Pikeman Archive

I've played quite a bit of each melee profession. It's what I did instead of holo-chasing. My sentiments regarding Pikemen have always been: it's not that they're bad, it's just that they're not good. My Pikeman character did fine. She gained skill quickly and was fairly successful in a lot of things. She simply did not excel in any area.

Pikemen really need definition (but of course, so do Swordsmen). They need some things that they excel at. Your damage is, fairly good. At the high end it suffers a bit due, primarily, to problems with the speed equation (which, it has been hinted at a number of times, is likely to change eventually). But your not the best damage damage dealers and you don't have a damage type like blast that excels for any form of content (well, I would argue that electricity is the second best to stun for high-end PvP -- it is guaranteed to cap out at 80% resist on composite while the other resists can go to 90%). Pikemen defense sucks, there's no denying that. Block is quite pooor and I think you really should get that toughness in the Brawler blocks (and I made that an issue when I was Brawler corr). You have good AE, but EVERYONE seems to have decent AE. I like the Pikeman specials myself, but there's nothing there that reallly carves out a role for Pikeman.

So, just to add constructive criticism, I'd say you need to focus on the lack of a role and lack of areas in which you excel. Assuming that the speed equation will change eventually, I'm not sure that Hit3 is such a great thing to harp on, nor is the damage of your weapons. If anything, when it comes to damage I'm mostly just concerned that the TKA damage bonus beats outright the average damage on a Scythe (which is a real DPS monster, admittedly). But I'm not sure whether that's about Pikemen and Swordsmen or about TKA.

Message Edited by antares_Kauri on 04-16-2004 07:00 PM

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Gunman21 wrote:

If I wanted to be evil gabe, I'd switch that power hammer dps for a scythe or acklay hammer, suddenly those numbers jump significantly

I wanted to keep this to the base stuff though just for raw numbers, so that's why I went with the standard unsliced stuff.

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Let's take it a step further and compare loot schematic items... Nightsister Energy Lance vs. Scythe... Anyone have stats for both?

Scythe

Nightsister Energy Lance

Raw DPS:
NSEL -- 64.06
Scythe -- 78.46

The Scythe is a clear winner in terms of AP and damage, but then the NS EL looks much better (), has DoT's, and is a third damage type for Pikemen (whereas the scythe is yet another AP2 kinetic weapon for swordsmen).

Both have problems being obtained. The scythe is problematic in that there is no renewable source of Scythe schematics meaning that the Scythe will slowly become extinct. The Nightsister Energy Lance is problematic in that Axkva is probably the hardest NPC in the game as well as the longest respawn and doesn't drop stuff very often.

In both cases I think I'd take the Scythe (although if we don't see some way to get more scythe schematics, that might change in a few months Axkva might suddenly start looking pretty attractive). IMO, the Nightsister Energy Lance definitely deserves some attention.

Just for the heck of it, here's another another item to throw in:

Nightsister Long Vibro Axe (made with NS vbu's)

NSLVA dps -- 77.7

Pretty much equivalent to a Scythe. Damagewise anyway. In retrospect I wish I hadn't made the NSLVA (I wish I'd kept the units for playing with the unique schematics and just relied on getting good LVA loot drops) but it is an interesting weapon.

Message Edited by Gunman21 on 04-16-2004 07:58 PM

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StGabriel wrote:
The scythe is problematic in that there is no renewable source of Scythe schematics meaning that the Scythe will slowly become extinct.

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Not to be picky at the details, but Scythes can and are mass produced by weaponsmiths. The limited use of the schematic that is looted for the scythe blade is negated by that fact. Plus, there are multiple loots that can be used in 2h weapons (acklay bones) where as polearm weapons only get the extremely rare NS vibro motors or the occasion looted motors off Nym's goons. Perhaps a more common enhancer similar to the acklay bone or reinforcement-core type enhancers for pikes would be a nice compromise.

For the number of NSEL's made on each server (which will almost never be made again with the new TK weapon using NS motors), the stats should are not fairly balanced. DOTs are nice and all, and so is having a third damage type. But... the third damage type is one of the most common out there, and light AP and low max damage make the Energy lance not so useful in PvP.

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StGabriel wrote:
And if we want to bring up looted stuff you're going to have to allow that high damage looted Pike weapons are MUCH more common than loot for other weapons.

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And that, my friends... is our problem. A profession should not be forced to use LOOTED weapons to survive. There is a major difference between weapons crafted with looted components and a straight-out looted pike.

Not trying to troll or anything, just putting my opinion out there

Message Edited by SantosL on 04-16-2004 08:23 PM

Wow, only confirms what Ive been feeling for a long time now, and great to see another correspondent trying to derail our correspondents effort to put together in a succint form a list of the problems we have faced sincea day past forever.

Not to be picky at the details, but Scythes can and are mass produced by weaponsmiths. The limited use of the schematic that is looted for the scythe blade is negated by that fact.

Not true. Scythes require Geonosian Sword Cores. To "mass produce" these you need to be able to mass produce identical Geonosian Sword Cores. As these are in turn dependent on Geonosian Power Cubes, it is impossible to mass produce Scythes. At best you might get 3 out of one use (and that would require 9 identical Geonosian Power Cubes or 8 idential looted cores).

As to the rest of your reply, I agree that the Nightsister Energy Lance should be looked at and I agree that Pikemen need work (as I've said above).

great to see another correspondent trying to derail our correspondents effort

Hey now, hold off on those 1-stars there.

I've been an advocate for Pikemen for a long time (ever since I was Brawler correspondent). I've supported a lot of improvements for your profession (including some that actually went in). I'm simply offering constructive feedback here.

StGabe.

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StGabriel wrote:
In other words, with respect to:

As you can see, Pikeman is the only melee profession to have a x3 damage modifier.

It is very important to note that Pikemen also have the lowest delay for their Hit3 attack.

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which does us very little good. if we use kd/dizzy we can't use our hit 3, unlike all other melee profs. our hit 3 does a posture change, which completely negates the kd/dizzy combo. only thing we can do is use area spin or leg hit 3 which does fair to poor dmg. i too was once a master swordsman (for a long time in fact) and i tell you what, while i love pikeman and their animations, i would take the swordsman's mods anyday.