cRPG
cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Topic started by: owens on March 21, 2013, 07:02:38 am
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Hoplite advantage
-block arrows
-block couched lances
-fighting multiple opponents
-reach +
-best turnspeed
-weapon is good 1v1 if you choose to drop the shield
-anti cav+
Piker advantage
-Cost
-foot speed
-build can be more dedicated
-reach++
-damage
-anti cav ++
Support
-Highest damage potential
-better feints and pauses
-fastest attack speed
-2 attack directions
-secondary 2 slot polearm potential eg high 1v1 potential
For me pike and long spear are falling further behind they are becoming more and more the poor or very cav frustrated mans choice. Of course I play in Australia where having at least some 1v1 potential is essential and pike is useless in such case. Keep in mind our best cav is dutchy who isnt exactly a warband athlete.
What are your opinions on longspear being one directional? It seems to me that if you plan on playing support to infantry a halberd or bill would do a better job and keep cav at bay. If you were simply after cav why not the pike. Of course bamboo spear and light lance really do throw this reach argument out.
Is there any real dedicated pikemen or do they all use a range of 1 and 2d polearms????
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Pikes are all about infantry support and area denial versus cav. I do not catch many cav unless they are unaware, but I do make them change directions or prevent them from coming into certain areas.
Some 2d weapons are decent infantry support but they usually involve you getting right up in the melee, with the Pike (and lesser extent long spear), you can use the reach to help multiple friendly infantry at once.
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The Pike is actually pretty poor against cavalry in my experience; it doesn't do a lot of a damage, and the "reload" time after a stab is quite long compared to hoplite weapons or the Long Spear. It's good for snagging cav from a great distance for that initial rear, but not so great at finishing the job if the pikeman is alone due to it's slow speed. It can, however, work extremely well as infantry support; the ability to phase through your teammates and land a stab on enemies in front of them is pretty huge, and you can still bring a 1 slot sidearm (MW Q-staff is 24/24 for damage, fast, and long enough- a pretty good choice).
For pure support, I think the 2d polearms are at the top due to their malleability, though, with hoplites taking the next best (better in some instances like blocking fallen teammates from attacks, providing ranged cover). If Long Spear still had even it's weak overheads it'd be the top support weapon hands down.
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Is there any real dedicated pikemen or do they all use a range of 1 and 2d polearms????
There are.
Actually u got pike's advantages a little bit wrong
-Cost
-foot speed this is irrelevant, as it has nothing to do with weapons, but more like athletics and agi
-build can be more dedicated there's no such thing as pikeman dedicated build - any polearm build is viable for piking, as there's no special skills for pikes/longspear
-reach++ well that's true enough
-damage absolutely not - long spear and particularly pike trade damage (and speed as well as for pikes) for reach. Long spear has 26 basic dmg and pike has 24 (which is very very low in comparison with 30+ for awlpikes, ashwood pikes etc). Your average hoplite deals much more damage
-anti cav + pikes and long spears are more like cavalry repeller, shorter but fast polearms are much more cavalry killer
If you aim for efficiency, you should choose hoplite build. They're tough, they have shields, ashwood pike packs a punch (mw version has 33 p dmg), they have reach and speed. When u get comfortable with 1 d attack only, u can actually take 2handers by surprise by pointblank thrusting.
Longspear is harder, but still nowhere near pike difficulty. Though it has 1 d attack only, it has pretty high damage, viable reach and that kinda annoying kick+pointblank thrust combination, when you kick the guy, point your spear above enemy's head and then thrust down.
Pike is really for dedicated players only, cause it's pain in ass to learn playing it. And most of times it's unrewarding experience. You do well until enemy decides not to pay any attention to you, but when they do, u gotta display some skill then. And due to pike extreme slow speed and overall sluggishness, it's not a surprise that you don't see dedicated pikemen a lot these days.
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There are.
