Pikeman Archive
Thread: Preliminary Pikeman CU guide
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Gunman21
Fri Apr 15, 2005 2:02 am
#1
Open for additions/subtractions/revisions. This is a strictly preliminary compilation of what we know so far in the CU and how things should work. It is open to change based on what we learn through playtesting and player's opinions once it hits live.
Thanks for reading and commenting! Please let me know of any suggestions you have to make this better.
Welcome to the pikeman profession!
This guide is meant to familiarize players with the pikeman profession as is stands in the new Combat Upgradeand answer questions players might have about the profession.
What is the pikeman profession?
Pikeman is a defensive profession that revolves around reducing your opponent’s ability to deal damage. This is mostly accomplished through the Intimidate and Warcry specials. The secondary role of pikeman is melee crowd control, which is accomplished through the use of area attacks and knockdowns.
While pikeman is a fun and viable profession, getting the most out of pikeman is best achieved by making a full combat template. ‘Stacking’ pikeman with one or more of the other melee professions will grant additional speed and accuracy bonuses when using pikeman weapons. Pikeman is also a good profession to compliment a range profession, giving you a good mix of abilities from both a melee and ranged standpoint.
Pikeman Pre-Requisites
In order to become a pikeman, you must first have the polearms 4 and two-handed 4 boxes that are located in the brawler profession.
Pikeman Trainers
The pikeman trainers can be found at the following locations:
Planet CityWaypoint
Corellia Kor Vella -3412 3084
Talus Dearic522 –2934
Tatooine Mos Espa -29312386
Rori Narmle-5278 –2328
NabooTheed -5375 4311
Pikeman Progression
Once you have novice pikeman, choosing how to advance within the profession depends on your preference.
If you go up the stances tree, you will be given additional speed that will help you attack faster. Stances also offers better sweep attacks that can be used for knocking down opponents. Going up the offensive techniques line first will grant you area attacks that are useful for when multiple mobs agro you. Taking the defensive line first will increase your defenses, as well as give you the profession defining specials intimidate and warcry.
You can choose to go up a single tree first or go through each tree evenly. Either way, the choice is up to you based on how you want to level.
Pikeman Specials
Here is a list and description of the specials found within the pikeman profession. Some contain comments on how to best use the special.
"Improved" and "Advanced" notates that there are multiple versions of the same special, with the "improved" and "advanced" specials being better (yet more costly) than previous versions. These specials are found within the higher levels of the profession.
Intimidate/Improved Intimidate – Intimidate is the profession defining special of pikeman. This attack reduces your target’s damage output. Pikeman should enter the fight intimidating opponents and keep them intimidated throughout the fight. Improved intimidate reduces opponent damage by a higher amount.
Warcry/Improved Warcry – These specials slow your opponent's attack speed. Usefull in all fights as slower damage output by opponent= less damage taken by you.Improved warcry has a more powerfull effect and longer duration.
Leghit/Improved Leghit – targets the legs of your opponent. These specials are used mainly for when your opponent has armor on other areas of their body but not on the legs, resulting in higher damage. Improved Leghit deals more damage.
Improved Sweep/Advanced Sweep – These attacks do little damage but have a chance to knock your opponent down. These specials are very useful for crowd control, in either buying time to run/heal, or getting an edge on your opponent by having a few free hits while they recover. Advanced Sweep has a better chance to knock your opponent down.
Spin / Improved Spin – These are area attacks that deal damage to all opponents within range. Very useful for when you have multiple opponents attacking you at once who are within melee range. Improved spin deals more damage.
Impale/Improved Impale – These attacks are single target attacks, but deal higher damage to that target than spin attacks. Many pikeman will use these attacks as their default attacks. Improved Impale deals more damage.
Stunning Blow/Improved Stunning Blow – These attacks prevent your opponent from regaining ability points. This is a very powerful special when used at the proper time of a fight, usually when your opponent is low on ability points. Improved stunning blow has a longer effect.
Pikeman Armor
Pikeman Armor
If you arn't familiar with the armor system and when you can wear armor, you cannot wear armor untill you pick up a novice elite profession. It is there where you can figure out what armor certification you have. You can have either Assault, Battle, or Recon armor, based off of profession.
Pikeman are certified to use Battle Armor. Battle armor provides an even level of protection to both kinetic and energy damage types, which make it a good all around armor. Your local armor smith can custom tailor your armor for you based on your preferences, such as if you wanted to have more energy protection or more kenetic protection.
