Pikeman Archive

Bounder wrote

What are you talking about? Pikeman looks great when fighting who gives a crap about red tracers. I think the specials look ultra cool. I think polearmhit2 and polearmstun2 look great!

Hehe, if you truly believe that, then you really haven't seen any good martial artist use a staff!

Well, it took me a couple more days than expected to get back to my comment before of keeping track of my hit ratio. I would say that with the first +20 mod to accuracy I hit around 8/10 with a LVA/VL and about 99/100 with anything lower (that doesn't have -48 or worst to hit). The only problem is that the misses come in streaks on the heavy weapons. I will go 10 mobs hitting every single swing then I go and run up to a gnort and miss 10 times in a row. Aw well, I guess that just means I have gotten the misses outta my system. So the only suggestion that I pose about the accuracy is to split up the +20's into +10's like I said before (or even +5/+15/+5/+15 like someone else suggested but I doubt that will have as much of a reduction in the I can't hit a gnort threads that pop up here). Why? Cause the accuracy keeps us in check. If we could hit more at novice pike, then we could take out fambaas at novice pike. Now that would be overpowered, and we don't want to be beat with a nerf bat now do we?

Asfor that comment about the ActionHit1 above, the damage that you do in the combat window, that is the bleed damage. Yes, I have gotten a 1500 pt bleed off with an LVA before. That combined with leg hits takes down mobs real fast. Even better if you team up with a carbineer and both just target the action pool. And, yes, actionhit does wound. A lot with the right weapon. Before the PVP damage reduction, I have actually done so much wound damage to the Action secondary stats in duels, that the lucky TKA I was poking at had their wounds REDUCED. Previously 3 hits with ActionHit1 using my LVA (44% wound chance or so) would cap (or come close to it) most people's action secondaries in wounds. Any more actionhits would reduce THEIR WOUNDS BY UP TO 50ptsa hit??? I was hoping to get someone's secondaries to 0 in PVP to force downtime. I guess this is a bug that needs to be looked at (after they spread the accuracy out a little bit).

-Z

I have been very happy with the Pikeman class. I get to do massive damage on my hits, and i look menacing with a huge melee weapon.

*Concerning the HAM costs for special weapons -

Yes the costs are high, yes you hurt yourself a lot by using styles, but you "are"swinging ahuge pole at an enemy. Wouldn't you get super tired from it? I can see how it may be slightly high. Maybe a 5-10% decrease or something would be beneficial, but not much. The way to counteract such high costs is to get buffs from a Doctor. Master doctors can up your Red and Green HAM's all by a range of 500-1500. This makes your secondaries very high, and at times, I have had no cost to using my styles because my stats were high enough to counter-act the drain. We just need to have more players as Doctors to support our Melee.

*Concerning the huge negatives to hit-

One thing i don't completely agree with is the high chances to miss with a polearm. I agree that to add a balace, we should have a lower chance to hit, but no matter what i do, i can't get above a negative 50 to all attacks. Once you start getting into the pikeman class and get some skills, you should be able to at least get closer to a +0. I'm not sure how it is once you are a master, but because of this, it is harder to gain xp and even reach Master Pikeman. Fellow pistoleers tend to gain more xp from killing enemies with mebecause i miss often and swing slower. By the time i run to the enemy, and finally hit it , it is dead and i get less experience.

*Concerning Reach

Because we are using larger weapons, it would make more sense that we would have a longer reach when fighting. I'm unsure what the differences in ranges between the other melee classes are, but i feel that this should be a special part of being pikeman. I think the other melee classes should also have some sort of special difference that no other class would get. Of course keeping all the classes balanced.

Of all of this, i think the negative chances to hit is the main issue pikemen face. It is very frustrating when i can't defeat a blue con because i missed so often.It is nice when we get to kill higher enemies than ourselves, but i have noticed that since I have gotten higher in pikeman, the higher cons don't drop like they used to when beginning. The randomness doesn't balance out for me anymore. I hope i have been able to give more insight to the issues of pikeman. If you need to contact me, i'm on the Eclipse Server as Kathel Darkwater.

