Pikeman Archive

now i hear some of you saying that advanced composite is a good thing, however it would leave me with barely any strength and constitution left... how does that affect my performance? will i hit for less damage?

basically, what are the pros and cons of composite armor? how do they make me stronger and how do they make me weaker... this is a question that no one has really been able to answer me.

Stats like Strength determine your HAM cost for special moves, so wearing composite armor will obviously affect that as would any armor. I tested some composite armor not to long ago, unsliced, but on Master Doctor buffs whith include buffs for special skill and regeneration. Using a Vibro Axe and wearing near full composite armor, my highest HAM cost was -62. Normally with no Dr Buffs and Ubuse armor, that same skill costs near -300.

So yes the armor will play a major factor in your skills, but there are ways to deal with the side effects.

investing in a 3 hour buff is worth it if you plan to grind. Use Muon gold. And all brawlers need novice medic right now... fact of like. Talk to a master doctor and get a crate of stim Bs.

Well, if you have a full set of doctor buffs.. ei: all your stats are over 2k, than unless your fighting something monsterous, dont worry about armor.. as your regen rate and the different in ham used for skills will about even it out. ok, i take back one part.. ALWAYS wear a helmet. and only use the muon gold, if you think you will need it

Great post dude

Im a wookie brawler(gonna go Master Pikeman eventually)

Im also gonna go Master Medic cos its always handy to be able to heal yourself and ur mates etc.

Thanks for the tips etc

im a novice pikeman for quite a while now ... leveling takes looong

but i went on a hunting trip to the squill-cave with like 8 people and i gained like 50k xp ...so a good tip is to join Hunting trips to get ur xp.

im at the Lowca server and i used to be one of 5 pikemen there ... and now im happy to see more and more people wearing polearms .. and yes i must say that when i meet another pikeman its always a nice meeting .. though meeting a BH or commando is not so fun since the BH's tend to have a big ego the size of their gun ... but hey ... we own them in melee

ow and another tip ... go to the cantina with another melee-dude and start a duel ... it always gives a nice show and people like the beauty of the battle.

I would like to thank everyone for their tips, going pikeman on Eclipse. Grinding my way to novice pikeman atm. As you have adviced i will pike up some medic skills. Will have to work out how much cause i'm going Pikeman/CH so will try to work something out, any more tips would be great. Thankz in advance peeps and hope to see you around

It's imperative to acquire Novice Medic for the this profession. If you dont have it and can spare the skill points by all means get this. It's a life saver when soloing missions or exploring different planets by yourself.

Key tips:

1. Grinding on Dathomir is easy xp when in groups.

2. There is a huge difference when grinding on creatures with these weapons.

3. Choose the weapon before you compete pvp or pve.

4. The LVA is for heavy damage fighting and LV is for speed fighting.

Choose wisley young padawan.

Hmm LVA w00ts that ??

Long Vibro Axe-LVA

Vibro Lance-VL which is a correction to my previous post for LV

My bad!!!

Hi all, I'm not exactly a pikeman... well not a pikeman at all. It sounds interesting and still have some character slots to work with so I'm thinking about it. Now, what I am is an armorsmith. And I see alot of confusion on what's the best for this or that and how it will affect me. If you want the short version skip down to theopen comment ( the little /* thingy)sign. Otherwise here we go.

Depending on what you will be doing and who your doing it with is going to affect what kind of armor you'll probably want to wear. If your going to be soloing and you rely on your special abilities alot then composite is not the best for you. You'll drain your ham quite a bit, and you wont regen quickly. As a matter of fact its going to be really slow on the regen during a fight. If you've got a medic along to heal you, or your buffed up the wazoo then its not so bad. Composite really is for being a standing brick wall for long drawn out field battles against several variety of attacks. Yes it may protect against various different types of attacks, but you have to think to yourself what kind of attacks will you be encountering most often. If your going to melee alot with critters and such then a good ubese will probably do it. If I'm getting pounded by a fierce piket protector I'd rather have something that gives me one 62% protection against kinetic and is light enough to where I can regen quickly enough to heal or use abilites, instead of having a composite chest plate with 6 stats of 50% (only one of which a will really help) that's going to make me encumbered and slow to regen. Even a nice set of sliced experimented bone can get your nrg resists as high 40% and 50%. Also when your done fighting and your healing up strip down to your skivies, or at least take off your armor. You will heal faster. Wearing armor does not affect your health/action/stamina pools directly but it will affect all your substats individually. For example, if the armor piece you want to wear is 100/30/30 and your sub health stats are 150 strength and 50 constitution. Just because they both add up to 200 doesnt mean you'll be able to wear that piece of armor. Your stats after putting the armor on will be 50 strength and -50 constitution making the armor unwearable.