The following armor types are considered Battle Armor:
- Padded
- Marauder
- Bone
- Kashyyykian Black Mountain
- Ithorian Defender
- RIS (Quest Armor)
- Rebel Battle (factional armor)
- Stormtrooper (factional armor)
Pikeman in PvE/PvP
Pikeman is a melee profession, and is thus relegated to front line combat. There is no right way to play the profession and no wrong way to play. Play in whatever way gives you the most fun. Use whatever specials you wantwhenever you want to use them, but mix it up so that you're not doing the same things every fight. As you play more, you'll learn how to use certain specials at the time that will give you the most benefit.
Tip:
Make sure to group whenever possible, with whomever possible...you can solo if you want to, but by grouping, you will increase the amount of xp gained over a set period of time and also be able to take on more challenging mobs. You want to make sure that you have a combat medic and/or doctor in your group, as healing is essential.
Message Edited by Gunman21 on 05-02-2005 05:39 PM
WarWidow
Fri Apr 15, 2005 5:19 am
#2
Excellent info Gunman21. I just have one question. I was looking at the armor abilities for pikeman. What am I to do with my composite armor I have now that is designed for pikeman that cost me millions? 
XwingRogue3
Fri Apr 15, 2005 7:03 am
#3
Nice job gunman. Can't wait to see the full potential of these attacks at Master. I have a feeling that it will be fun though.
TheCore
Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:10 am
#4
"Stacking’ pikeman with one or more of the other melee professions will grant additional speed and accuracy bonuses when using pikeman weapons."
does that say anything about the future of our cap suits.
<<sorry for the copy paste my quote post button's gone today 
>>
>>
PrinceofDorne
Fri Apr 15, 2005 11:29 pm
#5
hey this looks awesome gunman... u might want to mention something about how any melee profession can use the attacks of another... i realize that this stacking feature hasn't been fully determined just yet and that there might be restrictions involved such as certain weapon types being required for certain attacks but, it's definately something to consider when templating.
my 2 cents
... nice work there man...
on a side note it's refreshing to come to this forum where everyone seems stoked and interested in the cu... i hate all the doom and gloom posts out there... even if i do share some of they're concerns. i guess us pikemen/women are just glad to see some balancing happen as we are currently the "melee underdogs".
cheers,
my 2 cents
... nice work there man...on a side note it's refreshing to come to this forum where everyone seems stoked and interested in the cu... i hate all the doom and gloom posts out there... even if i do share some of they're concerns. i guess us pikemen/women are just glad to see some balancing happen as we are currently the "melee underdogs".
cheers,
Gunman21
Sat Apr 16, 2005 1:20 am
#6
Absolutely. Once the rules are deturmines on this (Right now there arn't any restrictions but that is subject to change) I'll be happy to add this.
PrinceofDorne wrote:
hey this looks awesome gunman... u might want to mention something about how any melee profession can use the attacks of another... i realize that this stacking feature hasn't been fully determined just yet and that there might be restrictions involved such as certain weapon types being required for certain attacks but, it's definately something to consider when templating.
DomMantell
Sat Apr 16, 2005 8:11 am
#8
I had the chance to play weaponsmith today on TC3(Gorath)
The Electric Polearm requires an Advanced Reinforcement Core. The Adv Reinforcement Core can be replaced with an Acklay bone, so we can finally have some acklay weapons
On the downside, the electric polearm is pretty weak, so there's no reason to use it if you're a master pikeman when a good VL will easily exceed the damage that the electric polearm can do.
The Electric Polearm requires an Advanced Reinforcement Core. The Adv Reinforcement Core can be replaced with an Acklay bone, so we can finally have some acklay weapons
On the downside, the electric polearm is pretty weak, so there's no reason to use it if you're a master pikeman when a good VL will easily exceed the damage that the electric polearm can do.
chindi2k2
Sat Apr 16, 2005 10:28 am
#9
I'm playing a Mswords/pike/brawler 4x4x medic on TC-ep3 at the moment , wearing adv marauder battle armour and mostly using a NSEL. Fighting at Fort Tusken i'm not taking much damage at all , although the warlord for example is about lvl 60 where i am lvl 80. The days of 1-2 hit kills seem to have gone , even on commoners. I'm not sure if the sword specials are working correctly with a pike yet , i'm still a bit lost without the combat queue. I have a feeling some of the specials are still not animating correctly as it seems to be an auto attack animation.
The Tuskens get up very quickly from a KD but the improved intimidate and warcry seem to stick well. Also the nutrient injection at 4xxx medic gives me an extra 400 health so is pretty useful , although the bacta shots are stillvery weak in my opinion.
chindi2k2
Sat Apr 16, 2005 2:03 pm
#10
aekeem wrote:
chindi2k2 wrote:
I'm playing a Mswords/pike/brawler 4x4x medic on TC-ep3 at the moment , wearing adv marauder battle armour and mostly using a NSEL. Fighting at Fort Tusken i'm not taking much damage at all , although the warlord for example is about lvl 60 where i am lvl 80. The days of 1-2 hit kills seem to have gone , even on commoners. I'm not sure if the sword specials are working correctly with a pike yet , i'm still a bit lost without the combat queue. I have a feeling some of the specials are still not animating correctly as it seems to be an auto attack animation.
