Pikeman Archive

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DeceitfulHero wrote:

Fencers: 50% of incoming damage stopped by dodge. The other 50% is reduced by 37% for melee defenses. The remaining 13% hit 32 toughness, reducing it to 68% of 13%.
Fencers take 8.84% of the incoming damage.

Hmm, ok, 50% of the blows are prevented by dodge. However, I'm not really following you when you're subtracting 37% from the remaining 50%. Am I missing something here? If I manage to dodge the attack then I see little to no reason to calculate melee defense or toughness - the attack has been diverted.

If a hostile lands a successful blow which bypasses my dodge then shouldn't that attack count as 100% and not 50% as suggestedabove? Especially since dodge either succeeds or fails.

If dodge does fail thenwe would be looking at 100% - 37% (melee defense) = 63%

Subtract 32% for toughness and subsequently end up with 42,84% (63 x 0,68).

Maybe I'm just way off, but it would be very nice if someone would elaborate a little!

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Actually, I think you both might be a little off. I think he should be doing the melee defense calculations first. The combat spam seems to suggest that melee defense comes into play first to determine if they hit or miss you. Then if they "hit" you, you have the chance to dodge, this is going from the spam saying "So-and-so hits you, but you dodge it!". But this will just change the numbers for everyone, and I think you'll find it should be about the same result. I will do the new calculations in a new post.

Ok, I think the calculations might be slightly off, so I'll show you what I'll do and you can tell me if you think I'm wrong. I'll use the same assumptions as antares about melee defense, toughness, and dodge/counterattack/block. The main change that I'm going to do is move the melee/ranged defense first. I explain why in my previous post. Anyway, I'll give one detailed calculation so you can follow my logic, then just list the numbers for everyone.

Let's say someone attacks you 100 times in a row, and all of these attacks woulddo 100 damage, obviously it would never happen this way but this makes it easier to do the calculations.

We'll do the Fencer melee calculation here:

So, under antares assumptions, melee defense will effectively cause the person to miss an attack every .5% for every 1 point of melee defense you have. So in this case, 37% of the attacks will miss you, or 37 of the 100 miss. That leaves 63 attacks that would hit you.

Now, he's saying that dodge will kick in for 50% of the attacks. Well, I think it's a pretty fair assumption to also say that dodge will kick in for 50% of successful attacks, since I believe melee defense comes first, then dodge. So now 50% of the 63 attacks that got through melee defense will be dodged. Leaving 31.5 attacks hitting you.

So at this point, since all 31.5 attacks hit you for 100 damage you should take 3150 in damage. We'll now reduce the damage from toughness so that 3150 * .68 = 2142 in damage. So since without any defense/dodge you would have taken 10,000 damage (100 attacks * 100 damage), you are effectively taking 2142/10,000 = 21.4% of the damage.

Here's the numbers for all professions:

Against melee attacks:
Swordsmen:10% of attacks miss from melee defenses.50% of the remaining 90% successful attacks are stopped by counterattack. This leaves 45% as hits, so 4500 damage * .57(for toughness) = 2565/10,000 = 25.65%

Swordsmen take 25.65% of the incoming damage.

Fencers:37% of attacks miss from melee defenses. 50% of the remaining 63% successful attacks are stopped by dodge. This leaves 31.5% as hits, so3150 damage * .68(for toughness) = 2142/10,000 = 21.42%

Fencers take 21.42% of the incoming damage.

Pikemen: 15% of attacks miss from melee defense. 50% of the remaining 85% of successful attackshit block. So now we have 42.5% hits that are blocked, and 42.5% that are direct hits. So we take 4250 damage from the successful + 2125 from the blocks =6375 damage!6375 * .74 (for toughness) = 4717.5/10,000 = 47.17%

Pikemen take 47.17% of the incoming damage.

This is one of the better posts of late. I wish that one of the devs. would at least come in and say that the profession is indeed in need of some reworking. That alone would make me feel better. Oh well, again great post.

I kind of wonder what St. Gabe would have to say about this? I know when he barged in the other post he mentioned that we should have number data backing us up, which is what this is. My guess is he probably wouldn't have much to argue about from this, and would probably be on our side to get us in line, but ya never know.

