Pikeman Archive

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Ok, I see there are some concerns with both swordsman and pikeman......but we all seem to be forgetting something. When you want to compare them you have to look at the whole picture and how it all fits together. Swordsman and pikeman are not the only professions with these exact same kinds of problems....it's true that all professions have something somehere in their tree that makes them better or worse than another profession, that's how it should be. What I'm hearing from the thread is how bad pike's are and how bad swordsman are, but this is not the case as they are not as bad as people make them out to be.

Personally, I find that these 2 professions are not at the bottom of the barrel of all the combat professions. First of all, ranged professions fair far worse in combat than melee professions do in various ways.Secondly, the only way the issues being discussed in this thread have any relevence, is if your gonna be running around stricktly as a pure pikeman or pure swordsman with no other combat skills. If you have or will eventually have more professions along with pikeman or swordsman, it becomes a whole new story as far as the defensive mods go.....because I know that swordsman and pikeman have low defenses, that's why i'm gonna stack on top of another profession to increase the defense. Offense is a whole other story as with the game mechanics and formula's, any kind of offense can flurish....it's just you have to do more planning with some professions and can't just run in kamakaze style like TKM's do....

Also, as a former fencer and still a master pistoleer, I can truely say that the problems swordsman and pikeman have are insignificant to what fencer and pistoleer have. someone said that pike's hit3 does less damage than thier hit2......well so does bodyhit3 for pistoleer.....it does less damage than bodyhit2 with not other effects.......one thing you forget about pikemans specials at higher levels is that they inflict status effects on top of thedamage they do.....So while your hitting for less damage with polearm hit3 than a swordsman hit3 does (damage mod wise), your inflicting a posture change down as well....then in the case of spinattack2 you do multiple status effects in one hit.....what other profession you know of that can get good damage like pikesand cause 2 status effects in one swing...then if you use a NS vibro lance you can can inflict 4 status changes in 1 hit at the cost of damage.....you can inflict dizzy, stun, poison and disease to a whole group of targets at once.....that's truely unique......that's one area I can say is good about pikeman....they inflict status effects easily.

Another thing I want to touch on is this ever going debate about who does more or less damage.....well, I don't know about everyone else but, a couple of points difference in DPS is nothing......so one profession is doing 77 DPS and the other is doing 76 DPS.....what's the point really either one can kill and be just as effective as the other, so stop crying about doing 2 or even 5 points less DPS.......what! do you both want to do 77 DPS.....everything i've read in this thread makes it sound like that way......well, in my opinion, there has to be a all-around profession and that so happens to bepikeman for melee professios and carbineer for ranged professions.....Also being the lowest or the second lowest in all these categories is a little misleading....because, their are other factors that make up for what each profession lacks.....for pikeman, they have more damage types than any melee profession (no matter how rare) which makes them more versatile than others and they have the best area attacks of all the professions. The problems you can come up with is how bad the defenses and armor was implemented in the game (i.e. Stun resist are the lowest on armor and most mobs don't have high resist to stun either) but that's not a problem with any particular profession.....that's a problem with the overall game and every profession suffers from the 100% resist to all of your attacks issue (melee professions for the most part), I believe only pistoleers have it where no mob in the game is 100% resistant to all their attacks.....pistoleers just have too many damage types....actually the only one I believe they lack is electricity and blast (well, with novice commando they can have the launcher)

Well, all I know is that of the 6 main elite combat professions (pike, swordsman, fencer, tka, rifleman, carbineer, pistoleer) Pikes and swordsman are well off in damage and are not at the bottom of the barrel....if anything they are in the middle....as far as what HAM bar each profession attacks....that's only relevant in PVP, so that needs some balance....but in PVE, it doesn't matter.

One problem I see (and don't like) on these boards is that everyone seems to want to compare their profession with the best and want their profession on par with the best......there are too many comments like "swordsman are slower than fencers, pikeman don't do as much damage a TKM's, or my profession has lower defense than another profession".....

You know what, GET OVER IT......because someone has to be the lowest just like someone has to be the highest.....theirs pros and cons for every profession.....ok, there is a few bugs and issues that need to befixed but for the most part, they are not as big as people make them out to be on these boards....if they were that huge of a deal, the devs would have done something about it long ago....but they haven't....

As it stands now, I think that if you want offense then you sacrifice defense, if you want both, then you have averages that's lower than the highest offense and defense but higher than the lowest.....it's as simple as that.

I don't want pikeman doing as much damage as a commando and I don't want a commando attacking as fast as a pistoleer either.....we all seem to be forgetting (including myself at times) that the professions are suppose to support each other....what you don't have in one, you get from another.....when your not grouped then the 2 or 3 professions that you choose to master or dabble in makes all the difference to your main profession, simple as that.....