The Tuskens get up very quickly from a KD but the improved intimidate and warcry seem to stick well. Also the nutrient injection at 4xxx medic gives me an extra 400 health so is pretty useful , although the bacta shots are stillvery weak in my opinion.
try pvp and tell me 2 hit kills are gone
also could you tell us how your nsel converted? from the gear i had it appeared we should all start buying up all the uber vibrolances we can find cause they converted to way higher damage
Message Edited by aekeem on 04-16-2005 12:51 PM
Yeah i've been reading about PvP being a bit odd heh. As to weapons , i've just got blue frog ones as i'm on TC-ep3. From other posts though it seems that VLs and NSELs are the way to go (VL and NSEL are master level weapons).Current highstat LVAsseem to have been made weaker than agarden variety VL / NSEL.
aekeem
Sun Apr 17, 2005 12:42 am
#11
chindi2k2 wrote:
I'm playing a Mswords/pike/brawler 4x4x medic on TC-ep3 at the moment , wearing adv marauder battle armour and mostly using a NSEL. Fighting at Fort Tusken i'm not taking much damage at all , although the warlord for example is about lvl 60 where i am lvl 80. The days of 1-2 hit kills seem to have gone , even on commoners. I'm not sure if the sword specials are working correctly with a pike yet , i'm still a bit lost without the combat queue. I have a feeling some of the specials are still not animating correctly as it seems to be an auto attack animation.
The Tuskens get up very quickly from a KD but the improved intimidate and warcry seem to stick well. Also the nutrient injection at 4xxx medic gives me an extra 400 health so is pretty useful , although the bacta shots are stillvery weak in my opinion.
try pvp and tell me 2 hit kills are gone
also could you tell us how your nsel converted? from the gear i had it appeared we should all start buying up all the uber vibrolances we can find cause they converted to way higher damage
Message Edited by aekeem on 04-16-2005 12:51 PM
aekeem
Sun Apr 17, 2005 4:12 pm
#12
in addition to being weaker than my worst vibrolance i can no longer use my high damage lva since the cert is in commando
chindi2k2 wrote:
aekeem wrote:
chindi2k2 wrote:
I'm playing a Mswords/pike/brawler 4x4x medic on TC-ep3 at the moment , wearing adv marauder battle armour and mostly using a NSEL. Fighting at Fort Tusken i'm not taking much damage at all , although the warlord for example is about lvl 60 where i am lvl 80. The days of 1-2 hit kills seem to have gone , even on commoners. I'm not sure if the sword specials are working correctly with a pike yet , i'm still a bit lost without the combat queue. I have a feeling some of the specials are still not animating correctly as it seems to be an auto attack animation.
The Tuskens get up very quickly from a KD but the improved intimidate and warcry seem to stick well. Also the nutrient injection at 4xxx medic gives me an extra 400 health so is pretty useful , although the bacta shots are stillvery weak in my opinion.
try pvp and tell me 2 hit kills are gone
also could you tell us how your nsel converted? from the gear i had it appeared we should all start buying up all the uber vibrolances we can find cause they converted to way higher damage
Message Edited by aekeem on 04-16-2005 12:51 PM
Yeah i've been reading about PvP being a bit odd heh. As to weapons , i've just got blue frog ones as i'm on TC-ep3. From other posts though it seems that VLs and NSELs are the way to go (VL and NSEL are master level weapons).Current highstat LVAsseem to have been made weaker than agarden variety VL / NSEL.
Taallyn
Sun Apr 17, 2005 4:31 pm
#13
Nice guide. The explaination of the specials was particularly useful.
I've been trying out a Master Pikeman / Master Combat Medic template on TCEP3, and the two skill sets seem to compliment each other fairly well. Combat Medic gives some ranged attacks without having to swap out weapons, and several of it's debuffs are melee range only. I was able to solo a bit on Dathomir this afternoon which kind of surprised me. All in all the Pikeman specials seem to work well. The only real complaint I have is more of a general combat issue: Combat sequencing seems to be lagged a bit for me, so that I'm usually thinking one or two specials ahead of what is actually getting applied. Still, it was quite enjoyable. Think I'll swap a few of my spare points around to get the health buff from the Medic line. That should make things a tad better.
Thanks for the information. Since this is my first foray into Pikeman, it and the other information you guys have here have been most appreciated.
Message Edited by Taallyn on 04-17-2005 04:32 PM
Message Edited by Taallyn on 04-17-2005 04:33 PM
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