Actually u got pike's advantages a little bit wrong
If you aim for efficiency, you should choose hoplite build. They're tough, they have shields, ashwood pike packs a punch (mw version has 33 p dmg), they have reach and speed. When u get comfortable with 1 d attack only, u can actually take 2handers by surprise by pointblank thrusting.
Longspear is harder, but still nowhere near pike difficulty. Though it has 1 d attack only, it has pretty high damage, viable reach and that kinda annoying kick+pointblank thrust combination, when you kick the guy, point your spear above enemy's head and then thrust down.
Pike is really for dedicated players only, cause it's pain in ass to learn playing it. And most of times it's unrewarding experience. You do well until enemy decides not to pay any attention to you, but when they do, u gotta display some skill then. And due to pike extreme slow speed and overall sluggishness, it's not a surprise that you don't see dedicated pikemen a lot these days.
Longer weapons slow you down more. Thus, foot speed is a legitimate con.
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In my opinion the 2D polearms are not great. They are pretty bad in a 1 vs 1 as they are rather easy to block and they have rather little reach. The awlpike is probably the best one of these, but there is not that much tricks you can do with them. Which means that when you are alone people are just going to block you and when you are supported they don't hold a candle to the longer weapons. You always have to be in almost striking range of your opponent, you are able to usually only really threaten one opponent at the same time and so on.
The biggest advantages of the longspear/pike are reach. The importance of this for supporting cannot be overstated. This might not hold for Australia but on an 80 player battle server, more reach means that you have so much more targets that you suppress in your average clusterfuck. Which makes these weapons extremely good support weapons, as you can shit on ten players at the same time, by forcing them to continously pay attention and be passive because you could stab them at any time. As for low damage, I think the slower a weapon is, the more it benefits from speed bonus. Makes sense because the movement speed is relatively large compared to the slow weapon speed. I have often oneshot people in medium armour with a 7 ps longspear, because they were walking towards me and I stabbed them in the head. Similiarly I also take like 4 stabs sometimes to kill a running archer in cloth. Stabbing someone in the face who walks towards you with a pike hurts fucking bad, despite the low base damage. If you learn to work your speedbonus you can get a really high damage output with both the longspear and the pike.
Also the extreme ability of the longspear and especially the pike, to curve around and stab through teammates makes it a very potent surprise weapon. You are able to end ganks extremely quick. The longspear gives you basic 1 vs 1 ability, the pike gives you nearly none. You can in fact kickstab with a pike. I was able to do about equally good with these weapons, but pike requires a lot more attention to your teammates. The pike is in fact so long, that most people don't even realize you can attack them. Few use the pike though on EU, and even fewer use it succesfully.
I think the longspear and hoplite are rather similar. Ashwood pike is a little shorter, slightly faster and I think ashwood pike hoplite does just slightly less damage, but does have a shield. I have long been a longspear user and I always thought of switching to hoplite. They were equal in the past, but with the turn rate correction, dunno if you have that in Australia, the longspear turns slower and the ashwood pike turns faster. Which has swayed the balance towards hoplite for sure now. The higher turnspeed allows you to stab easier, surprise people by switching target at the last second. It also feels more enjoyable, less sluggish and restricted.
I don't know how much players we are speaking, but with the old turnrate, which means the same turn rate for every weapon. The longspear is the best weapon. I don't know how good you are, but if you learn to use this weapon correctly you can wreck some serious shit. If you even only stick with one teammate, you can already be a gamechanger. The key is battle awareness and learning to kickstab. Stabbing in general should be an up to down motion to minimize glancing. If you have the new turnrate, ashwood pike hoplite is the best. Due to more turning up and down stabbing is not necessary, but still the best way to do it. With lower player count I wouldn't use the pike. If you get in a 1 vs 1 you can kill someone quite easily with a longspear. With a pike it is incredibly difficult.