For example, Swordsman have low defense vs mods......then I dabble in fencer or pistoleer for added defense, or I take some TKM or Doctor to heal from damage taken and self buffs.......the majority of people that play this game dabble like this, maybe because we have to in order to be effective.....but it's not that big of a tradeoff really......now the only issues left are the areas that you can't stack with other professions (accuracy, damage, speed) as they are all unique to their perspective profession.....well, that's what SEA's are for......get'em, and your speed, accuracy, aiming and whatever else their is on offense will increase.....some are broken or we can't seem to visually see an effect of some.....but for the most part, the important ones are there. Damage is another issue, because if one profession is doing 2k damage and another is doing 3k damage, then it boils down to how you can keep your opponent at a disadvantage....I'd rather have it like this than to boost the damage of the first profession to equal that of the second....then the game just becomes more mechanical than it already is.....strategy and tactics would mean nothing and everyone would charge in head first yelling "he can't kill me before I can kill him, I'm uber with my 9 million damage power hammer".

From my experience with all the combat professions, I found it much easier to adjust playing swordsman, pikeman and TKA than I did as a master fencer. I do more damage as a novice pikeman than I did as a master fencer....my defenses are not as good but you know what, my fights don't last as long as they did as a fencer.......when your a fencer doing 1300 and take 2 minutes to kill your target vs doing 3000 damage as a pikeman and kill your target in 1 minute, how much does speed play a factor in that......well, that's basically how it goes for me when I compared my master fencer to my master pikeman......there is no difference between them when talking about the supporting professions that I have/had with both of them that made much of a difference.....because I was a master fencer/master pistoleer/master marksman......then I switched to master pikeman/master pistoleer/master marksman.......the only things i noticed is my pike had less defense and did more damage.....my fencer did dodge more thus not needing the def vs mods as much.....the pikeman applied status effects easier with less effort.....but my fencer actually could keep status effects on targets longer once he finally got them to stick....Pikemans area attacks are not asstrong (damage wise)as people believe they should be, but the fact that they are area attacks is exactly why they shouldn't be stronger......when you attack multiple enemies, you lose strength and effectivenss with your attack, that's just the basics of combat......whirling around with your sword hitting multiple enemies will not be as strong as if you attacked one person head on....you lose speed and force with every enemy you hit and that makes for a weaker attack....

Anyway, I beleive that pikes do have a purpose......tanking is not a problem from what I see either which pikes are good at even without the high polearm toughness (I mean the geo cave and the corvette were easy for me to tank).....so what they aren't as tough as other professions, they are still better than ranged professions. I tend to think of it like this......Michael Jordan was the best NBA player in the 90's hands down, noone better from what he did....but then you still had Shaq who was just as good but didn't have the same accolades as jordan did.....now just because jordan scored 32 pts a game and shaq only scored 30pts a game, does that mean that jordan is better than Shaq or Shaq is not worth anything......no, it doesn't.....that's how this swordsman vs pikeman issue sounds....they both are powerful (more than people believe), they both have severe weaknesses (as well they should have).......when you think of a Heavy swordsman, his defenses are gonna be low, he has to wield a gigantic weapon after all, his mobility is gonna be limited, his main protection will have to be armor since he won't be able to move quickly with such a heavy weapon.....but when he hits you with his weapon, you feel it very much so......Same goes for a pikeman....basically the same issues but where the devs screwed up at with pikes is that they should have longer ranges with thier attacks, should be faster than swordsman but should have less offense than swordsman and higher defense......in medival times, the swordsman was always the front line, powerhouse in full body armor and the pikeman was the guy behind him with his long stick attacking the faster mobile enemies on horses while the bowman (ala ranged professions) sniped from afar with their arrows......that is what a pike's role should be....That intermediate range melee profession that doesn't do quite as much damage as a swordsman but has longer range, faster attacks (but not the fastest), is more mobile and harder to hit (defense)......then you have fencers that are even harder to hit due to their agility and quickness.....so dodge is why they don't take any damage, while block you take 50% damage.....and counterattack is a balance between both (supposedly you block and attack at the same time but once again the devs screwed that up).

(Fencers)

are the fast, quick, finesse, low hitting (damage wise), quick attacking, highly mobile and agile of all professions

(Swordsman)

should be the powerhouse, the battering ram, the break your jaw with one swing, low defense, low mobility, great status effecting specials of all melee professions, not to mention the hardest to KD since it should take great force to KD Them.

(Pikeman)

Should be the intermediate, balanced power, have average speed, very versitile in the kinds of attacks they do, have average defense....basically totally balanced is what they should be.

pistoleer, rifleman and carbineer should fit the same respectively escept from a significantly longer range.......then that leaves commandos who are the P in Power but basically have nothing else....they are the front line before Swordsman.....All other profession are strickly support and should only excell in their perspective fields....medics heal, CM's apply ranged heals and poisons, BH can be the freelancers as they are well trained to combat any situation but neither excels at anything better than a master of each perspective professions....so a BH should never be better with carbines than a master carbineer or pistols than a master pistoleer (in this respect, the path to BH should go through certain trees of pistoleer and carbineer to reflect those abilities)......now rangers do what they do best, scout andfind **edit** for the other professions to basically blow up.....Squad leaders lead the troops, boost morale and tries to keep his unit alive.....CH's hopefully can have their pets assist while keeping thier pets alive long enoughto hopefully take arggo to keep us alive in dangerous situations...let the pets get incapped....LOL