Pikeman Archive

I believe many ranged (not all) feel threatened by us, melee users. Why? Because, we use a totally different way of fighting that they are usually most effective against but when we stop them in there tracks they flame us because we aren't supposed to win! Now, if the melee class died out, what would these ranged users who flame us do? They'ld have no one that they can beat up most of the time.

Sorry for the delay in replying.

First....I made this accoutn a year before the game came out, I couldn't think of any other name (I must have tried 50 others) that wasnt already taken, so I just did gunman. I actually started out as a marksman, but after seeing how boring sitting behind pre-nerf probots we're for ranged, I changed to pikeman to follow in the footspets of a friend, who I saw was having tons of fun with the class. Anyways, sorry for that sidtrack, just though I should explain why "gunman21" uses a stick lol.

Seccond...yes I am getting more kills....I set my charactor to auto follow at the begining of the fight. I then use lunge1 (I dont have the sp to get lunge2)to slow him down, and follow immidiately with a polearm hit 2. I rinse and repeat as much as necissary. Also....I play smart....I am a master doctor so I buff (enhance)myself before fighting (as I buff all those in my group as well). My non-ch gurrek I occasionally use, which helps against people who do nothing but run around. I also have 3 faction pets which i will pull out when doing a serious raid....this is a big help against kiting and when outnumbered. Unbuffed, I don't use many action moves, and use stim e's to heal (c's work as well) Beserk/intimidate/warcry is what I tend to use unbuffed in pvp (friendly duels, and whatnot). I also use Muon Gold mind spice to make sure I have enough mind. Most of you already know this, and I'm not trying to say that I know more than other people, but this is what's working for me. Some of you might view this as still seeing the pikeman class broke, since I am forced to use such measures, but other classes have the exact same options availible to them, so I take advantage of the tools I can use to be amore effectiveplayer....it just comes down to prefrence I guess.

So, about KD. Do I think the timer is good? Yes....PVP is the only end game out there right now, unless you want to craft your way to boredom, so I do think that this does need to be in effect. For PvE, well, if you only used KD defensively every now and then, I would say once every thirty seconds seems reasonable to knockdown the npc/creature your fighting to get an extra hit in. I havent used KD in PvE to level. I could never solo Baz Nitches or other high level stuff, so I found work arounds. (Can you beleive I actually ground out to novice pikeman on Gnorts? lol....talk about taking a while) I also grouped up with a TKA PA member and we went to dathomir together and did baz nitches together, unbuffed, and would get decent amounts of xp by doing this.Now I can solo most things no problem, since my stim's are high enough to be effective.

Remember, if they took the KD timer away, we'd never have a chance pvp. As pointed out earlier, we'd get knocked down before we'd even get close to any ranged people, and they'd just spam us with KD, end result is we never touch them. Even though most of you are validly concerned about PvE, once you get master, you're going to want to pvp, and then you will be glad you don't have to worry about that.

Now, with that being said, do I think the devs need to give us more? Of course! But! Some of you might not have seen what the devs have posted. They're contemplating giving us a "tank" ability to make us and all melee more defensive. They just posted on the TKA forums the other day saying they're going to make closing on a ranged enemy easier. My point is that they are looking to give us more stuff, it just wont be out tomarrow, whicheven though they said "don't bring a knife to a gunfight" gives me hope that they arn't going to totally screw us.I have a positive outlook for our class, I still think that we're one of the better melee, and I'm having a LOT of fun being a pikeman.

Oh, forgot to add....

Dirifus on Flurry is a Master Pikeman, and I chat with him a lot and ask him which boxes I should get next, pvp tactics, ect. He PVPs quite a bit now that he made master, and from what I've gathered from his forum posts and chatting with him, he's having a lot of success with it, even post-kd nerf.

Just want to reiterate that I do think we need a boost, and I do think the devs are working on doing that, but just because we lost KD as an effective means, doesn't mean the whole class is ruined.

Thank you for the informative reply Gunman,

I can now see why you are not as frustrated as some of the rest of us when it comes to the KD issue. You have chosen skills to give you enough of an edge to counter act the lack of tools that Pikemen have to stand on their own. As a master doctor with a Cowardly Gurreck and a couple of Faction pets to assist you it would fill in you Pikeman flaws enough to allow you to be effective.

But to use myself as an example I got into the game wanting to be a Droid Engineer, (how messed up that profession is right now is a whole different post) and once I caculated what I would need to do that profession I had only enough skill points left to master one combat profession. I don't think there is much glory in pulling a trigger, so I wanted a melee class, I chose pikeman, thinking that if I master it, it could stand alone as a viable means of self defense.

Thus far it seems I have been wrong.

I can't go master medic, or even close. So I'm left with only my Master Pikeman aspirations with the hope that they will make it effective enough one day to stand alone.

