Pikeman Archive

I first became a Pikeman after opening my second holocron. I had no idea what I was in store for. Although many people would argue that the only good holocron inspired pikeman is a dead one, I've found not only joy, but true strength in this profession.

At first, I felt overwhelmed by the ham cost, the difficulty in surviving a one on one battle with just about anything. But soon I found that the secret to becoming a powerful Pikeman was not so much about spamming the specials like I did as a ranged combat guy, but more a precise and delicate choice of what and when to use my special abilities.

I don't believe that a Pikeman is intended to truely shine as a soloist, but in fact is very well suited as a main tank for groups. The key is to having the right gear and support to be able to serve this purpose. So... what do you need to do to become an effective Pikeman? The following is what I have done to use what most people consider a 'broken' class to it's utmost ability.

1. Find an excellent armorsmith. Someone who puts a lot of time and effort intoproviding very nice gear. Advanced Kinetic Ubeese armor... My current suit ranges from 69-70% verses Kinetic. You will need a complete suit, from head to toe. Take this suit and get it sliced so the encumbrance is low enough that you can take it off and put it on as needed so you can rest your mind pool in between battles. If you get your armor sliced and it still won't go on without buffs, migrate your stats... do whatever it takes. If you can't take your armor off to sit and heal your mind pool, you're going to end up with too much downtime. This is probably the most important thing you can do to become a successful Pikeman.

2. You will need a fast weapon. I know... lots of people may argue this point, but speed is essential for the role you will play. An excellent weaponsmith can produce a high damage Long Vibro Axe and Vibro Lance for you with decent speed... however, you will need as much speed as possible, so you will want your weapons sliced for speed. If your first weapon goes towards damage... save up and buy another one until you get a good 25-30% speed increase. My LVA is a 3.5 speed and my Vibro Lance is a 3.2 speed. The reason you need fast weapons is that it's your job to keep the creatures hitting you and not your group members. If you have multiple targets to control (which you usually will) you will need to be able to quickly switch targets and get the creature to attack you instead... a slow weapon means delays that can cost lives.

3. Get a friend or two with medic skills to come along with you. They're going to end up getting a ton of xp shooting stuff in between heals. But you need reliable people willing to put up the money or time to have decent stims to keep you going. You're the tank, if you go down... things can get messy fast.

Now... What support professions will you need in yourself? When I went through and looked at what would best suit this profession, this is what I came up with:

Medic - You will need the ability to at least use Stim B's... a couple boxes in the First Aid column will do the trick and will allow you to heal yourself while soloing and also heal your incapped doctor in the heat of battle when something goes wrong. This is a MUST in my opinion.

Entertainer - What!? Dance? But... but... I like to fight... not dance! Well... if you don't want to spend all your time looking for an entertainer in between mission runs, you will have this skill. You're going to be getting a TON of battle fatigue. You can easily fix this yourself if you have at least a few blocks in entertainer healing and of course one of the two forms (dance or music). I prefer dance because it's less noisy and the same old tunes get's very grinding on my nerves.

Scout - You're going to need Exploration 4... Period... If you can't run up the hill to save your friend, your friend is dead. Hunting 4 is also very helpful since you can harvest the herbivore meat to sell to doctors to make stims to keep you alive and keep the economy rolling... Or hides for your armorsmith.

Beyond that, there isn't anything that is an absolute MUST HAVE... Though master brawler with it's nice +5 speed and +5 accuracy sure does look tempting doesn't it?

If you have all those things... you can handle plenty of good action that will gain you tons of xp. You want to fight things that will attack you with kinetics. Huurtons, Bols, Pikkets, Fambas, any animal that primarily attacks with kinetics. Also just about any NPC will switch to a hand to hand weapon when you run up to drive a LVA through their chest.

If you're new to pikeman, work on your stances (speed). Your armor will keep you alive until you're done with that column. Your accuracy will just go up in time as you gain enough combat xp... missing all the time is just something you're going to have to deal with when you're getting started. Imagine if I handed you a pike for real and told you to fight a wolf with it. Yeah, you'll probably hit it eventually, but when you first try it, you're not going to be Jackie Chan right off the bat. Give it time, you'll get better.

After you get your speed up, I would recommend going for defense. This will end up helping a lot, but not as much as speed in the beginning. Your not going to be wasting all your health on offensive attacks all the time because you're a tank and need your precious health to make sure you don't let your friends die. The area attacks you get with doing the speed tree are going to help you get the creatures to attack YOU and not your friends.

Now... the bad parts... Forget PVP... Pikeman and PVP don't mix well. Sure, you could try, but most likely it will end up bad for you. Maybe after the patch... maybe. We'll have to see on that. Maybe someone else has figured out how to turn a Pikeman into an effective PVP'er... but not I...Most everyone knows Pikeman is messed up when it comes to that and understand your plight... if they don't... tell them your range mods and ham costs on your weapons... they will promptly understand.

I wrote this all up because it was so hard for me to get started in Pikeman... There were so few of us out there... There was a wealth of information I've gleaned from the forums and I thank you all for your help, but I thought I should put together an account of how I came to love being a pikeman... and how I've found success in it. I hope it helps. Most importantly... May the Force be with you.

- Timbre Farseeker - Leader of The Kindred of Tarquinas - Pikeman

Trust me bud, most of us know all that.

And i dont mean to be rude but youre not the first one that comes here saying that pikeman rules IF you do this and IF you have that.

The problems is, we depend on these IFs too much. No other class needs so many IFs to survive.

Dont forget that all other classes can use the same ideas and theyll still b above us

A prepared tka will b way deadlier than a prepared pikeman. As will a fencer, pistoleer, ect

Hell an unprepared tka can do better than a prepared pikeman.

So do we rule with a whole bunch of IFs? yes we do, but those IFs are not always available and we should not need them to b equal to the other classes

I would like to say thanks for taking the time to write this out, it will help out a lot of people. Until we get "fixed" we will be forced to be subpar to most other classes. In my opinion we are the worst combat class available right now, and most people know it. But someone has to be the worst, and I don't really mind, the part I do mind is that we are so much worse that we have no prayer to compete in any field. PVE works for us, we can kill big things, but so can all the other classes. Any guide you read in this forum is a universal guide, the basics are:

1. Get Super Armor (mine is 80% kenetic composit, works well for all situations)

2. Get Medic skills (almost everyone needs this anyway)

3. Get Doctor Buffs

4. Learn how to pull mobs so you don't get swarmed.

Thats about it. After that you can learn to spam specials that work to your play style.

let me save you a few skill points:

entertainer 15 points for novice. drop them.

exploration 4 + novice scout: 29 points. drop them.

novice medic: maybe nice to keep, but you can drop it too especially since the proposed ham cost changes)

thats 42 points

pick up: teras kasi meditation4 (14 unarmed, 6 novice tkasi, 14 meditate4=32 points)

that right there takes care of your battle wounds, your novice medic (heal? its nicer to powerboost yourself) and takes care of mind wounds (only thing you need to do is get your bf healed in cantina from time to time).

you dont need exploration 4..or novice scout (unless you want to harvest).

terrain negotiation is overrated. now we have mounts and vehicles, so its no longer paramount to have terrain neg to keep up with a group.

in combat, if you need to peel the aggro off a friend, remember /taunt. it works, range up to like 40m. besides, if you the tank, the ranged classes and medics should be behind you and they should run to you to get the aggros off.

i have a tka/ commando with no scout skills. in my groups im the one that peels aggro by taunting the aggro off them or by kd'ing the critters as they run for my groupmates (kd apparently clears their hate list..or makes them hate you more). my lesser plains bol is my terrain negotiation.