Confidence

Is it me or does it seem like you do better when you act more confident? Several times I've had enemy knights just flat-out run away with me after I've been playing well for a while.

 

Of course.

If you just wait for the enemy to strike, protected behind your shield, you're an easy target and will get killed easily. And if you rush to a noob he'll run away because they don't want to die !

A LOT of noobs do that. They just wait and never attack. It's extremely irritating when your teammates are cowards who don't follow the rest of the team and let you die alone.


(Also, playing an "attack builder" is an extremely good way to make your team win. Instead of waiting for the flag in your base, you go to the front line with the knights, but always at a safe distance from the fighting, and you build towers, doors, traps etc. or destroy the ennemy's buildings. Everything to slow the other team and defend yours ! But that requires not being afraid to die and be "confident".)

 

A strong offensive at the start of the game can often win it very quickly. That said, you must pay attention to the progress your assault is making. If it slows down too much, it's quite likely you're being ground into a pulp, and it might be a good idea to choose a more viable battleground.
Confidence is also very important when working as part of a team. the knight+archer duo works fantastically, but the knight must force themselves upon the enemy. That doesn't mean constant jabbing, but forcing them to come out from behind their shield when you're ready for it makes for an easy kill: arrow+jab+arrow/jab=kill.
Similarly, when working with other knights, you must learn passive-aggressive play. You don't have to actively try to land a hit on them while they're giving you the attention, you simply have to distract them so that an ally can get behind.
HOWEVER: it is nearly ALWAYS better to survive rather than kill, and hence playing the dancer with a couple of enemy knights to distract them while support comes is great. DON'T try to take everything on yourself. DO support your allies if they make the first move.

 

I used to have confidence, until knight combat was broken. Now my offensive playing results only in "TINKTINKTINKTINK".

 

Sucha winja!

 

Those are the sound effects of a knight that refuses to use charged slashes. Slashing is far more deadly than a simple jab; I've often had 3 kills as a result of a charged slash. My best slash was able to take out 4 units spilling out through a structure opened by a hasty enemy builder.

 

No, that's the sound of a charged slash landing on an enemy, but not breaking their shield.

I only ever slash anymore because even though annoying, it will actually work more effectively than jab, which now it seems never lands at all. Jabs are impossible for me to land because of lag and just not making contact because of how messed up knight combat is.

 

I on the other hand hardly ever use slashes any more, because they literally only work half the time; and when they don't work you can find yourself in a very bad position.
But yeah its amusing how many new players will just stay in a corner with their shield up... they make themselves so vulnerable while offering no support to the team.

 

I on the other hand haven't noticed much difference since I got back into playing. If anything, it's got better!
...imo...

 

*Unsheathes pitchfork*

 

Bloody Peasant!
*Loads self into catapult*

 

With the slashing some people just seem to hit you and/or other players and it is like they have a shield all around them -_-
Yet you can't even lay a finger on them.

 

The knight combat is incredibly random... that's why I always play as an archer. When I do play as a knight, the main ways to score kills to to leap over enemy units. From what I've seen, they only expect you to be in front of them, so you can get them down to about 1 heart before they figure out what's going on. As for archers, you can be rather aggressive with them, provided there are enough trees. On some servers, the builders will just build a single wall at the edge of the build zone, leaving the tent unguarded. If there are tress nearby, or there is a heavy rain of arrows upon their wall, you can easily cross over. Confidence doesn't have as much to do with your skill as your tactics.

 

A little morale goes a long way in a fight. A happy army is a confident army. A confident army is a winning army. Morale is just as deciding in a battle as the skill of it's soldiers.

 

I'm usually a balls to the wall player except when faced with an overwhelming amount of noobs. Then I hide in a corner as they all try to rush me with light jabs and kill them with a jab of my own. Against good players, of course, this works less and usually gets me killed...

 

Like any team game, a team playing as a team will usually beat a team made up of better skilled individuals. In terms of knight combat I definitely think a few kills get you back into the swing when you've been playing like shit, if I can keep a roll going then I'll keep playing knight, but I'm usually rubbish and stick to my attacking archer/builder roles.

 

As a knight, I'm usually dead when I have to resort to jabs. It's too random for me. I'm much better with backing off a bit and slashing--and that's how I get most of my kills. The mobility that you get when you're not using your shield or charging a slash is surprising and it can throw off enemies, deny their slashes, leading to your own slashes. The downside is the enemy can be saved by reinforcements if you take too long.

I think, ideally, knights should only die when outnumbered, or to bombs, or when focused on by enemy archers, or maybe to those blasted traps, or when your bombjump goes wrong... etc. But in a perfect 1v1 knight duel with no extra lives, the best course of action is to dance around for the perfect position to slash the enemy. The only time I consciously go for jabbing is when I'm not fighting knights or when I know the enemy has committed to a slash too soon or when I'm stuck in a foxhole.

Anyone have a different experience with jabbing?

But yeah, confidence is great when you have an advantage and you know it. Also, it's really frustrating when I go to jump to the other side of an enemy knight and my ally does the exact same thing.

 

Ah I remember one time after killing the enemy knight without dieing they just said, "Fuck it, this guy is hard"
And avoided me. Made me very confident.

 

Hell yeah. I use jabbing all the time. The trick is to jump on top of your enemy, jab him in the back, then jump off. He's either gonna take a heart's damage, or clash with you. Jabbing is also very usefull in the situation you discribed when two knights are dancing around trying to get the right slash timing. You can surprise him by not backing off, and jabbing him right before he tries to slash you.

 

Ah, confidence. I'll share a little anecdote of mine.

I found myself on a server with Downburst, an extremely swell knight. We had been doing quite well, winning our games -- at one point we were able to steamroll the opposing side with a 100-unit lead.
The next game starts -- and the most amazing thing happens:

Downburst and I rush red base, I as an archer, he as a knight. Downburst successfully retrieved the flag from 13 players who hadn't switched from builder, and to speed up the story, I was able to escape with the flag. This gave me a huge amount of confidence, and the next game I was able to pull a 6:1 KDR playing as an aggresive archer.​

All this made me want to do one thing: Bring back playing archer in close quarters. Not playing "in the pocket", but full out CQC (Close Quarters Combat).

Confidence helps your ability to play tremendously.