I'ts true that 30 seconds in itself could possibly be an acceptable time limit for re-use of the KD, but when you factor in that it misses 75% of the time or more, or is ineffective when it does land, and the fact that you can't use it again for 30 seconds even if you miss, even if you use it on a different mob, or that the fact that even when it is successful the new 5 second delay let's the mob get back up before you can even make the kd worth something, it then begins to seem a little excessive.

I'ts true that there are other things in the game that we could take advantage of to fill in the holes in our profession to allow us to be on par with the other professions out there (or close to it). It's just sad that the holes are there to begin with.

I'ts true that there are other tools

uuuummmmm, ignore that last partial sentence. Don't even know how that got there!

Sheesh, even the Forum boards are glitched!

Hope the Dev's don't nerf the boards and make it worse!

Lol, I thought about being a Droid Engineer as well, but when I found out hard hard of a grind it would be, I opted not to.

I honestly don't think any class could truely be self-sufficient with the combat system in this game, and I like that, to a certain extent. It's a game of inter-dependancy. That means wasted skill points to pick up medic in order to heal yourself, but it makes you more efficient, if you don't have a medic in your group.

Yes, pikeman cannot stand on thier own, I've known that for a while (I actually told myself when I first started the game that I would never take up medic/doctor because at the time it didn't intrest me, but as I fought more and more, even as a marksman, I realized that taking the profession up would greatly help, and I'm glad I did, I enjoy both those professions)

So, let me be constructive.

What are things the devs can do to make us more effective without taking the KD timer away? We've already sent in issues of ham, toughness, etc, they've said they'll make closing on ranged a little easier, so let me try and keep it to inside the profession itself and to things we haven't already suggested.

What if they were ot make our AOE and spin moves more effective? Would this help us? I really don't know because I never find myself in a position in PVP to use AOE/spin moves, since I've never had to fight two brawlers at once, and ranged players normally seperate themselves.

I've noticed that our class is geared twards wounding the action bars the most (action bleeds and leg hits 1-3)So if they were to increase the damage given to these attacks, would it help make us more effective? I think it would help, anyone else?

What is wrong with this game? The Devs nerf and now I get some kind of bug that just made a long vibro axe I just bought 10 minutes ago for 25k dissappear from my inventory! Not even glitches in the game favor the pikeman...

*sigh

That was just more or less bad luck. I'm just getting frustrated because our profession is nerfed horribly right now and then I become a victim of this buggy game. I spent a good half hour to an hour running missions to buy that. I can't continue much longer with my current weapon either because its condition is dwindling.

Howabout

1) Removing the KD timer for melee, a timer is too linear in design for a dynamic game such as SWG. Either;

a) Make two successive successful KDs impossible (round time for two successful KD becomes ~8-10 seconds minimum (this also allows a ranged char to start kiting again), in practice this will be much higher since higher end mobs are harder to KD)

b) Reduce damage from KD (this is a common sense solution, if done right, leaves little to argue about)

c) Combo of a and b

d) Upping and scaling the player defense against KD based on profession and lvl (again solves the PvP issue)

Note: For the record, I think KD spamming a character to clone is wrong, however, this timer "feature" is a joke. There are much more obvious and better solutions to the problem.

For Non KD moves:

I was on the verge of obtaining Actionhit2, I heard that it stacked with Actionhit1,IMO this is a hell of a bleed.

The problem with making spin moves more effective is there is no way to shake off the adds (except once every 30 seconds).

To sum it up, the Pikeman had a hell of a cool AOE move that was class defining. My question back to you, is what makes the KD Timer a good solution? Dont get me wrong, Im not trying to flame you, I'm trying to understand it's merit to us as melee basedPikeman. Most of the people on the Timer Defense side of the fence are not posting any reasons aside from PvP spam (hence refer to pragmatic solutions proposed above). What and why is there motivation to keep this timer in place (please, anyone feel free answer this)????

I personally dont think a re-design in the Profession is needed in the least. just some simple and thoughtful repairs (for starters Timer, defense,then accuracy and HAM and so on). You see, my problem with new "features" from MMORGS is that the existing problems are rarely fixed, rather the introduction of expansions (hence, vehicles, yay) only add to the list of broken issues. They are in effect, distractions.

You didn't say 'Yay' with enthusiasm!

Once they fix the ham, accuracy, and toughness, KD timer wont be an issue. Which is the way it's supposed to be.

that's cool, but will they make the sweep actually work, or just get rid of it then?

Well, I doagree that with the 30 second timer, that when a player uses those moves, it does land more. No sense in nerfing it out of oblivion.

grrr, let me rephrase that.

I do hope that they make it land more, since the 30 second timer is enough.