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I've never enjoyed playing with a pike, although I've never tried a pike/longspear build. After realizing that the light lance is actually decent without a shield (as dehorsed lance cav) I fell in love with 2d polearms. The swiss halberd and english bill are AMAZING if you are supporting an allied melee player.
Against anything but an extremely competent cavalry player, you don't need the extra range of long spear or pike to rear a horse. Good pikemen are great at making supportive thrusts for their nearby allies, but I can't do that shit. I just prefer the massive damage (and highly likely 1 hit kill if you hit the head of your target) that 2d polearms have as an overhead. I haven't used the spetum/corseque/etc. but they seem more like a lance (mediocre but still damaging overhead).
Haven't playtested this at all, but with the 0 slot weapons change you have a lot more variety for backup weapons as both hoplite and pikeman. You can have a 2 slot shield with your hoplite spear and still have a 1h backup, or carry a 1 slot shield with pike. Or use a 1 slot weapon with a buckler (steel buckler and round steel buckler are DOPE ASS FASHION ACCESSORIES if you have a pike or longspear, they look cool as hell and you can have a nice 1h to swap to if you don't mind splitting wpf).
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The swiss halberd and english bill are AMAZING if you are supporting an allied melee player.
But the turning, oh god the turning. Same turn rate as the longspear, at least for the english bill, but then with lower reach, which means that people sidestep your overheads quite often.
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Longspear/pike are definitely falling behind hoplites and other, shorter "support" polearms nowadays.
It feels like that hitdetection/sweetspot/whatever change for polearm thrusts, that initially came with the turnrate nerf has been reversed/changed, making landing hits reliably with these two weapons rather frustratingly difficult in many situations.
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Pikes and long spears are more useful for sieges. I got many kills with a pike in strategus fights that I could not have with spear+shield solely because of it's superior length.
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my rant was so strong that the forum moderators had to extinct the source of these revolutionary ideas by closing the thread:
http://forum.meleegaming.com/announcements/official-survey-about-item-power/msg746651/#msg746651
a personal rant, wich alot of people agree with:
hoplites and 2H are overpowered in comparison with pikes (1 or 2 directional polearms)
why? well, i think we all can agree that 2h is very good at facehug distance (aka duels). their swings are fast as fuck, the blocking feels very natural and they have instahits (stab and swing almost never glance). People tend to agree way less when we are talking about shields, but actually they are still pretty damn good in close combat: almost 360 degree magnet shield for autoblock AND instastabbing. yes hoplites can stab while facehugging maybe its harder vs 2handed players but... they also dont suffer a long glance when their stab gets blocked.
so conclusion: 2h and hoplite are very good at close combat. so what?
now we look at pikes (as i am piker i really felt this). We can all agree when a 2h attacks someone with a long spear/pike/long awlpike, he can easily win in a duel by facehugging and spamming. pikes are just slower and have very little directions to attack in. against hoplites, in facehug distance they will surely lose because the hoplite shield gives a huge glance when its hit and because the stabs are so instant.
ok, no problem. dont cry pikes, you suck at duels? so what? your long awlpike has 185 length, just outstab that guy with his pathetic longsword of 106 nab reach or that hoplite with warspear: 150 reach lol, poke at him from a distance. so easy. pike easymode.
WELL NO. this is fucking bullshit. a low length 2h easily outreaches my long awlpike. a warspear with a shield does the same. a ashwood pike does the same with a long spear. their stab has a huge bonus for some retarded reason and when a polearmer chambers his weapon, he stands there: bend forward like a retard his head open for all attacks while twohanders and hoplite just stand straight (wich is also weird because nobody would be able to hold balance like that).
so whats left for us pikes? we should be able to poke from a distance and suck in close combat. but at the moment we suck at both (oh yes, they still want us to suck more and they want the blocking to be removed, because the majority of twohanders wants all the power for themselves.
btw: another thing, the turnspeed nerf. good addition in my opinion, but it sucks. and why? because it only looks at the weapon length on the site, while in fact the actual reach is way longer for the faster twohanders and hoplite weapons. we basically turn slower because our weapons is 'longer' but we dont feel it because we get outstabbed by the faster twohanders and hoplites.
its just gay...
