, god forbids, caltrops. Point is, if we don't activate the CC resistances we are screwed, if we do, we are screwed.

We are indeed good at dying last and dropping auras. Well, it's better then it was before the knight overhaul, back then we were a 0 (though I would never admit it at the time!).

We don't need spring back, just ons affecting caster and on Vanguard, def support with the stance system and on Vanguard, kick on Vanguard (you can remove intimidate, rigorous and arcane const)... or any other efficient tools that allow us to lead rushes.

I was shocked on the other day when a guy said "Knights, heal!", that cannot be the destiny of my class.

Nevertheless: "Knights are the sexiest class in RO"! :D

Signatus pretty much expresses what I think about knights, +1!

Those are my feelings about the class as well, more or less.

As a knight that doesn't use Vanguard, you can understand my disagreement with the amount you want in that discipline :p

If you get in melee range of a target as a knight and play all your cards right you should kill them. However, if you make one mistake or they land a long cc they can choose to just flee, and will do so successfully.

I don't agree

Knight/Barb: A knight has the advantage, most barbs don't have def support, so that's a +for the knight, and PB+AO1 can help outlast UM+fulm, after that kick+feint(which I guess all knights have) and then PB will be cooled down again, ofc there are variations possible, but these spells are the backbone in a fight vs a barb for me

Knight/Mage: Warjurer is hard, mana burn and other stealers, loads of cc and maybe a summon, also quite good def, warju has advantage

Lock, kinda hard, esp with loads of mana stealers/burn, running after him with def stance and maybe def support will probably make you last till he makes a mistake though, fight is completly decided by player skills and resists.

Knight/Archer: Hunter, kinda easy petless, hugging a tree or something will atleast get you a draw, running after a skilled hunter is useless, knights should just not die to a petless hunter if not caught offguard with confuse etc, there are to many ways to keep yourself alive vs a hunter

Marks, depends, a skilled one probably won't lose, just putting def stance up and running after him(maybe other def spells to, caution, defl barrier), you should last till he makes a mistake unless he is skilled for high tricks or has very good gear.

Don't you worry, at lvl 60 you can. The point of my argumentation is not making them Vanguard spells but making them Knight only abilities, I didn't suggest a move to Shields because that tree is ok imho.

If your ranged opponent plays his cards right, you never get into melee range unless lady luck shines upon you. My point wasn't what can a knight do at melee (the answer is, the same as a barb but softer), but the difficulties he has on getting there (zerg rushes aside and door fights), because the point of the thread was discussing spring (and that's what spring used to give us, an option to get into melee).

I'm sorry, what are you trying to prove? Because whatever it is you are doing it wrong:

a) Assume all things equal between the opponents: lvl, skill, gear, isp.

b) Assume an open field encounter, specially on the hunter case. Hunters decide who and when, if you assume that the hunter is rational he'll choose to strike in open field.

c) Assume your opponent is rational and maximizes his class efficiency to beat yours (because that's what you are commenting on, 1 Vs 1 against a knight). After that you can observe if the common builds do or do not have the skills that get you killed.

d) Be honest, specially with yourself.

Having said this I think it's outrageous that you affirm that a knight has an advantage against a barb.

1. A knight offensive skills are ALL shared with a barb, except one, shield bash.

2. A barb has, potentially, more CC resistances then a knight (UM + def sup).

3. A barb has all the CCs that a knight has, and on top of that, he has 2 ranged CCs, the highest dmg/knock and the highest dmg/dizzy.

4. A barb has more speed then a knight (spring 2 equals intimidation 5), this is specially important because allows him to control the melee engagement.

5. The ratio between the avg dmg dealt and opponent's HP is more or less 1/5 for a barb, for a knight against a barb is around 1/10, if not more.

With all honesty, do you think that a barb determined to beat a knight 1 Vs 1 won't have more and better tools for it then the other way around? The experience you collect on WZ only tells one thing, barbs can skill for different setups that fit player's needs and/or enjoyability, some of them are just not that efficient against knights (or they don't know how to use them).

Still, the point of this thread was spring, and I do miss what spring gave me, a tool to close into melee.

I don't agree on barbs having a advantage because most of the setups, made for RvR, are not that effective vs a knight, even if they can decide to move out of a knights range, it doesn't mean they can kill him, atleast I have no problem at all facing barbs, in a RvR setup which is a support one, all I have as offense is kick and feint 4, balestra 1 and as buffs ao1, pb, def support and agile maneuvrers, and well, def stance, it's very usefull, if all your skills are on CD, the barb has UM or you barely have mana, you can put it up and lower the dmg taken while having a disadvantage

But yeah, the thread was about spring, and knights life certainly isn't easy vs ranged with spring, it's not near impossible either, atleast from my experiences.

