Pikeman Archive

How to start piking in SWG

Well I have enjoyed piking in SWG, even with all it's shortcomings. If you really want to get into the enjoyment of the class without stumbling around for countless days and become discouraged, I have written a guide for you to get started with.

First things first: There will be a number of ways to enhance what I am about to write and this can be expanded upon in numerous ways. However I am writing this for people to get a good solid base so they can enjoy the class and experiment from there.

Armor: Get a good set of Ubese armor. Look to get a kinetic around 70% or more, and if possible, lowered HAMS. I would recommend getting one set to start with. As you should be able to afford another set from running missions by the time you need it. However, if you can afford it get 2 or 3 and get them sliced and wear the enhanced effectiveness ones to start with. Composite? You can use composite, but it is more expensive and will just get destroyed. You will also be unable to perform special moves without serious mind buffs. Loss of mind pool = loss of life. Use Ubese.

Weapons: To start with, get a staff as it will be about the only thing you can use. When you hit polearm 4 in brawler, move to a lance. Once you hit Novicce Pike, get a VibroLance (VL) and a Long Vibro Axe (LVA). You will want both VL and an LVA, and get them sliced, hoping for a speed slice on the VL and a damage slice on the LVA. More on this later.

Vehicle: get yourself a bike. You will need it, running missions and fleeing the scene are the two biggest reasons you MUST have one.

Droid or pet: get one. You will make it and leave it at an outpost after having it join you in a group for the xp bonus.

Food and Spice: It is always a good idea to have some Muon Gold and some Pixie on hand in case of emergencies. And make sure they are out of the crate cause you will not be able to get one out during combat However, I, unlike many do not rely on them in the normal course xping. The downtime is costly if you do not have it during your travel phase. And a downer at the wrong time means death…. Which means long time without xp while you travel and get buffs. Mind enhancing food is great for when you get carried away clicking on your specials.

Stims: many say being a medic to reduce downtime is necessary… however I have found that after you get to Novice Pike, the little amount of healing you can do really does not matter if you have buffs. But for the beginner through brawler, medic helps a TON.

Melee enhancement kits: anything in this department can help you. Although I like speed, mind and damage enhancements. Use whatever you need as a supplement to your needs.

Ok, let’s begin…

Once you get your armor and staff, go to a newbie town and kill all the critters hanging around the outskirts of town. This part sucks. There is no real way around it without power leveling. And even then, you will be so ineffective at hitting the larger beasts that you will get no xp to speak of. To be honest, you can get to polearm 3 without the use of armor, so you could wait until then if you do not have the cash.

Once you hit polearms 3, you can either keep killing the basic newbie critters, or you can start taking on missions. Missions will give you some cash and prep you for later. Another thing to consider is getting a group for doing low level missions… usually it is best with a partner. Get your missions, get on your bike and go destroy things… I would recommend having armor for the missions. I would also recommend getting some buffs before you go mission xping.

How to find buffs: Go to major starports and there are usually Master Doctors buffing folks for 5-6k. This is a bit expensive for most newbs. So you can use the Search function and find a novice doc and ask him to buff you with lower level buffs for a much lower price. Many times they will do it just for the xp it gives them. You can also find novice docs at the medical centers healing those that come in to get patched up.

Getting to Novice Pike will be the roughest part. After that, it gets fun. Once you get Novice Pike, make sure your armor is repaired. (You can continue to use the effectiveness sliced stuff for now if you got more than one set). Get yourself a damage sliced LVA, and a sliced VL. Get youself some master doc buffs and head to Dantooine’s Agro Outpost in the south, also known as the pirate outpost. Group with your droid, tell it to stay, and get 2 missions in the same direction for huurtons. Get the plain huurtons at first until you get the hang of it. Leave the howlers and stalkers alone for now, they will death blow you. Huurtons range in difficulty as follows: basic>>matrons>>howlers>>stalkers. Hop on your bike and drive out to the waypoint. I like to come in from the downhill side so if I have to run away. I am not running away uphill. Feel free to get pretty close on your bike, it is nice to have it right nearby if things do not go well. For starters, try coming up to one out away from others, that way you might have fewer to deal with at a time. This will change later as you will actually try to get as many around you as you can. But for now one or two, or even 3 at a time is fine. Do not use many specials. Use specials only if you are topped off in your mind pool or have a mind buff from an entertainer. Just engage the huurtons with the regular attack until they die, focus on one at a time. You can use Polearm Hit 1 to finish one off, or Polearm Spin Attack 1 if you have 3 or more on you at a time. The Armor and buffs should keep you from harm. If you are starting to take damage too fast, hop on the bike, run away and rest then come back and continue. You should be able to just toe-to-toe them up to 3 with no problems. Once the area is clear, run up and attack the lair. Once some spawn, move back to bike and engage the huurtons till dead. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you get real low on mind, which you should not since you are hardly using any specials, use some food, if you are still low, or are full of food and/or drink, pop a muon gold, use specials to dispatch the huurtons as you have the mind to do so, then hurry to your next mission waypoint. NOTE THE TIME WHEN YOU USE THE SPICE!!! Have an analog clock or watch nearby and notice when you use the spice and when it will fade. 600 seconds = 10 minutes.