I think what I would like to see is first off, since block is inherently weaker than the other two it should kick in around 75% as opposed to 50%, or if those numbers aren't accurate then it should operate at least half as much more than the other two. This would help a little bit. I also think our toughness should be the highest of the professions. Then they can keep all of our specials and weapons as is. This would allow us to tank much better seeing as we could take more damage. Since we have so many area attacks we would become a better crowd control profession.

With that, I think fencer is pretty good where it is. The defenses of TKM should be lowered, or at least the toughness should be lowered. I'd also say the defenses of swordsman should be lowered if they also increase the power of their area attacks.

This would kind of make it so that pikeman are good at tanking multiple mobs, swordsman are good at killing multiple mobs, fencers are good at tanking 1 vs 1, and tkm are good at killing 1 vs 1. That would seem like pretty good roles to me.

very good info here.....

One thing I think that has not been mentioned is the fact that from the start of this game and clearly by the design of th skill point system.....dabbling is encouraged by the devs in the current state of this combat system. Therefore, it becomes more important what other professions you add to your main professions.

sure a person who is only master of one combat profession with nothing else will be a lot weaker all around, but how many people do you now that actually only spent their skill points in 1 single combat profession. 95% of the people I know dabble in another combat profession a bit mainly for added defense or specials skills like meditate from tka or feign death from smuggler.

So in this frame of mind, all these calculations become a bit misleading...because if you stack the pikeman's defenses with that of a fencers defenses, you have a powerful defensive template compared to someone who is just a single profession. melee and ranged def stack along with def vs mods.....and since you most likely will not be running around with only a single profession (if your plainning on pvp or high level pve), these test are not that important as they seem, because the numbers can be manipulate in either direction......we basically have control over how low or high our defenses can be unlike offensive skills that we can't control as much. for instance the only way we can increase our speed, accuracy, damage is through SEA's or Moddedweaponsor very limited chef food but not stacking offenses.....defensively we have more flexibility with stacking in multiple professions and the use of SEA's, BE clothing and chef food

Basically, noone who hunts big game (krayts, NS, Geo's...etc) walks around with only one mastered profession in most cases and at the least they dabble in other professions for those much needed defenses and/or special skills.....fighting high level mobs is mainly when defenses are the most important, because low to mid level mobs get killed quickly and don't pose a threat to us defensively speaking.

Now if the defenses were higher or more balanced with all professions....diversity would be out the window....and since this is a rpg where the combat is determined by numbers and calculations instead of the skill of the player at the keyboard....having equal or fairly close numbers for defense or offense would not be a good thing at all. Basically, the calculations would work out to be exactly the same for everyone, then the only difference maker would be the stats of the weapon used...which then means the person with the best weapons wins everytime or majority of the time.

Now if you consider defense in pvp, then you have to add in the melee and ranged mitigation also...but still in this situation noone who expects to be a formidable foe in PVP will go overt knowing the only skills they have is master pikeman...right

Now this data is totally relevant on the basis that you want to be just a single profession with no dabblingand spend the rest of your skills in say a crafting profession.....thus getting the benefit of both crafting and combat.....

In this regard, these numbers are irrelevant to someone like me (master brawler, master pikeman, master pistoleer, smuggler 0-0-3-0)......I get the added defenses ofpistoleer (minus the dodge since I'll be using a pike weapon)....but I get everything else from pistoleer.....then I could take it further and drop some of brawler and all of smuggler and take some of the fencer tree as well.....thus upping my defense even more......

Now I end up with melee defense, polearm toughness, ranged defense, insane def vs mods, ranged and melee damage mitigation 3 (for PVP).....plus I still get my block....and if need be, switch to a pistol and dodge while having my long range attacks. Add Armor, SEA's and the fact that we attack twice as fast as any mob in this game when we are at the master level.....a lot of the number crunching in this post falls short......you fail to take the whole combat system into consideration when attempting to get the devs to notice how bad in a particular area one profession is from another. It basically has to be overwhelming evidence that one profession suffers from another throughout the whole combat system.....

Are there some TOTALLY SCREWED UP NUMBERS AND DISADANTAGES for some professions more than others......YES! But defensively speaking, it's not that significant where a little well spent skill points in the right areas won't fix. Also, it should be a little unbalancing....I don't want the same or even close to the same defense as another profession personally. I like the fact that one profession suffers more defensively even if it's in all areas.This means i have to put more thought into building my template rather than just spend all my skill points here or there and just charge in with my best specials and go kamakazi......

