Are cavalary archers (except UU cavalry archers) underpowered?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I have no problem spamming CA’s on any civ as long as they get the most important upgrades (heavy cav archer, bracer, & parthian tactics). I really dislike the frame delay on generic non-Mongol cav archers in DE. It just feels awkward now. But I probably wouldn’t beg for someone to change it either, because hit-n-run on a generic unit is really unfun to play against.

I think CA’s are fine when compared to unique counterparts and also fine when compared to foot archers and unique foot archers. Only thing I feel that needs improvement is how awkward it is to transition into cav archers in the castle age because a lot of upgrades are needed.

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I think that’s the right approach - the transition from CA to HCA needs to be less jarring in my opinion so increasing the base accuracy would be nice. The regular CAs shoot like stormtroopers right now

I think the frame delay buff is too much for very high elo and reduces the variation between CA / HCA and unique cavalry archers

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Cav Archers
Cav Archers720×444 82.3 KB

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44

No, because Mangudai are faster and Kipchak have 0 frame delay, whilst Arambai do +dmg vs. buildings.

The frame delay buff makes the most sense and would not make them OP. You’re saying it’s too much for high elo, but Mangudai, which are basically HCA on steroids, are fine, so why wouldnt slightly buffed HCA be?

If anything, given the melee pathing improvements, HCA need a frame delay buff now more than ever.

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45

HCA come out of archery ranges, so they can be massed faster. Especially when compared to the Mangudai, as Kipchak TT is decent.

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No they are not a pure upgrade over HCAs. Mongols lack the last armor upgrade - they actually lose cost effective vs. a few other HCAs and they lose in equal numbers vs. Turks. SOTL did a bunch of tests on this as well. They trade this for the strong attack against siege which is fine

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47

I don’t think a slight FD buff would make them broken. Many of the handicaps come from cav archers being OP in aoe1

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48

Frame Delay is extremely powerful. Lowering it for all CA is a massive change. I disagree with it.

You can still hit and run with regular CA, and FU HCA are extremely strong and beat many UU CA. Kipchak are one example, they get shredded by HCA. I believe Mangudai lose as well.

UUs train out of Castles. One core thing that makes them unique and worthwhile is frame delay.

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You can’t hit and run knights, and hitting the critical mass of 30 to one shot a knight takes up the whole castle age.

Only in equal resources

Yeah but I’m not proposing UU level frame delay, something like 0.7 or 0.8 FD would still leave them vulnerable to counters.

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50

The Turks beat Mangudai in equal numbers as well as equal resources. I just am skeptical we really need a frame delay buff. Would rather increase the accuracy of the regular CAs to make it less reliant on Thumb Ring but reasonable people can disagree here. My view is that Fully upgraded HCAs are quite strong as is

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Well so do Tatars and Magyars, but if it’s gonna take 20 more HP, 2/3 more pierce armor and more range to beat a similar unit, I don’t think it’s that impressive

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52

I believe it’s 24 to one shot, assuming both have full upgrades, no?

If you’re fighting Knights you’ll mix a meatshield for sure. Regardless, that’s the trade-off of going CA IMO.

I’m pretty sure Mangudai lose in a 1-1 fight because they miss 2 armor. I may be wrong on this. They definitely lose vs any other CA Civ (Tatars, Turks, Magyars).

All this stat talk isn’t that important, though - I could see a little reduction, but I’m not convinced. CA have their use.

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With bodkin, it’s 6+2=8, knights with +2 have 4 armor. 8-4= 4 damage. 120HP/4= 30 unless I’m missing something

Elite Mangudai wins narrowly, the extra attack and faster fire rate gets them in the DPS. Also noticed how thumb ring has lesser effect on cav archers, only 11% faster firing resulting in 1.8 fire rate vs 1.7 of xbows

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54

mangudai don’t beat turkish cav archers!

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I know that, the change has to be small for sure. Frame delay can be OP in early Castle Age to snipe vills or even mangonels too easily.

I suggest:
Frame Delay from 10 to 8.
Accuracy from 50% to 70%.

And see how it goes…

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57

Thumb ring is a bit op in my opinion. Normal CA have 50% and then with the tech 100% accuracy. From a horse back?

Other UU cav archers have so much more base accurac, its too uneven. Better increase ca accuracy to maybe 65% as a starter.

The thumb ring tech could be changed to 95% instead of flat out set to 100%. who never misses a shot, anyway?

People where arguing that archers are op in the meta. A 5% accuracy nerf would be maybe just right.

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58

Yeah I’ve recommended this as well. Always wondered why it was 100%.

Also i like the idea of flattening the difference between pre and post thumb ring for CA

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59

There was a game on T90’s stream yesterday where a bunch of crossbows were losing a castle age fight against a bunch of cav archers. He said something like “man those cav archers are sick”, and he meant sick as in strong rather than close to death.

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Cavalry Archers melt Crossbow. Double the HP and more damage output. Makes sense - I think CA are in a pretty good place myself.

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Is it though? Thumb ring boosts archers more than CA. Does this not mean they have equal dps? Nevermind that CA take more dmg from more sources.

CA have to tech blood lines and more importantly thumb ring to have said stats…

There are clear benefits to both the archer and CA lines… But you certainly pay for those CA benefits…

You can’t start massing CA until castle age, and you have to have spent 420food (on top of the usual archer tech) before CA are viable and then you have that huge HCA tech

Xbows can get away without thumb ring and one could argue CA need ballistics more than archers do…

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