You may need the spice early on until you get into the groove. But once you do, you should not need any spice unless things go terribly wrong. Regardless, once you finish your first mission, get to your second. If you happen to run into any other huurtons (regular ones at this point) take the time to stop and kill them. XP is the main focus, not cash. So leverage your time out in the field to gain the xp. Your xp/time will increase significantly when you cut out the extra travel time. I also like to get a second round of missions in a different direction than the first ones as there will be a better chance at coming across random huurtons. Anyway, if you used spice, fight till you are 30 secs or so from it expiring, then bug out. Run away and let the negative effects pass. Then return to killing to complete your mission. Return to the outpost for more missions and begin the cycle again. Continue to do this until your doc buffs fade. Then go train and get new buffs. If your doc buffs begin to fade during combat, GET ON YOUR BIKE AND LEAVE RIGHT THEN. Do notwait to see if you can stick it out…. You can’t. Do not even try. The huurtons seem like cake while buffed, but once your buffs fade, you are toast.

Continue this cycle and grow in skill. There are a few skills to shoot for first. Speed and accuracy are must haves. Get them as soon as you can. These help tremendously. Your tactics will be pretty much the same until you get Polearm Action Hit ( Int Polearms Support I). The Action Hit (AH) is a bleed. You will not see any damage from the initial connection, but every 20 seconds, it will loose a great deal of action pool. Couple this with the occasional LegHit and you can take out creatures handily. WARNING: you still do not want to spam LegHit like many posts tell you to, unless you are using spice to hurry things along. Once you pop the spice, you best get with the program.

Here is how your tactics change once you get ActionHit. First, get out your HAM sliced ubese and put it on. Then, instead of creeping up on the nest, just drive right up to it, hop off the bike and let them all come. Be sure you have your damage sliced LVA equipt. You will apply an ActionHit to each of the huurtons, expect 4-6 on you at any time. Once all have the bleed applied, pick one and just let the autoattack do it’s thing. The reason for using the LVA and it’s high damage is to get the best bleed you can. You can switch to another weapon if you like afer the bleeds are applied. When new huurtons spawn, get them started bleeding. The more the merrier, as long as you can handle the damage, which should be minor. You will notice that the first huurton or two you will likely best by health instead of action pool dropping to zero. That is fine, The later ones will get a LegHit from you to finish them off. That is why it is best to save up the mind till the end when it only takes a hit or two to finish them off. If you are really good on mind, use your spin attack. You can do lots of damage with it. But I would recommend waiting till you have speed and accuracy boosts as you will miss too often before hand.

As you become comfortable with huurtons, move up to matrons, howlers and stalkers respectively. You will see a noticeable jump in xp when you do. Once you have your first speed and accuracy skills, (lvl 2s) you can do the stalkers just fine. Some will say to do pickets, I like the agro critters as they just come to you and get in line to be bled. Chasing after additional spawns takes too much time. Your dps will be really good using bleeds on 3-6+ creatures. And you can do this without spice at all. This should get you started on your way to really enjoying the pikeman. Where you take it from here is up to you. There are many combos to try and use in the right situations, like dizzy and knockdown (btw, do not bother using this on creatures, it only works on npcs as creatures just get back up).

I hope this helps some of you out there get started in a really cool profession. Sure there are a number of things that need fixed, but play as a pikeman and use our strengths to your advantage and you will find it can be a great class regardless.

LegwandLongfellow
MasterPikeman/Brawler
TKA/Fencer/HeavySwordsman
There'sabigblackholegonnaeatmeupsomeday
Somedayfadesaway,likeamemory

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