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But the turning, oh god the turning. Same turn rate as the longspear, at least for the english bill, but then with lower reach, which means that people sidestep your overheads quite often.
The turn rate is not that bad at all. I am using the Swiss ATM and I hardly never miss the turn.
Also I think the Swiss Halberd and the English Bill are good because they are long enough to be used for ganking but also fast and heavy enough for dueling.
Especially the Swiss is good for dueling because it has 92 in speed rating, both of its direction are very good (damage wise), an overhead with the somewhat high weight can stun many weapons and the bonus against shield is good for shielders.
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The 300 length pike is absolute garbage nowadays. :cry:
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I've been a hoplite for a while now (from 32-34+, basically), and I recently started picking up the long spear in hopes of getting better with it. My own opinion is that it's not so much that one is better than the other so much as it is that they're good at different things.
For me, spear + shield performs better than long spear on town maps, bridge maps, and others where your freedom of movement is comparatively restricted. It's also obviously better when there are tons of archers online and has the distinct benefit of being the only melee playstyle that actually has a decent chance of winning against a horse archer if you two are the last ones standing.
Long spear, on the other hand, definitely seems like it's better on open fields and any Strategus battle that isn't a castle siege. Like Teeth said, the reach on a long spear is invaluable. With good athletics and battle awareness, you can basically threaten everyone in a 60 degree cone in front of you and stay out of range of retaliation for almost the whole time unless your enemies also have long spears/pikes. This translates to more chances to attack compared to a hoplite and less difficulty in withdrawing from a push compared to a hoplite, who, even though he has a shield, usually has to come within range of multiple enemies to attack due to his weapon being shorter and slower.
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For me pike and longspear are secondary/support weapons...like taking a crossbow or throwing axe as a backup. If you are taking a pike or longspear, you better take a 1h as a melee weapon for when shit gets real.
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-damage absolutely not - long spear and particularly pike trade damage (and speed as well as for pikes) for reach. Long spear has 26 basic dmg and pike has 24 (which is very very low in comparison with 30+ for awlpikes, ashwood pikes etc). Your average hoplite deals much more damage
Unless hoplite damage calculations have been adjusted from vanilla Warband (which might very well be the case, I'm not sure), polearms suffer a 27.75% damage reduction when used with a shield. That would knock a 30p ashwood pike down to ~22p.
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Unless hoplite damage calculations have been adjusted from vanilla Warband (which might very well be the case, I'm not sure), polearms suffer a 27.75% damage reduction when used with a shield. That would knock a 30p ashwood pike down to ~22p.
Based on my observations (i.e. getting hit by hoplites and awlpikes) the damage is reduced, but the rate maybe around 10% at most. In fact i'd say that it bears no difference.
Well i just thought of another crucial moment - pike indeed sucks in small scale battles, but if you have actually strong coordinated team to provide support for, then 300 length pike predates on practically EVERYTHING - be it cav, infantry, shielders, longspearmen etc. But you know how it goes - public teams are really random. Sometimes they display great coordination and teamplay, and sometimes they are just fucking IN WAY and excel in being useless.
For me pike and longspear are secondary/support weapons...like taking a crossbow or throwing axe as a backup. If you are taking a pike or longspear, you better take a 1h as a melee weapon for when shit gets real.
:lol: For me when shit gets real, i start using the great BENDING skill and try to BEND mah pike and abuse helicopter technique.
A three slot weapon can't be a secondary - either you are dedicated piker, or you just take a shield and 1h and dont play wannabe piker - just isn't worth it.
