Pikeman Archive

I was just reading the swordsmen forum, and i saw some people post that they are hitting for 17k damage, and the chat box says its 24k, to prone stormtroopers and such.

Now I always thought that pikemen were the most powerful by farmelee class, but you can get powerhammers with 600 dmg, and almost as fast as a LVA.

Also, the twohanded curved sword you can get up to as powerful as an unsliced LVA, 350 dmg, but they have 2.6 speed, and like perfect accuracy.

Whats up with this, swordsmen do twice as much DMG, twice as fast, to the MIND, so its BY far better in PVP, and they have more defense than us.

On top of that, they have a few more weapons than us, at master polearm, we get no weapons, at master twohanded, they get two, and the devs have said they are getting more. Another thing, I LOVE my LVA, i love the way it looks, sounds, etc , but have you ever seen a scythe? All i can say is we need a really cool weapon also.

The devs need to fix us, half our moves are posture downs, and KDs, and they nerfed em all, so thats like 4 less moves we get.... Our best weapon, the LVA is HORRIBLY innacurate, and our HAM cost is very high.. I dunno if it was a fluke, or a bug, or what, but a few days ago i had 9 misses, and a dodge, counterattack done to me by a VYNOCK, all in one string of attacks. It got me down to 1/3d health, then i finally killed it.

I love this class, it is what keeps me in SWG, but the devs really messed us up, and we need a fix. Maybe WE should get the powerhammers, i mean the're slow, not even resembling a sword, and are extremely powerful, kinda the opposite of swordsman....

Well, if you read the dev posts, you'll see the dev's don't really care. They clump melee into one group and adjust that group. Soon we'll be getting a defense bonus vs ranged attackers when we're within melee range, but then, all melee are getting it.

The sad reality is, yes, Swordsmen are atleast twice as good as Pikemen. They are effective in PVP, and in PVE. They get posture down attacks just like us, just not area effect posture downs. The difference? All we *had* was posture down, they have strnog hits, good accuracy, good defense.. sigh.

I've realized stun it more powerful than you'd think.

But yes, swordsmen do seem a little more powerful than us, especially in PvP since they hit mind. Seems like they have the big advantages, while we get that nasty -12 toughness.

I think leg3 and action2 should be area attacks.

First of all I completely disagree that we have even a snowballs chance in PVP. We are worthless there. However, I totally agree that the pikemen are crippled. I think I am 2 times as strong as my good friend Rango who is a Master Pike.

The answer is not to nerf swordsman but to add to Pike and really all Melee classes. Pikemen need extra help as I see it now.. I feel really bad for you guys...

Yeah swordsmen are at least twice asgood as pikemen....and TKS are 3 times more effective then swordsmen

Well, I'm a fencer, and I would hazard to say that we are even weaker than pikeman (the highest 1h sword dameg I've ever seen is 170 unsliced, and about the same speed as the 2h swords). Additionally, we get virtually no armor piercing, except for a butterknife. I agree that the answer is definitely not to nerf swordman, nor TKAs who I agree are think are even more powerful.

I do think its a shame that all melee are lumped together into one class by the Devs. And its not even a general melee class we are lumped into, its a TKA/meleeclass. They are the only ones that get any attention. There was a good suggestion in the question of the day post that all melee classes should be scaled to be in balance with one another and make all useful. I think the scaling should be like this:

TKA:most defense, lowest damage

Fencer:2nd mostdefense, 2nd lowest damage

Swordsman: 2nd least defense, 2nd most damage

Pikeman: least defense, most damage

Notice I don't include any scaling based on speed. This is because I think the speed system they use cannot balance across classes because of speed caps. A 0/2/00 fencer can hit the speed cap of 1. However, by master, the swordsmen can also hit that cap, but deal 3 times more damage. So the supposed speed advantage of fencers is really nonexistent.

Of course, balancing the melee professions with each other is meaningless if they are all useless. So what really needs to be done is fix defenses so that they actually work. +30 to knockdown resistisn't any different than +5 to knockdown resist if it doesn't work.