Though, One thing I don't agree on that the devs did is concerning dodge/counterattack/block and a few of the other defenses.

Counterattack is the one I'm concerned with mainly.

Dodge is ok (dodge an attack, take no damage....that's how it should be).....

Counterattack, you should take 50% damage sometimes, other times you take none (a counterattack can either be a full fledge dodge and counter hit or a deflection of an attack and counter hit....thus you take 50% damage sometimes due to the deflection chances when counterattacking).

Block you should take 50% damage all the time, because the hit is will never totally miss you but just blocking the full force of the attack (what you don't think it still hurts your arm when you block a stick that's swung at you).

how in the world you block a blaster shot when you have nothing but arifle of your ownis beyond me....I can see if you have a sword and blocked it, but then you would not only take no damage in this instance since you block it with a weapon and not your body parts,but your exihbiting a jedi skill that no normal profession should have from a star wars standpoint.

So from a single profession standpoint, all of your data is relevant if we all fought as only one profession with no dabbling. Even though we can dabble, theres still some inconsistnecies and unbalancing factors in the game, but hey, that's why the devs are trying to get us the new combat system......with hopes to fix some of those redundant issues and in some ways give us the enjoyment we seek without sacrificingthe most basic logics and continuity of the game....logics being that blocking an attack doesn't mean you take no damage and continuity being that you don't have superhuman mutant characters with god like abilities running around in the game.

that's just the way I see it.

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HardwiredXMan wrote:

very good info here.....

One thing I think that has not been mentioned is the fact that from the start of this game and clearly by the design of th skill point system.....dabbling is encouraged by the devs in the current state of this combat system. Therefore, it becomes more important what other professions you add to your main professions.

sure a person who is only master of one combat profession with nothing else will be a lot weaker all around, but how many people do you now that actually only spent their skill points in 1 single combat profession. 95% of the people I know dabble in another combat profession a bit mainly for added defense or specials skills like meditate from tka or feign death from smuggler.

So in this frame of mind, all these calculations become a bit misleading...because if you stack the pikeman's defenses with that of a fencers defenses, you have a powerful defensive template compared to someone who is just a single profession. melee and ranged def stack along with def vs mods.....and since you most likely will not be running around with only a single profession (if your plainning on pvp or high level pve), these test are not that important as they seem, because the numbers can be manipulate in either direction......we basically have control over how low or high our defenses can be unlike offensive skills that we can't control as much. for instance the only way we can increase our speed, accuracy, damage is through SEA's or Moddedweaponsor very limited chef food but not stacking offenses.....defensively we have more flexibility with stacking in multiple professions and the use of SEA's, BE clothing and chef food

Basically, noone who hunts big game (krayts, NS, Geo's...etc) walks around with only one mastered profession in most cases and at the least they dabble in other professions for those much needed defenses and/or special skills.....fighting high level mobs is mainly when defenses are the most important, because low to mid level mobs get killed quickly and don't pose a threat to us defensively speaking.

Now if the defenses were higher or more balanced with all professions....diversity would be out the window....and since this is a rpg where the combat is determined by numbers and calculations instead of the skill of the player at the keyboard....having equal or fairly close numbers for defense or offense would not be a good thing at all. Basically, the calculations would work out to be exactly the same for everyone, then the only difference maker would be the stats of the weapon used...which then means the person with the best weapons wins everytime or majority of the time.

Now if you consider defense in pvp, then you have to add in the melee and ranged mitigation also...but still in this situation noone who expects to be a formidable foe in PVP will go overt knowing the only skills they have is master pikeman...right

Now this data is totally relevant on the basis that you want to be just a single profession with no dabblingand spend the rest of your skills in say a crafting profession.....thus getting the benefit of both crafting and combat.....

In this regard, these numbers are irrelevant to someone like me (master brawler, master pikeman, master pistoleer, smuggler 0-0-3-0)......I get the added defenses ofpistoleer (minus the dodge since I'll be using a pike weapon)....but I get everything else from pistoleer.....then I could take it further and drop some of brawler and all of smuggler and take some of the fencer tree as well.....thus upping my defense even more......