You can tell whether a ranged opponent is going to let you get into melee range within the first 15 seconds of a fight. Once you've acknowledged this, given it's a one on one encounter, you should be able to escape. I was disagreeing with your statement that "1v1 knights are screwed", which to me implies are loss the majority of times.

My original point about being in melee range was 'staying' in melee range which could be done easily before with spring. So as I said you must play almost perfectly to assure the kill now.

A fight with a ranged character who is intent on kiting you should end in a stalemate. He has to keep his distance, making it much easier for you buff up and walk the other way. Unless of course you get confused, but in that case you wouldn't be able to spring either so it's irrelevant.

Your sentence seem to reinforce what I wrote, you claimed that at melee if a knight plays his cards right he can get the result, and I did not denied it, I only added that if the ranged opponent played his cards right you would never get into melee. And looking at what you wrote, it seems you agree with me.

Very well, I might admit my expression does not translate the reality of the situation. Tell me then what expression should I use when there's a disadvantageous situation and getting a draw (by escaping) is the best result one can aim?

I already understood your point, you argue that a knight has to be even more skilled now to assure his targets do not run away since he doesn't have spring to help him on that job. I say: very well, point taken, you are most probably right.

Please make now an effort to understand my point, what I miss is speed (or at least not being impaired with a constant -25% or higher penalty) to lead charges in RvR, to close into melee "beyond enemy lines", to feel the rush of facing a zerg of enemies in front of me and surviving it (well... hopefully I'm not charging alone... already happened... lots of times...). Because, and I'll be a bit selfish, that's what took me to go from barb to knight long time ago.

Well, this thread shows there are knights happy with the way they are designed, I am not. It is possible, however, that I'm just one of the few still oriented by an old paradigm regarding the knight class. An illusion no doubt fuelled by my several absences from this game since it is obvious to me that most of them are long gone.

in a pvp situation, running away = you've lost the fight and surrendered :)
and why play a class that have no chance of winning in pvp?! the only application of knights are in open wars as they can't fight alone....(from a warlock point of view)

I agree on that although, from experience, the amount of times I have dropped my 'chain' is greatly outnumbered by the amount of archers/mages that have let me get into close range. This is because unless they do so, I will not let them kill me, so they won't be able to.

I disagree with this, I don't think it's a disadvantageous situation because your situation is exactly the same as the enemy. The best result is killing your opponent, and it can be done, the most likely result if you both know your classes and surroundings is a draw. Either of you will die if you make a mistake (The archer letting you close, or you dropping your defenses while being kited).

I am fine with it requiring Onslaughts from two people for an equal charge.

If you don't have that or can't expect that I just alter my positioning. You need to space yourself further infront of your army, The enemy is less likely to run from you being alone. However there is a greater chance of being cced, but if it's anything but being frozen you are likely to be over it or dispelled by the time your army passes you. If you are immobolised I'd advise Precise Blocking until they get to you to prevent a last minute dizzy. You onslaught the army when they catch up to you, since by this point you'll be closer to their ranks you will not be far behind. You also have the option of Shield Walling them before the Onslaught or waiting until you catch up.

This does take decent timing though, but it's made possible because of the great addition that is Defensive Stance.

I disagree, unless you're talking about this kind of 'pvp situation'
http://i.imgur.com/P6r7g.gif

-which doesn't interest me anyway. I'm talking about 1 on 1 warzone encounters, winning is killing, losing is dying.

I invite you to share your epicness here.

You have all right in disagreeing, but the fact remains that a ranged class can shoot you at range (therefore the situation is not the same, and since the "best result is killing you opponent" I think that's called an "head start" of sorts) and has tools to ensure you remain so. That does not invalidate that you can turtle yourself with def stance + whatever (passives at 4 I wager) and scare out of boredom whomever is trying to kill you.

I welcome these insights from such a skilled knight. I will try to apply them more often when I play the class.

Yes, it's a formidable spell, and the knights that know how to use it are fearsome indeed.

Wow Signatus. I couldn't disagree more.

You will be pleased to note I not only don't skill Defensive Support, I don't even skill Caution.

Don't need 'em with my play style/class goals.

With ranged attackers in open field pvp you have to find cover. It's then their choice whether to close and die. Obviously, trying to chase an archer with passive speed bonus is an exercise in certain death.

Knight is mostly fine. Love it. If I could adjust it a bit, I would make offensive stance do a bit more damage so that it isn't such a crappy deal, and make intimidate more powerful. That's about it.