Overall I think pikeman is working very well, I can solo and group effectivelly and without any problems. There are some things that need to be addressed though, and a couple of things I'd like to see added just as an overall improvement to the pikeman class and melee users in general.

Stuff that should be fixed

Bring theamount of 'polearm toughness' skillto the same amount as the other melee classes. Polearms are supposed to be the most defense-oriented of all melee weapons, we should at least have the same defense bonuses as the other melee professions.

Ditto for the amount of 'block'skill we get... we get less block than fencers get 'dodge' or swordsmen get 'counterattack'. Out of fairness to pikeman - fix it - even though its not really necessary to keep the class viable. And to those who think block isnt working - it is working just fine, its just that the"Block!" text dosent pop up when you successfully block.

The fact that the resources for our vibroweapons arent spawning on Starsider(and other servers as I understand it).... this should have been addressed right after release.

Stuff I'd like to see added

I dont have a problem with having to run up to a blaster user to hit them... I chose to go melee so I should be prepared to have to deal with it. What I'd like to see, however, is maybe giveall meleefighters aspeed boost to our standard running(not burst)so that we have a better chance of catching up to our target.... or at least give some heftyburst run efficiency skill bonuses at the elite brawler skills, not as good as what scouts and rangers have but enough that we wont kill ourselves trying to catch up to that rifleman.

And just for me, I'd like to see the vibro two-bladed staff added as a pikeman weapon... anyone who played Knights of the Old Republic knows which one I'm talking about. Also make it possible to make all vibroweapons socketted if they're of high enough quality... I dont know for a fact that this isnt already possible, but I havent seen any socketed weapons.

-Ferae Bile, Novice Pikeman, Starsider

Defense, Defense, Defense.

We have very poor Defensive skills. I would like to see the ones we have work, plus we need bigger defensive skills. Give us some kewl defensive skills/animations. After all why should we stand at the front of a group taking all the damage so the pistol boys can stand away at a safe distance and shoot away?

Pikeman arent the fastests of the combat professions and they shouldn't be. We have big slow sticks, but our damage dealt should be a lot more than say a swordsman? Our weapons have more mass/kinetic energy with the larger swing. We should be dealing out a lot more damage.

And for the love of all that is good, give us the ability to catch the kiters. Even NPC's will kite me now. As was mentioned above, call it a last ditch or what ever. Put a hefty HAM cost on it, but let us have a "trip" or something that we can throw our pikes to trip up the enemy's legs. It could then take us the same amount of time to pick up our weapon as it does the kiter to stand up. This though would put us at the very least on a semi equal playing field as the kiter.

Kinda hard to get 450k of xp when you cant catch your target b/c they are running back to timbuktu.

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blind-- wrote:

And for the love of all that is good, give us the ability to catch the kiters. Even NPC's will kite me now. As was mentioned above, call it a last ditch or what ever. Put a hefty HAM cost on it, but let us have a "trip" or something that we can throw our pikes to trip up the enemy's legs. It could then take us the same amount of time to pick up our weapon as it does the kiter to stand up. This though would put us at the very least on a semi equal playing field as the kiter.

Kinda hard to get 450k of xp when you cant catch your target b/c they are running back to timbuktu.

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Just a note concerning Polearm Action Hit 1....

Right afterI got it,I tried it out on a friend in a duel. I used it ONE time, ONE TIME, and he got 399 stam wounds. Its doing damage, you just might not see it. Not to mention making creatures bleed for 200-800 points every 10-15 seconds. PAH1 is very good when used in combination with Leghit 2.

I know it's well represented here but accuracy is definetly my beef with the pikeman.I counted once and i missed 12 hits in a row on a white con...

OK!!! I have enough for the next letter. This Tread is CLOSED!!!

I will postmy letter once I finish it on another thread. Thank you all for your Support to pass ideas on to SOE. If I was not able to get yours into the msg, due to the fact that I am only limited to 5 issues +1 personal, then bring it up in the next addition of Pikeman Concerns!!! Soon to be created

Khrim Charan

Pikeman Correspondent.