Now I end up with melee defense, polearm toughness, ranged defense, insane def vs mods, ranged and melee damage mitigation 3 (for PVP).....plus I still get my block....and if need be, switch to a pistol and dodge while having my long range attacks. Add Armor, SEA's and the fact that we attack twice as fast as any mob in this game when we are at the master level.....a lot of the number crunching in this post falls short......you fail to take the whole combat system into consideration when attempting to get the devs to notice how bad in a particular area one profession is from another. It basically has to be overwhelming evidence that one profession suffers from another throughout the whole combat system.....

Are there some TOTALLY SCREWED UP NUMBERS AND DISADANTAGES for some professions more than others......YES! But defensively speaking, it's not that significant where a little well spent skill points in the right areas won't fix. Also, it should be a little unbalancing....I don't want the same or even close to the same defense as another profession personally. I like the fact that one profession suffers more defensively even if it's in all areas.This means i have to put more thought into building my template rather than just spend all my skill points here or there and just charge in with my best specials and go kamakazi......

Though, One thing I don't agree on that the devs did is concerning dodge/counterattack/block and a few of the other defenses.

Counterattack is the one I'm concerned with mainly.

Dodge is ok (dodge an attack, take no damage....that's how it should be).....

Counterattack, you should take 50% damage sometimes, other times you take none (a counterattack can either be a full fledge dodge and counter hit or a deflection of an attack and counter hit....thus you take 50% damage sometimes due to the deflection chances when counterattacking).

Block you should take 50% damage all the time, because the hit is will never totally miss you but just blocking the full force of the attack (what you don't think it still hurts your arm when you block a stick that's swung at you).

how in the world you block a blaster shot when you have nothing but arifle of your ownis beyond me....I can see if you have a sword and blocked it, but then you would not only take no damage in this instance since you block it with a weapon and not your body parts,but your exihbiting a jedi skill that no normal profession should have from a star wars standpoint.

So from a single profession standpoint, all of your data is relevant if we all fought as only one profession with no dabbling. Even though we can dabble, theres still some inconsistnecies and unbalancing factors in the game, but hey, that's why the devs are trying to get us the new combat system......with hopes to fix some of those redundant issues and in some ways give us the enjoyment we seek without sacrificingthe most basic logics and continuity of the game....logics being that blocking an attack doesn't mean you take no damage and continuity being that you don't have superhuman mutant characters with god like abilities running around in the game.

that's just the way I see it.

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A couple of things I'd like to point out here. The only skills in the calculations that you can stack would be melee and ranged defense. The calculations don't even go into the difference of having 80 dodge vs 125, it just says you will dodge 50% of the time, so that won't really matter. Anyway, ranged/melee defense are not the skills in here that are the main advantage. As you can see, Pikeman gets pretty good ranged/melee defense, better than at least swordsman I think, and yet we are still by far the worst defense profession. The main problem is in the toughness and the secondary defense (block/counterattack/dodge). These are the skills that are profession specific. There is no way to stack Polearm toughness with another profession, we'll always be stuck with the same number.

So now, even if you did the same exact calculations, with all 3 professions having 125 ranged and melee defense, you will see that someone using a pike will still be 2 times worse off than the other 3. This is because block still causes you to take damage, unlike dodge and counterattack. And when you are hit, our lowest toughness causes us to take more damage than the other professions. So I don't think your argument about dabbling applies here, because there is no way to dabble in unarmed toughness, polearm toughness, etc. and in the calculation we didn't make any assumptions about dodge/counterattack/block, as in, we didn't say something like for every 1 point of dodge you have you will dodge an attack .25% of the time, or something like that. Which, even if you did, you would still see that someone with 125 block is much worse off than someone with 125 in dodge.

So I'm going to have to disagree that the calculations are misleading, they are not. The calculations show how much worse off a Pikeman is at tanking than the other 3 professions.

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UWSkeletor wrote:

A couple of things I'd like to point out here. The only skills in the calculations that you can stack would be melee and ranged defense. The calculations don't even go into the difference of having 80 dodge vs 125, it just says you will dodge 50% of the time, so that won't really matter. Anyway, ranged/melee defense are not the skills in here that are the main advantage. As you can see, Pikeman gets pretty good ranged/melee defense, better than at least swordsman I think, and yet we are still by far the worst defense profession. The main problem is in the toughness and the secondary defense (block/counterattack/dodge). These are the skills that are profession specific. There is no way to stack Polearm toughness with another profession, we'll always be stuck with the same number.

