Cavaliers: Better than I thought??

[atm]

Looking for some tips and advice on building a cavalier. I have thousands of hours in this game and been sleeping on them for this entire time, until I by chance mixed cavalier in with a merc's levels, and was blown away. I am wondering if cavaliers can be even more awesome than what I ended up with.

What I went with was 9 levels of Gendarme on a Paladin 8, Divine Hunter 3. (This allowed him to have an infinite-smiting ridable wolf pet, the luck domain for Bit of Luck [which was just a bonus, not really the goal], L2 paladin spells for Bestow Grace and Bless Weapon as the party buffs I was needing at the time).

I picked the Order of the Lion, which allows him to use For the King once per battle, giving everyone +10 to hit _and_ damage for a round (i.e. your charisma bonus, and the merc was a high cha half elf), which is utter bonkers. On unfair you have to have a high damage party anyway, so a +10 for a round just melts entire pulls. It's like a super-charged Guarded Hearth that only lasts a round but can be used every battle (and it stacks with guarded hearth, smite, and challenge). To my mind, this makes a Cavalier potentially on par with any support character you can name, while also being a very decent fighter in their own right. In fairness I think For the King is a competence bonus, so doesn't stack with bard, but I don't like using a party slot on a bard anyway (skald is just better in most cases).

What other cavalier tricks and combos are there that I have been missing for all these thousands of hours?

[snuggleform]

From what I understand if you build around that one feat that doubles damage on charge, initiative, and have pounce, you will do well as any mount riding build. Getting off double damage on your full around attack right off the bat is about as alpha strikey as it gets.

[atm]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

From what I understand if you build around that one feat that doubles damage on charge, initiative, and have pounce, you will do well as any mount riding build. Getting off double damage on your full around attack right off the bat is about as alpha strikey as it gets.

I ended up not taking much by way of mounted feats, but I did take spirited charge. The one thing that stopped me going hard out on charge is that charge is only going to be possible half the time, or even less in certain places. I am most of the way through the Treasure of the Midnight Isles DLC, and it strikes me how rarely you are able to get a clean charge, since they put so many pulls behind a protruding corner, or a piece of debris, or on a platform. Once the fight starts, charge is also hard to pull off, since your own party are probably going to be in the way (I have a lot of meleers). It's one of the things that put me off trying cavalier for all this time, but I am pleased to see they do have other things to offer.

[snuggleform]

I was reading a guide that uses the cavalier order that debuffs will when you kill something, it helps land your CC spells. Undead order I think it is? He used it on unfair with Seelah massacring on a charge to help set up for Ember's enchantment spells.

[Azure-Ghost]

Reach weapons or size increase help with the blocking issue (a character with reach weapon can charge someone who is engaged by a character with less reach without issues)
Featherstep or similar effects that allow you to ignore terrain issues can help in some situations too.
Alchemists can provide "Walk through Space" (lvl 6 spell for alchemists) to teleport around as a move action alternatively use the travel domain power if you use a class with domains.