Holo proposed what he called melee damage and melee defensive moves in the TKA forum. Now, I don't know if he actually meant melee, or TKA damage and defensive moves, but the proposals were not very good ones IMO. TKAs do not need more damage, nor defensive moves that cost more HAM to give a defensive bonus that doesn't do anything.

So the Devs need to....

1) fix existing defenses

2) balance melee professions to make them distinct

I've noticed 2handed has 4 medium piercing weps.

1hand has low speed weps, similar to unarmed thus it is such that 1handed was just supposed to do faster lower damage with less misses than 2handed or pike as they have higher damage slower weps with crap range mods.. although I think the powerhammer has better range mod than lva.

Eh dillos, fencer is one of the best melee classes, with a 62-174 dmg 1.7 speed sword i can solo warlords.

My point is, why use a 62-174, 1.7 speed sword, which you swing every 1 second because of skill mods, when you could use a 350 damage sword, 2.6 speed which you swing every 1 second because of skill mods, or a 450 damage power hammer which you swing every 1.15 seconds because of speed mods. Speed is only beneficial early on due to the speed cap. And you sword is sliced for speed. It was probably 2.3 or so before. Notice that your speed sliced sword is just as fast as my 71-200 damage, 2.3 speed sword that is damaged sliced once we get footwork 2. Except I will do more damage than you. Speed of the weapon is overrated. Damage is more important statistic because of the way the system is designed right now. At master fencer, any1h sword with a speed less than 10, will be used at a speed of 1 because of the +90 speed skill.

Dillos: special attacks are slower.

Yeah, i dont want ANY nerfs at all. All the melee need like a 10 times boost actually. Im mainly saying that they really need to fix us. Swordsmen do the same dmg, actaully more, but are three times as fast and almost perfect accurate. I think we should be the ones hitting mind, i know its less realistic, but who cares?!

I'mnever said nerf the swordsmen and am in fact totally against such. I said fencers do not really have a speed advantage, yet give up a lot of damage for it. I'm saying fencers and apparently pikemen need boosts. Maybeswordsmen need boosts too, but they seem to be doing better than fencers and pikemen.

And yes specials of swordsmen are slower, but not that much slower. Also, its is apparent from the implementation of armor encumbrance that the Devs vision of the game is not spamming specials. So the comparison between regular attacks is very valid. However, if you want to compare specials, from SWGcenter.com, the stats of the 1handhit3 and 2handhit3 are:

1handhit3: damage x4, speed x2.25

2handhit3: damagex4, speed x2.5

So the modfier is only 0.25 more for swordsmen. So, a master swordman and fencer with unsliced PH and a curved sword respectively, against a AR0 opponent will do:

PH: 304 ave. damage x 4 damage x 1.5625 damage due to medium armor piercing = 1900 damage

5.4 speed x (1.00 - 0.75 speed skill) x 2.5 speed mod = 3.375 speed

DPS = 1900 / 3.375 = 563

Curved:117 ave. damage x 4 damage x 1.00 damage due tono armor piercing =468 damage

2.4 speed x (1.00 - 0.90 speed skill) x 2.25 speed mod =0.54 speed rounded up to 1.00 because of cap

DPS = 468 / 1.00 = 468

So the fencer's special DPS is lower. The regular attack DPS is 117 versus 225, a ratio of almost 2 to 1. Against AR1 opponents, the difference is 234 versus 450, also almost 2 to 1. Additionally, a speed slice will improve the DPS of the PH, but do nothing for the curved sword.

All I'm trying to point out is that fencers are not very good. I am not attacking swordmen, nor pikemen, nor even TKAs which are even better IMO. I think all melee classes should be improved defensively. But I think fencers are lacking damage.

Oops, for AR0, regular attacks are 117 to 352 DPS, over3 to 1. And against AR1, the regular attacks are 59 to 281 DPS, over4 to 1.

For specials, against AR0 is 468 to 563 DPS. For AR1, its 234 to 450.