So now, even if you did the same exact calculations, with all 3 professions having 125 ranged and melee defense, you will see that someone using a pike will still be 2 times worse off than the other 3. This is because block still causes you to take damage, unlike dodge and counterattack. And when you are hit, our lowest toughness causes us to take more damage than the other professions. So I don't think your argument about dabbling applies here, because there is no way to dabble in unarmed toughness, polearm toughness, etc. and in the calculation we didn't make any assumptions about dodge/counterattack/block, as in, we didn't say something like for every 1 point of dodge you have you will dodge an attack .25% of the time, or something like that. Which, even if you did, you would still see that someone with 125 block is much worse off than someone with 125 in dodge.

So I'm going to have to disagree that the calculations are misleading, they are not. The calculations show how much worse off a Pikeman is at tanking than the other 3 professions.

Actually, I'm a better tank as a master pikeman than I ever was as a master fencer.....I don't see this as an excuse....just had to say that.

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First I'm not creating an argument...I'm merely stating the facts....keeping the balance on the issue if you will.

Also,you did not read my whole post now did you....or you at least missed my point......Yes I know that profession specific defenses don't stack....and yes I know anyone can have the max ranged defense and melee defenses. I'm talking about taking damage as a whole.....because you will never fight in this game without MD/RD and other not so looked at matters have an effect on how much damage you take.....so again, IT IS A BIT MISLEADING.

You fail to realize that when people in this game pick their professions...most people neglect defense, if they didn't there wouldn't be TKM/docs or master rifleman/pikeman or CM with anything runnning around....these3 examples show that they are not thinking about defense at all.....docs have no kind of defense and just having the defense mods from one combat profession is not enough to really be effective and protect yourself. this means that in order for defenses to be effective you have to spend the skill points in the defense lines of specific professions.

As far as everyone being able to have max ranged/melee defense....that is misleading too...because no profession combination will have the same defenses unless they have the exact same template. So you can have a pikeman with higher ranged defense than a swordsman....so what happens is that the pikeman gets better defense initially due to the progression of the defense checks.....you take damage, that damage is first effected by mitigation 1,2 or 3....then melee/ranged defense,then that changes the amount of damage that each person would take....next you factor in whether the dodge, counterattack or block will kick in.....after that you figure in the toughness......see what I'm getting at.....by the time all the checks are done....a pikeman can actually take less damage than a fencer or a TKM......because ALL the defenses effect the amount of damage taken.

If the profession specific defenses where the only thing that determined how much damage we take, then yes pikeman are totally screwed.....but fact of the matter is, the only time you can be concerned about pikeman having worse defense than another profession is when you are gonna be nothing but a pikeman who has not taken any other combat professions to boost melee/ranged defenses.....

A pure pikeman with no other combat profession will have 30 melee defense and 25 ranged defense......a pikeman who takes fencer as well will have 104 melee defense and 94 ranged defense....now before the profession specific defense mods kick in, which pikeman will take more damage. Even though MD/RD may not always kick in....the average overallof having a higher MD/RD is better than a lower one. This is the point I'm getting at.....so yes anyone can have the max MD/RD, but more often than not no two people will have the same MD/RD. Which is why it plays an important factor.....it can make a pikeman take less damage than a fencer.....

you are alsocomparing 1 profession with another single profession.....without including all the factors of combat, you effectively are giving misleading info as a whole.

I am not disputing the fact that pikeman suck on a individual basis....but you are talking about a game that heavily depends on dabbling to boost up a character......give me some extra MD/RD, some SEA's and I bet my pikeman can take less damage than someone who has doctor, medic, or tka meditation line along with their main profession. one thing I know is that I will not complain about having less defense than a swordsman when I know I have the equal chance of improving my defense.

Also, there's the status effects that are both offensive and defensive.....even though most professions have the same abilities, some professions can apply those status effects faster, more often and more effectively....personally I have not played a profession that can apply status effects as easily as pikes can.....well maybe scouts and rangers...but that's only to creatures with their traps.....fencers may apply effects and can keep their opponent effected longer....but when I was a fencer it took many, many hits sometimes to even get status effects to stick.....as a pike I never have to do more than 3 attacks or soto get status effects to stick most of the time. Plus, pikes can apply multiple status effects in one strike....fencers, swordsman and TKM's can't do that. THat gives a tactical defensive advantage to pikes that other professions don't get. To be able to stun, blind, dizzy, KD multiple targets easily is a great defensive advantage......for example, I have fought nightsisters that I have diseased and poisoned with a night sister lance, then dizzied, intimidated and KD all with a few hits....to do that with fencer, you have to do 3 times the attacks.....I garauntee you that.....and in most cases, by the time the fencer can apply all of those effects one or more of them have worn off.

