[935] Boulder-Dasher Knight, Siege weapon.

As the name suggests, this guide is about Boulder's as a part of the Knight's arsenal.

Before reading further, this guide does not cover using Boulders in Knight vs Knight/Archer/Builder combat.

Another thing is, this is not a strategy to have in play all the time, but is a good opener, due to the lack of coins to buy bombs with, and the enemies relatively weak opening defense.

The Knight has many things available to him, Bombs of multiple varieties, mines, kegs, trampolines and to some extent drills. But there exists a piece of equipment, that has grown dusty from disuse, this is the boulder:



And it adds versatility to the knight that you would not believe.

Behold, the scourge of knights everywhere:




These double doors will deter the majority if Knights (well, strictly speaking the majority of Knights who know that They are not breaking through those with their swords.)
But, this is the beauty of the Boulder-Dasher, those rocky, versatile heavy weapons, bust through stone and wooden doors faster than a shark through a Builder.

Boulders will slow the carrier by the same amount as a flag when held in your hands, however, a boulder can be put in your inventory, doing this will cancel the movement decrease.

The only drawback is it removes the Knights niche as the bomb-jumper, as a boulder takes four slots of inventory space to store, keep in mind though; a single Boulder-Dasher can absolutely demolish an unprepared base.

-----------------------A little more info about this play-style-----------------------

The main thing that adds effectiveness to this, is that a builder can often feel secure behind a single set of Stone doors.



-Hastily emoted example...


The Boulder will crush this in a matter of seconds.






and because the Builder is so sure of the stone doors, they usually have very little else protecting it*.

and you are now free to run home, prize in tow, rubble in your wake.

*Flag/Hall.

--------------------------Now finally, the how-to section.-------------------------------

The best thing about the Boulder is that it is a cheap-effective stalemate breaker. it can be made at any Builder Workshop/Workbench ever, commonly costing 30/35 stone to make.

Once you've picked it up, pocket it, and be on your merry way.

This is important stuff:

1) Never hug a wall and throw the Boulder, it won't do anything, you need at least half a block between you and your target object to do damage.

2) Where you put your cursor is critical. If you have it too close, the game will make you drop it instead of throw. Example;

= Cursor.






I have found through trial and error that having your cursor at this distance is optimal and will yield good results 92% of the time. with the remainder 8% being misfires.

3) With this strategy Your allies are more dangerous than your enemies. All swords can destroy a boulder quickly, and trust me, there are plenty o' new bloods out there jabbing doors, so it's best to do this without assistance.
(There is nothing more annoying than finally getting to the point you need to be with your boulder, only to have some impatient fry stab it to pieces.)

4) Experienced Builders Can and will grab your Boulder before you, Thus saving their precious ground doors. their isn't really a way to counter this, so just try and avoid breaking a door with a competent Builder inside of it.

5) (Last one, I promise) You can also destroy doors laid on their sides by jumping then throwing it down.

Just remember, this strategy will get you in, but it's your combat skill that'll be gettin' you out.

-------------------------------------A little somethin' else---------------------------

As a fun gimmick, the Boulder-Dasher has the upper hand as a rusher in occasion, as if he is killed above his opponent, the Boulder drops on and often kills or severely wounds your killer, this is often an effective way of breaking a single enemies assault on your base, not to mention, it's hilarious.


----------------------------Countering the Boulder-Dasher---------------------------

Don't build ground doors. (This really is quite literally, the best strategy to stop the Knight. and yet I see very few cases of it.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So their you have it, an additional option to taking the enemies fort by storm as a Siege-Soldier.

If I made any mistakes, or you would like something added, please let me know.

-Darksteel

 

I always forget about boulders. I'm also amazed that I have yet to see anyone load a boulder into a catapult. I've been playing the new KAG for several months now and I haven't seen that happen once. Which of course raises the question, Why haven't I done it?

 

Because it costs more stone than what you get from tent.

 

The reason is because it's not all to effective, the Boulder has a lot of damage, but your not getting it back after you fire it.

...Also, I find Catas are usually filled with my teammates.

 

I love using boulders <3
Go go earthbenders!

 

I could never get the hang of boulders. I hated throwing them in the earlier builds so I really never utilized them. I may give them a try again. :D

 

This looks epic. Boulder plus sheild stun would be a nice way to shock the daylights out of your opponents early game.

 

Thats cool.

 

Sorry, but this is the most annoying usage for boulders. There are already enough Boulder Ninjas (Boulder carrying archers) and Knights, who destroy the doors with one single very close throw of a builder and capture your base.

There are already discussions on the forum requesting this feature to be nerfed, and imho it should be removed, because it makes no sense and ruins the game. Boulders should be devastating when they are thrown by a catapult or dropped from high above because then they have a huge momentum.
Throwing it one hex away to cause so much damage is just silly.

 

But the whole game is silly. No I hear you about the mechanic but at also I don't think sheild stun is viable anymore either. Or i'm doing it wrong.

 

But I get 30 stone as builder on spawn and it costs 30, generally. (Some servers raise this slightly but the exception isn't the rule.)

 

Perhaps its different on the sevrers you play on, but generally its 35 Stone in CTF and 30 in TTH.

 

I made a note of that for a mod I'm working on. Thanks for the info.

 

EDIT: Fucked up, thought this thread was something else.

But still, I played two matches yesterday and boulders didn't seem to damage doors or blocks when thrown at all.

 

Hmm, this is a very interesting tactic. However, I have found that when I try to do this, the boulder doesn't do anything. I should've used this when I single handedly took out an entire flag fortress, but I was stuck with 2 stone doors.

 

It works. I use it on the CTF map where boulders spawn in the beginning. Very great tactic for the initial game push. When there are only 1 or 2 other knights and there is only 1 or 2 doors keeping you from getting that flag.

 

I've seen you use this infuriating strategy before. It's something I'll have to look into.

 

Something worth noting, is that you can stash boulders in your inventory, they just take up all four spaces. Thus early-game in TTH, where a knight wouldn't have any bombs anyways, boulder rushing is probably the best strategy. They could pocket one to keep it safe while they fight off the initial knight wall, and it also removes the movement penalty for holding it (until you take it back out). You could also just do this to carry two boulders at once instead.

Though, there is one very simple counter to this tactic: Skydoors. A smart builder who knows that putting doors on ground-level = bad will completely negate the effectiveness of knights with boulders, which means this tactic is still best used by archers IMO.


I reeeeeally hope boulders get nerfed some day, so that they are required to build momentum from falling/being shot out of something in order to cause so much damage to doors. (though if this fix was made, it'd be nice if they did damage to normal blocks as well, so it'd be viable to fling them out of catapults)

 

... Do you even Boulder?

Just gonna say this; flung from a cata, it damages stone blocks, back wall, workshops and wood blocks.

Also your first half about movement thing, I covered that in the OP.

 

Surprised this isn't a #banflagraccoon2014 thread, since I kinda popularized this.