Will cavalry become obsolete in hardmode?

[Straws]

When I first joined this mod I decided that I wanted to go pure cav because they seemed to be the rarest class. Then I started to learn more and more about cavalries disadvantage's (map pool, massive stat disadvantage, xp stuff etc) and started having doubts, but stayed strong even through 0.2.9. Then 0.3.0 came out along with hardmode, which is filled with ranged (which will in turn slow the horse, rendering cav useless). I am now having serious doubts as whether to remain aiming for 0/2/4.

Currently I am thinking I should switch to 0/4/2, because I am already 0/0/2. I would really like to remain cavalry because although in my eyes they are the weakest of the 3 classes, I would like to remain playing it. If I reach a point while being 0/2/4 of doing nothing but herding for the first minute of a wave...well I can't see myself playing that character.

What are your opinions community? And am I the only one who is having doubts?

P.S. I joined a hard server and watched (spec) snipers and commando's alike get absolutely obliterated on the first wave, then played when there were under 6 people (apparently extra bots don't spawn then?) and herded for the archers.
I went out of my way to keep their gaming experience top priority, while still learning about hardmode. Don't yell at me for knowing this while being level 25 please.

[Lav]

You are not the only one with the doubts, and there are many threads about cavalry already, in suggestions, in bugs and in cavalry sections of the forum. I wrote my arguments on cavalry in another thread (now locked by admins because it degraded into a series of emotional outbursts).

So while I fully support your notion that cavalry should be buffed and that dev team is doing a very poor job with class balance at the moment, there's no need to create tons of threads dedicated to essentially the same topic.

[Straws]

I'm not so much saying that cavalry should be buffed, I'm more saying that because of how hardmode is built* cavalry will become nigh impossible to play. In my eyes this is an unavoidable event unless one of the following things happen:
1) Hardmode's core* is changed.
2) Horse speed nerf thing is removed.
3) Ignore it and see how things play out.

I might say more in another thread about my views on cavalry stats and strengths vs. the other two classes, but I'm trying to keep this thread less about balance and more about the stuff in OP.

*One of the reasons hardmode is so hard is because of the number of ranged units. Ranged units means those with 2 feet on the ground need to be wary of their posistion/shields posistion, but it also hurts cavalry because of the horse's speed after taking damage. The riders will also need to take the normal shield procautions into account ontop of being careful with their steeds.

[Pandabomber]

With everyone and their mother having a throwing weapon or some kind of ranged weapon on hard mode (I've only seen the first wave), there should be some kind of change. Anything short of a Charger cannot take hits at all. Even just doing a hit and run with couching is risky when throwing axes are being hurled at your face with amazing accuracy.

Of course, it's going to take some time to pull enough data together with testing. Hard mode seems over-tuned even for the commandos and snipers.

[Fingus]

I wrote my arguments on cavalry in another thread (now locked by admins because it degraded into a series of emotional outbursts).

I take some responsibility for this. So I will try to redeem myself by saying something constructive this time. Hardmode is HARD, that being said Cavalry is somewhat of a "disruptive" class for this mod. Having started out as pure cav (now 2. tier inf and 2. tier cav) I started to realize what you are all talking about, but also the fact that this mod clearly favours the other classes. I think this is easily explained by the more cooperative play style of foot soldiers versus the egotistical "one man tank". Even so I still believe Cavalry has a place in this mod, because of it's excellent support capabilities. Remember, we are the beta testers and don't count on cav getting much love in coming patches.

Don't give up on cav, in time we will be strong enough to overthrow the evil overlords that supresses us.

[Blondin]

I guess that cav have to become more teamwork oriented, cav is a fantastic tool to lure the bots and bring large group of bots far frome your teammate.

I'm not a cav but i have a pony, i didn't use my pony anymore but with hard mod i found that my pony was usefull.
Ok i have less kills but with pony i can lure bots and so my teammate can kill bots small group by small group.
It's always a satisfaction when i see an archer attacked by a group and then i come and all bots follow me leaving the archer alone.

Cav could become even more usefull with hard mod, we will see...

[Hypernoma]

If you are playing with a smaller group, it's an absolute godsend to have 2 or 3 cav players on! Snipers can pick them off and we infantry can engage them in small numbers and not have 20 pikes stuck in our face. Good job cav!!

[OneEyE]

In Hard mode cav is the most important class in my opinion. I love using my trained pony on hard mode. Btw i need that donator pony  :o

[FinKone]

Having players on horse back in hard core is very much needed.  The only thing you guys have to worry about is getting shot by rangers - they are just all around nasty.  The axes that the other bots throw ain't that bad to deal with if ya' got some riding skill.  Every now and again though they do throw that one that ya' just can't get away from...

So in Short - No.  I'm not cav, but am sure happy when a skilled cav player shows up.