Anywho, if your looking for a quick short guide start here

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Wearing armor = Shorter regen/slower healing... And take it off if your trying to heal or you need those stats else where
Energy = NRG.... yes i'm that lazy

To sum it up

Over all: All armor gives you AR1 wich means anything with AP0 will automatically suffer 50% damage reduction. What that means is the crappiest set of armor is better than no set of armor. Be careful though, that's not to say that you should just strap on the cheapest set of bone you can find, because that 50% resist will not apply if your being hit by an attack your armor is vulnerable too. Say bye bye to that AR1 if your getting hit with nrg attacks that your armor cant protect against.

Composite: Good resists in almost all stats. Unless treated for, has a vulnerablility to blast which means a powerhammer in the right hand and you just spent over a 100K to be tenderized. Not that you see to many critters with powerhammers though . Heavy as **edit** so dont use those abilities and dont heal yourself too much unless you want to drain your mind really really fast leaving you open to mind specific attacks in pvp. When I tried it out for the very first time, I would try to heal my pets or myself if we were taking too much damage. I took more mind damage and was incapped more often from trying to heal than just duking it out for the long haul.

Padded: Very good blast protection, heavy on the ham, decent secondaries and if you want to look nice, its got one of the widest range of colors. Probably not the best for a pikeman unless s/he is worried about style.

Ubese: *CRUNCH* testicular fortitude of steel.... nope, but the next best thing. This is probably what you want to wear if your recieving a lot of kinetic hits like against critters or other brawler proffesions. It's light its strong, decent secondaries, and with the segments working now you can get some ubese with high resist values there.

Tantel: Tantel is a little tricky. When made the stats can shift so its not dependent on the resources made but on the bug that decides what protection it feels like giving that day. That said, tantel is the lighter than ubese and has the capability of being made with absolutely no vulnerabilites including stun. It's main protective element is against nrg so that's good too. Has almost a good a color template as padded if your into style. Main problem (aside from the experimentation bug but that's not what pikeman are concerned about I dont think) though is that it only comes in Helmet Chest and Legs so you'll probably want to mix it up with some other armor if you want full body coverage. Not the strongest out there but still very nice.

Chitin: Chitin is for the player encountering mainly kinetic attacks. If you don't mind the weight, chitin can come with high kinetic stats. Imoh, go with ubese, it's lighter. nuff said.

Mabari: A very nice armor if you cant afford the bigger stuff. Look for this if you dont have much money. It's usually around 2-3k per piece. It's got good kinetic, its light, lots of vulnerabilites though. If your up against a flamethrower though, and it is well crafted you can get some good resists in there. No nrg resist though. To be honest, when I'm out and I don't have anything on me and need a decent set of armor, I just whip up a set of mabari and head on out... except for the helmet.... lord do I hate that helmet... with the Fury of a thousand suns.... sorry, I really dont like the look of it. Makes me look like a bearded princess Leia going on a mining expedition. Nice color range now though.

Bone: When made by a master artisan with good supplies, bone is really good against nrg. It's light and its cheap and for the ham/nrg resist ration it can be supperior to composite in that aspect. Probelm again is with the vulnerabilities and no resist to kinetic. kinda like the opposite of mabari except a worse color palette but better helm. Good for if your starting out and your doing faction missions.

PSG: Very weak stuff. Good protection, doesn't last long though. Only armor wookies can wear. Strap it on top of your regular set and you've basically given yourself another layer of armor (again unless its being hit by something its vulnerable to. Your total resist against an attack that is covered by both armors (i.e. no vulnerabilites) against an attacker with AP0 will be 50% x (1 + Specific PSG resist %) x 50% x ( 1 + Specific Armor resist %).

end here but please check out the link for more detailed info.

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Well hope that helps. I attribute a lot of this info to my own personal experiences, the manual, and JaatoWaals and his FAQ references. My version's a bit shorter but if you want a more indepth look at how armor can help or hurt you check out what I believe to be the best armor FAQ ever written. You can find it here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=armorsmith&message.id=15535

Also, any armorsmiths looking at this, or even just knowledgeable persons, if you see any mistakes please append them to the bottom with specific references so that other may benefit. Thx.

PS I just now made a brawler and am up two blocks in polearm.... I looked upon it... and it was uber

Khrim, My appologies I tried to keep it as abridged as possible, didn't expect it to be so long. Also I'm not a high level pikeman (not yet anyway) but I felt that maybe this would benefit those new pikeman wondering what armor to wear. hope you approve.

-Arse

Im a wookie and was wonder what PSG armor is, you said wookies could use it?