Pikeman Archive

Alright, I think we need be clear on this. So for whoever get's correspondent can't present this as the first thing needed to be fixed.

I believe the current Toughness issue our 4 as opposed to other proffesion's 10. Any more important issue's?

You can't compare pikeman with other brawler classes based on ONE small difference in the skill mods. If this is how you want it, then why not justgive every brawler class the same skill mods for every skill? Why not just give them the same specials also? Hell, why not just give them the same weapon stats, speed, and HAM cost? Why not? Because they're NOT meant to be the same. Every class has its ups and downs, and pikeman is far from the worse brawler class.

Ah and thats why it needs a little balacing. Other classes cry nerf and we got nerfed in beta. And it sucks now, but it was way better back then. Who is the correspondent anyways, do we even have one??? Here's some problemos...

Long Vibro Axe costs being to high (HAM costs that is)

Bleed shot having a 100% succes rate, so it makes ranged UBER powerful... at least give it a 50-50 chance

GIve knockdown a cool-down time to all classes, so you can only use knockdown every 10 seconds or so... otherwise knockdown is really stupid, melee vs melee is a knockdown competition...

More posture bonsuses, we need more defense vs posture changes and crap like that

Why can an unarmed beat a guy with a huge ass pole? Never heard of that one... If what both masters I should the upper hand right?

More weapons/better weapons

give ALL melee speed and ranged defense bounses

Think thats about all for now...

Okay another good one:Male polearm sweep 2 knockdown someone, and then hit them with damage equivelent to what polearmhit1 does, to give us a somewhat decent move... like polearmhit2 does hit stun hit, polearmsweep2 should do sweep hit, and cost more Action of course....

The HAM costs on Long Vibro Axe are perfect. A weapon that powerful, should not have low HAM costs. I think the Long Vibro Axe is perfect the way it is. Yes, you can't queue up 20 polearmhit2s like one can do with a reinforced combat staff, but that makes you have to develop a different technique and use your other moves, so I feel it is for the better.

As far as HAM costs to the polearm weapons - from what I can tell it's the same for all elite melee weapons. Unarmed complain about the vibrokucklers, swordsman complain about their HAM costs, and pikeman complain about theirs. Seems pretty balanced to me. Not sure about the fencer weapons or the fact that unarmed can easily remove the knucklers and use the special moves, then put them back on again.

"You can't compare pikeman with other brawler classes based on ONE small difference in the skill mods."

I think he just brought this up because its a common belief that the +4 to toughness in the brawler tree for polearms is a mistake as every class gets +10 except polearms. It may be that pikemens specials are better so they somehow make up for the toughness, but until I get to master polearm and see it for myself( which seems like a long time coming ) or the devs say otherwise I going to keep on thinking its a mistake.

The irony is that of all the weapons types available in SWG, the polearm (based on its historical use) ought to be best suited for defense. Fighting with a staff or polearm is less about damaging your opponent than preventing him from being able damage you.

If I were designing the pikeman profession, I would give them the best melee defense in the game (except Jedi, and -possibly- TKA), make their weapons quicker but much less damaging, and give them mostly defensive special moves with a couple of high damage specials that recycled very slowly.

I don't know that a profession based on defense would work very well with the current experience system, but that's what I envision from a staff fighter.

We're the only class with a uge negative to hit in melee combat.

We're masters of melee.. this does not warrant -58 to strike at all times with a long vibro axe, where TKAs with VKs always get a bonus.. give me a break.

Actually I don't believe that polearms are the best defensive weapons. In fact it is the SCARIEST weapon in history. IMO the order of defense should be TKA, Fencer, Pikeman, Swordsman. For obvious reasons, unarmed fighters emphasize defense over all as they don't have quite leathal capabilites as others. Fencers and single bladed weapons are signficantly faster than most weapons and thus have an advantage in blocking. Two handed weapons... deal damage. Now on to polearms. While it can be said that with such a lenghty weapon one could theoretically block more and easier, that isn't what a polearm is used for. Spinning a very lengthy weapon at high speeds will create massive confusion on the target and fear as to how the blow will land. This also is good for defense as the constant momentum will aid the normally unwiedly weapons (because of size) to a position to defend. This is especially true since a polearm's true strength is it's reach.

1)Raise HAM costs -Yes, I know it's actually a bad thing, but it makes a LOT more sense. Of the weapons this one requires the most movement (spinning and balancing issues). Do you have any idea how tiring it is to spin around with a weapon like that and keep in balance? Where as you can just thrust with a fencing weapon. This, IMO is the ultimate balancing factor that makes sense to tone down the strenghts of Pikemen

2)As I said before, the defensive abilites of a polearm only really shine when in fluid motion. As such they should get higher bonuses while doing moves (or really any round in which they do a move). If they are doing nothing but auto-attack the bonus will not apply. This of course is offset by the raised HAM costs.

Also through using spinning moves and circular motions, pole-arms can generate very large crush-type forces on what the ends come into contact with.

Think of a wrench. The farther out you hold the wrench, the more force is generated at the other end for turning the bolt, making your energy requirement less, but still exerting more forcethan if you tried to turn it by hand.

Pole-arms seem to work that way in reverse. If I swing a 6 foot pole at you, its going to hurt a hell of alot more if I hit you with the very end, than if I hit you somewhere in the middle or near my hands where I'm holding it.

The only thing I truly wish for, is some type of flashy show-off type animation for all melee classes.. meant solely for RP or show-off reasons. (You know, pole-armers would whip their poles all around in different directions rapidly, fencers would slice through the air quickly.. (maybe even leaving an out-line of their initials?) things of that nature). I suggested it in beta but apparantly noone though it was needed.

~Sskar :~Þ

I would say that it is quite a toss up between polearm and unarmed being the most defensive, seeing that the point of polearm is to harvest a lot of power, but also to keep one at distance. This is often depicted in many kung-fu movies (relating to them, even though they at times exaggerate, but mostly hold true to the specific style), they are often seen fighting/fending off enemies welding blades (knifes, swords, etc.), but I also agree that many martial art styles greatly emphasize conditioning of the body parts and many different styles of counter-attacks.

A Pikeman by definition is a defensive fighter. I'm just not sure how the Pikeman of SWG actually fits that role.........