Pikeman Archive

I could live with the low defenses, low speed and low accuracy ...

I mean ... ok we are weak, slow, and innacurate ... but WE HIT HARD !!!!!

no .... we don't ...

We do with looted weapon ... I'm using a +922 Max dmg LVA (Thanks Antares !!! =))) and yeah I hit hard ... yeah I outdamage all the other melee ..... but when I switch back to my crafted 480 Max dmg LVA ... man I suck ...

I think a Normal Crafted LVA should be around 600max dmg ...

Don't forget another thing ... we are crowd controlers ... our AoE Moves rocks =P and we have plenty of (looted) dots weapons ... the Fire Dots are awesome .. and Poison/Disease are always handy (Until a damn TKM freak meditate it out hehe)

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PhearMyPhunk wrote:

Master Pikeman- 26 Polearm Toughness, Block-105

Master Fencer- 32 One-Handed Toughness, 105 Dodge

Master Heavy Swordsman- 43 Two-Handed Toughness, 11 Counter-Attack

Teras Kasi Master- 97 Unarmed Defense, 97 Defense Acuity (Which increases the TKM's chances of reacting to an attack using Dodge, Counter-Attack, or Block. Kind of like a combo of the three reactions.)

Now, do you see a trend here?

This is by no means a Nerf TKA thread, nor will I even go as far as to say TKA is overpowered. It is set apart by one, key factor: IT WORKS! MHS is not far behind, but having not done 2-Handed at all, I can't comment if it's as good as TKM (or Pikeman/Fencer )or not, but I've been told it's a great profession. But regardless, do you see something wrong here? These are just the unique bonus given to melee class.

Here are the various Bonuses with no stacking involved:

Master Pikeman- Defense vs Blind-20, Dizzy-40, KD-20, Posture Change-30, Stun-50

Master Heavy Swordsman- Dizzy-20, Intimidate-20, Stun-30, Posture Change-10, KD-25

Master Fencer- Blind-40, Dizzy-40, KD-50, Posture Change-50, Intimidate-20

Teras Kasi Master- Blind-20, Posture Change-30, Stun-15, KD-20

Note how Fencer, while underpowered in the first category, compensates for it with the various defenses. And where TKM/MSH excelled in the first category, they both bow before a Master Fencer. Pikeman, still, pretty much useless aside from the DvStun bonus. But still, not really enough to make up for it's, for lack of a better term, shafting in the first category.

Let's go to Accuracy/Speed shall we? (A/S for this table)

Master Pikeman- 150/85

Master Fencer- 150/90

Master Heavy Swordsman- 130/75

Teras Kasi Master- 205/115

Again, Pikeman fall short to Fencer and TKM. Even though Fencer and PIkeman has nearly the same bonuses, my stun baton mods are +6/+6/+6 compared to my LVA which is -27/-31/-28. Yes, that's right. My ideal range is worse than my max and point blank range mod. It's a shame because if you can't hit something with a large, brute-ish stick when you are right on top of the person, it's a sad, sad day for you. But this is the life of every Foot Soldier, Heavy Cleaver, Pikeweaver, and the few and far between Expert/Master Pikeman.

Sure, there's been a lot of complaining about "Our defenses aren't crap!" , "What the hell? I can't hit someone/something with a long stick from 2 1/2 feet away?" and the like, but I spent a decent amount of time crunching these numbers to give all who view this thread proof that there seriously needs to be something done to fix the melee professions, with the except of TKA because as I stated already, it's not overpowered, it works.

Please, with the exception of maybe...nope. I can't think of a single combat-focused profession other than Pikeman. Even if you aren't a pikeman, show some compassion towards and obviously ignored class and help us get fixed, or at least evened out compared to at least fencer or MHS. I'm not asking to uber-ize Pikeman, but it is, by far, the weakest "elite" melee class.

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Couple of points and questions:

1) Do MHS really only get 11 counterattack? or is that a typo? that seems incredibly low.

2) Don't forget that Dodge/Counterattack causes no damage to be done, while block still causes us to take 50% damage, not to mention the fact that the combat spam won't even say "block".

3) I think also that Defense Acuity isn't working yet. You can try to weed through most of the nerf posts on the TKA board and try to find where someone actually did tests on it, but I believe it doesn't do anything. Now, that's probably a good thing considering if it did work it would just make the strong stronger.

4) You should also list the ranged/melee defenses in there, that would be useful.

I'm not sure on the specifics of when TKA got buffed so much, but if it was anything similar to what happened to Rifleman it was the result of very poor decision making by the Devs. Let me explain. I've been a rifleman since about July. Back then we were far and few between, because it was a hassle to level. We had very poor accuracy, and took 2.5x the damage when hit with melee. This led to complaints by some of the rifle community. They cried out for something, better accuracy, get rid of the 2.5x damage, or increase our defenses so the 2.5x wouldn't be quite so bad. Well, for whatever reason, the Devs actually listened, except instead of thinking it through, they just went ahead and did everything. They took away the 2.5x damage modifier (it was supposed to be replaced by a to-hit modifier that was bugged until last patch), they increased our defenses so that Rifleman get much better ranged/melee defense then I think any other profession, and they increased our accuracy to be 2nd best behind TKA I believe.

Obviously this was not the correct way to go about "fixing" rifle. They should have tried one thing at a time slowly to see how it balanced out. So, hopefully, they will not do the same thing forPikeman, because, trust me, it's sucks to see your nice little community become tore up by FOTM status.

I'm still too new to pikeman to determine what would best balance us out. Increasing accuracy mods on weapons would be a definite help though. I don't think any melee class should suffer from -accuracy mods, I mean, you already have to be within 10m or so to hit someone anyway, why punish us even more?

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Skel Etor
Valcyn
Master Sharpshooter