The 300 length pike is absolute garbage nowadays. :cry:
I feel your pain bro. Though yesterday night at EU1 was a great time for me - i topped the scoreboard with 15-20 kills for 3 maps and enemy infantry was shitting bricks when i rush into battle swinging my ridiculously long pike :lol: On the other hand there were no byzantiums - just mercs and some random guys, so not much of competition.
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my rant was so strong that the forum moderators had to extinct the source of these revolutionary ideas by closing the thread:
http://forum.meleegaming.com/announcements/official-survey-about-item-power/msg746651/#msg746651
That is quite a lot of bullshit you typed there, really you are rather biased.
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Hoplite damage is simply down to every attack being a pause.
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That is quite a lot of bullshit you typed there, really you are rather biased.
i certainly want to believe i am biased, but i tried a lower lvl hoplite with cheap gear and no looms and ended up getting valour first round while i was almost laying in my chair. Could you please give counter arguments? i think mine are quite correct?
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almost 360 degree magnet shield for autoblock AND instastabbing. yes hoplites can stab while facehugging maybe its harder vs 2handed players but... they also dont suffer a long glance when their stab gets blocked.
Every weapon can insta stab, which I presume you mean hitting early in the animation. Hoplites, 2h, 1h, your long awlpike, longspear, pike. All of em, as for hitting at facehug range, all weapons can do it save the pike. Trust me, I know. Hoplite stabbing does in fact suffer a long glance when their stab gets blocked, as much as 2h, pike, longspear. It's just that slower weapons take a longer time to recover from it.
so conclusion: 2h and hoplite are very good at close combat. so what?
Don't kid yourself, perhaps hoplite is better at close combat than the pike and longspear, but any other 2 directional polearms are just as good and that is without taking into account that they have an overhead. Which you might not realize, but hoplites don't.
now we look at pikes (as i am piker i really felt this). We can all agree when a 2h attacks someone with a long spear/pike/long awlpike, he can easily win in a duel by facehugging and spamming. pikes are just slower and have very little directions to attack in. against hoplites, in facehug distance they will surely lose because the hoplite shield gives a huge glance when its hit and because the stabs are so instant.
Serious bullshit. The hoplite shield does not give a long glance when it is hit, except when hit by a late stab, but that is completely the 2h's fault and this happens also when you late stab a downblock. Your long awlpike is just as good in a 1 vs 1, it stabs as fast as an ashwood pike hoplite, if not faster and does more damage. Did you really just say a 2h would surely lose against a hoplite in close combat?
ok, no problem. dont cry pikes, you suck at duels? so what? your long awlpike has 185 length, just outstab that guy with his pathetic longsword of 106 nab reach or that hoplite with warspear: 150 reach lol, poke at him from a distance. so easy. pike easymode.
WELL NO. this is fucking bullshit. a low length 2h easily outreaches my long awlpike. a warspear with a shield does the same. a ashwood pike does the same with a long spear. their stab has a huge bonus for some retarded reason and when a polearmer chambers his weapon, he stands there: bend forward like a retard his head open for all attacks while twohanders and hoplite just stand straight (wich is also weird because nobody would be able to hold balance like that).
Again loads of bullshit. The ashwood pike with a shield does not outreach the longspear, sure I try to do it, but that is because with proper timing and footwork you can surprise them, absolutely, it does not outreach it. The 106 practice longsword might outreach you with proper movement, but that is because the 2h stab stays active until way too late into the animation. When standing still I am fairly sure you outreach it. The posture during the stab animation doesn't matter at all and does not open you for attacks, if anything it makes you a smaller target.
In short, you are very biased. First of all I don't support you grouping the long awlpike with the pike and longspear. All your arguments are basically complaints related to close combat and therefore to the long awlpike exclusively, which is a completely different weapon. We all know that the pike and longspear are not great in close combat, and they shouldn't be. Your entire posts just radiates that you think your weapon is weak and everybody else's is too strong, which is a load of whine.