This is may main point for saying that the data is a bit misleading, although not totally (some of it is still relevant)......but you have to take in all the factors that matter during combat to effectively say that one profession is worse off than another.

Now I know a complaint about being the lowest in every factor is a big issue....I agree here...but to complain about that is only a problem that a pure pikeman has to worry about.....like I said...I'm gonna take some extra defense from other professions just because I know pikeman are the weakest defensively.

You know what, I can go on the corvette or to the nightsister strong hold, take on 5, 6 or 7 at a time and my HAM never gets lower than half and never have to heal.....I've tried nightsisters as a fencer and I would get incapped half the time if I didn't heal myself.....one reason is because the damage fencers do compared to pikes is so much lower that fights last twice as long or sometimes more.....as a pike, I can wipe out multiple targets in seconds......let's take quenkers for example....as a pike I could take a whole lair in less than 50 Seconds.....as a master fencer it took at least 1 and half to 2 minutes.....think about it, who really suffers from having lower defenses.....in most cases...pikes do so much damage that they don't get hit as much....sure they are not the most damaging professions out there....but they are worlds above pistoleer and fencers and in my opinion are equal to carbineers and slightly lower than swordsman. Only tkm's, commandos and rifleman are worlds above pikes in damage.....shorter fights means less damage and less of a need for defenses overall....

Another thing I want to bring light on, is that one of the things that make pikeman, swordsman, TKM, fencer (and the ranged professions as well) very unbalancing defensively is the fact that the devs gave unfair abilities to one profession while not giving the others equal abilities.....for example, all combat professions should have a chance to block, dodge, or counterattack......each one should not be the same effectiveness though, because it is impossible for a rifleman with a bulky gun to dodge 3 or 4 attacks in 10like a fencer can.....or it's impossible for a rifleman to block automatic fire from a carbineer (I mean what is the pistoleer using to block the shots, his gun...I don't think so).......

Still, dodge should mean no damage, counterattack should mean 50% damage 50% of the time and block should be 50% damage all the time....that's just logical in how each ability works in concept and real life. This would eliminate the advantage of fencers always getting no damage and pikeman getting some damage when their perspective defenses kick in. afterall, 90% of Star wars is based off of real life concepts, issues and abilities....we even have jedi in real life (those documented TRUE cases of telekinesis is a jedi trait, actually I'd bet george lucas got the idea of jedi from this...except he added a few things and a light saber)

As far as the toughness of the professions....well I can see it from a different perspective......first where did the devs and george lucas get the idea for swordsman, pikeman, TKM's, Fencers.......Star wars sure didnt' create these combat types....it was medieval times where these professions came from......In medieval times....swordsmen where the front line...they went in all armored up with heavy swords to destroy their enemy before they could advance on to the castle or the head man in charge.....but you have a problem....with all the armor (which can equate to good defense) they were not agile enough to attack the faster moving enemies on horses and such....so here develops the pikeman....they are less armored, a little more agile and have better reach with slightly less power than the swordsman.....defensively speaking they don't equal the swordsman because they are not as well armored (there goes your toughness)....in exchange the could better deflect attacks with thier sticks because they were slightly quicker and agilethan swordsman, they could avoid attacks better than swordsman, they could keep their opponent at bay, effecitvely pushing them out with their sticks.....once they lose that distance and advantage, a pikemanwas SOL.....once his big stick was gone, he had no defense....so you can effectively say that pikeman's defense is their offense....kinda like in SWG as I already explained a bit above.

Now the whole time the swordsman and pikes are out front battleing, the ranged professions (ala bowmen, catapults...etc) are supporting from the castle.....they take out what they can to help the front line....after all of the above fails, you then have to rely on TKA (the art of hand to hand combat) and at the best totally unarmored warriors with fencing type skills using a lighter version of what heavy swordsman used (their main defenses is to make the enemy miss otherwise they are dead)....so fencers are the light swordsman.....plus making your opponent miss is 100% more effective than blocking.

now the devs obviously screwed up the whole system....they evidently didn't think of combat in SWG this way...if they did, then they would have given each profession the correct abilities.

in my opinion, they gave fencers better defense because they are the weakest offensively....what would be the point of having a weak offense and a weak defense with no other apparent abilities that could benefit a group or yourself...noone would be a fencer would they.

