Pikeman Archive

This is a repost of something I said to the devs in the correspondent forum. A number of you have said that part of the problem for Pikeman is that we aren't well-defined, and this is my attempt to relay that to the devs. Did I hit the nail on the head? Did I go too far? Did I miss a bunch of stuff? Let me know and I can always amend or add more.

Here it is:

Fencer - high dps, best status effects, poor AE.

Heavy Swordsman -highest dps, good AE.

Pikeman - lowest dps, highest single strikes, best AE.

TKA - similar to fencer, best defense, the advantage of being most versatile by targetting any HAM, and being independent with self healing.

Aldeon, the PvP niche for melee is FactionHQ defense.

Honestly it seems like sometimes skills that might be melee-only are "too good" for us so are given to blasters as well. Bleed for instance, it's an awesome ability, but I think it should be melee-only. Butwhy would you confine it to use with melee-only. To me it seems intuitive to make it melee-only, but that would take DoT from ranged professions. Really, do the devs feel it would be a waste to give skills like that to such a small group of players?

It would help melee a lot if we could do things that ranged fighters can't do. As it is now, it feels like we arethe same as our ranged counterparts except with a 6m range instead of 63m. Why don't we have anything unique? AE HAM targetting attacks for our higher level skill? AE bleed (for 2h and pike only)? A cripple type attack so that IF we ever get close to a blaster, we can slow their run speed. Wasn't the original design that melee would almost always die before we got to a blaster, but that if we did get close, we pretty much win every time? Because that's not how it is right now. Right now if we get close, we get one hit and then they run away again.

The comment there to Aldeon (rifle correspondent)was in response to a statement of his that said all we do in pvp is abuse the TEF revenge flag. I'm not saying that the only thing we should be able to do in PvP is defend factional bases, but I do think this is one area where we excel (even now).

opethrebel are biggest issue is are action moves for ham cost not only cost but the effects they have (a cut by 40% would be in line if u ask me since all are effects suck except stun )are useless. The fact that my most used effect is novice brawler intimidate shows how bad are class is lacking that a master pike main move is the first one he gets when he first logs into and decides to go melee.

I keep seeing people talk accuracy which with are skill modifiers isnt that bad (NOT THAT ITS FAIR COMPARED TO OTHER CLASSES )not saying its not a issue im sure that it can be fixed easy. They could portion it out different so the new pikers get it a little sooner like 10/10/10/10 instead of 0/20/0/20

I'd like to know what the devs vision of our (melee in general)role is in group PvE more than anything. The subtle differences between a TKA and a pikeman is probably less of a concern. CH pets seem to have taken up the traditonal tank role, and with the ranged combatants filling the role of damage dealers where does that leave melee?

When fighting upper level creatures on Endor, Lok or Krayts on Tatooine, I find myself more often than not just moving into melee range to land intimidate 2 and then sitting back and letting everyone else do the work, because to do anything else would leave me needing a rez in a hurry..

I just got a fast trip back from Fort Tusken. Although this is now obvious to most of us here, I just wanted to go on record.

The fact is that our Area moves are suicidal, therefore they are almost completely useless. The only way for Pikeman to be the best AE (as SOE envisions) is to be as meaty as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. We really need massive Tanking abilities if we are goin to stand toe-to-toe with 2+ mobs at one time, which is excatly what happens if you use Spin, Area or Sweep2.

Its really hard to watch a group of mobs take down the team when only 3 weeks ago, we could stop this by Area attacking (to draw agg) then by area sweeping in order to tank while the team picked em off one by one. Anyway we are about as tough as Pee Wee Herman atm.

You Pikemen are alone. I used to be able to solo red nym elite guards on Lok by doing posture downs. Now with that posture down nerf, we Swordsmans basically got 4 specials nerfed at the same time. I can barely do a yellow nym guard now, and that's with some luck and a lot of heals.

Our area attacks definately cant be the best, If thats how SOE envisioned it, its not true. I use Spin1 only on cappers because the use against Kaddu or other con white creatures is useless other than to get there attention. Stun2 misses most of the time and is about as good as Spin1 cept with a stun (what does that do anyways?) Im on my way to getting sweep2 But so far I am not impressed. I picked up pistol with adifferent character and The area shot you get at the first level Is about 10x better than any move I used as a pikeman.

Sorry IamDaniel. You aren't as bad as us. I lost to a lone Blue con yseterday. As unarmed, I cuold take some reds with heals. But as a pikeman, can't even take Blue with heals. You stood against a yellow. You still got good stuff. We need help to survive.

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When fighting upper level creatures on Endor, Lok or Krayts on Tatooine, I find myself more often than not just moving into melee range to land intimidate 2 and then sitting back and letting everyone else do the work, because to do anything else would leave me needing a rez in a hurry..

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I should probably add, for the people (ranged combatants) that are bound to say "Well, looks like landing intimidate is the meleers role in PvE, be content with debuffing" - even that minor role is rapidly becoming redundant as more and more CHs cotton on to the fact that you can get creatures that will land intimidate2 on the enemy while they are fighting..

Melee's role is to get hosed and like it until SoE finally gets a grip on how messed up our classes are. Bitter? No, I've come to expect it to take MONTHS TO ALMOST YEARS for melee to be looked at seriously.

I still don't get how on that pole more people want to solo PvE then anything else. This is an MMORPG. whole point is to play with and against people. unguilded I would be a BH wannabe atm. in a PA, I can do what I enjoy, Pikeman. Every PA needs some melee. sorry all you BH guilds. TR would waste you in a sec just because you don't have variety. Every profession has it's role. You just need to find it. Some are harder to find then others.

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EdelKrieger wrote:
I still don't get how on that pole more people want to solo PvE then anything else. This is an MMORPG. whole point is to play with and against people.

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No, the point is to role-play.

If I so choose to role-play as an anti-social hermit, I shouldn't be hamstrung by game rules which virtually force me to group, or be a medic/CH.

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Every profession has it's role. You just need to find it. Some are harder to find then others.

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Please oh enlightened one, share with us you wisdom! What is a meleersrole in group PvE combat? We're outtanked by pets, outdamaged by range users and pets, and have no status effects that can't also be applied by range users or pets?

I'm the only meleer in my guild of over 100 people that even bothers trying to fight high end content with melee at the moment, everyone else has given up and picked up marksman or CH skills..

PvP seems only slightly better, even if we manage to catch an opponent, we don't do more damage than a range user unless the target is a rifleman/carbineer and even that the devs are talking of removing..