The MW Long Awlpike does 35 fucking pierce, can instastab, stuns 2h stabs as much by blocking as an hoplite shield, gets stunned on stabs exactly as much as hoplites do. Has a fucking overhead. Please do note that even though the MW Ashwood does 33 pierce, there is supposed to be a 27.75% damage penalty for using it with a shield. Which seems quite a lot to me, but at least I am a 100% sure that a MW longspear with 29 pierce does more damage than a MW Ashwood with a shield. Which means you have at least 6 more pierce damage. There is also a speed penalty for using it with a shield, your long awlpike is faster than an ashwood pike with shield and using it with a shield removes your overhead.
i certainly want to believe i am biased, but i tried a lower lvl hoplite with cheap gear and no looms and ended up getting valour first round while i was almost laying in my chair. Could you please give counter arguments? i think mine are quite correct?
Now I definitely think hoplite is a little too strong, considering it has a shield and stabs rather well, but almost all your arguments are basically whine about your long awlpike and a lot of them are simply not true. This argument right here is rather stupid as well, wanna see me get valour with a long awlpike? Want to see me beat 2h'ers in a duel with a long awlpike? Want to see me insta stab with a long awlpike?
Your long awlpike is a very good weapon and I am almost certain that I can get a better score with it on average on your precious siege server than as an hoplite, and that is considering I am very good at close combat as a hoplite. On battle hoplite is in fact a lot stronger, but hardly for the reasons you mentioned.
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i was using my long awlpike as a example because i use it. i separated 'pikes' in two groups: the 2d polearms like the long awlpike and the 1d polearms like long spear and pike. I understand your points but I think what i wrote is mostly correct, maybe i over exaggerated a bit at some points, but i can certainly say that a hoplite instastabs way easier than any other polearms and that they also have a longer reach compared to the same weapon without shield. This just sucks and it is a common problem that the piker finds himself unable to do anything when they are facing a hoplite or when the hoplite is sitting behind the lines, stabbing and backpeddling with his shield up. A hoplite can have multiple players hitting his shield while backpeddling. He doesnt have to do anything special at that point, no footwork or blocking.
Im sure what you are trying to say, I am far as skilled as you. but i think im not bad atleast and maybe you have no problems from this, but the average player does. Im surely not the only person thinking about it like that.
Its not really that you can say you are unbaised, some month(s) ago, i suddenly saw numerous people switching to hoplite, i dont even know what changed that it suddenly became such a wanted class. Their are two players I just totally try to run away from if they are facing me and those are you and knitler. I know both of you are both extremely skilled and i cant even get close to that, but since you became hoplite I just know you are unstoppable
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i was using my long awlpike as a example because i use it. i separated 'pikes' in two groups: the 2d polearms like the long awlpike and the 1d polearms like long spear and pike. I understand your points but I think what i wrote is mostly correct, maybe i over exaggerated a bit at some points, but i can certainly say that a hoplite instastabs way easier than any other polearms and that they also have a longer reach compared to the same weapon without shield. This just sucks and it is a common problem that the piker finds himself unable to do anything when they are facing a hoplite or when the hoplite is sitting behind the lines, stabbing and backpeddling with his shield up. A hoplite can have multiple players hitting his shield while backpeddling. He doesnt have to do anything special at that point, no footwork or blocking.
Im sure what you are trying to say, I am far as skilled as you. but i think im not bad atleast and maybe you have no problems from this, but the average player does. Im surely not the only person thinking about it like that.
Its not really that you can say you are unbaised, some month(s) ago, i suddenly saw numerous people switching to hoplite, i dont even know what changed that it suddenly became such a wanted class. Their are two players I just totally try to run away from if they are facing me and those are you and knitler. I know both of you are both extremely skilled and i cant even get close to that, but since you became hoplite I just know you are unstoppable
Here you use the term pike again, when referring to hoplites outranging you, but ashwood pike hoplite does not outrange the longspear nor the pike, so again you are just talking about your long awlpike when you mention pikes. Hoplite does not instastab easier than any other polearms, it simply isn't true. Instastabbing at facehug range as an ashwood pike is not actually that easy. As you probably haven't noticed, hardly all of the hoplites can do it, let alone reliably. I can do it quite well, but that is due to a year of playing longspear, with which instastabbing at facehug range is also possible, it is only slightly harder. Yet I still fail on occasion on pulling it off. If it is possible with a longspear, I am quite confident that a long awlpike can do it as well, rather fast even.
