Pikeman Archive
Thread: What's the best ranged skill to go with Pikeman?
depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for more defenses, more damage, more AOEs.
Pistoleer for defenses, Rifle for damage and defenses, and Carbine for AOE/state effects...
or you could go with Hybrids...A Flame DOT for Commando would compliment some of the other DOTs you can find on looted pikes...
Carbine is the ranged that is most similar to us....aoe attacks, action dmg, etc so stacking that with pike would make a good action killer/state applier.
Of course, taking any of them will help, I wouldn't say theres one that would be best because after the combat balance, they should all be equal.
I was planning on going up Rifleman, because block stacks, but isn't there something wrong with block? I know it only blocks 50%, but does it always go into effect?
MadDog36 wrote:
I was planning on going up Rifleman, because block stacks, but isn't there something wrong with block? I know it only blocks 50%, but does it always go into effect?
the major problem is that it only blocks 50% of the damage. It doesn't always go into effect, it is like dodge/counterattack in that there's a chance that it will go into effect after you are hit. Some people say they don't see it as often as a fencer dodges or a swordsman counterattacks, but definitely with COB you will see yourself block a lot, at least I do.
With that being said, having the stacked block doesn't help all that much, but having Rifleman does help for other obvious reasons. 
ArkMindSpear wrote:
Pikeman already have +115 block.
The cap is set at +125
So as far as block goes, you're only going to seeless than a 10% improvement over block, wich wasn't that great already.
Not really worth it, i'd say.
I THINK, that even though, rifleman are SUPPOSED to have a -2.5X melee defense or something.....sumothing like we are supposed to have our accuracy X2.5 when attacking a rifleman, they also have the most melee defense of any ranged proffesion...
so assuming everything was working as it should...thats really freakin dumb.
The way it works is melee get a bonus to-hit modifier to hit a rifleman when they are holding a rifle (could be vs all ranged professions, not sure). So even though I may have 125 melee defense, when holding a rifle I get hit well over a majority of the time. So, to be honest, the +40 melee defense from rifle makes no sense to me, it doesn't do squat while holding a rifle, it only benefits you when you equip a weapon other than a rifle. I've been a supporter of removing it on the rifle boards, but, like it's been said thousands of times before "wait until the combat balance".
(Also, I believe pistoleer's get 50 melee defense and rifles get 40, still stupid that rifles get any but I'm almost positive a pistoleer does indeed get more melee defense, now rifle's do get far more ranged defense than the other ranged professions)