As we look at it.....

Fencers (low offense / high defense)

Swordsman (high offense /low defense)

Pikmean (high offense / low defense)

TKM (high offense / medium defense)

also remember that pikemans weapons tend to be slightly faster than swordsman's....there aren't many pike weapons slower than the power hammer....so even though they have the same speed mod....they have different speed weapons and speed delay mods on specials.....added all up and pikes are slightly faster than swordsman....effectively doing slightly equal or more damage than swordsman....but in actuality, that's still misleading as it all depends on the target you go up against....but my reason for mentioning this is purely because pikes can apply mostdefensive status effects better than any melee profession which addsa bit to defense overall.

My main point of all of this is the fact that all pieces are part of a whole....you can't separate one and focus on whats wrong with it when it clearly ties into another part.....therefore you have to look at the whole system....this thread does not look at the whole system....which is why the devs did not just make simple profession fixes and have decided to do a whole combat revamp.....they simply couldn't make it balanced by changing a few numbers here and there........

From my perspective block, counterattack, dodge, toughness are not the only factors that effect our defenses....it's much more than that, which is why I ultimately said this data in this thread is "A BIT MISLEADING"....not ALL misleading.

Message Edited by HardwiredXMan on 05-03-2004 12:07 PM

I fail to see how this information is in any way misleading. It is a hypothetical comparison of defensive abilities without defense stacking from other professions, it makes no claims to be anything else.

There are so many variables (melee/ranged defense included) that it's impossible to get an accurate measurement of overall defensive ability across all professions. Our fights usually go faster than fencers, yes. But is that true if what we're fighting has 90% resists to kinetic and electricity and a vulnerability to stun? In converse, if something is 100% resistant to everything but electricity we suddenly become superheros. Our slowest weapon is faster than the power hammer, but what if the swordsman instead uses a curved sword or scythe? Both are considerably faster than our fastest weapon. For that matter, what if they use a speed-sliced hammer and we use a damage-sliced LVA?

There are just way too many intangibles to make a comparison across classes based on the "big picture". You can always come up with some little thing that will make one class look better than another. All of that has to be factored out so we can get down to the core traits, which are present no matter how much we play around with the details. Some of those traits can be worked around, but they remain there.

What antares did was normalize everything but the core defensive traits, and based on those it's very clear that pikemen will take more damage than the other classes with all else being equal. Nothing misleading about that.

HardwiredXMan...

There is nothing misleading about this. Notice that the calculations INCLUDE melee/ranged defenses? Do you want me to make a full chart of every possible melee/ranged defense combination? You complain when I include melee/ranged defenses, you complain when I don't. Either way, because of low toughness and the fact that block takes 50% damage, pikemen will always take more damage than anyone with a similar defensive setup not using a pike. That is what I'm illustrating. Whether you are comparing two people who have capped melee/ranged defenses, or no extra melee/ranged defenses. Pikemen will take more damage.

Now, if you start saying: "But what about a pikeman who is defense capped versus a lone swordsman with no other defenses??!?!?11?!" Be reasonable, of course the pikeman would take less damage -but given a defense capped pikeman, any other melee player other than a pikeman will take that same amount of damage with less melee/ranged defenses because of block and low toughness for pikemen.

This is in no way misleading. Whether block/counterattack/dodge fire off 50% or 100% of the time, pikemen will take more damage because block only stops 50% and we have very low toughness. Your arguments are misleading, not these numbers.

antares
master pikeman

i always thought it'd be really awesome if we blocked with our bracers.....
We should block pretty much 100% of the time, and damage is reduced by 50% and then suffers the defense of our bracers....

so lets say you had some nice 80% kinetic bracers....
You equip those two things, and then when damage is delt to you, if +Block+ fires, teh damage is reduced by 50% then 80% so you take about 10% of the final damage....

This would help us to do lots of things, becouse we would not require a full suit of armor to have most of the benifits from it....

maybe it's a silly idea, but i think it's somthing that could be worked out into a good idea.