Pikeman Archive
Thread: Pointers on Grinding Pikeman + Polearms (Revised 1.1)
Hey everyone, just mastered pikes (again) and i thought id share a few tips I have on grinding it all. The following steps are how to GRIND a certain box effectively, not how to grind after youve gotten it. Enjoy 
............................................................................................Polearms 1.........................................................................
Here, just buy a woodstaff (or take the one given to you by your newbie helper droid) off the bazaar, youll be destroying it in a few minutes anyways so dont worry about stats. Personally, i did polearms 1-3 outside coronet w/o buffs and i suggest the same. Its easiest to target the "corellian butterfly drones" for this box as they go down faster than the others, dont use specials here, just use auto-attack and youll be lvl'd in no time. Some may suggest meatlumps/ragtag spawns, however for this first box I had hard time hitting the ones that went TKA or fencer and could dodge 3/4 of my attacks. The attack "Berserk" is also a good method for the first 2 boxes, so if you're having troubles with this way give it a try.
.............................................................................................Polearms 2..........................................................................
Here, a good quality metal staff is most important. I did it with a 4.4spd 80-160dmg one and it worked nicely..... To make the further steps easier stock up on some +33% mind cost +15% attack speed melee powerups (in crates).. then just go kill meatlumps/ragtags. remember after you kill one *LOOT IT*. That way another will spawn and you can rake the xp in very fast. here Polearmhit 1 is your best friend.
.............................................................................................Polearms 3...........................................................................
Personally, this box for me took the longest. I just used the same tactics as Polearms 2 for the entire thing. ragtags and any large spawns of butterflies around that you can find, it takes a while but it REALLY pays off to get it done fast. It is possible to do all of polearms AFK using macros, but i dont want to post any, as macros are sometimes hard for newer players to get the hang of AND I discourage AFK grinding *REMEMBER TO BE USING THOSE POWERUPS THAT YOU BOUGHT!*
.............................................................................................Polearms 4.............................................................................
Hooray, you've made it thus far. Now you need to be prepared to drop ~50k if you want to get that master pikeman fast. Look around for a good SLICED weapons vendor. (if your on radiant go to the Extreme Force Mall and use nemis's vendor. hes stocked with the best weapons vendor on our galaxy) Once your there, look for a Long Vibro Axe that has gotten a 30%+ speed slice.
ie, 3.3 speed or lower (for max damage it should have between 360-380)
Throw another pup (short for powerup) on it and now your ready to whoop ass I prefered grinding on dant for this stage off off huurton howlers (wild spawns I saw on my way to my missions) and quenker missions (these run about 5k payoff) make sure your in a solo group for the experience boost. It is wise to get some buffs and armor for here.
Now that you have obtained Polearm Stun 1, USE IT! I found that using intimidate and getting the "Stun" state to stick on a creature, immensly helped my grind as the amount of +miss+ 's that came up were significantly reduced. after you have gotten that to stick quickly look at your targets HAM. if health or mind are lower use polearm hit 1, if the action is lowest use Leg hit 1. you should be able to grind polearms 4 after following these steps in 1/4 of the time it took for Pikes 3.
................................................................................................Novice.................................................................................
Now that you have a weapon to grind with and some awesome specials grinding is much easier. By running up to your quenker mission and spamming PolearmSpin1 the quenkers go down very fast and the xp pours in. just rinse and repeat with missions... I found that walking back from my mission helped because i was able to kill lots of the stuff in my path for nice xp. But unless your a more veteran player I do not reccomend it because the spawns have been boosted and there are many more difficult NPC's and high lvl creatures that may kill / slay you and force you to find more buffs.
ok, now that you have gotten to novice here is a list of what is needed to do.
1. grind the entire STANCES tree first, once you gain Polearm Stun 2 use it for the rest of the branch. once you are 400x you have great speed multipliers and it would be wise to trade your current LVA up for a high damage sliced one (looking for 470-500dmg and 4.5-4.8 spd)
2. Here, the grind becomes extremely repetitive... just kill quenkers until you have gotten area attack 2 in the polearms offense line. This attack is the best one in a pikemans special bar.
3. By now you should have 4402(or maybe 3), which means you have plenty of accuracy i suggest you head to the squill caves on tatooine *10, -200* here is a GREAT way to finish the grind. Some of the squills have an intimidate attack, however, which means itll take longer to take certain ones down. All i did was run through spamming stun2 untill I had lots aggrod on me, then i stood there spamming Area Attack 2 until they were all dead. Every 30 mins you should be getting at least 200k xp (personally because I had bought myself a very fast 1.8 190-487 looted LVA I was lvling every 20, but the xp depends on how many people are at these caves.) Just stay there until you either cap your xp or maybe another pikeman is there to teach you and u can master without leaving
4. Now that you have mastered go test out your new mods and skills on some animals just to make yourself feel big 
If you are new to the game then you may take longer before you can get a nice lance But if you are a veteran player watch your trade forums regularly for polearm speed tapes and nice damage looted LVA's and VL's. or you can group with some friends and hunt SMC (singing mountain clan) or NS (nightsisters) on dathomir, they regularly drop very nice pikes that you will definatly like.
* You have now entered the realm of the DoT war. pikemen are extremely useful in battles AND vs jedi. Being able to spin area knockdowns and area dizzies with a mind fire pike is CRAZY. Also, if you have a high damage LVA try to hunt a jedi with a friend or 2. because they lack melee mitigation you can rip them apart! *
Just remember, we are all in this together and I wish you best of luck with your new pikeman career!
Message Edited by chardin on 02-18-2005 11:45 AM
Message Edited by chardin on 02-18-2005 02:48 PM
thnks for making this, it will help keep the boards clean for a day or two.................
Message Edited by Devil_Tiger on 02-18-2005 08:54 AM
With the armor and buffs currently in the game, people advance far too quickly for their own good. Nobody went AFK against meatlumps or anything else in the early days, they'd end up dead if they tried that.
There are actually things to be learned about the profession while one progresses. Unfortunately the focus is now on grinding to master as quickly as possible, not learning about the profession and how to play it.
In the end, who's the better pikeman, someone who grinds to master in 3 days or someone who plays their way up over the course of several weeks or months?
Bah! You can grind 2222 Pikeman without buffs or armor. Its AFTER 2222 you should buff 
Viva la non-buffers!
MP-Denmark wrote:
at novie I Imediately filled out 0004