Pikeman Archive

Look my fellow Pike bretheren...

The suggestions to making this weapon the end all weapon is wrong. This shouldn't be our everyday pike that we use in all PvE and PvP situations. This is a special weapon that will have its time and place.

I think that Gunman needs some good solutions that are more viable that "trick out the NSEL to be the most uber out there."

If they increase the drop rates so this isn't a hard to get item any longer, then they should not increase the weapon stats. I mean it already has a double DOT working for us.

What I would like to see is the spawn rate for the motors and schematic to stay low but change up the lance a bit. Make it Acid damage. Medium Armor piercing. Action poison. Action flame.

Now that would be a killer pike for us. Damage should be above the VL but below the VLA. I think that if Gunman presented something like this to the dev community for us, we would have a good chance at getting this through.

Well, it's like this if the weapon was better even as difficult as it is to get there would be more people trying to farm it. Which is better for us. I personally have not actually been inside the cave but I have acquired both the schematic and 10 identical ns vb units plus I had gotten another energy lance prior to that. So people are getting them even when it basically is nothing but a show piece. AP3, or AP2 Restraint/Blast/Stun, damage similar to an LVA and that cave will be safe enough for a novice entertainer to walk to the back of it any day of the week.

Padre

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Gunman21 wrote:

Back when Keldarin and I were discussion the first round of changes to the EL, I tried to get the spawn rates higher. But after discussing it more I think the spawn rates should stay as they are and keep this weapon rare (which also makes its value much higher).

I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't want to see every pikeman running around with one like swordsman and scythes

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Well, there aren't that many Pikeman so if 20 per server over 4-5 months get it, you are talking about a majority of the Pikeman. I do think that our concern should be the quality of the weapon as about everything it right now sucks. And get the energy effect working all the time!

Padre

I agree to the spawn rates, they should be low and it should be something that is not solo-able. It should take at the least a small group of well-trained, well-coordinatedpeople who know their exact roles to get in thereand clean the place up.

But, as theNSEL stands right now, itis not really worth the effort of getting (ie the health poison and mind disease).

I really like my idea about the acid damage that does action poison and action flame.It even fits with the acid damage type (ie chemical burns and chemical ingestion). Giving those 2 tohit the action poool goes along with our speciality of action hits. Putting AP2 on it wouldn't be over balancing itif the damage stays below the LVA, which I think is fair.

Gunman, is there any chance at this changed, or are we just talking?

I like (read: prefer) the rarity of it, it truly is rare unlike so much in this game. The problem is that it's not worth the rarity. It doesn't live up to how hard it is to come by. The difficulty in obtaining it and the subsequent rarity should make the reward a little greater than it currently is.

Keep in mind, we do already have more weapon loots than any other class (and the DoTs will come back to bite us, I fear.).

antares
master pikeman

No offense to anyone here, but it's easy to say the energy lance should be nearly impossible to get when you already have one. I know that if I had one, I'd be secretly hoping no more ever drop .

Rarity is good, and I don't think anyone really wants to see the energy lance become as commonplace as the scythe. The problem with the current system is that it goes beyond rare into the realm of unattainable for the vast majority of pikemen, no matter how dedicated they are to getting one. A "pure" pikeman with no other combat skills simply cannot damage the only mob that drops it. What's the fun in that? I'm not saying it should be easy to solo, but at least let me be a contributing member of the group.

There are lots of ways to keep the NSEL rare and still have it be attainable by an actual pikeman, provided they're willing to put in the work to get one. For instance, nightsister armor biceps are rare enough that even unmodded ones will often sell for 4-5 million credits. That's for a small piece of clothing that's only wearable by females. They don't drop often by any means, but if you kill enough nightsisters you'll probably get one sooner or later. How harmful would it be for the NSEL schematic or components to drop at the same rate?

Hell, even giving the schematic or components a drop rate of once per 5000 protectors would be a major improvement. At least pikemen can damage them. Then make it only equippable by a master pikeman (eliminating people running around with it for the coolness factor). Keep it rare, yes, but not unattainable.

FWIW, I've personally seen 5 Energy Lances on my server. One of them was in the hands of a hologrinder who mastered and dropped, the rest were not owned by pikemen at all.

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Locky-1138 wrote:

change axkva's blast resist to Electric (they dont seem to want the elders to take kinetic damage) so that we can actualy fight her as pikemen. the schymatic should drop maby 1/20 the motors 1/2 or 1/3.

better yet, as kuu-laid said, make the schematic a Quest item. how about a quest that ONLY a master pikeman could undertake? even better! just have it continue off of the nightsister or SMC theme park. complete the whole park, then the finaly NPC says something like "i have a special task that i thinkYOU would find of special intrest..." (only master pikemen would get this message, and be able to go on)

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I think the bottom line is the lance needs to be as rare as it is now, but improved stat wise.The way you obtain the lance at the moment is fine, and the drop rate is fine, it just needs to be worth the effort.

Maybe rather than change the stats it has now, have it so once you do have the lance you could power it up by doing quests at the Nightsister Fortress....something involving the Nightsister Force Crystal stone found in the cave....drop it on that and...tadaaaa, its now uber.These quests could be made so that only Master Pikemen can do them.

oh, and add the cert as Master only

Message Edited by teamdoa on 04-07-2004 09:54 AM

That's all well and good but at least make the MOB that drops the thing be able to be damaged by a pikeman.

100% kinetic resists and 100% electric resists means we can't even touch her and isn't the loot drop FOR us to begin with?

Saw this message yesterday after fighting her with a group:

You have looted 400 credits from the corpse of Axva Minh

That kind of pissed me off and is no joke. A 20 minutes battle for 400 credits. If you have a good tank and a healer (especially mind heals) it's not a tough fight if you separate her from the group.

Message Edited by f33d84ck on 04-07-2004 08:56 AM