As for me being biased and switching to hoplite. I had been planning to get shieldskill to do some hopliting as soon as I would hit 34 for months. When I got there it turned out to be superior to longspear. I can tell you what changed, turn rates, the longspear got less turn rate, the ashwood pike got more. Also, blame ranged and cav. I did in fact say that I definitely thought hoplite is a little strong and also that hoplite is a lot better in battle than a long awlpike.
I don't in fact think that long awlpike is better than hoplite as a class, it is somewhat worse, hoplite is too strong, but it isn't because of the arguments you provide, of which the bulk are exxagerated, untrue, or hold for other weapons as well. After all, the long awlpike still is one of the highest damage polearms in the game, don't forget that hoplite damage does not quite compare.
One of your arguments I did agree with is the turn rate, it is rather random and not well balanced, but they are not able to address that as of now. Still, the long awlpike is hardly fucked by it, can't find the formula but I think it still turns faster than before. The English Bill now for example has the same speed and lower reach and turns at the rate of the great maul and pike, now there is a weapon that could use a buff. A simple fix for the ashwood pike would be increasing it's weight to 2.5 or 3 and thus reducing it's turn rate.
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This just sucks and it is a common problem that the piker finds himself unable to do anything when they are facing a hoplite or when the hoplite is sitting behind the lines, stabbing and backpeddling with his shield up. A hoplite can have multiple players hitting his shield while backpeddling. He doesnt have to do anything special at that point, no footwork or blocking.
Im sure what you are trying to say, I am far as skilled as you. but i think im not bad atleast and maybe you have no problems from this, but the average player does. Im surely not the only person thinking about it like that.
Piker isn't supposed to confront hoplites alone. He fights from from afar with his teammates, using timing and length advantage. I can't count how much hoplites i fucked up with my pike while standing behind the front line of shielders. The only hoplite that shrugs off my attacks is Teeth. I swear it - none other was as good as he is, most of them open up too carelessly.
Hoplite can't sit behind the lines, if he wants to hit someone - they have shield and that's why they are always in front. No foortwork or blocking? That's the whole point getting shield skill, you know - they actually sacrifice IF or something else to get shield points.
I have to agree with teeth concerning your long awlpike. It's very good weapon - long enough, high pierce damage and good speed. And for god's sake it has overhead. Do you want to know how frustrating it is to have nothing but one attack direction that is neither damaging nor fast?
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Tbh, Long Awlpike/awlpike are relatively easy to use weapons, especially the latter. High damage + overhead make these more than capable of 1v1, even good at it against a lot of people.
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In native i purely play hoplite. I never ever use a sword only war spear and shield and i know that you cant just bluntly stab at point blank even with low native armour values.
Hoplite has a good chance at beating 2d polearms (no 1d in native) but 1 v1 it takes a huge amount of skill to take out fast weapons and hoplites move the slowest of all classes except archer(wont go into that).
I dont know how good teeth is say he is as good at cRPG hoplite as i am at native hoplite. He will beat 2d and 1d. Part of hopliting is the gamble the slower your opponents weapon the better the odds. You get stunned so much you cant risk attacking a quick blocking opponent unless you know they are open. 2d is the same in fact hoplite blocking can be slower due to shield speed.
cRPG in NA is a slightly more hoplite friendly environment than native_AUS from what i have seen and im certain teeth is a frightening opponent next time he comes at you carry the 97 speed long axe down block and don't feint. Never feint a hoplite.